Chapter 138: The Butcher's Blade for the Officialdom

"Your Highness," Li Banghua, Left Chief Censor of the Censorate, immediately rose and addressed the court upon hearing this. "According to the institutions of the court, the officials of the remonstrance circuits bear the duty of impeaching and denouncing, of redressing wrongful convictions, and of reporting matters on hearsay; maintaining order and discipline in court assemblies is likewise part of their office. What Your Highness has just said — is it meant to tell the remonstrance officials not to do their work?"

Zhu Cilang smiled. "Court assemblies are held precisely so that men may speak, so that they may deliberate on governance. In speaking, errors are unavoidable; in deliberating, mistakes are unavoidable. If men are to be punished for that, then more than half the officials in this hall today are guilty — and guilty of grave offenses! Left Chief Censor, do you intend to impeach them?"

Guilty?

We are all guilty?

The officials who had remained for the small court assembly all felt their hearts leap into their throats — most of them were treacherous ministers! Not only treacherous, but corrupt as well; if properly investigated, every one of them was guilty!

"Why does Your Highness say such a thing?" Even old Li Banghua felt his scalp prickle. He knew well enough that the Crown Prince was not easy to deal with. Yet as Left Chief Censor, upholding the discipline of the court was his duty, and he could not refrain from speaking.

"Do you all still remember Chen Xinjia, the Minister of War who was executed in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen for advocating peace?" Zhu Cilang said unhurriedly. "What was Chen Xinjia's crime? Secret dealings that disgraced the state — he was sentenced under the statute for losing a city or fortress: beheading!

Had Xinjia's peace negotiations succeeded that day, the court would long since have concentrated its forces and exterminated the roving bandits. How then could the capital have fallen? How could Our two younger brothers and Imperial Father's Noble Consort Yuan have fallen into rebel hands? The ministers who impeached Chen Xinjia in the fifteenth year, and those who earlier opposed peace negotiations and opposed moving the capital — did they not harm the state? Should they not be punished? Li Banghua, speak!"

Speak? No one can out-talk you. Li Banghua had already done his duty; now, of course, he was left speechless, playing the fool.

Zhu Cilang sighed. "Chen Xinjia was wronged! Though he was not a competent Minister of War, to punish him for secret dealings that disgraced the state was a monstrous injustice! Moreover, he did not negotiate peace on his own authority — he acted under the Emperor's secret edict. Did those officials who impeached him not know the Emperor's intent? Did they not know the state was no longer able to fight a war on two fronts, east and west? Knowing full well the will of their sovereign and father, knowing full well that peace was the sound policy to save the nation, they rose in a mob to obstruct it — were they not men of sinister intent? Should they not be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law?"

Zhu Cilang's tone grew darker and darker, and not a few of the ministers below had already begun to tremble.

This Crown Prince was a ruthless man who had imprisoned his father and killed his brother — and he was also the lord of the Ming restoration. To provoke his wrath would bring no good end!

"Minister Li," Zhu Cilang said, looking at Li Banghua with a smile, "We established the rule that speakers are not to be punished precisely because We wished to absolve those ministers who harmed the state. You do not agree — do you intend to impeach them?"

One resentful glare after another shot toward the talkative Li Banghua, and in an instant the old man felt as though a hedge of thorns were pressing against his back.

"This old subject... this old subject has been muddled." How could Li Banghua dare otherwise? He could only bow his head to the great Crown Prince.

Zhu Cilang smiled. "It is not that you are muddled. Rather, our ancestors overestimated the abilities of you remonstrance officials.

Whenever a great minister is wicked and crafty, petty men form factions, inner-court officials meddle in governance, men are base and corrupt, official discipline is ruined, scholarship is unsound, or memorials are reckless and disorderly — your Censorate is to impeach them all! Whether officials are worthy or not, who should be promoted and who demoted, is also your concern. In the joint trial of major cases and serious prisoners, your Censorate must also take part. And furthermore you are to oversee the capital's military camps, supervise the provincial examinations, the metropolitan examination, and the military examinations, inspect the Court of Imperial Entertainments, inspect the granaries, inspect the inner treasuries, the imperial city, and the five wards, take turns at the Dengwen drum, purge the army, superintend the schools, inspect the salt administration, the tea-and-horse trade, inspect the grain transport, inspect the customs... and many, many more matters besides, so many that We cannot even remember them all. We know only this: it seems there is nothing under heaven that you censors cannot manage! But can you actually manage it? Old Master Li, speak — can your Censorate manage so many affairs?"

So the Crown Prince means to move against the Censorate! The officials present all understood now.

"The Censorate cannot manage so many affairs." Li Banghua had no way to brazen it out with lies — if the Censorate could manage so many affairs, how had the court been driven all the way to Dagukou?

"Then manage a little less!" said Zhu Cilang. "From this day forward, the Censorate need concern itself with only one matter — the violations of discipline and the unlawful acts of officials!

The nation has only just begun to show the first shoots of restoration, yet if the many abuses of the past are not eliminated one by one, this small hope of restoration will very quickly be buried. And to eliminate the abuses of the court, one must begin with the rectification of discipline. If discipline is not invigorated and officials are corrupt, the court has no hope. To invigorate discipline and purge corruption — that is the weighty task We entrust to the Censorate. As for the great policies of the state, the Censorate need not concern itself."

