Chapter 588 587 Evidence

Wei Guangde left Prince Yu's Mansion and hurried back to the School Record Office.

Although it was past the time for the roll call, Lu Bu had already signed his name on the roll call book. Although careful identification could still reveal that it was a ghostwriter, who would care about such a thing?

Such things were actually commonplace in the Ming Dynasty. When their masters did not arrive in time, the clerks would usually sign for them.

In their work, there were also projects to imitate the master's signature and seal.

Of course, such a situation did not happen often. Generally, it only happened once in a while. Naturally, everyone in the yamen pretended not to see it. Who would be late?

As for the supervision of the Duchayuan, it depends on who it is.

If you offend someone or are targeted by the Kedao censors, this is naturally a reason for impeachment, but this kind of impeachment is not painful except for losing face.

In normal circumstances, you will be scolded by your superiors, and in serious cases, you will be reprimanded and fined.

Wei Guangde has always been very good at dealing with people. Even if he is being plotted against, he will not show it. If he is not sure that he can defeat the other party all at once and make him unable to turn over, Wei Guangde will not take action easily.

Moreover, every time he takes action, he often only mentions the other party's pain points in a very obscure way through various channels in advance, so those who are plotted against by him may not think that Wei Guangde has made great efforts to deal with him until they die.

It is difficult for people to want to deal with such a person. He is also the censor of Fujian Province, and no colleagues will target him for no reason, not to mention that Prince Yu's Mansion is standing behind him.

Now Wei Guangde goes to work, reads books, proofreads books, gets off work, and then goes home every day. Occasionally, he is invited to go out for drinks and listen to music with his colleagues.

This is the life of a Beijing official. Every day is a cycle, and he spends his days in the court and waits for his qualifications.

In this way, more than ten days have passed, and Wei Guangde did not take the last incident to heart. He firmly believes that he does not like Hu Zongxian to return to the court, and Xu Jie will definitely not be willing.

In fact, with Hu Zongxian's qualifications, as the governor who had been in charge of Jiangnan for several years, he already had the conditions to enter the cabinet, but he was from the third class and did not have the status of a scholar, so it would be difficult for him to enter the cabinet.

But everyone knows who Emperor Jiajing relied on to stabilize the imperial power after he ascended the throne. These people were all appointed as prime ministers. Their situations were similar to Hu Zongxian's, and they did not have the conditions to enter the cabinet.

Even Wei Guangde was worried that if Emperor Jiajing gave Hu Zongxian a minister of the Ministry of Rites to manage the Hanlin Academy, would the officials in Beijing directly call him Hu Zongxian "Hu Ge Lao".

During this period, the cabinet had been supported by Xu Jie and Li Chunfang. There was no intention for Emperor Jiajing to arrange for a replacement, and Xu Jie was actually very anxious sitting in the position of the chief minister.

More than ten days ago, when he received the news from Prince Yu's Mansion, he was also scared and broke into a cold sweat.

Hu Zongxian, how did he get away with it at the beginning?

It was not that Emperor Jiajing's words "Zongxian is not a Yan party, and he has been promoted for several years without any fault" overturned all the accusations against Hu Zongxian.

Later, it was even said that Hu Zongxian was impeached repeatedly because he presented the auspicious white deer, and then there were constant censors impeaching him for corruption.

Hu Zongxian had a high status in the heart of Emperor Jiajing. After all, he was given the rich land of Jiangnan and asked to suppress the Japanese pirates with all his strength. Although he failed to completely quell the Japanese invasion in the end, he did eliminate a large number of Japanese pirates.

At least in the eyes of Emperor Jiajing, Hu Zongxian was capable and could stand on his own. He could stabilize the situation in Jiangnan when the Japanese pirates were the craziest. This was ability.

Thinking about his own situation, Xu Jie was really worried that Hu Zongxian would enter the cabinet and compete with him.

Although Xu Jie had been in the court for many years, he was really bad in terms of the emperor's favor. He could not beat Yan Song before. Would he be suppressed by Hu Zongxian?

But he was also waiting, waiting for his arrangement to take action and completely eliminate this hidden danger.

He was the one who sent Yan Shifan to the guillotine, and he was also the one who fabricated the charges and wanted to kill Hu Zongxian this time.

Calculating the time, the things should have arrived.

These two days, Xu Jie was a little restless in the cabinet, because the things he wanted had not been delivered, and he didn't know if there would be any changes in the West Garden.

The effect of things being delivered before Emperor Jiajing opened his mouth and after he opened his mouth was very different.

At this moment, the secretary outside the door reported: "Lord Xu, the Left Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate Zhang Yongming wants to see you."

Hearing that Zhang Yongming was coming, Xu Jie was happy and said, "Please ask him in."

