Niu Bantou's words shocked everyone in the teahouse. The prefect personally went down to the county to arrest the county magistrate. This was something that had never happened since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.
Although the people in the teahouse are ordinary people, after thousands of years of feudal society, they still know some basic common sense. In the feudal period, the power of officials came through authorization, and this authorization was direct authorization.
, there is only one source of power, and that is the emperor. Whether it is a county magistrate, a prefect, a governor, a governor, or officials such as the three ministries and nine ministers in the capital, their official positions have different levels, but they have no direct subordinate relationship with each other. They are all imperial officials.
Authorized by the emperor. The magistrate obeys the orders of the magistrate. It is just a procedure for the operation of power. The purpose is to do errands for the emperor and the court. The power of the magistrate is not given by the magistrate. Therefore, even the lowest level of the Ming government is the magistrate.
They are all officials appointed and evaluated by the imperial court.
For example, sometimes when the emperor was in a happy mood, he would personally meet with the new magistrate, which was a symbolic message. Therefore, although the lower-level officials at that time were very flattering to their superiors, it was because after all, the world was too big and communications were backward, and the court had no control over the various officials.
The information available to senior officials is limited, and it would be very troublesome to offend their superiors, because their immediate superiors also have the power to impeach, recommend, and assist in the assessment of officials. Despite this, the magistrate's personal dependence on the magistrate is not very strong, and the relationship with the five officials is not very strong.
It was different a hundred years later. Their official positions were all appointed by the imperial court. Higher-level departments could participate in impeachment and recommendation but could not directly appoint or remove them.
Because neither the prefect nor the governor has the power to directly remove the magistrate. The only people with this power are one person and one department, that is, the emperor and the official department.
Now listening to what Niu Bantou said, things have become intriguing. They say that teahouses are a mixed bag, but they are also the best informed. I haven’t heard of any imperial edicts or official documents coming to Jinan recently. Why was he suddenly dismissed?
What about the two magistrates?
Everyone looked at each other for a few times, and Boss Huang couldn't help but asked softly: "Boss Niu, is it possible that Mr. Pang... he wants... to... shush... Niu?"
The class leader put his index finger on his lips and made a silent sound, and said in a low voice: "Old Huang, it's enough for you to know about this, and don't tell anyone about it. That's the business of adults, we little guys like you."
As long as we can live a peaceful life, we will be content, the things above have nothing to do with us."
"Yes, yes... Boss Huang wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and nodded repeatedly. He is self-aware and knows very well that they cannot interfere with these things.
However, there are some who are not afraid of death. A man with a sharp mouth and monkey cheeks, wearing a brand new cloth, but it looks like the workmanship is not very good, said disdainfully: "Tsk, Boss Huang is too timid, you don't dare to say that
To me, this is just a lice on a bald man's head, it's obvious. The Pang Pang people now want soldiers and money, and our governor of Shandong is his father-in-law. Now we must eradicate dissidents."
When this person said this, someone next to him became unhappy: "Hey... I mean, Zhou Houhou, what are you talking about? What does it mean to eradicate dissidents? It's obviously those officials who don't know what they are doing and they were beaten by the prefect."
Understand."
"That's right, according to me, those officials who are occupying the toilet and doing nothing should have gone away long ago. If you think about the good things they have done, you will understand. Originally, the great people ordered our taxes to be reduced or exempted. Some officials have to live and die.
If they don’t, the Pangda people want to collect taxes from those merchants, and those officials are crying and shouting about competing for profits with the people, bah, who doesn’t know that they are wearing the same pants as those merchants. Some people even threaten to sue
My lord, I was punished severely by my lord, and then I became honest."
Everyone was talking about the faults of those people. In short, they all had the same idea. Those officials who did not listen to Pang Pang deserved to be dismissed, and they were left to hinder Pang Pang's implementation of benevolent government.
"Ahem... Just when everyone was in a fuss, Niu Bantou spoke, and he coughed loudly several times in a row. Then everyone remembered that there was a public servant here.
Everyone's face looked unnatural. After all, they, ordinary people, openly discussed the government here. According to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, they had already committed a serious crime. Niu Bantou had the right to take them back to the Yamen for questioning.
