Chapter 113 The consequences of resisting the decree
The next day.
Zhu Cixiang personally led an army of 10,000 people and rushed to Xuanfu first. At dusk, the army arrived at the city.
The 10,000 soldiers in the city had already left the city and knelt down in formation, waiting to be punished without even the slightest thought of resistance.
Obviously everyone knows that resisting will lead to death, and the only way to survive is to beg for mercy and plead guilty.
Wang Chengyin's eldest son, also with his whole family, knelt at the front and bowed in tears with a tray held high. The family members behind him also lowered their heads and sobbed.
"Wang Ben, the son of Wang Chengyin, the chief military officer of the Xuanfu, bows to my emperor, long live my emperor!
My father knew that he was guilty of death and had no face to see His Majesty, so he committed suicide an hour ago..."
Several imperial guards stepped forward and lifted the red cloth covering the tray. Suddenly, Wang Chengyin's head was placed on it, and there was a memorial beside the head.
The Royal Forest Army took the tray and returned to Zhu Cihong. After a member of the imperial guard Qianhu inspected the head, he picked up the memorandum on it and handed it to Zhu Cihong and said, "Your Majesty, after verification, it is indeed the commander-in-chief of the Xuanfu."
Official Wang Chengyin’s head!"
"Um!"
Zhu Cixiang nodded, then took the memorial and started reading it.
The above content is nothing more than a crime worthy of death, and he also praised Zhu Cihong, and then told all the truth about Xuanfu Datong, and also put forward many suggestions for rectification.
After Zhu Cixiang read it, his face remained expressionless, and he said coldly to Wang Ben and the family behind him: "I have already given your father a chance. If he had been ordered to go to Beijing to report on his duties, I would have dismissed him and put him under house arrest at most.
In the capital, it was he who did not cherish it. First he surrendered the thieves, then he refused the order. When the trouble came, he committed suicide out of fear of the crime. He did this with me. If I forgive you, where is the law of the country? Where is the majesty of the emperor?"
"Come here, the blood relatives of Wang Chengyin's three clans will be executed on the spot, and the female family members will be escorted to the capital and brought to the Jiaofang Division as slaves!"
Zhu Cixiang said and waved his hand for the last time.
If you think that you can save your family by doing this, then will you be able to disobey orders in the future? And commit suicide after the incident to apologize?
It was simply a wishful thinking. Today, he wanted to use the two tribes to warn all the generals and soldiers in the world that the emperor's decree must not be resisted, and those who violated it would be punished.
Immediately, a group of royal guards rushed forward and began to carry out the emperor's order, but everyone in the Wang family had already collapsed on the ground, crying loudly.
The ten thousand soldiers kneeling on both sides were all pale and trembling, especially the generals, lieutenants, guards, commanders and the like, all of them were dripping with sweat.
However, Zhu Cixiang did not kill them, he only ransacked their homes, and none of those below Mr. Qian was arrested.
Killing was not his original intention, but shock was. Sometimes killing in large numbers is not as effective as killing chickens to scare monkeys.
After reprimanding 10,000 soldiers, Zhu Cixiang led his army into the city, and the generals who were not captured breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
As soon as Zhu Cihong stayed in the official hall in the city, Wu Sanfu hurried to see him, obviously eager to claim credit.
"Your Majesty, when I arrived at Zhangjiakou with my army, those merchants were trying to escape, but I caught them. In total, I killed more than 2,000 people and captured more than 10,000 people. No one escaped, and a large amount of money and food were seized.
Supplies, weapons and armor, all of which are armor of the slave system.”
"Well! You did a good job this time. You go back and take care of the supplies and personnel first. I will send someone to check them tomorrow."
When Zhu Cihong heard that not one of them had left, he nodded with satisfaction. If it wasn't already late, he would have really wanted to bring all eight profiteers in for interrogation immediately.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Wu Sanfu replied quickly, then resigned and left in a hurry, returning to Zhangjiakou, without mentioning the credit for Niu Ben.
There is no way, the eunuch of the Royal Horse Supervisor is easy to discuss, but the spies of the Jinyiwei are hard to guard against, which makes him dare not accept the money, and the women dare not ask for it, so why should he ask for credit from that guy?
A night of silence.
On the afternoon of the second day, Liu Fangliang arrived at the city with his army, and then ordered 30,000 soldiers and horses to go directly to Datong, while the rest of the army was stationed.
At this time, the commanders of several nearby guards and the guards of Qianhu also heard the news and came to see him to plead guilty.
Zhu Cixiang did not deal with these people for the time being. He just asked them to stay in the city first and wait for all the military attaches to arrive to deal with them together.
"Wei Jin, Wu Sanfu has seized a large amount of money, food and materials in Zhangjiakou. You select a hundred supervisors and then take five hundred imperial guards to count and make a list!"
"It's your Majesty!"
Wei Jin replied quickly, and then went down to select people, because this time almost 90% of the supervisors from the Imperial College came with them, nearly a thousand people.
"Bring in all the direct criminals from Fan, Wang and other eight families. I want to interrogate them personally!"
After Wei entered, Zhu Cixiang sat in the main seat of the official hall and shouted.
Not long after, eight people including Fan Yongdou, Wang Denku and a group of immediate family members, a total of more than 100 people, were escorted in.
As soon as they came in and saw the emperor sitting above them, everyone knelt down and cried and begged.
"Your Majesty, please spare my life..."
"Shut up!"
"Who are Fan Yongdou, Wang Dengku, and the heads of the other six families? Please come forward to me."
Zhu Cihong yelled, except for Fan Yongdou and Wang Dengku, he couldn't remember the names of the other six people. Anyway, there were eight families in total.
