Chapter 40: Court Flogging at the Meridian Gate (Seeking Favorites)

When the Chongzhen Emperor heard of this matter, he was not angry in the slightest—in fact, he was secretly rather pleased. That sharp-tongued Guang Shiheng spent every single day berating him, and he still had to put on a look of humble acceptance. Just thinking about it made him sick.

After becoming emperor, Chongzhen had always modeled himself after Tang Taizong, Li Shimin—not only in calligraphy but in his rule as well: broad-minded, open to remonstrance, diligent in governance, caring for the people, and practicing frugality.

On the surface, Chongzhen had basically achieved these points—otherwise he wouldn't have been sprayed with criticism daily in court by Guang Shiheng and a pack of Censors while putting on a delighted, teachable expression, occasionally even going against his conscience to praise them for their forthright remonstrance.

But in reality? Even Tang Taizong, with his good temper, sometimes flew into a rage and wanted to kill Wei Zheng, that country bumpkin who loved to remonstrate. Zhu Youjian's cultivation was nowhere near as deep as Li Shimin's—secretly, he had no idea how many times he'd wished these people dead.

Chongzhen understood that to be a sage ruler, one must be tolerant and magnanimous, able to endure what the world cannot endure—and if one couldn't endure it, one had to pretend to. If he punished these "critics," he would instead earn himself the infamous reputation of one who cannot accept remonstrance.

And so, when the Crown Prince disposed of that wretch Guang Shiheng, Chongzhen wasn't angry at all—deep down, he was even a little excited. At the same time, he mused to himself: it was a real pity the Crown Prince hadn't finished off that old thing Tang Shiji, the Left Chief Censor, last time.

What was the Chongzhen Emperor thinking? Whenever he wanted to do something detrimental to himself, he would never do it personally—he would always find someone else to take the fall.

In history, during the final years of the Great Ming, nearly every capable minister and able general died in battle. Chongzhen wanted to negotiate peace with the Jianzhou barbarians to free up his hands to wipe out Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong in full force. So he secretly had Chen Xinjia oversee the peace negotiations—but the secret leaked, and in the end Chongzhen made Chen Xinjia take the blame and had him executed.

And in the last year of the Ming, when Li Zicheng was about to breach Beijing and the ministers suggested moving the capital to Nanjing, Chongzhen wanted to flee as well—but he didn't want to bear the infamy of being a runaway emperor.

So he arranged for Li Mingrui to raise the proposal, while he himself stayed silent and let the ministers debate it. But then Guang Shiheng jumped out and derailed his plan, blocking the southern relocation. Chongzhen could only swallow his teeth along with his blood.

Still, the fact that he ultimately dared to hang himself rather than kneel and surrender like other last emperors was quite commendable. Perhaps this is also why people mark the fall of the Great Ming at the moment Chongzhen hanged himself, rather than when Zhu Youlang, that Southern Ming emperor who knelt and begged Wu Sangui for mercy, was strangled with a bowstring.

As someone who came after, Zhu Cilang understood Chongzhen fairly well—but he still wasn't reassured, so he submitted a memorial. Under the charges that Guang Shiheng had shown contempt for the imperial clan, committed lèse-majesté by offending a superior, and perpetrated high treason, his entire household was to be confiscated and exterminated. The memorial also detailed the reasons and the process.

In particular, it described in great detail how Guang Heng had declared the Crown Prince should kneel and beg for mercy, and how Guang Shiheng had told him to cut off his own right hand—with no shortage of corroborating evidence.

The words of the Guang father and son stabbed deep into the Chongzhen Emperor's heart. He slammed the dragon table and roared: "How dare they publicly threaten the sitting Crown Prince! That Guang Shiheng truly has audacity beyond measure—death is too good for him!"

In his shock and fury, Chongzhen ordered that all the ministers weeping before the palace at the Meridian Gate be seized and subjected to court flogging—twenty strokes each.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Cilang immediately led Wu Zhong and the others up to the gate tower of the Meridian Gate. He sat in a chair, sipping tea, craning his neck to look down through the crenellations, and laughed: "This is the first time I've enjoyed the view from such a high gate tower—how magnificent!"

