Simulates history, but Chongzhen is the Divine Emperor at the beginning

Chapter 98 Officials: What can I say?

"Let me release all the officials before tomorrow's morning court session..."

You frowned and read it over and over again: Could it be that the Divine Emperor intends to protect all the officials?

[Impossible! The Divine Emperor doesn't have deep feelings for his officials. In his eyes, if the common people can be considered somewhat human, then the officials are pure dogs!]

What is a dog? As the saying goes, "When the cunning rabbit dies, the running dog is cooked." Dogs are tools that help people do work. While they're useful, they're certainly kept. But once they're no longer useful, they're likely to be abandoned.

[For the Divine Emperor, it's impossible for Him to truly have any feelings for officials. For example, in your previous life, you launched the "Changchun Garden Coup" right in front of Him, stabbing the Prime Minister to death with a single knife, imprisoning the six ministers, and then purging officials of all ranks in the court and the localities... He remained indifferent to such taboos throughout the entire process.]

From this perspective, He actually doesn't care about the life and death of His officials. He keeps them when they are useful, and throws them away when they are no longer useful. He doesn't feel any pity at all.

[But now, when you have arrested hundreds of officials, He has sent you an imperial edict that seems to want to save them. This is really puzzling...]

[Could it be that in this life, He is not determined to reform the political system? Otherwise, why would He protect the officials?]

[Thinking of this, you can’t help but feel a sudden rush of emotion: It seems to be true…]

[In your previous life, the Divine Emperor clearly supported your reforms, and His approval was expressed by promoting you directly to the position of "Prime Minister," completely transferring power in all areas of politics, military affairs, and economics to you, leaving you with no further constraints!]

[In this life, the Divine Emperor has only promoted you to the rank of "Commander of the Imperial Guards," granting you only the power of supervision, while granting you no other political authority... Clearly, He doesn't intend for you to carry out reforms like in your previous life.]

[And since He doesn't allow you to reform, it clearly proves that He intends to maintain the current bureaucratic system...]

[Is this because He has some special feelings for the bureaucrats of the time?]

【You shake your head: Impossible! 】

The Divine Emperor has always been a man who never gets up early without profit. Aside from the lingering desire to be a "holy ruler," all of his actions are driven by self-interest!

[In other words, preserving and maintaining the current corrupt bureaucracy is something the Divine Emperor has some necessary interests to pursue...]

What are the benefits then?

You can't help but look down at the sentence in the imperial edict again: "Government during the day, punishment at night..."

[For some reason, you shuddered, as you recalled an incident that happened three hundred years ago...]

During the Hongwu reign of Emperor Taizu, numerous major crimes were committed, leading to the implicate of countless officials. This created a shortage of officials: tens of thousands of officials were sentenced to death, and Zhu Yuanzhang was unable to find so many people to fill the vacancies.

Faced with such a difficult situation, our genius Emperor Hongwu immediately came up with a brilliant plan: since no new officials could be found to fill the vacancies immediately, let the incarcerated officials continue to work!

[What? You said you've been sentenced, how can you still work?]

[Easy! Just put on the shackles and continue working!]

Thus, a spectacle unprecedented in the history of the Ming Dynasty appeared: a large group of imprisoned officials continued to work in the yamen while wearing shackles and crying. When new officials arrived to replace them, the guards would escort the imprisoned officials away with cold faces and take them to the vegetable market to eat knives...

What does it mean to squeeze out every last drop of value?

[This is called squeezing out every last drop of value! ]

[Our Zhu family is so poor that we can't bear to waste even a single resource...]

Fortunately, the Hongwu Emperor only reigned for 32 years, and subsequent emperors were never as harsh as our ancestor. Over time, his reign became a mere anecdote in the archives.

[But now it seems that this allusion is very likely to become a reality again in the Ming Dynasty...]

“His direct purpose in appointing me as the commander of the Imperial Guards was to allow me to lead tens of thousands of Imperial Guards to be self-sufficient and work for free, thus saving Him divine energy.”

"The necessary condition for the Jinyiwei and I to be self-sufficient is to have enough enemies among the ruling class. Only with enough enemies can we steadily provide us with divine power..."

You frowned. "So, in His view, reforms are completely unnecessary. In fact, it's best for the court to remain unchanged forever, so as to maintain a constant supply of divine power..." [What? Kill them all, and then reform?]

[This can't change! If this were to be a reform, wouldn't it be draining the pond to catch all the fish?]

Therefore, we must absolutely not pursue reforms that exhaust the resources. Sustainable development is the right path...

Having thought through the above logic, you've finally grasped the Divine Emperor's will. But the more you comprehend it, the heavier your heart becomes: It's over!

[The Divine Emperor in this life is not a reformist at all, but a conservative, and the most conservative of conservatives!]

How could He, with such a good plan of "sustainable exhaustion of resources," allow you to lead a reform movement that would be harmful and useless?

[So if nothing unexpected happens, then you probably won't even be able to reach the heights of your previous life in this life...]

【But...what can you do? 】

[Being outmatched is a fatal flaw. Faced with such a disparate power gap, you can only grit your teeth and press on, even if this path is not a solution at all...]

【…】

[So from this day on, the once arrogant and powerful officials of the imperial court were faced with a dark and gloomy torture!]

Every night, the plague-stricken Jinyiwei would roam the streets, arresting loyal officials and savagely wiping out nearly all the officials from the six ministries. They would then imprison them in the "Imperial Prison" and torture them severely!

[These punishments included various methods such as "clamping with a clamp," "branding with an iron," and "tiger bench," but the Jinyiwei's favorite was the traditional Shaanxi art of spinning tops!]

When whipping the top, other whips were useless. Only my own belt was the most effective. Round after round of whipping left everyone howling in agony... But for some reason, the belts never hit vital areas. At most, the victims would suffer redness, swelling, and bruises, but it would never be disabling or fatal.

[At first, everyone thought it was their authority that was keeping the Jinyiwei from actually harming them... But later on, everyone realized that wasn't the case at all!]

[The reason the Jinyiwei lunatics didn't beat them to death was because they were worried they wouldn't be able to attend court the next day, so they deliberately went easy on them...]

All the officials could not help but curse in their hearts: "Kill him if you want! Let him go if you want! What's the point of doing this every day?!"

[He attended court during the day, was arrested and beaten at night, and had to attend court on time the next day, and then was beaten again at night...]

【What kind of a horrible operation is this!!!】

Everyone was furious and anxious. They could hold it in at first, but as this nonsense seemed to have no end in sight, everyone finally had a mental breakdown!

[So within a few months, petitions from all the civil and military officials requesting to retire piled up like snowflakes in front of the Divine Emperor's desk. Senior officials in their sixties and seventies were "begging for their lives," as were junior officials in their thirties and forties... It was simply because everyone couldn't stand the torture anymore!]

[This is even harder to endure than Yama's eighteen levels of hell!]

So, everyone simply stopped acting and cried out heartfeltly in their memorials, "If Your Majesty is willing to reform the civil service and eradicate corruption, we will immediately deposit all our wealth into the national treasury and place our lives at Your Majesty's disposal. Whether it's skinning and straw-stuffing, or beheading by slow slicing, we will not hesitate!"

"If Your Majesty has no intention of reforming the civil service, then please order Commander Zhou to forgive us!"

It was a simple choice.

[But the Divine Emperor chose none of them. Instead, he chose the same strategy as his grandfather, Wanli Laodeng, to "keep the memorials within the palace and not publish them," pretending he had never received any of them...]

[Hundred Officials: yes or no? 】

[Divine Emperor: or!]

Officials: What can I say?

……

(End of this chapter)