Chapter 686: The Chongzhen Emperor's Breaking-Point Memorial

In the ninth year of Chongzhen, it snowed.

On the night of the fourth day of the first month, goose-feather snow fell across the two prefectures of Monan and Yanqing in northern Shaanxi.

In the Guanzhong prefectures of Xi'an and Fengxiang, a dusting of snow — better than nothing — drifted down right on its heels.

After that, Lanzhou and the Hexi region of Gansu also got light snow. Only Xining nearly missed out — the minor clerk sent to report the news had just boarded the rail carriage when the snow stopped before he even reached the courier station of the He-Huang Five Garrisons.

He had no choice but to go back, draft a new document stating that it had snowed but then stopped, and send that to the station instead.

Meanwhile in Xi'an Prefecture, Liu Chengzong's mood was brightening with the glad tidings of snowfall from every region.

Wrapped in a fur cloak, he climbed the Bell Tower, brewed piping-hot milk tea, and warmed his hands while taking in the beautiful sight of the great city cloaked in silver.

At this time of year, it was genuinely a rare and precious scene.

But he hadn't come to the Drum Tower specifically for that — it was simply that this snow had brought the commanders of the Marshal's Manor such immense joy.

People were calling this light snow, which hadn't even piled up to a knuckle's depth after falling all night, a heaven-sent great auspicious omen, and far-fetchedly linking it to Liu Chengzong's capture of Guanzhong.

Many even voiced a beautiful, wistful sigh: the terrible Shaanxi drought was finally over.

It was just a pity that, to Liu Chengzong, such a beautiful wish was undoubtedly a ridiculous delusion.

But he had no desire to spoil anyone's refined mood, so he brought his attendants to the Bell Tower to enjoy a moment of peace alone.

Among his attendants was Xue Xing, a man from Hancheng.

This man was a kinsman of Xue Guoguan, the Vice Minister of Rites of the Great Ming. He was a learned scholar well-versed in the classics, skilled in horsemanship and archery, and his calligraphy was very fine.

But because of his background and his appearance, the commanders of the Marshal's Manor looked down on him. Ever since he joined the Marshal's Manor, they had called him Squint-Eyed Freak.

Liu Chengzong, however, felt that Xue Xing was not necessarily a court spy.

Because with his looks, he was basically cut off from any scholarly rank or official post in the court.

Whether taking the exams or becoming an official, there were requirements for appearance and physique. One didn't have to be exceptionally good-looking, but at the very least, one needed well-proportioned features and all four limbs intact.

Xue Xing was born with a squint and held no scholarly rank.

When Liu Chengzong asked about the matter of scholarly rank, Xue Xing's face remained calm and untroubled, and he spoke of it as a joke with only a trace of regret.

But to Liu the Lion's ears, he could sense the resentment toward Heaven buried within.

The Xue clan of Hancheng was a prominent local family. Xue Xing and Xue Guoguan were of the same branch, and their home was outside Hancheng's North Gate.

As he spoke, to make it easier for Liu Chengzong to understand, Xue Xing raised a hand and sketched a map of Hancheng.

Mountains lay to the west and south, and to the north was an even higher loess plateau — the terrain was like a small basin.

In the middle of the basin, the Jushui River flowed from Tumenkou in the northwest toward the southeast. On the river's north bank, stretching to the foot of the northeastern plateau, lay Hancheng.

And there was only one road from Hancheng up onto the northeastern plateau, right outside the North Gate, so this was a very bustling local area.

Because the northern part inside the county seat was all government offices, while the scattered dwellings in the south hugged the river and couldn't compare to the vast fertile fields of the northern plateau, many officials and landlords settled outside the North Gate.

The Xue family residence was a hereditary property passed down from their ancestors: three bays wide and four courtyards deep.

As soon as he described it, Liu Chengzong got the picture. He nodded in praise and said, "The residence isn't large — so your family is one of honest, upright means."

In Liu Chengzong's mind, there was a mathematical theorem built from accumulated experience, one that could see through the relationship between the size of a house and the owner's wealth at a single glance.

There was no helping it — leading troops to sweep across the Northwest, breaching cities and seizing territory, had bred an insight that few others could match.

