Chapter 60 The Traitor Steps Forward Himself
As Zhu Yuanzhang uttered those words brimming with bone-chilling murderous intent, Zhu Biao was instantly struck with astonishment!
He had thought that, through this series of events, his imperial father’s anger had already subsided to a great extent.
At the very least, the intensity of his hatred toward Li Shanchang had waned.
Back when his fury was at its peak, his father had merely given Li Shanchang a severe beating in public, without actually taking his life.
If that was the case then, surely there was even less reason to kill Li Shanchang now.
So why, all of a sudden, was his father determined to deal a fatal blow and do away with Li Shanchang?
Li Shanchang undeniably deserved to die a thousand deaths, yet this was precisely the moment when he truly could not be executed!
After his initial shock, panic gripped Zhu Biao, and he immediately moved to dissuade his imperial father, urging him to remain calm.
In a matter of this magnitude, one simply could not afford to act on impulse.
"I shall draw a slash across his Iron-Certificate of Pardon, reducing his immunity from two deaths down to one, and use the iron certificate to pay for his life!"
The founding nobles of the Great Ming dynasty all possessed Iron-Certificates of Pardon, a system originally proposed to Zhu Yuanzhang by Li Shanchang himself.
For those holding the rank of Duke, the iron certificate granted immunity from two deaths for the holder and one death for their heir.
For Marquises, it granted immunity from one death for the holder and one death for their heir.
As for Earls, their certificates could not truly exempt them from capital punishment, but could be used to commute certain crimes and penalties to a lesser degree.
Hearing these words spoken by his imperial father, Zhu Biao let out a long breath.
The tension clutching at his heart vanished in an instant.
Thank goodness, thank goodness; his imperial father had not truly lost his mind to rage.
He still maintained a remarkably clear and sober understanding of the situation.
This brilliant stroke—first pronouncing a death sentence upon Li Shanchang and then using the Iron-Certificate of Pardon to commute it—was nothing short of divine inspiration!
It was vastly superior to any solution Zhu Biao had managed to conjure in his own mind.
Ginger truly grows hotter the older it gets!
It was only at this moment that Zhu Biao realized he had somewhat misjudged his imperial father.
While his father often appeared volatile and hot-tempered across many situations, the reality was quite the opposite.
When it came to handling critical matters and crucial figures, he was, in truth, exceptionally cool-headed.
He possessed the restraint to suppress the murderous intent in his heart and make decisions that served the greater good of the realm.
"Biao'er, did you truly think your old man was about to finish off Li Shanchang?"
The moment he turned to speak with Zhu Biao, the murderous aura on Zhu Yuanzhang's face vanished, replaced by a grin—shifting faster than the face-changing arts of Sichuan opera.
Zhu Biao smiled somewhat sheepishly. "This son has wronged your wise judgment, Father."
"You haven't wronged me at all. I genuinely want to throttle this dog right now!"
Zhu Yuanzhang remained fiercely protective of his eldest son.
"However, this dog cannot die just yet. I am keeping him alive because he still has great utility."
Naturally, Zhu Biao knew precisely what kind of "great utility" his imperial father was referring to.
In the recent affair, Li Shanchang’s actions had indeed been utterly deplorable, operating entirely by the playbook of the chaotic late era.
Yet, this fellow's prestige was genuinely towering.
Even though his imperial father had thoroughly stripped him of his dignity this time, the multitude of Huainan nobles still acknowledged him as their undisputed leader.
Flawed though the Huainan nobles might be in many respects, when all was said and done, they remained the most solid and reliable pillar of strength upon which his imperial father could depend.
One could heavily discipline and chastise them to beat them into submission.
However, one could not genuinely uproot the foundational core of the Huainan faction.
To do so would be to deeply grieve those who loved them and gladden those who hated them.
While the Great Ming appeared stable on the surface, it was still plagued by numerous severe underlying crises.
Without the suppression of a powerful military force, major upheavals would inevitably break out.
If handled poorly, it would mean the resurgence of war and a populace plunged back into misery and destitution!
