Chapter 343 The fate of corrupt officials

After the Lantern Festival, the salt officials from Jiangnan who were on Li Zhao's blacklist, as well as the officials from the Six Ministries in Nanjing, were all escorted back to Beijing by Ning Yuan.

After the festivities of the New Year are over, it’s time for the emperor to settle accounts.

This gang of huge corrupt people has never had any trouble before, just because the officials protect each other.

Now that the emperor and his courtiers have become emperors, the protective umbrella that these Jiangnan officials once had has fallen by themselves. With no one to help them cover up, their dirty deeds can naturally be found out with a quick investigation.

It didn't even take the officials of the Sanfa Division to investigate as hard as they could. Just what Wang Shengtao had handed over to Li Zhao was enough to convict them.

Although the crimes were serious crimes, the cabinet ministers headed by Song Jianming advised the emperor not to kill too harshly.

After all, it was the first year of the Apocalypse. It was too late for other emperors to offer amnesty to the whole world in their own first year, let alone a massacre.

Counting the list and calculating the number of people, if all three tribes were barbarized, the total would add up to more than 30,000 people!

He was as good as Taizu when he killed corrupt officials.

In later generations, Li Ji could figure out what was written in these history books without Song Jianming having to tell him.

Originally, Li Ji didn't mind those false reputations.

It doesn't matter if the history books call him a tyrant seeking to usurp the throne.

Zhao'er once told him that it is one thing what is written in the history books. What is the price of food, the population, the amount of arable land, and whether the people live happily? These are not things that one or two literati can fake.

If he wants to be a Saint King, he can't be as hypocritical as his father. In the end, he only deceived himself to get those titles. Everyone below him knows what's going on.

Very boring.

But Song Jianming's suggestion does make some sense.

On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, Eunuch Wang hurriedly called Li Zhao to the palace to discuss the matter.

Li Zhao has been staying in his mansion these past few days and is dating Song Qingyue. The Chinese New Year period is almost like the "honeymoon" that Yue'er mentioned. He feels as if he is soaking in a honey jar.

Li Zhao reluctantly got on the soft sedan that entered the palace. He held his chin and thought about whether he could ask his father to give him more holidays. He said that there was a story in the history books about the dizzy king who spent all day in the gentle countryside and forgot about it.

Jiangshan Sheji is suddenly not incomprehensible.

This son of his is not a son, he is the emperor’s father’s workhorse!

When I arrived at the palace, I realized that it was my father who had trouble dealing with the huge corruption in Jiangnan.

"Look at how much money they are greedy for and what they have done. It is more than enough to destroy all three of them." The emperor held the bergamot tea in his hand, still unable to suppress his anger: "Song Jianming said that it is not appropriate to kill people in the first year of Tianqi.

Zhong, what do you think of Zhao'er?"

Li Zhao thought carefully and said slowly: "Some officials are greedy on their own initiative, and some officials are forced to be greedy. When it comes to corruption, there are probably not a few people in the whole court who are really good at everything. Most of them are.

For the sake of fame and reputation, my father killed those in Jiangnan, but what about those elsewhere?"

The emperor raised his eyebrows: "You mean the law does not punish the public?"

Li Zhao raised his lips and smiled, saying: "No, let them choose."

The corrupt officials who were locked up in the prison thought that their heads could not be saved.

Unexpectedly, the emperor actually let them choose.

There are two options. The first is to behead. All the men from the father's clan, the brother's clan, and the son's clan will be beheaded. The female family members will be distributed to the frontiers and to the military households.

The second option is to protect the heads of men from three tribes, including their own heads. However, the three tribes also need to add five tribes, including the wife tribe and mother tribe. The men will have to work hard for twenty years and have their property confiscated for five generations.

He was disqualified from the imperial examination and published the crime in the Di newspaper to inform the whole Zhou Dynasty.

It's nothing to do hard labor, it's nothing to confiscate family property, but it's the disqualification of the imperial examination within five generations that scares people the most. This is the day when you can live, but the whole family will not be able to turn around.

But if you don't choose this way, all your own clan will lose their lives, and no one will be able to continue their incense in the future.

I still take my wife's clan and my mother's clan to suffer together.

On the twentieth day of the first lunar month, Jiang Yuanchao went to the prison for questioning.

"My lords, have you chosen?"

"Master Jiang, if one person does something, we will be responsible for it! Your Majesty is forcing us to be the sinners of the family!"

Jiang Yuanchao sneered: "Your Majesty said, you can feel sorry for the people, the court, and the emperor with peace of mind, but you can't be sorry for the family alone. How is it?"

The ministers were instantly speechless.

"My lords, make plans early. Your Majesty's patience only lasts until the end of the first month. If you don't make a decision after the first month, you will be punished as well."

As soon as the first lunar month passed, just when the people in the capital thought that the emperor was going to start killing those corrupt officials, there was no movement at Caishikou.

