In the secret report sent by Wang Guoxing, the envoy of Jinyi Weibei Town, to Jingshi, in addition to a detailed report on the various gold and silver commercial goods, land and mansions and other huge assets copied in the process of arresting and selling the Jin merchants, he also submitted a list of all the arrested criminals.

According to Emperor Chongzhen's secret decree before, all traitors who were listed among the eight emperors and merchants of the Manchu Qing Dynasty Internal Affairs Office in later generations, such as Fan Yongdou, Wang Dengku, Jin Liangyu, Wang Dayu, Liang Guest, Tian Shenglan, Zhai Tang, and Huang Yunfa, all the property of these eight families was confiscated, all the men were executed, and the female dependents were filled with the army Yingzhou.

Those Shanxi official and merchant families who were not listed among the eight great imperial merchants of the later Manchu Qing Dynasty, but were also considered to have invested in the operation of these eight Jin merchants, shared too much dividends, or supplied goods, were another way to deal with them.

As early as when he was in Juyong Guanzhong, Emperor Chongzhen thought about this problem, and the easiest way to do it, and the way to do it with the least resistance, was to be directly convicted and executed after being arrested by Jinyiwei.

That is, after getting the confession, kill it first, so as not to talk nonsense among the ministers of the DPRK and China.

This is called the edict, and it is also the most proficient and accustomed method of dealing with Jinyiwei.

But then I thought about it, it was too simple and too hasty to do this.

Although these traitorous businessmen were punished, they did not play much of a role in alerting and educating the civil and military generals of the Manchu Dynasty and the merchants and ordinary people in the government and the opposition.

In order to serve the role of this warning, it is necessary to make this matter bigger, and it must be big enough to be widely known.

Only when everyone is aware of the crimes of these people who collaborated with the enemy and betrayed the country, will the businessmen and people of the nine borders, as well as the businessmen and people in the coastal and inland areas, truly realize the seriousness of the crime of collaborating with the enemy and the seriousness of the consequences.

It is okay to say that it is to kill chickens and monkeys, or to say that it is to kill monkeys and chickens, in short, only in this way can we alert and educate future generations.

Therefore, on the afternoon of the day when Emperor Chongzhen received the secret report from Wang Guoxing, Emperor Chongzhen, accompanied by Gong Yonggu, the commander of Jinyiwei, finally made up his mind to summon Li Guoyi, the first assistant of the cabinet, Xu Guangqi, the minister and the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, as well as Li Biao, the imperial history of the left capital of the Inspectorate, Qiao Yunsheng, the secretary of the Criminal Department, and Liu Zongzhou, the Zhengqing of Dali Temple.

On the one hand, Emperor Chongzhen asked Jinyiwei to command Gong Yonggu to officially inform the important ministers who participated in the pre-imperial meeting of the Qianqing Palace that Fan Yongdou and other major proprietors of the Shanxi Chamber of Commerce in Hukou were willing to make internal responses to Jianyu and assist Jianyu in breaking the city.

At the same time, he also briefly reported some bad situations of the Jin merchants along the border of Xuanda who had captured the enemy for many years.

On the other hand, Emperor Chongzhen personally made a decision to officially transfer the criminal and criminal evidence of the Jin merchants arrested and imprisoned in Xuanfu and Datong in Dongchang, as well as the Jin merchants arrested by Jinyiwei in various parts of Shanxi, as well as various account books, trade route maps, and confessions signed and drawn by prisoners obtained by Jinyiwei and Dongchang, to the Three Law Divisions for public trial.

Emperor Chongzhen said to everyone: "Since the emperor's ancestor Wanli, the imperial court allowed the Tatar Mongolian Hada Khan Department and the Ming Dynasty to pay tribute to each other. At that time, the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia were reconciled, and this matter was understandable.

"It's just that after I arrived, the situation in the north of the country was changeable, and I was more of an enemy than a friend, and the Shanxi Chamber of Commerce of Xuanda along the border ignored the ban of the imperial court, and bribed the border generals to pass through the customs and trade with the captives.

"It is also human nature that the border passes are barren and the property is not provided, and the people who travel for business pursue profits. The first emperor and the ministers of the court or those who knew it also remembered that although these people passed through the borders, they were able to save themselves in the customs and benefit the people of one side, and they did not use thunderbolt means against them.

However, there were some Jin merchants who forgot their righteousness and were insatiable, not only trading with the northern Mongolian tribes, but also emboldened, disregarding the imperial court's repeated prohibitions as nothing, and trading with the enemies of the Ming Dynasty.

The imperial court explicitly forbade the import of ironware, grain, cloth, and other important materials from outside the eastern Liaodong border, and these eight merchants were greedy for huge profits and also worked hard to import.

"These eight families are doing this, it is to send sharp blades and enemies, it can be seen that there is no thought of a family and a nation in their hearts! Capture the enemy, nothing more! ”

At the end of Emperor Chongzhen's words, his originally fair face was swollen red with sudden anger, which made all the ministers present feel the anger in the emperor's heart.

Dongchang's behavior in Xuanfu and other places, as well as Jinyiwei's behavior in Shanxi, have attracted the attention of many ministers in the DPRK and China.

Those important ministers who followed the emperor to Juyong Pass knew the emperor's attitude at that time, so after some of them returned to Beijing, no matter how much discussion there was between the government and the opposition about the "nonsense" of Jinyiwei and Dongchang's wanton arrest of Jin merchants and questioning crimes, they all remained silent.