Even the most outstanding architect of this era lacked Liu the Lion's peculiarly sharp eye.

After all, how many houses has an architect built? How could he compare to our Liu the Second, who has demolished so many?

A residence's area has two key concepts: one is the bay-and-frame, the other is the courtyard depth.

Ancient buildings rely on pillars and beams for support.

A "bay" is the space between four pillars; a "frame" is the structure formed by the beams and purlins atop the four pillars.

For official residences with bracket sets, the width of the facade can be calculated by the bracket-arm measurement; for commoner dwellings without bracket sets, the facade width is determined by the number of frame beams.

Generally, one bay's width is around ten to thirteen chi, so a three-bay, six-pillar facade is ten to thirteen meters wide.

Therefore, the court's ceremonial regulations stipulated: princes of the realm were called "mansions," officials were called "residences," and these could be built from three bays by seven frames up to five bays by nine frames.

Commoners were called "homes" and could not exceed three bays by five frames.

In this way, the size of a house was essentially fixed. This is the foundation for the later proliferation of three-bay-wide dwellings among the common folk, and it also shows that the Hongwu Emperor was relatively lenient toward the common people.

Regulations on housing were not an invention of the Ming dynasty.

In the earlier Song dynasty, commoners were only permitted to use five-frame beams to build a single bay with two sha.

A sha is not a large building; it means a small room or a wing.

A guangsha is a large building.

So Song dynasty commoner dwellings rarely had three bays; they were usually one bay with two side rooms.

And in the even earlier Tang dynasty, the regulations were even smaller: commoners could not exceed three bays by four frames. Three bays by five frames was the treatment for a sixth-rank official.

But regulations are just regulations. They only state what people cannot do; they don't stipulate what people can only do.

So wherever there are regulations, there are loopholes to exploit.

The court never stipulated how many houses one family could have.

And so the multi-courtyard compound came into being.

A "courtyard depth" refers to depth. You enter through a three-bay gate, cross a skywell, and reach the end of another three-bay structure — that is called a one-courtyard compound.

You go through a second three-bay structure, find another skywell, and then reach the end of a third three-bay structure — that is called a two-courtyard compound.

Three, four, five courtyards follow the same principle.

These buildings are enclosed by an outer wall, and that becomes a courtyard compound.

This is also part of "Zhu's Circle" — a defining feature of Ming dynasty architecture is the wall.

From the smallest commoner's courtyard, to mid-sized village forts, to the brick walls of great cities, the whole realm was encircled.

So the Xue residence, three bays by four courtyards, would roughly be twelve main rooms and six side rooms. Including the courtyards, it would be about a thousand square meters.

Not large — it couldn't be called a grand mansion, at most the home of a respectable family.

The Xue family ancestors were officials, but building a house like this makes them look like honest officials at a glance — it's completely built in the style of common folk, and a minor landlord's layout at that.

A residence of three bays and four courtyards can also be built on a larger scale.

Because beyond bays and courtyards, there is another concept called "wing" — as in the wings of a compound.

That means adding a central axis to the left or right of the bays and courtyards, forming a layout of two or three compounds running in parallel, linked by covered corridors.

Liu Chengzong concluded that this Xue Guoguan could not be a bad man.

Because Xue Xing said that when Xue Guoguan came home for the New Year, the clansmen all urged him to expand the house, and some family members had even already negotiated with several neighbors to buy their yards for the expansion.

He had just been promoted to Vice Minister of Rites; according to ritual regulations, he was entitled to a residence of five bays and seven rafters, and could even build a main hall seven bays wide.

But Xue Guoguan forbade it, and refused to put up any money, instead leaving one hundred taels of silver for Zuo Maodi, who had returned to Hancheng with him.

Because he had submitted a memorial to the Emperor, requesting that the state treasury not be touched and the people's wealth not be drained, and that he be allowed to return home and mobilize the gentry to sheathe Hancheng's earthen city walls in brick, to prepare for unforeseen events.

A man who won't even expand his own house, yet rallies the gentry to brick-sheathe the city walls to protect his fellow townsmen — how bad could he possibly be?

