The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"Get off the sedan."

After a soft drink, a large sedan stopped steadily outside the side door of Wei Mansion. The curtain of the sedan was lifted, and Wei Guangde stepped out of the sedan.

He raised his head and glanced at the setting sun inadvertently, sighing softly, before Wei Guangde entered the mansion.

"Sir, my wife's mother-in-law has sent a letter home. She asks you to come over directly when you come back."

Zhang Ji quickly approached Wei Guangde and spoke in a low voice.

"Oh, got it."

Wei Guangde agreed and crossed the gate of the mansion in a few steps, but suddenly stopped.

He remembered that in previous correspondence, he had mentioned many times that Duke Xu Pengju of Wei State was in poor health. Could it be that his condition had worsened over there?

Wei Guangde turned back to Zhang Ji and asked: 'How did your wife look when she gave the order? ’

"Very serious, seemingly angry."

Zhang Ji did not answer immediately, but said it after believing it.

"Angry?"

Although it was a bit strange, Wei Guangde walked towards the backyard again.

It's okay to know that it's not Xu Pengju's physical problem. Even if he gets angry about the letter from home, maybe his father-in-law has taken a concubine again, then he won't be angry.

It is not normal for a powerful family to have several concubines.

Wei Guangde now means that the couple is still young and can have children, so he is too embarrassed to take the initiative to take a concubine.

After waiting a few more years, his wife would be unable to give birth, and Wei Guangde would have a reason to keep a concubine.

If you don't become an official, it will actually be easier. No one will care how many concubines you have at this time, as long as you settle down the family well and can afford to support it.

If the people do not hold officials accountable, even if they violate the "Laws of the Ming Dynasty", nothing will happen.

But now he is a cabinet minister and sets an example for all officials. If he takes concubines at will, it would be strange if the mad dogs from the Metropolitan Procuratorate don't bite him to death.

Although such impeachment will not damage his muscles and bones, it will also be a big deal to damage his reputation.

Therefore, when he was wandering around the flowers, Wei Guangde sometimes regretted that he should not be an official, or work in a county for a few years, make some money, resign, and go home to become a rich man, and his life might be more prosperous.

Not long after he arrived in the backyard and saw Xu Jianglan, Wei Guangde learned the content of the letter from her. My father-in-law was really in bad health, but he was still alive and had the energy to deal with the invitation.

Wei Guangde got the letter from his uncle, sat aside and read it carefully twice, put down the letter, and tapped the table with his right hand.

"Dong dong dong"

Rhythmic knocking echoed in the room. Xu Jianglan stood behind him, gently rubbing his shoulders with her hands and asked: "Is this matter difficult to handle?"

"No, it's actually very simple. There are just some bad choices."

Wei Guangde replied.

"What choice?"

Xu Jianglan asked again.

"The easiest way is for me to go to your cousin and Zhu Guogong and ask them to suppress this matter.

As long as you can't ask for a memorial, your second brother's desire to seize the title will naturally be out of the question.

When that day comes, the Ministry of Rites will not accept him as a knight, so I have made arrangements. "

Wei Guangde said.

"In that case, why are you still embarrassed?"

When Xu Jianglan heard what Wei Guangde said, she felt calm and spoke softly.

"Besides this method, there are actually other methods that can completely stop your father and my father-in-law from thinking about it. If you want, you can also directly recover Zheng's royal decree.

But this way, the Duke of Wei's face looks a bit ugly. "

Xu Jianglan naturally disagreed when she heard that it would hurt the face of Duke Wei. After all, it was her brother who would later attack the Duke.

The reputation of Wei Guogong's palace will be damaged, and it will eventually fall on his brother. It is really not cost-effective.

"Then you go to Duke Dingguo's Palace and Duke Chengguo's Palace and talk to them and ask them to suppress this matter."

In a moment, Xu Jianglan had made a decision.

"I believe that as long as I go there, they will sell me face. After all, they should also know the current situation of Wei Guogong. Whose face is worth, they will naturally settle the account, but I am afraid that there are others.

After all, there are so many distinguished families in the capital, and all of them are qualified to meet the saints, I can't even take care of them.

Moreover, even if I approached some people in the inner court to clear up this matter, it was a matter of face-to-face matters after all, and they would not dare to block it arbitrarily. It was really difficult to handle.

Otherwise, it is shameless to mention this matter to His Majesty, but there is no difference between this and asking the Duke to meet the saint, so I feel a little embarrassed. "

Wei Guangde expressed his thoughts. It would be best not to cause trouble in the palace. With Emperor Longqing's character, he did not like to get involved in such matters.

But after all, the Duke of Wei was a great aristocrat from the founding of the country. Although he had lived in Nanjing for a long time, he had some problems if he was not prepared in the capital.

It is very difficult to stop the matter before the emperor.

"After all, I can't stop you. Why don't you talk to His Majesty directly? I remember that you said that Your Majesty also knew about my family affairs?

