Volume 5: Fellow Traveler Chapter 861 Dare not violate
What is a proper attitude? Kneel when you need to kneel. Zhu Er felt that the man in front of him, Zheshanjun, and the chief envoy of the Goryeo delegation, a certain Li Cao Canyi, who immediately knelt on the ground, were the best examples. However, after spending a long time with the young Goryeo royal family, he found that people were sensitive and delicate, and actually very timid, so he was a little amused when he saw them trembling all over.
Fortunately, he received a look from the Fourth Prince the next moment, and hurriedly went over to forcibly help Zhe Shanjun up, and then stuffed him into the quilt - for him, who was clumsy and had never served anyone before, his rough action could be accurately described as stuffing.
But even though his action was simple and rough, the Minister of Rites was still grateful. After all, although Zheshan Jun was only a member of the royal family and could not even inherit the throne when the king was still young, if something really went wrong before he entered the Imperial Academy , he would still be held accountable when he returned to the country. Seeing that Zhang Lu even gave him a handkerchief, he hurriedly bowed and thanked him.
Seeing that the effect of scaring people had been completely achieved, the fourth prince tried to speak in a serious tone that was completely inconsistent with his age: "In fact, my father has already ordered someone to send a letter to the King of Goryeo to question this matter. Although it is the first month of the year and the weather is cold, the messenger has already set out day and night, and it is said that he will arrive in Kaifeng in at most thirty days."
Urgent military information can be delivered at a speed of 400 miles a day or 600 miles a day. Although this is not urgent military information now, and it is the first month of the year, the road from here to Liaodong in the north and then into their own borders is not easy to travel. But it is obvious that if the messenger wants to arrive on the 30th, he will not only make it in time, but will also likely take a very big risk.
Mr. Zheshan was young and did not know what this thirty days represented, but it was impossible for the Minister of Rites not to understand.
So he secretly took a deep breath, and then said more carefully: "If the king of our dynasty finds out, he will do his best to investigate. Whoever is protecting those pirates will be severely punished!"
Zheshan Jun thought to himself that this was also the best opportunity for his uncle to clean up his dissidents, and he didn't know how many heads would fall in the court. However, he was distracted when he soon heard a cry of surprise, and then he quickly came back to his senses.
"What? The imperial edict given to our country was tampered with in our country. It didn't ask for tribute women? It didn't ask for maids and fire masters?" If he was scared out of his wits just now, then at this moment, the Minister of Rites felt that he was going to die immediately, and he would die without a burial place! You know, the traveler mentioned by the Fourth Prince was received by him!
Zheshan Jun had already noticed that the Minister of Rites was staggering, but he was distracted just now and happened to hear nothing, so he could only look at other people for help.
The Fourth Prince had already discovered that he was just a nominal royal family member. He was staring at the Minister of Rites and had no time to notice him at all. It was Zhang Lu, who always kept an eye on everything, who was kind enough to repeat it in a low voice.
This time, while Zheshanjun was horrified, he sneered in his heart. Tribute girls were common in the early Ming Dynasty. Emperor Gaozong and Emperor Shizong even took concubines from Goryeo, but the number has gradually decreased over the years. So after receiving the imperial decree, his uncle almost urgently summoned all the ministers of his faction and ordered them to select the most beautiful legitimate daughters and send them to him, hoping that someone would stand out among them.
After all, when the annual tribute decreased during the reign of Emperor Gaozong and Emperor Shizong, the annual gifts were very generous, and the country believed that it was thanks to the noble lady who was given the title of Defei. The current emperor of the Ming Dynasty is still in his prime, and although no one expects that the noble lady of the country will be lucky enough to give birth to a future heir after entering the Ming Palace, after all, the Eastern Palace now has a master, but even giving birth to a princess is good enough.
Therefore, he tried his best to lower his head and pretend to be nervous, but in his heart he was laughing at his uncle who only ascended the throne by luck, and on the one hand he was ambitious, but on the other hand he didn't care about the humiliation he suffered in the capital of the Ming Dynasty, and he had to pretend to be submissive and try his best to show goodwill. However, when he caught a glimpse of the extremely terrified expression of the Minister of Rites, his mood quickly became depressed.
From Zheng Mengzhou, the last famous minister of the previous dynasty, to Zheng Daojeon, a meritorious minister of Taizu of this dynasty but killed by Taizong, all of them came to Ming Dynasty as envoys in person. The principle of respecting and serving the powerful has been passed down from generation to generation almost like ancestral precepts. Therefore, even if the uncle had acted imprudently in the past, he had to be respectful to Ming Dynasty now that he is in power.
