Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 163 King Qi's Party

"I think Zhu Xieyuan has abandoned us and gone to King Qi!"

When the news that Zhu Xieyuan rejected the Zhejiang Party's request was sent back to the capital, the ministers of the Zhejiang Party gathered in Zhu Guozuo's mansion that night, and their words were full of offense and impeachment.

Zhu Guozuo, who was sitting in the main seat, looked at the chaos in front of him and felt a headache, while another cabinet minister sitting beside him, Shen Yu (guan), was watching his nose and his heart.

At the head of them is Yao Zongwen, the third person in the Zhejiang Party, and he is also angrily cursing Zhu Xieyuan's actions.

After a while, Zhu Guozuo suddenly said:

"okay……"

One sound, one hundred sounds closed.

Everyone shut their mouths and looked at Zhu Guozuo one after another, and Zhu Guozuo also frowned and said:

"It's his business if he doesn't agree, but the transfer of officials is our business."

"As long as the fellow villagers of the official department and the official department operate well, it is easy to transfer some fellow villagers to Huguang, Guangxi, Yunnan and Sichuan to become officials."

"But if Zhu Xieyuan didn't call these fellow countrymen, they would have no merit." Yao Zongwen said sharply, and Zhu Guozuo responded:
"If the five provinces near Guizhou are all my children from East Zhejiang, even if he is reluctant, he still needs to be transferred."

"Instead of worrying about this, it's better to think about things in Shanxi and the south."

Shanxi and the south...

After these two words came out, the officials shut their mouths.

Shanxi and the south refer to things in Shanxi and the south of Beizhili.

Qi Wang Zhu Youjian was in charge of the imperial horse supervisor and soldiers and horses, and implemented a mighty army to clear up the fields, and absorbed all the more than [-] battalion soldiers and horses in Shanxi into the imperial horse supervisor.

In this way, the Yumajian has the strength of sixteen guards and forty battalions.

More importantly, these nearly [-] soldiers and horses are still stationed in Shanxi and North Zhili.

Who was the last person in the Ming Dynasty who could deploy [-] troops at will?It seems to be Zhu Jianshen, the emperor of Chenghua.

But even Zhu Jianshen, in addition to having [-] soldiers and horses, is subject to taxation.

But right now, Yumajian's finance and taxation are self-contained. After clarifying the acres of land in the two provinces, I am afraid that the number of acres under their control will exceed [-] million.

[-] million acres of land, tens of millions of tenants, more than [-] troops in the pass, [-] to [-] soldiers and horses in the Liao Town...

Thinking about it carefully, now it seems that in addition to the two points of the local government and officials, the emperor has to be restricted. For other things, civil servants can no longer compete for imperial power.

"Damn Donglin..."

Many Zhejiang party officials cursed loudly, just because before Donglin's rise, the civil service forces formed by the five parties including Qi, Chu, Zhejiang, Xuankun, etc., even Wanli had to bow their heads.

Well, because of the great famine in Huaibei, the two sides fought internally, which gave the imperial power a chance.

In this regard, they all underestimated the two brothers Zhu Youxiao, especially the current king of Qi, Zhu Youjian.

However, in more than a year, how could the situation have undergone such earth-shaking changes?
"There is news from Shanxi that King Qi is going to ban and reform the clan system."

Shen Yuhu's opening attracted everyone's attention, and he lowered his eyes and continued:
"The prince can still be hereditary, but after the king of the county, it will decrease."

"When it comes to Fengguo generals and county lords, they will distribute cash as real salary."

"The lieutenant's sons, county lords and others under the second rank will be given out fields ranging from [-] to [-] mu."

Having said that, Shen Yu suddenly raised his head and said:

"After the news spread, Zhou Fan and Chu Fan reacted the most. Many clan children hoped that the emperor would push away the new clan laws in Hebei provinces."

"Isn't this great?" Yao Zongwen asked puzzled:
"After the new law is changed, those vassals no longer need money and food from the government, and the children of the vassals have to pay land taxes. How do you think of us..."

"It's good for us, but it's not Tian Fu." Zhu Guozuo interrupted Yao Zongwen, calmly said:

"There are thirty-seven vassal kings in the world, counting the king of Qi right now, there are four princes in Beijing who have no vassals and collaterals."

"Zhou Fan is the largest feudal clan in the world, while the Jin and Dai feudal clans were originally the third and fourth great feudal clans. They are being reformed now only because King Qi holds the military power."

"The innovation has already made Zhou Fan and Chu Fan displeased. With the words of Luoyang, perhaps..."

