Chapter 44: The Jackals and Wolves Under the Emperor's Command

The Chief Grand Secretary's main method of handling memorials was the "draft rescript." Some people, taking the term at face value, assumed it meant the grand secretaries voted on a proposal — clearly, they were still too young and naive.

A draft rescript meant that when a grand secretary received a memorial or a draft edict to be issued, he would paste a slip of paper on it, write his opinion, and present it to the emperor, who would then apply the red endorsement to make it officially effective.

In the beginning, the Grand Secretariat was merely an advisory body. When the founding emperors of the Zhu family first established it, they probably never imagined it would later develop to the point of being able to oppose the emperor himself.

Gradually, even the right of red endorsement slipped away from the Ming emperors. The entire procedure became: the Grand Secretariat drafts the rescript, the Directorate of Ceremonial applies the red endorsement, and the censorial officials review and reject.

So what did the emperor do? The emperor played in the mud on the side, and when the memorials came in, he just nodded his head.

This entire procedure was very similar to the "five-flower joint judgment" of the Secretariat Drafters in the Tang and Song dynasties. Nowadays, when various ministries and courts receive edicts issued by the Grand Secretariat, they treat the red endorsement on the draft rescript as the basis for validity.

But then again, this thing was never a legally mandated work procedure. Zhu Yuanzhang never said it, and Zhu Di never stipulated it either.

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di's original intention was simply to give the descendants of the Zhu family greater power — there was nothing wrong with that — but who would have thought the result would be exactly the opposite? By the Chongzhen generation, the emperor could only stare helplessly while the Donglin Faction put on their monkey show.

Now, were there any restless emperors among the Zhu family across the generations? Actually, yes.

Didn't the Zhengde Emperor set up the "Three Depots and One Guard"? Everyone knows how that ended — he fell into the water and died. The Jiajing and Wanli emperors were the clever ones; they simply stayed in the palace refining elixirs and never showed their faces.

The Tianqi Emperor, young and hot-blooded, created the eunuch faction at court to shield himself from wind and rain and take the blame. Wei Zhongxian was pitiable enough — he spent his whole life at full throttle scraping silver for the court, yet in the end the national treasury still had only those few million taels, and he himself didn't come to a good end either.

Wei Zhongxian, known as Nine Thousand Years, was described by the virtuous ministers of the Donglin Faction as wielding power over the entire court, and on the surface that was more or less true. But the capital was a place where dragons and worms mingled — who knew whether some Horse King was hiding in the shadows?

Even with the Eastern Depot's agents working at full capacity, in the end the Tianqi Emperor still accidentally fell into the water, following in the footsteps of the late Zhengde Emperor.

Having transmigrated here, the Chongzhen Emperor naturally refused to follow the fate of the historical Chongzhen. Of course he had to fight with all his might. Lately he had been like a madman, confiscating estates and seizing silver, and had revived the Three Depots and One Guard.

In fact, no sooner had the Chongzhen Emperor established the Eastern Depot and set his gaze upon the Capital Camps, preparing to seize military power, than someone conceived murderous intent and staged a "Palace Assault Case" in the Winter Warm Pavilion. Had it not been for Fang Zhenghua and the young eunuchs arriving in time, history might have been written differently.

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Emperor Ming Sizong, Zhu Youjian, was frightened witless by Li Zicheng's great army. After a series of mad struggles, he finally despaired, and on the morning of a certain day, he dashed his head against a white jade pillar and killed himself.

Later historians might have commented: look at these emperors of the Zhu family — not a single one that gives you peace of mind. They just love doing bizarre things, and their deaths were even more bizarre. Two drowning wasn't enough — they even had one who smashed his head to death.

That said, precisely because the Great Ming never established clear legal procedures at the start, everything was decided by the emperor alone. Over time, the ministers naturally grew dissatisfied and went looking for ways to check imperial power — and so they found this procedure of draft rescript and red endorsement.

One day, a certain minister received an edict. If it lacked a draft rescript and the emperor had directly applied the red endorsement, then sorry — this could only be considered His Majesty's personal letter, not an official government document.

Actually, this had a proper scholarly name — the direct palace edict.

Theoretically, ministers could determine that such an edict merely represented the emperor's personal will, and they could find any excuse not to obey it. If the emperor insisted on compliance, then he was disrespecting the ministers' opinions and violating ancestral institutions.

Setting aside the current situation of our present emperor, the historical Chongzhen Emperor certainly ate plenty of closed doors. And here lies the crux of the problem: if a functional department received a direct palace edict, what should it do?

