Chapter 144: If you aren't enthusiastic about ransacking homes, you'll never get to eat anything while it's hot!

Putting on a show?

Zhu Youjian pondered for a moment, nodded, and said, "No problem."

Nobody ever said resurrection couldn't be applied to someone whose head had just been blown off!
If it wasn't explicitly forbidden, then it was allowed.

The elder Zhu Di nodded, exchanged a glance with the founding Emperor Zhu, and commanded, "Go, drag Niu Yu's corpse over here."

"As the Taizong Emperor commands!" Wang Min hastily acknowledged the order and hurried away.

What was the meaning of this?
Why bring a dead body in?

A sense of unease lingered in the hearts of the gathered officials. Li Changfu's eyelids twitched violently as he frantically signaled the civil officials.

Bringing a corpse into the Wenyuan Pavilion violated protocol! You rotten scholars, step up and remonstrate!
Why are you all so cowardly?!
Why don't you dare pick a fight with the Grand Progenitor?!

Li Changfu was frantic with anxiety. He had heard that the Grand Progenitor had staged a rebellion in the underworld, succeeded in his second startup venture, and become the Sovereign of the Underworld!
If Niu Yu was truly summoned back from the dead and brought to life, none of them would escape alive!

The civil officials, however, maintained calm expressions, standing to the side with lowered heads. Clearly, they understood the situation far better than this crude military man.
Yet they were not panicked; panic was useless anyway.

Most of the prominent gentry and noble families in the Jiangnan region had already been confiscated. Next up would undoubtedly be the rectification of the administration, which would require the assistance of the hundred officials. Even if their crimes were truly unearthed, as long as they all confessed together, the Grand Progenitor surely wouldn't execute every single one of them!

The Jiangnan gentry had already been exterminated, and the literate, wealthy class was limited to this exact stratum. Where else could the Grand Progenitor find officials to replace them? Surely he couldn't just recruit people from the previous dynasty.

Before long, Niu Yu—who had been dead for quite a while—was carried in. His gruesome appearance sent chills through the civil and military officials present, striking terror into their hearts.

The Grand Progenitor could execute a veteran official of seven reigns just like that!

Then, a bizarre scene unfolded. Niu Yu's bloody, mangled, and deathly pale face began to heal miraculously, gradually regaining its human color. Finally, he suddenly sat up, gasping for breath in sheer terror.

"This servant isn't dead... I'm not dead?!"

Niu Yu scanned the room with lingering fear, his scalp instantly tingling. Everyone who had bribed him, and everyone he had bribed, was right here.

Thud!

Flabbergasted, the officials dropped to their knees on the spot, their legs trembling uncontrollably. "W-We respectfully pay homage to the divine might and immortal arts of His Imperial Majesty, the Grand Progenitor! Your subjects bear witness!"

Niu Yu wiped the blood and filth from his face, turned deathly pale with fright, and kowtowed, "Your Majesty, Grand Progenitor, this... this humble servant overstepped his bounds and deserves a myriad deaths!"

"Li Mu gave you fifty thousand taels of silver to bribe the garrison camp. Is this true?" Zhu Yuanzhou asked narrowly, his tone flat.

"Reporting to Your Majesty, the Grand Progenitor! It is true that the six of us each gave Niu Yu fifty thousand taels of silver!"

The Ministers of the Six Ministries in Nanjing rushed to answer first. By voluntarily spitting out the truth now, they could still sophistically argue their case, giving the Grand Progenitor a way to back down. If Niu Yu blurted it out first, none of them would survive!

Niu Yu was still in a daze and hadn't said anything yet.

"How much?!"

A shrill cry rang out.

Like a cat whose fur was standing on end, Li Changfu stared at the officials in utter astonishment and disbelief. "Fifty thousand each? That's three hundred thousand taels of silver?!"

His outburst caught the civil officials off guard. Stammering, they replied, "Y-Yes, that's correct."

Feeling as though his heart were being stabbed by knives, Li Changfu lunged forward furiously. Pummeling Niu Yu, he roared in grief and indignation, "You shameless eunuch! When you wanted me to risk my life, you only gave me fifty thousand taels! Damn you, where is your conscience in business?!"

"Ow! Don't hit my nose, wails..."

"Audacious Li Changfu! How dare you resort to violence against a court eunuch in the presence of the Imperial Carriage!" The civil officials were horrified.

The scene descended into utter chaos!

Bang!

