Chapter 74: Disgust

As for the literati and scholars of the Great Ming, Chongzhen simply had no words to describe them. The most fitting line might just be: I bought a watch last year, you bastard.

To say that all of the Great Ming's literati were useless trash would obviously be wrong.

After all, among them emerged titans like Wang Yangming of the School of Mind, and titans like Zhang Juzheng, and even a Yu Qian, Junior Guardian, who neither smoked nor got his hair permed — though he might have drunk.

But the number of these father-screwing specimens was far greater.

Never mind that Lord Qian who complained the water was too cold and his scalp itched, never mind Liaodong's number-one traitor and the Jianzhou barbarians' number-one loyal dog Fan Wencheng — just these students, with a faction on the left and a Restoration Society on the right, were enough to give a man a splitting, death-wish headache.

First of all, these specimens paid no taxes. The fields and shops registered under their names paid no taxes!

The Hongwu Emperor who founded the Great Ming originally wanted to give the scholars a bit of preferential treatment — after all, these goods couldn't lift a hand or carry a load, every last one of them high-scoring but low-functioning specimens; without preferential treatment, wouldn't they all just starve to death?

On top of that, Old Zhu had won his realm on horseback and understood in his heart that you cannot govern a country from the saddle — you still had to rely on these literati to rule.

The so-called "government students" referred to those who, through the various levels of examination, entered the prefectural, subprefectural, or county schools; their general designation was government student, commonly called xiucai, and also termed various students.

The preferential treatment Old Zhu granted could not be called meager:

Since these government students could already be considered a reserve corps of officials, they were therefore exempt from corvée and conscript labor; upon meeting a county magistrate they need not kneel; if they violated a law, they were to be punished by the education officer; in serious cases, a report had to be made to the education commissioner to strip them of government student status before they could be punished — local officials were not permitted to discipline them on their own authority.

They could already be counted as the lowest stratum of the scholar-official class.

Do you get it now? Even when these goods broke the law, the way they were handled was, damn it all, different from how commoners were handled — it rather carried the implication of first expelling someone from a certain registry and only then trying them.

There were, however, two provisions in the school regulations that made these scholars extremely dissatisfied. That Old Zhu was later vilified like a dog probably had no small connection to these two provisions.

One: if a matter does not concern a government student himself, he shall not lightly bring suit before the authorities. Two: in military and state affairs, a government student shall not overstep his station and speak recklessly.

These two were the first and third articles of the Twelve Prohibitions for Schools promulgated by the Ministry of Rites on the orders of the Hongwu Emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang.

To put it bluntly, it was telling all the government students plainly and clearly: study hard, when you have nothing to do read some books and chase some girls, that'll do; cut down on the babbling about this and that; cut down on rubbernecking and gawking at commotions; when you've got nothing going on, don't go all "the sky's cleared and the rain's stopped, and you think you're all that again"; don't act like the Great Ming can't keep running without you scholars.

Of course, Old Zhu's original intent was good. But once that piss-poor temperament of the Great Ming's literati flared up — holy shit, Old Zhu, you bastard, you're a tyrant!

Won't let us discuss current politics? Won't let us stick our noses into other people's business? This is outrageous! A tyrant! A tyrant, I say!

Of course, Old Zhu was an emperor who rode with his army, and he couldn't have cared less about these government students' opinions — anyway, I've got the knives and I've got the boys, you think I'm scared you'll drop dead?

So during the Hongwu reign, the scholars were all still very well-behaved. But when that idiot the Jianwen Emperor ascended the throne — oh, wonderful — he started playing at cutting down the vassal princes!

Just how brain-dead were these things, tell me? If you're going to cut down the vassal princes, at least do it somewhat reliably, right?

But no!

The Great Ming's literati were just that piss-poor in temperament — start with the softest melons first, making the badasses grow wary, and in the end Old Zhu the Fourth launched the Jingnan Campaign.

Everyone knows the result: one round of exterminating ten degrees of kinship, and the scholars damn well quieted down again!

After Old Zhu the Fourth also kicked the bucket, these scholars could finally consider themselves free. The consequence of letting themselves run wild was, quite directly, all kinds of factional dogfights.

Fighting the eunuch faction, fighting this Zhe faction and Chu faction and the Donglin Faction, fighting the Emperor too.