Rather than owing the favor there, it is better to explain the matter directly in front of His Majesty. No matter how many tricks my father has, as long as Your Majesty does not nod, all his plans will be in vain. "

Xu Jianglan also wanted to understand the importance at this moment and made a decision immediately.

In these years of presiding over the internal affairs of the Wei Mansion, he has also become decisive in dealing with matters and has not been sloppy at all.

"If possible, let the imperial court recover Zheng's imperial edict to avoid further trouble."

Xu Jianglan also hated Xu Bangning in her heart. Back then in the mansion, she relied on the Zheng family to be favored and often bullied her and her brother Xu Bangrui.

When Mrs. Zheng first received her royal decree, she was extremely arrogant. She often called her there, euphemistically saying that she would learn the rules so as not to lose the reputation of the Duke's palace after getting married. This was also the tone.

Without the imperial decree, my father's health is also like this. Let's see how arrogant and domineering the Zheng family is in the Duke's mansion.

"It's really not difficult to win the imperial edict. It was all arranged by Yan Shifan in the first place. It was easy to win in the name of bringing order to the chaos.

When I was cleaning up, I was at the school admission ceremony, but I forgot about it and missed the opportunity.

It is estimated that at that time, Mr. Xu Ge and the others were also concerned about the matter involving the Duke of Wei, so they settled the matter directly without going over the old score. "

Wei Guangde analyzed, "Now we need to find an entry point to turn this matter around."

After all, the person who directly instructed him to mention this matter was a little too deliberate. Those in the capital had keen eyes and ears and would soon discover it.

After all, it's not a glamorous thing.

"I'll take a look at all the family letters I asked you to collect before. Maybe I can find a way."

Wei Guangde said.

Soon, Xu Jianglan found a thick stack of letters from a box and piled them in front of Wei Guangde. They were all placed according to the time of correspondence. Wei Guangde also directly took out the front letter, which was the earliest correspondence, and opened it. It seems.

After he and Xu Jianglan got married, the matter of Wei Guogong's ruin was naturally not allowed to be mentioned. It could only be mentioned before, that is, the part about sealing the seal.

But soon, Wei Guangde noticed that Xu Bangrui's previous letter to him mentioned the Nanjing Imperial College.

At the beginning, someone bribed the junior officials of the Ministry of Rites and the Imperial College to give Xu Bangning a green light to enroll in school and made things difficult for Xu Bangrui in every possible way.

But after all, it has been many years, and I don’t know what the current situation of Jiang Bao and Zheng Rujin mentioned in the letter is.

But since their hands and feet are so unclean, if they find someone to impeach them, see the censor first to interrogate them, get a confession, and just throw all the dirty water on Xu Bangning and the Zheng family, it will naturally not harm Xu Pengju's reputation.

As for the trial and the confession, when it comes to that place, they are not allowed to say whatever they want. It is nothing more than hiding the real person behind the scenes so that no one knows that it was Xu Pengju who arranged it.

It is only said that the ridiculous thing Zheng did in order for her son to successfully seize the title, and it can be used to prove that the reason for Zheng's canonization was done by Yan Shifan. As a concubine, Zheng was not qualified to be promoted to a wife.

"People from Nanjing should arrive in the capital soon. Let Zhang Ji send people to keep an eye on the pier and control them when they see them."

Wei Guangde said.

"Then I'll tell people to call Butler Zhang."

Xu Jianglan agreed and went outside the house, calling the maid to go to the outer courtyard to ask Zhang Ji to come in.

When Wei Guangde entered the house, Xu Jianglan arranged for someone to take the child out to play, and sent everyone else out.

After Zhang Ji entered the room and saluted, Wei Guangde ordered: "Someone from Nanjing's Duke's Palace will come to the capital in the past few days. You can bring some good people and go to the pier to keep an eye on them. As soon as they arrive, take action to control them and send them to Zhuangzi outside the city." , no harm to human life. ’

"Sir, there are many merchants coming and going on the dock. I don't know anyone from Nanjing's Duke's Mansion."

As soon as Zhang Ji heard this, he realized that this matter was difficult to handle, mainly because he didn't know the people there.

How many people come and go at the dock every day? If the wrong person is kidnapped, the master will be in trouble.

"Take the person you placed today. He knows the people in the house."

Xu Jianglan said at this time.

"You should handle this matter yourself. If you meet people from the officialdom, ask them to come to me."

Let Zhang Ji control people, and he will inevitably not encounter people from the government.

Ordinary Zhang Ji can handle it. After all, he is the steward of the cabinet minister's family. However, if a special situation occurs, he can only personally suppress the matter.

Zhang Ji saw that both Wei Guangde and his wife had serious faces, and knew that the matter was not a small matter. Although he did not know why he wanted to intercept the people from Duke Wei's Mansion in Nanjing, he could only do as he was told, and he had to get things done.

