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

As the leader of the Jingdong Lin Party in Jingdong, Zheng Sanjun was the one who spent the most energy in collecting evidence by the Jinyiwei.

But even so, the Jinyiwei could not find much evidence, most of which were minor cases of bullying the villagers.

Zheng Sanjun is a shrewd and calculating person, and will not leave any chance for the supervisory agencies.

The Jinyiwei could only find out things like embezzling disaster relief funds and condoning relatives to forcibly buy the people's land, but they had no specific physical evidence.

It's not just Zheng Sanjun, most of the officials in the court are like this.

If you follow the normal case handling process, it will take a lot of effort to bring down a senior official in the court.

If it falls to a government office like the Sanfasi where Donglin Party members gather, the final result will most likely be that the matter will not be investigated.

This is also the reason why Zheng Sanjun and others remained calm even after being dismissed.

After hearing the Jinyiwei captain list so many of his crimes, Zheng Sanjun looked at Zhang Shikang with a cold face and said:

"Zhang Shikang, do you have any evidence?"

"This charge sheet is the evidence." Zhang Shikang pointed at the rice paper in the hand of the thousand-household official.

"You are slandering me!" Zheng Sanjun became anxious.

Zhang Shikang smiled.

"So what? Does it matter?"

The calmer Zhang Shikang was, the more anxious Zheng Sanjun became. He vaguely felt that everything was rushing in a direction that he could not control.

"Do you dare to do this?" Seeing that Zhang Shikang didn't even pretend, Zheng Sanjun's hands trembled.

"I dare." Zhang Shikang smiled, his voice calm, and he only replied with one word.

But this word seemed like a Buddha's seal, repeating continuously in Zheng Sanjun's mind. Zheng Sanjun felt his head buzzing and he staggered and almost lost his balance.

He roughly guessed what Zhang Shikang was trying to do. The capital was under martial law and the Jinyiwei attacked everywhere.

Zhang Shikang wants to arrest the entire city!

As for the targets to be arrested, they were naturally him and his colleagues.

Even though he knew that the Jinyiwei would not be able to find much evidence of crimes against him and his colleagues, Zhang Shikang still did it.

Lawless, lawless!

Even though he had made every possible effort to avoid all risks within the law, he did not expect that Zhang Shikang would no longer even care about the law.

"You are guilty, and you should know in your heart how much you have committed.

In this case, other things don't matter." Zhang Shikang said lightly.

Stay within the rules and make use of them. If the rules are useless, then turn the table over.

As a time traveler, Zhang Shikang has always known that the last few years of the Ming Dynasty were almost a dead end. If he played by the rules, no matter how he struggled, he would not be able to reverse the decline.

Therefore, from the very beginning, Zhang Shikang had no intention of playing by the rules. There was only one reason why he had endured until now.

The troops at our disposal are not enough, not strong enough, not numerous enough, and not loyal enough.

He endured and endured for almost a whole year.

Today, the Beijing camp has 80,000 soldiers with strong men and horses. They live in the capital and watch the four directions with a covetous eye.

In the south there are Qin Liangyu and Cao Bianjiao, in the north there are Lu Xiangsheng and Sun Chuanting, and in between there are Huang Degong and Zhou Yuji.

After taking the risk of robbing the Shanxi merchants, the armies of these powerful generals no longer lacked money. With the strong support of these powerful men, Zhang Shikang finally became fearless.

The real superior does not use the rules, but makes and controls the rules.

If truth exists, it must be on the edge of his blade!

"Do you know what you are doing? You will pay the price for this!" Zheng Sanjun felt his whole body shaking, and he didn't even know whether it was because of anger or fear.

"Noisy.

Bring him to justice! "

As soon as Zhang Shikang finished speaking, several Jinyiwei rushed over, pinned Zheng Sanjun to the ground and tied him up.

"Xiong Mingyu, Liu Zongzhou, Liu Yuliang, oh, and there are officials of the current dynasty, why are you all here?

Are they holding a meeting to discuss how to impeach me? No, they are still missing Fang Fengnian.

Where is that thing?"

