eldest son of Ming dynasty

Chapter 613 The whole case
Zhu Houzhao flipped through Chen Tai's confession that Mao Yuwen handed over page by page, and asked at the same time: "Where are the 30 taels of silver, have you found it?"

Mao Yuwen lowered his head and replied: "According to the location given by His Majesty, it has been dug, and the Jin Yiwei has also sealed the house."

"Are you a little confused? How did I know?"

Mao Yuwen knelt down on one knee and said, "Jin Yiwei is His Majesty's eyes and ears, but he didn't notice it in advance. This is a minor dereliction of duty. Please punish Your Majesty."

"Get up. Chen Tai is an old fox. Don't mention his reputation as an upright official. Even I have kept it a secret from him for several years." Zhu Houzhao threw aside the confessions denying guilt. In fact, he was a little annoyed. This level is still tough.

"You Zhi, go and bring him here. Doesn't he want to see me? Let's see what he can say!"

"Yes."

After the palace people left, Zhu Houzhao went to help Mao Yuwen up and said: "This matter originally came from Zhejiang. Gu Dayong asked me to leave him in Zhejiang for several years. It is rare for him to have filial piety. He played a song two months ago. A case of land invasion. But this case is not an ordinary land invasion case.

It is said that a local wealthy family, the Xu family, was imprisoned for violating court laws, leaving behind hundreds of hectares of fertile land at home.Another local nobleman named Li Ci saw that the Xu family was in decline, so he gradually took these hundreds of hectares of fertile land as his own.The Xu family had a son. When he saw that the family property could not be obtained, he simply found out the land deeds and dedicated them all to the sons of several officials. "

At this point, Mao Yuwen understood clearly, "I would rather lose money than take revenge."

"Yes, just such a plan to kill someone with a borrowed knife, these officials' children all accepted it, because they thought that Li Ci was just a powerful man and had no official background at all. But they didn't expect that Li Ci had a strong backer. This person is Chen Tai was still the governor of Fengyang and the governor of water transportation.

The two strong men fought each other, neither giving in to the other, and eventually it developed into a fight with each other, costing more than 20 lives.At this point, everyone has to find a backer, otherwise no one can escape.In fact, I didn't pay much attention to it at first, but Chen Tai's name suddenly appeared in Gu Dayong's report. This was inconsistent with my impression of him, so I had Li Ci arrested and interrogated. "

After hearing this, Mao Yuwen suddenly realized, "Thanks to Eunuch Gu for this."

Zhu Houzhao naturally knew it too.

After Liu Jin left, the life of these old people was so difficult.Although You Zhi was also reminded by him, once the two parties in the political struggle are in opposition, they cannot be resolved with one sentence.

Even if you don't target them, they can't get away with it in the existing system.

No one pays attention to you because no one wants to offend Eunuch You. Is there anything you can do about this as an emperor?no way.Moreover, Gu Dayong did not reach the point where he, the emperor, should spend so much effort on maintaining it.

Even if you ignore them, it's still fine. Sometimes they will bully you as a sign of surrender.

However, Zhu Houzhao left several of them behind, including Gu Dayong and Zhang Yongdu.

He found that staying here had miraculous effects. Now Gu Dayong is even more considerate to the emperor than before. He must compete for the emperor's favor, otherwise it will not be a matter of whether he lives well, but whether he can survive. The problem.

Gu Dayong also knew what the emperor was concerned about, so he frequently reported his knowledge to the emperor.This has been going on for some time.

Zhu Houzhao thought it was pretty good, so he encouraged him to continue until he saw Chen Tai's name this time.

"...I was wondering if someone was deliberately acting as a court official. For the sake of his reputation, I did not immediately ask the cabinet to handle the matter, but asked Gu Dayong to handle it. Unexpectedly, I checked. There is still a matter of 30 taels of silver."

"That's why Your Majesty ordered the minister to go and bring Chen Tai back."

"That's right. I can tell you what's on my mind. What annoys me about this matter is that Chen Tai deceived the emperor, and secondly the officials in Zhejiang. Gu Dayong knew to report it to me, and the local magistrate and magistrate But he hid it and refused to report it!"

The second point is that there is really nothing that can be done, because those named Xu dedicated their fields to the sons of local officials, and the father must have concealed the incident and not reported it.The son is the heart and soul of the family, and there are probably very few people these days who are so upright and upright.

So he can understand, but he only understands that he still has to settle accounts with those people this time.

After a while, Chen Tai, who was wearing prison uniform, was taken outside Fengtian Hall. His hands and feet were chained, and he was a little embarrassed. However, starting from the 12th year of Hongzhi, the torture in imperial prisons was greatly restricted, so There were no wounds on Chen Tai's body.

Seeing the emperor and the commander of the Imperial Guard gradually approaching from a distance, Chen Tai knelt down on the ground in a dignified manner.

"Chen Tai, the guilty minister, comes to see the Holy One."

Behind Zhu Houzhao, the eunuch quickly moved a chair over, and under the sun, the emperor sat and interrogated him.

"I heard that you have been clamoring to see me in prison. Do you want to say something?"

"Yes, the guilty minister wants to redress his grievances with His Majesty! The guilty minister has appointed himself as the governor of Fengyang. He is diligent and loyal to the king. He will never be greedy and deceive the king! Please be aware of it!"

After finishing speaking, he kowtowed heavily again.

