Chapter 318: The Western Depot Temporarily Takes Charge of Jinling Affairs

Jinling City was the great stronghold of everything in Jiangnan, and the Donglin Faction was secondary; the larger merchants and wealthy magnates here were all illustrious names in history, especially the Jiang, Li, and Zhao families, who became the spokesmen for various merchant guilds and associations after the Manchu invasion.

Few of these great merchants did not engage in treasonous trade like the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants, except that the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants went to extremes, completely disregarding the court; these others still had face to worry about and dared not act with full abandon.

Historically, this group regularly shipped grain and various supplies to the Manchus and Mongols beyond the passes, helping them through all kinds of difficulties; whenever the eve of the Manchu invasion mobilization came, as long as one was willing to pay, whether Manchu barbarian or Han, they could get whatever they wanted.

The so-called profiteering from national calamity referred precisely to this current batch of traitors, but with Emperor Chongzhen having arrived, these traitors had fallen into terrible misfortune.

In the vast city of Jinling, small peddlers and vendors were too numerous to count; of course, what the court wanted to arrest this time was not them. Roughly counting, those respectable merchants seized this time numbered thirty-four or thirty-five households at least.

As luck would have it — why did Qian Qianyi have to celebrate his birthday at such a time? Holding it at this critical juncture, he was caught in one sweep by the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Shenwu Army; among the Donglin members who came, basically not a single one escaped.

If last time Emperor Chongzhen slaughtered the Donglin of Beizhili clean in a fit of rage, this time it was equivalent to killing off most of the Donglin across the entire realm.

In truth, Emperor Chongzhen was not so ruthless in killing others; when it came to slaughtering the Donglin, since the year Jiashen, he had done so once every few months.

Historically, after the year Jiashen, the Southern Ming court — that is, these very people now being arrested and killed in Jinling City — were busy with internal strife at this time; now, although Beijing City stood intact and Emperor Chongzhen had not hanged himself, they still fought each other to the death, showing that this was all the ambition they would ever amount to in this lifetime.

Emperor Chongzhen did not play by the rules; catching hold of any occasion, he would directly take your life. This time was much the same — he directly issued an edict for the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Shenwu Army to cooperate, able to arrest and kill people at will even without the assistance of local government offices.

Everyone understood that such a large-scale purge would inevitably cause social turmoil, and those innocently implicated would certainly be numerous, but Emperor Chongzhen clearly understood that although the innocently implicated were pitiable and he could compensate them as much as possible later, if he did not hasten reform now, he would lose his life, and China would be finished.

At the very least, to implement his new policy reforms in the late Ming, authority, military force, and money — all three were indispensable; the first two had been largely achieved, but as yet there was still no stable source of income.

For the current Great Ming, the most notable effect of implementing commercial taxes was obtaining real gold and silver, but to achieve these effects, one had to kill every one of these Donglin members and obstructionist plutocrats one saw.

Only when his authority was established could policies be implemented, and only then could he survive.

Qian Qianyi was, after all, still the leader of the Donglin, and the plutocrats had for years borrowed the Donglin's reputation; this minimal face had to be given. That said, the trouble all started with that old immortal Qian Qianyi's birthday celebration.

They had countless businesses and acquaintances everywhere, and no lack of channels for gathering information on ordinary days; at the slightest sign of trouble from the court, they would immediately flee under the pretext of trade. Even escaping to Japan or the Manchu side was simple enough — how easy was it to catch them and bring them back?

But now, they had just finished dividing up the Pang family's property and had not yet had time to go back and warm up the land deeds and shops they had just acquired, when the murderous Embroidered Uniform Guard arrived, and under Li Youcheng's mobilization, nearly all the guards in the Fengyang and South Zhili region were converging on this area.

No matter how much they regretted it now, it was useless; having fallen into the hands of the secret agents, they were already half dead.

The first to be taken were those Donglin members happily celebrating Qian Qianyi's birthday; right after, while Qian Qianyi was being sliced alive, Li Youcheng was not idle either — he immediately led men to arrest the plutocrats great and small who had been dividing up the Pang family wealth.

At this point, there was no need to think about property matters anymore; the Eastern Depot agents fanned out in all directions, arresting people everywhere. It was said that many of their properties had already been forcibly transferred to Chongzhen's name.

If they said no, would that even work?

Not to mention the Eastern Depot's standard attire that made people change color at the sight of it, even the various troops and government offices, under the Shenwu Army's suppression, dared not make any move.

Moreover, the court's order to strike against the plutocrats and the Donglin was the first of its kind since the founding of the Ming; the Jinling region was still relatively stable. At a time like this, who the hell would be willing to oppose the court for your sake? So no one needed to think about any of that nonsense anymore.

When the news reached Beijing City, Emperor Chongzhen was quite calm about it; this was a foregone conclusion after all. He held the knife handle and power in his hands, and had not yet spent all his money — taking down these dogs who only knew how to flap their lips was simple enough.

