Chapter 192 Let disobedient civil servants go mining
It is now October of the fifth year of Zhengde, and the little prince and King Anhua have been escorted to Beijing one after another.
The Ming court held a grand prisoner dedication ceremony.
But Zhu Houzhao did this not to show foreign enemies, but to show the courtiers in the court who were unwilling to acknowledge His Majesty the Emperor's glorious achievements.
Deeply influenced by Confucianism, the civil servants who were kind to others but cruel to others at home had to grit their teeth and admit Zhu Houzhao's martial arts.
Zhu Houzhao also asked each of them to write a congratulatory form to praise the victory of killing the little prince and recovering the Hetao, especially the officials who compiled the history of the Hanlin Academy. Zhu Houzhao asked them to use a lot of space to record this matter.
Most civil servants could only grit their teeth and write a lot of disgusting words of praise for their official positions.
Of course, there were some civil servants who did not like Zhu Houzhao's overjoyed appearance, and used this to persuade Zhu Houzhao. Zhu Houzhao was not polite and demoted these officials to the Hetao area on the grounds that they did not know the severity of the little prince's crimes against the soldiers and people of Bian Town.
Anyway, the Hetao area has just been recovered and needs a large number of officials to manage it.
Zhu Houzhao also took this opportunity to exile these civil servants who still adhered to the Confucian philosophy of governing the country and tried to restrain themselves to Hetao.
For the civil servants, this is simply more uncomfortable than killing them.
After all, everyone knows that the outside of the Great Wall is a land of bitter cold. Even though the Hetao is known as the "South of the Great Wall", since the Ming Dynasty lost the Hetao and was destroyed by the Tatar invasion, the Hetao is now a deserted land. Being exiled to these places is equivalent to freezing people alive. Death or illness.
"Let me go to Dongsheng to be the county magistrate! It's better to kill me!"
Liu Meng, who was demoted as the magistrate of Dongsheng County for misrepresenting military reports, now thinks this way.
As a high-ranking official who has become a governor, first of all, he can't bear to bow to his former low-ranking boss, and secondly, he can't bear to be an empty magistrate with no people and no land outside the desolate fortress.
Therefore, Liu Meng did not go to the official department to receive the order, but took the road directly back home.
The civil servants of the Ming Dynasty were usually like this. If they were dissatisfied with the court's appointments or the government's affairs, they would just hang up and leave without caring about the court rules at all.
This has something to do with the pride of literati, and also with the fact that the imperial court has always given preferential treatment to scribes.
But according to the laws of this era, the edict is the emperor's order. The emperor appoints you to be an official. If you don't go to the appointment, it is equivalent to disobeying the order.
Therefore, Liu Meng's behavior constitutes a crime in this era.
Of course, Liu Meng also knew that he was resisting the decree, and other civil servants also knew it. However, these civil servants were not afraid of death. In their minds, being killed for resisting the decree was not considered a shame, it could even be regarded as loyalty and unyielding.
After all, many stories in history about literati who did not want to be recruited by the monarch but disobeyed or were even killed have been passed down as legends.
"Either you directly depose me, you can even make me a commoner, or you can even kill me, but you must not insult me, let me be the magistrate of a county outside the wall, and control a group of barbarians!"
At this time, Liu Meng shouted to the officials of the Ministry of Personnel. He felt that he was very tough and backbone, and he was very proud of it.
Of course, he himself also knew that if he survived and was directly dismissed from his post or demoted to the common people, the money he earned from his decades of official career would be enough to become a wealthy gentry or a wealthy man when he returned to his hometown, and he could take this opportunity to train the children of his family. Seeking benefits for the less advanced members of his family;
If he is killed, he can leave a reputation for being upright and unyielding in the history books, and his family can gain respect among the scholars.
If you go to be a county magistrate outside the Great Wall, you will not be promoted to a high official quickly if you do well. If you do poorly, you will even be demoted and punished. Moreover, you have to worry about dying of illness and freezing. Even if you can make some money, you will not be able to live a good life. In these days, even those who die in the line of duty are easily forgotten in history books.
