Spoiling History: Starting from the Three Kingdoms

【Zheng Shili spoke eloquently about the case of the empty seal, but unfortunately, every one of his opinions at that time hit Zhu's thunder point.

First, he believed that the empty seal account books were all stamped with interline seals, not one seal per paper, and it was difficult for ordinary people to get them, and even if they were dispersed, they would not be able to do anything big.

Second, the distance between the ministries and provinces was six or seven thousand miles, and three or four thousand miles. It took nearly a year to go back and forth. Printing first and then writing was a stopgap measure, and it had a long history.

Third, there was no law against empty seals in the Ming Dynasty law, and it might be difficult to convince the public to punish them accordingly.

Fourth, it was difficult for the country to train a qualified official. Officials who could hold the position of county governor had worked for at least ten years, and these capable officials were not easy to be resurrected.

But contrary to his wishes, Zheng Shili's memorial did not have the effect he expected.

The officials involved in the case of the empty seal were not pardoned. In addition, the furious Zhu Yuanzhang also pursued him for crimes. Zheng Shili was convicted and exiled, and even his brother who had just been released from prison was implicated and exiled.

Although most people in modern times use this memorial to question whether the case of the empty seal was a false case, even in ancient times, this memorial can be said to be dancing in a minefield.

In this memorial, the second and third articles are often mentioned in modern times, namely, "it has been a long time" and "there has never been a law for empty seals."

First of all, saying "there has never been a law for empty seals" is a bit of a sophistry. Although there is no crime of empty seals in the Ming Dynasty law, there are clear regulations on how to make a book and how to use seals. Empty seals themselves are a violation of these regulations on using seals. It is obviously just an excuse to say that there is no law for empty seals.

As for "it has been a long time", it is even more of a minefield. We briefly stated before that the "leniency" in the early Ming Dynasty assertion that "the Yuan Dynasty lost the world with leniency" refers to the laxity of laws.

This method of using the laxity of the laws of the Yuan Dynasty to excuse the present dynasty is really a way of saying that one's life is too long, and it is also afraid that Zhu Yuanzhang will not think too much: Is it that you still miss "my great Yuan Dynasty"?

But even so, in the end Zheng Shili was only sentenced to exile, and from the fact that his brother, an official involved in the empty seal case, was able to sit in jail and be released after serving his sentence, it is enough to see that the empty seal case was not so scary at the time.

This conclusion will make another person quite embarrassed, that is, the famous official of Yongle Fang Xiaoru. After all, as mentioned earlier, Fang Xiaoru's father Fang Keqin was executed because of the empty seal case.

In fact, most of the content about the empty seal case known today also comes from Fang Xiaoru.

After Fang Keqin was executed, Fang Xiaoru at the time begged his mentor Song Lian to write an epitaph for his father, and provided "The Biography of the Former Lord" for this purpose. Song Lian wrote "The Epitaph of the Late Mr. Fang of Yu'an" based on this.

In the epitaph, Fang Keqin was honest and upright. When he was the prefect of Jining, he wore a cloth robe for more than ten years, and only had a plate of vegetarian dishes for three meals a day. When he finally left his post, the people spontaneously sang "Don't leave, my people's parents" to keep him. The final cause of death was because he was falsely accused of corruption by an official named Cheng Gong.

As we all know, Zhu Yuanzhang in the early Ming Dynasty said that "whenever there is a major case, interrogate in person to prevent the malpractice of framing and training." At that time, major cases were basically interrogated in person.

So the case of Fang Keqin's empty seal was either a good official who died unjustly in front of Zhu Yuanzhang, or a good son who wrote too many twists for his father.

I won't say who is right and who is wrong here, and it's not clear. Another interesting thing is that Fang Xiaoru had two fellow townsmen who wrote letters in the year of the empty seal case. Later, the two of them had a bad ending, so he specially recorded the life stories of the two fellow townsmen, named "Ye Zheng Biography".

For this reason, when the Qing Dynasty compiled the Ming History, Zheng Shili and Fang Keqin were both given separate biographies.

However, in comparison, the UP host admires the Ye in "Biography of Ye Zheng" more, that is, Ye Boju who died in the ninth year of Hongwu because of astrology.

The meaning that Ye Boju wanted to express in the memorial in the ninth year of Hongwu was quite clear, and the main criticisms were three things:

The enfeoffment was too extravagant, the punishment was too complicated, and the governance was too quick!

Unlike Zheng Shili's rambling, Ye Boju's writing was at least well-documented, but unfortunately Zhu Yuanzhang's answer was only one sentence:

The kid is trying to separate my flesh and blood, arrest him quickly and I will shoot him with my own hands!

In modern criticism, this matter is to regard the world as private property, and the small peasant consciousness is fully exposed.

In the end, when Ye Boju was arrested, Zhu Yuanzhang was in a good mood and did not become a target.

But even so, he was still imprisoned by the Ministry of Justice and eventually died in prison. It has to be said that it is a pity.

If I could live a dozen more years and see with my own eyes the bad things that the princes did in the "Imperial Records of Misconduct", I might be able to write a more colorful article to criticize the parasites of the Zhu family. 】

Everyone could feel that the emperor's mood was getting worse.

The old man didn't say anything, but it didn't matter if the princes of the Ming Dynasty whispered about it.

"Zheng Shili is exiled but not dead, otherwise he should be recalled..."

Zhu Yu was the most straightforward. After looking up at the light curtain, he lowered his head and made this suggestion, making a cutting gesture with his hand.

This immediately made Zhu Su frown, but before he could carefully choose his words, he saw that his fourth brother had already shaken his head and scolded him:

"Ridiculous! It is clear that Zheng Shili offended by talking nonsense and discussing state affairs. Now, whether it is to recover or to impose penalties is not a good thing, let alone... Moreover, Dad has already made a decision on the matter of the empty seal, why should we say anything else?"

The logic of this statement was also very clear, and Zhu Biao nodded frequently, thinking that what his fourth brother said was exactly the same as what he thought.

Then he heard Zhu Di continue:

"My father's worry is that this filial child, in order to hide his father's sins, is unfair in handling state affairs and neglecting the integrity of his son but not the integrity of his ministers."

"Instead of summoning Zheng Shili back, it is better to summon Fang Xiaoru to find out the whole story and order him not to confuse right and wrong."

Zhu 㭎 looked at the light curtain and then at his fourth brother, and said "ha" without saltiness or indifferently:

"Emperor Yongle is so majestic."

This sentence immediately made Zhu Di's face turn from red to white and then red again, and he was about to burst into anger, but Zhu Di didn't finish yet and continued:

"Who knows if we summon Fang Xiaoru to really find out the whole story or if we want to see each other in advance with this famous official from Yongle who has the ability to confuse right and wrong with tears in his eyes?"

Zhu Di managed to hold his breath without choking, and immediately wanted to get up and talk to his third brother in the most familiar way of communication.

Zhu 㭎 also regretted for a moment that he had used his words, but fortunately, he thought that this was not a martial arts arena, so he hurriedly faced to the other side:

"Brother also heard it, so I just said it casually. What I said was not the truth."

Zhu Biao nodded, but then he knocked on the armrest of the chair and said:

"But there is also a suspicion that we are brothers."

These words immediately made the others frown. After all, even Akira just didn't get along well with his younger brother, and in fact he didn't really think about such long-term matters carefully.

The eldest brother's words also forced the princes to face the final criticism, that is, the enfeoffment was too extravagant and...

"Dad, if that record is really written, why don't you show it to me so that you can diligently change it?" Zhu Biao suggested cautiously.