Those Things in the Ming Dynasty Part 1 The Great Emperor Hongwu _ Chapter 19 The empty seal case of Guo Huan
This is an unjust case, but its wide impact and scope are truly rare.
Let's first talk about the time when this case occurred. According to the "Criminal Law Chronicles", the case occurred in the fifteenth year of Hongwu. However, according to the records of the parties involved in the case, the real time of the case was in the ninth year of Hongwu (1376). The current time is
The problem has not yet been confirmed, so this article adopts the theory from the ninth year of Hongwu.
The reason for the case is this: The Ming Dynasty stipulated that each locality must send people to the Ministry of Revenue to report local financial accounts, and the local accounts must be completely consistent with the review by the Ministry of Accounts before the local financial plan for this year can be completed. If it is not correct
Even if it is just a number, the accounts must be filled in again. What is even more embarrassing is that all the rewritten account books must be stamped with the seal of the original Yamen to be valid.
This rule may not seem difficult to enforce now, but it was difficult at the time.
You must know that there were no highways or railways at that time. Each prefecture and county had to send envoys to the capital with account books. The first condition for these envoys was to be in good health, because the journey was very hard, and there were no cars or trains for you to take.
You have to ride a horse, ride a boat, ride a horse again, and at some point you may even do some mountaineering.
For example, if you are an official in a certain place in Guangxi, it will take you a month or two at the earliest to get to the capital. Even if you set off on the first day of the new year, it will be at least early spring or March when you arrive in the capital. With sweating profusely, you run to the Ministry of Finance to check
, one number is wrong.
Okay, don't say anything. Brother, just ride back. I'll wait for you.
So I ran all the way again, first on horseback, then on a boat, and then went back to change the account books and stamp the official seal. I'm going!
Four months have passed, and it's summer in a blink of an eye. I rush to the capital and meet again.
Brother, you are finally here. I have been waiting for you for a long time. Come on.
This person is unlucky. After checking, I found that there was still something wrong. Don't say anything. Just go back. Remember to wear more clothes next time you come here. It's very cold in winter!
So I rushed back, rushed back, and this time I checked, but it's almost the second year, so don't go back, just spend the New Year here, it's time to make plans again.
The basic situation is like this. No one can bear it if it is always like this. After analysis, the officials found that the key problem lies in the sealing process, because paper and pen are readily available. If the account book is wrong, it can be corrected, but the seal cannot be changed.
You brought it, and you took away the seal. Officials can't engrave official documents with carrots. At that time, few people dared to do the business of privately engraving official seals on the streets, so they came up with an idea and brought the seals prepared in advance.
Wouldn’t it be enough to just use a blank document with a seal?
In this way, carrying empty printed documents became an unwritten rule at that time, and everyone in the court knew it, except for one person.
Unfortunately, this person is Zhu Yuanzhang.
In the ninth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly discovered this so-called secret. Under his nose, officials actually dared to do these tricks!
He was furious and thought he had been taken advantage of, so he sent officials to conduct a detailed investigation into the matter.
It is said that this problem is not difficult to explain as long as there is an investigation. In fact, even the officials he sent to investigate knew the ins and outs of the whole matter. However, a strange phenomenon occurred. Everyone knew the cause of the matter, but no one said it.
.
So there was such a funny scene. The official who asked the question also knew it, and the official who answered it also knew it. Only Zhu Yuanzhang didn't know.
This phenomenon is not difficult to explain - officials are afraid.
If you write a letter to defend yourself, you will most likely be considered an accomplice or a cover-up. Who can afford to take the blame?
At this moment, a brave man stood up. What is admirable is that he was not an official in office, but just an ordinary student; to a certain extent, he was just a common man.
Zheng Shili’s blunt words
This man's name is Zheng Shili. He has no background or any backing. He just relies on his own courage to tell the truth.
He wrote a long letter to Zhu Yuanzhang using the channel through which civilians could directly submit letters at that time. This letter is also very famous in history. In the letter, Zheng Shili clearly pointed out: The blank seal used to seal the document was a seam seal, not a single seal.
The paper is printed, but the money and food figures are different and must be checked one by one, so it is difficult to determine. This explains the reason for the blank printing.
