Chapter 156: The Eastern Depot's Methods

After the Beginning of Winter, the temperature in Beijing plummeted, growing colder by the day—yet the city was buzzing with unusual excitement.

In recent days, several hundred anonymous posters had appeared on the capital's streets, exposing that Qian Qianyi had bribed Cao Huachun with forty thousand taels of silver to bring down Chief Grand Secretary Wen Tiren. A man named Wang Fan had also gone to the Ministry of Justice to surrender himself and testify to the matter. As word spread, the capital was shaken.

Wen Tiren, confident in the Emperor's favor, submitted a secret memorial to Chongzhen and requested that Cao Huachun be dealt with.

Upon seeing the posters, Chongzhen was skeptical. In his eyes, Cao Huachun was cautious and capable—he could not have done such a thing. Without a second thought, he handed Wen Tiren's secret memorial to Cao Huachun.

Had Wen Tiren known His Majesty would play it this way, he would never have submitted that memorial himself—he would have found someone else to do it.

After reading it, Cao Huachun was terrified. He immediately knelt and kowtowed to Chongzhen, begging forgiveness, denying every accusation against him, then volunteered himself, requesting to personally preside over the trial of Qian Qianyi's case.

Chongzhen actually agreed. It seemed that in this Emperor's heart, Director Cao weighed far more than Grand Secretary Wen.

The Eastern Depot, established by Emperor Yongle in the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420), was headed by eunuchs trusted by the Emperor. Together with the Embroidered Uniform Guard, they were known as the "Depot and Guard." The Eastern Depot's power surpassed that of the Embroidered Uniform Guard—it answered only to the Emperor and could surveil and arrest officials and commoners at will without judicial approval.

In the Eastern Depot's offices north of Dong'an Gate in the Imperial City, Zhu Cilang was observing this legendary secret police organization with great interest.

The surroundings were quite bright, not the dark and gloomy place depicted in later films and television. On the west side of the main hall stood an ancestral shrine, before which was an archway inscribed "A Hundred Generations of Lasting Fame," where the spirit tablets of successive Eastern Depot directors were enshrined.

What surprised Zhu Cilang was that in a small hall beside the Eastern Depot's main office, there was actually a statue of Yue Fei! The story of Yue Fei's devotion was also carved on the screen wall inside the hall.

Zhu Cilang summoned a section chief of the Eastern Depot and asked, "Why do you enshrine Yue Wumu here?"

By most people's reasoning, even if the Eastern Depot enshrined a statue, it should be someone like Lord Guan—after all, the Eastern Depot had more of a gangster nature. They not only dealt with officials but also monitored the populace nationwide, and many local bosses had connections with Eastern Depot agents.

The Eastern Depot section chief replied respectfully, "To answer Your Highness, successive directors have done this to remind us that when handling cases for the royal family, we must be neither wrongful nor lenient. We should be like Yue Wumu—willing to sacrifice ourselves, yet striving with utmost loyalty!"

Zhu Cilang nodded. The slogan was well spoken, but over all these years, some of the Eastern Depot's deeds had been rather underhanded. They must have been cursed out like dogs by the public!

The Embroidered Uniform Guard also arrested people, but they had no bad reputation among the common folk, because the Guard mostly went after high officials and had no interest in ordinary citizens.

After Cao Huachun returned to the Eastern Depot and heard that the Crown Prince had arrived, he hurried over to pay his respects. He smiled and said, "What brings Your Highness to think of coming here?"

"I came to see Yue Wumu." Zhu Cilang chuckled. As he spoke, he pulled a document from his sleeve and handed it to Cao Huachun.

Cao Huachun took the document and examined it carefully. His somewhat graying eyebrows couldn't help but twitch a few times, and his face gradually turned a livid purple.

Zhu Cilang smiled slightly and said, "Cao Banyan, we've known each other for many years now. If there's anything you need, just call on Li Tingbiao. I'd very much like to see what it looks like when the Depot and Guard work a case together!"

Having said this, Zhu Cilang departed, seeing off by the Eastern Depot's agents.

"Someone!" Cao Huachun barked in a low voice.

"Director!" Several senior officials of the Eastern Depot rushed over.

