Chapter 1805: The Campaign

After a conversation with Kou Zhun, following two days of deliberation and preparation, on the first "workday" after the Jiaqing Festival holiday, Emperor Liu issued an open edict, targeting the current state of the nation, civil affairs, and public security, launching a comprehensive "anti-corruption and anti-crime" rectification campaign across the entire realm.

Upon hearing this edict, the ministers were somewhat bewildered at first. Anti-corruption and advocating integrity were necessities of official governance, politically correct, and something Emperor Liu had always emphasized—no one dared raise objections on such matters.

In the past, Emperor Liu would periodically rectify official governance and stir up the bureaucracy; this was basically cyclical, and the officials below had nearly figured out the pattern. But this time, things seemed different. The great earthquake in officialdom triggered by the Lu case had seen countless officials dismissed or stripped of rank across the four western circuits, and local court-appointed officials had been nearly decapitated in droves. How long had it been before another major case was about to break?

As for the so-called "anti-crime" and public security cleanup, that was less common. After all, over the past twenty-plus years, the Great Han had been generally stable and peaceful. It was only after the Kara-Khanid envoy case and the Yulin Rebellion, along with the public security chaos that came to light, that Emperor Liu, in a fury, issued an edict for a nationwide public security cleanup, purging the bandits, robbers, and brigands plaguing the regions, eliminating those destabilizing factors.

These waves of political turmoil were not far in the past—the Yulin Rebellion had been pacified only a year ago. Everyone up and down was hoping for a period of peaceful living, but with Emperor Liu's latest edict, the waves stirred once more.

The specifics of how the "anti-corruption and anti-crime" campaign would be carried out were not mentioned in the edict, but everyone knew the commotion would not be small. Generally speaking, when Emperor Liu put on that solemn demeanor, something was certainly afoot. And when decisions were made without extensive discussion, the situation was even more serious. When Emperor Liu exercised his sole authority, few could shake his will.

After the court session ended, many high-ranking ministers wore grave, worried expressions. These men, holding high positions and great power, honored and noble, were the meat-eaters at the very top of the ruling class. For them, what they wanted most was stability and peace, and what they least wanted to see was change and chaos—yet they happened to have an emperor who refused to let them rest easy.

In this period, no one dared oppose Emperor Liu's will, and even offering opinions was becoming risky. The higher one's status and the greater one's power, the more this held true. If one provoked Emperor Liu's wrath through remonstrance and lost power and position, it simply wasn't worth it.

Perhaps Emperor Liu himself had not noticed that in recent years, few ministers would voluntarily submit memorials to admonish or counsel him. Most were merely rigid, formulaic administrative reports—and in the half-year-plus since he had resumed personal governance, this was even more pronounced, with everyone maintaining meticulous propriety. Those who truly dared to speak up were the low-ranking, low-influence mid- and lower-level officials, or overly upright and unyielding officials like Wang Yucheng.

Facing Emperor Liu's sudden open edict this time, the central ministers close to him unanimously steeled themselves and heightened their vigilance. That aura of a storm about to break was felt by anyone with even a modicum of political instinct.

Thus, in silence, letter after letter, warning after admonition, spread from Luoyang to all the circuits of the realm, with roughly the same message: the court was about to conduct another rectification of official governance—be careful, be restrained, be proper, wipe your backsides clean, and don't let anyone catch hold of a handle against you.

And the subsequent actions indeed sent a bone-chilling cold through everyone. Emperor Liu ordered that elite troops and capable officers be drawn from the Palace Command and the Wude Office to take charge of this rectification campaign.

The Ministry of Personnel and the Three Judicial Offices—those related legal and supervisory institutions—were all cast aside. This caused an uproar throughout Luoyang. Over the past decades, Emperor Liu had more than once trampled upon the court's established statutes and broken political unwritten rules, but to do so so openly, so blatantly, without any pretense, was a first.

Even during the earlier cleanup of the northwestern officialdom, although the Wude Office had taken the lead as the main force, on the surface the Three Judicial Offices had provided support and assistance behind the scenes. The Wude Office did the dirty, heavy work—investigating, gathering evidence, making arrests, and delivering suspects to court—while the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicial Review handled review and adjudication. Many judicial officials were deeply involved. No matter what, on the surface, the court's judicial authority had been maintained.

But this time, the situation was clearly different. Many ministers sensed the pernicious implications of Emperor Liu's actions, yet no one dared stick their neck out. Even chief ministers like Li Fang and Zhao Kuangyi, despite their inner worry and discontent, maintained their silence.

Of course, at any time there were those loyal ministers who dared to remonstrate at the risk of offending the sovereign. At such a moment, the ever-upright Wang Yucheng stepped forward again, leading a group of remonstrance officials and censors to admonish against Emperor Liu's actions. His attitude was extremely firm, his words exceptionally fierce, declaring outright that Emperor Liu's use of the Palace Command and the Wude Office as fangs and claws to purge official governance was an act that corrupted the law and destabilized the state—opening a vicious precedent, detrimental to court stability and public morale.

