Zhu Youhua looked at the towns of Nanming and locked the first target on Zuo Liangyu in Wuchang, in view of the ambiguous political relationship between Donglin and Zuo Liangyu, Zhu Youhua decided to start with Donglin first......

At the beginning of November, the emperor changed his cautious and restrained attitude towards the Donglin Party, and appointed Ruan Dacheng, the secretary of the household department, to concurrently serve as the right deputy capital of the imperial history, responsible for investigating and punishing the courtiers who defected during the fall of the northern capital and liquidating the traitors. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Ruan Dacheng was overjoyed when he saw the prospect of revenge, and immediately summoned his cronies Yang Weiyuan, Yu Tingma, Guo Ruyan, Zhou Changjin, Yu Dafu, Xu Fuyang and others to gather in the mansion, worked overtime, prepared overnight, and divided the renegade traitors into three categories: one is to avoid forcibly surrendering to the enemy, and there is still a trace of shame; The second group is the opportunists, who are very shameless; The third category is inferior to beasts, and there is no shame. The representative figures are Wei Xuelian, Zhou Zhong and Gong Dingyu.

Wei Xuelian is the second son of Wei Dazhong, the founder of Donglin, has a certain reputation in academics, Chongzhen was admitted to the Jinshi in the sixteenth year, and then often generously expressed his political opinions, attracting attention, Chongzhen personally met with him and intended to appoint him, at this time, Li Zicheng conquered Beijing. Later, Wei Xuelian was hired by Li Zicheng as the secretary of the household department, and joined the ranks of Li Zicheng's praise.

Zhou Zhong is the leader of the Restoration Society, and Wei Xuelian was admitted to the Jinshi in the same year, but Zhou Zhong's grades were better, high school rankings, and was awarded the Shu Jishi, the Shu Jishi belongs to the Hanlin Academy, the grade is not high, but it belongs to the emperor's close attendants, and there are many scholars and scholars in the Ming Dynasty who are from the Shu Jishi, which can be regarded as the reserve talents of the cabinet assistants. After the fall of Beijing, this person first recognized the thief as his father, and bowed down under the door of Niu Jinxing, and according to Niu Jinxing's instructions, he wrote an article "The Theory of Danger and Death", calling on others to change the court like him, Niu Jinxing expressed his appreciation for this article, Zhou Zhong was complacent, and praised "Teacher Niu knows everything" when he meets people.

Zhou Zhong also persuaded Li Zicheng to be in the position early, and wrote a "Persuasion Table", in which he advocated that Li Zicheng "has more martial arts than Yao Shun, and is more shameless than Tang Wu", derogated Chongzhen as "a single husband and conferred the head", and praised Li Zicheng as "returning to the heart from all over the world". Its sloppy beard patted the horse, and his ugly face of ingratitude jumped on the paper.

What's even more hateful is that he also wrote an article on going down to the south of the Yangtze River, persuading Li Zicheng to go down to the south of the Yangtze River as soon as possible and settle the world. After Chongzhen's death, the body was hastily placed in a thin-skinned willow coffin that was originally used to bury poor people outside the Donghua Gate.

Zhou Zhong's shamelessness is outrageous, but it can't reach an unprecedented level, because there is another person who is even more shameless than him, and this person is the great writer Gong Dingyu.

Gong Dingyu and Qian Qianyi, Wu Weiye and called "Jiang Zuo's three masters", young and intelligent, eighteen-year-old admitted to the Jinshi, served as Huguang Qishui County, and later because of his outstanding talent, he was transferred to the military department to give the matter, and belonged to the speech officer in the matter, Gong Dingyu was unequivocal in impeaching others, and he created a record of "January Shufan 17", which has "the great traitor is the negligence of the great greed, the safety of the relationship between the government and the capital, the negligence that can not be mistaken again, and the negligence of rectifying the evil and the evil...... shelter the corruption and mislead the country" and other famous admonitions, and impeached Zhou Yanru, Chen Yan, Wang Yingxiong, Chen Xinjia and other powerful ministers before and after, and his voice was full of the court. However, when he was faced with a choice, his performance was more shameless than anyone else, "if you break in, you will fall down, and if you are full, you will be full", and his integrity was degraded, as for the extreme. Disloyalty must be unfilial, when his father died and went to the funeral, Gong Dingyu was still prodigal, carnivaling night and night.