However, Team Leader Niu was obviously in a good mood today and did not care about their gaffe. He just said with a calm face: "Okay, you are all ordinary people. It is always inappropriate to talk about the government behind its back. I will pretend that I didn't hear it today and won't do it next time.
"
After saying that, Captain Niu drank all the bowl of tea in his hand, picked up the waist knife on the table and strode downstairs.
As the chattering sound gradually faded away, the originally peaceful teahouse began to boil again...
There is no airtight wall in the world. Pang Gang's attacks on "disobedient" officials in Shandong quickly spread throughout Shandong. In less than a month, dozens of officials in Shandong were killed by him.
Ma, all these vacancies were filled by Pang Gang's people. After such a round of shuffling, Pang Gang had greater control over Shandong.
On the evening of the third day of September in the tenth year of Chongzhen
Around the first watch of the day, the whole city of Beijing seemed extremely quiet, and at the same time it seemed particularly gloomy and desolate. Soldiers stood at the entrances of important streets, lazily monitoring the passing pedestrians. Outside the gates of many large houses, there were
Red or white paper lanterns were hung, giving off a dim light.
In the center of Beijing is the Forbidden City, the center of the Ming Dynasty and the center of power.
The huge Forbidden City is like an old giant beast lying silently on the ground at night. The Forbidden City is very large and is also covered with many long alleys. In these long and narrow alleys, there are often watchmen.
Holding a small lantern and banging a broken gong or clapper, a shrinking shadow appears for a moment and then disappears into the darkness; the slow, listless sound of the gong or clapper also gradually fades away in the sound of the wind. In this late night, there is absolutely no sound.
Most people are asleep.
But there are exceptions. For example, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen, did not sleep. At this moment, he was walking around in the courtyard of Qianqing Palace. Two palace maids held two silk palace lanterns and stood silently on both sides of the pill. Others were on duty.
The serving eunuchs and maids stood far away in the shadows, not even daring to breathe. Occasionally, a cool north wind blew by, and the iron horses on the eaves of the palace made a tinkling sound, but Chongzhen seemed not to have heard it. He
His mind was thinking about the bad situation that made him very worried, and he sighed deeply from time to time. After being frightened for a long time, he lowered his head and walked back to Nuanxiang Pavilion with heavy steps, and sat down slumped in front of the imperial cabinet again.
As of now, there is no place in the entire Ming Dynasty that does not worry him. Jiangbei, Huguang, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei... half of the Ming Dynasty is full of famines and rebellions.
, although there are usually rogues born from rebellions, the number of them can be tens of thousands at most. Usually there are only a few hundred or at most a few thousand bandits, but now according to the report from the Jinyi Guards in Henan, Li Zicheng actually had it after he fled to Henan.
More than 100,000 people captured half of Henan, and finally besieged Luoyang. Fortunately, Pang Gang, the commander-in-chief of Shandong Province, came to help and defeated the rogue bandits, otherwise Luoyang would not have been protected.
After receiving the news, Chongzhen's mood was not happiness at first, but panic and anger. This Pang Gang had occupied Shandong. Now he had reached out to Henan. Could it be that he was so impatient? There were also people like Lu Weiqi and Li Xianfeng.
Don't you know that introducing Pang Gang to Henan is definitely inviting a wolf into the house? Although he later received news that Pang Gang had withdrawn his troops and returned to Shandong, Chongzhen still had a knot in his heart, but soon his heart was broken by the news from Hubei.
I was shocked. After Li Zicheng was severely wounded by Pang Gang, he actually led his remaining troops to flee to Hubei and reunited with local small bandits. As of the past few days, he had captured several county towns and De'an Prefecture, and now he was planning to attack Xiangyang Prefecture.
.
This news was like adding fuel to the fire for Chongzhen. In the past, although rogue bandits abounded in Hubei, they usually numbered in the hundreds. There were only thousands of them. Now that Li Zicheng has led tens of thousands of rogue bandits into Hubei, these bandits have
Rogue bandits gathered under his command and quickly formed an army of 70,000 to 80,000 people, posing a serious threat to Hubei.
