Chapter 257: Wei Zhongxian Wronged

Having finally heard a satisfactory answer, Zhu Cilang nodded with satisfaction, then asked Zhu Chunchen, "Duke of Chengguo, who would have thought Wei Zhongxian could be so cunning — dead all these years, and his ghost still lingers!"

Wei Zhongxian is truly wronged!

Zhu Chunchen thought to himself: Wei Zhongxian has been dead all these years, and now he's being dragged out for your use — he really has been wronged to the utmost.

"Thousand Years speaks truly!" One cannot casually voice what is in one's heart, so Zhu Chunchen naturally put on a righteous face and spoke falsehoods. "That traitor Wei Zhongxian was cunning and cruel, and even schemed to seize the great throne. He planted dead loyalists far and wide and laid plans on every side, doing immense harm. Truly he was the foremost treacherous sycophant of all time!"

Are you even talking about Wei Zhongxian? Hearing Zhu Chunchen's assessment of Wei Zhongxian, what Zheng Sen thought of instead was his own junior fellow disciple, Zhu Cilang!

Zhu Cilang, however, wore an angry expression and nodded repeatedly. "Exactly. This rebellion in the Southern Capital was the work of Wei Zhongxian's remnant faction! Zhu Guobi, confess honestly — have you eunuch-faction remnants colluded with the eastern barbarians, intending to seize the Son of Heaven and sell out the country to foreign traitors?"

How did selling out the country to foreign traitors get added on?

Zhu Guobi was already shaking uncontrollably and could not get a word out. His crimes were already enormous, and his hope of keeping his life was exceedingly slim. Now with the added charge of colluding with foreign traitors to sell out the country, would he not be sentenced to death by slow slicing?

Seeing that Zhu Guobi was too terrified to speak, Zhu Cilang put on a gentler expression. "Zhu Guobi, do not be afraid. Although you have committed unpardonable crimes, We have always been lenient. As long as your conscience awakens, you sincerely repent, and you honestly confess your crimes, We can extend grace beyond the law, spare your life, and instead of exiling you to Taiwan, send you to Maji Mountain under confinement — and even leave you a few tens of thousands of taels of silver to live on. Think it over carefully: did you have any intention of colluding with foreign traitors to sell out the country?"

Zhu Guobi listened in utter confusion. What exactly did the Crown Prince want?

Seeing that Zhu Guobi was too frightened to speak, Zhu Chunchen helped Zhu Cilang reassure him. "Zhu Guobi! The Crown Prince's words are golden and jade-like — do you not believe them? Besides, the crimes you have already committed are so great that they are enough for execution or dismemberment. What difference would a few more charges make? You might as well confess to them all, and then denounce whomever the Crown Prince tells you to denounce."

Only then did Zhu Guobi suddenly understand. So the Crown Prince wanted him, this "eunuch-faction rebel who infiltrated the Donglin and colluded with foreign traitors to sell out the country," to go bite people!

If he was "a eunuch-faction rebel who infiltrated the Donglin and colluded with foreign traitors to sell out the country," then the Donglin gentlemen he bit as accomplices would not be able to wash themselves clean even by jumping into the Yangtze, would they?

And since he had this function of intimidating the Donglin gentlemen, he could naturally go on living well.

"This guilty subject remembers now. This guilty subject truly was a rebel partisan of Wei Zhongxian. Entrusted by Wei Zhongxian, this guilty subject recruited many Donglin hypocrites! Huang Shu, now a fugitive, is one of them!"

Zhu Cilang nodded with satisfaction. "Good, good! This is meritorious service! Now tell Us more — how did you collude with foreign traitors to sell out the country? How did you make contact with Dorgon?"

There's more? How am I supposed to fabricate this?

Zhu Guobi did not know how to spin a story, so he could only cast a pleading look at Zhu Chunchen.

Zhu Chunchen asked with a stern face, "Zhu Guobi, speak truthfully. Was Sun Zhixie, the eunuch-faction remnant sent by Dorgon this time, your intermediary for colluding with foreign traitors to sell out the country? You must have arranged contact with Sun Zhixie first, and only then raised your rebellion in Jinling, intending to seize the Son of Heaven and use the Son of Heaven's name to collude with foreign traitors and sell out the country. Is that not so?"

The story was actually rather well fabricated! Even Sun Zhixie had been inexplicably dragged in — Sun Zhixie was a diehard eunuch-faction man. In the early years of Chongzhen, when the court officials petitioned to destroy the Three Dynasties Essential Records, he hugged the Three Dynasties Essential Records and wept bitterly at the Imperial Ancestral Temple. As a result, he was branded a diehard eunuch-faction man and stripped of his rank and sent home.