Zhu Houzhao also knew the thoughts of Liu Meng and other civil servants. After learning that Liu Meng was unwilling to take office, he directly issued an order: "Resist and disobey the edict! He should be executed. Considering that he has done one or two things that are beneficial to people's livelihood, he is sentenced to He will be imprisoned for sixty years, deprived of the rights of his subjects as stipulated in the constitution, and sent to Yulin to mine. If he dies, his children and nephews will be ordered to pay for his crime! ”
After the outline of the imperial constitution was finally finalized after more than a year of debate, its content is far from that of later constitutions in many aspects. The first difference is that it still protects the imperial power. Another difference is that There is still content of implicate punishment.
Therefore, when Zhu Houzhao decided to send Liu Meng to Yulin to mine for sixty years, he said that if Liu Meng died, his son and nephew would continue digging until sixty years.
After Liu Meng returned to his hometown, he didn't take it to heart at all that he resisted the imperial decree and refused to take office outside the Great Wall. To civil servants, refusing to become an official was nothing, and he also directly took in a concubine who was over fifty. He had just married a seventeen-year-old girl into his family, and was excited to be a groom again when soldiers from the Shandong Provincial Envoy came to the door and read out the decree issued by the cabinet.
After hearing this, Liu Meng was shocked: "What! You want me to mine for sixty years! Your Majesty, your Majesty, you might as well kill me directly!" "Take it away!"
The officers and soldiers of the Shandong Jingcha Division did not dare to neglect, because once the court knew that Liu Meng, a criminal, had not been escorted to Yulin City to serve within the specified time, the entire Shandong Jingcha Division officials would be severely punished. Liu Meng was pulled away when he had time to enter the bridal chamber.
After Liu Meng was taken to Yulin City, his mining career was naturally very miserable. If he had obediently chosen to be a county magistrate outside the Great Wall, he would have bowed to his former subordinates, but at least he would still be an official. But now he can only Those criminal Mongolians also performed high-intensity mining work every day and were beaten by supervisors.
Less than three days after serving in the service, Liu Meng couldn't stand the feeling of being driven to work like an animal, so he knelt in front of the county government office of Zhang Cong, the magistrate of Yulin County, and begged to see him: "Your honor, please!" , please help me to go to His Majesty Just say that the guilty minister is guilty! The guilty minister should not disobey the rules! The guilty minister is willing to go to Dongsheng County to teach others! Literacy is fine too!”
Zhang Cong is very busy now and naturally has no time to deal with an ordinary prisoner serving his sentence.
And Liu Meng is no longer the majestic official he used to be. Not long after he knelt down and cried in the county government office, he was dragged out by the government officials.
At the same time, the supervisor who discovered that he had not yet gone to serve also appeared at this time, and whipped him directly: "You bastard! Who asked you to come to the county government, and you haven't gone back to work! Do you think you are? Who! Only people of the Ming Dynasty can come to the county government to redress their grievances, and you are not a citizen of the Ming Dynasty. You are a criminal serving in the army! "
The crack of the whip made Liu Meng cry for father and mother, but he could not resist, so he could only return to the mining area and continue working.
The areas newly recovered by the Ming Dynasty are short of labor, so many criminals are now sent to Yulin City to rely on these criminals to complete mineral development, official road construction, and field reclamation.
Therefore, civil servants like Liu Meng who were unwilling to work outside the Great Wall were basically sent to mine outside the Great Wall on the grounds of disobedience, until they died of exhaustion and were thrown into the wilderness, even if they served a short sentence and were released. Basically, there is no bloodiness, and it is as numb as a walking zombie.
Some civil servants who were arranged to take up posts outside the Great Wall and took up their duties obediently saw the fate of these civil servants who were unwilling to take up their posts and were sent to mine outside the Great Wall. They were somewhat thankful that they had followed the imperial decree and became officials. Otherwise, let alone saying that they would not be able to become officials. I'm afraid I can't even be regarded as a citizen.