In fact, Zheng Shili not only dared to speak out, but was also a smart man. He estimated that Zhu Yuanzhang might be ashamed to admit his mistakes, so at the end of the article, he excused Zhu Yuanzhang and wrote: In fact, you are also doing it for the good of the people. You are afraid that corrupt officials will take the opportunity to misappropriate these things.
Empty printing paper is used to harm the people (for fear that traitors will take the empty printing paper and use it for writing to abuse the people). You are also doing it for the good of the people.
According to Zheng Shili's meaning, you are right, Your Majesty the Emperor, and so are the ministers. Of course, I am right, too, and everyone is right. Misunderstanding, misunderstanding!
Zhu Yuanzhang's reward for him was to send him to a labor camp.
Because Zheng Shili took Zhu Yuanzhang too simply. Zhu Yuanzhang was not a confused person, nor was he unwilling to admit his mistakes. In fact, from his countless ears and eyes, he could easily know the truth. If he could not even understand this problem,
If you don't understand clearly, the world in the Ming Dynasty will not have the surname Zhu.
So why did he punish these officials?
The real reason lies in his heart.
Zhu Yuanzhang has never trusted those officials, which is inseparable from his childhood experience. He has a deep understanding of these officials' ability to practice favoritism and malpractice. In his opinion, these people are unreliable, even if these officials are now working for
He works.
Comprehensive analysis from all aspects, the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang was so deeply touched by the empty seal case was because he believed that these officials despised his power and dared to seal it privately without asking him for instructions. This was a contempt for his authority.
What a coward! You actually use your power just to be lazy. Today you put your seal on the document without my permission. If I allow you, you will put the seal on my head tomorrow! I won’t punish you.
It doesn't work anymore.
Zheng Shili was punished to do hard labor. As an ordinary person, he did not have the opportunity to see the majesty of the royal family and was not blessed to enjoy the glory of being an official. He had nothing, but he accomplished his personal feats with his own courage. Because of his heroic behavior,
This ordinary person who was neither a relative of the emperor nor a famous minister or general was recorded in the "History of the Ming Dynasty".
In his "History of Ming Dynasty: Biography of Zheng Shili", what we see is courage.
Such people will never be forgotten by us.
Compared with those officials who were convicted in the empty seal case, Zheng Shili was lucky.
Now that the case has been determined, the next step is to impose penalties. The problem is that almost all prefectures and counties across the country have the phenomenon of blank seals. We cannot kill all prefecture and county officials.
This is another difficult problem, but there seems to be no problem that Zhu Yuanzhang cannot solve.
He could always do things that others would never think of. Others thought it would be impossible for him to kill all the officials involved in the case, but he really did so.
Officials, no matter where you are, whether it is the end of the world or the corners of the sea, mountains or plains, prosperous or desolate environment, your treatment will be exactly the same.
Before we announce the punishment results, let us first talk about the administrative structure of the country at that time. There were 13 provinces, more than 140 prefectures, and more than 1,000 counties in the country. Many officials in these provinces, prefectures, and counties were related to the blank seal case.
.
The punishments were as follows: all the chief seal officials were killed, and the deputies were beaten with a hundred sticks and sent to the army. In addition, many of the officials in the provincial inspection and envoy departments were convicted because of poor supervision.
This is a veritable sweep. We usually fight over who has the highest official position, but now it's better. You can still serve as a soldier if you hold a deputy position, but you have to lose your head if you hold a full-time position. It is true that the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility.
In this Kongyin case, many good officials with reputations for integrity were also killed. The most famous one was Fang Xiaoru, a loyal minister through the ages, and his father, Fang Keqin.
He couldn't bear to eat too much, and his clothes were full of patches. Just because he was the chief seal officer, he lost his head in a daze.
But it should be noted that the number of officials killed in the Kongyin case is controversial. Some historical data record that tens of thousands of people died. This is probably inaccurate because Zhu Yuanzhang only dealt with the officials who held the seal, and he did not kill the deputies.
Zhu Yuanzhang was not the murderer that people imagined. He had a clear political mind. He would not do such stupid things as killing all the officials.
