Arriving at the main hall of Qianqing Palace, Zhu Cixiang sat on the dragon table covered with yellow silk and approved official documents sent from various places.

Half an hour later, Zhu Cihong stretched himself, thinking about how to clean up the water transportation and salt merchants, re-divide the salt profits, and hold the bulk of the salt tax in his hands.

The noble officials behind the big salt merchants were all down. They just wanted to make a fuss but couldn't do it. Zhu Cixiang secretly regretted that he didn't have the chance to ransack the homes of those big salt merchants.

After Jin Yiwei served dishes one after another, Li Dahai, who assassinated Zhu Dadian at the water transport terminal, failed to commit suicide many times. Finally, he couldn't bear it and confessed everything. Li Tingbiao followed the clues and interrogated a series of people, and finally found out the mastermind behind the scenes, Wei Guogong and others. Nanjing Xungui.

A row of death-free iron coupons were neatly placed on the side of the dragon case. These were sent by the families of the distinguished nobles on the second day after they were forced into the palace, hoping to save their heads of family.

The death-free iron coupons were made like tiles and had different specifications. Dukes like Wei Guogong got the largest one, which was one foot high and one foot six inches wide. The marquis's was slightly smaller, and the earl got the smallest.

Zhu Cixiang glanced at these old antiques and smiled faintly. This thing could only save him from death once. Now that he was charged with forcing the palace, wouldn't it be easy to kill these Nanjing nobles?

Zhu Cixi also followed the rules. If you have an iron ticket to avoid death, one person will be exempted from death. As for who will be exempted, it is not you who have the final say, but I have the final say! Executing the palace is a serious crime of treason, and the whole family will be executed. Just one person will be exempted from death. That’s it.

However, Zhu Cixiang appeared to be very kind and generous. Although he confiscated the homes of those nobles, he did not kill their nine clans.

Except for the nobles such as the Duke of Wei who forced him into the palace, the rest of his family could spend money to buy their lives, one million taels of silver for a life for a direct descendant, and 400,000 taels for a concubine.

Zhu Cixi made several packages for them. For example, three legitimate children plus two concubines cost only 3,500,000 taels, saving 300,000 taels; five legitimate children plus five concubines cost 5 million taels, which is equivalent to giving away five taels for free. A bastard......

There are other combination packages, such as the combination of a concubine plus a concubine, a concubine plus a concubine...

Although Zhu Cixiang confiscated their homes, after one or two hundred years of development, these noble families still have a lot of hidden assets, even more than they show on the surface.

You can’t give up this money, it’s God’s law not to take it!

Zhu Cihong planned to execute Duke Guo of Wei, Marquis Funing and other nobles together on the second day of February when they went to the Xiaoling Mausoleum in Shenlie Mountain to worship the great ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang.

On the second day of February last year, he executed a group of Beijing nobles in the capital, and this year's anniversary coincided with sending them down to meet and chat.

In the midst of his thoughts, the eunuch on duty appeared outside the Qianqing Palace holding a stack of official documents and said: "Your Highness, Yang Shicong, the left minister of the Ministry of Rites, would like to see you."

Zhu Cixi said calmly: "Let him come in."

In response, Yang Shicong gently approached Qianqing Palace and immediately bowed down and saluted.

He was worried that he would not perform well during the official ceremony and would fall out of favor in front of the crown prince, so he prepared to make up for it.

"Tell me, what's the matter?" Zhu Cixiang said calmly without raising his head, continuing to review the memorial.

Yang Shicong was shocked and felt that he had come to the right place and it was necessary to make amends.

He coughed lightly and said: "Your Highness, in order to continue to increase cultural control over Jiangnan, I propose to characterize Donglin Academy and even Fushe as a reactionary organization, ordering local societies to cancel immediately, and force members to withdraw. If there is resistance, At the least, he may be expelled from his position, at most, he may be sent to the disaster-stricken areas to undergo transformation."

Zhu Cixiang raised his head in surprise and thought to himself, how cruel is Yang Shicong? He himself didn't dare to be so promiscuous, but he really dared to say that he was not afraid of Li Banghua, Maoxiang and other people from Fushe coming to trouble him?

Although people who came from Fushe, such as Maoxiang and Huang Zongxi, supported the New Deal, they would definitely feel unhappy if someone proposed to dissolve Fushe. They always felt that Fushe was a patriotic organization. If it was labeled as reactionary, where would their faces be?

put?

Li Banghua, Shi Kefa and others are also related to Donglin Academy and have the same idea.

Yang Shicong knew very well that Zhu Cihong wanted to completely eliminate the Southeast scholars, and seeing that he was interested in the proposal, he immediately became excited and continued: "Not only that, I also suggested burning down Donglin Academy and banning all the institutions under Donglin and Fushe."

Newspaper!"

Zhu Cixiang said meaningfully: "Aren't you afraid that the Jiangnan scholars will jump over the wall in a hurry and fight back before their death?"

Yang Shicong secretly thought, you have almost killed all the scholars in Donglin and Fushe who opposed the New Deal, and I am still scared!

