But for these scholars, it was like a bolt from the blue, which was even more uncomfortable than killing them.
Not being allowed to take part in the imperial examination would ruin their future and livelihood.
Not to mention these young people, the elderly gentry standing around also stared at Li Zhicai with surprised expressions.
But Li Zhicai didn't explain too much. That's it. Whether they continue to be dumbfounded or understand current affairs is entirely up to them.
In fact, he didn't want to cause too many murders. After all, it was not a good thing. He was just following the emperor's orders and he had no choice.
Although there is also a kind of pleasure and excitement of revenge in my heart.
After using words to calm down the gentry who were preparing to cause trouble, Li Zhicai immediately ordered that all the heads of the Xue family be hung on the pillars of the execution ground.
Before the task of recovering tax money and grain is successfully completed, these thirty heads must be hung there intact to warn the gentry in the city.
Naturally, Tian Ergen led the Tiqi from Nanzhen Fusi to carry out the raid on the Xue family.
After all, the Jinyiwei are the best at this kind of thing. They have a rough idea of how much gold, silver, money, grain, and land assets they have.
It is undoubtedly the most appropriate thing for them to search the house.
Because of Li Zhicai's ruthless methods and careful layout and arrangements, there will never be anyone like the Xue family who is not afraid of death and has a strong front in the subsequent recovery work.
Regardless of whether anyone in the family is an official in the court, or how powerful and influential they are in the local area, as long as the royal guards and the army knock on the door, the door of each house will be opened immediately.
Of course, it's not completely smooth, and there will still be obstacles. But with the Xue family tragedy in front of them, these people have learned to be smarter.
They won't argue with you about the length of time. As for the so-called face, they can completely let it go. It can be said that they have done their best to be villains and said all their good things.
But as long as money and food are mentioned, no matter how many IOUs they have signed and signed by Jin Yiwei, they are saying that they don't have them at the moment, so please give them a few days of grace.
And the reason remains unchanged for thousands of years. What I told the officials who collected taxes, money and grain before is now being used to frustrate the imperial guards and the army.
"This general, we are not causing harm to the imperial court, and he intentionally defaults on his taxes. He really has no food left in his family and cannot pay!"
"Look, I, a big family member, have to drink so much rice just for porridge every day. It's really embarrassing!"
"When next year's harvest is good, I will pay all the arrears of taxes first. If you don't believe it or can't pay the commission when I go back, I can make another document and write a letter, and I'll take the trouble to submit it to General Li for review!"
In order to prevent the Jin Yiwei and the army from dealing with them like they did with the Xue family, they also specially summoned the whole family and gave them all the account books and daily expenditure records for inspection.
Naturally, they have been prepared for this a long time ago. If the hard one doesn't work, then they can use the soft one. As long as there is an excuse and it won't be exposed, that's fine.
It's not that easy to seize food from a tiger's mouth. What does it have to do with us if your emperor can't survive?
As long as I live a good life and can continue to be prosperous and wealthy, I can forget about the so-called national affairs and people's livelihood.
This is the common thought in the minds of all the noble families.
As long as they don't want to, these mud-legged people will never even think about taking away a grain of rice from their own warehouses.
After Li Zhicai heard the report, he immediately thought of a way to deal with it.
Since there is no gold, silver and grain, it is easy to handle, so let's mortgage it. Use the house and land as mortgage, and you can mortgage as much as you have.
If the house and land are not enough to mortgage the accumulated tax money and food, then there is no other way but to use people to mortgage it. In short, it must be exchanged for sufficient value before it is willing to give up.
This caused a big wave in the city and strengthened the resistance in the hearts of these noble families.
All the wealthy people hated Li Zhicai and gnashed their teeth. They wanted to eat his flesh and drink his blood. They just wanted to think about it, but doing it was another matter.
So after Li Zhicai's military order was fully issued, the efficiency indeed improved a lot, but it was still very slow. He could clearly feel that these people were stalling for time, waiting for rescue.
So he went to see Zhang Shize and Tian Ergeng in person, and the three held another meeting.
Li Zhicai asked the two of them to strengthen patrols and surveillance, especially after the curfew at night. As long as there are any idlers who appear, they must be killed immediately or captured alive. They must not let anyone go.
As he expected, when night falls, some inexplicable and sneaky people will always appear in the silent streets and alleys.
The soldiers and guards on night duty fully carried out the military orders above. They went up and chopped people into pieces before stopping.
At the same time, many people were arrested. After interrogation, it was discovered that these people were domestic slaves from various families.
The master sent them to climb over the wall late at night, with the purpose of contacting other families and officials in the city to apply for assistance.
They wanted the officials to contact other officials in South Zhili to create publicity, and the excuse for spreading rumors was the simplest and crudest.
They will publicize everywhere that Li Zhicai and Zhang Shize have rebelled, have taken control of Nanjing, and are preparing to proclaim themselves emperors, and request the court to quickly send troops to suppress them.
They have tried this method repeatedly. What the emperor fears most is that the generals will support themselves and plot rebellion.
The purpose of uniting the other families is to unite the front. We must not pay a grain of rice and just waste it to attract their attention.
Create good conditions for peripheral operations, then wait for the court and the emperor to become angry, and then cut Li Zhicai and others into pieces.
Li Zhicai couldn't laugh or cry when he saw such a confession. Logically speaking, these people are not idiots. After all, they have read books for so many years.
But they were so ignorant and naive when handling things. Could it be that they didn't know that the emperor was dealing with them? Are they still expecting the emperor to deal with them?
After learning about their plan, Li Zhicai did not make too many arrangements. He just waited for dawn tomorrow and launched an offensive, vowing to collect the court's money and food.
As for the people from each family who were captured and beheaded on the spot, they were all beheaded, and then flagpoles and wooden pillars were set up and hung everywhere in the city.
I just want to show these wealthy nobles who are still obsessed with evil intentions and still have wishful thinking, what kind of fate will happen to those who oppose Li Zhicai.
However, because of his crude approach, which completely ignored the impact and cost, it caused a lot of dissatisfaction among people from all walks of life in the city, especially the officials, who were on the verge of breaking out.