Wu Zhong stepped forward to take the teacup and said with a smile: "Young Master, this is the imperial palace of the Heavenly House—of course it's magnificent. And in a moment, something even more magnificent is about to happen down there on the ground!"

Zhu Cilang laughed heartily at this and waited calmly and unhurriedly for the mass flogging about to take place outside the Meridian Gate. This was a spectacle unique to the Great Ming—the most famous of any dynasty.

Flogging in the Ming dynasty was no simple matter. The standard procedure was: after the emperor issued the command for buttocks-beating, the seal-holding eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial would first issue a notice and affix the seal, then it would be handed to the Supervising Secretaries of the Ministry of Justice for review and countersignature, and finally delivered to the Embroidered Uniform Guard for execution.

Normally, this entire process would take at least half a day. This time, however, it was remarkably swift—in less than half an hour, the whole procedure was completed, and the ministers who had been weeping before the palace were one by one stripped of their trousers, pressed onto benches, and given a beating on the backside.

The Chongzhen Emperor was still wondering when the imperial government had become so efficient. Throughout the entire court, he alone—the Emperor—was the only one who didn't know the little game at play.

Zhu Cilang could see it clearly: most of these ministers weeping before the palace were Censors and remonstrance officials arranged by Wen Tiren. They firmly controlled the Ming dynasty's discourse power over public opinion, occupying the moral high ground.

On ordinary days, cursing people was their job—and the higher the rank of the person they cursed, the greater their sense of accomplishment. Their main firepower was generally concentrated on the highest-ranked target of all: the Emperor. If the Emperor flew into a rage over their insults, then their goal had been achieved.

In the history books, each dynasty only recorded so many people—even some of the Seven Ministers might merit only a single mention. These Censors and remonstrance officials who couldn't even make the rankings would have to fight tooth and nail to get into the history books. So what could they do? Stir up trouble!

The history books revolve mainly around the Emperor—so let's curse the Emperor! If we get ordered to be flogged, even better—it's easy to leave a name in history, and we can earn the fine reputation of "sacrificing oneself to remonstrate," guaranteed to be recorded in the annals.

Driven by this mindset, the Ming dynasty's remonstrance official corps often charged to the front lines of factional strife under the banner of "forthright remonstrance," seeking political capital.

In the old days, civil officials died by remonstrance and military officials died in battle—Censors and remonstrance officials spoke with their lives, pointing out the Emperor's shortcomings. But most of today's lot had lost that spirit, transforming into "shock-value departments" issuing sensational and outrageous statements to grab the attention of the Emperor and the hundred officials.

After these remonstrance officials outside the Meridian Gate received their twenty strokes, they patted their backsides and went home smiling, each feeling that sense of "though humiliated in the court, the courtiers regard it as ascending to immortality."

Endure a moment of humiliation, and in turn become better than an immortal! Their goal had been achieved—who cared anymore about Guang Shiheng or what the Crown Prince did?

Zhu Cilang watched the officials below chatting and laughing merrily, and gave a cold laugh: "These people have truly lowered the bar for remonstrance officials. In their eyes, court flogging has actually become a reward—how utterly despicable!"

It was from this moment that Zhu Cilang realized the Ming dynasty's officialdom could no longer be saved. To cleanse the administration of corruption, a large-scale reshuffling would be necessary.

He could even somewhat understand why the Chongzhen Emperor had replaced so many Grand Secretaries during his reign of over a decade. Most of the Grand Secretariat ministers of the Chongzhen era were the type who "uphold righteousness without fear, weigh the times appropriately, and occasionally offer small benefits—but as for rescuing the realm from peril and stabilizing it in crisis, that is hardly something to speak of lightly."

They might occasionally make small contributions, but faced with the crisis of the late Ming, asking them to "rescue the realm from peril and stabilize it in crisis" was clearly beyond their capabilities. For Chongzhen, what he needed was not those who "occasionally offered small benefits," but talents who could "rescue the realm from peril and stabilize it in crisis"! This was perhaps the true reason the Chongzhen Emperor kept reshuffling his Grand Secretariat members.