bayedsolid Chapter 61 The Jun Family's Misfortune
Chapter 61 The Jun Family's Misfortune
Since they stumbled upon the place, he knocked on the door almost every morning for the first few days.
Not only was there no one coming in or out, but there was also no sound coming from inside, so he took his mother and sister to stay in the thatched hut next door.
Dongfang Jin glanced at Gu Chenglin, and seeing that he was giving her a meaningful look, she stopped talking.
Gu Chenglin said to Jun Qirui, "You sit with me in the front."
Jun Qirui got out of the car and bowed to Gu Chenglin, saying, "Thank you."
Dongfang Jin: "..." Even in this situation, he's still putting on airs.
It must be said that the ancient literati took the etiquette and moral education to the extreme. I must say it again: the ancients were right!
……
On their way home, the family of four learned from the scholar that his name was Jun Qirui, courtesy name Zichen, and that he was twenty-four years old.
A scholar who passed the imperial examination in the eighth year of the Shengde era.
Shengde is the current name of the Eastern Kingdom.
The first emperor of the Donglin Kingdom was named Shunde, and reigned for forty-eight years; the second emperor was named Jingde, and reigned for twenty-seven years; the third emperor was named Changde, and reigned for thirty years; the fourth emperor was named Shengde, and had been on the throne for eleven years.
"If the city of Donglin has been around for a hundred years and hasn't changed much, why is it still so poor?" This was the question Dongfang Jin asked.
Jun Qirui said that, according to historical records, the wars that broke out in the Cang Sheng Kingdom were actually caused by the uprisings of various regional vassal kings...
Dongfang Jin: No wonder the last emperor of Cang Sheng Kingdom burned all those things.
In modern history, during the Kangxi era, there was also the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories.
He felt relieved and vented his anger by burning the country, but now the country is in dire straits.
The first emperor of Donglin Kingdom devoted himself wholeheartedly to making the country stronger little by little.
The second emperor continued his efforts, striving for even greater achievements, and can be said to have reached a high level, passing away peacefully with a dream of a peaceful world.
But who knew that the third one was alright at first, but then... it really turned into a harem of three thousand beauties.
This emperor gradually became incompetent and tyrannical, and his life became extremely extravagant.
The selection of female beauties was held every three years for minor contests and every five years for major contests. In between, powerful families would search for beautiful women and handsome men from all over the country to consolidate their position...
They build this palace today, that office tomorrow... They've ruined the land that our ancestors built up...
At that time, the Eastern Lin Kingdom was beset by internal and external troubles, and was in such a chaotic state that it was like a hodgepodge.
The people may not say they are living in misery, but disasters are coming one after another in various places.
Yesterday, a certain state was plagued by locusts; today, another state is experiencing a snowstorm; tomorrow, yet another state will be flooded… What's the point of reporting this? To get money for disaster relief.
...The people in the disaster area are displaced and struggling to survive...
Not only did this drain the national treasury, but he also borrowed money from those powerful families...
Are you going to borrow it and not pay it back?
...In the end, he listened to slander and killed many loyal and virtuous officials...chaos and corruption raged in the court...
Its former glory is quietly heading towards inevitable decline... it can be said to be going downhill.
Now that the current emperor has taken over this mess, things are even more difficult...
If it weren't for the Duke of Zhenguo's family's vow to defend the border to the death, the Imperial Tutor's personal intervention to suppress the court officials, and Prince Dun's personal command to crush those powerful families, this country wouldn't have survived until now...
……
When Gu Chenglin asked Jun Qirui who else was included in the "we" he mentioned, Jun Qirui stammered and said that his mother and sister were also with him.
Only then did they explain in detail why they had come here.
They were from Guangling Prefecture, specifically the prefectural city, and had come to Yongchang County in Guanglin Prefecture to search for relatives…
Because his family had always lived with his maternal grandfather, his mother was the only daughter of the Jun family, and his father was a son-in-law who moved into the family home...
His mother only knew that his father's family was from Yongchang County, Guanglin Prefecture.
As he spoke, the four of them listened, and the more Dongfang Jin listened, the more something seemed off.
Is this really being done so hastily? This is a major life event, a matter of a lifetime.
After Jun Qirui's maternal grandfather passed away, his father said he wanted to go home to visit him.
He received a letter from home saying that his mother, who was also his grandmother, was seriously ill, and then he left home...
But less than a month after his father left home, he was about to take the imperial examination to become a scholar.
The authorities went to the document academy to investigate, and they discovered that the house where his household registration was located no longer belonged to his maternal grandfather. Moreover, his family was falsely accused of being unfilial and refusing to pay rent...
Those people did not listen to the slander, nor did they believe the one-sided accounts of others. The leader's order was—"Investigate thoroughly..."
...After a thorough investigation by the state and government authorities, it turned out that even the father's name, Chen Guoliang, was fake...
But he had been checked before when he took the imperial examination for the title of Xiucai, and he passed. So why did things change this time?
The family of three then realized that his father hadn't returned since he left, and that some of the servants in the house hadn't either...
Dongfang Jin was speechless; this was fraudulent.
Jun Qirui added that those who passed the imperial examinations and did not wish to pursue higher positions could obtain a local official post, a kind of official position within the established bureaucracy. Therefore, the higher authorities were quite strict in their investigations…
Because he genuinely passed the imperial examination and became a scholar, those people began to investigate further.
At first, those people resisted, but eventually they produced their identification.
Unexpectedly, the people who came this time were all from the capital, and they even had tokens issued by His Majesty.
Now those people dared not hide anything anymore, and told everything in detail...
In the end, the officials of Guangling Prefecture, in order to protect themselves, pushed their entire family out...
When those people in the capital questioned him again, he claimed to know nothing. The same was true when they questioned his mother; there was no evidence.
Since they couldn't file a case, the person said as they left—"Take the evidence and you can file a complaint at the state or capital city..."
The three of them were also evicted by the person who bought their house.
Later, his mother went to the Jun family's shop to get money to redeem the house. When she arrived at the shop, she learned that the Jun family's shops had long been sold by his father.
People say this shop has been sold for several years... Don't you understand what that means?
As a result, he was unable to pass the imperial examination and became a scholar. His mother also fell ill because of this. After she recovered, his mother brought her children to find his father.
Dongfang Jin was speechless again. If someone is going to scam you, how could they leave you any evidence? It seems his father had been planning this for a long time.
Twenty years? Wow, impressive! That's incredibly patient and cunning...
After making inquiries and searching around, Jun Qirui and his family of three finally found the Chen family in the eastern part of Yongchang County.
But to his surprise, his father already had a family here, and his eldest son was five years older than him.
Dongfang Jin: Good heavens, you're already married and still going to commit marriage fraud?
When Jun Qirui saw that man, even if he turned to ashes, the three of them would still recognize him.
His mother confronted the man, but he denied everything, claiming he didn't know them and hurling insults at her, calling her shameless and using the most vulgar language imaginable...
In a fit of anger, they had no choice but to report him to the authorities, accusing him of fraud, marriage scam, and financial gain.
Upon arriving at the main hall, the entire Chen family stated that the man had never been to Guangling Prefecture.
They've been doing business in their county and several neighboring counties, so they've gathered a bunch of witnesses...
Thus, unable to produce conclusive evidence, they lost the case because he was a scholar and thus exempted from punishment.
However, his mother and sister were not spared; each of them received ten strokes of the cane from the county government and were then kicked out.
Later, a kind person told them... and they then learned that the ninth concubine of the Yongchang County magistrate was that man's sister.