novelAbuy Chapter 35 My Kingdom, My Rules!
Chapter 35 My Kingdom, My Rules!
This is Xiao K's masterpiece, "The Ming Dynasty: I Helped Emperor Chengzu Cultivate Immortality, and Drive Emperor Jiajing Crazy," click to read now!
Gu Xiancheng fainted.
It was like a tattered sack, thrown to the ground without even a twitch.
The hall was utterly silent.
The remaining gentry and wealthy merchants were all ashen-faced. Some had wet trousers but were completely unaware. Beg for mercy? They couldn't even muster that thought.
too frightening.
The other party knew exactly what they had said in the secret room last night. It was the innermost part of the Gu family's residence, where three people were talking behind closed doors, whispering in each other's ears.
How can we argue this out?
How to resist?
This is... no longer a game between mortals. This is gods, or even the King of Hell, using them as pawns.
Zhu Di glanced at Gu Xiancheng on the ground, as if he were looking at a dead dog.
"Wake him up."
A member of the Imperial Guard stepped forward, took out a small porcelain bottle from his waist, and uncorked it.
The thing was brought close to Gu Xiancheng's nose and waved—
"what!"
Gu Xiancheng sprang up from the ground as if electrocuted, coughing violently, his face streaked with tears and snot. The smell wasn't just foul; it was like it was drilling straight into his brain.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Zhu Di.
That face was more terrifying than the King of Hell.
Gu Xiancheng's knees buckled and he collapsed again.
"Awake?" Zhu Di looked down at him. "I haven't finished speaking."
He turned around.
Step by step, I walked toward the main seat in the hall.
That chair was Gu Xiancheng's special seat for decades, made of rosewood and carved with pine trees and cranes symbolizing longevity. Normally, no one dared to touch it except Gu Xiancheng himself.
Zhu Di paused in front of the chair.
Then he sat down with an air of authority.
Someone below secretly looked up and felt a chill run down their spine—it's over, this chair will belong to the Zhu family from now on.
Zhu Di looked around.
The "elites of Jiangnan" kneeling below were trembling like leaves. Some had their foreheads on the ground, not daring to lift them, not daring to move, and even suppressing their breathing.
Zhu Di spoke, but his voice was not loud.
"I know you are not convinced."
No one dared to utter a sound.
"You think this Jiangnan is your Jiangnan? Your fields, passed down from your ancestors. Your money, earned through hard work. The court can just take it all away? On what grounds?"
Upon hearing this, several gentry members subconsciously nodded.
Yeah, why should we?
Zhu Di glanced at their barely perceptible nods and a slight twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth.
It was a smile. But it looked worse than crying.
"You also think that you have read the books of sages and are role models for the world, and are 'scholars'."
He glanced at the heads below and said slowly, "What right do those greenhorns in the capital have to point fingers at you?"
These words struck a chord with them.
Some people's shoulders even trembled slightly—not from fear, but from frustration.
"very good."
Zhu Di's smile deepened, but his eyes remained devoid of warmth.
"Today, I will teach you... a good lesson."
He stood up.
He walked up to Gu Xiancheng.
Gu Xiancheng knelt on the ground, his back hunched, not daring to raise his head.
Zhu Di looked down at him and said, slowly and deliberately, "Your surname is Gu, right?"
"...Yes." The voice was squeezed out of his throat.
"Your Gu family has been prosperous in Songjiang for over three hundred years. They've produced three ministers, five vice ministers, and more than twenty prefects. Isn't that right?"
Gu Xiancheng's lips trembled. These words, which he would normally speak of as a source of pride and glory for his ancestors, sounded like death knells coming from Zhu Di's mouth.
"Your ancestor was named Gu Dingchen. He fought alongside Emperor Taizu to conquer the country. Emperor Taizu recognized his merits and granted him a hundred acres of fertile land in Songjiang Prefecture. From then on, your Gu family became the local tyrants of Songjiang Prefecture."
"Am I right?"
Gu Xiancheng nodded with difficulty.