In fact, Liu the Lion even felt that Xue Guoguan was a bit harsh toward his own family. Building a house wouldn't cost much, and once built, his descendants could live in it even without scholarly rank.

It was his proposal to brick-sheathe Hancheng's earthen walls that truly irritated Liu the Lion — you bastard, who the hell are you trying to guard against?

Xue Xing had grown up in that ancestral home of three bays and four courtyards. His family was not exceedingly wealthy, but they had always supported him in studying full-time, and he had toiled at his books since childhood for twelve years.

A few years ago, he had finally managed to sit in the examination shed, but because he had a natural squint, the examiner making his rounds thought Xue Xing was glaring at him sideways and threw him out.

Liu Chengzong found this amusing and consoled Xue Xing: "Don't worry about it. Both my brother and I have been thrown out of an examination hall before."

But even as he said this, Liu the Lion also felt that Xue Xing was always glaring at him sideways.

There was nothing to be done; the man's eyes were simply made that way.

He thought to himself, it was a good thing he got thrown out back then.

That examiner saved you. If you had no real talent, it wouldn't matter.

But if you did have real talent and actually made it to the palace examination, given the Chongzhen Emperor's style of recruiting talent without rigid conventions, he might well not have cared about your appearance and granted you a fine official start.

The problem is, if he had truly become a Presented Scholar, Xue Xing would probably be dead or in prison by now.

Let's be honest — in this godforsaken situation, a single day could make Chongzhen so furious he'd rise from the dead three times. If you then involuntarily showed an expression of looking askance at the sovereign and despising His Majesty, would Chongzhen not have you executed?

Whether Xue Xing was a spy sent by Xue Guoguan to his side, Liu Chengzong could not say for certain.

But in any case, Xue Xing was definitely a spy he had sent to Xue Guoguan's side.

On this return from Hancheng, Xue Xing had transported several chests of books — all hearsay, rumors, and gossip he had copied down at home over the New Year, along with various instructions Xue Guoguan had given his family, and official documents like court gazettes he had brought home.

Among them was one matter: the Chongzhen Emperor had once again been cursed into a breakdown by a military supervisor from Henan.

This supervisor was named Tang Kaiyuan, a young man of the Restoration Society and a minor virtuoso of invective.

The Restoration Society was a youth literary association in the southeast, formed by merging over a dozen societies in Jiangnan. It had strength in numbers and was predominantly composed of young men.

This society was a hot-blooded youth group formed under a special set of circumstances: the high literacy rate of the era, the abundance of educated youth, and the relatively relaxed atmosphere of life in the southeast.

A bunch of scholars from decent backgrounds, spending all day listening to music, writing poetry, and reading the news — young, knowledgeable, brimming with a sense of superiority, and with no real responsibilities to attend to.

To show off the clever brains on their necks, they gathered together and did nothing but keyboard politics in their spare time.

Tang Kaiyuan counted as an elder brother among them, because he became an official early — passing the provincial exam at eighteen and immediately becoming a Prefectural Judge in Henan. His status in the Restoration Society was very high; he didn't just do keyboard politics, he could actually participate in and discuss governance.

It made the kids in the Restoration Society so envious they cried.

Now Tang Kaiyuan was a hot-blooded middle-aged man, with superb literary talent, and he could truly land his scoldings where they hurt.

This man had served as Prefectural Judge of Henan in the second year of Chongzhen's reign. After the Jisi Incident and the imposition of martial law in the capital, he submitted a memorial to Chongzhen, urging him not to cling to harsh laws and severe punishments that disrupted the state's legal order — the Embroidered Uniform Guard's imperial prison should not be filled with anyone who was not guilty of rebellion or subverting the state.

Chongzhen ignored him.

This time, it was because Chongzhen had sent men to arrest the Grand Coordinator of Henan, Chen Biqian, on charges of dereliction of duty.

Tang Kaiyuan then submitted another memorial, saying that His Majesty treated civil grand coordinators harshly but favored military garrison commanders. If a civil grand coordinator dared to take office, it was a crime; if he dared not take office, it was also a crime. Not taking office actually carried a lighter punishment — in that case, no one would take up the post of grand coordinator in the future.