His subordinates had thought that when the report was submitted, the Emperor would be overjoyed, but Chongzhen yawned with little interest, waved his hand to indicate he knew, and ordered them to hasten the arrest of the imperial criminals.

Just as that young eunuch stood there bewildered, Chongzhen casually gave a few instructions and then turned around and walked back into Noble Consort Rou's bedchamber to continue his labors...

There was a rather amusing follow-up to this matter: Chongzhen had actually only been in a hurry to return to the palace to climb back into Tuoya's bed, but this starry-eyed young eunuch mistakenly took it as the Son of Heaven's inscrutable nature.

Word spread from one to ten, from ten to a hundred, and soon there was a story of three men making a tiger.

After one night passed, what had happened last night had become tales of the current Son of Heaven's far-superior nature, unfathomable, imperial mind games, and so on — who knew what it would become by the time it spread to the common folk a few days later.

When Emperor Chongzhen gathered everyone the next morning to discuss the follow-up and heard this news, he could only smile helplessly, thinking to himself that with a different status, even going back to sleep could be blown up to the heavens.

Chongzhen did not care, but those below could not help but think more deeply.

When Wang Cheng'en heard about it, he immediately summoned that young eunuch from the Palace Maintenance Directorate who had reported the news that day, directly promoted him into his own ranks, adopted him as a godson, and transferred him outside the palace, specifically tasked with spreading and embellishing this matter.

Although Li Chun, the seal-holder of the Palace Maintenance Directorate, was deeply favored by the Emperor and served at Chongzhen's side every day, his status was still worlds apart from Wang Cheng'en's; even if his wall was breached, he could only swallow his teeth and bear it.

Not only that, because Wang Cheng'en had followed Chongzhen for so long, among the three depot directors, his status was even above Cao Huachun and Fang Zhenghua. According to protocol, Li Chun had to smile obsequiously and see off the newly adopted godson of Director Wang.

This matter was quite painful for him.

That said, if the plutocrats arrested in Jinling a few days ago had been as famous in history as the Eight Great Shanxi Merchants, Emperor Chongzhen would have had the interest to handle them personally.

He now had a batch of loyal and battle-ready troops under his command, and had even formed the Imperial Guard, the Shenwu Army, and the new army of the Northwest Camp; as long as he was willing to be shameless, he was quite invincible at this time.

Although this current batch had considerable financial power in Jiangnan, they were all face projects — unable to stand on the stage and lacking any real force; compared to the court, it was the difference between an arm and a thigh.

Emperor Chongzhen was uninterested, but those below were extremely envious of this kind of assignment, especially the Eastern Depot, Western Depot, and some members of the Emperor's faction — for them, this kind of assignment was simply perfect.

They could both openly settle personal grudges under the guise of public duty and pocket a sum within the scope tacitly approved by the Emperor — why wouldn't they do it?

Although the Three Depots and One Guard oversaw all civil and military officials and subjects throughout the realm, Chongzhen had considered from the very establishment that a single entity growing too large would be hard to control, and had secretly built in checks and balances.

Among the Three Depots and One Guard, Chongzhen gave the Eastern Depot the power to arrest officials and subjects, revoked their power to apply torture to nobles and imperial relatives, and exempted the Embroidered Uniform Guard from the ancestral rule requiring an imperial warrant to arrest people, but made them solely responsible for nobles and the imperial clan.

Although the Inner Depot mainly handled various miscellaneous affairs of the palace in ordinary times, overall it held the greatest power — it could both arrest officials and subjects and directly arrest and interrogate nobles and imperial relatives.

Beyond that, the Eastern Depot, Western Depot, and Embroidered Uniform Guard could each only monitor one of the other two, but the Inner Depot could monitor the Eastern Depot, Western Depot, and Embroidered Uniform Guard all at once — being within the palace, it naturally had convenient access.

However, generally speaking, the Inner Depot's affairs were still confined to within the palace; unless it was a major matter the other two depots and one guard could not handle, Emperor Chongzhen would never deploy the Inner Depot.

For the Eastern Depot, Western Depot, and Embroidered Uniform Guard, although the three complemented one another, they also checked each other.

Cao Huachun, as the eunuch director of the Eastern Depot, naturally understood that among the Three Depots and One Guard, the Eastern Depot currently held greater power, and Wang Cheng'en's status was far beyond his own comparison.

Unwilling to accept this, he naturally intended to snatch this assignment from Wang Cheng'en's hands.

Emperor Chongzhen understood the little schemes in his subordinates' hearts; at this point, he had almost no checks in court, and the Eastern Depot was indeed far more renowned than the Western Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard in various places.

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he also hesitated for a little while.

Cao Huachun's and Wang Cheng'en's loyalty to him was beyond doubt, but their natures were fundamentally different after all; whether loyal or not, one faction dominating alone was never a good thing.

Moreover, Jinling was being watched by the Shenwu Army, and the people had all been caught; no major disorder should arise. Letting the Western Depot agents show what they could do was fine too.

Having thought this through, Emperor Chongzhen directly nodded and approved Cao Huachun's request.