It is now October of the fifth year of Zhengde, and the little prince and the king of Anhua have been escorted to Beijing one after another.

The Ming court carried out a grand ceremony to present prisoners.

However, Zhu Houzhao did not do this for the sake of foreign enemies, but for those courtiers in the court who were unwilling to admit the brilliant achievements of His Majesty the Emperor.

Deeply influenced by Confucianism, the civil officials who were benevolent externally and cruel internally had to grit their teeth and admit Zhu Houzhao's martial arts at this time.

Zhu Houzhao also asked each of them to write a congratulatory note to praise the destruction of the little prince and the recovery of the Hetao, especially the officials of the Hanlin Academy, Zhu Houzhao asked them to record this matter in a large amount of space.

Most civil officials can only grit their teeth and write many sensual praises for their official positions.

Of course, there were also some civil officials who did not like Zhu Houzhao's appearance of great joy, so they used this to persuade Zhu Houzhao, but Zhu Houzhao was not polite, and deposed these officials to the Hetao area on the grounds that he did not know the severity of the little prince's crimes against the soldiers and civilians in the border towns.

Anyway, now the Hetao area needs a large number of officials to govern because it has just been recovered.

Zhu Houzhao also took advantage of this to exile these civil officials who still adhered to the Confucian concept of governing the country in an attempt to restrain themselves to the Hetao.

For the civilian officials, this is simply more uncomfortable than killing them.

After all, everyone knows that Saiwai is a bitter cold place, even if the Hetao is known as "plugging the south of the Yangtze River", but since the Ming Dynasty lost the Hetao Tatar invasion and destruction, the Hetao is now also a barren land, and exile in these places is equivalent to freezing people to death or dying of disease.

"Let this official go to Dongsheng to be the magistrate! It's better to kill this official! ”

Liu Meng, who was demoted to Dongshengzhi County for misspreading military reports, now thinks this way.

As a high-ranking official who has become a governor, first of all, he can't stand to give to his former low-ranking boss, and secondly, he can't stand being an empty county with no people and no land outside the barren Saiwai.

Therefore, Liu Meng did not go to the ministry to pick up the edict, and went home directly.

The civil officials of the Ming Dynasty are usually like this, dissatisfied with the appointment of the imperial court or dissatisfied with the government and go directly to the crown, completely ignoring the rules of the imperial court.

This is related to the pride of the literati, and it is also related to the preferential treatment of the scribes by the imperial court.

But from the perspective of the law of this era, the imperial decree is the emperor's decree, and the emperor appoints you to be an official, and if you don't go to the office, it is tantamount to disobeying the decree.

Therefore, Liu Meng's behavior has constituted a crime in this era.

Of course, Liu Meng also knew that he was resisting the order, and other civil officials also knew it, but these civil officials were not afraid of death, and in their consciousness, it was not a shame to be killed if they did not obey the order, and they could even be regarded as loyal and unyielding.

After all, many such literati in history were not willing to be recruited by the monarch and disobeyed or even killed.

"Either you can directly depose the official, or even change the official to the common people, or even kill the official, but you must not insult the official, let the official be a foreign magistrate, and manage a group of barbarians!"

Liu Meng shouted at the officials of the Ministry of Officials at this time, he felt that he was very tough, very backbone, and very proud of it.

Of course, he himself knew that if he was not directly dismissed or directly demoted to a commoner, he would return to his hometown and rely on the money he had earned from his decades of life in the sea to become a rich gentry or a wealthy man, and he could take this opportunity to cultivate the children of the family and make benefits for the younger children of his family;

If he is killed, he can also leave a good name in the history books, and he can also make his family respected in Shilin.

And if you go to the outside of the city to be a county magistrate, if you do a good job, you will not be promoted to a high-ranking official quickly, and if you don't do well, you will even be deposed and punished, and you have to worry that you may die of illness and freeze to death, even if you can make some money, you can't live a good life, and even if you die in the line of duty, it is easy to be forgotten by the history books.

Zhu Houzhao also knew the thoughts of Liu Meng, a civilian official, and after learning that Liu Meng was unwilling to take office, he directly issued an order: "Resist the order and do not obey!" He should be put to death, remembering that he had also done one or two things that were beneficial to the people's livelihood, and was sentenced to 60 years' imprisonment, deprived of his rights as stipulated in the Constitution, and sent to Yulin to mine, and if he died, his sons and nephews would be ordered to pay for his crimes! ”

After the outline of the King James Constitution was finalized in the debate for more than a year, its content was in many ways far from that of later generations of the constitution, the first difference was that he was still protecting the imperial power, and the other difference was that there was still the content of the punishment of crimes.

Therefore, when Zhu Houzhao decided to send Liu Meng to Yulin to mine for 60 years, he said that if Liu Meng died, his son and nephew would continue to dig until 60 years.

After Liu Meng returned to his hometown, he didn't take it to heart at all about his resistance to the decree and not going to take up his post outside the Saiwai, for the civil officials, refusing to be an official is nothing, and he also directly accepted a concubine, he was over fifty years old when he had just married a 17-year-old girl into the family, and was about to be a groom again, when the soldiers of Shandong according to the inspector came to the door and read out the decree issued by the cabinet.

Liu Meng was directly shocked when he heard this: "What! I want the old man to mine for sixty years! Your Majesty, Your Majesty, it is better to kill the old man directly! ”

"Take it away!"

The officers and soldiers of the Shandong Judicial Division did not dare to slack off, because once the imperial court knew that Liu Meng, a criminal, had not been escorted to Yulin City to serve within the specified time, the entire Shandong Provincial Judicial Division officials would be severely punished, so Liu Meng, who had just become a groom, was pulled away before he had time to enter the cave room.