Faced with such a shameless person who refused to plead guilty, Zhu Houzhao felt a wave of anger rushing straight to his forehead, "Not guilty?! Do you dare to say that Li Ci is not yours? Do you dare to say that the 30 taels of silver are from your official position over the years?" Salary? When you come to Fengtian Palace, in front of me, you still dare to tell lies with your eyes open. It shows that you are so bold and capable of doing anything!"

Chen Tai didn't know what he was thinking, but on the surface he was still not surprised at all.

This is indeed a skill.

Zhu Houzhao laughed angrily, "You still don't admit it, do you? It doesn't matter, I have found your silver. Now that the dirty silver is there, I can justifiably convict you! If I wrongly blame you, it means that I, the emperor, am blind and kill you by mistake." He became a pillar of the imperial court!"

Chen Tai clenched his fists slightly, and his lips trembled a little. "What else do you have to say?!"

"Master, if you want me to die, I have to die." The old guy put his palms on the ground and kowtowed again.

"Take them down and investigate them thoroughly! What illegal things have the Chen family and their relatives done? Investigate them all for me one by one! I don't believe it. Your mouth is stronger than the truth!"

Zhu Houzhao wants to make this case a solid case and a major case in the Zhengde period, but he wants to see how strong this guy is!
~~~~
Huai'an Mansion.

Jin Yiwei discovered something interesting.

"In the third year of Zhengde, Huai'an Prefecture had 28 acres of paddy fields and 16 acres of dry fields. This is the data left by the attendant's office. Why is it different from what Huai'an Prefecture itself recorded?"

Lin Ting was very nervous. He quickly got up and took a look. It was really strange. There was an account book in the Huai'an prefecture. It clearly stated that there were 24 acres of paddy fields and 14 acres of dry fields.

"Is there... is there any official document from that time? The official was transferred to Huai'an Mansion in the fourth year of Zhengde. I really don't know what happened in the previous year."

"I don't know?" Jin Yiwei sneered and took out an official document from the side, "This is how you reported it during the fourth year of Zhengde!"

Fei Hong also walked in quickly from outside. He matched the several materials mentioned by Jin Yiwei one by one and found that there were indeed inconsistencies.

Lin Ting looked a little pale.

Fei Hong knew that he was the son of Lin Han, the former Minister of Rites, and there should be no need to curry favor with Chen Tai on this issue, so he asked: "Li Zhan, didn't you even approve the numbers you reported yourself?!"

When I asked this question, I tried to win over him a little bit.

The Jin Yiwei beside them are also experienced and they understand.They had already checked Lin Ting's identity.

However, Lin Ting was actually breathing heavily in the middle of the bureau, "Shang...shangchao, butang, this, this number was submitted by Zhao Tongzhi. The lower official asked if he had verified it with the counties. He said,... It’s all accurate. It was reported like this in previous years, so I agreed!”

"Zhao Tongzhi?" Jin Yiwei asked, "Should he be here?"

"Yes, yes."

Fei Hong asked someone to find him.

After a while, a middle-aged man with a mustache came over and knelt down in a panic, "Junior Zhao Yu, I have seen the superiors and the subordinates!"

Jin Yiwei sent someone to explain the matter again, and then asked, "You have been in this position for several years. You should know this, right?"

"Yes...yes! This number was decided by the former prefect Tian Ruofu!"

When Lin Ting heard that he could still be saved, he asked urgently: "Since you knew, why didn't you report it to me? And why did Tian Ruofu make false reports?!"

Zhao Yu huddled in the corner, his grievance reaching its peak, "This matter is all because of the former governor Chen Tai. Not only Huai'an, he also hinted that other prefectures and states reported too much. Tian Ruofu has been looking for opportunities to curry favor with him, let alone this matter. Disobedience. Thinking about changing from 24 acres to 28 acres, there won’t be much difference. There shouldn’t be anyone measuring such a large field acre by acre. So... then...

On a mission, Bu Tang!Everything the official said is true. This matter was all requested by Chen Tai. He is the superior. How dare we, as subordinates, disobey him?Please ask your superiors to investigate this matter. "

Lin Ting couldn't stand this kind of plea.

"But you still repaid me like this for four years of your reign!"

Zhao Yu cried, "I feel that the sudden drop in the numbers is too obvious. It is better to write the same as last year. It will not be easy to see, and it will save a lot of trouble..."

"But now it's become more troublesome!"

Jin Yiwei didn't care about this. He was tired of listening to their drama for so long. "Fei Butang, lying about public sentiment data is the most unbearable thing for Your Majesty. We have to take this person away. As for Magistrate Lin..."

It's not that the Jin Yiwei didn't dare to arrest people, but Lin Ting was Lin Han's son. If they really wanted to stab him, they didn't know if it would embarrass the emperor, because if they stabbed him, they would feel like they would force the emperor to deal with him.

And Fei Hong also wanted to hear his opinion, so he asked.

Fei Hong said: "I will tell the truth about today's matter in the memorial to Your Majesty. Even if Magistrate Lin didn't know about it, he is still responsible for not being careful and being too negligent. As a magistrate, he has no intention of serving the king and the people." .As for how to specifically convict, the court will have its own say."

"Yes, yes. Just listen to Fei Butang."

The two parties tacitly agreed to give the emperor the right to choose.If the emperor thinks that Lin Ting is unforgivable, then they have nothing to do. Covering up any details of this case to this extent is very risky. If the emperor feels that he is just deceived by the officials below, then they also give the emperor room to choose.

No matter how he dealt with it, the emperor had enough reasons, and doing so was considered smart.

(End of this chapter)