The three of them vied with each other to flatter Li Chuang, boasting to others that the sentences that sang the praises of Li Zicheng and the Dashun regime were made by themselves. However, what they didn't expect was that Li Zicheng would be finished so soon, and as traitors, they were in an awkward position.

These three people are just typical representatives, there are many similar, Shi Kefa's cousin Shi Kecheng also surrendered to Li Chuang, this gentleman not only served as a "puppet official" in the Dashun regime, but also wrote to Shi Kefa to persuade him to surrender as well. This made Shi Kefa very difficult, and in order to protect the party and his younger brother, he asked the new emperor to give the renegade courtiers a way out.

In addition to Shi Kecheng, a group of white-faced Yang Rucheng, Xiang Yu, Chen Mingxia and others of the Fushe also defected and surrendered to Li Chuang, and many of them participated in the expulsion of Ruan Dacheng that year.

In that movement, Ruan Dacheng was like a rat crossing the street, being chased and beaten by Donglin and the children of the Fushe Society, and he fled to the outskirts of Nanjing in embarrassment, not daring to show his head again for a long time, which caused him great mental trauma. However, many of the "righteous gentlemen" who expelled him became traitors, traitors, and traitors, became extremely shameful ministers, and became enemies of the people.

Therefore, when the children of the Restoration Society in Nanjing were heartbroken and gritted their teeth for the shameless behavior of their unsuccessful members, Ruan Dacheng smiled and showed his back molars. In Ruan Dacheng's view, the performance of the writers and "righteous gentlemen" of Donglin and Fushe at critical times seems to illustrate two points: first, the greater the knowledge, the more shameless it is; The second is that those who claim to be gentlemen are often real villains. Now is the time to unmask these hypocrites.

After some careful preparations, at the beginning of November of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Dali Temple promulgated the punishment regulations for thieves.

The regulations stipulate: Those who commit serious crimes will be beheaded and beheaded, and those who commit minor crimes will be hanged and exiled, and their homes will be raided. The following five situations should be punished by beheading: first, the thieves attacked Beijing together; second, inviting thieves to Beijing and writing proclamations for thieves; the third is to hold an official position above the third grade of pseudo-Shun; fourth, the governor and the general army of all the thieves; Fifth, all the officials of the Hanlin Academy and the officials of the Ministry of Science and Technology who took the initiative to help the thieves plot to seize the place. The other 11 types of thieves will be punished more lightly, and those who voluntarily turn themselves in will be dealt with leniently. In order to search for the traitors, Jinyiwei united with the royal camp pro-army, and rode out in all directions, launching a vigorous arrest operation.

Thousands of people took action, smoke and dust billowed out, chickens and dogs jumped, the momentum was quite amazing, the people in the city learned the list of renegades, all of them were full of anger, shouting to kill traitors, national thieves, etc., flocked to the army, followed all the way, and the people and patriotic gentry in the search army continued to join in to help the court arrest traitors.

With the rapid development of the operation, Lei Yanzuo, Yang Rucheng, Xiang Yu, Wei Xuelian, Zhou Zhong and others were thrown into prison one after another, and some Donglin traitors such as Chen Mingxia, Gu Gao and others saw the opportunity quickly, and under the secret protection of their friends, they disguised themselves overnight and fled from Nanjing in a hurry.