Zhang Shikang looked towards the restaurant. Wow, there were at least 10 to 20 people there, most of whom he knew. Some had been dismissed by Chongzhen in the past one or two months, while others were still "sleeping on straw and tasting gall" in the court, intending to turn the world upside down.

"I have never seen such an arrogant person! Zhang Shikang! Aren't you afraid of the wrath of the people of the world?"

Xiong Mingyu did not answer Zhang Shikang's question. He was in a bad mood and questioned him immediately.

“You see it now.

Read it." Zhang Shikang ignored him and said to his subordinates.

“Check, it’s Xiong Mingyu, former Dongge Grand Secretary and Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of War.

In June of the 29th year of the Wanli reign, he bribed 3,000 taels of silver to obtain the position of magistrate of a superior county.

In March of the 32nd year of the Wanli reign, he bribed 6,200 taels of silver to obtain the position of prefect of Xunyang.

In June of the 43rd year of the Wanli reign, he was transferred to Beijing to serve as a Censor of the Military Department in exchange for a bribe of 10,000 taels of silver.

……

In the first month of the sixth year of the Tianqi reign, he was appointed Left Vice-Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate. He used factional disputes to frame loyal officials, resulting in the downfall and death of many corrupt officials.

In August of the seventh year of the Tianqi reign, he was appointed Right Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, and accepted bribes of 14,000 taels of silver to help local officials exonerate themselves.

In March of the second year of Chongzhen, he received a donation of 52 hectares of land from his ancestral home in Nanchang Prefecture, Jiangxi Province.

In August of the third year of Chongzhen, he received a donation of 120 hectares of land from his ancestral home in Nanchang Prefecture.

……

In the twelfth month of the ninth year of Chongzhen, taking advantage of his position as Vice Minister of the Ministry of War, he accepted bribes of 40,000 taels of silver and sought military merit for many border generals.

In April of the tenth year of Chongzhen, he ordered his clansmen to seize farmland and forcibly buy shops, which caused widespread complaints in Nanchang Prefecture. After investigation, it was found that at least a dozen people died as a result.

In June of the tenth year of Chongzhen, he took advantage of his position as Vice Minister of the Ministry of War to collude with the former Minister of Revenue, embezzled 110,000 taels of silver for military uniforms, used reeds instead of cotton for military uniforms, and caused many soldiers in border towns to freeze to death.

......"

"Stop, stop, stop reading." Zhang Shikang waved his hand.

As a hands-off boss, he only ordered Liu Wenbing and his brothers to collect as much evidence as possible on officials' crimes. The overall idea was made clear from the beginning.

The guilty ones will be convicted, and the innocent ones’ property will be checked. If the property is not proportional to their rank, find a way to make them guilty.

But Zhang Shikang didn't expect that the Liu Wenbing brothers were so serious that they managed to come up with so many charges in just over two months.

Liu Wenbing had reported to him before that when judging a crime, if the year and month were noted, it was basically true, but the evidence was another matter.

However, if no evidence can be found and the person has a lot of property which obviously does not match his official rank and salary, when fabricating charges, only the year will be given but no specific month and day.

This is a distinction to let Zhang Shikang know.

But Zhang Shikang didn't expect that so much evidence could be found among his brothers. It took him a long time to read out all the evidence, and they were all true.

Among these evidences, two or three were enough to warrant execution, so Zhang Shikang immediately called a halt.

"Xiong Mingyu, do you know your crime?" Zhang Shikang sneered.

"You will be punished."

Surrounded by soldiers from the Beijing garrison and the Imperial Guard, Xiong Mingyu could not help but guess that this was all planned by Zhang Shikang. Now that things had come to this, there was no point in saying more.

"Maybe, you can't see it anyway.

Your crimes are too numerous to list. Just the fact that you embezzled the money from the Ministry of War for military uniforms, causing soldiers in border towns to freeze to death because they had no cotton-padded clothes, is enough to put you to death by slicing."

After saying this, the Jinyiwei cavalry came forward to arrest him.

Zhang Shikang then looked at Liu Zongzhou with a smile.

“Master Liu, do I need to have my crime read to you?

I have them all here.”

……

PS: I write and post everything at the same time, I don’t have any drafts saved, and today I will still start with five updates.