Zhang Siwei looked up at Hai Rui and forced a flattering smile:

“Xianzun, can you please save my life?”

“I promise, I will never do this again. People say that knowing one’s mistakes is the best way to improve. I just entered the officialdom, and I didn’t control myself at the beginning. I can’t completely lose my chance because of this, right?”

When Zhang Siwei asked Hai Rui about this, Hai Rui said coldly, “Don’t tell me these things. You didn’t control yourself from the beginning, and it will only get worse in the future! Moreover, you are so good at forbearing and hiding your evil deeds, and the trouble you leave behind will be even greater, more harmful than those who are evil openly!”

Zhang Siwei’s facial muscles twitched violently after hearing this, but he was unable to refute.

Next, Zhang Siwei was taken back to the Zhejiang Governor’s Office by soldiers sent by Hu Zongxian.

Not long after this, Sun Long’s family was also controlled by Hu Zongxian’s soldiers.

“it is good!”

After receiving the joint impeachment report from Hu Zongxian and Hai Rui against Zhang Siwei and Sun Long, Zhu Houcong could not help but applaud.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong said to Yan Song and Xu Jie: “Sure enough, the governors I selected are reliable.”

“Your Majesty is right. The population census will not be ineffective due to the laziness or greed of many local officials.”

“I believe that in the next five or six years, the number of Han people in the court will increase significantly. By then, the expansion of civilization will be easier and even become a natural thing to do.”

Yan Song then started talking and laughing.

“Zhang Siwei, Sun Long and other gentry involved in the case betrayed the country, stole national wealth, and were treasonous and disloyal. They should all be beheaded and thrown into the streets!”

“Their entire family was exiled to Luzon.”

Zhu Houcong agreed with Yan Song’s words and ordered the punishment of Zhang Siwei and his gang.

at the same time.

Zhu Houcong took out another secret report and said, “In addition, according to the secret report of Hangzhou prefect Ma Ningyuan, people in his prefectural office learned that the murderer who was caught by the Jinyiwei and murdered the sea mother and the sea woman had previously contacted Guo Duocai, a slave of Zhejiang Provincial Surveillance Commissioner He Maocai. However, Guo Duocai died suddenly recently and was secretly buried in the west of the city. People in his prefectural office dug him up, and he therefore suspected that it was He Maocai who murdered the sea mother and the sea woman. Moreover, he personally saw He Maocai and Zheng Michang discussing how to deal with the fact that Inspector Hai Rui was too serious.”

“Issue an order to dismiss Zheng Michang and He Maocai from their posts and bring them to Beijing!”

Having said that, Zhu Houcong issued an order to arrest He Maocai.

“Yes!”

Zhejiang.

Zheng Michang and He Maocai soon learned that the sea mother and the sea girl had been rescued by the Jinyiwei.

Zheng Michang therefore quickly called He Maocai over and asked, “Didn’t you serve a 20-year sentence? Why didn’t you do this well?”

“I didn’t expect that His Majesty would really care so much about a censor like Hai Rui.”

“But don’t worry, the people who did this don’t know it was us, and the people I sent have already committed suicide.”

“Now this will just become a mystery.”

After He Maocai said this, he also began to comfort Zheng Michang.

Zheng Michang nodded thoughtfully, but his brows were still frowned. He wanted to open his mouth to say something to He Maocai, but in the end he closed his mouth again.

He Maocai couldn’t help but ask Zheng Michang when he saw this: “Old Zheng, what do you want to say?”

Zheng Michang smiled and said, “I originally wanted to say that you must be extremely careful and implement the policy seriously, but after thinking about it, there is no need to say more. You will understand.”

After hearing this, He Maocai just sighed and said with emotion: “Your Majesty is really willing to spend money to cultivate his own Jinyiwei.”

“Who made Your Majesty so rich now?”

“But more importantly, it was common for people to abandon orphans and children before this.”

“To put it bluntly, everything is mutually reinforcing. The more we oppress the people, the easier it will be for Your Majesty to build up his own power.”

Zheng Michang said with a miserable smile.

He Maocai couldn’t help but ask: “Why are you starting to blame the officials and gentry?”

“I’m just telling the truth. Everyone wants to be a superior person, but in the end no one is a human being. This is unavoidable.”

Zheng Michang said with emotion.

He Maocai chuckled: “Of course what you said makes sense, but who would think so much when they become an official? Aren’t they all thinking about how to rise to prominence? In my opinion, there is no solution! You can only take it one step at a time. If you really can’t do it, you can just resign and go overseas to be a master!”

“This may be the best way, and the only way Your Majesty allows.”

Zheng Michang said with a sigh.

