Chapter 342 Chapter 341 The Emperor Numb to the Mutiny

"The upheaval started with Ma Kun's proposal to reduce the silver, and ended with Huang Maoguan's investigation and abolition of his wife's grain. Shangshu Cai Kelian was ill and unable to work, and Yuanwailang Fang Youji was released by An Qian."

"Whose memorial is this?"

Just as the eunuch was reading the impeachment memorial from Nanjing in the hall, he was interrupted by Emperor Jiajing.

"Reporting to the emperor, this is the memorial from Nanjing Kedao official Liu Xingsu."

The eunuch hurriedly replied.

"Is there anything else? Tell me."

Emperor Jiajing frowned and said.

"Yes, there is also Zhao Shiqi, and there is."

"Enough, read them one by one to me."

Emperor Jiajing interrupted impatiently.

There have been too many impeachment memorials in recent days, and he has no patience to listen to them. He just let the eunuch read the cabinet's draft and let it go.

So in fact, the impeachment memorials written by the censors of the Censorate with great effort, which they hoped would become a stepping stone for their advancement, were not actually seen or heard by Emperor Jiajing.

Yes, if you were called a bystander, you would probably be annoyed by listening to dozens or hundreds of similar articles every day.

There were more than a dozen memorials impeaching Ma Kun from the Nanjing Kedao. After listening to a few of them, Emperor Jiajing gradually became impatient because the contents of the memorials were all the same and the reasons for impeachment were mostly the same.

In fact, these memorials were not submitted by the Nanjing Kedao censors themselves, but mainly under pressure from Xu Pengju, Li Sui and others.

Although the first official document sent by the court to Nanjing did not mean to investigate the dereliction of duty of the Nanjing dignitaries, such a big thing had to find a scapegoat to take all the blame.

After He Shou, Xu Pengju, Li Sui and others discussed in secret, they gradually set their sights on Ma Kun in the capital.

Ma Kun is now the Minister of Revenue, and he has enough responsibility to bear. In addition, the original cause of the incident was also caused by his reduction of military pay, otherwise it would never be so.

Moreover, due to the impact of the riot in Zhenwu Camp, there have been signs of instability in Nanjing City and several surrounding recruiting camps recently. Li Tingzhu has been sent out to comfort the soldiers of each camp, hoping to temporarily stabilize the military morale.

They, like Zhenwu Camp, are recruits whose military pay has been reduced.

After seeing the riot in Zhenwu Camp, not only were they not investigated, but they were rewarded with one or two silver coins, which made them extremely jealous.

Without Wei Guangde's intervention to find a reasonable reason for Huang Maoguan's death for the officers and soldiers of Zhenwu Camp, the mutiny quickly spread in Nanjing City after it occurred, especially after Xu Pengju, He Shou and other powerful and high-ranking officials fled Nanjing City in a panic under the siege of the chaotic army, many soldiers in the military camps also joined the mutiny and looted shops and wealthy households in Nanjing City.

However, at that time, not only Wei Guangde, but also Xu Pengju, He Shou and others who were in the vortex did not realize that there was such an unstable factor, and they thought that the Nanjing Jingying was completely controlled by them.

Until recently, Li Tingzhu talked about the reduction of military pay for several military camps along the river, and the soldiers complained. He had received reports in the past two days that there was some unrest among the soldiers in the military camp because of the Zhenwu Camp, which attracted their attention.

The soldiers of the Zhenwu Camp made trouble and killed a third-rank official of the court, but nothing happened in the end, and they were even given silver. This undoubtedly set a very bad precedent.

The current solution is also very simple in their discussion, that is, to compensate all the soldiers whose military pay has been reduced, and it can be regarded as a reward. The standard is the same as that of the Zhenwu Camp, one or two silver per person, and the military pay will be restored to the old rules.

But they were worried that it would be inappropriate to report directly. In order to do it once and for all, they could only sentence Ma Kun to death for dereliction of duty, so that they could report for supplementary pay, while Li Tingzhu was running around the military camps to stabilize the morale of the army.

In the current Nanjing City, there must be no more mutiny by soldiers for pay.

As for Nanjing City, who should be targeted?

After much discussion, it seems that the officials of various government offices have a good relationship with them, so it is really difficult to do it. They had to push out Cai Kelian, the old Shangshu of the Ministry of Revenue, who was waiting to retire.

This time, it is estimated that he will be dismissed, but everyone should take care of his family afterward, and guarantee a quota for the Cai family. As for whether he can become a Jinshi, that is his own business.

In addition, they themselves are more or less guilty of negligence, and they should also mention it in the impeachment memorial, otherwise it is not justifiable.

The matter was settled.

Each family contacted the censors they could call, and then the Nanjing Ministry of War and the censors of the Ministry of Science and Technology collectively impeached Ma Kun. They also sent Huang Maoguan's memorial to the capital, saying that he treated his soldiers harshly and wanted to deprive his wife of their food, to characterize the incident.

"Give me Huang Maoguan's memorial."

