Chapter 144: Elimination of Honor
The gentry in Suzhou Prefecture were naturally very dissatisfied with this. They never expected that the county magistrate Pan Duan would dare to treat them, the gentry and gentry, like this.
Within a few days, more than a hundred students gathered at the Confucius Temple to vent their dissatisfaction in the name of offering sacrifices to the late emperor, and started crying in the Confucius Temple.
For a time, the entire Suzhou Prefecture was in a sensation, causing more and more students to cry in the Confucius Temple.
Among them, a student named Qin Qingshan directly encouraged:
"Everyone, Pan Duan, the county magistrate, is greedy and ruthless. He steals and sells official rice, tortures the people to death, and does all kinds of evil. We cannot let him harm the people of Wuxian County! As scholars, we should unveil the imitations and accuse them. Its crime! ”
"Yes, accuse him! This man surnamed Pan has done all kinds of evil, disrespects the gentry, abused the people and harmed the people. He is an unforgivable evil! Let him be punished!"
One of the students responded.
Then other students also responded:
"Accuse him!"
"Accuse him!"
"Accuse him!"
……
Therefore, Qin Qingshan immediately organized the students to write a petition to inform the county Pan Duan, and selected 20 students to go directly to Nanjing to notify the county Pan Duan.
At the same time, other gentry who remained in Suzhou Prefecture began to spread rumors to slander Pan Duan, and created a series of evil deeds by Pan Duan, the county magistrate.
The purpose of these gentry in Suzhou Prefecture was to force the court to send the county magistrate Pan Duan to the eighteenth level of hell and never be reincarnated. They wanted everyone to know the consequences of disrespecting the gentry as a magistrate in Jiangnan.
However, these gentry in Suzhou Prefecture did not know that the entire Southern Zhili was currently engaged in an operation to recover Fu Fu.
So they naively handed the petition to Wang Yangming, the governor of South Zhili. In their view, there was no censor in South Zhili now, and they could only count on the governor Wang Yangming to make the decision for them.
Of course, they may not know that Wang Yangming just killed fifty gentry some time ago, or they may know but not realize the political relationship involved, and they may not realize that Wang Yangming did not come to Nanzhili to make decisions for their gentry. Officials came to extract benefits from the gentry on behalf of the court.
Just like in history, the Jiangnan officials and gentry had illusions about the Manchus in the late Ming Dynasty, and hoped to join forces with them to deal with Li Zicheng and proposed the policy of "uniting the captives to quell the invaders".
At this time, these students in Suzhou Prefecture also had illusions about Wang Yangming, thinking that he would really hold a county magistrate accountable for them.
"Grand Master! Student Qin Qingshan! Student Dai Jianye! Student Wan Qisheng... Today I am suing Pan Duan, Magistrate of Wuxian County, Suzhou, for thirty articles of crime of humiliating scholars and harming the people! I hope the Grand Master will make the decision for us and severely punish this person!"
Wang Yangming is now the governor of Nanzhili, and he is also the admiral of the academic affairs of Nanzhili. Therefore, these students from Suzhou directly call him the Grand Master.
Wang Yangming also took the petition.
However, Wang Yangming naturally guessed why these students from Suzhou Prefecture wanted to accuse County Pan Duan. He was not polite and asked directly: "Do you have any evidence to accuse County Pan Duan?"
"Reporting to the Grand Master, there is proof. He killed Di Lou and three other students in this county to prove it!" Tan Qingshan replied.
"Did Di Lou and others owe the imperial court taxes, and the amount was more than five hundred dan, and they thought they had not paid it for three months?" Wang Yangming asked coldly.
Tan Qingshan did not answer this question. He was a good friend of Di Lou. He naturally knew that Di Lou owed taxes to the court, so he chose to change the subject and said: "Grand Master, no matter what, Di Lou and others will not be punished by death. They are scholars." , please let the great master make the decision for us scholars!”
Wang Yangming did not answer, but ordered someone to look through the Suzhou Fu Fu archives, and then slapped the alarm:
"I will naturally make the decision for you, but I will not protect you from evading taxes at will. Students like Di Lou owe more than three thousand dan in taxes. According to the decree of the imperial court, they must be expelled from their positions, and the government can force them to pay three times the tax. They deserve to be beaten to death! Therefore, it is their own fault that Di Lou and others were beaten to death. I am deeply saddened by this, but I will never retreat because they messed up the rules of the court!"
After all, Wang Yangming was a civil servant, and he still had a kind heart towards these students. Therefore, he did not think of blaming them for accusing Shangguan. He only explained the situation and asked Tan Qingshan and other students to retreat.
However, it seems that Tan Qingshan and other Suzhou students are not willing to give up. Among them, Tan Qingshan is still kneeling in front of the hall: "If the Grand Master is unwilling to make decisions for the students and punish Pan Duan, the students and others will never be able to kneel down!"
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"Students will not be able to kneel down if they wait!" Other students also responded.