Chongzhen lost a little face over this and said that the matter of grand coordinators not taking office had no concrete evidence, and that Tang Kaiyuan should think it over before speaking further.

Tang Kaiyuan turned around and submitted another memorial.

He named names, listing every single grand coordinator of Shaanxi and Shanxi since Chongzhen's ascension, and asked Chongzhen: among these grand coordinators, is there a single one still alive, not in prison, and not stripped of office and rank?

The court has its own laws and procedures — the Ministry of Personnel deliberates on disciplinary measures, the judicial offices deliberate on crimes, and the local inspecting censors audit and impeach.

Why is it that as soon as His Majesty's edict is issued, the Ministry of Personnel immediately complies by demoting and dismissing, yet no one is willing to stubbornly submit a memorial saying that such handling is wrong?

Why is it that once a case reaches the three chief judicial offices, they immediately follow the edict by proposing banishment or exile to the frontier, yet no one submits a memorial saying that such a punishment should not apply?

As for audits, the censors in charge of inspection merely recount the facts of the matter. Why does no one come forward to discuss the crimes within the merits, or the merits within the crimes, and plead with the court for leniency on behalf of the officials?

Because of you, Your Majesty. The many officials cannot distinguish right from wrong because they know that Your Majesty is bent on dealing heavy blows, and that speaking up would be useless — you would only throw them into prison as well.

That imperial prison is full of the capped and belted talents of the Great Ming.

That is why the court suffers one failure after another, punishing this man and that man every single day — matters that do nothing to suppress the bandits or pacify the people.

What is lacking now is precisely just rewards and punishments!

When this memorial was delivered, Chongzhen broke down completely.

If someone scolded Chongzhen for extravagance and waste, no matter how harsh the scolding, the Emperor would just laugh it off.

After all, a flaw I don't have — say whatever you like.

But what kind of talk was this from Tang Kaiyuan? He said I abuse punishments, that my rewards and punishments are unjust!

Could Chongzhen tolerate this? He really did have this flaw.

During the New Year, he dares to censure me.

Chongzhen flew into a rage and issued an edict stripping him of rank and office and escorting him to the capital in chains.

Tang Kaiyuan's skill at invective was somewhat related to his family learning. He was a man of Linchuan, and his father was Tang Xianzu.

In this memorial that broke Chongzhen, a name was mentioned: Zhu Wanling.

He was a Presented Scholar of the forty-fourth year of the Wanli reign, and the former Prefect of Baoding.

When the peasant army crossed at Mianchi, he was serving as Military Defense Circuit. Because the army's provisions were critically short and a great battle was imminent, he was so anxious he could neither sleep nor eat, and developed a carbuncle on his back — only to be stripped of office and sent home by Chongzhen.

This man was nearing fifty, and right now he was in the city of Xi'an Prefecture.

The day before yesterday he took down the summons for worthies that the Marshal's headquarters had posted at the Xianning County yamen, and sought an audience with Liu Chengzong, hoping to have the armory inside the city vacated and the Guanzhong Academy restored.

He was also a student of Feng Congwu.

Liu Chengzong talked with Zhu Wanling, and the talk went quite well.

The old man refused to take office, and Lion Liu refused to vacate the armory — the two sides exchanged views with great sincerity.

Of course, that was not the main substance of the conversation, only the matters on which they failed to agree.

At least Zhu Wanling now knew Liu Chengzong's intentions: Liu Chengzong gave his promise that the Guanzhong Academy would definitely be restored, and moreover, as the Marshal's headquarters' highest institution of learning, it would be expanded.

But not right now, because the new armory was not yet built.

Besides, the academy had to operate under the administrative framework of the education commissioner, and the Marshal's headquarters did not even have a director of studies at present — how could it be restored?

Lion Liu said, "Since you care so much about the academy, come serve as my director of studies."

Liu Chengzong had already been very sincere, but Zhu Wanling was even more sincere.

He said, I was dismissed from office back in the Tianqi reign, and now His Majesty has struck my name from the rolls again. I have lived as a commoner for several years now, and the days have been quite good. Taking office or not — either is fine.

