Chapter 1672: The Embroidered Uniform Guard Returns to Work

In the days before the year's end, when every ministry and office was about to seal its great seals and begin the long holiday, the main hall of Huang Liji's Ministry of Personnel was nonetheless crowded with high officials from every quarter. Grand Secretaries and Ministers, censors and supervising secretaries, Wang Zhichen, the Supreme Commander of Ji-Liao and Governor of Liaodong who had come to the capital to report on his duties, and Yuan Keli, who had just been appointed Military Commissioner of Liaodong and Governor of Denglai — all had gathered at Huang Liji's place. Everyone's face looked grim; they glanced at one another, each waiting for someone else to speak.

Chief Grand Secretary Huang Liji sat in the chair at the head of the room, drinking a bowl of hot tea without raising his head, not moving in the slightest.

The murmur of discussion among the high officials below gradually grew louder.

"Six hundred thousand taels of pay and provisions, armor and weapons enough for thirty thousand men, two thousand first-rate matchlock muskets — bypassing the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of War, and the civil officials of the Supreme Command, and handed directly to Mao Wenlong? Then what use are the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of War, and the Supreme Command? What use are we Grand Secretaries?"

"Exactly! The court established the Supreme Command and the Military Commission and gave Governors command of troops precisely so that civil officials could control the military. But now the frontier generals grow stronger by the day and more insolent. The one means by which commanding ministers can restrain frontier generals is pay, provisions, and military supplies. If these are bypassed around the ministries and commanding ministers and given directly to the frontier generals, then how are the commanding ministers to exercise supreme command?"

"Raising a personal guard of ten or twenty thousand before one's tent is one thing — after all, that comes from dividing up the imperial estates and gardens. But Mao Wenlong's Dongjiang garrison has always been under our control. How can it be assigned to the inner court?"

"Indeed — is this not chaos? How is the Liaodong front to be commanded and coordinated from now on? Who can command Mao Wenlong?"

"This cannot stand. We must block this matter today, or else from now on there will be no way to hold office!"

"Right — the rules cannot be broken like this! Without rules, how can there be order?"

Hearing the discussion, Huang Liji suddenly gave a cold snort, slammed his tea bowl down hard, and slowly raised his head. "What nonsense are you all talking? Can we block Wei Zhongxian? Back when Wei Zhongxian was the Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Years, did any of us dare block him? Who among us could have blocked him? All those officials below even built living shrines for him — so mighty a Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Years — could they block His Majesty? Feng Boheng, your rival Cui Chengxiu is still locked up in the Western Garden right now!"

Minister of Revenue Feng Quan had been the loudest in the discussion just now; anyone who did not know better would have thought his backbone was made of iron!

But Huang Liji knew his background all too well. Back when Feng Quan's father, Henan Provincial Administration Commissioner Feng Shengming, had abandoned his post without leave and been impeached and punished, Feng Quan had submitted a memorial crying injustice for his father, and had himself been stripped of his post as Hanlin Academy Corrector; father and son had gone home together to eat old rice.

In the fourth year of Tianqi, Wei Zhongxian had gone to Feng Quan's home district of Zhuozhou to offer incense, and Feng Quan, heedless of the dignity of a scholar-official, had knelt by the roadside and wept and begged before Wei Zhongxian. Only thus had he obtained the chance to serve as Wei Zhongxian's dog!

After becoming Wei Zhongxian's running dog, he had contributed greatly to the struggle against the upright Donglin officials, helping Wei Zhongxian hound to death the Donglin grandee Yang Lian, and had therefore been highly favored. At just thirty years of age, under Wei Zhongxian's patronage, he had become a Grand Secretary and Minister of Revenue, and was called "the Black-Haired Excellency."

Later, at Wei Zhongxian's behest, he had served together with Gu Bingqian and Huang Liji as chief compilers of the Sanchao Yaodian — and this Sanchao Yaodian was no simple matter. It was an officially compiled historical collection based on the archival materials of the three great cases of the Wanli, Taichang, and Tianqi reigns, with editorial comments appended. It branded many Donglin Faction grandees as the chief culprits of the three great cases: the Palace Assault Case, the Red Pill Case, and the Palace Removal Case.

One could say that so long as the Sanchao Yaodian was not overturned, a sharp blade would forever hang over the heads of the Donglin Faction!

Therefore, after Zhu Youjian executed Wei Zhongxian, calls to destroy the Sanchao Yaodian rose wave after wave. But Zhu Youjian had his own ideas — no matter how loudly those below clamored, he would not touch the Sanchao Yaodian. Nor would he posthumously rehabilitate Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou, Hui Shiyang, Zhou Chaorui, Gao Panlong, and the others.

