Ren Hengtai, the Minister of Rites, was sued. Originally, the Ming Dynasty had no prime minister, and the Secretary of the Six Ministers became the leader of all officials and was often paid attention to by others. For example, Zhan Hui, the Minister of Personnel, was the most trusted by Lao Zhu, so he criticized him more often, including true and false, and Zhan Hui never cared about others' comments.

Ren Hengtai was the top scholar in Hongwu for the 21st year, and this person's background was very interesting. His father's surname was Du and he married into the Ren family. Therefore, Ren Hengtai was from his grandfather's surname. Moreover, his mother was not from the Central Plains, but the princess of the Ugulun clan in the Yuan Dynasty. She belonged to the Seme family, so Ren Hengtai was a mixed-race child himself.

What's more interesting is that Ren Hengtai's wife was actually a Mongolian woman. Although many Mongolians stayed in the Central Plains after the Yuan Dynasty retreated, these Mongolians were very discriminated against because of the feudal feud back then. However, Ren Hengtai, who was born as the top scholar, married a Mongolian woman, which is extremely rare among officials.

Although Ren Hengtai was not like Xie Jin, he had been a child prodigy since childhood, he was also a famous talented man. Even after being admitted to the top scorer and became an official, he still maintained his true nature as a talented man. Fortunately, he was quite talented, so he also went very steadily in the officialdom. In the end, he was appointed as the Minister of Rites by Lao Zhu and became the leader of a department.

The thing that Li Jie was most impressed by Ren Hengtai was the previous case of Jiang Boer's murder. Jiang Boer ignorantly killed his son to worship Mount Tai because his mother was seriously ill, hoping to save his mother's life. As a result, local officials also reported this matter as a filial piety, hoping to be commended by the court.

At that time, Lao Zhu was angry and exiled Jiang Boer, but later he felt that the other party was filial, so he wanted to make two merits and demerits and continue to commend Jiang Boer's filial piety. Fortunately, Ren Hengtai, as the Minister of Rites, firmly opposed it, which made Lao Zhu dispel this idea.

To be honest, Ren Hengtai dared to speak out directly to Lao Zhu in person, which shocked the entire court, because since Lao Zhu killed Li Shanchang and took over the power of the court, no minister dared to disobey Lao Zhu. The reason why Zhan Hui was favored was because he was Lao Zhu's response. As long as Lao Zhu ordered, he never asked the reason and firmly implemented it to the end.

In contrast, Ren Hengtai, the usually a bit casual minister of the Ministry of Rites, suddenly made Lao Zhu change his mind, which was beyond everyone's expectations. Because of this incident, Ren Hengtai became famous and even surpassed the other five ministers including Zhan Hui.

However, it is not a good thing that officials under Lao Zhu suddenly become famous, such as Ren Hengtai. Although he has become famous, it has also attracted Lao Zhu's dissatisfaction. It happened that Annan was a little uneasy last year. Some people said that someone in Annan wanted to rebel, so Lao Zhu appointed Ren Hengtai as an envoy and went to Annan to go.

You should know that in this era, Annan, that is, Vietnam in later generations, was not a good place. Not only was the climate hot, but all kinds of epidemics were rampant. Even as an envoy, he would suffer a lot when he went there. Lao Zhu also wanted to use this to hit Ren Hengtai so that he would not float up.

Ren Hengtai seemed to understand Lao Zhu's intention, so he honestly sent an envoy to Annan. He finally came back some time ago, and his mission was also very successful. The envoy sent by the Ming Dynasty last time was just a member of the Ministry of Rites, named Wu Bozong. Coincidentally, Wu Bozong was also the top scholar, but his official position was much worse than Ren Hengtai.

The Ming Dynasty sent a minister to Annan to envoy Annan, and the people of Annan were proud of this, believing that this was the Ming Dynasty's emphasis on Annan. You should know that Annan is in power in the current state of the Chen family, and it was also the end of the Chen family's regime. The country was in chaos, with powerful ministers and treacherous heroes appearing. However, the Chen Dynasty's literary style was quite popular, so Ren Hengtai, the Minister of Rites who was the top scholar, also greatly appeased the situation in Annan, making some powerful ministers in Annan dare not move for the time being.

It can be said that Ren Hengtai completed the mission mission very well. It was originally a great achievement, but shortly after he came back to report to Lao Zhu, something suddenly broke out, that is, when Ren Hengtai was on the mission to Annan, he actually bought several local women from Annan as slaves and brought them back to the Ming Dynasty.

You should know that Lao Zhu ordered the redemption of slaves many times, stipulating that buying and selling slaves is illegal, and both parties must go to jail. The official redemption of sold slaves and reunion of the sold slaves, and seducing good families into slaves is also a serious crime. The most serious one will even be beheaded. These measures actually have only one purpose, that is, to quickly restore the population of the Ming Dynasty, which was caused by war.

In addition, Lao Zhu later stipulated that ordinary people were forbidden to own slaves. Although officials and nobles could own slaves, there were also strict regulations. For example, there were strict regulations on the number of slaves owned by officials of each grade. In addition, these slaves must be official slaves and private slaves are never allowed.

Of course, regulations are dead, but people live. Although Lao Zhu's regulations were promulgated in the form of laws, others can bypass these laws. For example, the people cannot have slaves, but those rich families have a large number of servants. The difference is that they sign a servant contract with the master's family, that is, they work for the master's family in the form of employment. Just like craftsmen in the workshop, no matter how generous Lao Zhu is in charge, you cannot let the workshop hire people, right?

Even ordinary people can bypass the laws established by Lao Zhu, let alone those officials and nobles. For example, according to regulations, the servants in the family of the Duke and the Marquis cannot exceed twenty, the first-rank seniors cannot exceed twelve, the second-rank seniors cannot exceed ten, and the third-rank seniors cannot exceed eight.

Ren Hengtai is a minister of the Ministry of Rites and a second-rank high-ranking official, but there can be no more than ten slaves around him. You should know that as a groom, cook, maid, etc., there are no less than ten slaves who are necessary, not to mention that there are other people in their family who need to take care of them, so ten people are not enough to be stuck in their teeth.

Moreover, as officials, they have more ways to avoid some laws of the court, so they look at the entire court, and almost every official uses slaves and servants. Ren Hengtai buys and sells a few slaves, which is nothing in normal times.

However, the bad thing is that Ren Hengtai bought slaves and servants on his mission, and he bought them from Annan. Although the Annan people themselves may not think there is any problem with this, they cannot resist the ulterior motives of some people in the court. So in this case, the memorial to impeach Ren Hengtai fell on Lao Zhu's desk like raindrops.

Ren Hengtai in history fell into this matter. If no one intervened, he would probably be demoted as in history, and eventually he was dismissed from office and returned home completely.
Chapter completed!