Chapter 66 "Leopard Room"

The "mighty general Zhu Shou" went to the Xuanfu twice, and he had already tossed the ministers of the court and the central government so dizzy that they were on the verge of collapse.Now that he was going to the south again, the ministers were all over the place, so they tried every means to refuse to let him go.First, the senior scholar Yang Tinghe led the senior officials to come out to oppose, thinking of all the conceivable reasons, what is not in line with the ancestral system, the famine in the south of the Yangtze River, the Mongols in the north of the Great Wall are coming again, etc. In short, they must not go.Then, the Kandao officials launched a political petition, collectively kneeling at the gate of the palace to ask the emperor to stop the southern tour.Afterwards, the officials in Beijing recruited more than 160 people to jointly sign the Shushu. Some of them had some ugly words, pointing their noses and calling the emperor a "ruthless king" as Mencius said, and saying that if the emperor didn't listen to them, It will "know where to die".Not to mention, there was another Jinwu Guard who was in charge of the palace guards and commanded Zhang Ying, who threatened to die in front of the palace gate, but fortunately the warriors hugged him, but failed.After repeated visits several times, the emperor finally angered the emperor. He ordered the execution of court rods on more than a hundred officials, and eleven of them were killed immediately.However, after spanking his servants, the emperor also felt bored, so the southern tour was put on hold for the time being.

At this time, Jiangxi Ning Wang Zhu Chenhao launched a rebellion in Nanchang, and the news quickly spread to Beijing.When the emperor heard about it, he was overjoyed. Now, he could find an excuse for his southern tour.So he announced that he would go on a personal conquest to punish King Ning's rebellion. This time the emperor's reason was very serious, and he decreed that anyone who dared to oppose his southern expedition would be beheaded.The exhausted courtiers who were tossed by him had no choice but to accept their fate and let it go. Wu Zong didn't need to be sneaky, and he didn't need to be exhausted.The emperor's army set off and traveled all the way, from Beijing to Zhuozhou, it took four days.It turned out that there was a small episode in this episode. When the emperor passed the Lugou Bridge, he lost the token left by Liu Niangniang. He didn't find it until he arrived in Zhuozhou, so he stopped and searched for three days.

The origin of this Empress Liu is quite mysterious. Some say that she is a geisha in the Datong Dynasty palace, and some say that she is the wife of a musician in the Taiyuan Jin Palace.She is called "Liu Liangnv". I don't know if this is her name, or because she is Liu Liang's daughter, or simply because Liu Niangniang's "mother" is split into "good girl".However, what is certain is that Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty doted on her very much, and brought her back to the leopard room, sleeping and eating in the same bed every day.If anyone in the Leopard Room made a mistake, just let her confess to Wu Zong.Therefore, although she does not have an official royal title, everyone respectfully calls her Empress Liu.This time the emperor's personal conquest, as a rule, he was not allowed to bring his family members with him, so Wu Zong and Liu Niangniang met in Luhe.At the time of parting, Liu Niangniang gave Wu Zong a jade hairpin as a keepsake, and used this jade hairpin as a proof when they met each other.As a result, the emperor lost the hairpin. When he arrived in Linqing, Shandong, he sent someone to pick up Liu Niangniang, but she refused to go. She had to see the hairpin before she could go, so the emperor went back by boat to meet her.From this we can see the status of Empress Liu in his heart. Although Wu Zong has a queen, he regards her as his official wife. He will be with this Empress Liu almost on all occasions in the southern tour.When praying in the temple, the names of "Mighty General Zhenguo Governor" and his wife Liu's name are also written, indicating that this is the meritorious deeds he and his wife made together.It seems that Wu Zong is also a seed of infatuation. Later, the dramatist Li Yu once wrote the story of him and Liu Niangniang into a legend "Jade Scratching the Head", which has become a romantic story.

Here the emperor was looking for hairpins, but there was a "bad" news that King Ning's rebellion had been put down by the famous Mr. Yangming Wang Shouren. Wu Zong was extremely depressed holding this victory report, he hadn't even touched the edge of the battlefield yet, and King Ning had already been captured, it was really not fun.Moreover, since the rebellion has been quelled, there is no need for a "personal conquest by the royal family".However, he also had his own ulterior motives. He ordered the good news to be concealed and not to be leaked to the outside world. Then he continued to carry the banner of "Governor of Military Affairs, the Mighty General Zhen Guogong" and led the army to march towards the south of the Yangtze River.

However, the rebellion was settled, and the emperor's southern tour turned from an expedition into a pleasure, so he wandered along the way, enjoying the scenery along the way.Arrived in Baoding first, had a drinking competition with local officials.A few days later, we arrived in Linqing again. The local officials didn’t expect the emperor’s sudden arrival. They were so surprised that they had to hastily prepare a bad banquet for the emperor. They forgot to put chopsticks on the emperor’s seat.The emperor was not annoyed, but smiled and said to them, "Why do you treat me so slowly?"During this period, he went back to pick up Liu Niangniang.In December, the emperor and his party arrived in Yangzhou.