Soon, Zhang Yongming entered the cabinet duty room and bowed to Xu Jie, saying, "Lord, my Censorate received a memorial from Wang Ruzheng, the Censor-in-Chief of Nanzhili today. Along with the memorial, there were also a batch of letters from the captured officials. I have asked someone to bring all the things here."

"Oh?"

Xu Jie was very surprised at this time. He asked, "Whose letters are these, and what do they say? Where did Censor Wang find them?"

"Censor Wang was ordered to investigate the family of the criminal Luo Longwen, and found his letters to Hu Zongxian and Yan Shifan in his home. Some of the letters..."

Zhang Yongming was a little speechless for a moment, not knowing how to explain the situation. He had to take out a memorial from his arms and handed it to Xu Jie, saying, "The elder should take a look at it himself."

Xu Jie took the memorial handed over by Zhang Yongming, opened it and read it carefully. He was slightly surprised at first, and then his face became uncertain.

"Come here, please ask the elder Li to come to my duty room."

After a while, Xu Jie suddenly shouted loudly to the outside of the door.

After speaking, he turned his head and looked at Zhang Yongming and said, "Have all the letters been brought to the cabinet?"

Zhang Yongming nodded in agreement.

"Quickly, bring in all the letters."

Xu Jie ordered anxiously.

"It's right outside the door. I'll ask someone to bring it in right away."

Zhang Yongming agreed, then walked to the door of the duty room and ordered the people outside: "Bring the box in quickly."

At this time, not far away, Li Chunfang, the deputy minister of the cabinet, had already arrived to give him a favor.

Seeing Zhang Yongming at the door, Li Chunfang did not act like a cabinet bachelor, but rushed to him and cupped her hands, "Zhong Cheng is here too."

"Mr. Li Ge."

Zhang Yongming also hurriedly saluted Li Chunfang.

Standing in front of the door, Li Chunfang was not in a hurry to go in. She just watched the two captains carrying a box and walked to the Xujie duty room and asked with some confusion: "What is this?"

The box was covered, and Li Chunfang didn't know what was inside, so she asked.

In fact, there is one thing that has not been said yet: it is best not to have ice or carbon in the box. It seems a little early to send these.

"Censor Wang Ruzheng discovered a batch of letters from Luo Longwen's home in She County. They were letters exchanged between him and Yan Shifan, Hu Zongxian and others. Some of them were extremely sensitive. Censor Wang was worried that sending them to Si Xian, the political envoy, would cause unnecessary trouble. The imperial court has lost all face, so I sent it directly to the Metropolitan Procuratorate."

When Li Chunfang heard this, she knew that the letter in the box was probably an extremely hot thing, and she hesitated for a moment.

By now, he knew what Xu Jie meant by inviting him over.

It must be that the old fox Xu Jie also found it difficult, so he was asked to come over and make a vote in the name of the cabinet.

After the box was carried into Xu Jie's check-in room, Li Chunfang followed him tonight.

"Zishi is here, come and take a look at this."

Xu Jie knew that Li Chunfang was coming when he was talking to Zhang Yongming, but he still waited until he entered the room before shouting to him.

"Mr. Xu Ge, who is Zhong Cheng here to impeach?"

Having said that, Li Chunfang still walked over, took the memorial handed over by Xu Jie, opened it and read it carefully, and soon the corners of her mouth twitched.

Xu Jie ignored Li Chunfang's reaction, but Zhang Yongming kept paying attention. He thought he was shocked by the content of the memorial.

But unlike what Zhang Yongming thought, there were only four words that kept swirling in Li Chunfang's mind.

"It's terrible."

Yes, these four words were constantly swirling in Li Chunfang's mind at this time.

He was not a novice who had just entered the official career, and he would not believe that someone would keep such a letter at home waiting for someone to check it, especially Luo Longwen, a criminal who had already been convicted.

Such a sensitive letter does not mean that it must be burned, but it must be moved to a different location. This is enough to lead to Hu Zongxian's death.

Li Chunfang had some doubts about the authenticity of the letter mentioned in the memorial, and it appeared a bit strange.

He withdrew his gaze and glanced at Xu Jie, who had a serious face, and then at Zhang Yongming, who was both shocked and excited. The expressions of the two people were different, and they didn't look like they had passed each other. For a moment, Li Chunfang was a little confused.

He has now figured out his thinking. When the censor Wang Ru was inspecting Luo Longwen's house on orders, he found letters in which he communicated with other people. When counting these letters, he found the letter written by Hu Zongxian to Luo Longwen, especially the line in it. Self-made "imperial edict".

Li Chunfang now wants to read the letter and the imperial edict.

His eyes couldn't help but look at the box placed in the center of the duty room. There were seals on the four sides of the lid.

Obviously, when the things arrived at the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Zhang Yongming brought them here without even opening them for inspection, because the memorial contained the content of this decree.

