Yingtian Forbidden City, outside the noon gate, there is a surge of people. Hundreds of young scholars from Sichuan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Nanzhili, and other five provinces along the Yangtze River gathered here early in the morning under the leadership of Li Zongxi, Wu Zhaoling, Cui Jingnan, Li Pinsan, Wu Kuixiang, Hua Guoqing, and other "six gentlemen."

Chengdu is under martial law, and the news of the arrest on Gongyuan Street has spread all over the country through telegrams, and of course the six gentlemen have already known the way. However, the imperial court did not order the arrest of Li Zongxi and the other six people, after all, they still acted in accordance with the rules of the "King James Daming Xianfa". It is the right of every subject of the Ming Dynasty to petition the emperor, let alone these scholars who are the elite of a country?

If the six gentlemen are arrested today, then the authority of the "King James Ming Constitution" will immediately disappear, and the constitution of the Ming Dynasty can be regarded as a painting that makes people pierce it. Therefore, although Emperor Zhu was a little annoyed by the behavior of the six gentlemen, he could only grit his teeth and endure it. Instead of letting people arrest the six of them, he also ordered the Jinyi guard to protect them secretly.

And these six people and the scholars of the five provinces who followed them along the way were also drenched in cold sweat when they first heard about the "Sichuan Gongyuan Incident" - there are several versions of this incident, and the news announced by the government is that 148 people were arrested, 19 foreign guns were found (all of them belonged to Su Shun and others), and no one was injured or killed. And the folk legends are varied, some say that five or six hundred were caught, more than 100 were killed, and all the scholars who were caught were exiled to Borneo. There are also people who say that the army washed Gongyuan Street in blood, and none of the soldiers gathered there were spared, and all of them were killed! Now the whole of Chengdu has been under the military control of the Ming army, and friends dare not say hello when they meet them on the road. for fear of being arrested by the Ming army as an illegal party. I only dare to look at it. In short, it's terrifying!

When the news first came. The scholars who followed the six gentlemen to Yingtian to block Emperor Zhu dispersed most of them, from the original two or three thousand to five or six hundred. Later, the official repeatedly refuted the rumors, so that all the remaining people did not astigmatize. Otherwise, it would be difficult to say whether Li Zongxi and the others would dare to come to the noon gate to beat the drum.

There are special regulations for petitioning the Son of Heaven, and there is a small yamen outside the noon gate at the entrance of the Forbidden City, with a sign hanging from the palace communication office, which is specially for receiving civil and military officials and subjects who are not qualified to enter the palace, but want to see the emperor or want to write to the emperor. The place where the petition is filed is also here. According to the Constitution of the Ming Dynasty, any subject could submit a petition to the emperor or to the yamen at all levels. However, after the petition was handed in, people did not read it and archived it. That's also legal (throwing a wastebasket is illegal).

Therefore, while officially submitting to the emperor the "Request the Emperor to Respect the Famous Religion to Prohibit Heresy and Stop the New Deal and Suspend the Conquest of Annam", he also sent the full text of this excerpt to the major newspapers in Yingtianfu.

The stewards of the palace communication office had been instructed in advance, and when the scholars came, they had already come out of the yamen, and they were all greeted by surging heads.

When they took the fold from Li Zongxi and the others respectfully, and only glanced at the title, everyone sighed in their hearts, these stewards and officials are also Confucian students!

I don't know who said it: "It's really a reading seed!" ”

Li Zongxi arched his hand and said proudly: "It's just that there is still a little bit of righteousness in the chest!" Please hand it over quickly, and I'll be waiting here. ”

The chief steward of the palace communication office shook his head with a smile: "What are you waiting for?" Wait for the emperor Long Yan to be angry and give an order to take people? There is no need to wait, the emperor will not make such a will. You'd better go back. ”

He paused and then said, "Although you are against the New Deal. However, they petitioned the emperor in accordance with the constitution, which is the most important in the new policy, and if the emperor asks you for guilt, won't he follow your wishes for violating the constitution? The emperor will not do this kind of thing, but you six gentlemen don't want to get an official position in the court in the future. If you want to get a decent and subsistence job in Yingtian City, you can also go to various newspapers, but this newspaper is also a new deal. ”

These words were all confessed by Zhu Jishi. No matter how undesirable the content of Li Zongxi and others' petition was, these people were the first subjects in the history of the new Ming Dynasty to petition the emperor. Their names will go down in history, and the seriousness of the "King James Constitution" will also be justified in this petition. So Zhu Jishi won't do anything to a few of them anyway, at most, he will never give them an official!