Zhu Guozuo didn't say it clearly, but the idea of ​​wooing the vassal was almost written on his face.

He didn't want to win over the vassal king to rebel, but wanted to use the vassal king to put pressure on the emperor.

Use the pressure of the vassal king to divert the attention of the staff mobilization.

"The one from Luoyang had a lot of grudges with us back then..."

There was something in Yao Zongwen's words, and everyone knew that he was talking about the "struggle for the foundation of the country" back then.

"Leave him alone." Zhu Guozuo frowned, obviously not wanting to mention this matter.

"It's time to restrain King Qi. Give King Qi a few more years, I'm afraid the situation will get worse." Shen Yu said, and Zhu Guozuo nodded slightly:

"The only advantage of King Qi and Long Live is that King Qi is young and cannot meet the conditions for becoming a vassal."

"As long as it takes five years to let King Qi get married, then we can ask King Qi and King Rui to become a vassal together according to the ancestral system."

It is an unspoken rule of the clan system of the Ming Dynasty that the king of the vassal should become a vassal one year after he gets married.

The speed with which the feudal vassal is established depends on the degree of threat that the vassal king considers to the civil servants.

Right now, Zhu Youjian has already reached the level where the five parties of Qi, Chu, Zhejiang, Xuan, and Kun are united.

As long as Zhu Youjian becomes a vassal, it is tantamount to breaking the emperor's arm.

But if you want to transfer Zhu Youjian, the first thing you will face is the more than [-] troops in Beizhili, Shanxi, and Liaodong.

The only thing that can resist this force is the local authority and the number of officials.

As long as the local government, officials, and "people's hearts" are firmly in control, even if the emperor wants to mobilize troops to fight the world again, it is impossible to achieve it.

Once the two sides tear their skins apart, civil servants can cut off food and taxes.

Even if the taxation of the Yumajian can support more than [-] troops to fight non-stop for a year, after the city is conquered, people still need to manage the city.

The governing officials here have become a problem.

If they don't have their own people, they can only use the children of officials who used to have status. Once they are in power, as long as one person cuts off the supply of food and grass, hundreds of thousands of troops will starve to death on the front line.

It is to use their own officials, or use soldiers and horses to guard the city, but as long as the powerful gentry in the city wave their arms, thousands of tenants will be coerced into chaos.

Unless the emperor can leave hundreds of soldiers and horses in hundreds of counties in the north.

Otherwise, as long as there is one weak point, the embankment of a thousand miles will be destroyed by ant nests.

This was one of the reasons why the civil servants were able to overwhelm the emperor with their power. As for whether the emperor would send troops to directly attack the city while slaughtering powerful gentry?
Civil servants don't have to worry about this, because such an approach will only make all the powerful gentry, even big landlords and small and medium landlords fall to them.

As long as the war drags on for a long time, slowly, the imperial army will be dragged down by the local government.

Therefore, what can defeat one side of power is often the newly rising power of the other side, a power that has nothing to do with the former power.

This force must have a complete team, and what is still missing in the emperor's team is officials and local support...

The main Zhejiang party ministers in the courtyard squinted their eyes, thinking non-stop.

According to Zhu Guozuo's words, that is, in the next few years, they must firmly control the issues of local power and official origin.

"It's hard..."

Thinking of Zhu Youjian's age, a group of Zhejiang party officials felt as uncomfortable as eating shit.

At present, most of the Zhejiang Party officials have survived the Jiajing and Longqing years, and they are basically in their fifties or sixties.

In five or six years, Zhu Youjian might be able to kill a group of them.

Right now in the entire Ming Dynasty, they are probably the ones who most hope that Zhu Youjian will grow up quickly.

Or……

"It's better to encourage King Qi to become a feudal vassal early..."

In Shixunfang in the capital city, with the appearance of a familiar voice, a scene of more than a dozen people sitting in the main hall of the mansion appeared.

The person who spoke was Liu Yixiu who Zhu Youjian was very familiar with.

Next to Liu Yixiu was Zhao Nanxing, the left servant of the Ministry of Officials, and under the main seat were Zhou Chaorui, Zuo Guangdou, Yang Lian, Gu Dazhang and a dozen others.

But what is rare is that Gao Panlong is not among them, it can be seen that Liu Yixiu and others are already a little bored with him because of his repeated talk.

In the meeting hall, as soon as Liu Yixiu opened his mouth, Zhao Nanxing next to him said:

"Although the king of Qi has rectified the Beizhili and Shanxi guards this time, it is true that the soldiers and horses of the three towns have been abolished."

