Late September, Matsue Castle.

Due to the great battle in Linyun County, there were many more fully armed patrol sailors on the streets of Songjiang City, and the sailors of Ningbo Military Port had already transferred more than 10,000 people to Songjiang City to protect Li Yuntian, which made the atmosphere in the city seem a little tense and depressing.

In the living room in the backyard of the Songjiang Mansion, Li Yuntian was slowly sipping tea with a teacup while listening to Wang Lu's report, and the officials of the Nanjing Three Law Division sat quietly on the side.

The facts of the case reported by Wang Lu to Li Yuntian have nothing to do with Chen Guangzong or Zhao Dezhang's case, but are evidence of the corruption and perversion of the law by the officials of the Songjiang Prefecture and the county government of Linyun County in recent years.

According to the results of Wang Lu's thorough investigation, the government of Songjiang Prefecture and the county government of Linyun County not only arbitrarily apportioned all kinds of taxes to the people by collecting taxes to enrich their own pockets, but also allocated the silver taels allocated by the imperial court to improve the people's livelihood, and wantonly embezzled ink, and the breach of the river embankment in Linyun County was only the tip of the iceberg.

With Wang Lu's report, fine beads of sweat oozed from the foreheads of the officials of the three law divisions in Nanjing, and it seemed that Li Yuntian was going to vigorously rectify the discipline of the Jiangnan officialdom, otherwise a single Songjiang Mansion would not have to bother Li Yuntian to come out, and Wang Lu would be able to deal with these cases alone.

"Lord Wang, the corruption in Songjiang Mansion is really shocking, and more than half of the tax revenue is used to fill his pockets, which is really hateful!" After reporting the case, Wang Lu bowed to Li Yuntian and made a summary with an expressionless face.

"Back then, Grandpa Tai used the punishment of peeling the skin and grass to punish corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and it seems that some people want to taste it now!" Li Yuntian put the teacup in his hand heavily on the table and said expressionlessly.

Ming Taizu often used extrajudicial punishment on the issue of official corruption, the most typical of which is to peel the skin of the grass, this punishment is not stipulated in the "Da Ming Law", but Ming Taizu created this punishment and promoted it in the form of the law "Da Huo", the corrupt officials were skinned off, and the human skin was made of drum or filled with straw to make human skin, and the scarecrow stood at the door of the yamen or the door of the local land temple to warn the successor officials not to be corrupt and pervert the law.

However, the successive Ming emperors after Emperor Jianwen felt that this punishment was too cruel, so except for the Hongwu Dynasty, the history of the Ming Dynasty has never carried out such a punishment, but it really exists in the "Great Message", forming a psychological deterrent to the Manchu Dynasty civil and military.

Hearing this, the officials of the Nanjing Three Law Divisions couldn't help but secretly glance at each other, and their eyes showed a look of panic, from which it seems that Li Yuntian is really extremely disgusted with the corruption of Jiangnan officialdom, and even mentioned the punishment of peeling the skin and grass, could it be that Li Yuntian really wants to deal with Jiangnan officialdom with a heavy hand?

If he were someone else, he would never easily move the Jiangnan officialdom, but Li Yuntian is different, and rectifying the discipline of Jiangnan officialdom can be said to be within his part as the imperial history of the left capital of the Ming Dynasty, and the most important thing is that Li Yuntian has the strength to shake the Jiangnan officialdom, and the civil official group in the capital will choose to compromise nine times out of ten, rather than confronting Li Yuntian head-on.

The civil official clique is now fighting fiercely with the inner court, and the Xungui clique is eyeing the sidelines, so it will definitely not confront Li Yuntian, who remains neutral, head-on, otherwise life will be extremely sad, and the power structure in the capital will inevitably be broken.

Moreover, Li Yuntian was completely routine this time, and not only the civilian clique knew, but also the Empress Dowager Zhang knew very well, after all, Li Yuntian was not the kind of person who was in the same party and fought against different factions, and he would not be able to crack down on any faction of the civilian clique.

As for the killer feature of the civilian official group, that is, Li Yuntian's thorough investigation of Jiangnan officialdom will cause social turmoil in Jiangnan, but Li Yuntian is not an ordinary person, if he is in charge, it is enough to make the Jiangnan territory stable, and there will be no big chaos, who dares to cause trouble in front of Li Yuntian?

Second, due to the serious corruption in Jiangnan officialdom, once Li Yuntian is strictly investigated, many officials will be imprisoned, and it will be difficult for the yamen of the prefectures and counties in Jiangnan to maintain their operations, which is something that the Empress Dowager Zhang does not want to see.

But then again, the long pain is better than the short pain, rather than letting go of the greedy ink in the Jiangnan officialdom, it is better to eradicate it vigorously, and it only takes one year for the lack of officials in the Jiangnan officialdom to make up for it, you must know that the Ming Dynasty lacks nothing is not short of officials, and officials in other places are eager to take this opportunity to be transferred to Jiangnan.

Speaking of which, Li Yuntian also entrusted Emperor Hongwu to formulate the blessing of the central and local governments to collect taxes separately and let the local yamen be self-sufficient, and the annual tax paid by the Jiangnan region to the imperial court was less than two million taels, which could no longer affect the overall situation of the imperial court, and the treasury of the household department had enough silver taels to cope with the annual tax payment in the Jiangnan region.

Moreover, Li Yuntian has an advantage that no one in the imperial court has, that is, the martial arts hall has trained a lot of military attachés, although these military attaches are military positions, they are much stronger than those civil officials, after all, they have all undergone professional training, unlike those civil officials who have studied hard for ten years and learned how to make a fuss, rather than governing government affairs.