Soon after, He Maocai came to Zheng Michang again and said, “Have you heard that Zhang Siwei and the Yuyao Sun family were arrested? The reason was that the Sun family mined minerals privately and bribed the trial censor Zhang Siwei. They were arrested and impeached by the governor and the provincial governor.”

After hearing this, Zheng Michang stood up suddenly and looked at He Maocai. After a while, he said meaningfully: “Hu Zongxian, Hai Rui and others are counterattacking!”

“Yes, there are always such troublemakers among the scholars. It seems that this position is really unbearable. Let’s resign.”

He Maocai echoed.

Zheng Michang nodded, and then said: “But if you want to resign, you can’t do it now. If you resign now, it will be considered that you are dissatisfied with the new policy of the census.”

“Too!”

However, that night, Zheng Michang also made a secret report, reporting that He Maocai had discussed with him about framing Hai Mu and Hai Nu. He had flatly dissuaded He Maocai from doing so, but later learned about the matter, so he made a secret report to the emperor, expressing his suspicion that He Maocai had done it, and apologized for not reporting before that He Maocai was dissatisfied with Hai Rui and wanted to do something illegal.

After Zheng Michang submitted this secret memorial, he heaved a sigh of relief and said to himself, “I hope this will save me from death. Otherwise, I will have to worry secretly that Hu Zongxian and Hai Rui will know my secrets and report them to the emperor, which is not a good thing.”

Shortly after Zheng Michang submitted this secret memorial, the Jinyiwei took the imperial edict to the Zhejiang Provincial Surveillance Office and arrested He Maocai.

He Maocai was completely stunned.

He soon realized that it was his colleagues who were backstabbing him.

“Who the hell is so despicable? Am I the only one who becomes an official just to live a comfortable and easy life?”

“Are you really like Hai Rui and his people who also want to do things for the people and become saints? Do you hate people like me who haven’t truly become saints?”

When He Maocai was being escorted to the prison van, he couldn’t help but yell for this.

Then, He Maocai burst into tears when he saw Zheng Michang was also arrested. He said to Zheng Michang, “Old Zheng, there is a bad guy among our colleagues!”

Zheng Michang only sighed: “They are not bad people, they are just trying to protect themselves!”

When Zheng Michang and He Maocai were escorted to Beijing, Zhu Houcong received a secret report in which Zheng Michang sued He Maocai.

“Very good!”

“Because of the existence of bureaucrats like Hu Zongxian and Hai Rui, all bureaucrats are in danger. In this way, I don’t even need to take action myself to achieve the goal of clarifying the administration of officials.”

Zhu Houcong talked about this to Yan Song and Xu Jie with a smile.

“This is because Your Majesty has appointed the right people and has the people in his heart, so officials who have the people in their heart like Your Majesty can take power and ensure that the entire officialdom will not be in chaos and completely out of control.” Yan Song responded with a smile and said, “Your Majesty, I ask that you show leniency to officials like Zheng Michang who took the initiative to expose the situation, and not hold him accountable for not reporting He Maocai’s situation. This will encourage officials across the country to reduce their guilt by informing on each other, making it more difficult for officials across the country to trust each other and naturally difficult to form private parties.”

When Yan Song said this, Xu Jie couldn’t help but glance at Yan Song.

Zhu Houcong nodded and said, “That’s right!”

It is said that when He Maocai was escorted to Beijing and was tried by the three judicial officials, he found out that Ma Ningyuan and Zheng Michang had betrayed him one after another, and the emperor learned that he might be involved in the murder of Hai Rui’s mother and daughter.

“Shameless!”

He Maocai couldn’t help but yell in the trial hall.

“I didn’t expect you two to be so mean!”

“Especially you, Zheng Michang!”

He Maocai is quite popular.

However, He Maocai still denied what he had done and said that the sudden death of his servant was not reported due to momentary negligence.

In response to this, the Three Judicial Departments also had their own way of dealing with it, and that very night He Maocai was killed suddenly in the prison of the Censorate.

As for Zheng Michang, he was dismissed from his post and pardoned because he realized his mistake in time.

As for Zhang Siwei, Sun Long and others, they were executed openly.

When Zhang Siwei was taken to the execution ground, he still refused to believe that this was true, so he struggled and shouted, “This is not true, I can’t be like this!”

Zhang Siwei didn’t shut his mouth until the moment the big knife fell.

Sun Long felt quite unlucky.

He didn’t expect that Hai Rui was not only loyal to the court, but also so treacherous.

“Hai Rui! I’m waiting for you in the underworld! Waiting for you!”

to this end.

Sun Long shouted like this before he was beheaded.

