Chapter 91: The Curtain Falls

Watching that deadly document burn, many officials secretly breathed a sigh of relief, even though they had no idea whether their own names were on it.

The Chongzhen Emperor on the dragon throne merely watched quietly as Zhu Cilang put on his show, nodding inwardly with considerable satisfaction at the maneuver.

Holding evidence in hand would panic the courtiers and draw their collective fire; burning the evidence on the spot put the ministers at ease while simultaneously intimidating them, greatly reducing obstacles to handling the Shanxi merchants affair.

After all, those who needed arresting had been arrested, and those who needed convicting couldn't escape anyway — barring any accidents, only the finishing touches remained.

Seeing the assembled ministers fall silent at the morning court, the Chongzhen Emperor had Wang Cheng'en read out the punishments for the treasonous Shanxi merchants and bribe-taking officials. Wang Cheng'en held the imperial edict aloft and declared in a loud voice: "By the mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: The Shanxi merchants Fan Yongshan, Huang Yuncai, Wang Erzhou, and eight others, having bribed officials, secretly colluded with the slave bandits, and sold state intelligence — their crimes merit execution."

Wang Cheng'en then took up another edict, reading out the names and crimes of the officials in the capital who had accepted bribes from the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants. The Chongzhen Emperor singled out only a few he found displeasing for execution; the majority were stripped of office and thrown into prison.

After both edicts had been read, the Chongzhen Emperor finally spoke: "These are direct palace edicts I have issued. If the Grand Secretariat has no objections, let them be promulgated in the name of imperial decree!"

A direct palace edict was an order issued by the emperor without passing through the Grand Secretariat — lacking official endorsement, if unrecognized it was nothing but a scrap of paper that couldn't even leave the palace gates.

A true imperial decree was a formally issued document of state, jointly recognized by the emperor and the court, filed with the government, and carrying extremely strong legal force.

Wen Tiren and the assembled officials saw that the emperor had even prepared the imperial decrees in advance, and understood the situation at once. Looking at the names on the edicts, the emperor clearly intended to keep the matter contained at the lower levels, letting the stewards of the Eight Great families like Fan Yongshan take the blame, without touching the gentry class of Shanxi, and limiting punishment of court officials to those below the fourth rank.

Since the emperor was being so sensible and had already shown good faith, there was no need for them to fight tooth and nail over this matter. After all, the ones suffering were those lower-ranking officials; the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants hadn't fallen — they would simply find a new proxy in the capital.

The several Grand Secretaries voiced their approval one after another, and the formal procedures began. The major affair that the Wen faction and the censors had prepared to detonate was thus forcibly suppressed.

Wen Tiren and the others felt deeply aggrieved — a perfectly good card had been played to shreds. After searching for the cause, they all concluded that they had lost to the Crown Prince's intelligence network. Though the Crown Prince insisted he had discovered evidence of official bribery while investigating the Shanxi merchants, how could Wen Tiren and the others possibly believe that!

They firmly maintained that Zhu Cilang must control a force similar to the Eastern Depot and Embroidered Uniform Guard of former years, dedicated to gathering intelligence. That force must be the Embroidered Uniform Guard — only the Embroidered Uniform Guard could possess such capability!

At this thought, the Wen faction and the censor faction became even more determined to bring down the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

After the morning court ended, although the government promptly posted notices explaining the previous night's events, unfavorable voices about Zhu Cilang still circulated among the populace. Just days before, rumors had spread that the Crown Prince coveted wealthy merchants' property — and within two days he had ordered their homes raided. Didn't that confirm the rumors?

Fortunately, the hooligans spreading the rumors had been mostly killed off by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, so such questioning voices in the streets were not loud.

On the fourth day of the eighth month, as the capital's residents discussed the new Taicang treasury, their attention was drawn to another novel matter.

A newspaper called the Imperial Ming Times appeared before everyone's eyes — its content was not only wide-ranging but also quite fashionable.

According to Zhu Cilang's design, the Imperial Ming Times was laid out in four folio sheets with eight pages: the first page carried headline news and a summary of the paper's contents.

The second page covered major affairs of the Great Ming government, the third page social news of the Great Ming, the fourth page a military column, the fifth page an economics column, the sixth page a science column, the seventh page history and culture features, and the eighth page advertisements.

The advertising page was not for collecting ad fees to make money — profit was only a minor consideration; its core function was promoting goods to stimulate commercial development.

To make the Imperial Ming Times establish its influence from the very start, Zhu Cilang packed the first issue with explosive material, especially writing several inflammatory headlines.