In Zhu Cilang's view, the Censorate was nothing more than a disciplinary commission and anti-corruption bureau of sorts. Fighting corruption and enforcing law and discipline were its proper business. The great policies of the state were not for them to meddle in. And when the leaders of the nation discussed great policies, no one should be punished — still less beheaded — no matter whether they spoke rightly or wrongly.

If speaking wrongly meant losing your head, who could endure it? And if no one could endure it, then day after day they would have to spout politically correct nonsense just to save their skins — save their skins so they could go on taking bribes and embezzling, and then, when the roving rebels came, when the Tartars came, go over to the enemy and become twice-serving, thrice-serving turncoats. Did the Great Ming employ so many officials just for that?

Therefore, if Zhu Cilang wanted to reform court governance and make the court truly capable of getting things done, he first had to turn the Censorate into a "discipline commission" — an office devoted solely to purging official corruption and violations of discipline. Only with specialization could things truly be done well.

His earlier tightening of the Embroidered Uniform Guard's authority, restricting the Guard to intelligence work alone, was likewise for the sake of specialization. The Embroidered Uniform Guard was the equivalent of a state security organ; state security should do state security work, while anti-corruption should be left to the Censorate. And the great affairs of state, along with all manner of miscellaneous matters, had no need of Censorate meddling either.

The Ming court had so many offices — let each perform its own function, each manage its own patch. When everyone muddles in together, they swarm in when there is benefit to be had, but when responsibility must be borne, no one steps forward.

To put it bluntly, the fewer people managing affairs, the fewer people there are to embezzle and take bribes!

Moreover, once the Censorate became a truly useful anti-corruption organ, Zhu Cilang would have in his hands a sharp enough butcher's blade for the officialdom!

A butcher's blade need only be truly held in the hand — that is enough. As for whether the blade is called the Censorate, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, or the Eastern Depot, it makes no difference.

The Great Qing, Shengjing.

At dawn on the second day of the fourth month, Dorgon received the scout report that Beijing had been taken by Li Zicheng. The report he received stated that Beijing had been breached by Li Zicheng on the twenty-second day of the third month, that the Chongzhen Emperor had been captured, and that the Crown Prince had fled before the city fell to join Wu Sangui's army at Yongping.

Upon receiving this report, the Prince Regent of the Great Qing formed an initial judgment — the Ming dynasty was finished!

Henceforth the world would be contested between Li Zicheng's Shun and the Great Qing! And just what this newly risen opponent, the Shun, amounted to made Dorgon somewhat uneasy.

The Ming army was an old adversary, long since cowed by the Eight Banners. Even their mightiest force, the Guanning Army, now merely held fast behind its walls and had essentially lost the nerve to fight a great pitched battle in the open field — never mind whether they could win, they no longer even had the courage to fight at all!

Such an army could hardly be counted a match for the Great Qing's Eight Banners. But this enemy, the Shun — setting aside whether they could fight, their courage alone was surely greater than the Ming army's; at the very least, they dared to fight.

Dorgon, who was only thirty-two this year, was thoroughly versed in the art of war, and he knew well that on the battlefield there is no absolute certainty. If one encountered an enemy willing to fight to the death, one had to be cautious and prudent.

Therefore Dorgon did not immediately issue the order to march on Beijing. Instead, he ordered the Ministry of War to spare no reward in gathering all manner of intelligence on Li Zicheng after his entry into Beijing, while on the other hand ordering the Eight Banners troops to begin assembling for war.

At this time the Great Qing was in the full flush of its vigorous rise, brimming with vitality and energy, and every office was capable of getting things done. The gathering of intelligence on Ming military affairs was treated as a matter of the highest priority. Within the city of Beijing and its near outskirts, large numbers of Manchu spies had long lain hidden, and any important news would be delivered into Qing territory at the first opportunity.

And the Ming court was a sieve leaking wind, with every matter aired in the Capital Gazette — which greatly facilitated the spies' activities.

Yet these ordinarily highly effective Manchu spies began making errors after Beijing fell to Li Zicheng.

First, they produced contradictory reports on the whereabouts of the Chongzhen Emperor and the Crown Prince, Zhu Cilang.

On the second day of the fourth month, the report Dorgon received said Chongzhen had been captured and the Crown Prince had fled to Yongping.

By the third day of the fourth month, the story had changed: Chongzhen and the Crown Prince had broken through the encirclement and were fleeing separately toward Tianjin and Yongping.

By the sixth day of the fourth month, the story had shifted again: the Chongzhen Emperor and the Crown Prince had both gone to Tianjin, where they were already surrounded by Li Zicheng's pursuing troops and would soon be finished.

But today, the eleventh day of the fourth month, the story had changed yet again! The Chongzhen Emperor and the Crown Prince had not been finished after all. They were holding fast to the Tianjin garrison and had received support from a great army personally led by Wu Sangui, defeating Li Zicheng's pursuing troops. Which meant Wu Sangui's great army had gone to Tianjin.

It seemed the Great Ming would not be dying just yet.

But only yesterday — the tenth day of the fourth month — Wu Sangui's envoy Zu Zepu had explicitly told Hong Chengchou and Zu Dashou that Wu Sangui had not gone to Tianjin, and that the main force of the Guanning Army remained unmoved at Shanhai Pass.

(End of Chapter)