If he were the king, would he dare to disobey the Celestial Empire? No, disobeying is impossible, but can he pretend to obey but secretly disobey?
I'm afraid it's not that easy. You know, just because the Ming Dynasty selectively ignored their letter of change of country's name, for so many years, they are still envoys of Goryeo, not North Korea.
Zheshanjun was trying to play dumb, but Li Cao was obviously not able to do that. He could only do his best to explain that his country knew nothing about the situation, and he didn't even dare to try to put the blame on the passerby, because he was very worried that the Ming Dynasty would use the so-called Jeju Island pirate incident to directly send a fleet across the sea to kill them.
This is not impossible. When the last emperor of the previous dynasty wanted to help the Mongols, Taizu, who had not yet ascended the throne, had attempted to attack directly with sea vessels. It was not until several sharp-eyed ministers in the country desperately tried to stop it that the previous dynasty's reign was extended for a while.
Precisely because he did not dare to shirk his responsibility, he almost wrote down the reasons why his great king selected the legitimate daughters of certain families when he presented them as tribute girls, what status these families held in the court, and what famous families the women's maternal families came from. He wanted to describe every family's three generations in detail.
Although he had a very good memory, the problem was that neither the Fourth Prince, Zhu Er, Zhang Wu, or Zhang Lu knew about the Goryeo official system, and of course they had no interest in learning about it. So, after listening patiently for a while, the Fourth Prince finally lost his patience and interrupted unhappily, "Don't report your official resume. I didn't ask about that. By the way, you mentioned before, there were also maids and fire masters?"
What is the fire one?
This is what the Fourth Prince really wanted to ask, but he was severely reprimanded by the Emperor, and his two legs kneeling in the Fengxian Hall almost didn't belong to him anymore, so he very cleverly changed the way he asked the question and added the word "maid".
Then, the answer from the Minister of Rites left him dumbfounded.
"The ten maids sent here are definitely not from the lower classes. Their ancestors were once members of the Yangban class, but were demoted to official maids because of a crime. They are well-versed in etiquette and can speak the official language of the Ming Dynasty very well, so they were selected. As for the fire ones, they were also people whose ancestors had committed crimes. They were castrated at a young age, and then they were trained in etiquette and could speak the official language of the Ming Dynasty."
The fourth prince now understood what castration meant. But because he understood it, he felt his scalp tingling at this moment. Just because the elders were convicted, the son would be castrated and the daughter would become a government servant?
His father told him that Emperor Taizu had issued a law that officials who committed crimes such as treason and rebellion should be executed or exiled, but they were absolutely not allowed to confiscate good people as slaves. And whether it was corruption or other things, unless the wife and children were involved in corruption, only one person would be convicted and their property would be confiscated.
Like the emperors of the previous dynasty and even some other dynasties, who castrated the children of officials and even ordinary prisoners as slaves or even palace maids for their own selfish reasons, they were only venting their own anger and undermining the strictness of the law.
There were often palace coups and even unrest in the Liao Dynasty because they often took the offended officials and even their children into their relatives' tents as slaves and kept their enemies by their sides. Isn't this the root cause of the chaos?
Of course, the emperor was a mad admirer of Emperor Taizu, but the fourth prince had heard from Zhang Shou another interpretation of his ancestor's philosophy - unless it was a serious crime such as treason or rebellion, fleeing without a fight, surrendering after defeat, or inviting the enemy to invade, family members would not be implicated, which was a progress in the law. If family members were implicated for crimes other than serious crimes, it would be a step backward in history.
He still remembered what Zhang Shou said, that in the Han Dynasty, there was a powerful weapon, the extermination of entire clans. If killing one person did not satisfy the hatred, then the whole clan would be exterminated. The emperor did not need to keep those who held grudges as slaves, as he felt that this was not efficient enough.
Even Sima Qian, who wrote "Records of the Grand Historian" after being castrated, was said to have been secretly executed at the end of Emperor Wu's reign, let alone others?
In the Tang Dynasty, important officials were often executed for any offense, and there were also many who were beaten and then exiled in the palace. However, there were also many who had their entire families confiscated and enslaved. For example, the famous Shangguan Wan'er was reduced from the daughter of a prime minister to a palace slave overnight.
Until the Song Dynasty, scholars and officials were treated preferentially. Many were exiled, demoted or killed, and many of their descendants were unable to hold official positions due to the consequences. The treatment of military officers was relatively harsh, but it was rare for them to be reduced to slavery.
Only the foreign imperial courts like the Liao, Jin and Yuan dynasties had the bad habit of demoting officials and children of good families into slaves.