"The vassal king's command of soldiers is the way to bring disaster. Even if King Qi and Long live brothers and friends are respectful now, who knows, will there be a gap as they grow older?"

"How did Qin Shihuang treat Chang'an Jun as a coward? What about after that?"

Zhao Nanxing did not choose to gamble on the everlasting friendship, but analyzed it based on human nature.

From their point of view, Zhu Youxiao is okay, but Zhu Youjian is too young, and his ambition may grow in his future growth path.

Maybe if he was an adult, he would be a little more controllable, but that was impossible after all, he was still a teenager after all.

"The abolition of King Qi..." Hu De and Hu Ke both spoke to Yuan Huazhong, and said while everyone was looking at him:
"The three towns in Shanxi were abolished and garrisoned by imperial horses to supervise soldiers and horses. This relieved the pressure on the household department, and it was also a credit for the army's farmland to be included in the land tax."

"After careful calculation, the farmland of the Yumajian should have reached [-] mu, and the land tax and additional payment they paid each year totaled nearly five million shi."

Yuan Huazhong was talking, but everyone frowned and wanted to know what he wanted to say.

In this regard, Yuan Huazhong did not hide much, but continued:
"My meaning is very simple. In the forty-seventh year of Wanli, the expenditure of the Ministry of Households was still negative. The reason is that the military pay of the Nine Frontiers was nearly [-] million taels, while the annual income of the Six Ministries of the Central Committee and the Internal Fund was only more than [-] million taels. .”

"And what about now? The three towns and Ji Town in Shanxi have been abolished one after another. The soldiers and horses of these four towns have saved nearly five million taels of military pay. The soldiers and horses stationed in the four towns are now under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Horse Supervisor. and be self-sufficient.”

"In this way, the military salary of Nine Frontiers has been reduced to seven million taels, and the land tax of Yumajian has increased the income of the court."

"The current situation is far better than I thought."

Yuan Huazhong's words silenced everyone in Donglin.

They said that the reform of the vassal king is the way to bring disaster, but judging from the cooperation between Zhu Youjian and Zhu Youxiao this year, they are the main force that reversed the current situation in the Ming Dynasty, and what about them?

The reform and reform they want has not been written yet.

Finally, the emperor was going to use Wang Yingjiao's memorial to carry out reforms, but was blocked by other parties.

Thinking of this, even if someone snorted coldly:
"If it wasn't for Zhu Guozuo and others, I'm afraid the new law has already been promulgated and implemented, and the people all over the world can breathe a sigh of relief."

The person who spoke was Zhou Chaorui. Yang Lian glanced at him and didn't say anything, but Liu Yixiu saw this move.

Liu Yixiu was curious about Yang Lian who was getting more and more silent, and wanted to know what he was thinking, so he asked after a while:

"Wen Ru, you are the one among us who has had the most contact with King Qi, please tell me what you think."

Liu Yixiu's words made everyone look at Yang Lian, wanting to know what kind of Zhu Youjian he had come into contact with.

Faced with more than a dozen gazes, Yang Lian sighed in his heart, organized his thoughts again, and then said:
"King Qi, if there is no change, Daming will definitely be rejuvenated!"

In a word, it gives the biggest hidden danger and the highest evaluation.

You must know that the words "ZTE" should not be used indiscriminately, but Yang Lian still gave such a high evaluation.

This shows that Zhu Youjian does have such an ability, but this ability is in the vassal king, not in the emperor, which is a hidden danger.

If the emperor had such ability, it might not be good news for most civil servants, but it would definitely be good news for a small number of people and most of the common people.

"King Qi is still young, and he is very close to Wansui, so it should be fine in the short term."

At this moment, Zuo Guangdou suddenly interjected a sentence, and this sentence was also on everyone's mind.

After all, it has only been fourteen months since Zhu Youxiao was enthroned with Zhu Youjian's support. Even if it were to change, it would not change so quickly.

The closest day for Zhu Youjian to sit in that position was that night.

"King Qi is reforming, and the new clan law promulgated is not bad. I think it can still be supported."

Liu Yixiu spoke, but after he spoke, a new question came up.

support?That's very simple, just don't impeach the dozen or so people sitting here, but the question is what about the people below?

Right now, the Donglin Party is not a dense interest organization. It really has common interests. It is a time in history when the party struggles won and absorbed many officials from the five parties of Qi, Chu, Zhejiang, Xuan, and Kun.

But in this world, this move was stopped by Zhu Youjian's balance, so they still haven't taken that step.