A comprehensive analysis of the Kongyin case shows that this case actually has little to do with the fight against corruption. A workaround adopted by officials due to work convenience turned into a major case. And everyone knows it
It is worthy of our deep thought that Zhu Yuanzhang continued to handle the case even when someone wrote a letter explaining the truth.
Zhu Yuanzhang's behavior can probably be explained by a sentence shouted by the yamen servant when Qin Shubao entered the cell in "Speaking of the Tang Dynasty": "If you enter the prison, I will beat you with a hundred kills first to see if you are honest!"
This is the power of the killing stick.
The scale and pomp of the Kongyin case can only be regarded as the younger brother among the four major Hongwu cases. The following case is considered the eldest brother level, and that is where it really goes, sweeping away everything.
Guo Huan case
This case is different from the previous case. There is indeed a corruption problem in it, but the breadth of involvement and the magnitude of the impact are indeed rare in corruption cases, and there are indeed many doubts in this case.
What happened is this. In March of the eighteenth year of Hongwu (1385), Yu Min and Ding Tingju, the imperial censors, reported to the Chief Envoy of Peking, Zhao Quande, the official of the Inspection Envoy and others, and Guo Huan, the Minister of Household Affairs, for conspiring to embezzle. In "Da Gao" edited by Zhu Yuanzhang
"" lists the methods and amounts of Guo Huan's corruption in detail, which is really shocking. We need to list them (please read carefully, there are doubts). His corruption behaviors include:
First, Guo Huan secretly divided the taxes of Taiping, Zhenjiang and other prefectures, which means that Zhu Yuanzhang did not receive the money and food from these places, and all was swallowed up by Guo Huan secretly;
Second, Guo Huan privately divided the autumn grain in western Zhejiang. The specific figures are as follows. The money and grain in western Zhejiang that year was 4.5 million shi. Guo Huan only gave Zhu Yuanzhang more than 2 million shi, and he kept the rest for himself.
;
Third, when collecting taxes, Guo Huan and others used clever names and creatively collected a variety of taxes, including water money, cart money, food money, treasury money, cattail money, bamboo basket money, god and Buddha money, etc.
.
The final calculation of the total ledger revealed that he and his companions had embezzled more than 24 million shi of grain.
From this point of view, Guo Huan was indeed bold. He colluded with other officials to commit corruption. Zhu Yuanzhang did not let go of his accomplices. So who were Guo Huan's accomplices? After Zhu Yuanzhang's investigation, most of the officials in the Six Ministries became
Guo Huan’s accomplice!
They include Zhao Mao, the Minister of Rites (Etiquette and Law), Wang Huidi, the Minister of the Ministry of Justice (Ministry of Justice), Wang Zhi, the Minister of the Ministry of War (Ministry of Defense), Mai Zhide, the Minister of the Ministry of Industry (Construction), etc. Please note that this list is very long. According to the "Criminal Law"
According to records in the Chronicle, at that time, in addition to the senior officials listed above, all officials below the rank of deputy minister (deputy minister) in the six ministries were killed.
This means that in each of the six ministries at that time, except for one minister (minister) and two ministers (deputy ministers) (except those listed above), all the officials were killed. The ministers at that time were really
He became the polished commander. The officials fell into fear. The first words they said when meeting would be: "How many of you died today?"
In fact, there was no need to answer this question later on, because there were only three people left in a department at most.
These are central officials, as well as local handling officials. The grain is sent from the province. Going down to the prefectures and counties, and further down from the prefectures and counties, there are the so-called rich households and grain chiefs. These people are also
Most of them were killed.
A total of more than 30,000 people were killed in this case. The result was that "most of the middle-class families were destroyed", which can be regarded as the entire imperial court was wiped out.
From this point of view, we have to admire the officials who survived the Guo Huan case. It is not easy. How come you were missed?
The above list is the record of historical data, which is what we call the crime scene. Please note that not all historical data are credible. There are many contradictory among these data, just like there will be many generals at the scene of the murder.
The same clues that lead you astray.
But as long as you analyze carefully, you can find out the truth.