"Fan Yongdou, a sinner, comes to see Your Majesty and begs His Majesty for mercy..."
"The king of the sinners came to the treasury to kowtow to your majesty and ask for mercy. The sinners are willing to donate all their property, a total of more than 500,000 taels of silver, to atone for their sins. I beg your majesty to show mercy beyond the law."
"Sinful people..."
Sure enough, under Zhu Cixiang's shout, everyone stopped crying, and then the heads of the eight families came out tremblingly and knelt down, kowtowed and begged for mercy.
"Hmph! Now you know you're afraid to beg for mercy?"
"Why weren't you afraid when you were smuggling weapons and food to build slaves? Did you ever think about the consequences today?"
"Do you know how many Han people the Jian slaves killed with the weapons you smuggled and wore the armor you made? How many Han women they robbed?"
"You bastards, beasts, things worse than pigs and dogs, and traitors, I will skin you all and cramp you, then pour molten iron on you outside Zhangjiakou, and erect a monument to make you despised forever!"
"I will also kill all eight of your families, so that you will have no descendants. I will make your wives and daughters become prostitutes for the rest of their lives and be abused by thousands of people..."
Zhu Cixiang could still maintain the majesty of the emperor at the beginning, but in the end, his true colors were revealed when he scolded him, his face was twisted, and he even used modern words, which showed how much he hated the Eight Families.
All the sensible people in the eight families were scolded by Zhu Cixiang and were so frightened that their livers and gallbladders split apart. All the female relatives even fainted to death from fright.
For a while, there was a stench inside and outside the hall.
Even the Imperial Guards on the side were secretly frightened after hearing the emperor's words, wondering why His Majesty hated the people of these eight families so much.
They have never seen His Majesty lose his temper like this.
"Pull them all down for me and interrogate them clearly!"
Zhu Cixiang was also disgusted by the stench and quickly waved his hand.
He knew that the Eighth Family must still have money hidden elsewhere, and he had to find all the money. He also had to capture all the other relatives of the Eighth Family and execute them together.
Now every moment they are allowed to live, they will be frightened for a moment, first tortured mentally, and then tortured physically, so that they will never be reincarnated.
He wanted to see who in the future would dare to forget his ancestral line and become a traitor's lackey just for money.
After more than a hundred people dragged him down, Zhu Cihong became a little less angry.
Three days later, Liu Fangliang led his army to Datong, without encountering any obstruction. Jiang Quan and the Datong prefect committed suicide in fear of crime. The Jiang family and a group of high-ranking generals and civilian officials were all taken to Xuanfu.
Wei Jin also led his people to count all the money, food and materials, and then escorted them all back to Xuanfu City with Wu Sanfu.
"Your Majesty, the eight families have confiscated a total of more than 100,000 taels of gold, more than 6 million taels of silver, more than 300,000 stones of fine grains and wheat, 20,000 jins of salt, 10,000 pieces of tea bricks, a total of more than 20,000 pieces of cotton, silk and satin, and armor.
Two thousand pairs, five thousand sword handles, fifty thousand arrows, and some jewelry, antiques, and porcelain..."
After Wei Jin finished reading, he handed the booklet over. Although he was shocked, his hands were still shaking a little at this moment.
These eight Shanxi merchants are really crazy.
It is impossible to atone for his sin even if he is cut into pieces with a thousand cuts.
The eight families add up to tens of thousands of carriages. How many weapons and supplies are smuggled to the slaves and Tatars every year?
In fact, there are usually not so many at one time, and they are all flowing slowly. It's just that this time Jiannu suffered heavy losses, so Dorgon's order was a bit large.
"Snapped!"
"These bitches..." Zhu Cihong took the booklet, looked through it, and slapped it heavily on the table.
Obviously, he was not just criticizing the eight Shanxi merchants, because the arrows, long swords, and armor were all finished products. They must have been made by the military attachés of each guard station according to the requirements, and then the eight merchants purchased them and were responsible for transportation and sales.
It has almost become an industrial chain.
The anger that had just been suppressed in the past two days suddenly emerged again.
"Hong Ling, you take three thousand people, except for weapons and armor, and escort all the remaining supplies back to the capital for storage!"
"It's your Majesty!"
The female general Hong Ling quickly replied.
This time when the red lady went south, Zhu Cixi switched her with Xu Lan, another concubine in the palace.
The thousand female soldiers under the two men also swapped their positions. The euphemistic name was that they took turns guarding the palace, but in reality Xu Lan and the other thousand female soldiers were more loyal.
Because they had been staying in the palace for several months, and Xu Lan had been staying at his bedside every night, Zhu Cixiang asked her to go south to closely monitor and protect Zhang Yan and the Red Lady.
After all, one of them is the queen mother and the other is a noble concubine, and they are both as young as wolves and tigers. After leaving the capital and leaving the palace, no matter whether they are trusted again, they must be strictly monitored.
Every move of the two women, their daily activities, and who they met, must be recorded in the book by the female officer. This is the procedure.
"Wu Sanfu, gather your men outside the city. I want to lecture you."
"It's your Majesty!"
Wu Sanfu's heart skipped a beat. He was not corrupt, and none of his brothers were messing around. But he had no choice but to execute it quickly.
A quarter of an hour later, Zhu Cixi came to the tower. Five thousand cavalry, including Wu Sanfu and a group of eunuchs, lined up neatly.
"According to a secret report from Jin Yiwei, when carrying money in Zhangjiakou, many people had unclean hands and feet. I will give you a chance to hand over all the things you took. I can forget about it. If you are reluctant to hand it over, I will search it out later.