Time passed in a hurry, and a month passed in a blink of an eye, and at the beginning of November, the impeachment turmoil directed and performed by the eunuch party gradually came to an end, and all the impeachment twists and turns were beaten back by Sun Chengzong on the grounds that there was no evidence.

This did make the eunuchs gradually relax their vigilance, and they believed that Sun Chengzong wanted to maintain the status quo and did not want to start a party dispute. So the eunuch bosses are starting to take it lightly, there's no need to defend him like a thief all day long, right, tense your nerves all day long, scare yourself, is it interesting?

Does Son Seung-jong really want to maintain the status quo? Of course not, he had already dug the grave silently, just waiting for the eunuchs to jump in.

On the evening of the third day of November, in a side hall of the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Cijiong sat on the main seat, Zhu Youzhen, Xu Guangqi, Bi Maokang and other civil servants stood at the bottom left, and Sun Chengzong, Yuan Keli, Qin Liangyu, Luo Yangxing and other military generals stood at the bottom right.

Zhu Cijiong took out the action strategy that Sun Chengzong and others had already prepared, and read slowly:

"Order Yuan Keli to lead 30,000 elite soldiers in the five military camps, enter the city tonight, surround the Yamen of the East Detective Factory, from Wei Zhongxian down, the head of the team, the foreman, the secretary, the chief and other stewards are all arrested, and the rest are guarded on the spot, but there are those who resist and are killed."

Yuan Keli heard the order and kowtowed: "Weichen obeys the order." ”

Zhu Cijiong read again: "Order Luo Yangxing to lead 20,000 Jinyiwei pro-army to scatter and surround Jinyiwei in the north and south of the town and Fu Division tonight, and go through the division and the various guards, thousands of households, and will be attached to the eunuch Jinyiwei commanders, Tongzhi, affairs, and thousands of households are all arrested, and the rest of the ordinary wrestlers and school captains are all guarded on the spot, but there are no forgiveness for those who resist. ”

Luo Yangxing hurriedly stepped forward and kowtowed: "Weichen obeys the order." ”

Zhu Cijiong continued: "Order Qin Liangyu to lead 5,000 elite soldiers of the Shenji Battalion, and scatter and surround the mansions of Tian Ergeng, Cui Chengxiu, Zhou Yingqiu and other eunuch backbones tonight. ”

Qin Liangyu stepped forward quickly, kowtowed, and said, "Weichen obeys the order." ”

Zhu Cijiong ordered again: "Qin Liangyu, Qin Gongming, and Qin Yiming stay, and the others will disperse." ”

Everyone else kowtowed in unison and said, "Wechen retires." ”

Then, they bowed down and retreated one by one, leaving only Qin Liangyu and Qin Gongming brothers standing there for unknown reasons.

Zhu Cijiong saw that everyone else had withdrawn, so he said slowly: "General Qin, you also know that I am very short of money, the treasury is empty, and I can't even make up the food and salary of the Beijing camp. So, I'd like to ask you guys a favor. ”

Qin Liangyu replied firmly: "Your Majesty, please command." ”

Zhu Cijiong gritted his teeth and said: "I want you to go to the house, starting from the private houses of Wei Zhongxian and the Hakka family, then their relatives, and then the five tigers, five biao, ten dogs, ten children, and forty grandsons, these eunuch backbones, don't let go of any of them, copy them all, these people don't know how much people's fat and people's ointment have been looted, it's time to take them out to fill the treasury for me." ”

It turned out that it was just a copy of the house, Qin Liangyu thought that she was going to go to the soup, so she replied easily: "I will definitely live up to the emperor's trust." ”

Zhu Cijiong reminded again: "You let Gong Ming and Yi Ming personally take people to copy, copy the family, and personally escort the copied gold and silver to the palace, don't let people do anything about it." ”

............

It was night, the moon was dark and the wind was high, and the whole capital was sleeping, only dozens of teams of brocade guards holding torches were slowly paraded through the streets and alleys.

Everything is as usual, of course, these are all illusions.

Yuan Keli had already led the elite soldiers of the 30,000-5 military camp to quietly pass through the Dong'an Gate into the imperial city, and then dispersed into countless squads, and surrounded the Yamen of the Dongji Factory outside the Donghua Gate.

In the capital, the guards and thousands of households controlled by Luo Yang also quietly poured out a team of brocade guards, and quickly walked towards the north and south Zhenfu Division, the experience division yamen and other places.

The East Chang'an Gate of the Forbidden City was opened at night as an exception, and a group of elite soldiers of the Shenji Battalion poured out of the Forbidden City and scattered towards the eunuch mansion.

This night is destined to be a sleepless night, all kinds of gunshots, sword strikes, shouts of killing, and begging for mercy sounded everywhere in the capital, especially the Yamen of the East Detective Factory and the North and South Zhenfu Division of Jinyiwei, the resistance of the eunuch party was particularly fierce, after all, it was the main force of the eunuch party, and it was impossible for them to blame the monster to surrender and die.

On the side of the Yamen of the East Investigation Factory, Yuan Keli led the elite soldiers who were one out of ten, and they occupied an absolute advantage in numbers.