Round and round, it was the same argument: the rectification of official governance and the cleansing of public security were matters for the proper authorities. To abandon the court's judicial functions in favor of secret-police politics was to lack legitimacy and justification, to take a devious path that harmed both others and oneself, inevitably producing dire consequences.

It must be said that when Emperor Liu received Wang Yucheng's remonstrance memorial, he was extraordinarily furious. In all these years, no minister had ever dared to criticize his employment of personnel and governance in such a manner.

Even though Emperor Liu knew that Wang Yucheng's words came from a public-spirited heart, the foul anger stirred within him simply could not be swallowed. In the past, Emperor Liu had appreciated Wang Yucheng and been quite tolerant of him—not only because he knew that was his nature, but also because Wang Yucheng feared no power and dared to plead for the people. During his tenure as a Censorate censor, he had impeached no small number of nobles and high ministers.

Wang Yucheng was also, in a sense, a model Emperor Liu had established within the court for strict discipline and righteous conduct. But when the target of that fearlessness toward the powerful became Emperor Liu himself, the fury could no longer be suppressed. He even felt that Wang Yucheng was presuming upon imperial favor, selling his bluntness to buy a reputation for loyalty. Even chancellors like Li Fang and Zhao Kuangyi dared not speak rashly—who did a mere Wang Yucheng think he was, to spew such arrogant nonsense? It was practically contempt for the sovereign.

With Emperor Liu's mind unsettled and his thoughts blocked, naturally someone had to suffer, and the rod soon fell. Execution was out of the question, of course—though Emperor Liu was irascible, he had not descended to indiscriminate killing. Thus, Wang Yucheng was demoted to Prefectural Administrator of Shazhou, sent to blow sand in the northwest. And the officials who had submitted memorials alongside him were, without exception, all packed off to serve in the newly planned Gaochang Circuit and the Anxi Protectorate—which, incidentally, helped the Ministry of Personnel meet some of its personnel quotas.

Wang Yucheng's status in court was not high—even within the Censorate, he was only the fourth or fifth in command—but the fate of him and his colleagues carried immense warning significance. With this as a lesson, no one dared again to admonish Emperor Liu over his "law-breaking" actions.

Given the forceful attitude Emperor Liu displayed, if a chancellor dared to remonstrate, he would dare to dismiss that chancellor—of this, probably no one had any doubt. When the entire court fell silent, things became much easier to handle. Even if there was resistance, there was no fear. Emperor Liu had never been afraid to smash rules; if the rules were troublesome, he dealt with the people instead. Whoever stuck their head out got struck down—that was where his authority lay, and no one dared defy it.

And the first target of the Palace Command and the Wude Office's initial moves was precisely the court's judicial and supervisory system. From the Ministry of Justice to the Court of Judicial Review to the Censorate, official after official was investigated and found guilty of violating laws and discipline.

These bureaucrats, most familiar with the Great Han's laws and holding the highest interpretive authority, now bore the additional crime of knowingly breaking the law, and their punishments were often increased by one degree. Those with grave offenses, those who had caused severe harm to the state and the people, were sentenced directly to death—and there was no need to wait for the unified autumn-winter execution period, nor to gather a crowd of nobles and officials to watch the beheadings as in the past.

Emperor Liu had also noticed that after repeated occurrences, the nobles and bureaucrats had developed a kind of "antibody" within them, and the effect was no longer as pronounced as before. Therefore, after the judgment was confirmed, execution followed immediately. Of course, perhaps Emperor Liu himself knew that if he staged another mass execution, the execution platforms within Luoyang city might not even be sufficient.

After spending over a month basically cleansing the judicial system, the campaign began to spread. Under Emperor Liu's direction, the "Rectification Special Office" absorbed a large number of experts well-versed in law and adjudication from the Three Judicial Offices, expanded its ranks, and turned its fangs and claws toward the other ministries and bureaus.

Thus, a movement to clarify official governance—top-down, inside-out, from the central government to the localities—officially commenced. This time, Emperor Liu's killing intent was truly great. Or perhaps he had intended from the very start to use harsh laws and severe punishments, through the most direct violent means, to cure the chronic ills the Great Han had accumulated over decades. Many offenses that in the past might have resulted only in demotion, dismissal, or exile could now cost a man his life in this rectification.

The result was that during the two months from the fourth month to the fifth month, in the markets of Luoyang, almost every day one could see officials being executed by beheading. The people of Luoyang at first reacted with great enthusiasm, grabbing melon seeds and watching the show—it was truly satisfying to see those nobles and bureaucrats who held power and stood high above fall. However, after seeing it too often, they grew accustomed to it, then numb, then fearful.

As for the nobles and bureaucrats, fear was hardly adequate to describe their state. Surrounded by terror at all times, those who could face themselves with a clear conscience were truly few. No one knew how long this campaign would last, or when this disaster would come for them.

Since the founding of the state, a situation of genuine universal dread had now appeared in the Great Han court.