Chapter 690 789 Thoughts

"If your Majesty asks about it, I think it would be better for the cabinet to punish the King of Liao by reducing his rank and imprisoning him. The removal of the country is too serious and requires your Majesty to think twice."

The repeated mention of King Hui reminded Wei Guangde of his first impeachment.

Zhang Juzheng kept looking at Wei Guangde, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that he also agreed to reduce his rank and imprison him. The matter of extermination of the country did have a great impact.

Although he really wanted to achieve this goal, he also understood that it needed to be done slowly.

"What do you think about the loan?"

Li Chunfang said at this time.

"Based on the crime committed by the King of Liao, it is reasonable to say that it is a good loan, but it is best not to have any words of prohibition on the bill. Your Majesty has the final say."

Although Chen Yiqin disapproved of the matter of King Liao, the matter of imprisoning the clan could only be brought up by His Majesty, or at least he should answer when His Majesty asked. It would not be good to take the initiative to talk about it.

Although Zhang Juzheng was a little dissatisfied, he could also understand that Chen Yiqin's words were reasonable.

And Li Chunfang nodded at this time, "The cabinet's opinion can be regarded as reducing the rank and imprisoning the clan. It is indeed not something that the cabinet can propose."

Zhang Juzheng saw that Chen Yiqin and Li Chunfang had reached an agreement and knew that it was useless to say anything, so he nodded in agreement.

As for Yin Shizhen and Wei Guangde, they naturally didn't have many opinions.

This matter is settled.

Next, Zhongshu divided the memorandum into pieces, and then someone else sent it to several people's rooms separately.

With the cabinet having a unified opinion, it was easy to comment on these memorials. After a casual glance, they directly voted to punish the King of Liao by reducing his rank and delegating him to a commoner.

In the Ming Dynasty, deprivation of title and removal from the country were two punishments.

To reduce the title is to deprive the king of Liao of his title, replace it with someone else, and choose someone else from the same clan to inherit it.

To eliminate the country, it is to abolish the title of the King of Liao and no longer appoint the King of Liao. In this way, the highest line of Liao kings will only be the county king. There will be no new county kings born in the future, because only one of the descendants of the county king can inherit the county king. Except for the title, all other ranks were reduced to general.

In the short term, the abolition of a Liao king seems to have a limited impact on Huguang's Lumi expenditure, but if extended over a long period of time, it can reduce a lot of expenditure.

Zhang Juzheng returned to his room in a depressed mood and sat behind the desk. He was not in the mood to review the memorials, but was thinking of a solution.

Of course, other cabinet ministers did not know about his situation, and Emperor Longqing did not return the previous memorial to the cabinet.

However, Emperor Longqing also keenly felt the change in the attitude of the cabinet in the new memorial sent by the cabinet in the afternoon and the unanimous vote.

Cut off the title?

It seems that the cabinet has set a bottom line for the affairs of the Liao king. Officials can no longer tolerate people like Liao Wang Zhu Xian misbehaving in the local area.

"Are these two piles of memorials to impeach the King of Liao for being illegal?"

Emperor Longqing looked at the mountains of memorials below and asked with a frown.

Teng Xiang bowed to answer, not forgetting to flatter him and said: "Your Majesty, these two piles are for the impeachment of the King of Liao. These are the official affairs handled by the cabinet today. They have been divided."

"The memorial to impeach the King of Liao will be kept for now. If there are any important official documents today, take them out first."

The punishment of the King of Liao was a matter of just one word from him, so he was not in a hurry. He had not yet thought through the benefits and losses, so he did not intend to approve the punishment for the time being.

You know, as long as the emperor criticizes one memorial, if he rejects it, it will immediately lead to more impeachment memorials.

But if you nod in agreement, it is equivalent to issuing an edict. Such a memorial will be sent to the cabinet, and the ministers will immediately draft an imperial edict and send it to the Director of Rites and the Sixth Section for distribution.

Therefore, if we don’t want to give an answer so quickly, we can only leave all the impeachment memorials unattended, that is, not send them back to the cabinet, so that the matter can be delayed.

As all the memorials to impeach the King of Liao were sent to the palace, they fell into disgrace. Within two days, the ministers all knew what the emperor meant.

I don’t know whether it was someone who was pushing for it, or whether the ministers were dissatisfied because they thought their opinions were ignored by the emperor. Soon the vigorous second round of impeachment swept the entire court.

This time, many officials who had not submitted a petition before also wrote to request severe punishment for the King of Liao. In particular, they verified that the King of Liao used many inhumane criminal methods on the people, which was even written down in a big book, saying that it was rare in the history of cruelty.

Late at night, in the study room in the backyard of a large house in Nanxunfang, Wei Guangde leaned on a recliner and asked casually: "Are you sure it's your uncle's disciples who are instigating it behind the scenes?"

"Master, it has been confirmed that in addition to Huguang officials, it was Mr. Zhang Ge's disciples who incited the officials to impeach at the banquet and demanded the imprisonment of the King of Liao. Many people in Huguang supported the abolition of the country.

However, in the past two days, Zhang Ge's residence has been closed to thank guests, and none of these people have entered Zhang's residence.