Jinyiwei is different from the north and south towns of Fusi Yamen, everyone is Jinyiwei, and the other party has taken advantage of the geographical advantage, if it weren't for the fact that Luo Yangxing's side is twice as many as the eunuchs in terms of numbers, and there are many old people in Jinyiwei to do internal response, it is really a bit hanging to take down a few Jinyiwei yamen.

The easiest thing is the Shenji Battalion, they may suffer a little loss in the face of Houjin's iron cavalry, but it is not too easy to face a group of family members and nurses. A round of guns went down to the opposite side and immediately became honest, what courtyard gate and courtyard wall are even more like paper paste in front of the earthen cannon, and one cannon can hit a match.

After more than an hour of noisy scuffle, the entire capital slowly quieted down, and the eunuchs in Beijing were basically captured in one fell swoop, and Wei Zhongxian and the core elements of the eunuchs did not run away.

The next morning, the imperial palace, which was supposed to be full of ministers above the third rank, was almost half empty, and the remaining officials stood there with frightened faces, not knowing whether they were afraid of being implicated or frightened. The square outside the Imperial Palace, which should have been densely packed with officials in Beijing, was also more than half empty, and the surviving officials were all shivering in the cold wind, they knew that this was the emperor's move on the eunuchs.

Sure enough, today's early dynasty did not have a court discussion at all, and the opening remarks of the celebrant eunuch Cao Huachun were not: "If there is something to start, there is nothing to retreat." ”

He directly took out a piece of paper and began to read out Wei Zhongxian's ten major crimes.

The little emperor Zhu Cijiong inherited the iron-blooded style of Emperor Taizu, and directly asked Zhu Youzhen, the king of letters, to read out the punishment measures for the eunuchs:

The culprit, Wei Zhongxian, confiscated his family property and was executed by Ling Chi.

The main culprits Wuhu, Wubiao, Shigou, Shi'er, Forty Sun, Wei Zhongxian and the relatives of the Hakka clan all confiscated their family property and launched the noon gate to behead the public.

The remaining accomplices may be given lenient sentences if they behave well.

Those who can take the initiative to expose the crimes of their accomplices and hand over all the proceeds of corruption are only demoted to ordinary people, and the crimes will not be investigated.

He only handed over the proceeds of corruption, and refused to expose the crimes of his accomplices, and was exiled for thousands of miles.

Those who refused to hand over the proceeds of corruption and refused to expose the crimes of their accomplices were imprisoned and executed in the autumn.

In the end, Sun Chengzong shouted with murderous anger on his face: "Come on, push all the main culprits of the eunuch party out of the noon gate and behead them for public display." ”

Immediately, a brocade guard obeyed the order, and after a while, countless cries for mercy and miserable howls were heard outside the noon gate.

Not to mention the officials present, even Zhu Cijiong on the dragon chair felt frightened.

That's more than 100 lives, with a click, it's all gone!

The next few days in the capital can be described as very lively, first of all, Wei Zhongxian was executed by Ling Chi, and the entire city of Beijing, from the court officials to the Li people, all played the crown to celebrate.

Then, a group of eunuch party members began to 'bring guilt and make meritorious contributions', actively exposing the crimes of their accomplices, from time to time someone was bitten out, the whole capital was full of Jinyi guards arresting people, and those corrupt officials who had ghosts in their hearts were all terrified, for fear that they would be exposed when someone would expose them.

The idea of exposing the crimes of his accomplices and handing over the proceeds of corruption can be reduced was put forward by Zhu Cijiong, and Sun Chengzong and others were resolutely opposed at first, but as soon as Zhu Cijiong told them about the financial predicament, everyone immediately shut up. After all, corrupt officials and corrupt officials cannot be killed, and killing the main culprit is enough to have a deterrent effect, and killing all the accomplices is just a relief and has no practical effect. The proceeds of this greed can also supplement the deficit of the treasury, and with the money, you can recruit more soldiers and horses, and the Liaodong side will not be so nervous.

In the end, the corrupt proceeds of these eunuchs really frightened Sun Chengzong and them, and Wei Zhongxian and the main criminals alone found nearly 20 million taels of silver, as well as jewelry, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, as well as land, mansions, and slaves. In order to save their lives, those ordinary eunuch members and corrupt officials who were bitten out directly handed over more than 20 million taels of silver.

This silver alone adds up to more than 40 million taels, and the annual expenses of a 100,000 army are about 3 million taels, and these more than 40 million taels of silver are enough to gather a million troops to go around for a year! Of course, no one would foolishly propose to use all this silver for military expenses, after all, other places have to use money, and if it is all used for military expenses, other people's lives will not be able to live.

In fact, Zhu Cijiong knew very well in his heart that this was not all, it was recorded in the history books of later generations that when Li Zicheng attacked Beijing, Emperor Chongzhen wanted to borrow money from the ministers for military expenses, but none of the ministers were willing to lend him, and they all said that there was no money. As a result, Li Zicheng attacked the city of Beijing and found more than 70 million taels of silver from the homes of these ministers!

That's not all, there are many officials who have taken refuge in Li Zicheng and kept their property. It was a time when the country was dying, there were peasant uprisings everywhere, more than half of the country's farmland was barren, tax revenues had plummeted, and the money that could be made was less than half of what it is now. In other words, if all the corrupt officials' homes are copied now, at least 200 million taels of silver can be copied!

You must know that the total annual tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty is less than 30 million taels!

Two hundred million taels, how terrible and sad this number is!