Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 165: Punishment of the king’s entire clan and rebellion of border generals!
Ten days later.

All the people in Prince Yi's palace were escorted to the capital.

It was noon that day.

All 456 people from Zhu Dianliang's nine clans were beheaded in front of the Meridian Gate in the presence of hundreds of civil and military officials.

The palace was stained with blood.

Xu Wenbi, the Minister of the Imperial Clan Affairs Bureau, went to the Yuxi Palace to meet the emperor, offered sacrifices to the Taimiao, and issued an edict to the world, removing the names of several generations of King Yi from the royal family tree.

The whole country was shocked.

This was not just the execution of Zhu Dianliang, but the destruction of the hereditary title of King Yi.

The first King Yi was Zhu, the 25th son of Emperor Taizu Gao, who was enfeoffed in Luoyang in the sixth year of Yongle.

Zhu was fond of military affairs and did not like to stay in the palace. He often carried a slingshot and a sword, rode on horseback in the suburbs, and attacked the people who could not escape in time.

He led a life of indulgence and without restraint. He would shave his head, get naked, and mingle with both men and women without any scruples, and he took pleasure in it.

Zhu reigned for twenty-three years and died at the age of twenty-seven. In the twelfth year of Yongle, after Zhu's death, the Ministry of Rites suggested to Emperor Chengzu Wen that Zhu's title be stripped and he be buried with the rites of a commoner because Zhu had been repeatedly admonished and admonished. Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty mourned Zhu and ordered that Zhu's title should not be stripped, but he was given the bad posthumous name of "Li". Ten years later, his son Zhu Yongqun succeeded to the throne.

The Yi kingship was hereditary, starting with King Yili. His successors were "King Yijian", "King Yian", "King Yidao", "King Yiding" and "King Yizhuang". They committed many evil deeds over the generations and died under Zhu Dianliang.

The sudden end of Prince Yi’s Palace.

It gave countless officials and common people a dreamlike feeling.

Then there was endless joy, and people were grateful that the "evil king" was finally dead, and all nine clans were exterminated, and there could be no more dead.

Even if the emperor or future rulers wanted to rebuild the Prince Yi's Palace, they would not be able to find someone who could succeed to the throne.

As soon as King Yi died.

The speed at which the princes from various places entered the capital suddenly increased several times, traveling 120 miles a day. Everyone said that Prince Yi's palace was evil, but among the princes, there were some who were even worse than Prince Yi.

Unlike the joy of the court, the literati, and the people, and the panic of the royal family, Zhang Juzheng's cabinet was almost frightened to death.

Punish the king and his nine clans.

This has never happened in the two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty.

Even though in the 14th year of Zhengde, Prince of Ning Zhu Chenhao gathered an army of 100,000 to rebel, captured Jiujiang, broke Nankang, went out of Jiangxi, led his navy down the river, attacked Anqing, and caused chaos in the world, Emperor Wuzong only ordered the death of Zhu Chenhao, burned and abandoned the prince's corpse, and escorted all the people in the Prince of Ning's mansion to Fengyang, the Zhongdu, for imprisonment, but did not hurt anyone else.

As for the previous Ming Dynasty rebel kings such as Prince of Han Zhu Gaoxu and Prince of An Zhu Zongqiang, the previous emperors such as Emperor Xuanzong and Emperor Wuzong were even willing to give the rebel kings dignity and imprison them for the rest of their lives.

Rebellious kings such as Prince of Han Zhu Gaoxu and Prince of An Zhu Zongqi were granted death penalty only after they continued to commit suicide after being captured.

King Yi was executed on the spot, and his nine clans were exterminated. Zhang Juzheng's cabinet was filled with speechless fear.

perhaps.

In the emperor's heart, these relatives have long been unimportant. The reason is very simple: they are not even direct blood relatives.

The emperor is the heir to the throne as the eldest son of Prince Xing. In the huge Prince Xing's Mansion, there was only the emperor when he was young, and he had no brothers.

This is very similar to the previous Emperor Zhengde, who only had a few cousins. When it came to imperial power, the Emperor could kill the princes without any pressure.