What Zhang Shou did not tell the Fourth Prince was that in the last two dynasties in history, the Ming Dynasty first reversed history and brought out the extremely cruel system of burying people alive with their dead from nowhere, and it was not abolished until the reign of Emperor Yingzong. Then, successive emperors not only often executed officials for trivial matters, but also implicated their family members and made them slaves.
Zhu Di did not mention that Zhu Zhanji, who was praised by Ming Dynasty ministers as the ruler of Renxuan's rule, once killed his teacher because his former teacher reported him to the police. He also exterminated the family of his teacher's uncle and cousin, and castrated the teacher's young son to make him a fire-maker.
By the Qing Dynasty, the situation had become even worse. Not only did Han officials and Han people often become slaves to the armored men, but even the Manchus themselves, who were once the rich and powerful, suddenly fell into poverty and became slaves. There were masters and slaves everywhere in the world, and the atmosphere was truly disgusting.
But even if it was just what Zhang Shou said, it was enough to make the Fourth Prince very disgusted with such a practice. He frowned at this moment. Even though he knew that this was a custom of another country, Goryeo was only a vassal of the Ming Dynasty, and the Goryeo people were not citizens of the Ming Dynasty, he still sneered unhappily: "The convicted officials will be taken as slaves in the future. Goryeo really has a good custom."
The Minister of Rites never thought that the Fourth Prince would be dissatisfied with this. After a moment of hesitation, he quickly explained, "Your Highness, the Fourth Prince is afraid that these people will harbor resentment and disobey discipline? That is absolutely impossible. They have been slaves since childhood and have not experienced the heyday of the family. Therefore, they have long been able to accept their status, and have also learned various things since childhood..."
Before he could finish his words, Zhu Er had to cough again. Unlike the Third and Fourth Princes, he was not influenced by the Emperor since childhood, and because of Zhang Shou, his teacher, he developed a kind of cleanliness, so he felt that the matter of the tribute girl from Goryeo could be discussed, but sending a few maids and firemen... such a small matter... that was not worth worrying about!
Therefore, even though he knew that the Fourth Prince was the main person today, he still had to change the subject and said, "Since we know that someone is behind the incident of the Korean tribute girl, then, according to your opinion, what should be done about this matter?"
The Minister of Rites, who had a little say in the court, was sweating profusely at this moment. Historically, the fathers and grandfathers of the tribute girls of Goryeo did not hold high official positions. The daughters of the third-rank officials were often the only choice for the queen in the harem or even the wife of the royal family. In addition, they had to marry among the families, so they had to choose from the officials of the lower rank or even lower rank.
Anyway, as long as she is beautiful, it is enough. Since they are so far away, why would the emperor of the Celestial Empire care about the official positions of the tribute girl’s father and grandfather?
But this time, because the decree of the Ministry of Personnel stated that the girls must be the legitimate daughters of the third-rank and above officials, these girls had to be selected urgently, and before leaving Beijing, they cried and were miserable. However, if they really had to send them back like this, it would be even more miserable!
Who would want a woman who was rejected by the Ming Dynasty? Or more accurately, who would dare to want her? And this daughter who should have been a candidate for marriage or even a queen ended up in such a situation. Their family would definitely find someone to vent their anger on. Wouldn't he, the Minister of Rites, be condemned by everyone?
So, when the poor Lord of Rites saw the Fourth Prince standing there like a little adult with his hands behind his back and not saying anything, he could only say pitifully, "Your Highness, the three young masters, the envoys came to the capital this time, and the journey was difficult. Some of the young ladies even fell ill on the way. It was not easy for them to reach the capital. If they just go back like this, others will only think that they are lacking in virtue as women."
"According to our country's customs, once a woman is engaged, even if she has not yet married, she will often remain a widow. In their situation, I am afraid that they will not even be able to enter the house after returning. I hope that the Heavenly Court can be sympathetic. Even if they can stay in the palace to clean up, it will be a blessing for them. I also hope that Your Highness the Fourth Prince will have mercy on them."
Why do you want my pity? I don’t want to get involved with Korean women!
The fourth prince frowned into a knot, and was extremely disgusted with the customs of Goryeo. Emperor Taizu always encouraged widows who lost their husbands but had no children to remarry, and widows with children were allowed to do as they pleased. He was particularly disgusted with the word "chaste woman". Therefore, until now, many daughters-in-law of wealthy families remarried if they had no children after losing their husbands.
He was about to denounce such red tape, but he saw Zhu Er winking at him. In the end, he could only say unhappily: "The women that my father had chosen for my elder brother and second brother are now engaged. What's more, there is something fishy about you tribute girls from Goryeo. What's the point of saying I will show you mercy? If it doesn't work out, send them back to the women's school to be female historians!"