The deaths of Zhang Siwei, Sun Long, He Maocai, and the exoneration of Zheng Michang made the entire Ming officialdom even more insecure.

As a result, many officials no longer dare to hold private gatherings or say much to their colleagues in public, even those with whom they have a close personal relationship. However, they have to be more serious in doing their work.

“Don’t give me reasons. I don’t want to hear them. If you can do it, do it. If you can’t do it, resign!”

“Also, if I or the governor and the Imperial Guard find out that single-parent families and families with multiple children in your area have not received the money, then if you want to keep your dignity, you should be prepared to resign on your own. Don’t really ask me to dismiss you from office!”

Tan Lun, the military governor of Fujian, gathered all the officials of the prefectures and counties under his jurisdiction and gave them a lecture.

Jianning prefect Chen Shun said: “But the people in the countryside live in scattered places, especially in mountainous areas. How can we be 100% sure that there is not a single-parent family or a family with many children who did not receive the money?”

“What Prefect Chen said makes sense. Then let’s do this. Each prefecture and county will compete with each other. Whoever leaves out more single-parent and multi-child families will voluntarily resign!”

Tan Lun said at this time.

After hearing this, the officials had different expressions.

Chen Shun gritted his teeth, and finally stretched out his hands to take off the black hat on his head: “I resign!”

“very good!”

“I’m sure.”

Tan Lun said.

Chen Shun was also furious for a moment, and complained: “Doing this is basically forcing officials to death!”

Tan Lun just smiled faintly.

By doing this, he was indeed putting the local officials under great pressure.

But he didn’t think there was anything wrong with doing so.

After all, if one dislikes the court being too harsh, he can simply not be an official and not hold power.

However, most prefects and county magistrates did not resign because of this.

It’s not that they don’t have complaints, they are all very conscious, but the idea of ​​officialism is too deeply rooted in people’s minds, and they can’t just give up their official positions and leave. Besides, they also know that doing anything else besides being an official would be even more undignified, unless they go overseas to be masters, but that involves the issue of making a living overseas, which requires a great determination.

Therefore, most prefects and county magistrates decided to work harder as long as they were not the last one and could keep their official positions and even get promoted in the future.

As a result, the national policy of conducting a population census and using it to help reward single-parent and large-child families has undergone a drastic change in the implementation process.

Logically, in order to distribute this money, each county should first collect travel fees from the people. After all, this era is not the future, and it is not possible to directly deposit the money into every household’s card.

However, because many people generally do not trust the government, when the government comes to collect travel expenses, the people are unwilling to believe it and would rather not accept the so-called subsidies and reward money.

As a result, the county governments had to bear the expenses themselves and gave up collecting them.

Many people would even run and hide when they saw the officials, like mice seeing a cat.

Therefore, some counties, especially those in mountainous areas, had to pay out of their own pockets to organize activities to distribute rice and salt in order to attract the people who loved the bargains, and then implement this national policy.

This not only increased the workload of local government offices, but also increased their financial burden, causing the local retained money and grain to be consumed quickly. Some local government offices even began to borrow money to maintain themselves.

Zhu Houcong also knew about this problem, and specifically discussed this matter with Yan Song and Xu Jie, the two ministers of the Imperial Study.

“Now that the local government has retained it, the biggest expense is still supplying the royal family.”

“Would it be better if the clan was relocated?”

Zhu Houcong put forward his own ideas for this.

“The problem can be solved by relocating the clan members, but I am afraid that if it is done, it will increase the burden on the local areas. If there are vassal kings who are unwilling to relocate and simply take risks and gather people to cause chaos, it will be even worse.”

“Therefore, I think we should be cautious and move forward slowly, by encouraging the clan to relocate.”

Yan Song said at this time.

Zhu Houcong nodded and signaled Yan Song to continue.

Yan Song continued, “We can formulate a policy for the princes below the rank of prince to be promoted when they go abroad, not to punish those who commit crimes when they go abroad, and to increase the tax exemption when they go abroad! This way, we can first let the people in the royal family take the initiative to request to go abroad, so as to achieve the effect of spreading the word from one point to another.”

Zhu Houcong looked at Xu Jie and asked, “What do you think, Lord Xu?”

Xu Jie forced a smile and said, “I think what Yuan Fu said is a mature and wise statement for the country! The relocation of the vassal kings will benefit the future generations, but it is indeed better to let the vassal kings take the initiative and not force them too much!”

“If this is the case, why not summon a few princes to Beijing to discuss the matter and let them take charge of it, so that they don’t worry that even if they are willing to go out, the court will not give them a good place!”

“Your Majesty is absolutely right!” (End of this chapter)