Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 90 Confiscating the house
Zhu Houzhao had already made it clear that the arrest, confiscation of property and execution of the regicide party would all be considered political achievements, and they would be rewarded with gold and silver afterwards. The amount of the reward was directly linked to the proceeds of the confiscation. Therefore, when the officers and soldiers who participated in the confiscation learned that they would also be rewarded after the confiscation and that the reward was related to how much they gained from the confiscation, they were all ready to do a great job.

As soon as the sky was slightly bright, Zhang Jie, the Marquis of Taiping who was in charge of the property confiscation, Gao Feng, the eunuch of the Imperial Stables, and Xu Jing, the director of the Royal Tax Bureau, led three groups of soldiers to the residences of Liu Jian and other important rebel criminals in the capital.

The three groups of soldiers who were responsible for the house searches also had their own division of labor.

The first thing to be confiscated was Wang Yue’s residence.

Although Wang Yue was once the Prime Minister of the Inner Court, he also had his own outer residence in the Chongwenmen area.

The person responsible for confiscating Wang Yue’s property was Taiping Hou Zhang Jie.

At the same time as the house was searched, Wang Yue’s family members were arrested, and the person in charge of arresting Wang Yue’s family members was the commander-in-chief Li Jun.

Zhang Jie and Li Jun rushed to Wang Yue's outer residence one after another. Wang Yue's outer residence had been controlled by Zhu Houzhao's order as early as the end of October, so it was easy to arrest and confiscate the property.

Li Jun, who was in charge of arresting people, first led his men into Wang Yue's outer residence. After entering Wang Yue's outer residence, Li Jun began to arrest people directly. The officers and soldiers broke down the doors of various rooms and drove out Wang Yue's relatives who had been detained in various rooms in batches, and escorted them to the prison van.

Wang Yue, who was also being escorted, could only watch his relatives being escorted in carts. He couldn't help crying for a moment: "Your Majesty! I regret it! I shouldn't have tried to murder you. Please forgive them!"

“Wang Yue, stop wailing. His Majesty can’t hear you. However, I never thought that a eunuch like you would have so many women. You must have embezzled a lot of money. You must honestly reveal all the money you embezzled to me later, otherwise don’t blame me for being rude to you!”

Taiping Hou Zhang Jie said as he waved his hand: "Copy!"

As soon as Zhang Jie finished speaking, the two groups of soldiers immediately rushed into Wang Yue's house. Wang Yue cried even more miserably when he saw this: "Oh my God! This is all the wealth I have accumulated for most of my life!"

No one paid any attention to Wang Yue's crying. The officers and soldiers were busy searching room by room, dismantling wall by wall, and carrying boxes by box. In less than half an hour, the screen wall in the front yard was filled with more than 20 boxes of various gold and silver antiques, land deeds and other items.

Before this, Zhu Houzhao had already asked Xu Jing to prepare a professional team for house-confiscation, so at this time, the abacus masters and clerks wearing uniforms with the Royal Tax Bureau logo began to count one after another.

"According to statistics, one box of silver has a total of 1,824 taels, 3 qian and 7 fen!"

"According to statistics, one box of gold totals 2,474 taels, 6 qian and 3 fen!"

"According to statistics, one box of land deeds contains 245 hectares of upper land, 123 hectares of middle land, and 56 hectares of lower land. The total is 420 hectares of upper land, 645 hectares of middle land, and 127 hectares of lower land!"

"According to statistics, the total amount of principal for a box of IOUs is 3,400 taels!"

"Statistics: one scroll by Tang Yan Liben!"

"Statistics: a volume of the calligraphy of Wang Xizhi of the Jin Dynasty!"

……

The sounds of abacus, sealing boxes, and people reporting kept ringing in the ears of Taiping Hou Zhang Jie and Wang Yue.

Marquis Taiping Zhang Jie was very excited when he heard this.

Wang Yue was in great pain after hearing this.

"Eunuch Wang, I didn't expect that you have accumulated such a huge fortune after serving as the Prime Minister for so many years. Wow, there are tens of thousands of acres of fertile land. You are a eunuch with no sons or daughters, who will you leave it to in the future?" Zhang Jie couldn't help but ask.

Wang Yueze replied, neither crying nor depressed, "They all belong to the emperor, they all belong to the emperor!"

Regardless of whether Wang Yue meant that all these fortunes were embezzled from the royal industry or that all of this eventually became the property of Emperor Zhu Houzhao, at least now Taiping Hou Zhang Jie has confiscated a lot of property from Wang Yue, even exceeding his own fortune as Taiping Hou.

Taiping Hou Zhang Jie shook his head in disbelief: "Wang Yue, Wang Yue, you are only missing a few, but you have everything else!"

Wang Yue did not answer.