In fact, a very important job for historians is to find the truth from these conflicting information and solve the mystery. The most important tool for solving the case is also a very important principle in history, which is stance.
All books have a stance, and all stances have tendencies. I believe that if it were not self-abuse, there would still be a minority of people who would write books to criticize themselves.
The doubts about this case lie in the above-mentioned facts, and there are at least two:
First, there should be some problems with the amount of corruption.
Everyone must know that the Ming Dynasty's annual income at that time was only more than 24 million shi of grain. When Zhu Yuanzhang had just dealt with Hu Weiyong and had already set up a royal guard, Guo Huan was only a minister. How could Baotian dare to do such a reckless thing?
, the amount of corruption is actually as much as the annual income of the Ming Dynasty?
Moreover, as we have introduced before, the anti-corruption efforts at that time were so great that corrupt officials fled after hearing the news. Even if they were in a remote area, they would be accused of corruption during the day and at night. Guo Huan and others were right under Zhu Yuanzhang's nose, and countless spies came and went every day.
, his brother actually dares to embezzle public food from several provinces?!
Since Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the position of Prime Minister, he has also personally handled many small matters. If millions of stones of grain were not put into the warehouse, Zhu Yuanzhang would have jumped up and cursed people. Why wait until the censor reported it?
Second, if we look at the famous corruption cases in history, we will find that in fact, for corruption, the fewer people, the better. It is safer and more money is distributed. Guo Huan is just a minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and he wants to embezzle food
How could he cooperate with people from the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Punishment, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of Officials? Could it be that he felt that too few people knew about his corruption and wanted to advertise for himself?
In any case, Guo Huan has achieved great success. For a small minister, the number of his comrades actually broke the record held by Prime Minister Hu Weiyong.
Although this record is not glorious.
Taken together, there are a lot of doubts about this case, but this does not mean that the case is a fiction. Guo Huan's corruption is very likely to exist, but the amount is not so large, and the so-called accomplices are not so
That's all, otherwise why would Zhu Yuanzhang not look for Zhang San and Li Si, but instead look for you Guo Huan?
The Guo Huan case finally ended. Ironically, the last person killed in the case was the presiding judge of the case, Wu Yong, the right judge who killed countless officials.
After this series of major cases, the officials in the DPRK were frightened and worried about their heads every day. Some good people made fun of these officials, saying that if Zhu Yuanzhang went to court with the jade belt tied under his belly, he would kill someone. If the jade belt was tied under his belly, he would kill someone.
On the belly, it means everything will be fine today.
If you judge this way, there will be problems. If one day Zhu Yuanzhang eats too much and his stomach is bloated, so he can only put the jade belt on his belly, and he is in a bad mood, the officials will suffer.
Historical records record that every day when officials go to court, they must hold a ceremony at the door of their home. What kind of ceremony is it? They dress neatly, hug their wives and children, explain clearly who owes me how much debt, and hide my private money under the bed.
, and then said goodbye and left, with his wife and children crying behind him. Except that he was still alive, it was no different from holding a memorial service.
When the court is over, my wife and children are waiting at the door of my house. If I see a living person coming home, I will celebrate grandly. The content of the celebration is that I have lived another day today.
These are not jokes, but real historical scenes. Under the extreme pressure of not knowing what will happen tomorrow, many officials could not bear it, and they all said that they thought their decades of study were in vain and would rather go home and farm.
I don’t want to be an official anymore, I’ll just go home to the head office.
Hum, it's not that easy. "A greedy and unlucky villain always slanders, saying that it's difficult for an official to be in the imperial court." Slandering the imperial court is another serious crime. So it's not a matter of leaving or staying, it's just "you said"
You want to escape, but you are destined to settle down."
The greatest thing about human beings is that they can always find ways to solve problems. The officials of the Ming Dynasty fully demonstrated this characteristic in this contradiction. They came up with a very unique method - pretending to be crazy.
In the court of the Hongwu period, it was common for a good person to suddenly suffer from mental illness. The specific manifestations were dementia, a dull look, disheveled hair, calling people dad when they saw them, and greeting people everywhere with a kitchen knife. The forms were various.
Of course, there is only one purpose - to live two more years.