Yangzhou is famous for producing beauties, and the lustful emperor refused to let it go, so he immediately ordered a local search.He "discovered" that he actually knew that it was wrong to break up couples, so he ordered that only young girls and widows should be searched.This action made the people terrified, and the common people "raided" to marry their daughters one after another, and almost all the girls were married overnight.So he asked the eunuch to secretly remember where the widows and advocated their homes were, stay until midnight, open the city gate, call the emperor to come, and order the citizens to light candles to meet him. If anyone escapes, they will destroy the house until they are found.At that time, almost all the widows in the city were spared, and the cries shook far and near.The prefect Jiang Yao desperately pleaded, and the situation calmed down a little.Too many women were robbed, and Wu Zong couldn't take care of them, so he locked them up in the nunnery as meat tickets, and asked the family to redeem them with money.Some women died on hunger strike in protest, and their bodies were piled up in the nunnery.Jiang Yao had no choice but to find their family members and quietly collect the corpses for burial.There are many scenic spots in Yangzhou. The emperor remembered the story of Yang Guang. He wanted to see Qionghua, but Jiang Yao said that it was not a good thing and that it had become extinct.The emperor wanted to collect rare items from Yangzhou again, so Jiang Yao said that Yangzhou was a decent place and no strange things were produced.The emperor couldn't help it, and said with a playful smile that the white cloth was finally a specialty of Yangzhou.So Jiang Yao offered five hundred bolts of white cloth and gave him a step down.Although the emperor fooled it, the eunuchs around him were not so accommodating.They asked Jiang Yao for bribes, but Jiang Yao refused, so they tied Jiang Yao up with iron chains for several days. Later, Jiang Yao's subordinates complained to the emperor, and the emperor released him.

After leaving Yangzhou, Wu Zong went to Nanjing and lived there for more than 200 days. Naturally, he had a lot of fun and disturbed the local chickens and dogs.But the emperor finally got down to business when he was playing around: his southern tour was to quell King Ning's rebellion. Although he suppressed the victory memorial, everyone in the world knew that King Ning's rebellion had been quelled by Wang Yangming. It had nothing to do with him, the "mighty general", which made the emperor extremely upset.And Wang Yangming's situation over there is also very embarrassing. Originally, he had made great achievements, but he could have rebelled against the emperor's will, but he made it seem like he committed a serious crime.Moreover, the gang of eunuchs around the emperor failed to extort bribes from him, and actually framed him in front of the emperor for colluding with King Ning to plot against him.Thus, this King Ning was like a hot potato in his hands.At this time, Wu Zong's eunuch Zhang Yong went to negotiate with him, wanting to bring King Ning back, and asked him to write another memorial, explaining that it was under the wise leadership of the "Governor of Military Affairs, the mighty general Zhen Guogong Zhu Shou", Relying on his old man's mighty virtue and strategy, as well as a group of heroes around him, King Ning's rebellion was quickly put down.Wang Yangming didn't know what to do with King Ning, seeing this opportunity, he happily threw away the hot potato in his hand.However, he also has his own principles. It is only natural for courtiers to attribute credit to the emperor, but it has nothing to do with that messy "Mighty General Zhu Shou".The emperor was helpless, but he had already retreated a step, and he had no choice but to accept it reluctantly.

Now King Ning is in the hands of the emperor, but the emperor is too useless when he thinks that he has traveled thousands of miles just to bring a prisoner to Beijing.So Jiang Bin next to him gave him an idea, asking him to put King Ning back again, give him some soldiers, and then the emperor himself went to conquer him, and then caught him.The absurd emperor actually thought this suggestion was too absurd, so he didn't agree.However, he did not miss this opportunity to have fun.At the ceremony of presenting the prisoners, the emperor stepped up to the commander's platform in a majestic manner.The army under the stage escorted King Ning up, lifted all the instruments of torture, and let him move freely in the arena.Then, the "mighty general Zhu Shou" waved the command flag again, commanded the army, and captured the prisoner.After such a toss, it can be regarded as finding some satisfaction for the emperor.He had almost finished playing in the south, so he was going to return to Beijing.

On the way back to Beijing, the emperor still wandered east and west, and when he arrived at Qingjiangpu in Huai'an, he had the idea of ​​boating and fishing again.He was having fun on the boat, but for some reason, the boat capsized suddenly, and the emperor fell into the water. The people around were terrified and jumped into the water to save him ashore.But the emperor fell ill because of the fright, and became more and more ill. Now Wu Zong didn't dare to delay any longer, he immediately returned to Beijing, but refused to go back to the palace, but went to the Leopard Room.His condition has not improved. In March of the 16th year of Zhengde (1521), this playful and troubled son of heaven, the "mighty general", died in the Leopard Room after his life.He had no heirs during his lifetime, and the chief assistant Yang Tinghe and Queen Mother Zhang decided to support the son of King Xingxian to succeed him.

During his lifetime, Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty always took it as his own duty to fight against the civil official group, and repeatedly teased them into confusion, making them laugh and cry.Now that he is dead, the Chief Assistant Yang Tinghe drafted a will in his name, in which he completely negates what he has done in the past fifteen years: ordered the frontier soldiers from the capital to return to the town, dismissed the monks and musicians from the Leopard House , the women who scattered all over the place to donate, collected the golden treasures of the Xuanfu palace and returned them to the internal treasury... The result was "Joy at home and abroad", which became the only satisfactory one in all the imperial edicts of Emperor Wuzong.I don't know how this fun-loving emperor will know after his death, and how he will feel about it.