"This old hound Li Shanchang is a scholar. Though he never fully mastered his studies back in the day—failing to even pass the provincial examination during the Yuan dynasty and remaining nothing more than a humble生员 (shengxuan)—among the Huainan nobles, he is nevertheless the most learned man of them all.
"A man who reads extensively understands more principles, and when faced with trouble, he tends to weigh gains against losses.
"He will not act blindly and recklessly without regard for consequences.
"With him around, even if a dispute arises between us, many among the Huainan faction will not dare to truly fight us to the bitter end; their struggles will remain contained within bounds.
"If he were gone, those crude, boorish fellows would consider none of these things, nor would they look so far ahead.
"Many of them are masters on the battlefield, but when it comes to brains, they are truly lacking.
"Encounter certain troubles, have someone stoke the flames from behind, and their tempers will flare in no time.
"Merely from this perspective, Li Shanchang cannot be killed at present."
Having said this, Zhu Yuanzhang paused, a smile suddenly breaking across his face.
It was a very cold, very eerie smile.
"Aside from all this, Li Shanchang serves an even greater purpose.
"I am counting on him to help me properly purge the worms infesting this realm!
"Without Li Shanchang, this task will not be easily accomplished!"
Hearing these words, Zhu Biao failed to immediately grasp his father's underlying meaning.
He understood the concept of purging the realm's parasites, but how that objective tied into Li Shanchang completely eluded him.
Given how viciously his imperial father had humiliated Li Shanchang this time, the man was likely harboring hatred deep enough to cut through bone.
Under such circumstances, how could he possibly cooperate with his imperial father?
Let alone undertaking a thankless and universally despised task like cleaning out the empire's corruption.
"Rest assured, Biao'er, he most certainly will! The treacherous ministers will leap forth of their own accord!"
As if perceiving Zhu Biao's confusion, Zhu Yuanzhang offered an explanation with absolute certainty in his tone.
Of course, Zhu Yuanzhang was certain. In his past life, the moment he announced the halt of the construction of the Central Capital and abandoned the plan to relocate the capital, Li Shanchang had refused to accept defeat.
The man had begun leading local officials across the provinces to lock horns with the imperial court.
Using all sorts of plausible excuses, they slowed down the pace of transporting grain and funds to the frontier garrisons, starving the front lines of provisions.
They also brought the operation of local government administration to a sluggish, grinding halt.
They hoped to employ such tactics to coerce him, forcing him to capitulate and resume the construction of the Central Capital city.
At the time, it truly had backed him into a corner—giving him the helpless sensation of a tiger trying to bite a hedgehog, with nowhere to sink its teeth.
After all, the number of people involved in the scheme was simply too vast, entrenching every corner of the country.
Furthermore, every single excuse they conjured sounded entirely reasonable on paper.
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It left one acutely aware of the deep conspiracy hidden beneath the surface, knowing full well that they were conspiring with Li Shanchang to defy him, the reigning Emperor.
Yet, for a time, there was simply no legitimate handle by which to seize them.
The stalemate dragged on for several months until the pressure mounting upon him grew so suffocating that he was on the verge of tossing caution to the wind and smashing the board entirely—and it was then that he finally found his opening!
Operatives from the Directorate of Valiant Cavalry secretly intercepted local officials traveling to the capital to submit tax reports and discovered blank ledgers stamped with official seals!
Seizing the golden opportunity, he launched an immediate counterattack, directly ordering the execution of over a thousand chief seal-bearing officials in the localities who had fabricated account books!
He smashed Li Shanchang’s orchestrated offensive into smithereens!
It was also beginning with this event—later dubbed by posterity as the Case of Blank Ledgers, one of the Four Great Legal Cases of the Hongwu Reign—that he completely shattered Li Shanchang’s towering prestige.
From then on, the administration of the provinces was firmly grasped in the hands of the imperial court rather than Li Shanchang.
Now, having once again halted the construction of the Central Capital—and doing so with even greater resolution than in his past life, pressing forward eight or nine months ahead of schedule—he knew that, given Li Shanchang’s temperament, the man would undoubtedly resort to the exact same methods to oppose him!
