SWDnovel Chapter 24: Only those with power in their hands are emperors!
Chapter 24: Only those with power in their hands are emperors!
Empress Dowager Zhang's words resonated deeply, and all the officials in the court were eager to applaud!
With both the cabinet and the harem vouching for it, the will seems to be an irrefutable fact.
The Ming Dynasty ruled the country with filial piety in mind, and it seemed that if Zhu Houzhao produced this edict left by the late emperor, he would have no choice but to comply.
But in Zhu Houzhao's mind, whether the edict was real or fake was not important.
Because it has to be fake, even if it is real, it still has to be fake!
"How dare you!"
Zhu Houzhao suddenly roared and stood up angrily: "I have never heard of the late emperor leaving any will or edict."
"There must be something fishy about this will!"
"Zhuge Zhengwo!"
"Your humble servant is here!"
Zhuge Zhengwo strode out and knelt before Zhu Houzhao.
"Immediately strip Liu Jian and Xie Qian of all their official positions, arrest them, imprison them, and investigate the matter of the late emperor's edict!"
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Weren't Liu Jian and Xie Qian trying to force the emperor to abdicate? Weren't they trying to retire?
Do you think that the Ming Dynasty will stop functioning without me?
You want to die? I'll grant your wish!
"Cao Zhengchun".
"This old servant is here."
Cao Zhengchun obeyed the order respectfully.
Zhu Houzhao glared at Empress Zhang's palanquin; his patience with her had reached its limit.
"The Empress Dowager must have been misled by treacherous officials, which is why she disrupted the rules set by our ancestors."
"Send the Empress Dowager back to the palace so she can rest and recuperate properly. Don't let these trivial matters disturb her anymore."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
At Zhu Houzhao's command, the constables of the Six Doors and the agents of the Eastern Depot immediately began their operation.
In front of all the civil and military officials, Liu Jian and Xie Qian were arrested.
Liu Jian and Xie Qian never expected that Zhu Houzhao would be so unscrupulous, even disregarding the late emperor's edict and ruthlessly killing them.
"Your Majesty, even if this old minister had the audacity of a bear and the courage of a leopard, he would not dare to forge an imperial edict! Please, Your Majesty, make your judgment!"
"Your Majesty, I request to retire! I request to retire!"
"..."
On the other side, Cao Zhengchun, along with agents from the Eastern Depot, had already taken over Empress Zhang's palanquin.
"Your Majesty, your servants will escort you back to the palace."
The agents of the Eastern Depot carried the palanquin, turned around, and hurried towards the inner palace.
"What are you trying to do? Put me down right now!"
"Your Majesty, stop being so stubborn! Are you not even going to heed the late Emperor's edict?!"
"The Empress and the Cabinet are all devoted to the Emperor and to the fate of the Ming Dynasty!"
"Only by heeding the late emperor's edict and cultivating close relationships with civil officials can an emperor become a wise and benevolent ruler!"
A moment later, silence returned to the court.
A coercion attempt that used the pretext of righteousness to force Zhu Houzhao to submit was easily resolved by Zhu Houzhao using the power at his disposal.
It's not because becoming emperor gives you power.
It was because he held power that he could become emperor.
Neither the cabinet officials nor Empress Dowager Zhang in the inner palace could understand it.
The biggest difference between Zhu Houzhao and Zhu Youcheng was that Zhu Houzhao had the secret police and the Six Doors, organizations that served him.
Since some schemes are flawless and cannot be broken.
Then let's just ignore it, flip the table, and kill everyone who set this up!
There is nothing in this world that cannot be solved by killing.
If so, it means you haven't killed enough!
After the coup attempt, Zhu Houzhao lost all interest in presiding over court assemblies.
"Court adjourned!"
After coldly resigning his post and adjourning the court, Zhu Houzhao also left the Fengtian Hall Square.
……
After returning to the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Houzhao felt even more strongly that this matter was extraordinary.
Both the cabinet and the harem were reminiscing about the days when the late emperor was on the throne.
They keep referring to the late emperor. Is the late emperor something they miss so much?
Having been manipulated by the harem and the cabinet to this extent, Zhu Houzhao suddenly felt somewhat dissatisfied with the late emperor.
If he hadn't been so lenient with the harem and the cabinet, would they have been so unruly?
Zhu Houzhao frowned, lost in thought for a while, and then continued to look through the accumulated memorials on his desk.
Suddenly, a memorial submitted by someone caught Zhu Houzhao's attention.
The person who submitted the memorial was named Li Mengyang, and he was just a minor official in the Ministry of Revenue.
However, what he revealed aroused Zhu Houzhao's suspicion.
In his memorial, Li Mengyang stated that he had impeached Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling in the seventh year of the Hongzhi reign, but the matter ultimately came to nothing.
Just a few months earlier, in February of the eighteenth year of the Hongzhi reign, Li Mengyang once again impeached Zhang Heling for seizing people's land, demolishing their houses, and abducting their children.
This time, the matter was hastily concluded after Li Mengyang was detained by the Embroidered Uniform Guard for a few days.
At the same time, Li Mengyang also mentioned that at the end of the seventeenth year of the Hongzhi reign, Han Zhi, a supervising secretary of the Ministry of Revenue, impeached Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling for undermining the salt laws of the court and disrupting market order.
Taking advantage of this incident, the late emperor once ordered the revocation of salt permits held by the maternal relatives.
But with the death of the late emperor, the salt permits held by these relatives of the emperor returned to their own hands.
It turns out that as early as last year, the late emperor had intended to take back the salt permits held by his maternal relatives.
However, due to the sudden death of the late emperor, these salt permits returned to the hands of the imperial relatives.
Zhu Houzhao grew increasingly alarmed and immediately ordered Liu Jin beside him, "Go, bring to me Li Mengyang, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and Han Zhi, the Supervising Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue!"
"Immediately, right now!"
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Liu Jin sensed the urgency in Zhu Houzhao's words and immediately went to find two people as quickly as possible.
"Your subject Li Mengyang greets Your Majesty."
"Your humble servant Han Zhi pays his respects to Your Majesty."
Before long, the two of them knelt down in front of Zhu Houzhao.
"Stand up and speak."
Zhu Houzhao stared at Li Mengyang, holding his memorial in his hand: "Li Mengyang, I ask you, are all the matters in this memorial true?!"
Li Mengyang thought Zhu Houzhao was asking him about the crimes of Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling recorded in the memorial, so he spoke.
"Your Majesty, everything you say is indeed true. The crimes committed by Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling are too numerous to list, and they deserve to be executed by slow slicing!"
"That's not what I'm asking you."
Zhu Houzhao interrupted Li Mengyang: "My question is, did you impeach Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling in the seventh and eighteenth years of the Hongzhi reign?"
Li Mengyang was taken aback: "Your Majesty, that is indeed the case."
"In the seventh year of the Hongzhi reign, you were only recently appointed as a principal clerk in the Ministry of Revenue. How dare you, a mere sixth-rank official, impeach a marquis and an earl?"
"After your failed impeachment in the seventh year of the Hongzhi reign, you suffered greatly. Why do you dare to impeach Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling again this year?"
"A full eleven years have passed in between. Are you simply holding a grudge against them for eleven years?"
"Speak! Who's behind this?!"
Zhu Houzhao's barrage of questions left Li Mengyang completely bewildered.
After a moment of confusion, Li Mengyang was torn between his inner thoughts and his own.
Ultimately, he chose to trust his own judgment.
"Your Majesty is wise; the one who instructed me to impeach him was none other than the late Emperor!"