Without interests, there would be no command ability recognized by everyone, and no one would obey.

This is the embarrassing situation of party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty.

High cohesion means that the interests behind it are very involved, so reforms cannot be easily implemented.

Low cohesion means that there are few interests involved behind it, so there will not be such a big motivation to carry out reforms.

In a group of Donglin Party members who are basically small and medium-sized landlords and even rich peasants.

Exempting that little bit of land tax is not very tempting for them at all.

On the contrary, the cost of instigating some of them can be described as cheap.

For example, Yang Lian, based on his annual income of the Yang family, is only five or six hundred shi of grain, converted to two hundred taels of silver.

If he has no integrity, spending two hundred taels of silver is enough to bribe him.

Rich peasant officials like Yang Lian can be found everywhere in the Donglin Party, but there are very few people with his integrity.

The low cost of bribery determines that the officials of the five parties headed by the Zhejiang Party can use their benefits to silence most of the Donglin Party at certain times.

As long as it is not a power struggle between the two sides, most of the Donglin party members still stand in line with the attitude of fishing in troubled waters.

"I am afraid that many people will impeach King Qi's reformation of the clan tomorrow."

Liu Yixiu has experienced too much, and he already knows what he will face tomorrow.

No matter what he said, everyone was silent, and at this time, they were lucky to have Ye Xianggao.

This is the advantage of Ye Xianggao, no matter what the matter is, talk to each other first, settle the matter down and then talk slowly.

His existence has eased the party struggle, but it is also suppressing the party struggle.

When the repression is too much, all the contradictions will explode completely at a certain moment.

"Aqiu!"

When Liu Yixiu thought so, Ye Xianggao, who was on duty in the Wenhua Hall outside the imperial palace, sneezed.

He sniffed, then looked down at the dozens of memorials in front of him, feeling a headache.

In the inner court, there were also people who frowned tightly and walked left and right.

"I just said, this little bastard must be worried and kind. He is just trying to make an example to the monkeys. The next step is to do something to Xun'er!"

In Renshou Palace, Imperial Concubine Zheng was speaking rudely, while worrying about Zhu Changxun who was far away in Luoyang.

Her words were heard by Cui Wensheng who had been serving her, but he didn't say anything.

After such a move was reacted by Concubine Zheng Huanggui, she immediately looked at Cui Wensheng angrily and said:
"What don't you want to say?"

"Mother Hui..." Cui Wensheng knelt down to return the salute, and then said:

"The servant is thinking about how to tell His Royal Highness Fu the news."

"Hmph!" Upon hearing this, Imperial Concubine Zheng snorted coldly, remembering what happened some time ago.

The reason for the incident was that the communication between Renshou Palace and Fuwangfu was almost discovered by Jin Yiwei, so she had to have all the pigeons released.

After this incident, Imperial Concubine Zheng was still angry because of this, and killed several slaves.

On the contrary, it was Cui Wensheng who notified in time, because of this incident, he squeezed into the eyes of Concubine Zheng again.

Perhaps in her opinion, if Cui Wensheng was really instigated last time, she should not miss this opportunity instead of telling herself to release the pigeons.

Therefore, Imperial Concubine Zheng is very satisfied with the current Cui Wensheng, so she said:

"In the future, let the maidservant who goes out to buy from the palace to deliver the letter. The carrier pigeon can no longer be kept in the palace, and it is easy to be caught."

"As for the content of the letter, just remind Xun'er and tell him not to let that little guy Zhu Youjian get caught."

"The maidservant takes orders..." Hearing this, Cui Wensheng immediately bowed and exited the Renshou Palace, and then arranged for his trusted maidservant to deliver the letter.

But after making arrangements, he walked to a rockery in the corner of Renshou Palace, took out a pen and paper, moistened the dry ink on the brush with his saliva, and then wrote the news he had investigated.

After writing and drying, he stuffed the note into the rockery, and then left.

After a few hours, a eunuch who was pouring water came here, while carefully pouring water, he took out a note from a familiar place and hid it in his bosom.

When the water was finished, he took the letter paper and left.

The letter paper was tossed and turned, and finally in the hands of the eunuch from a young age, it was in the hands of Lu Jianxing, the commander of the Jinyiwei Supervision Department, and then it was re-copied and sent to Yangqu County thousands of miles away.

When the news arrived, it was already three days later.

Standing at the door of the snow-covered big tent, Zhu Youjian looked at the handwriting in his hand, showing a hint of contempt:
"My dear third uncle, I really want to know what you can do..."