Sparks flew as the elder Zhu Di expressionlessly retracted the barrel of his firearm. The officials instantly fell dead silent!

"Have you made enough of a spectacle?" Zhu Yuanzhou swept his cold gaze over the crowd, his voice chillingly frosty.

"Your subjects deserve a myriad deaths!"
"Your Majesty, the Grand Progenitor, I have been wronged!"

Tears streaming down his face, Li Changfu wailed loudly, wiping all his tears and snot directly onto the still-whimpering Eunuch Niu.

As a military officer, his income entirely depended on drawing pay for ghost soldiers. The garrison camp was not a frontier army, and there was nowhere to even sell illicit military equipment. Moreover, the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty were notoriously stingy toward soldiers; withholding military pay was standard practice.

Consequently, he couldn't even scrape together a few thousand taels of silver in a whole year. One could only imagine how astronomical those three hundred thousand taels of hardship allowance were to him.

If he had known it was three hundred thousand taels, forget about Wang Min arriving with an imperial edict—even the Emperor himself wouldn't have worked!

The beating Li Changfu gave Eunuch Niu almost sent the man back into the afterlife ahead of schedule.

Zhu Yuanzhou glanced at him, then looked at the civil officials who were suppressing their fury. Taking a deep breath, he asked, "Three hundred thousand taels of silver... Tell Me, where did you get three hundred thousand taels!"

The elder Zhu had always worked to eradicate corruption, never imagining that these officials of later generations could casually produce hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. It was extravagant to the extreme!

"This, um, this..."

The hundred officials stammered, unable to provide a coherent explanation.

Zhu Yuanzhou sneered, shifted his gaze to Niu Yu, and nodded slightly. "You tell them."

Wailing, Niu Yu spilled the beans like pouring peas from a bag. "Reporting to Your Majesty, the Grand Progenitor, these sycophants possess vast lands in every prefecture of Jiangnan and engage in maritime trade as well. Their annual profits are no less than a million taels of silver each! They are the wealthiest bunch in our Great Ming Dynasty!"

"I don't know the exact details, but judging by this, they were willing to part with three hundred thousand taels of silver precisely to protect three million or even thirty million taels. That's why they were so generous!"

A profit of one million taels of silver a year!
Total assets of at least ten million taels of silver?!

Hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhou felt his eyelids twitch violently. He had gone to great lengths to fabricate charges against Japan, retrieve Ming's silver mountain, and mine it for a year—yet the output couldn't even match these idle, rice-munching civil officials!

"There's no such thing! Your Majesty, we have been slandered! We willingly submit to having our estates confiscated and investigated to prove our innocence!" led by Li Mu, the civil officials cried out in bitter grievance.

Confiscating estates?

Zhu Youjian shook his head. Holding the young Zhu Youjian, he patiently instructed, "During your Hongzhi reign, there will be even more officials whose estates need to be confiscated. Remember for the future that whenever there is an estate-confiscation assignment, it must be handled by dedicated specialists. At the very least, you must surround the residence first."

"Okay, I remember." The young Zhu Youjian nodded, half-understanding.

In the eighth year of the Jingtai reign, the Emperor restored to the throne confiscated the estate of Grand Guardian Yu Qian. The result obtained was that his household had no surplus wealth.

Yu Qian held the rank of Grand Guardian of the First Rank and served as the Minister of War of the Second Rank. His annual salary was nearly a thousand taels of silver, and his family also engaged in business. Although he practiced strict frugality, he did not engage in acts of lavish charity.

During the eight years of the Jingtai era, even if he did not accept bribes for the winter or charcoal allowances, simply due to his aversion to spending money, his remaining annual salary alone should have amounted to six or seven thousand taels. Where did all that money go?

It was very simple: his younger brother, Yu Tai, had taken it away. The reason why the confiscation of civil officials' estates always resulted in a lack of surplus wealth was simply because Ming Dynasty estate confiscations were far too slow.

Sometimes, after all the bureaucratic procedures were completed, it would take a whole year to officially confiscate the estate. People weren't fools—did they really expect them to leave the money sitting there waiting for you to confiscate it?

Of course, there were times when money was actually found.

For example, Zhang Juzheng—who was not merely a minister, but practically a regent.
His estate was cleaned out down to the very last coin.

Yet that was unavoidable, too; Zhang Juzheng had offended far too many people. Before the Wanli Emperor's edict had even been officially issued, the Zhang family residence had already been tightly surrounded by crowds.