When Jinyi Weiti rode to Huguang to ask Zuo Liangyu for a traitor, the traitors Chen Mingxia, Gu Gao and others openly gathered to resist arrest under the protection of Zuo Town. Jin Yiwei was forced to return to Beijing empty-handed to resume his life.

On the morning of the eighth day of November, as soon as the morning glow broke through the clouds, the city gates of Nanjing slowly opened, and the merchants and ordinary people poured in from the open city gates, scrambling to gather at the entrance of the vegetable market in the city.

The dozens of traitors involved in the case who had been sentenced to beheading had all been escorted to makeshift tents set up at the entrance of the vegetable market, and the fearful, nervous, and curious people rushed to see the excitement, and some shrewd small traders took the opportunity to set up various stalls to sell water, food, and odds and miscellaneous goods to the onlookers.

In the middle of the entrance of the vegetable market, a thousand imperial battalion pro-soldiers lined up a huge legal field, isolating all the people who rushed to the periphery.

Within the encirclement, more than 30 selected knife and axe hands wrapped their heads in red cloth, holding thick-backed machetes, neatly arranged.

On a temporarily stacked high platform in the center of the court, sat the capital Yu Shi Ruan Dacheng, who was in charge of supervising the beheading. There is also Dali Temple, the officials of the Criminal Department, they lowered their heads and made eye contact with each other, their expressions were quite flustered and confused, and they were obviously frightened.

As soon as three o'clock in the afternoon, the officials of the criminal department walked to the high platform and ordered loudly: "Escort the prisoners to the court of justice!" ”

The Imperial Camp Military Academy waved the command flag in his hand, and the soldiers in the imperial camp who were in a circle immediately gave way to a door, and the criminals involved in the case were escorted into the court one after another.

Dressed in prison clothes with black and white backgrounds and chains on their feet, they slowly squirmed towards the center of the court. The people around the court were silent, they saw so many court officials and ministers in prison clothes for the first time, and for the first time they saw the mighty and neat sword and axe hands like a phalanx on the battlefield, everyone's hearts were both excited and afraid. Those courtiers from the Donglin Restoration Society no longer have the arrogance and impetuousness they usually have, they are all dejected and pale.

At this moment, when they passed through a sea of people and walked into the murderous Dharma field, on which rows of wooden stakes were erected, each of which had a name written on it, and a bright red cross was punched on the name, they unconsciously gave birth to a deep fear, and their legs were weak and collapsed on the ground.

Thousands of people outside the court shouted and scolded those renegade traitors, all clapping their hands and applauding, shouting that Lord Yu Shi Ruan is enforcing the law like a mountain, and it is the world to be covered with blue sky. Some of the children of the Donglin Restoration Society, who have not reneged, looked at the members of the society who had lost face to them with mixed feelings.

As soon as three o'clock in the afternoon arrived, Ruan Dacheng had a hint of pleasure in revenge, and ordered with a wild smile: "Begin!" ”

The sergeant received the order and shouted: "If you commit a crime, you will be punished, and you will be found to be right!" ”

A moment later, a member of the Imperial Military Academy walked quickly to the high platform and reported: "Lord Yuxiantai, all the thirty-four criminals have been verified, and there is no mistake or omission!" ”

Ruan Dacheng nodded: "Drum execution!" ”

The military academy order flag waved, and the drum sounded: "The executioner is in position!" ”

Thirty-four executioners lined up in a neat line, walked to each stake and stood still.

"Raise your sword!"

With a "bang", thirty-four thick-backed broadswords were raised together, reflecting a dazzling light in the sunlight.

"Slash-!"

A knife flashed, blood splattered, straight to Zhangxu, more than 30 heads fell to the ground at the same time, the headless chest only struggled slightly a few times and then remained motionless, blood slowly flowed out along the neck cavity, and a blood beach was instantly formed on the execution ground, under the brilliant sun, the smell of blood quickly spread, people were nauseous and vomiting, they couldn't care about clapping and applauding, and they scattered and fled.