Chapter 179: Accepting Bribes

Gong Yonggu's expression flickered with hesitation as he kept glancing at the several chests of gold and silver treasure, swallowing hard a few times, and thought to himself:

"Here I am, a proper Imperial Son-in-law, yet living so frugally day after day. If not for last year's national crisis, I wouldn't even dare hire more than a few servants in my own household, let alone frequent places of wine, tobacco, and pleasure—those are all off-limits too, and if discovered, it's always some nonsense about bringing shame to the imperial family.

Taking just this little bit to supplement household expenses... surely... even if His Majesty found out, considering my hard work and merit last year, he wouldn't make too much of it, would he?"

While Gong Yonggu's heart was still in turmoil, he heard that Inspector Zhang again speak with a smile plastered on his face: "Imperial Son-in-law, you worry too much. If not for you rushing about the Tongzhou area, raising military pay and provisions and troops for the court, where would all these reinforcements have come from?"

"Yes, Commissioner Gong, stop hesitating. This bit of silver is nothing at all. Besides, there are only the three of us here right now—he won't speak, and this Regional Commander won't speak either. Won't this matter sink as deep and still as a stone in water?" Seeing Gong Yonggu still wavering, Qiu Lei stepped forward, patted him on the shoulder, and laughed reassuringly.

"Then... very well..." Gong Yonggu wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, forced himself to sit down calmly and take a sip of tea, yet the corner of his eye kept circling back to those few chests of glittering things.

"Imperial Son-in-law, do come again!"

"Commissioner Gong, safe travels, smooth winds all the way!"

About half an hour later, amid the crowd's farewells, Gong Yonggu passed through the city gate of Wuding Prefecture for the second time.

Last time, Gong Yonggu's heart had been filled with the Chongzhen Emperor's instructions and the matter of Princess Changping's marriage, so naturally he smiled with confidence. This time, however, he could hardly manage a smile.

Gong Yonggu's heart kept itching—had they sent those chests of gold and silver away or not?

When would they arrive at his household?

Would it ever be discovered?

Carrying a heart far more anxious than when he had come, Gong Yonggu, when passing through Caozhou where Shandong Regional Commander Mou Wenshou was stationed, for reasons unknown, did not go to see the Mou brothers, but instead passed straight through Shandong without stopping, heading directly for Xuzhou.

When the Shandong government troops lined up outside the city waited for a long time only to hear that the Imperial Son-in-law had bypassed Caozhou and would not come, every one of them hung their heads in dejection. Mou Wenshou too was utterly baffled—had he done something wrong? Why had the man said he would come, then suddenly changed his mind halfway?

Leaving aside the Shandong civil and military officials with their various thoughts, Gong Yonggu finally traversed Shandong in about ten days' time and arrived within the borders of Xuzhou in South Zhili.

Since ancient times, Pengcheng has stood among the Nine Provinces; dragons and tigers have fought for it through the ages.

Xuzhou—arriving at this place already meant entering the territory of South Zhili. Ancient Peng—Xuzhou—sits in the northern part of South Zhili and has a history of over two thousand years as a city.

In the time of Emperor Yao, the state of Dapeng was established here, which is why poets and literati, when composing verse, would also call Xuzhou "Pengcheng." When Yu the Great tamed the floods, he divided the realm into Nine Provinces, and Xuzhou was listed as one of the ancient Nine Provinces.

Since ancient times, Xuzhou has been a transportation hub and a place every strategist must contest. People of the time commonly called it the "Lock and Key of the Northern Lands" and the "Gateway of the Southern States," while those from Jiangnan and parts of Shandong and Huguang vividly dubbed it the "Thoroughfare of Five Provinces"—all of which fully demonstrates Xuzhou's importance.

Stepping onto the streets of Xuzhou, one could see a standard Ming-dynasty Jiangnan city.

Though also a prefecture-level city, Xuzhou boasted developed transportation and thriving commerce, whereas those prefecture cities in the northern lands, long plagued by war, were littered with corpses of the starving and swarming with refugees, their streets reeking and foul—the difference was like heaven and earth.

Of course, Wuding Prefecture was also unlike the typical northern prefecture city.