And Feng Quan, that petty eunuch-faction man, because he was a chief compiler of the Sanchao Yaodian, had even been restored to the post of Minister of Revenue after Wei Zhongxian's fall — there was infighting within the eunuch faction itself! Because Feng Quan and Cui Chengxiu had vied for favor and set off an internal struggle, Feng Quan's posts as Minister of Revenue and Grand Secretary had already been stripped before Wei Zhongxian's fall.

After Wei Zhongxian's fall, Zhu Youjian had deliberately restored Feng Quan to the post of Minister of Revenue, treating him as a good man who had opposed Wei Zhongxian's treasonous usurpation. And Cui Chengxiu, having no Sanchao Yaodian to shield him, happened to be Minister of War at the time of Wei Zhongxian's fall, so he was now locked up in the Western Garden along with sixty-nine other traitorous party villains. If Feng Quan did not know his place, seventy mad dogs would bite together, and his crimes would be greater than heaven.

Huang Liji had given Feng Quan no face from the moment he opened his mouth. Feng Quan was stunned, and could only hang his head dejectedly. Huang Liji still felt unsatisfied, and went on, slapping the table: "Who set the rules? Did we set them? The rules are set by His Majesty! Let me tell you another thing — yesterday afternoon when I went to the Hall of Literary Splendor for an audience, His Majesty said that the Northern Provost's Office of the Embroidered Uniform Guard has finished its reorganization, and after the New Year it will resume work. Then the hunt for the traitor faction will begin!"

At this outburst from Huang Liji, most of the officials in the hall dared not speak — to a greater or lesser degree they had all attached themselves to and curried favor with Wei Zhongxian. If all of them were branded traitor-faction, a few might slip through the net, but if half were arrested and thrown into the Imperial Prison, a great many would surely be caught.

Sun Chengzong was certainly no traitor-faction man, so when he saw this crowd of officials silent as cicadas in winter, his anger surged — you are all eunuch-faction! Whether or not you are traitor-faction is uncertain, but you are certainly eunuch-faction! How can the Emperor be so muddled? Why does he not sweep away all you eunuch-faction scum? I submit impeachment memorials every day; my denunciations are written so furiously they nearly fly off the page — how is it that not one eunuch-faction man has been brought down?

At this thought, Sun Chengzong too slammed the table: "A thorough investigation of the eunuch faction would be excellent! It must be properly investigated, the eunuch faction swept clean, and a bright and clear world restored to our Great Ming!"

The moment his words left his mouth, dozens of hate-filled glares shot toward him. Because he had not said "traitor faction" but had bluntly said "eunuch faction." The nature of that was entirely different! Anyone who had curried favor with Wei Zhongxian or other great eunuchs to climb upward could be counted as eunuch-faction. That was no great matter — in officialdom, if you did not fawn on eunuchs you had to fawn on powerful ministers; those who fawned on no one generally died as sesame-seed officials. So everyone understood perfectly why Zhu Youjian did not punish the eunuch faction.

But the traitor faction was a different matter entirely!

Only those who had followed Wei Zhongxian in rebellion were the traitor faction!

Those now formally designated as traitor-faction were: the executed Madame Ke; Wei Zhongxian's nephews and grand-nephews; Madame Ke's younger brother Ke Guangxian and son Hou Guoxing; and a few great eunuchs who had been seized together with Wei Zhongxian and Madame Ke in the Palace of Universal Peace. Basically all belonged to Wei Zhongxian's innermost circle of followers, numbering no more than twenty or thirty in total. Most of these people were still alive, under the guard of the Eastern Depot.

As for the Five Tigers, Five Biao, Ten Dogs, Ten Children, and Forty Grandsons who had been arrested and taken to the Western Garden, they were for now merely traitor-faction suspects, not yet finally condemned and executed.

These people posed no threat to the Donglin Faction, but to the eunuch faction they were a deadly existence at any moment! If one added to that the impeachments of Sun Chengzong, the Chief Censor of the Censorate — being stripped of rank and reduced to commoner status would be a small matter; one might well lose one's life.

At this moment Sun Chengzong felt he had let his tongue slip — impeachment was necessary, but he should not have said it in front of a roomful of eunuch-faction villains!

This was simply too hateful!

Wang Zhichen, the Supreme Commander of Ji-Liao just back from the Liaodong front, glanced at Sun Chengzong with some reproach, then spoke to smooth things over: "The urgent matter at hand is still how to deal with the barbarians! Word from the grasslands says that two of the eight otogs of the Chahar tribe have already gone over to the eastern barbarians. After the Hutudun Khan (Ligdan Khan) led the greater part of his people west, the Chahar tribesmen left to garrison the Liao River bend cannot hold out much longer. By next spring at the latest, the eastern barbarians will have taken the entire Liao River bend! Moreover, the purpose of the Chahar tribe's westward migration is to swallow up the territory and people of the Shunyi Prince's domain. The Shunyi Prince was enfeoffed by our Great Ming — can we stand by and watch him be destroyed by the Chahar tribe? We must make a decision quickly!"

(End of Chapter)