Chapter 182 Impeachment
Wang An was also shocked when he heard this. During the Ming Dynasty, the main leaders of the Honglu Temple were the Honglu Temple Chief Minister and one each of the Left and Right Honglu Temple Junior Ministers.

Although the Shaoqing of the Honglu Temple was only a fifth-rank official position, it was far inferior to the third-rank official position of Liu Zongzhou, the prefect of Shuntian Prefecture.

But Wang An did not expect that Chongzhen could be directly promoted to the Shaoqing of the Honglu Temple just by casually giving away a "small business".

Before coming here, Wang An thought that Dong Lingju was at most a small-time Karami in the village, but he didn't expect that he had such a prominent background.

In order to ease the embarrassment and avoid arousing the suspicion of the doorman, Wan An hurriedly explained: "I am also entrusted by the nobles. You know, brother, some things are not easy for the people above to come forward directly."

The doorman suddenly realized what was going on and showed an "I understand" look on his face, but soon he said with embarrassment: "But young man, you came at a really bad time. The Shaoqing is attending the morning court now. You can either wait in the door room first, or come back in the afternoon."

Wan An was now obsessed with being a red-top businessman, so how could he go home and wait peacefully? So he said without thinking, "Then please trouble me, brother, to let me sit in the gatehouse for a while."

"Easy to say, easy to say!"

So Wang An was invited into the room, where he was not only given a chair to sit on, but the doorman even made him a pot of tea.

I have to sigh that the power of silver and banknotes is equal.

…………

Outside the Huangji Gate, hundreds of officials gathered during the morning court session.

After Chongzhen decided on several national affairs, he came to the routine project of officials criticizing each other.

Nothing major happened today. The censors reported some trivial rumors to the emperor, criticizing several officials of varying ranks, and the court meeting was coming to an end.

Seeing that the court meeting was about to end, Liu Zongzhou, the prefect of Shuntian Prefecture, who usually didn't say much and at most just suggested that the emperor should exercise benevolent governance, suddenly stood up.

"Your Majesty, I have something to report!"

Chongzhen glanced at Wang Chengen beside him knowing what was going on, then waved his hand and said, "What do you want to say, my dear minister?"

Liu Zongzhou looked sharply at Xue Lian, the Marquis of Yangwu, who was in the noble class, and said word by word: "I want to impeach Xue Lian, the Marquis of Yangwu, for setting up prostitution, sheltering gambling, and allowing slaves to commit crimes, and forcibly robbing the people's property, causing the people to complain and live in misery!"

"Wow!"

As soon as Liu Zongzhou said this, there was an uproar in the court.

In the past, there were cases of people impeaching nobles. Even the princes of various places were often impeached by censors.

It’s just that everyone understands the rules of the game, and generally won’t make the charges too serious, making it difficult for both parties to save face.

But Liu Zongzhou came to power with the words "people are complaining and suffering". If this crime was proven, wouldn't it be enough to kill him to appease the public anger?
This is aimed at the head of Yangwu Hou Xue Lian!
However, all the officials were also very curious about what kind of crime Xue Lian had committed that caused Liu Zongzhou to accuse him of such a serious crime on the spot.

Xue Lian was even more shocked and angry. Although he had known last night that the owner of his pawnshop was arrested by Shuntian Prefecture, he did not take it seriously.

He thought that the newly appointed governor of Shuntian Prefecture wanted to ask for some benefits, and was planning to talk to Liu Zongzhou after the court session. Unexpectedly, the other party directly reported him at the court meeting.

Is this Liu Zongzhou crazy?

Xue Lian immediately stood up and cried out, "Your Majesty, I am innocent!"

Xue Lian originally thought that Chongzhen would certainly speak softly and calmly to him, and scold Liu Zongzhou, because of the great contributions his family had made to the court. Unexpectedly, Chongzhen just looked at him coldly, and said in a cold tone: "Marquis Yangwu, don't be anxious. Let's hear whether you are wronged or not, and let Liu Aiqing tell you the reason."

All the officials were shrewd people. When they heard Chongzhen's tone, they knew that the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. It seemed that Chongzhen had already made his own judgment on whether Yang Wuhou was guilty.

They all wondered, could it be that Liu Zongzhou had already revealed this to Chongzhen in private during the court session?

Chongzhen no longer paid attention to Xue Lian, but looked at Liu Zongzhou and said, "My dear, do you have any evidence to accuse Yang Wuhou of setting up prostitution and gambling and robbing people's property?"

"I have it!" Liu Zongzhou said, pulling out a few pieces of paper from his sleeve and holding them up above his head. "These are the confessions of the victim and the criminal, the owner of Tianbao Pawnshop and the evil slave. Please have a look, Your Majesty."

Wang Chengen immediately came over, took it and handed it to Chongzhen.

Chongzhen witnessed the entire interrogation process yesterday, so naturally he didn't need to read the confession again. He just pretended to look at it and then gave it to Wang Chengen to read it to all the officials.

Wang Chengen began to recite on the spot. As Wang Chengen recited, Xue Lian, who was still kneeling below, slowly turned pale.

All the officials were secretly shocked when they heard this, because the methods and evidence confessed by the owner of Tianbao Pawn Shop were really despicable.

He actually used the method of switching things up to steal the victim's treasure.

If the victim caused trouble, he would be severely beaten by the evil slaves, and there were even cases of people being beaten to death.

The people were afraid of Xue Lian's power and dared not speak out.

It was not until yesterday that someone finally reported the matter to Shuntian Prefecture that the truth was finally revealed.

The confessions included the statements of the shopkeeper and the evil slave, as well as the testimony of more than a dozen other victims found by Liu Zongzhou overnight, plus the physical evidence seized in the pawnshop.

Now we can say that both the witnesses and the material evidence are there and it is irrefutable.

Liu Zongzhou was afraid that he would be bitten instead of killing the snake, so he not only pawned the Tianbao Pawnshop, but also sent out yamen runners overnight to collect other evidence of Xue Lian's illegal activities.

For example, forcing women of good families into prostitution and setting up brothels; opening gambling dens that caused many victims to lose their families; running rampant in the countryside and oppressing the people, etc. Any of these crimes was enough to warrant skinning and straw according to the "Great Ming Law" of Emperor Hongwu.

However, although Xue Lian was a little panicked, he was not very frightened.

Because in today's Ming Dynasty, it is not uncommon for nobles to engage in business and oppress the people.

The most we can say is that Xue Lian was a bit too much and did not know how to cover up at all and was a bit unscrupulous.

Moreover, Xue Lian believed that his ancestors had made great contributions to the Ming Dynasty, and Chongzhen would not dare to do anything to him if he wanted to gain the support of the nobles.

Otherwise, when other nobles saw how ruthless Chongzhen was to the noble group, they would inevitably feel grief for the loss of the noble group.

Many people believe that the Ming Dynasty's imperial power relied on civil and military officials to help rule the country, but they do not know that the nobles who were closely related to the interests of the Ming royal family were the cornerstone of the Ming royal family.

Besides, Xue Lian's family still has the iron certificate of immunity from death bestowed by Emperor Chengzu Zhu Di. If Chongzhen really doesn't know what's good for him and wants to use him to establish his authority, he can just take out the iron certificate of immunity from death himself. Do you, Emperor Chongzhen, dare to go against the ancestral system?

Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly heard Chongzhen say coldly: "Marquis Yangwu, do you have anything to say in defense of what Liu Aiqing said?"

(End of this chapter)