[Ming] Wuzong's Chronicle of Rebirth

Mrs. Zhang probably also ran out in a hurry, wearing only a light padded jacket and no makeup on her face.After kneeling for half an hour, the weather was cold and windy, Mrs. Zhang's face was pale, and her lips were already a little bruised.Liu Jin carefully placed the charcoal stove around Mrs. Zhang and then backed away silently.Ignoring Zhou's glaring gaze, Zhu Houzhao put the futon on the ground, helped Zhang up slightly, and then placed the futon under Zhang's knees.He also knelt down beside her.

"It's really precious, I don't know, but people who make mistakes are treated like this. Are there still rules in this harem?" Zhou's anger is now overwhelming, and he can no longer care about the image of a kind great-grandmother.She grew up in a poor family, and her parents favored her younger brother. When she was a child, she relied on her two younger brothers to have a meal.The eldest brother and the younger sister have already passed away, and now only the elderly second brother is left alive, and the descendants of the Zhou family are not up to date, so why don't she take care of her mother's family more.

"Reporting to the Empress Dowager, regardless of whether the mother is guilty or not, the younger brother in the mother's womb is innocent. The uncle was wrong, but the mother was wrong as the eldest sister, but she didn't advise. As a junior, the son didn't know that the uncle made a mistake, so he couldn't do it in time. It’s wrong to stop it. It’s just a plan for the dragon in the mother’s belly, and I ask the empress dowager to forgive me.” Zhu Houzhao’s words qualified the matter, and it was only the fault of Shou Ninghou himself, Zhang’s own. It's just a crime of ignorance.

Moreover, Mrs. Zhang is the eldest sister who is married and lives in the palace, so any undetected crimes are just nonsense.If Mrs. Zhang is really to be held accountable, what about Mrs. Zhou, who is also her sister?A slap can't be slapped, and before the matter is fully clarified, who knows whether it was Shou Ninghou who provoked this matter first or whether Chang Ningbo was more at fault.

"Okay, my good great-grandson actually knows how to contradict his elders. Mrs. Zhang, you have a good son." Mrs. Zhou sat on the grand master's chair in front of the gate of Qianqing Palace, and Madam Yu stood beside her with a serious face.Zhu Youtang was sitting next to Mrs. Zhou, frowning tightly.On the other side of the steps is Zhou Tang, the eldest son of Changning Bo.

Mrs. Zhang was impatient, and when she saw Mrs. Zhou implying that Zhu Houzhao was not filial, she wanted to refute, but Zhu Houzhao pressed her hand to imply that she should keep quiet. "The empress dowager calm down. My son is not contradicting the empress dowager, but just stating the facts. I don't know where to offend the empress dowager, but please ask the empress dowager Haihan."

"Since it is my uncle's fault, I naturally want to ask clearly. I want to ask my father, can I ask Zhou Tang some questions?" Zhu Houzhao knew that in order to solve this matter, he must first clarify the matter. The ins and outs.

Zhu Youtang was sandwiched between two women, not knowing what to do, Zhu Houzhao asked to clarify the matter, which he naturally wanted. "You ask. Changning uncle's eldest son Zhou Tang, you have to answer truthfully, and you can't hide anything."

Seeing that both of them called Zhou Tang the eldest son, Mrs. Zhou wanted to suppress Zhu Houzhao as an elder. "Zhou Tang is the emperor's cousin and the prince's cousin, how could he call the elder's life so directly."

Zhu Houzhao knew that he could not be suppressed by the Zhou family now, so he immediately retorted: "The emperor of heaven and earth is a teacher. Zhou Tang is the son of Changning Bo, who was conferred by the emperor himself. Don't the emperor and the sons even have the qualification to call him by name!"

Zhou originally thought it would work, but Zhu Houzhao stopped him with a word.She wanted to scold Zhu Houzhao for taking back the initiative, but she couldn't find a reason, so she could only give up, looking at Zhu Houzhao bitterly, thinking of going back and taking care of him slowly.

