The coachman was from the Commissioner's Office. He was sick of the old man behind him, but he couldn't afford to offend him. He couldn't scold or beat him, and he couldn't even speak harshly.
Originally, he wanted to hire a small sedan chair to carry him to the capital with him.
But this man insisted on riding a donkey. You're so old, how dare I let you ride a donkey?
If I really made you sick, I'd lose my life. Helpless, I could only hire a donkey cart.
Along the way, nothing went well. He could finally breathe a sigh of relief when he reached the capital.
Hai Rui wouldn't argue with the coachman. Instead, he raised his head and looked at the city gate in front of him. The capital, how many years had it been since he came to the capital?
After a while, Hai Rui sighed softly and said, "Alright, let's go!"
Although it wasn't a big deal for Hai Rui to enter the city, everyone was still cautious about his arrival.
Forbidden City, Wenhua Hall.
Zhu Yijun listened to Zhang Jing's report behind him and nodded gently. It was good that Hai Rui was here.
After a moment of silence, Zhu Yijun said, "Let the Imperial Hospital send someone to take a look at him. Don't let his body fail before anything has been done."
"Yes, Imperial Majesty. Old Slave will arrange it now!" Zhang Jing quickly agreed.
Zhu Yijun arranged a residence for Hai Rui and arranged for an imperial doctor. He thought that Hai Rui would stop for a few days and wait for the Salt Administration to give him a result.
He didn't expect that Hai Rui wouldn't stop and directly caused a big problem for Zhu Yijun.
When Hai Rui's memorial was sent to the cabinet, it could be said to be a stone that caused a thousand ripples.
The opening paragraph of the memorial quoted a line from the Confucius Family Words: Death Oath: "There is no one like Shi Yu, who died and remonstrated with his corpse, loyal to the ruler, and could not be said to be straightforward!" Then he also expressed his own thoughts: "This subject is willing to follow the example of the wise men of the past, and remonstrated with his corpse to His Majesty."
Anyone who saw these words would have to admire them. Hai Rui, who was already seventy-two years old, had remonstrated to His Majesty.
As the saying goes, "Drinking poison from the sky and sealing grass from the sun, one will become a subject of remonstrance and a ghost of the Holy Dynasty in death."
Hai Rui's attack was indeed extraordinary.
It was just that the contents of Hai Rui's memorial made the group of civil officials' blood run cold.
Before the memorial reached Zhu Yijun's hands, the opposing memorial had already been written.
Zhu Yijun flipped through Hai Rui's memorials with complicated feelings in his heart.
In the memorial, Hai Rui wrote in detail about the sufferings of the common people. Corrupt officials ran amok, the common people worked hard every day, but it was unspeakable. Honours from the gentry were constantly placed on the common people's heads, and the common people would soon be unable to survive.
If this continued, the Daming Kingdom would no longer be a kingdom!
Zhu Yijun had seen such words before. The civil officials always liked to hang these matters at the top of their memorials. In the past, Zhu Yijun would always disdainfully throw the memorials to the side, not even looking at them. But at this moment, looking at Hai Rui's memorial, Zhu Yijun felt very uncomfortable in his heart.
Different from other people's memorials, Hai Rui's memorial was written with sincerity, and one could tell that he had personally experienced it.
At the end of the memorial, Hai Rui also introduced the common people's lives to Zhu Yijun. After paying the land rent and miscellaneous taxes, the harvest was not enough to feed a family for half a year.
They had to rely on gathering firewood, digging wild vegetables, and hunting to fill their remaining stomachs. Their families were sick and couldn't afford to look after them. If they got injured while chopping firewood or hunting, or died, the family would be finished.
Selling their children was common, and there were also a lot of beggars on the streets. The common people couldn't survive anymore.
Those Honours, those rich families, bought Yangzhou skinny horses. Those were the daughters of poor families. They couldn't survive anymore, so they sold them like livestock for these people to play with. This was such a tragic thing in the world.
There were actually people who followed the culture and wrote poems to praise it. How shameless was this?
At the end of the memorial, Hai Rui also put forward his own ideas. At this time, it was necessary to clean up the ways of the world and the hearts of the people. It was necessary to use severe punishments to learn from Emperor Taizu and restore the old system of Emperor Taizu. Everything should be restored to that era.
Hai Rui listed the criminal laws of Emperor Taizu in detail, such as skinning people and putting them in a bag with grass. He also mentioned that if the law was broken, he would be sentenced to death by hanging. He said that corruption should be punished in this way.
Zhu Yijun put down Hai Rui's memorial and sighed deeply.
In Hai Rui's eyes, the founding of the Daming Empire was an ideal country, and it was the best era. The common people lived and worked in peace and contentment, and the officials were diligent and self-disciplined. It was a peaceful era.
But now, the Daming Empire had declined.
If he wanted to restore the glory of the Daming Empire and restore the glory of the ancestors, he had to restore the system of the Daming Empire.
Among these systems, the most important was the strict and severe laws. Only strict and severe laws could instill fear in people. Only by instilling fear in people would people not do evil. Only then would officials not take bribes and break the law.
Therefore, Hai Rui hoped that he could learn from Emperor Taizu, Zhu Yuanzhang, and be sentenced to death by hanging for corruption.
Hai Rui recognized the problem of the Daming Empire and was actively thinking of ways to help the Daming Empire. He was 72 years old, but he was still serving the country. Zhu Yijun's eyes were a little wet.
Although the method he thought of might not be feasible, the officials of the Daming Empire did not have this kind of heart.
Perhaps Hai Rui did not know that the Daming Empire had become like this, and it was not only because of restoring the system of Emperor Taizu. This was the limitation of his knowledge and the limitation of the era. But Zhu Yijun could still feel Hai Rui's patriotism.
"Corpse Remonstrance!"
Zhu Yijun tapped the memorial in his hand and said these two words softly. He sighed helplessly.
Now, Zhu Yijun somewhat understood why Hai Rui had been honest all his life. His life was very poor, but it depended on who he was compared to.
Compared to those who took the imperial examinations in high school, he was indeed very poor, very poor.
But compared to the ordinary people of the Daming Empire, he lived a good life. He had the salary of the imperial court, and his family had rice and vegetables.
Hai Rui regarded himself as a common person. He never felt that he was better than others, and he never felt that he was different from the common people. Looking at his actions, one could understand why Hai Rui was so extreme.
Putting down the memorial, Zhu Yijun sighed. It was not without reason that Hai Rui was so popular among the people.
It wasn't Hai Rui to be an official for the sake of wealth. It wasn't Hai Rui to be an official for the sake of promotion.
Wholeheartedly for the country, wholeheartedly for the people, this was Hai Rui. Zhu Yijun's eyes were a little sore. He turned to Zhang Jing with a smile and said, "Where is Hai Rui?"
"Your Majesty, he is in the courtyard that Your Majesty arranged for him!" Zhang Jing hurriedly said.
It was a small courtyard that Zhu Yijun asked Zhang Jing to choose. It was very shabby, and there was no decent furniture or things.
But it was very close to the Office of Transmission, just a few steps away. After all, Hai Rui was not young anymore.
Nodding, Zhu Yijun said, "Arrange for him to enter the palace. I want to see him."