After all, Zhu Youjian threw the letter paper in his hand into the stove next to him, and Lu Wenzhao who was standing behind him also said:

"Your Highness, if Wen Chen and Fu Wang really join forces, it may not be good."

"Don't worry, they won't join forces unless the situation is exhausted. After all, they are rivals who have been fighting for fifteen years." Zhu Youjian glanced at Lu Wenzhao, and Lu Wenzhao also knew what his highness was talking about.

Fight for the country...

That incident happened more than [-] years ago and lasted for [-] years, indirectly leading to the political struggle that weakened Ming Dynasty.

The matter of fighting for the foundation of the country was originally a political event that the Wanli Emperor loved Concubine Zheng and wanted to abolish the elders and establish the younger ones, which was strongly opposed by the ministers.

Regarding the issue of Yi Chu, the ministers have been fighting with the emperor for 15 years, and many things have happened during this period, but there is no doubt that this is the first time that the civil officials have united against the emperor since Jiajing used means to split the civil officials.

"Struggling for the foundation of the country" is essentially a struggle for power. What the emperor and ministers are fighting for is "who has the final say" in the country's major affairs, and what they are fighting for is the right to speak over the country.

Throughout the dynasties, the most important thing in a country is to establish a reserve. There is no greater event than "who decides who will be the supreme ruler". This is the fundamental power. Wanli and the civil official group are fighting for this core power.

Civil officials can bite dogs, and they can fight within the party, but such internal struggles always maintain a bottom line, that is, power is always in the hands of civil servants.

Therefore, when Emperor Wanli proposed the matter of easy storage, he was essentially challenging the rule of "establishing the son and establishing the elder" that the civil official group had recognized for more than two hundred years.

"Today cut five cities, tomorrow cut ten cities, and then have to sleep overnight. Starting to look at the four realms, and the Qin army is coming. However, the land of the princes is limited, and the desire to tyranny the Qin is insatiable. Urgent. Therefore, if there is no war, the victory of the strong and the weak has been judged."

The words in the "Six Kingdoms" use simple and straightforward principles to retreat one step at a time.

The problem of easy storage is allowed today, and miscellaneous items will not be allowed tomorrow?Let the Imperial College?Let the power of local taxation and governance?

The ministers in the middle and late Wanli period were all elites who survived the Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong periods. Everyone understood this truth, so even the Donglin Party, which was united in fighting against dissidents, stood among the five parties of Qi, Chu, Zhejiang, Xuan, and Kun at that time.

The "battle over the foundation of the country" was so intense and complex in the Wanli Dynasty that it was simply unimaginable.

Later generations often say that Wanli has not been in court for decades, and they regard Wanli as a lazy emperor, but the real reason is that his courtship has no effect.

The power is in the hands of civil servants, and his only power may be to approve the promotion and transfer of personnel in the Ministry of Officials.

So he launched the "struggle for the foundation of the country" in order to win back some power from the civil society. If he has power in his hands, he will work harder than anyone else in the court.

It's a pity that Emperor Wanli lost this power struggle in the end, but he who failed chose not to give any promotion and promotion to the Ministry of Officials and the Ministry of War.

It can only be said that he has the heart of Emperor Jiajing, but he does not have the means and patience of Emperor Jiajing.

In the end, a mess was left and it was left to the two brothers Zhu Youjian and Zhu Youxiao.

The only thing to be thankful for may be that he boiled away all the spirits among the civil servants, leaving a group of stinky fish and rotten shrimps, who staged a pecking game on the court.

As for the so-called vegetable chicken, it is the five parties of Qi, Chu, Zhejiang, Xuan and Kun.

Zhu Youjian didn't care about them.

To put it bluntly, they are not as good as the Donglin Party at the moment, not just generally, but greatly.

In history, with the help of Fang Congzhe and Sun Ruyou, they couldn't beat the Donglin Party.

If it hadn't been for Wei Zhongxian's decision to rely on Wei Zhongxian in the end, and the Donglin Party had offended the emperor and lost the support of the imperial power, maybe the five parties would have been defeated by the Donglin Party in the end.

At present, the imperial power is in Zhu Youjian, not between Donglin and the five parties.

In other words, there is no chance for the five parties to turn over their cards.

They have no other means but to procrastinate.

"Let's make you sick for a few more years..."

While thinking about it, Zhu Youjian flicked his sleeves and walked into the big tent, followed by Lu Wenzhao.

Finally, the footprints in front of the tent were slowly covered and swallowed by the heavy snow...

　There is one more at four o'clock in the afternoon

　　
　
(End of this chapter)