Zhu Houzhao bent down and kowtowed to Zhu Youtang, and stood up neatly.He walked up to Zhou Tang and warned sharply: "Zhou Tang, the crown prince will ask you a few questions about today's events, and I hope you can answer them truthfully. If everyone misunderstands because of you, you should know the consequences." Right. Do you understand?"

Zhou Tang is the most sensitive person. Seeing that the most distinguished people in the palace are here, and seeing Zhu Houzhao's harsh questioning, he was already frightened to the ground, and obediently agreed: "Mr. I know, I understand."

"Then explain this matter carefully from beginning to end." Zhu Houzhao knew that Mrs. Zhang was uncomfortable, but if this matter is not clarified now, after Zhou Tang goes back, I am afraid that he will never be able to explain it clearly again. Mrs. Zhang be patient for a while.

Zhou Tang had never seen such a scene before, and immediately said it like beans poured out of a bamboo tube.

Zhou's family and Zhang's family fought together for Zhuangtian in the suburbs of Beijing last year.This incident was instigated by Zhang Heling, who forced a rich family to sell him a farm of thousands of hectares at a low price last July.Someone from a relative of this rich man spoke up in front of Chang Ningbo, and at the instigation of this person, Chang Ningbo bought the Zhuangtian from the rich man at more than double the price.At that time, sparks were already flying between the two families, but it was a pity that the Empress Dowager Zhou was caught trying to put a woman next to Zhu Youtang, so the Zhou family had to take a step back and gave the farm to Zhang Heling without taking any money.

In February of this year, the family of the late Chief Assistant Qiu Jun returned to his hometown because of Ding You, and disposed of a whole street of more than 300 shops, large and small, and the Zhou family ate it all.This street is just in front of Zhang's shop, and the two streets share a waterway.Seeing that their home was upstream, the Zhou family rented out a dozen or so shops at the end of the street to people who butchered pigs and sold meat and seafood, polluting the water source with stinking sewage and strange smells from the shops. The smell will scare the guests away.

The Zhang family is now at the time when the fire is cooking oil, how can they bear it, and after getting entangled with forty or fifty local ruffians, they went to argue.The butcher who sells meat and the fisherman who goes to sea are so easy to provoke, they beat the servants of the Hou's mansion to the ground on the spot.After the servant returned to the mansion, in order to avoid punishment, he told the story of the situation to Shou Ning Hou, and Shou Ning Hou immediately found a hundred big men to call the door.Everyone came to the door. Naturally, the Zhou family would not just arrest them without a fight, and directly pulled all the family members over.With Zhou Mansion like this, Zhang Mansion is naturally not to be outdone, such a chain of links led to today's incident.

After careful questioning, Zhu Houzhao confirmed that it was the Changningbo Mansion who deliberately rented the shops to those people, and then directly instructed them to discharge the sewage to the next street.And when the incident happened, the Changningbo Mansion never thought of reconciling with the Shouning Hou Mansion.

Zhu Youtang rejected Zhou's several attempts to interrupt Zhou Tang during the process.Seeing that Zhu Houzhao had finished asking, she immediately sneered and said, "So, it's not that the Shouning Marquis Mansion used its power to bully others and compete with the people for profit. Uncle Changning was just secretly a little bit annoyed. What does it matter compared to the actions of the Shouning Marquis Mansion?"

Zhu Houzhao ignored her, and said to Zhu Youtang, "Father, I have finished asking questions."

Zhu Youtang knew that once he spoke out, there would be no room for retaliation, so he could only hand over the right of conviction to Zhu Houzhao. "Since it's you who asked, you have already been crowned and have left the cabinet to study, and you can already be a director, so you can judge it!" Zhu Houzhao is the crown prince, and Zhu Youtang's doing so is understandable.

"Reporting to the emperor, I think there is no reason to comment on this matter." Zhu Houzhao bowed to Zhu Youtang and said loudly.