Of course, some civil servants also complained about the tragic situation of being sent to mine outside the Great Wall, so they wrote to the court to advise the court, believing that the court should treat the scholar-bureaucrats well and not use the punishment as a reason.
Zhu Houzhao naturally did not admit the theory that officials could not be punished by punishment. He refuted the fallacy of these civil servants in their memorials on the grounds that the outline of the imperial constitution did not stipulate that officials could not be punished by punishment. He also stated that the punishment of these civil servants was in compliance with the outline of the constitution. He is punished because he is guilty, not because he is guilty and harmed without reason.
And those civil servants who wanted to dissuade Zhu Houzhao from being too happy with his achievements did not dare to dissuade Zhu Houzhao. After all, they were afraid of being sent to mine outside the Great Wall.
actually.
Today's civil servants find that they seem to have no way to persuade Zhu Houzhao not to be too happy with his achievements so that the empire can continue to follow the Confucian Neo-Confucian governance model of benevolence to the outside but strict to the inside.
Because, with the emergence of the Huangming Newspaper, and the deliberate promotion of the Second Attendant's Office in accordance with Zhu Houzhao's instructions, the people of the empire already knew when the civil servants were unwilling to publicize the achievements of the Ming Dynasty in destroying the little prince. about this matter.
Over the years, Huang Ming Bao has let the people of the Ming Empire know who the little prince is, how he invaded and plundered the people of the Ming Dynasty, and what crimes he committed;
Even the people in the Second Attendant's Office specially asked people who had been bullied by the Tatars to come to the capital and other important towns to hold crying meetings.
Therefore, the people of the Ming Dynasty were no stranger to the little prince's sins.
Therefore, when they heard that His Majesty the Ming Emperor sent cavalry to defeat the little prince and captured the little prince alive, the people were very excited. For the first time, they had a good impression of the court and the army that had only oppressed them in the past. They knew that the court not only Just knowing that collecting taxes will protect them and eradicate evil for them.
"The people can do it, but they cannot know it. How can the life and death of the small people of Shengdou be compared with the stability of the country and the country of the Ming Dynasty? Because the little prince killed the small people of Shengdou and conquered them, if he loses, it will damage the country's wealth and people's strength. If he loses, it will also damage the country's wealth and people's strength. ! How can he rise to the rank of ordinary people? If you know the reason, you only think that victory is a good thing for the Ming Dynasty. Don't you know that victory is the same as defeat? Even worse, if the tribes of the grassland start to take revenge because of this, and the war continues, it will only harm the people more. Also! ”
At this time, the civil servant He Maozheng could not bear the atmosphere of people's discussion of politics brought about by the emergence of Huangming News, because he found that this would only cause all civil servants to lose the advantage of controlling public opinion through speech, and even cause civil servants like himself to be supervised by the people;
In fact, because Huang Ming Bao made public some of the shameless things committed by the scholar-bureaucrats to the people, the people completely knew that many so-called sages were just hypocrites, and they no longer had any respect or fear for the scholars.
Therefore, the civil servant He Maozhengcai went directly to Shu to request an edict, hoping that the imperial court could suspend the operation of the Huangming Newspaper, and even prohibit private newspapers from running. He also requested that the people be prohibited from discussing politics. This was actually an act that corrupted the political order. The people should work on farming and weaving and abide by it. Duty, and discussing politics is the responsibility of scholar-bureaucrats.
Naturally, Zhu Houzhao did not comply with He Maozheng's request to suspend the Huangming Newspaper. He even asked the cabinet to issue an order to encourage private newspapers to run newspapers, and ordered schools and teahouses and restaurants all over the country to write a couplet, that is, "The sound of wind and rain can be heard by the sound of reading." , Family affairs, state affairs, and everything in the world are concerned."
In Zhu Houzhao's view, although the Donglin Party in history was not very good, the couplet it created is still quite good.
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(End of chapter)