However, it was indeed difficult to deal with several officials from the Donglin Party and Fushe who were in power, and it was inevitable that they would be hostile to them. However, for the sake of his own future and the ambition of the crown prince, Yang Shicong decided to risk everything!

He nodded firmly and said: "I am not afraid! For the sake of His Royal Highness, I am willing to go through fire and water, no matter what!"

Sure enough, the crown prince smiled, and he smiled happily! Yang Shicong was reassured.

Zhu Cixiang smiled and said: "Yang Qing is indeed a veteran minister who has been with me for several years. He is deeply lonely and a capable minister. He is not afraid of difficulties or what others say!"

Yang Shicong quickly prostrated himself and shouted: "I am willing to die for Your Highness and remove all obstacles for Your Highness!"

"Okay! Okay! Okay!" Zhu Cixiang smiled while stroking his hands, and encouraged: "You are the left minister of the Ministry of Rites. The academy and the newspaper office are under your control. You can handle this matter as you please!"

Yang Shicong was stunned. He was still thinking about Zhu Cixiang ordering the Tianwu Army to take care of the matter, but he didn't expect that he would have to bear the consequences himself...

Before he could say more, Zhu Cixiang already waved his hand and said: "Go to Changzhou Mansion in person. Remember to bring more people with you. Okay, I have some important matters to deal with, so you can go down."

Yang Shicong wisely withdrew and left for Wuxi, the capital of Changzhou, that day. In order to ensure that his head would not be beaten by students from Donglin Academy, he brought more than a thousand officers and soldiers from Yingtian Prefecture with him.

After several days of non-stop driving, Yang Shicong finally arrived at the holy place in the hearts of Jiangnan gentry and literati, Donglin Academy.

Seeing a group of officers and soldiers rushing into Donglin Academy holding torches, some scholars who still insisted on advocating the Donglin Party's political philosophy came one after another in an attempt to prevent Yang Shicong from burning down Donglin Academy.

Some scholars did not hesitate to beat and scold Yang Shicong, calling him a polite scum, and even picked up bricks and stones and threw them at Yang Shicong.

Yang Shicong was hit in the head and almost suffered a bruise. His forehead continued to bleed. He said angrily: "Anyone who dares to disturb official duties will be killed on the spot!"

Yang Shicong knew the virtues of these scholars. Not long ago, the Tianwu Army massacred tens of thousands of scholars at the Jinling Conference. Hearing that those scholars were cowardly men was immediately exposed.

The officers and soldiers of Yingtian Mansion did not dare to take action at first, but when they saw Mr. Yang's head was almost opened and the blood was bleeding, he immediately became fierce and rushed into the crowd with a knife.

With a pop, a bold official stabbed a scholar in front of him in the chest with a knife. The Donglin student didn't know what was happening and threw himself backwards to the ground.

Seeing the officers and soldiers starting to kill, the soldiers in front who were crowding in front of the academy collectively shuddered and scattered in panic.

"You ungrateful thing!" Yang Shicong snorted coldly, wrapped his head in a cloth and shouted: "Go into the academy, tear everything down and burn it!"

A group of officers and soldiers from Yingtian Mansion immediately took action and demolished Donglin Academy. Then they poured kerosene over the entire academy and used dry firewood to support the burning.

Not long after, the entire Donglin Academy was turned into a sea of ​​fire, missing a whole day and night, and finally turned into a field of rubble. The last monument of the Jiangnan literati was directly destroyed.

Donglin Academy was founded in the Northern Song Dynasty. It was the place where Cheng Hao, the Neo-Confucian scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the famous scholar Yang Shi, who was the direct descendant of Cheng Yi, gave lectures for a long time. It was later abandoned.

In the 32nd year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, Donglin scholar Gu Xiancheng and others restored it and gathered people here to give lectures and promote the political ideas of the Donglin Party. Since then, Donglin Academy has become a gathering place for humanities and a place for discussing state affairs in the Jiangnan region.

The main center of public opinion.

Now it was burned to a white ground by a fire. Many Donglin scholars could not help but cry loudly. The government and the public were also horrified when they heard about it. Some Jiangnan officials and scholars went to the media one after another to denounce Yang Shicong's barbaric behavior.

After Yang Shicong took down the headquarters of Fushe, Zhu Cixiang pretended to say a few words and stopped Yang Shicong from continuing to seal up the "Jiangnan News" founded by Dong Lin and the "Jinling Times" founded by Fushe, and handed them over to

Rectification of the Ministry of Etiquette.

A few days later, Yang Shicong formally ordered in the name of the Ministry of Rites to shut down all literary societies. Private academies and organizations in various places must be reviewed and filed by the Ministry of Rites. If they are political groups, the political ideas they promote must be recognized by the court, and everything is consistent with the court's ideas.

Violators will be punished by the local government.

Zhu Cixi smiled and said nothing. In any case, from now on, it is no longer possible for this kind of private group to control the government. They should all just go to official schools to study.
Chapter completed!