What worries Chongzhen even more is that there are famines and riots in places south of the Yangtze River, Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian and other places. Even the so-called land of plenty like Suzhou and Jiaxing are experiencing droughts, locust plagues, soaring food prices, and thousands of people are constantly dying.
The situation in the entire Ming Dynasty is getting worse and worse. Nowadays, there is almost no quiet land.
Chongzhen is now in a very bad mood. In recent days, five eunuchs and two maids have been ordered to be beaten to death for making small mistakes, causing the eunuchs and maids in the entire palace to be in fear all day long.
Chongzhen, who was sitting in front of the Dragon Case, picked up the memorial and wanted to review the memorial as before. However, when he picked up the memorial, he felt extremely upset and couldn't read it no matter how hard he tried.
In the end, he had to lean quietly on the dragon chair. He felt that his mind was in a mess. It took a long time for Chongzhen to stand up and slowly walked to the door. He saw a couplet, which read:
:
The world is at peace, the green hills are graceful and the six books are explored;
In my spare time, I have cherished more than three of Yao's works.
This couplet is Zhang Juzheng's own handwriting. It is written with full ink and round strokes, dignified and vigorous. It is the best in the pavilion style. Normally Chongzhen also likes its couplets for its steady work, but now in Chongzhen's opinion, this couplet
The couplet is full of irony.
"Nowadays, there is still talk of 'peace in the world' and 'tens of thousands of leisure'. I am just struggling now and don't want the inheritance of my ancestors to be destroyed in my hands."
As Chongzhen spoke, tears fell uncontrollably. When the eunuchs and maids behind him saw the emperor weeping, they all knelt down and shouted in panic: "Your Majesty, please calm down. I will die!"
Hearing the words of these eunuchs and maids, Chongzhen turned his head in disgust and shouted loudly: "You slaves, besides saying this all day long, what else can you say? Come on, kill these slaves...just before Chongzhen's last words were spoken.
At that moment, a gentle voice came from the door, "Your Majesty, why are you angry again? You must take care of your dragon body."
Following the sound, a fragrant breeze came from the door. A beautiful middle-aged woman in her thirties walked in with lotus steps. Behind her were two palace maids, one of whom was holding a
The tray. After she came in, she put a cloak on Chongzhen's shoulders and said with concern: "Your Majesty, it's late at night, so it's fine if you don't sleep. Why don't you pay attention to taking care of the dragon body? If the dragon body is in trouble, our Ming Dynasty
Who else can you expect to go?"
As soon as Chongzhen saw the person coming, his furious expression slowly calmed down. He took a deep breath and said softly: "Zitong, why are you here? You are not in good health. Why don't you rest so late?"
The person who came was none other than Queen Zhou. Chongzhen's original wife had a very high status in Chongzhen's heart. When Chongzhen was still King Xin, he was bullied so badly by Wei Zhongxian that the prince's salary could not be paid out on time. Even the daily salary could not be paid out on time.
They lived a tight life, and for a while they relied on the embroidery made by Queen Zhou to sell to support others. The two of them supported each other for many years.
When King Xin became Chongzhen, Chongzhen still respected and loved the queen who had shared the joys and sorrows with him. He also respected Queen Zhou on weekdays. Now that he saw Queen Zhou coming, most of his anger was gone.
Several eunuchs and maids kneeling on the ground waved their hands impatiently, signaling them to get out.
When these eunuchs and maids ran away as if they were being pardoned, Queen Zhou thoughtfully held Chongzhen's hand and sat down in front of the dragon chair. She took out a small bowl with gold rims from the maid's tray and opened the lid.
, Yinggan spoon gently scooped it up, put it next to his cherry mouth to test the temperature, and then handed it to Chongzhen.
"Your Majesty, this is the Tremella Fungus and Lotus Seed Soup made by my concubine myself. Please drink some of it."
"Okay, I'm a little hungry too." Chongzhen usually would not refuse the queen's kindness. He took a few sips from the bowl and felt a warm current flowing from his throat into his stomach. A comfortable feeling
Feelings came over me.
"Well, it tastes good. What Zi Tong makes is good."