There were actually ready-made examples. During the Yongxi Northern Expedition, Emperor Taizong of Song bypassed the Chancellor and formulated battle plans directly with the Bureau of Military Affairs, personally directing frontline generals — this violated the taboo of issuing direct palace edicts without authorization, and he was nearly driven into an embarrassing corner by the civil officials afterward.

And during the Shaoxing Northern Expedition, Chief Councilor Qin Hui issued an edict in the court's name ordering the withdrawal of troops, yet Emperor Gaozong of Song went against it, issuing a direct palace edict demanding the generals continue their advance.

In the end, something interesting happened: all the generals obeyed the court edict and withdrew, turning a deaf ear to Emperor Gaozong's directive — only Yue Fei obeyed the direct palace edict and continued attacking.

Everyone knows the result. Emperor Gaozong, under pressure from the assembled ministers, stripped Yue Fei of his office and threw him in prison. Qin Hui, that scoundrel, felt that wasn't enough and had him done to death in his cell.

As everyone knows, this was the great traitor Qin wielding his power, but from a legal and procedural standpoint, he was actually the one in the right. Isn't that infuriating?

This affair taught later civil and military officials a bloody lesson: if you obey a direct palace edict over a court edict, the emperor at most loses face, but the one who obeyed — even if he's a national hero — can hardly escape losing his post or even his life. Not even the emperor can protect you.

So tell me — if you received a direct palace edict, especially one contradicting a court edict, would you obey it or seal it and send it back?

These matters gave the Chongzhen Emperor a clear understanding: in the current situation, what was face compared to life? If he didn't strike hard, hanging himself from a southeastern branch was unavoidable.

"Your wife, I shall keep — worry not; your kingdom, I shall seize — fret not."

Li Zicheng was already sharpening his blade, preparing to drive him up Coal Hill. The Chongzhen Emperor thus began to fight poison with poison, personally pushing the power of the depots and guards to its peak, indulging them in killing and slaughtering, persecuting "righteous" people everywhere.

What the Donglin scholars called darkness — to him, that was light!

Those ministers who spoke so grandly at court were basically three-surnamed slaves; few had clean backsides. If anyone received a direct palace edict and refused to obey, they could just wait to have their estates confiscated and their families exterminated!

The depots and guards turned over like slaves singing songs of liberation. With the Three Depots and One Guard, everyone in the capital was essentially carrying an imperially bestowed executioner's sword. If anyone dared to act against the emperor, the depots and guards would charge in like mad dogs and tear them to shreds.

"Little runt, daring to oppose the depots and guards?"

"I think you've got too much family wealth — want to donate it to supplement the state's coffers!"

For the assembled ministers, in the current situation, ancestral institutions no longer mattered. No one dared to follow them anymore, because the Son of Heaven had completely abandoned all sense of shame.

With the recent affair of swapping the Northern and Southern Provosts, the Chongzhen Emperor, with a nearly shameless attitude, shocked the ministers once again, refreshing their understanding of the thickness of his face — it was thicker than the capital's city walls.

Now, the Chongzhen Emperor's direct palace edict was as good as a sacred decree. Obey it, and you couldn't stand in the scholarly community — in plain terms, it was just a matter of face. But refuse to obey, and the wolf-like depots and guards outside were just short of work, and the silver in the inner treasury only ever wanted more!

The capital was only so big, yet four intelligence agencies directly subordinate to the emperor operated within it: the Eastern Depot, the Western Depot, the Inner Depot, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard. As the saying goes, one mountain cannot hold two tigers — the depots and guards were so crowded they had long since stretched their hands into the Zhili region.

As for harassing the common people, the depots and guards wouldn't dare, because whether it was the Chongzhen Emperor, the depot directors, or the Guard Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, punishments for such matters were extremely severe.

Besides, those poor commoners were so destitute they clinked when they moved — even if you reached into their trousers, there wasn't much to be had. But the Donglin Faction was plump and rich, and the current Son of Heaven hated them to the bone — naturally, they were the perfect targets for persecution.

The agents of the Three Depots and One Guard fixed their jackal-like gazes simultaneously upon the wealthy Donglin Faction, each wanting to tear off a piece of meat.

With the Chongzhen Emperor's full backing, the power of the depots and guards reached its peak in Northern Zhili — from the ministers at court down to academy government students and local scholars, and even the prices of tea, rice, oil, and salt in the capital's markets — almost everything fell within their surveillance.