Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

Emperor Chongzhen became excited.

Perhaps it was because Zhang Shikang often brainwashed him, repeatedly saying that the army was the foundation of everything, or perhaps Emperor Chongzhen was tired of arguing ineffectively with court officials day and night.

In short, ever since he personally led an expedition, Emperor Chongzhen seemed to have developed an inexplicable affection for the army.

To the extent that whenever Zhang Shikang mentioned using the army to solve the problem, Emperor Chongzhen was more excited than Zhang Shikang.

"Your Majesty, I suggest that the Eastern Investigation Bureau rush to each prefecture to investigate and collect evidence from the people. Any prefecture officials who collude with merchants and gentry should be arrested and detained immediately.

Interrogate these officials on the spot, find out those who are in cahoots with the corrupt officials, and kill a group of them to serve as a warning to others.

In short, no matter what, the increased commercial taxes must not be passed on to them.

I want to see whether their bones are harder or our knives are harder."

Zhang Shikang said very calmly.

The additional commercial taxes were meant to force merchants to give up their profits to the court. Not only were they not allowed to pass this tax on to consumers, they were also not allowed to pass it on to producers.

This is difficult, at least not by conventional means.

But Zhang Shikang had no intention of using conventional means to deal with it.

The reason why he kept so many guards in the Eastern Depot and so many imperial guards in the Imperial Uniform Guard was to recreate the heyday of these two supervisory agencies.

At the peak of their power, the Dongchang Jinyiwei could tell what color underwear a certain minister was wearing. Compared to this, it was much easier to monitor whether certain merchants were secretly passing on taxes to the people.

As long as a group of people are killed, the timid ones will naturally not dare to commit crimes again.

As long as we can get through the most intense period, we can then hand the matter over to the state-run supervisory agencies of the Censorate and the Dali Temple to slowly handle it.

"Master Zhang, this is too reckless and may lead to wrongful convictions.

As Lord Zhang said, there may be some dishonest people in the Censorate, but you can't guarantee that everyone in the East Factory will be able to see through everything and enforce the law impartially."

Li Banghua spoke up for justice, and he was probably the most staunch minister among the ministers present.

"Yes, yes, Lord Li is absolutely right." Zhang Shikang was not angry, but agreed.

He believed that having some loyal ministers in the court was not a bad thing, even if this person always opposed him.

But it has to be said that even he agreed with most of Li Banghua's rebuttals.

For example, he should not be late, should not kill too many people, and as an important official of the country, he should not be so careless and speak vulgarly. It is said that he holds so much power and sets a bad precedent for the Ming Dynasty, etc.

Zhang Shikang admitted all of this.

But I will not change it.

Li Banghua's beard often stood on end due to anger.

"But Lord Li, in every war, in which one were the most common casualties not civilians?

What crime did those civilians commit?

The current situation is the same. Although no fighting has taken place, undercurrents are surging, and there is no trace of a real war.

There will always be casualties in war. Are the lives of officials more noble than those of civilians?

I cannot guarantee that everyone is loyal to Your Majesty and the court, but I can only try my best to avoid it.

But even so, we must never be timid and miss the opportunity because of one omission or another.

Lord Li, what do you think? "

As he said that, Zhang Shikang kicked the ball back.

Li Banghua did not refute in the end.

"Using thunderbolts to show the heart of a bodhisattva.

Good! Very good!" Emperor Chongzhen made the decision immediately.

Zhang Shikang rolled his eyes at Emperor Chongzhen. This old man always imitated him in speaking.

"But this will inevitably bring about a certain amount of unrest in various places. I estimate that the number of official vacancies will increase sharply at that time. Your Majesty and the others should consider this issue in advance."

According to Zhang Shikang's estimation, there would be no shortage of Donglin Party members among the provincial and municipal officials, and these provincial and municipal officials were the absolute backbone of the Donglin Party.

However, the law of "not punishing the masses" does not exist in the case of Zhang Shikang. No matter how many crimes he has, all of them will be investigated and dealt with.

But the implication is that I only kill and don't bury.

"The number of officials in Beijing has now dropped by more than 30%, and all government offices are almost in a semi-paralyzed state.

If there are a lot of vacancies in the provincial capitals, and no one is handling the files and documents in various places, it will indeed be a big problem. "

Emperor Chongzhen said with worry on his face.

Before this, officials at all levels in the court had their own jobs, and many of them had no jobs at all, so they could only wait for vacancies in the Hanlin Academy or other government offices.

Now it’s different, there are more pits than carrots.

Not only that, there were also many who sang a different tune. Some of them refused to take up the position offered to them by the court on the grounds that they opposed tax reform.

Influenced by Zhang Shikang, Emperor Chongzhen could not tolerate the bad habits of these officials and directly dismissed them.

This results in not only an increase in pitfalls but also a decrease in carrots.

"Your Majesty, perhaps you can hold a special examination." Minister of Personnel Ni Yuanlu suggested after opening his eyes.

The imperial examination is held every three years. This is a tradition of successive dynasties and is known as the regular examination.

The imperial examination was held only once in the tenth year of Chongzhen, which was last year. Under normal circumstances, the next one would be in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen.

The so-called Enke refers to the imperial examination system in which the emperor specially opened an examination to select scholars outside the regular examination.

From among the successful candidates in the provincial and palace examinations, questions would be asked again to select candidates. As it was a special test, as long as the results were not too bad, they could generally pass, so it was called "Enke".

"That's a good idea." Emperor Chongzhen nodded.

Li Banghua frowned and said:

“Your Majesty, I think that even if we open the special examination, we should not be too optimistic.

The proportion of Donglin officials among officials is almost equal to that among students.

What's worse, most of the students are young. They have achievements but no practice, and are more easily misled.

Lord Zhang is in charge of the Imperial Household Department. He should know that the Donglin Party has already written articles to criticize the court's national policy.

Of course, I also criticized Mr. Zhang."

As he spoke later, Li Banghua showed a hint of smile, as if he felt somewhat pleased that Zhang Shikang was severely scolded by the scholars.

"Is this true? Manager Fang, what are they scolding me for?" Zhang Shikang turned his head and looked at Fang Zhenghua who was serving on the side.

He naturally knew that the Donglin Party used their pens to create public opinion, but he was indeed unaware that this group of people actually cursed him by name.

Using the prostate as an example, Zhang Shikang knew that Fang Zhenghua must have automatically filtered out some of the messages cursing him.

"My Lord, this... My Lord, you'd better not know about it. It's all nonsense and very unpleasant to hear!" Fang Zheng said in embarrassment.

"If you want to hear it, tell me quickly." Zhang Shikang became even more interested.

Fang Zhenghua couldn't resist and could only tell the truth:

"Most of their articles are full of quibbling, saying that the Marquis has no virtue, is cunning and treacherous, and enjoys chaos and misfortune.

They also said that the Marquis had taken advantage of his power to become a tyrant, committing crimes, plundering the people, and harming the virtuous and the good.

What's even more outrageous is that they actually said that the marquis was greedy for power and profit, often liked flatterers, and that anyone who spoke out would be whipped.

"It's just the whining and barking of some corrupt scholars. My Lord, don't take it seriously." Fang Zhenghua consoled.

Zhang Shikang finally frowned.

I originally thought that these guys were just scolding him for arbitrarily changing national policies, not following ancestral rules, etc.

Damn it, these bastards actually dared to talk nonsense and slander him!

This is slander! Blatant slander against him!