Marquis Taiping Zhang Jie did not waste any words and just ordered the officers and soldiers to continue confiscating. After two days of hard work, all of Wang Yue's property was finally confiscated and taken to the newly built warehouse of the Royal Tax Bureau.

……

At the same time, Gao Feng also led a group of soldiers to Li Dongyang's residence on the right side of Xuanwumen Street.

Half a quarter of an hour after Wang Yue's outer residence was confiscated, Gao Feng also began to confiscate Li Dongyang's mansion.

Li Dongyang's mansion was a reward given to him by Emperor Hongzhi. It covers a large area and is adjacent to the Royal West Garden, the closest area to the palace.

At this time, Li Dongyang's mansion was still brightly lit, but the Jinyiwei officers and soldiers had already taken control of the place.

Jinyiwei's deputy commander Guo Rong personally led the troops and surrounded Li Dongyang's mansion tightly.

However, at this time, the people in Li's mansion only knew that Li Dongyang was imprisoned, but they didn't know what crime Li Dongyang had committed. They even just learned that the ministers of the court had pleaded with the emperor for mercy.

The people in Li's mansion had seen officials enter the Jinyiwei and then be released. In addition, the preferential treatment shown to civil officials in the past 18 years during the Hongzhi period made the people in Li's mansion initially believe that Li Dongyang would still be released.

Therefore, at the beginning, Li Dongming, the fourth brother of Li Dongyang, whose status in the Li Mansion was second only to Li Dongyang, directly questioned Guo Rong: "Guo Tangguan, may I ask what you are doing! You have mobilized so many troops to surround our Li Mansion. Are you thinking that our Li family members are traitors? Are we in rebellion?"

"who are you?"

Guo Rong did not answer Li Dongming's question, but asked directly.

"I am Li Dongming, the former Shandong Censor. My brother is the current Prime Minister." After saying this, Li Dongming stroked his beard, thinking that Guo Rong would give him some face.

Guo Rong shouted directly: "Catch him!"

Immediately, two Jinyiwei rushed up and pressed Li Dongming to the ground, and tied him up with iron chains.

Guo Rong then said: "You are right, you Li family members have indeed become traitors, and you Li family members have committed a crime equivalent to rebellion!"

Guo Rong took out the imperial edict and said, "According to the order! Li Dongyang murdered the late emperor, his crime is unforgivable, all of Li Dongyang's relatives are arrested! Do not let anyone go!"

As they spoke, the two groups of Jinyiwei rushed into the Li family mansion in an orderly manner. Li Hong, the housekeeper who had just rushed back to the mansion to wait for Li Dongyang to come back and report that the plan to silence him had failed, instinctively shouted, "What do you want to do? This is the residence of the Prime Minister of the Cabinet!"

Before Li Hong could finish his words, he was knocked to the ground by the Jinyiwei and taken into custody.

Li Dongyang was a native of the capital, and had been a wealthy family since the Tianshun period, so naturally there were quite a few people there, and so it took more than an hour just to arrest the Li family's relatives.

At this time, Gao Feng also escorted Li Dongyang here, and pointed at Li Dongyang's family and asked Li Dongyang: "Li Gefu, how do you feel?"

Li Dongyang did not answer Gao Feng. He really didn't want to say anything at this moment. He was afraid of being held accountable by Zhu Houzhao during his lifetime and by Emperor Hongzhi after his death, so he could only remain silent.

However, when Li Dongyang saw that he had caused his family to go from enjoying honor to being prisoners, he felt quite ashamed and did not dare to look up at his family.

After Li Dongyang's family members were arrested, Gao Feng ordered, "Search their house!"

Immediately, people from the Royal Tax Bureau and soldiers began to confiscate Li’s mansion.

All of a sudden, boxes of gold and silver jewelry were carried out, pieces of antiques and jade were confiscated, and house deeds and land deeds were searched out.

When Li Dongyang saw a jade Buddha being carried out, he even became excited: "This is a jade Buddha left by my grandfather, an artifact from the Southern Dynasty. You vulgar people should be gentle with it!"

"You can't confiscate this, it's the wine vessel used by Duke Zhou!"

Li Dongyang shouted excitedly.

"Li Dongyang, your Li family is indeed quite rich! There are many treasures!" Gao Feng said, "Seal them all!"

At this time, Li Dongyang also sat on the ground dejectedly.

Thanks to book friend V梦之无限V for the reward of 2000 Qidian coins. Thank you to book friend Xiaomang for the reward of 12 600 Qidian coins. Now the house-raiding mode is on. There are four inner court eunuchs, three cabinet ministers, one minister, and many censors and censors. What do you think is a reasonable amount of silver for the house-raiding? How many acres of land are reasonable for the house-raiding? Referring to the fact that the amount of silver during the Hongzhi period was less than that during the Chongzhen period, Li Zicheng seized million taels during the Chongzhen period. It should be much less here. So how many taels are appropriate?

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(End of this chapter)