Therefore, it is hard to say whether it was Mr. Zhang Ge who held it secretly. "

Zhang Ji said below.

In the past few days, the government affairs sent from the local government were not of any importance, so Emperor Longqing had been in the palace and had not summoned several cabinet ministers to discuss matters.

Wei Guangde always felt that Emperor Longqing did it on purpose. He stayed away from such a big matter as the King of Liao, which was not like Emperor Longqing's style.

In fact, because it was common for villains in the capital to act unscrupulously in the city, Emperor Longqing couldn't bear to see the powerful bullying others.

Wei Guangde thought that the emperor would soon summon his ministers to come up with suggestions on how to deal with the Liao king's matter, but he didn't expect that even after a few days, there was no result.

"Could it be."

Suddenly, Wei Guangde had an idea in his mind. In the past, when things like this happened in the Jiajing Dynasty, the emperor often had a conspiracy behind it.

Either he dealt with it harshly, but because of his reputation, he had to delay it until the court officials were excited, or he wanted to let it go lightly, so he kept suppressing it until something new happened and everyone's attention was diverted.

Wei Guangde didn't think that Emperor Longqing would let the Liao King go easily. He was either still a little hesitant, or he was waiting for the emotions in the court to accumulate to a higher level before taking out his punishment.

From this point of view, Emperor Longqing seemed to want to learn from Emperor Jiajing's way of dealing with Prince Hui and Prince Yi, and it is possible that he had already planned to eliminate the country in his mind.

What Wei Guangde didn't know was that Gao Gong actually analyzed the issue of vassalage in detail when he taught Prince Yu, because during the Jiajing Dynasty, the imperial clan's salary rice had become a huge burden on the court.

Gao Gong analyzed in detail the failed experience of Qi Tai, Huang Zicheng and others who conspired to reduce the vassalage, and of course introduced the purpose of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, to enfeoff his sons as kings in order to strengthen border defense and screen the royal family.

In addition, Emperor Longqing could feel the burden of the royal family's salary on the court's finances, so he successfully planted the idea of ​​reducing the power of the vassal states in his heart.

However, Emperor Longqing also knew that now seemed to be the time to reduce the power of the vassal states, because the current vassal kings no longer had the huge power like in the early Ming Dynasty, but they would eventually fall into the hat of not thinking about family affection, especially violating the group training set by Zhu Yuanzhang.

Therefore, in the two years after ascending the throne, Emperor Longqing buried this idea deeply in his heart.

He didn't want to be recorded in the history books of later generations, "disobeying the group training and being cruel to relatives".

He didn't want to leave a bad reputation, and the court's finances could barely be maintained, so he would just drag it on and leave this "great achievement" to his sons and grandsons.

This was the final decision of Emperor Longqing, but similar to Emperor Jiajing, if there was a chance to reduce the power of the vassal states, it would not be impossible.

After all, the emperor's sons had to be made princes, and there were too many princes in the Ming Dynasty. If there was a chance to eliminate a few countries, he could also make some room for his children.

Therefore, Emperor Longqing had the idea of ​​getting rid of the Liao vassal from the beginning, but he had to wait until the dissatisfaction of the court officials reached its peak before being forced to accept the removal of the country.

Wei Guangde didn't know, but at this time, he was thinking wildly in the study, and gradually coincided with Emperor Longqing's thoughts.

If he wanted to take it lightly, he should have directly imposed punishment after the cabinet reported it, such as sending someone to apply for an imperial edict, etc., instead of keeping it in the cabinet, delaying time, and letting the incident ferment.

The next day, when he came to the cabinet, the memorials to be handled today were divided into two piles on the desk in the duty room, one on the left and one on the right.

Wei Guangde knew that the larger pile was the impeachment memorials sent today, and the smaller pile was other government affairs.

After a short rest and a sip of tea, he picked up the pile of memorials on government affairs.

The first one was the memorial of the Ministry of War, which planned to send Tan Lun, the assistant minister of the Ministry of War, out of Beijing to inspect the border defense of Jizhen.

In fact, Tan Lun was transferred to the north to be the governor of Jizhen, and the border inspection should have been carried out long ago, but it was delayed because of the review.

Now, after Tan Lun and Qi Jiguang's investigation, they have a rough idea. It is not appropriate to stay in the capital.

Although Qi Jiguang is not in the capital now, but has gone to Changping, the affairs of the Beijing camp have been handed over to his confidants. The preparations for the grand review have been steadily progressing, so there is no need for Tan Lun to watch in the capital.

Wei Guangde only thought for a moment and then voted on the memorial, and then continued to look through other memorials. As for the pile of impeachment memorials, Wei Guangde planned to wait until he was tired of reading the memorials before talking about it.

Anyway, there are only two sentences to vote, and it is actually okay to ask someone to help vote, but it will have a bad impact if it is spread out.

After more than ten consecutive memorials, Wei Guangde finally finished handling today's government affairs. Although he didn't know if there would be new memorials in the afternoon, at least now he only had the memorial impeaching the King of Liao in front of him.