A man forged in the fires of a chaotic era, especially one like Li Shanchang who had held immense power for so long, possessed tenacious resilience and would never yield easily.
This was the heaviest card currently remaining in Li Shanchang’s hand; there was no way he would refrain from playing it.
Armed with the memories of his past life, he knew precisely how to respond. Wasn't Li Shanchang essentially serving himself up on a silver platter, helping him clear out the corrupt parasites residing in the local administration of the Great Ming?
The local officialdom of the Great Ming was long overdue for a thorough housecleaning.
The collapse of the late Yuan dynasty had happened far too swiftly. During the Northern Expedition, Dadu had been captured within a single year.
Countless regions throughout the realm had simply surrendered at the mere sight of the banner.
This unfortunate reality meant that a vast majority of the local officials and clerks remained the exact same batch of men who had served the Yuan dynasty.
The governance of the late Yuan had been profoundly corrupt, operating under a tax-farming system.
As long as the local authorities managed to squeeze out and hand over the quota of taxes stipulated by the imperial court, the central government turned a blind eye to everything else.
Under such conditions, one could readily imagine the moral fiber of these local officials and petty clerks.
Following the founding of the Great Ming, these men had merely swapped their outer garments. Even though he had issued a myriad of regulations and repeatedly enjoined officials to govern with absolute integrity and forbid clerks from harassing the common folk, the actual effect produced remained quite marginal.
Most complied only on the surface, while secretly continuing to engage in embezzlement and extortion to an outrageous degree.
Without a treatment akin to scraping the bone to remove poison, it was impossible to achieve any meaningful result.
He had long intended to take action and overhaul the issue of local official governance.
However, first, he lacked a compelling justification that could implicate a multitude of localities simultaneously.
Second, the Great Ming was newly established, and pressing state affairs were manifold; priorities had to be weighed by their urgency.
Therefore, the matter had been repeatedly shelved.
Yet now, following eight years of steady administration, many pressing issues had already been addressed.
He could now afford to direct his attention toward rooting out those local officials who still clung to the mindset of the Yuan dynasty, operating by its outdated rules, and deludedly imagining that they could treat the Great Ming like the defunct Yuan!
He would execute them until heads rolled like tumbling gourds and blood flowed into rivers!
As these thoughts crossed his mind, Zhu Yuanzhang grew so impatient that he wished Li Shanchang would immediately mobilize the local officialdom to openly cross swords with him!
"Your Majesty, the Minister of Rites has been brought here."
The voice of Eunuch Wang rang out.
Zhu Yuanzhang reined in his wandering thoughts, his expression instantly stretching into a grim mask. "Drag him in to see me!"
"When I was paying homage to the innocent and wrongfully slain common folk, why did you refuse to bow and instead stand apart in solitude?"
Zhu Yuanzhang's gaze swept with critical scrutiny over Niu Liang, the Minister of Rites who had just been escorted into the chamber.
Zhu Yuanzhang’s darkened visage, his unceremonious interrogation, and his undisguised dissatisfaction were pressures that many individuals simply could not withstand.
Yet Niu Liang did not lose his composure in the slightest.
He executed a rigid, textbook obeisance toward Zhu Yuanzhang before finally beginning to address the Emperor's inquiry.
"In reply to Your Majesty, it is not that this minister is unwilling to perform the rites and pay homage alongside Your Majesty.
"It is simply that such a memorial ritual violates the established norms of ritual propriety.
"Where in history has there ever been a principle of offering sacrifices to the wandering souls of common folk during the grand ceremonies of worshipping Heaven and issuing an Edict of Penitence?
"Looking across the annals of past and present, there is certainly no precedent for a sovereign of a nation lowering his head to kneel, kowtow, and pay tribute to the ghosts of commoners..."
Niu Liang’s ritual movements were impeccably standard, his demeanor appearing deferential, yet the words issuing from his mouth were far from polite.
This was tantamount to standing face-to-face with Zhu Yuanzhang in a direct showdown, declaring that the fault did not lie with him; rather, it was Zhu Yuanzhang, the Emperor himself, who had acted improperly in the first place.