Wang Yangming was quite angry when he saw this appearance. He did not expect that these Suzhou students would dare to threaten him in court, so he couldn't help shouting: "Aren't you afraid that I will revoke your honors?!" "Report to the Grand Master, students, etc. Of course they are afraid, but students and others are even less willing to see corrupt officials running rampant in the countryside. Today’s petition is from Suzhou Prefecture Wu One hundred and twenty members of the county signed a petition to ask the Grand Master to make decisions for the people based on the will of the people of Suzhou! If the Grand Master refuses to follow their will, then he will ask the Grand Master to expunge the titles of these one hundred and twenty members. ! However, the student wants to ask, does the Grand Master really want to kill one hundred and twenty students for a greedy official? ”
This Tan Qingshan was also very articulate, and Wang Yangming immediately refuted it. He didn't know what to answer. He could only come up with Pan Duan's big plan to evaluate:
"Since Pan Duan took office as the magistrate of Wu County, he has never raised taxes or spent half a cent, and he has made political achievements in studying and building rivers. Your eldest father, Tan Qingshan, Tan Changli, who was the envoy to Huguang, even wrote an article to praise him, and you He, Pan Duan, was even appointed as the county case leader;
Now, Pan Duan is just recovering Fu Fu and acting in accordance with the imperial decree. How come he has suddenly become a heinous person in your mouth! ”
"Pan Duan is both a traitor and a loyal man. He deceived us all! He deserves to die! He doesn't respect us gentry and Confucian scholars, so he deserves a bad death!"
At this time, a student with a rather irritable temper yelled directly.
However, Tan Qingshan did not answer, but looked up at Wang Yangming proudly.
Wang Yangming found that he was now in a difficult situation. On one side were almost all the students in Wu County, Suzhou Prefecture, and on the other side was Pan Duan, the county magistrate who collected taxes for the court. Now he could only choose to support one side, and to support one side, he had to Punish the other party severely.
Wang Yangming looked in the direction of Purple Mountain, where there were Emperor Zhu Houzhao of the Ming Dynasty and Chief Minister Ma Wensheng of the Cabinet. He knew that he now wanted to carry out the big plan and the decree to recover Fu Fu. If he wanted to gain a foothold in Jiangnan, You must be decisive and ruthless at this moment.
"Bring me my official seal! One hundred and twenty students, including Qin Qingshan from Wu County, Suzhou Prefecture, did not prioritize their studies, interfered with government affairs, and even threatened court officials. It is obvious that their moral conduct was lacking. Such a wild and rebellious person could only be admitted to the scholarly ranks. He will insult the saint's way, and now he will be deprived of his title! Report it to the Ministry of Ceremonies and send it to the cabinet for approval by the Holy One!"
After Wang Yangming said this with clenched fists, he waved his sleeves and left the lobby.
Tan Qingshan and others in the hall were shocked. They did not expect that the governor Wang Yangming would dare to revoke their titles. They felt angry, hateful and a little regretful all of a sudden.
"As expected, officials protect each other! Bah!"
Tan Qingshan cursed and left the governor's office with a group of reformed members. However, Tan Qingshan was unwilling to give up, not to mention that now that he had lost his honorary title as a reformed member, he shouted loudly:
"Everyone! Now the Grand Master is also shielding the evil official Pan Duan. It can be seen that these officials are all colluding and colluding with each other. We cannot sit back and watch the world be filthy by such corrupt officials, nor can we tolerate what we have learned throughout our lives being used by such treacherous people. Destroyed, and today is in Nanjing, let’s go to Miyagi to write a letter!”
"Yes, write on the bus!"
Other students also responded, but there were also timid ones who asked: "But what if something like that happens in the capital, when Yang Tinghe led the imperial guards to massacre almost the entire Imperial College students in the capital."
"What are you afraid of! Is it possible that among the officials in Nanjing City, there is no one else who dares to be Yang Tinghe! What's more, if today is passed and the court approves the expulsion of our honors, our life-long efforts will be wasted. In this case, it is better to win once! ”
After saying that, Tan Qingshan walked towards Hongwumen first, and other reformed members also followed after seeing this.
However, when Tan Qingshan arrived here, there was already a sea of people outside the Hongwu Gate of Nanjing Palace City, because not only Tan Qingshan and others, but also gentry from Yingtian Mansion and other prefectures came to ask for orders, but they knew better than Tan Qingshan and others from Suzhou Mansion. Unfortunately, Wang Yangming, the governor of Southern Zhili, was not a good person, so he came directly to Hongwumen and directly forced Zhu Houzhao to seek justice for them.
……
At this time, Zhu Houzhao was also standing on the palace wall watching all this, and asked Ma Wensheng, the chief minister of the cabinet: "Do these people really not know the majesty of the imperial court, and dare to come here to demonstrate?"
"Report to Your Majesty! It's not that they don't know, they just think that the court will forgive them. After all, since the Song Dynasty, the emperors have treated scholars favorably. I have to admit that they are too arrogant, but so-called literati are arrogant. It seems that it is better not to fight with swords, and I am willing to persuade you personally!”
Ma Wensheng, the chief minister of the cabinet, replied.
"How do you persuade them? Promise them and return them the honors they were dismissed from? Or return them the recovered taxes? Where is the majesty of the court in that case? What will the court do in the future? If they make such a fuss, it will Nothing can be done?”
Zhu Houzhao said angrily that he originally wanted to use this time to demote this large number of Jiangnan gentry to common people and reduce the number of some privileged classes. Now if these people can regain their fame, wouldn't it be a waste of time?
Ma Wensheng didn't know how to answer, so he could only sigh.
At this time, Wang Yangming also came here and reported to Zhu Houzhao the complaint filed by Suzhou Prefecture Student Qin Qingshan.
Zhu Houzhao looked at the crowd of gentry outside, just smiled, and immediately shouted: "Guo Rong! Send out the royal guards! Disperse them according to the method I gave you! In addition, take the dozens of people kneeling at the front, led by Arrest him and bring him to justice!”
Thank you book friend who suddenly remembered the reward of 100 starting coins. Thank you book friend Beihai for the reward of 100 starting coins
(End of chapter)