allonlinenovel Chapter 72 I will appeal to the imperial court!
Chapter 72 I will appeal to the imperial court!
Liu Hongchang and a dozen other gentry immediately paled. Liu Hongchang glared at Magistrate Yang and cursed, "You corrupt official! What do you want to do! My brother-in-law will not let you get away with this!"
Limpy Wu was furious. He led a group of yamen runners to rush towards Liu Hongchang and other gentry. Two of them served one of them, and they tied up more than a dozen gentry tightly. Then someone found some rags and gagged Liu Hongchang and the other gentry.
Magistrate Yang chuckled and looked at Liu Hongchang and other gentry, saying, "You people are impersonating officials' wives, using fake house deeds and land deeds that you don't know where you got them from to cause trouble in Ningyang County. What else could you be but spies of the Tartars?"
After saying this, without paying attention to the sobbing and struggling of Liu Hongchang and other gentry, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng instructed Limpy Five, "I am kind-hearted and cannot bear to see such scenes of torture and forced confessions. The rest can only be left to Brother Limpy Five."
Limpy Wu chuckled, and after having the constables take Liu Hongchang and the other gentry away, he approached Yang Shaofeng and whispered, "Your Excellency, Liu Hongchang said his brother-in-law is an official in Yidu, this..."
Yang Shaofeng chuckled and said, "He said his brother-in-law is an official in Yidu. Does he really have a brother-in-law who is an official in Yidu? Or, if he took his family and ran away to avoid trouble, what kind of good person could his brother-in-law be? How could he possibly be an official in Yidu?"
"Besides, even if he really does have a brother-in-law who is an official in Yidu, so what? At worst, he can impeach me. What can he do to me?"
“Moreover,” Yang Shaofeng shook his head slightly and sneered, “these so-called gentry ran away before the army arrived in Ningyang County. Now that Ningyang County has just stabilized, they’ve come back to claim their houses and land. Where in the world is there such a good thing?”
Limpy Five frowned slightly and tentatively said, "What if... what if these people really go to the capital and beat the drum to appeal for justice, or what if some so-called gentry really has a relative who is an official in the court..."
Yang Shaofeng chuckled again: "Don't worry, Fifth Brother Limp, I'm not afraid of them going to the capital to beat the drum of grievance. On the contrary, I'm afraid they won't beat it."
In fact, when they were at the artificial lake in the east of the city, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng had already planned to first torture them into confessing and then seize their property. At the same time, Magistrate Yang had also long been prepared for these people to go to the capital to beat the drum and appeal for justice.
As I said before, I'm not afraid of them going, I'm afraid of them not going.
When Liu Sanshier and other community leaders recounted the situation in their respective communities and neighborhoods, they mentioned that every single one of these gentry, led by Liu Hongchang, had adopted Mongolian names and registered as Mongolians. That's why they fled with their families to avoid disaster before the Ming army arrived in Ningyang County.
More importantly, after acquiring Mongolian citizenship, these people did not merely identify as Mongolians or simply associate with Mongolians and Semu people; they genuinely considered themselves Mongolians and even turned much of Ningyang County into horse ranches!
Otherwise, with 501 households in Ningyang County, there wouldn't be only a mere 600 or 700 mu of arable land, and the area outside Ningyang County wouldn't be overgrown with weeds.
Once these people go to the capital to beat the drum and appeal for justice, the fact that many gentry had become Mongolians will be exposed, as will the fact that large tracts of land have been abandoned and turned into grasslands.
When this situation arises, how will the Ming Dynasty court, led by Emperor Zhu Chongba, deal with these gentry?
Emperor Zhu Chongba and the Ming Dynasty court were not fools; they knew which people's hearts they needed to win over.
In the Jiangnan region, the so-called popular support refers to local gentry and elders, while in the northern regions, the so-called popular support refers to ordinary people!
To put it bluntly, the northern region is sparsely populated now. If the Ming Dynasty wants to stabilize its rule over the northern region, the most important thing is to restore production in the north, reclaim all the abandoned land for cultivation as soon as possible, and let the people live a peaceful life.
Only when the north is stable can the Ming army confidently and boldly engage in fierce battles with the Mongol army and confidently besiege Dadu.
These gentry who wanted to return and reclaim their land became the biggest obstacle to the restoration of production and the restoration of stability in the north. Not to mention that these people were originally loyal to the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, even if these gentry were loyal to the Ming Dynasty, how many acres of land could they cultivate? In the end, it would still have to be the peasants like Liu Thirty-Two who cultivated the land!
Besides, Magistrate Yang Shaofeng also wanted to take this opportunity to slightly tarnish his reputation.
After all, Emperor Zhu Chongba was a self-torturing workaholic who always treated his officials like cattle and horses. Xu Da and Chang Yuchun had both submitted memorials to Emperor Zhu Chongba praising Magistrate Yang. Later, after a bunch of messy and troublesome things like the lighter incident, the artificial lake incident, the drought incident, and the locust plague incident, Magistrate Yang felt that he had probably been put on Zhu Chongba's radar.
What if Old Zhu thinks I'm a talent and insists on sending me to the capital to be an official? Then I'd have to work for 31 consecutive years with only 18 days of vacation per year. Wouldn't that be even worse than working 996?
Even just to avoid such a miserable future, worse than that of cattle and horses, Magistrate Yang wished he could beat these local gentry to a pulp and send them to the capital to beat the drum of grievance.
Having made up his mind, Yang Shaofeng instructed Limpy Five: "We must find out exactly where these people have fled to avoid trouble. If any of them are hiding in some deep mountains and forests, we must make them explain the location so that they can lead the brothers there to identify it."
"Once we've found out everything, we'll have the brothers guarding the prison find a pretext to beat up all these so-called gentry and throw them out of the city, so they won't be an eyesore to me."
After Limpy Wu clasped his hands in agreement, Yang Shaofeng turned his gaze to Liu Thirty-Two and the other commune leaders and village chiefs.
"No matter who comes in the future, remember to insist that these people are not local gentry of Ningyang County at all, and that no one in your community knows them."
……
Five days passed quickly, and it was now June 22nd. Liu Hongchang and other gentry, who had been thoroughly harassed by the jailers acting as prison guards, were finally thrown outside Ningyang County.
Liu Hongchang struggled to his feet, staring at Ningyang County with a sinister expression for a long time before spitting out a hateful "You corrupt official, we'll see!"
As Liu Hongchang finished speaking, another gentryman beside him spat and cursed, "You corrupt official! I will appeal to the imperial court, I will appeal to the emperor! I refuse to believe that there is not a place in this world where justice can be served!"