Chapter Thirty-Two: The Donglin Faction Begins to Stab from Behind!

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Besides that, he also needed ten thousand Guan Ning Iron Cavalry!

Fortunately, mobilizing troops was not difficult. The tiger tally and official seal required for the transfer were both in his hands; all he had to do was complete the procedure through the Ministry of War.

The Ministry of War dared not refuse. The previous scandals involving nobles drawing pay for nonexistent soldiers and plotting rebellion had also implicated the ministry, and several civil officials serving there had already been beheaded by Zhu Cilang.

Disagree?

Then this palace would simply have to behead a few more.

Hmm. There seemed to be a man named Xia Chengde in Liaodong. Was it because he had defected to the enemy that Songshan Fortress had been overrun?

He might as well be killed too!

Such an unstable element had to be eliminated.

He also needed the Duke of England to take two million taels of silver with him and make up the arrears in military pay that had accumulated in Liaodong over the years.

Two million was certainly more than necessary. The remainder could be treated as a reward. In any case, he was not short of money for the time being.

Fortunately, the Ministry of Revenue had not yet received the funds it had requested. He could deduct these two million taels first.

After weighing the matter back and forth for a long while, Zhu Cilang finally settled on the contents of the imperial edict.

He then ordered the Directorate of Ceremonial to make a fresh copy and deliver it to the Ministry of War the following morning.

By the time everything was finished, night was nearly upon them.

After eating a little, Zhu Cilang was just preparing to return to the Eastern Palace to rest when Luo Yangxing arrived again.

The moment he saw Luo Yangxing, Zhu Cilang knew that something had gone wrong yet again.

“What happened?”

Without waiting for Luo Yangxing to salute, Zhu Cilang went straight to the point.

Luo Yangxing hesitated for a moment, but quickly recovered and answered, “Your Highness, this afternoon the Embroidered Uniform Guard heard many rumors directed against the imperial court in numerous crowded places, including teahouses, restaurants, and opera houses.”

“After learning of the matter, I immediately ordered the arrest and interrogation of those involved. However, they acted with such secrecy that we have yet to uncover anything useful.”

Zhu Cilang thoughtfully tapped his fingers against the tabletop before asking, “What sort of rumors?”

Luo Yangxing looked troubled, but finally steeled himself and said, “The rumors claim that His Majesty is an incompetent and immoral ruler who refuses to employ the loyal ministers filling the court, choosing instead to favor eunuchs and the palace security forces.”

“They also say that eunuchs and those forces can only bring disaster upon the country and ruin upon the people, and that if this continues, another eunuch faction like Wei Zhongxian’s is bound to emerge.”

After hearing this, Zhu Cilang felt only a surge of amusement.

There was no need to say it aloud. This was certainly the work of the Donglin Party.

The Donglin Party had already begun stabbing him in the back.

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Since they could not prevail in arguments at court, they intended to use public opinion to pressure the emperor, hoping to make him abandon the idea of restoring the palace security forces.

This was one of the Donglin Party’s habitual methods: controlling popular discourse at the grassroots level and inciting public sentiment to mislead ordinary people, thereby forcing the emperor to compromise.

If the emperor compromised, then he was a good emperor, a sage ruler praised by everyone.

But if he refused to compromise, then he was a thoroughly incompetent ruler.

If the man sitting here now were the Chongzhen Emperor, the Donglin Party would undoubtedly get its way, because Chongzhen was an emperor without a will of his own.

What he feared most was being branded an incompetent ruler.

Unfortunately for them, the man sitting here now was not Chongzhen.

It was Zhu Cilang.

He was not afraid of the Donglin Party’s trick.

They wanted to play at controlling public opinion?

Fine. He would play along.

By then, Zhu Cilang had already formed a plan.

Just as he was about to speak, he suddenly remembered something and changed his question.

“Luo Yangxing, is there a guard in the Embroidered Uniform Guard named Li Ruolian?”

Li Ruolian had passed the military examinations in the first year of the Chongzhen reign and was one of the few members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard to die for the country.

After learning that Chongzhen had hanged himself, Li Ruolian had committed suicide at home in martyrdom.

A military champion and a loyal subject who had died for his country—if such a man were not given an important position, it would be an offense against Heaven itself.

Moreover, he was already Deputy Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. One step higher would make him Commander, which meant he could eventually replace Luo Yangxing.

There was no helping it. Historical records stated that Luo Yangxing had later betrayed the country and surrendered to the enemy. Even though that had not yet happened, Zhu Cilang had never been entirely at ease with him.

Once Li Ruolian had accumulated a few more achievements, Zhu Cilang could place him in the position of Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

As for how Luo Yangxing would be dealt with—

That could be discussed later.

In any case, the time had not yet come to dispose of him.

Luo Yangxing had no idea what he would soon be facing. In response to Zhu Cilang’s question, he hurriedly replied, “Your Highness, there is indeed such a man in the Embroidered Uniform Guard. He currently serves as Deputy Commander. He had been away on official business and only returned yesterday afternoon.”

Zhu Cilang nodded.

“Bring Li Ruolian and Xue Guoguan here.”

“As for the rumors, leave them alone for now. Release everyone who was arrested.”

“If you hear such rumors again, pretend you heard nothing. I have my own way of dealing with them.”

Luo Yangxing was filled with confusion. He did not know why Zhu Cilang wanted to see Li Ruolian and Xue Guoguan, nor did he know how the crown prince intended to deal with the rumors.

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Confused though he was, he still hurriedly cupped his hands and said, “I obey, Your Highness!”

He then departed.

After Luo Yangxing left, Zhu Cilang casually pulled over a sheet of rice paper, picked up his brush, and wrote four large characters at the very top:

The Great Ming Daily!

That was right. He was going to establish a newspaper of his own—the Great Ming Daily!

The Donglin Party dared to act this way for no other reason than that it wielded enormous influence and could easily control public opinion at the grassroots level.

Whenever the Donglin Party’s views differed from those of the emperor, it could spread rumors in this manner, manipulating the thoughts and opinions of ordinary people.

In the end, the emperor would mistakenly believe that this truly represented the will of the common people and would have no choice but to compromise.

Then, with the Donglin Party freely smearing the imperial court, the common people would come to resent both the government and the emperor.

As time passed, they would no longer trust the emperor or the court, and the realm would sink ever deeper into decay.

If the emperor had been someone else, he might genuinely have been powerless against them.

But as a model young man from the twentieth century, Zhu Cilang declared that this trick was useless against him.

What was more, they had handed him an opportunity to seize control of public opinion.

After all, in an age without telephones or mobile devices, nothing was better suited to controlling public discourse than a newspaper.

Newspapers had actually existed in ancient times, though they had not been called newspapers. They were known as court bulletins.

Court bulletins originated in the Tang dynasty and flourished during the Song dynasty, but began to decline after the Yuan dynasty, since the Mongols did not attach much importance to them.

They flourished once more during the Ming dynasty.

However, court bulletins were distributed mainly among the bureaucratic class and functioned as official publications. Ordinary people had virtually no access to them.

There were also unofficial publications resembling newspapers, known as capital gazettes.

Capital gazettes were privately printed newspapers. Merchants in the capital usually financed their regular publication and sold them openly to the public, primarily for profit.

Yet the information they contained was sparse. They also occasionally offended the dignity of the imperial court, and whenever trouble arose, they were promptly confiscated and shut down.

Their high price made them unaffordable to ordinary people as well, so they circulated only among the wealthy and never developed on any meaningful scale.

But that did not matter.

The Great Ming Daily was about to arrive.

Before long, Li Ruolian and Xue Guoguan arrived one after the other before Zhu Cilang.