After drinking a bowl of lotus seed soup, the expression on Chongzhen's face began to relax.
Seeing that her husband was in a much better mood, Queen Zhou asked: "Your Majesty, you have not been to the harem for half a month due to state affairs these days. The concubines in the harem are a little unhappy."
Chongzhen sighed softly, pointed at the memorials placed everywhere on the dragon table and said worriedly: "Zitong, look at it. Look at it, all the memorials here are either asking for help, asking for food, or asking for reinforcements. The entire Ming Dynasty has been in chaos.
I've become a pot of porridge, how can I still be in the mood to go to the harem again?
Just over twenty days ago, Li Zicheng was driven to Hubei and started to cause trouble in Hubei. He teamed up with other bandits and captured more than ten county towns. He even captured De'an Mansion. Now he is even more pressing.
Xiangyang Mansion. And Feng Longxiu, the governor of Hubei, is just a loser. He keeps making excuses to ask the court to send troops, but he has no use at all. I might as well raise a dog!"
The more Chongzhen spoke, the more angry he became, and his eyebrows stood up. Empress Zhou looked bad and quickly changed the subject, "Your Majesty, didn't you just say that Li Zicheng was driven from Henan to Hubei? Who is so powerful?
Are you capable of driving this intruder into despair?"
After hearing Queen Zhou's words, Chongzhen's face froze, and he stayed for a long time before he said angrily: "Who else can he be? It's the current Shandong Commander-in-Chief Pang Gang."
"Is it Pang Gang?" Queen Zhou was a little surprised and exclaimed softly: "Isn't Pang Gang the commander-in-chief of Shandong? Have you already ordered him to rush to Henan to help?"
Chongzhen smiled bitterly and said, "It's because I didn't give the order that I'm so angry."
In the Ming Dynasty, everyone knew that mobilizing troops and horses without the decree and official documents of the emperor and the Ministry of War was a capital crime. Pang Gang dared to do this in a hurry, which was a naked disregard for the emperor and the court, but Queen Zhou still
Some don't understand.
"Your Majesty, why would Pang Gang be so kind and take risks to help Henan for no reason? Is there something hidden in this?"
Chongzhen gritted his teeth: "He didn't mean well, he did it for the money. The three idiots Liu Yuliang, Lu Weiqi and Li Xianfeng gave him two hundred thousand taels of silver, while my good uncle gave him 200,000 taels of silver.
He has 300,000 taels of silver and 200,000 shi of grain, so Pang just sent troops with such "good intentions". These rebellious officials and traitors, what do they take the imperial decree as, a joke? I...I must
Gonna kill them."
Seeing her husband's murderous face, Queen Zhou was upset. She couldn't help but threw herself into her husband's arms and cried: "Your Majesty, I am a woman and don't know about national affairs, but I do know that if Pang Gang hadn't come,
Rushing for reinforcements, Luoyang will be occupied by bandits, so why not do it now that the imperial court can provide some money to protect Henan!"
Listening to the crying voice of the queen, Chongzhen, who was originally furious, gradually came back to his senses. Looking at the crying queen in his arms, he felt guilty and patted her shoulder to comfort her: "Okay, Zi Tong, don't cry.
, it’s my fault and I shouldn’t lose my temper with you. In fact, what you said is not bad. It’s a credit to be able to spend some money to hug Henan.”
After Chongzhen finished speaking, he took out a handkerchief from his arms and gently wiped away the tears on Queen Zhou's beautiful face. Seeing her husband being so gentle and considerate, Queen Zhou burst into tears and said with a smile: "Your Majesty, since Pang Gang is so capable
Fight, if there is a bandit making trouble this time, just transfer him to where he is."
"Well... after listening to Queen Zhou's words, Chongzhen raised his eyebrows first, then shook his head and said: "This Pang Gang has already turned against the court. He will not listen to me now."
Empress Zhou said casually: "Whether I am sent or not is not based on your words. As long as there are enough benefits, I will not believe that he is disobedient."
"Eh... After listening to Queen Chongzhen Zhou's words, Chongzhen couldn't help but stand up and pace in front of the Dragon Case. An idea slowly emerged in his mind... To be continued) rq!~!
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