Emperor Jiajing sat on the throne with a flickering look in his eyes. The eunuchs around him didn't know what he was thinking, but they quickly found Huang Maoguan's last memorial that had not been sent out and put it on the imperial desk.

Emperor Jiajing picked up the memorial and flipped through it directly. The seal on it was correct. As for the other

"Has Huang Maoguan's handwriting been checked?"

This question was asked to Huang Jin beside him. Huang Maoguan was now dead. Without evidence, even Emperor Jiajing, as an emperor, could not guarantee whether his officials would play tricks.

"The Imperial Household Department has compared Huang Maoguan's previous memorials, and the handwriting is correct."

As Huang Jin spoke, he waved his sleeves, and a young eunuch brought up several memorials from below. They were all handwritten memorials submitted by Huang Maoguan in the past. The ones he turned out now were naturally the ones used for handwriting verification.

Emperor Jiajing was not completely relieved by Huang Jin's words. Instead, he took a memorial from the eunuch and opened it to read it, comparing the handwriting of the two memorials.

"Huang"

After a long time, Emperor Jiajing snorted, and then said angrily: "Huang Maoguan deserves to die. It's no wonder that the soldiers want to kill him because he is so harsh and vicious."

Emperor Jiajing actually did not intend to pursue the report from Nanjing before. After all, it didn't cause any big trouble. It was just a reprimand.

Emperor Jiajing was a little numb to things like mutiny.

Emperor Jiajing Zhu Houcong took over the throne from his cousin, Emperor Zhengde Zhu Houzhao, and he took the throne in the 16th year of Zhengde.

At the beginning of his reign, Emperor Jiajing changed some of the malpractices of the Wuzong Dynasty. Jiao Hong's "Records of Contributions to the National Dynasty" recorded that people at that time believed that Jiajing's new policies "the whole world was united and called for a new life."

It was at this time that Emperor Jiajing ushered in the first mutiny in his emperor's career - the Ganzhou mutiny.

The five guards of Ganzhou and other places were in chaos, killing the governor and the censor Xu Ming, and "burning his body" and scattering his bones and ashes.

As for the reason for the mutiny, it was still a matter of money.

Xu Ming served as the governor of Gansu Town and made a mistake in handling the monthly salary of soldiers.

He changed the monthly salary of soldiers from direct grain to the grain price, and issued silver money equal to the amount of monthly grain.

However, with this tampering, the monthly salary of soldiers will fluctuate due to market price fluctuations. Once the handling is wrong, it is easy to cause a mutiny.

According to records, the monthly grain in Ganzhou is one stone, which is equivalent to seven coins of silver, but the rice price was low in the month of the mutiny, and the grain price was only three coins and three silver coins. The actual income of the soldiers was reduced by more than half. Who would do this! Then the soldiers rebelled.

It was only later that it was discovered that the mutiny because of military pay was just an excuse. The real reason was the grudge between the governor Zhang Ming and the Gansu general Li Long. Zhang Ming blocked Li Long's way to wealth because of his work, so Li Long secretly instructed the soldiers to mutiny and kill Zhang Ming.

The Ganzhou mutiny was originally a rebellion with evidence, but Emperor Shizong was young and indecisive, and Li Long's crimes were not finalized for a long time, which greatly affected the prestige of the court, resulting in frequent mutinies and becoming one of the biggest worries of the Ming Dynasty.

There were mutinies before Jiajing, but they were small in scale and did not kill high-ranking officials. Mutiny was just a means for soldiers to protest to the court.

The Ganzhou mutiny in the Jiajing Dynasty actually opened the paradigm of mutinies in the future. The rebel soldiers pointed their spearheads directly at local high-ranking officials such as the governor, who were killed one after another in the mutiny. The nature of the soldiers' mutiny also changed from protesting to officials for money to rebellion against the central court, and the soldiers became a problem threatening the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Even if Li Long was beheaded in the end, the evil head had already been raised and it was difficult to stop.

In the third year of Jiajing, Zhang Wenjin, the governor of Datong and the chief censor, implemented a cruel rule, which caused resistance from the army.

The main leaders of the mutiny were Guo Jian, Liu Zhong, Chen Hao, Hu Xiong, Guo Bazi and others. They raised fire as a signal at night, killed the corrupt official Zhang Wenjin, opened the warehouse, distributed food, smashed the prison, released prisoners, and occupied Datong City.

Nine years later, Zhu Zhen, who had been the general of Shanyin, organized Wang Fusheng and other soldier leaders to launch a mutiny in Datong, burned the general's mansion, and the general Li Dao committed suicide.

The court sent Governor Liu Yuanqing and General Gao Yong to lead troops to suppress it. The Ming army stationed in Jule and used a trick to trap Zhu Zhen, who committed suicide.

Then, the Ming army arrested and killed more than 30 people including Wang Fusheng before quelling the mutiny.

Since Emperor Jiajing ascended the throne, a mutiny every two or three years seems to have become an iron law. In addition to the constant changes in the location, from Liaodong Town to Gansu Town from east to west, the scale is also large and small, but mutiny seems to have become commonplace.