But at this moment, a secretary came in with two clerks holding two piles of memorials.

"Where are these memorials from?"

Wei Guangde asked, and when he saw someone coming in, his heart trembled for no reason.

"Sir, these are the memorials impeaching the King of Liao that were just registered by the Imperial Household Department."

The Secretary of the Central Secretariat bowed and replied hurriedly.

"Put it there."

Wei Guangde sighed in his heart and pointed casually.

After the others left, Wei Guangde got up and walked around the room, feeling a little irritated for no reason.

After the cabinet was bombarded with impeachment memorials for a day, Wei Guangde chose to leave the cabinet without dealing with the remaining memorials after the court was dismissed.

During the lunch break, several cabinet ministers got together and discussed that other official memorials should be dealt with as soon as possible according to the original procedures.

As for those impeachment memorials, as many as they can get, even if they are piled up in the cabinet, it doesn't matter, anyway, it won't affect the operation of the government.

While the cabinet was bombarded with impeachment memorials, Emperor Longqing in the Qianqing Palace was also stunned by the impeachment memorials that were flying like snowflakes.

This was the second time he faced the scene of the whole court overthrowing. The last time was when the court officials impeached Gao Gong, but it was not as terrifying as this time.

After all, the old-timers in the capital would not easily come out and express their opinions.

This time was different. Although we didn’t know what the result would be of impeaching the vassal king, at this time, it was politically correct to impeach him. Civil officials who didn’t write letters would easily be isolated by others, so those old-timers also took action.

In addition, the five people in the cabinet now are more than this time last year, and the speed of reviewing memorials is also faster.

At that time, Xu Jie, Li Chunfang, and Gao Gong went home to rest from time to time because of impeachment, which also affected the operation of the cabinet.

The civil servants of the outer court were cheering for their overwhelming power, and no one could understand the distress of the cabinet and the emperor at this time.

In recent days, all the memorials to impeach the King of Liao were retained by Emperor Longqing, but the Supervisor of Ceremonies had to send them in and wait for the Emperor to speak before moving them back.

"Tomorrow, at noon, it will be passed on"

Emperor Longqing looked at the memorials piled below, and finally decided to summon his cabinet ministers to see what was going on in the outer court.

But who to summon first?

Emperor Longqing was in trouble for a while.

If Gao Gong were in court, he would definitely choose to summon Gao Gong.

And now, he has released three people in the cabinet. Should he summon the steady Chen Yiqin or the capable Wei Guangde?

However, Emperor Longqing only hesitated for a moment before he decided on the candidate.

"In the middle of the year, Li Chunfang and Chen Yiqin were sent to visit them."

"According to the order."

The eunuch next to him immediately took the order.

"Okay, let's stick to the old rules, put aside the impeachment of the King of Liao, and report the most important matters to the court today."

Emperor Longqing said to Meng Chong below.

"Your Majesty, I have a report from the Ministry of War, and I want to send the Minister Tan Lun to inspect Jizhen. Now the Minister Tan and General Qi are shouldering the errands of the parade. General Qi is out of the capital to train the surrounding troops. If the Minister Tan also leaves, I am afraid there will be Delaying the big reading."

Meng Chong picked up a memorial and sent it to Emperor Longqing, briefly mentioning the contents of the memorial. ,

"What did the cabinet say?"

The grand parade ceremony was already known to everyone in the court, so Emperor Longqing reached out to take the memorial and asked.

"The cabinet Wei Ge Lao said it is feasible, but I am still worried.

The imperial court has not held a grand parade for many years, and the Ministry of Rites has ordered all the embassies to notify the foreign states of the coming court if something goes wrong."

Meng Chong said with concern.

After hearing Wei Guangde's approval, Emperor Longqing opened the memorial and read it over before he said: "It's still early for the Great Review. I remember that when Tan Lun was brought to Beijing, it was to take over the post of Governor Zhao Bingran. Now it would be feasible for him to go and read it. ”

After closing the memorial, he handed it to Meng Chong and said, "Criticize it.

After he was approved, the memorial was sent to me, and I will give it to him personally tomorrow. "

This is the advantage of cabinet ministers. If the emperor has any doubts about the cabinet's approval of the memorandum, he will be seen by the cabinet ministers who voted for it as soon as possible. For the emperor who no longer likes going to court, there are too few opportunities for ministers to see them. .

If you can't see the emperor, it's too difficult to get the emperor's attention by relying on memorials alone.

The situation is much better for cabinet ministers. If they really want to see the emperor, they only need to do a little manipulation when drafting the votes, and they will have the chance.

Of course, if something went wrong in drafting the ticket, the emperor's summons would turn into a reprimand. This was also a technical job.

Wei Guangde naturally didn't know about the conversation in the palace.

When the government was about to be dismissed, Gao Yi, the Minister of Rites, came to the cabinet and sent the next year's Datong calendar from Qin Tianjian.

In Li Chunfang's room, Wei Guangde flipped through it and said with a smile, "Send it to the palace tomorrow. Who among us can understand the art of yin and yang?"

"hehe."

Everyone in the cabinet and Gao Yi laughed.