Although many years had passed, Sun Zhixie was still despised by the scholarly world, and now he had become Vice Minister of the Ministry of War under the eastern barbarians — a diehard eunuch-faction man plus a diehard traitor to the Han. If the purpose of his coming south was to collude with the Nanjing eunuch-faction rebels represented by Zhu Guobi, then the charge of eunuch-faction rebels colluding with foreign traitors to sell out the country could be made to stick.

Eunuch-faction on one side, traitor to the Han on the other — whoever got tainted with that would stink for ten thousand years, would they not?

So Zhu Guobi was now no longer Zhu Cilang's enemy, but a weapon in Zhu Cilang's hands for dealing with the Jiangnan gentry!

"Zhu Guobi, that you can repent and awaken is very good." Zhu Cilang said gently. "Now Zhao Zhilong, like you, has also repented and awakened, and has confessed all his crimes. But Han Zanzhou remains obstinate and refuses to admit that he is a eunuch-faction remnant. You and Zhao Zhilong go persuade him together, and make it clear to him that We do not necessarily insist on killing him, as long as he can be like you two. How could We not tolerate one old eunuch in his twilight years? We can not only spare him, but also let him go serve His Majesty."

A eunuch faction, after all, needs a eunuch traitor to dress up its facade. Otherwise, if all its members were able-bodied men, it would not be convincing enough!

So Han Zanzhou, the garrison eunuch of Nanjing, was also a "treasure." As for Zhang Shenyan, who had been arrested together with Han Zanzhou, Zhu Cilang did not expect him to go around biting people, so he neither interrogated him nor questioned him nor killed him — he simply had him locked up and left it at that.

In any case, he was already terminally ill. After a while he would die on his own. Just treat him as if he did not exist!

"Damu, Chunfan, Dagong — what do you think?"

Qian Qianyi's aged eyes seemed half-closed, and he propped up his white-haired head, merely examining the confessions of Zhao Zhilong and Zhu Guobi.

The room was silent. His three disciples — Zheng Sen, Ji Kun, and Luo Dagong — were all momentarily speechless.

Qian Qianyi was the leader of the Donglin and had been famous for a long time, so of course many people had taken him as their teacher. Zheng Sen was only one of them, and not exactly a favored disciple — he was merely someone Zhu Cilang particularly valued. Ji Kun, on the other hand, had only recently become Qian Qianyi's disciple. Ji Kun was now a Censor of the Left, specializing in investigating corruption among civil officials. Since Qian Qianyi was so corrupt, he naturally had to win Ji Kun over early so that Ji Kun could tip him off.

And Luo Dagong, a juren from Songjiang, was Qian Qianyi's true favored disciple. Luo Dagong's courtesy name "Dagong" had been given to him by Qian Qianyi, because Qian Qianyi believed that he did not love power, did not love wealth, and did not love beautiful women — an upright gentleman who loved only the Emperor and the Great Ming with single-minded devotion. So he praised him as "impartial and selfless," gave him the courtesy name "Dagong," and wanted him to inherit his mantle.

However, this Luo Dagong had not performed well in the examinations. He had failed both the great examinations of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen and the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, and had not placed high.

After a long while, Qian Qianyi's prized disciple Luo Dagong finally broke the silence. "Teacher, this matter is probably aimed at the public opinion of the pure-stream officials. We must be more careful from now on! If we get branded as eunuch-faction remnants and colluders with foreign traitors to sell out the country, we'll bring trouble on ourselves, and might even end up utterly disgraced."

Qian Qianyi glanced at this disciple and sighed softly. His prized disciple was not very old, yet he acted like a little old man, without the slightest drive. Donglin gentlemen ought to have backbone — daring to stand against powerful ministers and powerful eunuchs, daring to petition for the people (the landlords), daring to raise a rallying cry!

Seeing the disappointed look on his teacher's face, Luo Dagong hurriedly continued, "Teacher, for us, this matter is also a rare opportunity!"

"An opportunity?" Qian Qianyi raised an eyebrow, thinking: Are you going to step forward and raise a rallying cry for the common people of Jiangnan?

"Go on," Qian Qianyi said.

Luo Dagong stroked the not-very-long beard on his chin and said thoughtfully, "Thousand Years styles himself as the Donglin Crown Prince, and has branded his opponents as the eunuch faction. His intent is already very clear. He wants to win over us Donglin successors and thereby control the pure-stream public opinion of Jiangnan."

Qian Qianyi nodded and smiled. "Then what do you say we should do?"

Luo Dagong said thoughtfully, "The Crown Prince has so far only seen a few great figures and has overlooked the talented men below. That way it will be very hard to fully control pure-stream public opinion. The ones who truly dare to speak are not the great figures high above, but the talented men below. And we can help Thousand Years recruit a batch of young talents to serve as his mouthpiece!"

By this point he wore a smug smile. "Pure-stream public opinion is really just this: first, it values numbers and loud voices; second, it is people carrying people in a decorated sedan chair. Does he not want to be the Donglin Crown Prince? We can find more talented men to support him and speak well of him."

(End of Chapter)