The result of fighting to the very end was perfectly clear: no one was left to handle affairs. When Chongzhen hung himself from that old crooked-neck tree, not a single accompanying civil official or grand minister was there.

It was only later, when Ni Yuanlu committed suicide with his entire family, that a last sliver of face was preserved for the Great Ming's scholars.

Of course, if these specimens had done nothing more than shoot their mouths off and grumble, the Chongzhen Emperor would not have been angered at this moment.

The Chongzhen Emperor, having transmigrated from a later era, knew with perfect clarity just how formidable keyboard warriors could be — that combat power, as if a nation could be well-governed from a keyboard alone.

But this time, the intelligence transmitted by the Embroidered Uniform Guard unit under Tian Ergeng from Taicang Subprefecture in Suzhou Prefecture, Jiangnan, had thoroughly and utterly disgusted Chongzhen.

A government student of Taicang Subprefecture in Suzhou Prefecture, a fellow named Zhang Pu, had been hailed as a child prodigy from a young age.

As early as the fourth year of Tianqi, this goods had gathered a bunch of scholars and begun forming societies to critique current politics, later changing its name to the Restoration Society.

In the sixth year of Tianqi, this bastard took part in the Suzhou tax resistance riots and wrote "Tombstone Inscription for the Five Men," roundly cursing Wei Zhongxian and the whole eunuch faction crew. Of course, this goods became famous for it.

But this time, at the end of the seventh year of Tianqi, this goods had another flare-up of his disease and wrote a piece called "Lament for Lord Zhou," in which, between the lines, he cursed Chongzhen yet again!

The text explicitly pointed out that Chongzhen's collection of commercial taxes was contending with the people for profit; throughout Jiangnan, it was said that "a whole city turns out to watch, and there is none who does not know the Restoration Society."

Its influence grew greater and greater, gradually showing a trend of spreading northward.

What was even more fucked up was that this goods also widely recruited disciples and cultivated ties with the powerful and influential, openly and squarely pointing the finger at Chongzhen for not having executed Zhou Yanru, Hou Xun, and the others, and denouncing Chongzhen for relying heavily on the eunuch faction and initiating the mining tax — these being omens of a nation's doom.

According to secret reports from the Embroidered Uniform Guard, this man likely held leverage over quite a few southern officials, to the point that the southern officials had virtually no good way of dealing with him.

The Chongzhen Emperor, disgusted to the core by this man, was furious — what are you trying to do? Control the officials, dominate the court? Playing the white-robed prime minister game? Does We need to hand this imperial throne over to you to sit on?!

Of course, at this moment, the Chongzhen Emperor still could not simply chop this fellow up outright.

The so-called rule that "government students are not permitted to assemble factions of many men, form covenants and societies, dominate local authorities, or arbitrarily decide village disputes. The writings they produce are not permitted to be recklessly printed and circulated.

Violators shall be subject to punishment by the supervising officials" — this was not a Great Ming regulation at all; this damn thing belonged to those Manchu Qing.

Even a titan like Zhang Juzheng had only twisted the rule laid down by Zhu Yuanzhang — "in military and state affairs, a government student shall not overstep his station and speak recklessly" — into "on all manner of abuses and ills, government students are not permitted to offer opinions."

To put it bluntly, everything this Zhang Pu had done, aside from holding leverage over a crowd of southern officials, was, damn it all, perfectly legal!

Even though the Embroidered Uniform Guard had detected that this goods held leverage over numerous southern officials, they still had no solid proof!

This way, it was even more disgusting.

If you tried to convict him, everything he did fell within the framework of the Great Ming Code — was a man not even allowed to grumble in private anymore?

You couldn't very well convict him on a charge of "harboring resentment and disloyal expectations, scheming sedition" just because of that, could you? After all, this was the Great Ming, not the Manchu Qing; a certain amount of face still had to be maintained.

As for that piece "Lament for Lord Zhou," he had every justification to whitewash himself and evade blame by claiming he was unaware of the crimes committed by Zhou Yanru and the others.

But if he did not punish this Zhang Pu, Chongzhen felt he could not swallow this insult. After all, no matter who was on the receiving end of such abuse, could they possibly act as if nothing had happened? Neither the Faith of the Best Friends nor Buddhism taught people to behave that way.

Continuing to pound out words, pound out words.

(This chapter is complete)