"GREAT VICTORY IN SHAANXI! Bandit Chief 'Dashing King' Gao Yingxiang Captured and Escorted to the Capital!"

"His Majesty the Emperor Will Hold a Victory-Offering Ceremony at the Meridian Gate on the Eighth Day of the Eighth Month!"

"The Great Ming's Mightiest Force — Generals of the Yongwei Camp Receive Honors from His Majesty the Emperor!"

"On the Heinous Crimes of the Jianzhou Barbarians!"

"Crack Down on Crime and Evil, Build a Harmonious Great Ming Together!"

"Science and Technology Are the Primary Productive Forces"

"Dezhuang Hotpot's Tenth Branch Will Open in Mingyu Ward on the Sixth!"

In the most prominent position of the newspaper, a person writing under the pen name "First Handsome of the Great Ming" published an article titled "The Conspiracy Behind the Capital's Grain Shortage — The Full Story of the Shanxi Merchants' Collusion with the Jianzhou Barbarians," which caused a sensation among the capital's residents.

Only now did people piece together what the uproarious Shanxi merchant treason affair of the past few days had truly been about. Public indignation surged — everyone began furiously denouncing the traitors' selling of their country, while overturning their previous misunderstandings of the Crown Prince.

To quell the surging public anger, the government sent the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants' chief stewards in the capital to the Western Market for execution the very next day, accompanied by several unfortunate officials. And so the matter was reduced from great to small, and from small to nothing.

At the executions in the Western Market, the people furiously cursed the traitorous merchants. Someone roared: "Traitors within — every man has the right to slay them!"

With that, he hurled a brick at Fan Yongshan and the others. It struck some unlucky wretch's head, which immediately split open, blood gushing without stop.

"Treasonous merchants, steeped in evil, death is too good for them!"

"Traitorous scum — they should be executed by slow slicing, a thousand cuts and ten thousand slashes!"

The people's furious curses turned the kneeling merchants and officials' faces ashen, leaving them praying only for a quick death.

When the hour of noon arrived, the execution supervisor, long impatient, hurled down the token and urged the executioners to get on with it.

When Fan Yongshan and the others' heads were chopped off, everyone cheered, feeling immensely satisfied.

When the imperial decree punishing the treasonous Shanxi merchants reached Taiyuan in Shanxi, the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants fell collectively silent. Though the court had placed all blame on the family branches in the capital and did not pursue them deeply, each family was still fined one hundred thousand taels of silver as a penalty for lax oversight.

In Zhu Cilang's view, each family should have been fined one million taels, or at minimum five hundred thousand. But the Chongzhen Emperor adamantly refused — what if he came down too hard and the Shanxi merchants refused to pay? What if they united with the southeastern financial cliques to attack him? If it came to that, he'd probably be torn to shreds by criticism!

The court currently had to deal with the Jianzhou barbarians around the capital region and simply couldn't spare the resources to go after them. If the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants ignored him, wouldn't that be a slap in the face? The authority of imperial power would be greatly weakened as well.

After much discussion among the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants, they ultimately paid the fines obediently. Given the current state of the Great Ming — though the Qing army was still ravaging the capital region, the roving bandits of the Central Plains had been largely eliminated, and the Great Ming's mandate was not yet exhausted — it wasn't worth completely burning bridges with the court now.

In the imperial garden, the Chongzhen Emperor and Zhu Cilang chatted happily over small dishes. The joint operation of the Great Ming's two most powerful men was declared a complete success — both were delighted, each having reaped considerable benefits.

From the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants they had confiscated a total of one million six hundred thousand shi of grain, plus the eight families' commercial properties in the capital and the assets of the bribe-taking officials' households. All told, this haul was worth at least ten million taels of silver, of which eight million taels was the value from selling the grain.

The wealth was ultimately divided into three portions: one for the Chongzhen Emperor's privy purse, one for the Ministry of Revenue, and one for Zhu Cilang. Officially, however, it was only two portions — Zhu Cilang's share was quietly distributed with the help of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

The matter gradually subsided, but both sides were building strength and making plans. The Chongzhen Emperor waited until his hands were free, then slowly replaced the military officers in Shanxi, while also implementing several economic policies to suppress the Shanxi merchants, such as restrictions on goods traded at the border posts.

The Eight Great Shanxi Merchants, meanwhile, continued spending money to cultivate connections, while strengthening their ties with the Jianzhou barbarians beyond the passes and the southeastern financial cliques, secretly plotting something.

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