Having said that, this trick is also good, and there was no such thing as mental appraisal at that time. As long as you can spend money and do any disgusting thing, you will definitely succeed.
Let’s take an example of a successful person who pretends to be crazy and has a strong will.
This unlucky (or lucky) man is called Yuan Kai, who is the supervisory censor. Once Zhu Yuanzhang assigned him a job and handed over the list of executed prisoners to Prince Zhu Biao. This should be a very simple job, but Yuan Kai
What I didn't expect was that my destiny would change like this.
He handed the list to the prince. The prince saw that there were too many people on the list and advocated leniency. But the problem was that he did not go to his father to say this himself. Instead, he told Yuan Kai to tell Zhu Yuanzhang his story.
Opinion.
Yuan Kai thought, just go. When he met Zhu Yuanzhang, he honestly told the prince what he said, kowtowed and prepared to leave. Unexpectedly, at this moment, Zhu Yuanzhang asked him: "The prince's opinion is opposite to mine, do you
Let’s see who is right?”
Damn it, am I a petty official meddling in the matter between you and your son? Yuan Kai was in a dilemma and had no choice but to come up with an answer: "The emperor is right and the prince is right. The emperor kills to maintain law and order.
The prince released the man out of kindness."
It’s too difficult for Yuan Kai.
Unexpectedly, Zhu Yuanzhang was furious after hearing this. He scolded Yuan Kai for being cunning and not telling the truth, and then drove him out. After Yuan Kai returned home, he became more and more afraid and determined to pretend to be crazy. The next day, he would not go to the hospital.
He went to court and asked his family to spread the news that he had gone crazy.
Zhu Yuanzhang really didn't believe it, so he sent someone to his house to inquire about it. The person he sent came not empty-handed. He also brought a woodworking drill. According to Zhu Yuanzhang, madmen are not afraid of pain. Let's see if you are really crazy or fake.
.So he used a woodworking drill to stab Yuan Kai.
Yuan Kai was indeed a master at pretending to be crazy. He carried forward Guan Yunchang's excellent virtues of scraping bones and healing wounds. He allowed others to trick him but kept silent. Only then did the visitors believe him and went back to report to Zhu Yuanzhang. Yuan Kai escaped this test.
However, Zhu Yuanzhang still didn't believe that he was crazy, so he secretly sent another envoy to see the situation at Yuan Kai's house. As soon as the envoy walked into the yard of Yuan Kai's house, he was stunned by a sight, and he was glad that he hadn't eaten yet (
You’d better not read it before eating).
It turned out that Yuan Kai's neck was tied with an iron chain, and he was lying on the ground eating dog shit, chewing it piece by piece. The envoy was disgusted. At this point, if Yuan Kai was not crazy, then he was crazy, so he hurried back to tell Zhu Yuanzhang
After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang felt nauseated and did not continue to pursue Yuan Kai.
Everyone should know that Yuan Kai was pretending to be crazy, and eating dog shit was too cruel. However, Yuan Kai did not eat real shit. His colleagues in the Metropolitan Procuratorate got the news in advance and told him that he
With an idea, he made the flour and sauce into a dog excrement-like object and ate it as rice. Only then did he avoid Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes and ears.
During the Zhu Yuanzhang period, officials had a difficult life. From the corruption crackdown to the Kongyin case and the Guo Huan case, Zhu Yuanzhang killed many people, some of whom deserved to be killed, and some who were wrongly killed and unjustly accused. Many people gave him this
Zhu Yuanzhang was given the names of "butcher" and "murderer", and some people even suspected that he had mental problems. So what was the purpose of Zhu Yuanzhang doing this?
We have previously talked about a lot of situations during this period, and listed the facts of Zhu Yuanzhang's corruption eradication and wrongful killings. This is also in the hope of describing the relationship between Zhu Yuanzhang and officials from a more objective perspective.
It should be said that although Zhu Yuanzhang's actions were a bit extreme, the subject of his actions was still correct. His purpose was to eliminate corrupt officials. If we relate Zhu Yuanzhang's experiences as a boy, we can better understand his actions.
