As for whether he hid the bribe elsewhere, Li Zhen didn't admit it, and at this time, Yin Xuejun of Ying Tianfu suddenly said: "What if he really doesn't know that he accepted a bribe?"

Seeing that everyone was looking over, Xue Jun said, "Ladies and gentlemen, have you forgotten about Liu Ning, the head of the Criminal Department?"

After he reminded them, everyone remembered and sighed in unison. Here's what happened, someone once hid the silver in a watermelon and gave it to Liu Ning, the head of the Criminal Department. Liu Ning didn't know about it himself, and he didn't find it, but his wife An Shi cut the melon and found out about it, and immediately reported it.

An reported that her husband had accepted bribes, but the case was praised by the emperor, who thought that An was virtuous and could "be righteous", and gave her two hundred taels of platinum.

Behind this case, in fact, the emperor encouraged the officials to expose each other within their families - because Gao Chi was right, the emperor appointed cool officials to attack and expose them, and he corrected the ministers every day, and there was almost no peace for a day. Therefore, in the political life of Yongle time, admonishment prevailed, and training became a prison, which appeared not only in the officialdom, but also in the lives of the people.

In fact, there is a lot of hidden truth in this case, for example, Liu Ning's watermelon cut out the silver, in fact, it is a royal history of the Metropolitan Procuratorate who has a dislike for Liu Ning, luring the bribe giver to come up with this method, this person is ready to accuse Liu Ning of accepting bribes, Liu Ning knows, in order to protect himself, he can only ask An to expose himself in advance, so as to gain the sympathy and initiative of public opinion.

If An's does not sue, there will naturally be someone to sue, not only the imperial history who has an enmity with him, but also the other imperial histories who know a little rumor, they will definitely use all kinds of vicious rhetoric, and Liu Ning's sin is unforgivable - because the general environment is like this, everyone is informing, especially the imperial history under Chen Ying, if he does not tell and does not expose, he will be regarded as incompetent, so there is a method of using fishing law enforcement, that is, tempting people to commit crimes, luring officials to commit crimes, and then achieving the goal of successful impeachment.

Therefore, Gao Chi said that "the general environment is that you fight for me, and whoever dares to do things without distraction must keep five points of mind, so as not to be stabbed in the back, and the atmosphere will be damaged by these science and Taoist officials and inspectors", which is indeed not wrong at all.

But Zhang Zhaohua knew that the source of all this was not Chen Ying, who Gao Chi was about to dispose of, but on the emperor, who wanted to control the officials, the military and the people, and it was the emperor who compiled a set of supervision and investigation nets with cool officials and spies as the main body, and put everything under his control.

Everyone nodded again and again, and Tang Zong began to interrogate the four people accused of bribery in the hall: "Did the four of you hide the bribe money somewhere and give it to Li Zhen, who doesn't know about it?"

The four of them shook their heads at the same time, because these four people were soap subordinates, unlike Li Zhen, who was born in school, so they were strong and strong, and they could survive torture: "We are all poor, where can we bribe Master Li! We have nothing to do, we can ask him for it!"

Tang Zong thought about it for a while, because Li Zhen, the head of the military department, was different from the head of the military department who controlled the assessment of officials, or the household department in charge of money and grain, or the criminal department that controlled punishment, he was in charge of the politics of military selection, maps, carriages and horses, and armor, and although Li Zhen was said to be the head of the military selection department, he might be able to help others, but it was useless for these four soap subordinates.

Because the errand service in the yamen, which is like Soap Li, is a lowly status that cannot be changed in terms of household registration, and it is also a lowly servant. The yamen soap of this dynasty wears a blue cloth robe, a long robe with a collar and narrow sleeves, with dense pleats at the bottom, and a red cloth webbing belt around the waist. Those with lower status wear a green coat covered with a red cloth vest and a green ribbon around their waists. As the saying goes, "the peddler soap li" refers to people with low social status like them.

It is impossible to change the household registration, not to mention Li Zhen, a small head of the military department, that is, Jin Zhong, the secretary of the military department, personally handles it, it is impossible to change it, for example, in the imperial examination, the children who take the examination must first register with the county yamen ceremonial room, fill in the name, in addition, the county Xiucai in the student as a guarantee, called the Bao, to ensure that you are not impersonated, hidden, to ensure that you are innocent, not a descendant of the advocacy soap, in order to take the exam.

And the military registration is not here in the military department, but in the hands of the governor's office.

However, Shi Kui, the squire of the Ministry of War, and the other two directors of the Ministry of War were slightly stunned, showing a thoughtful look, and just happened to make Xue Jun look at it, and immediately asked, "Master Shi, what do you think?"

Shi Kui said: "The Martial Arts Selection Division - in addition to conferring and inheriting, there is also a responsibility, which is to preside over the military department and select martial artists. ”

The Department of Martial Arts is in charge of the appointment, promotion and demotion of the world's military generals, but there is another duty that is often forgotten by everyone, that is, the selection of martial artists. This is also due to the special military system of the country. Wuju existed as early as the Tang and Song dynasties, but the military system of this dynasty was different from that of the previous dynasty, and the military position was almost inherited by Shiyin, and the military status was passed down from generation to generation, so Wuju has always been regarded as redundant. It was only in the year before last that Emperor Yongle discovered that the quality of hereditary officers had seriously declined, so he opened another martial arts.

"From more than 3,000 candidates from all over the country, more than 200 martial arts officers were selected," Shi Kui said, "but these people, after being selected, have no landing." ”

The emperor's original intention, in fact, was not to elect the Wuju people, but to use this method to stimulate the children of the ministers to be angry, and not really degenerate into a gentleman, a man who fights cocks and horses, and sure enough, this time the martial arts came out, and was regarded as a great threat to the door, under their crying, the emperor still fulfilled their wish, and these poor Wuju people were temporarily put aside by the emperor and no longer asked.

So what should these Wuju people do, go back or not-they can only rely on the capital, and go to the military department every day to inquire. However, in recent months, the Ministry of War has really found a way to accommodate these people, because Jingwei seems to have the intention of accepting them, Jingwei is not as good as the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies, or rather, it seems that the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies has not completely extended its hand into Jingwei, so for many days, a large number of Wuju people have piled up here in the Wuxuan Division, trying all kinds of ways to get a place to enter Jingwei.

So could it be that among these four soap subordinates, there are people who are related to this group of Wuju people, and it is more difficult for this martial artist to get close to Li Zhen, but it is much easier for the soap subordinates who are on an errand in the Yamen of the Ministry of War, because they are familiar faces and can also speak.

Or maybe the Wuju people first bought off the four of them, and then begged them to send a bigger bribe to Li Zhen?

Tang Zong asked, and the four of them denied it: "We don't have relatives from Wuju, nor are we asked by anyone to speak in front of Master Li, let alone take people's money and do things for others!"

Tang Zong was still observing the words and looking to see if they were lying, but Xue Jun was thinking that this case would not be able to be tried for a while, first of all, to check whether Li Zhen's wife Wang was lying, and to go to Li Zhen's house to search; secondly, to see if Li Zhen was lying, whether he actually accepted bribes, but hid it elsewhere, so he had to search carefully. Finally, there are these four soaps, although they all denied bribery, and they all said that they did not accept the request of others, but they still have to investigate, so that the fastest search, I am afraid it will take five or six days to confirm.

Xue Jun was about to say something or stop for the time being, but suddenly saw two more people coming outside the lobby, these two people walked in as if no one was around, and said loudly: "Yuan Gang and Qin Heng, the imperial historian of the Imperial Procuratorate, came to confront each other!"