"I'll go down and make arrangements right away. I'll go to Tongzhou Pier early tomorrow morning to keep an eye on it."

Zhang Ji immediately expressed his stance.

"Bring more people."

When Zhang Ji went out, Wei Guangde just gave instructions.

In the evening, Wei Guangde wrote another letter to Lin Fiao and Xu Bangrui in Nanjing in his study, explaining his plan.

This matter came to prominence in the Nanjing Imperial College, so naturally it would be best for people in the Nanjing Imperial College to break the news.

Lin Fiao happened to be in charge of Nanjing's Ministry of Rites, so he took advantage of the situation to control people, interrogate them, and obtain confessions and deliver them to the capital.

As long as the confession from Nanjing arrives, he will instruct the Ministry of Rites to investigate the old account of the conferment of the Duke's wife, and it will be logical to directly deprive the Zheng family of the imperial edict.

However, the letter to Lin Liao will not be sent directly. Instead, it will be given to Xu Bangrui first, so that he can confirm that he wants to do this, and then arrange for someone to send the letter out.

On the second day, Wei Guangde arrived at the cabinet on time, dealt with some matters, and then got up and went to Qianqing Palace.

Wei Guangde also figured it out. Even if he could suppress the matter this time, when his father-in-law died, Xu Pengju's suicide note would still have to be delivered to Emperor Longqing.

After all, he is a prince, and the funeral is arranged by the court. If you don't remind the emperor earlier, it will be troublesome if you relent and the emperor just nods.

At this time, in Suzhou, Yingtian was the governor of the Yamen. Hai Rui was furious after reading Xu Jie's reply.

Xu Jie rejected his request. Not only did he deny the donation, he also refused to admit that someone in his family had sent it fraudulently. As for the accusations of colluding with local officials, spreading factions, and hanging, he also denied the accusations. Naturally, there was no way to talk about sending it to the village.

Hai Rui later suspected that Xu Jie had moved his place of origin to Jiangxi in order to get closer to Yan Song.

Of course, there might be some land owned by his Xu family in Jiangxi.

When it's time to collect taxes, you only need to show the Xu Mansion's sign, and you can naturally use the Xu Mansion's name to suppress it, pretending that you have already paid taxes in Songjiang Mansion.

Living in a village was also a popular method of escaping taxes and servitude during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Landlords purchased land outside their hometown and set up villages to collect rent, which was called "zhuangzhuang". It began in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and became even more prevalent in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

From the Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, in order to avoid being punished by the labor force, landlords often established farms on the land at their disposal, or set up farms locally in the name of bureaucrats from other places.

"Economics of the Zhao Dynasty" contains Tang Long's "Land Equalizing Service Shu": "There are wealthy families in Jiangxi and other places, and they usually buy land. When it comes to registering,... there are people who secretly attack the officials of the capital and pretend to play the role of Jinshi or Juren to send money to the village." . What is recorded in the book is nothing more than a pinch of paper, and what is seen in a household is nothing more than a shadow in the sky." This has become a major disadvantage of hidden food.

This method of purchasing land in other places can effectively avoid government supervision. After all, information was not smooth at that time.

It was not until the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty that the imperial court issued a decree stipulating that Jiizhuang Prefecture County should register the number of acres, household names, money and grain amounts of the landowners, and hand them over to the prefecture and county where the landlords lived.

However, by this era, it was popular for officials to purchase land outside their hometowns in order to avoid taxes and servitude.

Hai Rui certainly didn't believe Xu Jie's excuse.

Before this, he might have believed in Xu Jie's integrity, but after seeing the accusations one after another, he had already doubted the Xu family's integrity.

I wanted to go to Huating County, Songjiang Prefecture to interview Xu Jie in person, but I felt it was inappropriate.

When that time comes, let's just settle the matter. If we can't reach an agreement, there will be no room for maneuver.

This time, Hai Rui decided to write another letter to Xu Jie, but the wording was more severe, and he even put a copy of the Guan document directly in the letter. The content was naturally to arrest the eldest son Xu Fan, the second son Xu Kun, and the youngest son Xu Ying. .

Putting this copy in will naturally put pressure on Xu Jie, that is, arrest people and bring the case to trial.

The so-called Guan Wen is a document used by ancient officials to question each other.

Governor Yingtian wants to send officers to Songjiang Mansion to pick up the person. If he does not bring the official documents, he will not be able to take the person away because of incorrect procedures.

In fact, this will be true in later generations as well.

When the police handle cases in other places, they need to bring in formalities, and they also need to ask the local public security department to assist in the arrest. After the person is caught, they will be handed over to them for taking away.

In ancient times, it was not allowed for officials in the yamen to handle cases in different places, and the yamen needed to issue corresponding documents.

Showing Guan Wen to Xu Jie was to express his attitude and he didn't want to continue to delay the back and forth with Xu Jie on this matter.

Threat, this is a naked threat, using the power in hand to threaten Xu Jie and force him to submit.