Zhu Yuanzhang has been oppressed by the government since he was a child. His tragic experience was largely caused by corrupt officials. This also made him dislike these officials very much. Even if the officials worked for him, he felt towards these people in his heart.
There is also a huge sense of distrust. Once this sense of distrust is triggered by certain factors, it will quickly expand and then spread to a lack of confidence in the entire group.
As the saying goes, "Once bitten by a snake, he will be afraid of the well rope for ten years." Zhu Yuanzhang is such a person who has been bitten by a snake. He has been bullied by officials for decades. How can he trust these people? So the case of Rukongyin
, once a case like the Guo Huan case occurs, Zhu Yuanzhang will quickly spread the trend. In his view, officials are not trustworthy.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang's anti-corruption behavior was respectable, the effect was not good. This was because he overvalued the power of punishment and did not pay attention to strengthening the improvement of the system in all aspects. He blindly attacked and killed. Although during his reign,
Corruption was rare, but after his death, corruption in the Ming Dynasty was very serious, which we will talk about later.
Zhu Yuanzhang gave officials very low treatment, and many people thought that he deliberately abused officials. But after analyzing the salary system in the early Ming Dynasty, I found that this view is not necessarily correct. The salary standards set by Zhu Yuanzhang should have been carefully calculated. These salaries
It was enough for officials in the early Ming Dynasty. However, he did not consider that in addition to feeding their own families, officials also had to support clerks and have certain interpersonal relationships. Due to economic development and the improvement of living standards, the original salary
is not enough.
Some people may ask, how could Zhu Yuanzhang not think of these things if he was so shrewd? But judging from the actual situation, Zhu Yuanzhang does lack foresight on these issues.
For example, in order to prevent his children and grandchildren from starving, he stipulated that all his children and grandchildren were not allowed to go out to work. Even if they did not have an official position, they could only eat their salary at home. Since he had to provide for himself and his family was ruined, Zhu Yuanzhang was very fond of his relatives.
He valued the hereditary title system and made sufficient plans for his descendants. Even for descendants like Liu Bei who were beyond the reach of Prince Jing of Zhongshan, he reserved titles and prepared corresponding salaries.
However, what he did not expect was that a hundred years later, his descendants had multiplied to hundreds of thousands, and the imperial court could not even feed them a province with enough food. In the end, some princes and grandchildren could not get food, and
If you can't go out to work, you'll starve to death at home. This is what you call good intentions doing bad things.
I think this kind of analysis and evaluation should be fair to Zhu Yuanzhang.
The ending of Li Shanchang
While Zhu Yuanzhang was purging officials, another major case, the Hu Weiyong case, was also ongoing. This case did not end with Hu Weiyong's death. It still continued. Someone was being killed because of another person's confession. Why?
All the same?
Surprisingly, Li Shanchang is still alive. He is related to Hu Weiyong, and his younger brother Li Cunyi is a confirmed ally. Considering his huge influence in the court, Zhu Yuanzhang not only did not kill him, but also spared his younger brother Li Cunyi from death.
, was exiled to Chongming Island (today’s Chongming Island in Shanghai), which should be considered a great grace.
However, Li Shanchang knew very well that he would not live long. He knew Zhu Yuanzhang too well. After all, he was more or less involved in the rebellion. With his character, he would never let him go.
Zhu Yuanzhang, come and kill me! You can take my head!
In the 23rd year of Hongwu (1390), Li Shanchang repaired the house at his home. He was no longer the prime minister and could no longer call the shots, but he had to find someone to repair it. Should he do it himself?
He thought of Tang He who led the troops.
Tang He was his fellow villager and his good friend. He asked Tang He to borrow three hundred soldiers to work as laborers. This seemed to be a common thing. However, there was one thing that he never thought of.
Tang He betrayed him.
After lending Li Shanchang 300 soldiers, Tang He immediately reported to Zhu Yuanzhang secretly, and Zhu Yuanzhang once again had murderous intentions against Li Shanchang.
It should be said that three hundred people really couldn't do anything, and the soldiers were sent out by Tang He and would not obey Li Shanchang's command. Even so, this matter was enough to become the first straw on the camel's back.