Liu Meng's mining career was naturally very miserable after being escorted to Yulin City, if he obediently chose to go to Saiwai as a county magistrate, although he would have been a subordinate to his former subordinates, but at least he was still an official, but now he can only carry out mining work with high intensity every day like those criminal Mongols, and he will be beaten by the overseers.

Less than three days after his service, Liu Meng couldn't stand the feeling of being driven to work like a brute, so he knelt in front of Zhang Zhang's county office in Yulin Zhixian and begged to see: "County honor! The little one begs you, I beg you to help the little one to make a mistake to His Majesty, and say that the guilty minister is guilty! Sinners should not disobey the order! Don't be unruly! The sinner is willing to go to Dongsheng Dangzhi County! Whining! Or let the sinners teach people to read and write like other Confucian scholars! ”

Zhang Xuan is very busy now, so naturally he has no time to take care of an ordinary prisoner serving a sentence.

And Liu Meng is no longer the majestic official he used to be, and he was dragged out by the officials not long after kneeling and crying in the county office.

At the same time, the overseer who found that he had not yet gone to serve also appeared at this time, and directly whipped him with a whip: "Bastard thing! Who asked you to come to the county office, don't go back to work! Who do you think you are! Only the people of Daming who can come to the county government to redress their grievances have this right, and you are not a Daming citizen now, you are a criminal in service! Get back to work! ”

The whip made Liu Meng cry and cry for his mother, but he couldn't parry, so he could only obediently return to the mining area to continue working.

There was a shortage of labor in the newly recovered areas of the Ming Dynasty, so many criminals were now sent to Yulin City to rely on these criminals to complete the development of minerals, the construction of official roads and the reclamation of fields.

Therefore, the civil officials who were unwilling to go to work outside the Saiwai basically all sent them to mine outside the Saiwai on the grounds of disobedience to the order of resistance, until they were exhausted to death and thrown into the wilderness.

Some civil officials who were arranged to take up posts outside the Seychelles and took office obediently were a little glad that they had complied with the will of the imperial court to become officials after seeing the fate of these civil officials who were unwilling to take up their posts and were assigned to mining outside the Seychelles, otherwise they would not be able to become officials, but I was afraid that even the people would not be able to do it.

Of course, some civil officials also complained about this after learning about the tragic situation of being sent to mine outside the Saiwai, so they gave advice to the imperial court, believing that the imperial court should treat scholars and doctors well, and used the words of doctors as a reason for not being punished.

Zhu Houzhao naturally did not admit that he could not be punished by doctors, and refuted the fallacies of these civil officials on the grounds that there was no provision in the outline of the King James Constitution that they could not be punished by doctors, and said that the punishment of these civil officials was in accordance with the outline of the Constitution, and that they were punished because they were guilty, and that they were not harmed by adding to their crimes for no reason.

And those civil officials who wanted to persuade Zhu Houzhao not to rejoice in his achievements did not dare to advise Zhu Houzhao, after all, they were also afraid of being sent to mine outside the Saiwai.

In fact.

The current civil servants find that they do not seem to be able to persuade Zhu Houzhao not to be overjoyed, so that the empire can continue to follow the Confucian model of benevolence externally and strict governance at home.

Because, with the advent of the Huangming Newspaper, coupled with the deliberate promotion of the second chamber of the chamber in accordance with Zhu Houzhao's instructions, the people of the empire already knew about it when the civil officials were unwilling to publicize the achievements of the Ming Dynasty in destroying the little prince.

Over the years, Huangming Daily has let the people of the Ming Empire know who the little prince is, how he invaded the people of the Ming Dynasty, and what sins he has committed;

Even, the people in the second chamber specially let the people who had been bullied by the Tartars come to the capital and other important towns to have a crying meeting.

Therefore, the people of the Ming Dynasty are no strangers to the sins of the little prince.

Therefore, when they heard that His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty sent iron cavalry to defeat the little prince and capture the little prince alive, the people were very excited, and for the first time they had a good impression of the court and the officials and soldiers who would only oppress them in the past, knowing that the court not only knew that collecting taxes would also protect them, and would eradicate evil for them.

"The people can be made by, not to know, how can the life and death of the small people of Shengdou be mentioned with the stability of the Ming Dynasty, because the little prince has killed the small people of Shengdou and conquered it, if it is defeated, it will damage the country's wealth and people's power, and if it is defeated, it will also damage the country's wealth and people's power! How can he know the reason for the promotion of the small people, he only thinks that the victory of Da Ming is a good thing, and he doesn't know that victory is also the same as defeat! Even worse, if the grassland clan takes revenge because of this, so that the war continues, it will only harm the people even more! ”

At this time, the civil official He Jingming could not bear the atmosphere of the people's discussion of politics brought about by the appearance of the Emperor Ming Bao, because he found that this would only cause all civil officials to lose the advantage of controlling public opinion through speech, and even make themselves civil officials be supervised by the people;

Even, because the Emperor Ming Bao made public the shameless deeds of some criminals and doctors, the people thoroughly knew that many so-called sages were just hypocrites, and they no longer had reverence and fear for scholars.

Therefore, the civil official He Jingming directly asked for a decree, hoping that the imperial court could stop running the Huangming Newspaper, and even prohibit the people from running the newspaper, and also demanded that the people be prohibited from discussing politics.

Zhu Houzhao naturally did not comply with He Jingming's request to stop running the Huangming Daily, he even asked His Excellency to encourage the private sector to run the newspaper, and ordered all schools and teahouses and restaurants in the world to write a couplet, that is, "The sound of the wind and rain, the sound of reading, the sound of reading, family affairs, state affairs, and everything in the world are concerned."

In Zhu Houzhao's view, although the Donglin Party in history is not very good, the couplet created by it is still quite good.