His own refusal to participate was therefore the only correct course of action.
Zhu Yuanzhang’s complexion turned even darker.
"No precedent? I am the precedent!
"I am the Emperor, and every word and action of mine constitutes the rites!
"Countless common folk suffered wrongful deaths and perished because of the construction of the Central Capital. When I issue an Edict of Penitence, what is wrong with offering sacrifices to comfort them?
"An Edict of Penitence is not merely spoken for the ears of Heaven above; it is likewise spoken for the ears of the multitudes of common folk!
"Of all things in the universe, the people are paramount; the common folk are the very foundation of a state.
"What is wrong with me bowing before the wrongfully slain souls of my subjects to offer sacrifices?
"This is the truest and greatest rite of all!"
Upon hearing Zhu Yuanzhang's declaration, Minister of Rites Niu Liang trembled slightly from head to toe.
He was trembling with pure fury.
How utterly heretical!
What manner of twisted nonsense was the Emperor spouting?
Far from recognizing the magnitude of the blunder he had committed, he stood here defiant, offering loud and specious justifications for his actions.
Outrageous!
Simply too outrageous!
Because the reigning Emperor had originated from a peasant background, followed by a stint as a beggar and a Buddhist monk—making him a man who undeniably had not spent his youth poring over the classics of sages—they had maintained very low expectations for him, never demanding that his conduct meticulously conform to etiquette in every single instance.
At the very least, however, he must not stumble on matters of major principle.
Fortunately, despite his humble origins, the Emperor deeply admired the teachings of the sages and attached great importance to ritual systems.
Following the founding of the Great Ming, he had even appointed numerous Confucian scholars and masters of ritual to formulate protocols across all domains.
Furthermore, he personally complied with many of the rituals that had been established.
This had filled Niu Liang and his peers with a profound sense of relief, leading them to believe the Emperor was still a figure who could be guided and reformed.
Yet who could have anticipated that, during the ceremony of worshipping Heaven and issuing the Edict of Penitence, the Emperor would suddenly commit such an outrageous breach of conduct!
As if that weren't enough, he had summoned him here afterward, and when Niu Liang pointed out his error to his face, the Emperor had doubled down with such rhetoric!
He completely failed to realize that he was in the wrong!
Was the Emperor unaware that ritual systems existed primarily to uphold the Emperor and safeguard imperial authority?
Did he not understand that his own actions were intended for his own benefit?
Truly, this was a case of a dog biting Lü Dongbin—completely failing to recognize a good heart!
Had this been any other circumstance, once the Emperor had spoken to this extent, Niu Liang certainly would not have pursued the matter further.
More than that, he would have confessed his fault to the Emperor and begged for imperial clemency.
The present situation, however, was fundamentally different. In his eyes, a matter of core principle was at stake.
On this issue, there could be no room for compromise.
He had to make the Emperor realize how perilous his mindset was and how grave the mistake he had committed truly was.
He needed to awaken the Emperor from his delusion.
Even if he could not force the Emperor to issue a public apology to the empire, he must at the very least compel him never again to engage in such egregious violations of ritual propriety that harmed the majesty of the throne.
"Your Majesty, it is certainly noble of Your Majesty to hold the common people in your heart, and offering sacrifices to them is likewise permissible.
"However, one must distinguish the occasion and the proper method.
"Worshipping Heaven has its own prescribed occasions and rites; worshipping Earth has its own occasions and rites.
"In the same vein, offering sacrifices to deceased commoners has its own specific occasions and rites.
"The common folk are the common folk, and Heaven is Heaven.
"Commoners are not Heaven; one cannot perform sacrifices to common folk during the rituals dedicated to Heaven.
"You, Your Majesty, are an imperial sovereign; you most certainly cannot lower yourself to perform kowtows and full ritual bows before the souls of commoners.
"This is fundamentally incorrect.
"Your Majesty, you are the ruler, while the common folk do not even rank as your subjects—their social status is lowly and mean.
"Although there is a saying that the deceased command the utmost respect, even that principle has its limits.