These things are clearly written in the family genealogy; there's no way to fake them.
Zhu Di stared at him, then suddenly asked:
"Then let me ask you another question—"
His voice suddenly turned cold, like a knife pressed against his throat.
"How did Emperor Taizu (Gaozong) come to rule the country?"
Gu Xiancheng was stunned.
How did you get this? How...how do I answer that?
Zhu Di didn't wait for his answer.
"Was it discussed with those Tartar nobles of the Mongol Yuan dynasty?"
One sentence hit Gu Xiancheng hard.
"Did you sit down for tea with Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng?"
The second sentence is even more forceful.
"Yes or no?!"
Zhu Di stomped his foot suddenly.
With a loud bang, the entire hall shook. Water spilled from the teacups on the table. Ash fell from the beams in a flurry. The gentry below shuddered.
"no!"
Zhu Di roared, answering for them.
"It was shot down!"
"It was won with the lives of countless soldiers!"
"It was with a knife! With a gun! Inch by inch... snatched from someone else!"
He grabbed Gu Xiancheng by the collar.
They lifted him off the ground.
Gu Xiancheng was being held by the collar, his entire weight resting on Zhu Di's hand, his toes barely touching the ground. He tried to stand, but his legs felt like two noodles, unable to support him at all.
Zhu Di's face was only inches away from his.
Those eyes held a light so fierce it was almost unreasonable.
He lowered his voice, uttering each word slowly and deliberately:
"This world belongs to the Zhu family."
"My empire was conquered, not negotiated with you."
"Only if I give you land will you have land!"
"Only if I make you rich can you become rich!"
"Now, my descendants think you traitors... are too rich!"
They're rolling in money!
"They're so rich they've forgotten who they are!"
"He wants to take some flesh from you to mend the country's holes, to feed the starving people, and to reward the soldiers who risk their lives on the frontier!"
"you--"
Zhu Di took a deep breath and almost roared it out:
"What right do you have... to say 'no'?!"
The hall was completely silent.
You could hear a pin drop.
Gu Xiancheng was so shocked by the roar that his mind went blank.
His family background, which he was very proud of, spanned three hundred years, producing ministers, vice ministers, and scholars who had passed the imperial examinations. The rules upon which he relied for survival were the principles of sages, the decorum of the court, and the dignity of the gentry—
Zhu Di's unreasonable yet irrefutable "robber logic" shattered into pieces.
Yes.
This world was not conquered by the Gu family, nor was it conjured up from the books of sages.
It was taken back by the Zhu family with knives and guns.
These gentry are nothing but vines clinging to this great tree. How dare these vines challenge the tree?
What did Gu Xiancheng want to say?
But it felt as if an invisible hand was gripping his throat, and he could only make "hoarse...hoarse..." sounds. The spine that had supported him his entire life broke at that moment.
"Thump!"
He knelt down.
Straight up.
It wasn't out of fear. It was because the pillar in his heart called "the dignity of the scholar-official" had been completely shattered.
With this kneeling,
In the hall, all the gentry who still held onto a sliver of hope were utterly disheartened. Their last hope had been extinguished. One by one, they collapsed to their knees, their bones feeling as if they had been pulled out of their bodies.
Zhu Di looked at them and snorted coldly.
She loosened Gu Xiancheng's collar.
Gu Xiancheng was like a puddle of mud, lying limp on the ground, not moving at all.
Zhu Di turned around and walked back to the main seat. He didn't sit down, but just stood there, his back to everyone.
"Zhu Xixiao".
"Your subject is here!"
"After dawn..." Zhu Di's voice returned to a calm tone, but every word carried a murderous intent, "take all these people, along with their clansmen, to the square in Suzhou Prefecture."
"Write down one by one all the good deeds your Embroidered Uniform Guard has uncovered over the years—bullying men and women, extorting money and property, driving people to their deaths—and post them all over the city."
"I want all the people of Suzhou to come and see this."
"I want their blood."
"Tell everyone in Jiangnan."
"Who is... the true master?"
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