But for many imperial histories in the Inspectorate, and for many Qingliu civil officials gathered in Dali Temple, Hanlin Academy, and Zhan Shifu, this is obviously another evil policy of the emperor.

Isn't it evil government to connive at the royal eagle dog to rob the property of a wealthy businessman?

In their opinion, today's emperor needs money and food to fight, and he can rob the Jin merchants, and when he fights again in the future or is short of money, he may be able to rob the Jiangnan merchants among them!

Therefore, since Dongchang and Jinyiwei's action to arrest Jin merchants was in full swing, there were many officials above the government and the opposition who continued to write to impeach Jinyiwei and Dongchang, saying that they harassed the people under the banner of the emperor's edict, plundered people's property, harmed heaven and reason, and caused chaos in the place.

However, Li Guo-yi, the head of the cabinet, who had always maintained close contact with the officials in the emperor's line, and many ministers in the court who had their own sources in the emperor's line, had long understood the emperor's attitude.

For example, the supreme governor of the Inspectorate, Zuo Du Yushi Li Biao, Qiao Yunsheng, the secretary of the Criminal Department, and Liu Zongzhou, the Zhengqing of Dali Temple, and others.

Whether it is Li Biao or Qiao Yunsheng, these people are all fellow travelers of the Donglin Party back then, and they can be regarded as high-ranking officials who are more recognized by the Qingliu civil officials in the DPRK and China.

And Liu Zongzhou was the earliest person to be denounced among the Donglin Party members that year.

These people were quickly recommended for use after Emperor Chongzhen became the emperor, and Emperor Chongzhen, who had just succeeded to the throne at that time, won a lot of praise.

If it was left in normal times, they would definitely come forward to persuade the emperor not to do this.

But in the past two or three years, they have been up and down for many years, and they have already seen the current situation and the character of the current emperor.

What this emperor wants to do, they can't stop it, for the sake of those Jin merchants who can't be beaten by eight poles, they will only set themselves on fire, and even disgrace themselves and dismiss them.

Therefore, although they were dissatisfied with the practices of Jinyiwei and Dongchang, and were dissatisfied with the emperor's practice of expanding the action of arresting Jin merchants by killing Hukou Jin merchants and collaborating with the enemy, they would not easily stand up against the emperor.

On the one hand, the killing of Hukou Jin merchants Fan, Wang and others to collaborate with the enemy is now conclusive evidence.

On the other hand, there are indeed various rumors about the past of these Jin merchants smuggling outside the border and trading with Beilu and Jianlu.

Behind those Jin merchant giants, they all have their own ways, and they also have their own relationships in the DPRK and China.

Now that these Jin merchants have happened to the east window, something has happened, if someone needs to come forward, it should be those people they worship who have come forward.

All in all, these people have nothing to do with the Donglin Party people who were born in Jiangnan, so why should they risk offending the emperor and stand up for these old westerners?

Therefore, even Liu Zongzhou, the Zhengqing of Dali Temple, who is now famous for his direct admonition and is known as the first barrel of the Chongzhen Dynasty, has rarely remained silent.

Of course, Liu Zongzhou was full of hostility to institutions like Jinyiwei and Dongchang, and at every opportunity, he would persuade Emperor Chongzhen to reduce the power of Jinyiwei and Dongchang.

But at the same time, Liu Zongzhou, as a generation of Confucian masters, was also full of prejudices against businessmen who forgot their righteousness.

Especially when he heard that the Jin merchants who killed Hukou actually colluded with Jianyu to make internal responses, so that Jianlu entered the customs, raged Xuanda, and destroyed and displaced hundreds of people's homes, he was even more angry at those merchants who forgot their righteousness.

Liu Zongzhou's ideal, like many Confucian master-level figures throughout the ages, is to "make the monarch Yao Shun, and then make the customs pure".

On Liu Zongzhou's body, it is to assist the Ming Emperor and build the Ming Dynasty into a royal paradise and a world of great harmony.

In his royal paradise, the emperor is virtuous, the people are simple, the four seas are peaceful, the world is peaceful, the holy son of heaven can sit in the palace, and he has his own scholars to govern the world.

In short, there is no place for merchants and warriors, and some are just heirlooms of poetry, books, rituals, music, and reading.

Therefore, Liu Zongzhou had no good impression of the Qin and Jin border merchants who diligently pursued business interests, and at this time, except for the emperor's opinion on letting Jinyiwei and Dongchang bypass the local government and directly arrest people, he didn't care about the objects he was arrested.

Therefore, this time, Emperor Chongzhen summoned them into the palace and handed over the case of Jin Yiwei and Dongchang to the three law divisions composed of the Criminal Department, the Supervision Yuan, and the Dali Temple for public trial.

The slander and resistance caused by these people before Emperor Chongzhen handing over this case to Jinyiwei and Dongchang also disappeared immediately.

At this time, after listening to the emperor's words, everyone nodded their heads.

And Emperor Chongzhen continued to say something to them in order to deal with them seriously and quickly.

Emperor Chongzhen said: "The four people of the world, Shinong and industrialist, never prioritize here and treat everyone equally!"

"Today's punishment of the fourteen Jin merchants in Xuandashanxi and other places is not for their people to do business outside the border and for profit, but because they are all collaborating with the enemy and treason and seeking danger to China!"