The royal family was too large, and when King Yi was executed along with his entire clan, not many people were implicated. In two hundred years, too many things had been destroyed, and the kinship among the royal family had long since disappeared.

Come to think of it, the emperor was able to eliminate the vassal state and expel the country of his own son, Prince Jing Zhu Zaizhen, who had committed a serious mistake. How could he be merciful when dealing with those foreign kings?

When Zhang Juzheng thought of this, he became anxious. Since the emperor no longer had anyone he could not abandon, the fall of the literati court was probably inevitable. In the government hall, Zhang Juzheng looked at Gao Gong and asked, "Minister Su, is the selection of the farmers and workers going smoothly?"

"It went very smoothly." Gao Gong raised his head and replied.

Unlike the troublesome imperial examinations, the emperor's requirements for selecting farmers' and workers' children to serve as officials were very simple.

1. If you have received education and understand the basic and simple principles of good and evil, you can become an official.

Second, if one’s family background is average, the poorer one’s origin and the poorer one’s ancestors are, the more likely one is to become an official.

Third, high morals. Unlike traditional ethics, the better the loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness, the more likely one is to become an official.

There were at least tens of millions of such people in the Ming Dynasty. Ten thousand of them were selected from the best, and then the list was sent to the Embroidered Uniform Guard to screen out those who deceived the world and were two-faced. Then the people who were screened out would be replaced. The difficulty was even less than that of selecting 6,000 new officials from the Jinshi and Juren before.

Gao Gong even had time to prepare an additional 100,000 preliminaries.

Now, the Ming Dynasty was ready to overthrow the court of scholars and rebuild the court of farmers and workers.

Zhang Juzheng nodded, turned to look at Hu Zongxian, and said, "Ruzhen, have you got the list of merchants from the Huizhou Merchants' Association and the list of officials who sponsored the Huizhou Merchants?"

Just as expected.

After Hu Zongxian expressed his willingness to take over the position of head of the Hu family, Uncle Hu immediately abdicated under the pressure of a group of clan elders.

The Hu family had no objection to Hu Zongxian's proposal to send the details of the family property to the capital, and informed the Huizhou merchants.

Although the Huizhou merchants were somewhat suspicious, they were eventually blinded by greed when they thought about how Huizhou merchants funded officials to control the two capitals and thirteen provinces under the cabinet leader Hu Zongxian, and that from then on Huizhou merchants controlled the Ming court and the Ming Dynasty, achieving unprecedented achievements as merchants.

Support the Hu family in the power transition.

After obtaining the two rosters, the Jinyiwei hidden in the Hu family and the Huizhou merchants took action, secretly copied them, and sent them to the capital at an expedited speed of 800 miles.

However, after looking at the list, Hu Zongxian seemed a little hesitant.

Noticing Hu Zongxian's strangeness, Chen Yiqin said bluntly: "Ruzhen, what's the problem?"

"Yuanfu, Cixiang, Zishi, Yifu."

Hu Zongxian glanced at his peers. Zhang Juzheng and the other three raised their heads and focused their gazes on Hu Zongxian. They said, "The corruption of the Huizhou merchants is far more horrible than the emperor and we imagined. The tentacles of the Huizhou merchants extend beyond the two capitals and thirteen provinces to the nine borders and nine towns!"

"what?"

Zhang Juzheng, Gao Gong, Li Chunfang and Chen Yiqin were shocked.

This means.

Are there people in the military who are funded or colluded with Huizhou merchants?

Although Zhang Juzheng and his men were all civil servants, it must be said that civil servants and military generals are different. If civil servants are killed, they are killed, and no matter how many are killed, they can be replaced.

But it is different for military generals. If you kill too many of them, it will not only affect the safety of border towns, but may also lead to mutiny.

What's worse, some people were forced into a corner and simply surrendered to the alien race and acted as their guides, and the Ming Dynasty immediately fell into chaos.

"How many border commanders are related to Huizhou merchants?" Zhang Juzheng asked hurriedly.

Hu Zongxian's face was solemn as he replied, "Two towns! Liaodong! Gansu!"

"I'm going to see the emperor!"

(End of this chapter)