The Ming army was raiding homes and extorting pay within the city, and the Grand Marshal punished those mutinous troops according to law, stabilizing the situation in Xi'an Prefecture. That is very good.

I could take office, but likewise, not right now.

At the very least, let the Marshal's headquarters avoid being driven out of Xi'an Prefecture city within three months of entering it. If that happened, I would have been better off not taking office at all.

The weighty post of director of studies — Grand Marshal, please seek another of superior ability, and allow me to observe a while longer.

Liu Chengzong understood: this was nonsense.

All that about punishing mutinous troops and the like was just polite talk. They were both intelligent men — who did not know who had ordered those things done? That was merely a fig leaf for the Marshal's headquarters' money-grubbing.

The real reason was that Sun Zhensheng and Liang Xing had been granted the office of censor.

The scholars' minds had begun to waver.

Two merchants with neither backing, nor examination degrees, nor any merit to speak of.

They had merely taken a turn around the Marshal's headquarters, and in the blink of an eye they had transformed into censors wielding heavy authority over salt law and tea administration.

This affair stirred up a huge uproar in Sanyuan, Jingyang, and indeed the whole of Xi'an Prefecture — assessments of the "thousand-gold horse bone" were sharply polarized.

Not only because of the two men's backgrounds, but even more because of the official posts the Marshal's headquarters had conferred on them.

What does "censor" mean?

Where does the character "yu" in the Marshal's headquarters' censor come from?

People's feelings about this matter were complicated. Whenever more than three gathered together, all they cursed was that the traitor Liu's overweening ambition to usurp the throne was glaringly obvious!

But if two men, or even one man, shut the door behind him, then the presented scholars, the provincial graduates, and the officials living at home in retirement would begin to ponder whether the Marshal's headquarters might have a place where their own talents could be put to use.

The office of censor had never been high in rank, and its meaning was quite simple.

Shi — in pre-Qin times, this was the scribe and secretary officer who kept records at the side of the Son of Heaven, the feudal lords, the high ministers, and the stewards of fiefs.

The character yu is even easier to understand: in ancient times, the scribe officer at the side of the ruler of a state was called yushi — censor.

Because these men handled confidential documents, they naturally became the eyes and ears of the ruler, assuming a portion of the duty of reporting on others' misdeeds.

By the Ming dynasty, censors no longer recorded history; they specialized in reporting misdeeds, and were divided mainly into two types.

One type was stationed in various regions to report misdeeds, called investigating censors. They were stationed in the thirteen circuits, one hundred and ten of them in total.

The second type consisted of designations created for specific matters, such as salt inspector and tea inspector, as well as those for grain transport, agriculture, customs, river works, city walls, fields, granaries, and so on.

In short, wherever His Majesty wished to read reports of misdeeds, he would dispatch a pair of eyes and ears there.

In selecting candidates, they generally chose presented scholars or students of the Imperial Academy whose family backgrounds were unsullied and who had not yet been tainted by the habits of officialdom, to inspect the regions — the intent being to use their scholarly idealism to drive out the foul and promote the pure.

The office was no higher than the seventh rank, and as for actual power, it had none whatsoever.

Only because it was touched by the character yu did it possess tremendous lethal force. One report of misdeeds sent up could leave a man utterly bewildered.

The conferral of these two offices had an enormous impact on the hearts and minds of the people in Xi'an Prefecture.

It was at this moment that many people, for the first time, began to scrutinize Liu Chengzong in earnest, attempting to predict whether this rebel leader, whose military momentum surged so fiercely, had the potential to carve out and hold half the realm.

But standing amid the hazy smoke and fog of history, peering into the future is always blurred and unclear.

Liu Chengzong was very optimistic about the prospects, believing that the current befuddled state of Shaanxi's scholar-officials was good news for the Marshal's headquarters.

At the very least, there would be no situation where he had just led his troops on the northern campaign when his own backyard caught fire.

Before the northern campaign, however, Liu Chengzong had to get Hanzhong firmly in hand first.

And the candidate to go to Hanzhong had already been decided: it was Jiang Yingchang, the prefect of Pingliang.