"For Your Majesty to personally sacrifice to them is already the greatest benevolence they could receive.
"To be granted a cup of wine poured in their honor is a blessing cultivated over ten lifetimes.
"Even a simple bow from the waist is more than they are entitled to bear.
"How much less appropriate is it for Your Majesty to perform the grand kowtow reserved for supreme reverence?"
Niu Liang maintained his posture of obeisance, his speech unhurried and measured.
Yet the underlying implications woven through every sentence caused Zhu Yuanzhang’s anger to flare up to the heavens.
This fellow was doing nothing more than singing a constant tune of opposition, insisting over and over that the common people were lowly and mean—that they had been base in life and remained equally base in death.
Base creatures ought to conduct themselves with the demeanor of base creatures; they must never be elevated to a position of nobility.
He, the Emperor, must likewise refrain from doing so!
"Eat shit and bark at the moon!"
Zhu Yuanzhang pointed directly at Niu Liang’s nose and cursed him to his face.
Springing to his feet, he strode across the floor in two or three steps, closed the distance to Niu Liang, and delivered a swift, direct kick straight into Niu Liang’s stomach!
The blow sent Niu Liang crashing backward onto the ground!
Niu Liang clutched his abdomen, his body curling inward like a boiled prawn, his mouth agape as he struggled desperately to draw breath, rendering him completely unable to speak!
Any further words he had yet to utter were choked off instantly!
Zhu Yuanzhang glared down at the fallen Minister of Rites, his eyes blazing with an uncontainable murderous intent.
This stubborn hound Niu Liang was an utter obstinate traditionalist, completely impervious to reason and brazenly ungrateful!
When this fellow had openly opposed him during the sacrificial rites for the common folk, Zhu Yuanzhang had refrained from executing him on the spot, choosing instead to have him brought directly into his presence first.
That was meant to grant him a chance.
Yet the man remained unrepentant, standing tall with high-sounding rhetoric and spewing such harsh, offensive drivel.
To hold the common people in such utter, casual contempt!
"Your Majesty... even if you beat this minister to death... this minister maintains this exact view!
"The rites cannot be abandoned!
"The common folk are base and lowly creatures! Your actions were simply wrong!
"If this is allowed to continue, the state will cease to be a state!
"This minister speaks solely for the sake of Your Majesty and the Great Ming!"
After a long while, Niu Liang managed to recover enough breath to speak. Enduring the stabbing pain, he dropped to his knees, kowtowed in salute, and mechanically repeated the exact same arguments.
The murderous fury boiling within Zhu Yuanzhang could no longer be suppressed.
"Men! Drag this dog outside the city gates and toss him before the corpses of the wronged laborers!
"Then, sever his head to serve as a sacrifice to the wandering souls of those 'base commoners' he so despises!"
With a single command, guards of the Jinwuwei immediately swarmed forward, hoisting the struggling Niu Liang up by his arms and hauling him away.
"Father, this..."
Anxious to smooth things over and save Niu Liang's life, Zhu Biao hurried forward to intervene.
"Your Majesty! Even if you have this minister killed, this minister repeats these words!
"The rites cannot be abandoned!
"The common folk are base and lowly!
"Base and lowly people must never be honored with noble rites!"
"Biao'er, did you see that? It is not I who insists on killing him; he is deliberately marching to his own execution! You cannot blame me!"
The words of intercession and mercy that Zhu Biao had prepared to save Niu Liang froze in his throat, utterly unspeakable.
A moment later, listening to the faint, receding cries echoing from afar—still stubbornly shouting that the rites could not be abandoned and that the common folk were lowly—he let out a long, heavy sigh...
Watching Zhu Biao's expression, Zhu Yuanzhang felt a surge of thoughts rising within him that he wished to impart to his eldest son.
Yet, as the words reached the tip of his tongue, he realized they were lessons not only meant for Biao'er, but equally fitting for his other sons as well.
Consequently, he immediately issued orders summoning the second, third, and fourth imperial princes to the chamber as well.
Once all of them had arrived, Zhu Yuanzhang gazed at his four sons standing before him and finally spoke: "..."