……

"Today, someone submitted a petition, called "Please Emperor Respect the Famous Religion to Prohibit Heresy and Stop the New Deal and Suspend the Conquest of Annam", to ban Western studies, stop the New Deal, and stop conquering the country of Annan, even the Nanyang Lanfang Country, just close the door of the country and become a weak country, and wait for the Western powers to come to the second and third Opium Wars! What do you think? ”

In the palace, Emperor Zhu was holding the fold of the petition he had just received and talking, but his expression was not half annoyed. Although the petition of Li Zongxi and others will make many officials who were born as scholars and doctors have a sense of identity in their hearts, they also know that the country cannot really act according to this petition, otherwise they will wait for the country to die!

Although Zhu Ming's official is easy to do, the real rulers in power do not have broad people, even Confucian ministers, they also pay attention to the use of the world. And now Zhu Ming's civil and military officials have reached nearly 300,000! The number was at least six or seven times more than that of the Manchus, and the treatment was favorable. If it weren't for the financial revenue brought by the New Deal, the imperial court would not have been able to support so many officials anyway.

Therefore, the vast majority of these 300,000 Ming officials are the beneficiaries of the New Deal, and furthermore, the middle power of the gentry in the entire eight southeastern provinces is also the beneficiary of Zhu Jishi's New Deal - although they oppose Western learning, they are unwilling to give up the benefits brought to them by the New Deal, and they are indeed a group of people who are extremely contradictory.

But on the whole, the benefits they received were real, and their dissatisfaction with Western studies and the New Deal was emotional and illusory. Who would give up tangible benefits for the sake of these illusory feelings? Such a person cannot be taught by the sages of Confucius. Therefore, Emperor Zhu will now challenge the bottom line of these Confucian scholars and doctors to tolerate the new policy again and again.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that although the letter of Li Zongxi and the other six people is biased, the original intention is still for the sake of the country." Zuo Zongtang was the first to stand up and express his position, he has the nickname of the left mule, and it is conceivable that he is a person who is not good at hiding his thoughts and is short-tempered, so he is often the first to speak in the court meeting. After all, the six gentlemen are petitioning for the famous religion and winning the sympathy of the world's scholars. In the future, probably no one will dare to petition again, and petitioning is the last resort for local people to express their will and fight against some illegal and corrupt officials!

Zheng Hong, the right prime minister, also echoed: "The minister also thinks that the intentions of these scholars are good, so the emperor might as well recruit them into the court as officials." ”

Zhu Jishi sneered, he understood Zheng Hong's thoughts, and gave these "gentlemen" an official job, and Zhao'an was forgotten, saving them from nagging in the newspaper all day long.

"I won't do it for their officials." Zhu Jishi shook his head and said, "I know that they all want to be officials, but I don't give them officials. If they want to be officials, they can lead the Sichuan scholars to petition me, ask for the imperial examination, and implement constitutional government! When the time comes, they will be able to get their hands on both the examination and the election for the Constituent Assembly. ”

Zheng Hong shook his head and stopped talking, and the court fell silent. Needless to say, the Confucian officials of the Manchu Dynasty were all sympathetic to the six gentlemen, and Emperor Zhu seemed to want to give these six people a little hardship, but he did not want to betray the notoriety of faint kings, tyrants, and untrustworthy words.

Just when the scene was embarrassing, Wu Chunqiu, the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, suddenly came out and said: "The envoy of Annan, Ruan Fu Hongyi, has arrived in Guangzhou, and he also proposed to be a minister to my Ming Dynasty. ”

Zhu Jishi sighed, revealing a helpless expression: "Ruan Fu Hongyi is only coming now, it's too late...... Moreover, in order to defeat the Tay Son Dynasty, their Nguyen Dynasty had signed a traitorous treaty with France, but they refused to fulfill it for decades, and they did not regard themselves as Chinese vassals at that time. Now that Da Nang has been occupied by the French, it is too late to think of the Ming Dynasty for protection. Wu Qing, you call Guangzhou, and Ruan Fu Hongyi said, I, Daming, will not make peace with Vietnam alone, how Vietnam really seeks peace, we should talk with France and Daming, don't think about using China to control the country, I Daming is not a gunman for Vietnam! In addition, I can also make it clear to Nguyen Phuc Hung that neither my Ming nor France has the intention of destroying Vietnam, and we all hope to maintain the rule of the Nguyen Dynasty. (To be continued......)