Zhu Youtang knew his son, and probably knew what he was going to say.He has a deep sense of powerlessness. Why are his relatives and lovers so slow? Shouldn't they be the people he trusts the most?Zhu Youtang actually didn't want Zhu Houzhao to speak out, but the situation had developed to such a point that even without Zhu Houzhao, this matter would have become the focus of the officials. "Then how should you judge it?"

After Zhu Houzhao knelt down and kowtowed three more heads, he continued to say with a serious attitude: "My minister believes that this matter should not be convicted solely on the basis of this matter. Marquis Shouning and Uncle Changning are only relatives. Even if they have the title of Lumi, how can they be convicted?" You can afford a whole street of shops. If there is a conflict of interest, the two families can fight privately, and the number of family members far exceeds the regulations, which shows the problem."

Except for Zhu Youtang, none of them thought that Zhu Houzhao would talk about this issue, and they were all shocked on the spot.Knowing the seriousness of the problem, Mrs. Zhang quickly interrupted Zhu Houzhao and said, "Zhao'er, the Hou Mansion and the Bo Mansion are deeply favored, and some family properties are naturally not strange. If you are young and don't understand it, don't talk about it."

Seeing that Zhang finally made a sound at this time, Mrs. Zhou hummed to express her disdain.

Zhu Houzhao took a deep look at the few people present, and continued: "The queen mother said that the minister is young, and the minister is indeed young. But the general price is still known to the minister, and the value of a whole street is still known to the minister. .Does the queen believe what the queen mother said?"

"The Ming Dynasty was the most severe among officials in the past dynasties. The "Law of the Ming Dynasty" clearly stipulates that officials of four grades and above are prohibited from doing business. If they embezzle 60 taels of silver, they must be peeled and used as grass to show the public. Your Majesty. First of all, it has become a common practice for officials of all sizes to flock to do business. Even though I was young, I knew about it. There are only three methods: abuse of power, monopoly and monopoly; .”

Zhu Houzhao paused and continued: "The meritorious service and foreign relatives are even worse than that. Indulging the family members to rob the interests of merchants. Three out of ten shops in and outside the capital belong to nobles and foreign relatives. My ministers dare to speak, please father Thoroughly investigate this matter, otherwise, the people's grievances will not be resolved in the long run."

The nobles and relatives of the clan live in luxury.In fact, Zhu Houzhao was more euphemistic in order to take into account Zhu Youtang's face.Historically, by the time of Jiajing, the clan’s annual rice withdrawals from the treasury had reached 850 million 800 shi, equivalent to one-third of the country’s land tax revenue, which was more than the [-] million military rations spent each year. It is worth noting that , This was the military expenditure of the Japanese pirates at their peak.Yu Dayou, a famous minister of Jiajing, directly listed the clan, the northern soldiers and captives, and the flooding of the Yellow River as the "three major evils of the country".

After hearing this, Mrs. Zhou reluctantly said: "So what, the clan and nobles are not comparable to those untouchables." He completely forgot that he also came from a poor farmer's family.

After hearing Zhou's words, Zhu Houzhao no longer had any hope for her political intelligence.Seeing that the people Zhu Houzhao said were speechless, Zhu Youtang said helplessly, "What you said still makes sense, and I will deal with this matter. Your mother is weak, so take her back first."

Mrs. Zhou was still waiting to speak, when Zhu Youtang shouted, "Empress Dowager."

Zhou had no choice but to swallow the words that came to his lips.Zhu Youtang finally swallowed his breath, and said wearily: "The Empress Dowager, I respect you as the Empress Dowager. Mrs. Zhang is still pregnant with my child. You have had enough trouble, go back."

Mrs. Zhou was completely annoyed, but at the thought of relying on Zhu Youtang tomorrow, she held back, and shouted to Zhou Tang, a drowning quail, "Tang'er, let's go."

"Empress Dowager, Zhou Tang still needs to assist in the investigation, so I can't leave with you." Zhu Youtang stopped her.

Mrs. Zhou was about to lose her temper. Seeing Zhu Youtang's persistence, she threw up her sleeves and left.