After all, people are all selfish. How can a group of people who have no burden to rip off the common people would rather die than protect their wives and mother clan?

There is a group of fair-skinned, well-toned men around the capital with sad faces. Under the supervision of Jin Yiwei, they build roads, build city walls, and haul goods; or they clean the public toilets in the capital, and some are responsible for cleaning up horse manure and horses on the streets every day.

Urine.

There are even more places to employ people outside the capital.

Mining coal, mining, building roads, transporting grain and grass, building forts, even building ships, repairing ports...

There are too many places employing people now, so it would be a pity to kill them.

The common people looked at the formerly aloof officials now lying on the cement road shoveling horse shit. Some pointed and some laughed.

Faced with such ridicule and insults, some brothers-in-law and brother-in-law started fighting on the spot, and some uncles and nephews started fighting on the spot.

The people saw it more happily.

did you see?

The fate of corrupt officials!

I don't know if it hurts a lot, but it is extremely insulting.

The female relatives of prisoners were all converted into military households and sent directly to various guards to get married.

The difficulty in getting married among military households has always been a big problem. In the past, Li Zhao had discussed the disadvantages of the military household system with his father.

But at this stage, the military household system cannot be abolished immediately.

When the soldiers in the firearms battalion mature in the future, the number of troops can be reduced and the military household system can be gradually changed to the camp system.

As for this house raid, the emperor actually obtained more than seven million taels of silver and recovered tens of thousands of hectares of land, which is simply shocking.

The emperor was so happy that he rewarded Lao Wu with a total of two hundred thousand taels of silver!

After that, he gave Lao Wu and Lao Liu the authority to inspect the censor, and asked the two boys to go out of the capital to have a look.

By the way, they inspected local affairs and said that if they found any major cases again and made great contributions, they would be promoted to the title of county king. In addition, they also sent several senior officials from the Metropolitan Procuratorate with good reputations and uprightness to give the two men respectively.

A prince acted as a master and followed them to inspect local areas.

Lao Liu is responsible for Shandong and Liaodong, and Lao Wu is responsible for Hebei and Henan.

Lao Wu was kidnapped once and suffered a lot. He didn't want to go out to investigate the case again. But under the huge temptation of being promoted to a noble title, he still asked the servants around him to pack his luggage and get ready to set off with high morale!

The eldest daughter of the third child, Li Chang, is almost one year old. She was born when Song Qingyue was a nun. She is the first granddaughter of His Majesty the current emperor.

In addition, during the New Year, the imperial doctor found out that one of the officials, Dian Yi, was also pregnant. He originally wanted Dian Yi to beat the child, and wait until Guo Yun'er gave birth to his eldest son before asking his concubines to conceive.

But Guo Yun'er didn't agree, and tried her best to protect the prince's heir. She also said that the prince's children were all her children. She was the legitimate mother, and it was unreasonable for her to ask the prince to harm the heir.

The third child is very satisfied with the beauty of his wife and concubines, and longs for peace in his heart, and longs to be a salted fish!

As for the title, he thinks the county king is quite good. He has no higher aspirations, and he doesn't want to offend anyone.

He didn't want to be like the two stupid boys, the fifth and sixth, who thought that he was a prince and the officials below didn't dare to do anything to them.

The waters in officialdom are deep, sometimes deep enough to make a person do extremely evil things.

Isn’t Xiao Wu’s incident an example?

He was originally the county king, so the palace didn't need to be very grand, it just had to be enough to accommodate him.

Princess Guo Yuner has no objection to this.

Now the new house has been almost chosen, with 150,000 taels given by his father, 20,000 taels given by his grandfather, the banker, 20,000 taels given by the Guo family, and 10,000 taels of his own savings, adding up

Two hundred thousand taels is enough to buy a nice house outside the imperial city.

But there is no money left for decoration.

The third child, Li Chang, decided to shamelessly go to his eldest brother to show his loyalty and make some connections.

The fourth child, Li Min, is ambitious and unwilling to be just a bullshit shellfish king.

I recall that when his maternal grandfather was the Minister of Household Affairs, his mother, concubine and himself had very high status and remuneration in the palace.

But since Song Jianming came to Beijing, and since his sister-in-law Song Qingyue married into the palace, everything has changed.

After the 16th-year-old birthday party of the Crown Princess Song Qingyue, he fell from a high platform and was so depressed that even the cats and dogs in the house dared to bully him!

The scenery belongs to the elder brother and sister-in-law, why?!

Now that there is a rift between the eldest brother and his father, he must work harder to show his talents to his father.

He didn't catch the uncle, and he didn't dare to investigate. However, two months ago, he found out that an uncle was involved - Ouyang Sheng, Princess Jinyang's consort, was doing smuggling business on the northern border.
To be continued...