"Zishi, what do you think?"

Xu Jie's voice sounded at the right time, and Xu Jie wanted to ask about his attitude.

"Mr. Xu Ge, it's better to open the box and check it, and then take this memorial and letter to the palace immediately."

Li Chunfang replied without thinking.

"Okay, you and Zhong Cheng are here, let's open the box together and check the authenticity of the letter."

Xu Jie said, already standing up and walking around the table as he spoke.

The three people arrived and stood next to the box, then walked around the box to make sure that the seal was intact and that there was no sign that the box had been opened. Then they asked someone to come in, tear off the seal, and open the lid.

There were as many as half a box of letters stacked in the box. They were not piled randomly, but neatly gathered together. However, there was a letter on top, just randomly placed on the top.

Obviously, Wang Ruzheng did this deliberately and put it on his face to prevent them from searching for each letter among the letters in the box.

After the screen retreated to the left and right, Zhang Yongming bent down and picked up the letter.

The envelope looks thick, which means there is a lot of letter paper inside.

When Zhang Yongming pulled out the pieces of letter paper, Xu Jie and Li Chunfang's eyes were attracted to it.

Zhang Yongming, as the Zuodu Censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the largest supervisory official in the imperial court, naturally has the right to inspect such confidential things.

After carefully reading the content of the letter, I felt thoughtful at first, and then seemed to have a sudden enlightenment, as if I had understood Hu Zongxian's mood when he wrote this letter.

However, he did not hand it to Xu Jie after reading what he had in his hand. Instead, he looked at the beginning and last name of the letter, as if he was identifying something.

After that, Zhang Yongming carefully checked both sides of the envelope before submitting the letter and envelope to Mr. Xu Ge.

"Mr. Xu Ge, you should also take a look. I have already seen it."

"good."

Xu Jie took the letter from Zhang Yongming, and did the same thing as him. After reading the contents of the letter carefully, he checked the letter again, and even looked at the envelope with his name on it, and then handed the letter to Li Chunfang.

During the whole process, Li Chunfang remained silent, just quietly observing Zhang Yongming and Xu Jie's every move, trying to find out something.

It's a pity that when the two finished reading the letter and handed it to him, he didn't find anything unusual.

After taking the letter from Xu Jie, Li Chunfang read it carefully, and sometimes read some paragraphs repeatedly several times, and gradually understood the purpose of Hu Zongxian writing this letter.

Looking at the last signature, the words seem to be correct, and the seal seems to be true.

Don't be surprised why Li Chunfang knows Hu Zongxian's handwriting and knows Hu Zongxian's private seal. When Hu Zongxian was prosperous, even if the capital had the blessing of Yan Song, the etiquette should not be missed.

Every year, Li Chunfang sent gifts such as ice and carbon to the Hanlin Academy and the scholars' houses, and naturally received many gifts.

Li Chunfang still remembered the handwriting and seals on those visiting cards.

He let out a sigh of relief. Although he had doubts about this letter before, he now seemed to believe that this letter should be written by Hu Zongxian.

At that time, Hu Zongxian, in order to curry favor with the Yan family, began to contact all people who could speak to the Yan family by any means after Zhao Wenhua died and cut off the support from the capital.

Because he knew that as the governor-general of Jiangnan to suppress the Japanese, he had too much power and too much money.

Money moved people's hearts, and no one would turn a blind eye to those wealth.

If there was no one to support him in the capital, Hu Zongxian's career could come to an abrupt end at any time.

It is also an indisputable fact that Hu Zongxian embezzled military pay and lived a luxurious life. In fact, the inside story had gradually spread after Hu Zongxian was arrested and brought back to Beijing.

Especially after his trusted guerrilla general Wang Yingqi launched a military mutiny in Wulin, Zhejiang's military leaders, big and small, had confessed some of the inside story through various channels in order to clear themselves from Hu Zongxian and others.

This is also the reason why he was directly reported to Emperor Jiajing, who saved him.

By imposing additional taxes such as "tibian" in Zhejiang and Zhili and requesting to retain salt and silver in Liangzhe, he accumulated a huge amount of money.

Some of this money was used to recruit soldiers to encircle and suppress Japanese pirates and to issue rewards, and some money was used to appease Japanese pirates, but most of it was still for him to squander.

Whether it was the reward silver for the soldiers or the expenses for appeasement of Japanese pirates, huge holes were exposed.

Of course, when it was put in front of Emperor Jiajing, what the emperor could see was that all these holes were naturally transferred to appeasement of Japanese pirates, and the problems of the soldiers were dealt with.

After all, at this time, the coastal provinces in Jiangnan were still war zones, and Japanese pirates attacked from time to time.

In order not to shake the morale of the army, Jiangnan officials had no choice but to cover up the matter against their will.