During the Chongzhen years, the Jianzhou barbarians invaded southward several times, unstoppable wherever they passed, yet they met their match at Wuding Prefecture and a few other places. Qiu Lei led from the front through numerous battles large and small, and even Ajige of that time could gain no advantage—relatively speaking, it could be considered stable.

Speaking of it, Qiu Lei and Zhou Yuji were alike—both had been obscure, utterly ordinary military officers in their own time. Their endings were the same: both died for righteousness. But the reputations they left behind were different.

In history, Zhou Yuji, who defended Daizhou, Ningwu Pass, and other places, happened to encounter Li Zicheng marching his army north and became an insurmountable chasm in the Dashun army's northern advance—only thus did he die for his country and win fame.

Qiu Lei was different. In history, he lived in obscurity in his own time, and even after fighting to the death, few in later generations knew that the Great Ming had possessed such a loyal martyr.

He guarded Wuding Prefecture with diligence for over a decade. Even when Beijing fell, when the realm was lost, when everyone fled south, he still held fast to his duty and led his troops in a desperate defense of that small prefecture city.

In the end, surrounded on all sides, Qiu Lei died fighting beneath the tiger-head blade of his old enemy Ajige.

What is lamentable is that not a single one of Qiu Lei's brave and battle-hardened Wuding troops fled the field—all of them died for their country in the defense of the city.

Gong Yonggu and his party, arriving in Jiangnan for the first time, saw such a prosperous Xuzhou city that they had already cast Wuding Prefecture completely from their minds, even forgetting nearly the very purpose of their journey.

Those capital soldiers were too astonished to speak, and even Gong Yonggu, the Imperial Son-in-law himself, was the same.

If a single Xuzhou city was this prosperous, one could imagine what the Jiangnan region must be like—and what sort of scene awaited in Nanjing?

Gong Yonggu thought for a long while and found he simply could not conceive of what Nanjing might look like, for it lay beyond his imagination.

In fact, on the very afternoon Gong Yonggu left Wuding Prefecture, the gold and silver had already been sent to the capital by the inspection office, while Inspector Zhang went directly back to the Denglai Governor's yamen located within Penglai city.

The Denglai Governor at the time was a man named Chen Jin, a member of the Donglin Faction.

The previous Denglai Governor had been Zeng Hualong, quite beloved by the people, but in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen he was dismissed due to successive impeachments by court censors and was currently at home in obscurity.

The reason Chen Jin was able to override public opinion and directly kick Zeng Hualong out of office to take his place was, in fact, much the same as with most Donglin Faction officials.

Since the Tumu Crisis, the power of military officers and meritorious nobles had plummeted. The civil official bloc and the regional plutocrat bloc colluded with each other—one supplying money, the other supplying effort—gradually seizing control of the court, even reaching the point of plotting against emperors.

Only during the Zhengde years, when the Three Depots and One Guard stood in parallel, and during the Tianqi years, when Wei Zhongxian held power, did this situation ever improve. In the first sixteen years of the Chongzhen reign, it reached an unprecedented degree.

The Donglin grandees at court controlled the paths to officialdom. Nine out of ten scholars in the realm traced their origins to the Kong Mansion in Qufu, Shandong, while eight or nine out of ten court officials came from the Donglin Faction.

If a Donglin member wanted an official post, aside from the necessary examination credentials, all it took was a single word or a letter of recommendation, and the grandees at court could push you into office.

Of course, even if you lacked examination credentials, if the grandees at court wanted you to pass the imperial examinations, that too was merely a matter of a single word. Don't be surprised—becoming an official was just that easy for the Donglin Faction.

For literati outside the Donglin Faction who wanted to become officials, it was exceedingly difficult. Many people of genuine talent and learning could not obtain office simply because they came from humble families or belonged to no faction—truly a case of having no gate through which to serve one's country and no road by which to worry for the state.

If you couldn't even pass the most basic imperial examinations, and still wanted to be an official? Don't even think about it!

The Fushe—that organization which spread like pyramid schemes in its day—was in reality the Donglin Faction's apparatus for cultivating its own corps of officials. The Chongzhen Emperor saw through this clearly, and with justification in hand, resolutely issued an edict branding the Fushe as a heterodox cult.

Once that edict was issued, the Fushe's doom was only a matter of time.