The Nine Frontiers were not peaceful during those years. They were either fighting with the Mongolian Tartars or the soldiers of the garrisons rioting over pay. However, the soldiers rioting over pay in the center of the empire, such as Nanjing City, was something that Emperor Jiajing had never thought of.

In his opinion, it should be the result of the collective embezzlement and corruption of officials, who ate up most of the military pay and finally distributed too little silver to the soldiers. Especially since Nanzhili suffered from disasters from last year to this year, the soldiers had a hard time.

Emperor Jiajing knew about the embezzlement of officials, but what could he do?

Kill a group of them, and the officials who replaced them would continue to be corrupt.

What else could he do? He could only choose capable corrupt officials to do things.

After all, the decisions of the court needed to be implemented by the people below. People could not be fired because of corruption, and in the end, there would be no clean people to do things.

Emperor Jiajing was actually desperate about the integrity of his officials.

But from today's perspective, it is a little different from what he thought. This matter is really the responsibility of Ma Kun and Huang Maoguan, who were too harsh on the soldiers.

As the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue Minister Cai Kelian did not perform his duties. Although he was ill, he made such a big mistake, and he could not just shirk it.

"The edict dismisses Kelian, orders Kun to retire, and dismisses Youji and Qian to become civilians. Jue, Shou and others are retained, and they are suspended from salary and serve as officials according to the regulations. They are ordered to report themselves.

The general, commander Zhang Peng and other 29 people were demoted and arrested."

After considering all the situations, Emperor Jiajing issued an edict, dismissing Nanjing Ministry of Revenue Minister Cai Kelian, ordering the current Ministry of Revenue Minister Ma Kun to retire, and Nanjing Yuanwailang Fang Youji and the chief An Qian to become civilians.

As for the more than 20 people from the Zhenwu Camp who had been arrested, they were convicted according to the law. They were all military households, so how could they be exiled? In the end, they were still forced to serve as military households, which meant that they were individually requested to be demoted.

These are the people who were dealt with, while others, such as the eunuch He Shou, the garrison eunuch, and Xu Pengju, the garrison of Nanjing, were only suspended from their salaries and retained.

"Send the order to the cabinet to let the cabinet discuss and nominate the candidate for the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue."

Ma Kun resigned, but the Ministry of Revenue cannot be without a person in charge, and the Minister of Revenue cannot be in charge of the seal of the Ministry of Revenue for a long time. Either he should be promoted or someone should be arranged to take over, so deciding the candidate for the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue is also a top priority.

Huang Jin bowed slightly, "As ordered."

Gao Zhong, who was below, held the edict that had just been written in both hands and sent it to the imperial case, waiting for Emperor Jiajing to read it, and after confirming that it was correct, it would be issued to the outer court.

A dozen days later, Wei Guangde, who was stranded in Nanjing, accompanied the Nanjing officials to receive the imperial edict from the capital.

The content of the imperial edict to be read was consistent with the conclusion they reached after their previous discussion, and they were all consequences they could bear, so everyone seemed a little excited after kneeling to receive the imperial edict and standing up.

Of course, there was also a lonely person, that is, Cai Kelian, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing. He had hoped to retire in this position instead of being dismissed, but it was fate and luck that ultimately prevented him from returning home after retirement.

He sighed in his heart and touched his gray hair with some disinterest. The official hat was taken away by the accompanying Jinyiwei when the angel of the imperial edict issued the decree. He was no longer an official and could not even enjoy the treatment of official retirement. He was dismissed.

Fortunately, he won a qualification of a juren for his children and a title of a scholar. With these things, his family can still be called a local gentry and will not be silent because of his resignation.

At this time, the dignitaries in Nanjing were all complimenting the angel of the imperial edict. After all, it was hard enough to go south to convey the imperial edict at this time. Only Cai Kelian walked out of the crowd with his head down and walked towards home.

Wei Guangde was also a little embarrassed at this time. He was surrounded by people and stood in the crowd, and he didn't know how to deal with the eunuch opposite.

Now Wei Guangde has become an imperial envoy after receiving the imperial decree. As the saying goes, one thing does not trouble two masters. Since there is a ready-made imperial envoy in Nanjing, Beijing did not send anyone south again, and directly appointed Wei Guangde as the imperial envoy to supervise the trial of the soldiers who mutinied in the Zhenwu Camp.

In fact, the so-called trial is just a formality, and everyone has already discussed how to deal with it.

What made Wei Guangde a little embarrassed was that the angel who delivered the imperial decree this time was Chen Ju.

In the past, Wei Guangde was naturally happy to see Chen Ju lead the imperial envoy, but now his mentality is a bit subtle.

In the past year, Chen Ju's intentional alienation was naturally felt by him, and he didn't even give a reason. Until this time before going south, Chen Ju went to his house again for a meal. In addition to conveying the secret decree of Emperor Jiajing, he shook his head and kept silent.

"Sir Wei, please take care of me this time, and complete the imperial envoy as soon as possible, so that we can return to Beijing as soon as possible."

At this time, Chen Ju bowed to Wei Guangde.