With a grim face, Cao Huachun handed the document to the Chiliarch of Punishments and snarled, "Dispose of all these traitors who bite the hand that feeds them! I'll make them wish they were dead—let everyone know the price of betraying the Eastern Depot!"

The Eastern Depot was originally the Emperor's tool for monitoring outside officials, yet now it had been infiltrated and bought off by those very officials—what an utter disgrace! Cao Huachun was completely enraged!

Zhu Cilang knew Cao Huachun was going to move against Wen Tiren. For safety's sake, Wen Tiren's informants within the Eastern Depot had to be eliminated, or it would be very disadvantageous to Cao Huachun.

Cao Huachun purged the entire Eastern Depot with extremely bloody methods, then began assigning tasks, sending section chiefs with their agents throughout the capital to search for those who had distributed the anonymous posters.

The Eastern Depot's agents were true local snakes in the capital. With the cooperation of Li Tingbiao's Embroidered Uniform Guard intelligence network, after a round of searching, a man named Chen Lüqian was soon arrested and brought to the Eastern Depot.

In the early morning of the next day, Cao Huachun personally conducted the interrogation in the Eastern Depot's prison. Chen Lüqian and his son refused to confess.

Every successive Chiliarch of Punishments at the Eastern Depot had been transferred from the Embroidered Uniform Guard. This particular chiliarch had once been Li Tingbiao's disciple and had deeply inherited Li Tingbiao's methods.

Under his command, hanging and beating once, leg screws four times, finger presses twenty times, random club blows two hundred times, plus chili water, the tiger bench, boiling, red embroidered shoes, and various other great tortures—Chen Lüqian was treated to a full day of them.

After enduring so many "delicacies," Chen Lüqian was at death's door and confessed everything, answering whatever was asked. He soon admitted that he had been instigated by someone to incite Zhang Hanru to falsely accuse Qian Qianyi, and that Wang Fan had framed Cao Huachun—all of it orchestrated by one hand from Wucheng.

Wen Tiren was a native of Wucheng, Zhejiang (present-day Huzhou). At this, Cao Huachun understood everything. He had Zhang Hanru dragged from the Ministry of Justice's prison to the Eastern Depot's dungeon, where he was directly crushed to death by the cangue.

Subsequently, the Eastern Depot did the same to Wang Fan, who had surrendered at the Ministry of Justice. All the great tortures were applied once more, and Wang Fan couldn't hold out that very day, writing a confession identical to Chen Lüqian's.

Cao Huachun took the two confessions and immediately entered the palace to present them to Chongzhen for his perusal. Chongzhen did not believe the defendant Qian Qianyi's self-defense, but he had not the slightest doubt about the confessions Cao Huachun had obtained.

Chongzhen was furious. He had never imagined that a Chief Grand Secretary of the Grand Secretariat could commit such shameless deeds of framing and destroying rivals—and even light the fuse himself!

When Chongzhen hurled the confessions into Wen Tiren's face, Wen Tiren felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar. He knew he had lost, and a powerful will to survive drove him to make one final struggle.

Before Chongzhen, Wen Tiren burst into loud wails, sobbing uncontrollably, crying as if dead and alive again, launching into a performance full of emotion and expression.

Chongzhen had been extremely angry, but seeing a man in his sixties, already half-buried, cry like this, his heart began to soften.

After all, this old fellow had served as Chief Grand Secretary under him for several years. They had worked together reasonably well, and he was quite obedient. It truly was hard to bear to just dispose of him like this.

Chongzhen was moved and began to offer a few words of comfort. Seeing that the crying had reached its peak and the effect was clear, Wen Tiren opportunely stopped his tears.

Crying was a skilled craft—timing had to be grasped just right. In years past, Yan Song and Wei Zhongxian had both relied on this skill to turn the tide and destroy their opponents. Wen Tiren was deeply versed in this art.

Wang Cheng'en, watching from the side, felt utterly disgusted. He hadn't expected that a man well past sixty could be so utterly shameless—what a truly brazen old scoundrel!

Comforted by Chongzhen, Wen Tiren finally returned home somewhat reassured.

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