From this point of view, there is a reason why Tang He was able to survive to the end.
The dim-sighted Li Shanchang seemed to think that he lived too long, so he immediately made his second mistake.
His crony Ding Bin should be exiled for breaking the law, but Li Shanchang wrote a letter to plead for Ding Bin. Zhu Yuanzhang was angry again, who do you think you are? Do you still need to take care of me when I deal with prisoners? He ordered Ding Bin not to be exiled, but
Instead of releasing him, he was put in prison and tortured day and night. Zhu Yuanzhang believed that Li Shanchang must have some secrets, and Ding Bin must know this secret. Facts have proved that his judgment was right.
What Li Shanchang did was worthy of Ding Bin, but Ding Bin felt sorry for Li Shanchang.
He confessed the details of the conspiracy between Li Cunyi and Hu Weiyong. Zhu Yuanzhang made a decisive decision and captured Li Cunyi, but also tortured him severely. Li Cunyi then confessed the circumstances of his persuasion to Li Shanchang, and Li Shanchang's phrase "you will do it for yourself" became
One of the most frequent words in Zhu Yuanzhang's mouth.
The camel is about to fall, so add a handful of straw. At this time, straw is not difficult to find.
After careful analysis, Li Shanchang's domestic slaves believed that the time had come. If the drowned dog is not beaten, it will be in vain. If it is beaten, it will be in vain. They conspired to complain to Zhu Yuanzhang as victims that they had been oppressed by Li Shanchang for a long time, and sued Li Shanchang for his active actions.
They participated in Hu Weiyong's rebellion and stated the time and place quite clearly. Although it seemed impossible for them to know so clearly due to their status. But at the time, this was not important.
At this time, more and more people were joining in the fun. The censors wrote letters one after another to impeach Li Shanchang. The charges ranged from not paying attention to etiquette when going to court to corruption and bribery. They seemed eager to accuse him of cutting down trees and damaging the house during the construction process.
Environment. What is even more unexpected is that a department that has absolutely nothing to do with handling the case also stepped on Li Shanchang. It is really ridiculous to say it.
This department is the Qintian Supervisor, which is mainly responsible for astronomy and calendar. No matter how much I would have thought that astronomical people could have a role in it, they did it. It can be seen that nothing is difficult in the world, as long as there are people who are willing.
They reported to Zhu Yuanzhang that the recent star changes were an unlucky omen, and then proposed a solution: "The minister should be moved."
What you want will come to you, I really can’t refuse.
Li Shan's life has come to an end. Even diamond coupons, not to mention iron coupons, can't save him.
After following you for decades, I have finally reached the end. I can no longer accompany you, so I have to finish this road by myself.
In any case, Li Shanchang had no reason to rebel. His son married a princess, and he was not only a relative of Zhu Yuanzhang, but also the most important minister. Even if Hu Weiyong succeeded in his rebellion, he would only be the first most important minister at most. Is there a need to rebel?
Zhu Yuanzhang naturally knew that there was no need for Li Shanchang to rebel, but he had to kill Li Shanchang.
Remembering that Li Shanchang had been following him for many years, Zhu Yuanzhang met Li Shanchang for the last time before his execution.
Zhu Yuanzhang sat on his throne and looked at Li Shanchang who was kneeling below.
This man was once my most trusted subordinate, and now I want to kill him.
Li Shanchang knelt on the ground and looked up at Zhu Yuanzhang.
This man was once my truest friend, and now he wants to kill me.
What else can be said, there is nothing to say.
Li Shanchang looked at Zhu Yuanzhang. Decades ago, he had defected to this man. They talked all night long, hated each other and planned a bright future together. That year, Li Shanchang was forty years old and Zhu Yuanzhang was twenty-six years old.
He kowtowed to the current emperor Zhu Yuanzhang and walked out of the hall.
Li Shanchang walked onto the execution ground and took one last look at the sky.
The weather is really nice today, the sky is blue.
It suddenly occurred to him that the day he walked into Zhu Yuanzhang's military camp thirty-six years ago seemed to be a sunny day.
In the 23rd year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang killed Li Shanchang and the three Yi tribes.