As far as the civilian clique in the DPRK and China is concerned, they are more worried that Li Yuntian will take the opportunity to let the forces of Jiangwutang enter the Jiangnan area, so that the civilian clique will be hit hard.

What can be met is that once Li Yuntian does this, then the inner court and the Xungui clique will definitely support it, and both sides hope that the civilian clique will be hit.

Therefore, in the face of Li Yuntian's rectification in Jiangnan officialdom, the civilian-official clique can only compromise, and it is absolutely impossible to fight hard, no matter how Li Yuntian is also a civilian, and he has good friendships with many people, how can he take advantage of this to be heavy-handed.

The reason why the court officials of the Nanjing Three Law Divisions changed their faces was that they were worried that they would be implicated, and the Nanjing Dali Temple, the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate, and the Nanjing Sixth Department were in charge of the administrative affairs of Nanzhili, and once Li Yuntian carried out a large-scale crackdown on corruption in the Jiangnan officialdom, then the court officials of these ministries in Nanjing would be the first to be punished.

"Lord Wang, what should we do with these corrupt officials?" After Wang Lu heard the "peeling the skin and the grass", his spirit couldn't help but suddenly become a little nervous, and asked Li Yuntian respectfully, in case Li Yuntian ordered a strict investigation of the Jiangnan officialdom, then he and another Nanzhili patrol according to the imperial history will become the actual executors of this Jiangnan case.

Obviously, Li Yuntian's noble status is impossible to try this case in person, so at that time, the two inspectors of Nanzhili will have to investigate the case on his behalf, which makes Wang Lu excited.

"Check it out!" Li Yuntian pondered for a while, and coldly said four words to Wang Lu, only by finding out all the dirty things in Songjiang Mansion could he promote the progress of the next things.

"The subordinate obeys!" Wang Lu didn't dare to slack off when he heard this, and hurriedly bowed to Li Yuntian and replied loudly.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this king hopes that you can supervise the trial of the case of Songjiang Mansion and thoroughly investigate the violations of law and discipline in Songjiang Mansion." Then, Li Yuntian looked at the Nanjing Three Law Divisions who were sweating profusely and said quietly.

"The subordinate obeys." The court officials of the Nanjing Three Law Divisions hurriedly stood up and bowed down in fear, where did they dare to say half a "no" word now.

The corners of Li Yuntian's mouth showed a sneer, he didn't know the complicated psychology of the officials of the Nanjing Three Law Divisions at this time, but since the case had not yet involved them, it was just right for them to handle this case with trepidation, and he would still need the court officials of the Nanjing Three Law Divisions to come forward to do things in the future.

The first thing Wang Lu did after leaving was to send someone to arrest Wu Shan, the governor of Songjiang Prefecture, after Wu Shan arrived in office, he not only accepted bribes, but also interfered in the trial of local cases.

One of Wu Shan's arms was hung in the battle with the Japanese people in the county seat of Linyun County, wrapped around his neck with a bandage, and when the messenger of the Yamen appeared in his study, Wu Shan couldn't help but let out a long breath, and finally could say goodbye to this day of fear.

With the arrest of Wu Shan, the curtain of a thorough investigation of the corruption and perversion of the law by officials in Songjiang Mansion slowly opened, and for a while, the Jiangnan officialdom jumped and everyone was in danger, for fear that Li Yuntian's fire would burn on them.

So, in a panic, an official named Yunyi County did something stupid, and sent someone to set fire to the account books of the county yahu's house, just like Lin'an County, thinking that this would destroy the evidence.

This angered Li Yuntian, who was worried that he could not find a bird to kill a hundred people, so he ordered the inspector of the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate to go to Yunyi County to thoroughly investigate the fire.

The supervision of the imperial history of the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate is the same as the supervision of the Imperial History of the Beijing Metropolitan Procuratorate, they are all selected from the top two jinshi, and the Beijing Metropolitan Procuratorate will send a group of supervisors to the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate every few years, and Yu Qian has been in the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate.

Li Yuntian, as the imperial history of the Zuodu of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, can naturally mobilize the supervision of the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate, and to tell the truth, the supervision of the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate is also idle on weekdays, and after receiving Li Yuntian's order, they are all gearing up one by one, and immediately rushed to Yunyi County to investigate the case of the fire in the treasury of the Ministry of Households.

It is worth mentioning that the supervision of the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate was rotated after the end of this year, and Li Yuntian transferred a group of capable inspectors to the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate, the purpose of which was to deal with the affairs in the south of the Yangtze River, so Yunyi County could be said to have hit the muzzle of the gun this time.

Originally, the officials of Yunyi County thought that there was no way to supervise the imperial history after burning the account books, but they did not know that they were setting themselves on fire, although the account books of the county government were gone, but the account books of those who had money and property transactions with the county government on weekdays still existed, and the government and household houses to which they belonged also had relevant account backups, so it was easy to find out the problem.

In just seven days, the three inspectors sent by Li Yuntian to Yunyi County found out the cause of the fire in the Hufang warehouse, and the magistrate of Yunyi County instructed his henchmen to do it in order to cover up the truth about his corruption and perversion of the law.

Along with the fire case, Yunyi County officials were also found guilty of embezzlement and bribery, bending the law for personal gain, and oppressing the good.

Li Yuntian did not show mercy on those corrupt officials and corrupt officials in Yunyi County, and all of them were severely punished, and more than ten people below the magistrate of Yunyi County were sentenced to be beheaded, and he wanted to see who in Jiangnan dared to fool him.