Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 33

"Master Shangshu, this is an imperial decree from the Supervisor of Rituals, please read it over."

Late at night, in the Wenhua Palace, when Li Ruhua, who was over half a century old, was still dealing with the affairs of the household department, two imperial edicts were placed on his desk.

When Li Ruhua heard that it was an imperial decree, he raised his head and glanced.

I saw that the specifications of these two imperial decrees were not grand, they were just written in ordinary white silk, and there were no gorgeous scrolls, so it seemed that the matter was not important.

Li Ruhua has a stubborn personality, and he hates the inaction of many officials in the government and the opposition.

He is not young anymore, he is seventy years old this year, and he is already powerless against the decadence of the ruling and opposition parties.

He plans to survive this year and resign to return to his hometown next year.

However, in his position to seek his own government, he is still in the position of Minister of the Ministry of Households for one day, and he has to do a good job for one day.

Thinking, he first opened the first imperial edict, and after looking at the content, he felt that the request was not too much.

A household servant sitting not far from him rubbed his temples, seeing Li Ruhua looking at the imperial decree, he couldn't help asking:
"Brother Maofu, what's the matter? Is there anything wrong with Long Live's will?"

"It's not..." Li Ruhua shook his head and explained to him:

"Long live wants to allocate the wasteland at the foot of Yanshan Mountain in Changping to the Imperial Horse Supervisor. Those fields are abandoned and no one cultivates them. I remember that there are quite a few of them. Ask someone to look at them."

Hearing this, the Minister of the Household Department hurriedly asked someone to fetch the yellow books in the Changping area. After searching for a while, he finally found the approximate amount of wasteland.

Holding the yellow book, he explained to Li Ruhua:

"According to the Yellow Book, there are [-] mu of plain land at the foot of Yinshan Mountain in Changping, including [-] acres of official land and [-] acres of private land."

"The wasteland around Changping, including the hills along the foot of Yanshan Mountain, probably covers more than one million mu, and there are about [-] mu suitable for grazing and farming."

"There are so many lands, and no one grows them?" Li Ruhua frowned and asked, and the servant of the household department could only smile awkwardly:

"The yellow books are copied from the old ones as usual, and the specific situation may only be known to the local guards and the government."

It is not a new thing that the yellow books are copied from the old ones. After the change of Tumubao in the Ming Dynasty, the credibility of the court has declined. It takes too much manpower and material resources to count the land and household registration population in the world every three years.

Therefore, in order to deal with it, most of the subordinate officials sent by the imperial court went to the local government to copy some farmland and give up.

That is to say, the yellow book in Li Ruhua's hand cannot actually reflect the real land situation in Changping.

As for land cultivation, since the Ming Dynasty mainly collected land taxes, it was impossible to save any money in farming.

In addition, Yanshan is too close to the outside of the Great Wall, so it is better to go to the capital to work for half a year than farming ten acres.

Trackers, folk husbands, masons, etc. are all able to make money. If it is really not good, even if they help others, they can earn more than ten yuan a day.

Although most people cannot leave their place of residence, they can still exchange for Luyin as long as the money is properly secured.

"Send someone to take a look. Within three days, the approximate number of acres must be reported."

"Young officer, let someone do it now."

Li Ruhua frowned and spoke, and the servant of the household department also understood that the so-called "approximately" was actually too much difference.

If someone invades these fields, they should hand them over early, lest the matter become a big problem and no one will be able to deal with it.

After all, it is all hilly wasteland, and the grain yield per mu is not as good as two-thirds of the flat land, so there is no need to lose your head for these days.

The Ming emperor could not control the salt merchants, maritime merchants, and gentry in the south, but the bedbugs under his nose could still be crushed to death at will.

The servant of the household department retreated, but Li Ruhua looked at his back, could only sigh, shook his head, very helpless.

He intends to change the current situation, but the disease does not accumulate in a day.

As strong as Zhang Juzheng, he can't change the situation of the Ming Dynasty, let alone Li Ruhua?

He took a pen and drew a red circle on the paddy field to the Yumajian, and after annotating it, he asked someone to send it to the Yamen of Shuntian Prefecture.

Presumably the Shuntian government office will tell the Changping officials what to do after seeing those comments.

And after he finished dealing with this matter, he looked at the next imperial decree.

It's just that compared with the previous imperial edict, the content of this imperial edict is a bit out of shape.

In this imperial decree, the content written by the Supervisor of Rites is Zhu Youxiao's meaning, to the effect that [-] acres of incense fields around Dingxing County will be allocated to the Hakka family.

Three hundred acres of incense fields may not seem like much, but Dingxing County is a county under Baoding Prefecture in Beizhili.

The Ke family is just a wet nurse. Normally, even if they allocate incense fields, they can be allocated to the towns around Dingxing County.

However, the imperial decree now requires allocating [-] mu of incense fields around Dingxing County, which is a bit presumptuous.

Li Ruhua frowned again, and after careful consideration, he commented:

"There is no official land around Dingxing County, and the official land in Jimin Town in the north can be allocated as an incense field."

In the end, he chose to dismiss the supervisor of ceremonies, and this was already considered a face for the supervisor of ceremonies.

At least he gave a solution. If it was changed to the other five, I'm afraid it would be rejected directly.

Thinking of this, he put together the memorial that he had dealt with for three or four hours together with the rejected imperial decree, and said to the Jinwu guard at the door:

"Come here, send these memorials to the middle left gate, and ask the eunuch to send them to the imperial court."

"Yes!"

Hearing this, the two Jinwu guards entered the hall and took away the memorial, and sent it to the left door of the Huangji Hall in the three main halls of the outer court, and put them directly on the eunuch's sedan chair waiting here.

Seeing that the memorial on the sedan chair was almost done, the two eunuchs also carried the memorial and rushed to the inner court.

They passed through Huagai Hall, Jinshen Hall, and the rear left door all the way, and finally arrived at the gate of Qianqing Palace.

When he came here, he placed the memorials on a military tray and carried it into the Qianqing Palace.

Since it was just dark at this moment, and there was no concubine of Zhu Youxiao in the inner court, he was still processing the memorial.

When the memorial was carried into the Hall of Mental Cultivation on the west side of the Qianqing Palace, Hakka, Wei Zhongxian, and Wang An happened to serve Zhu Youxiao here.

Therefore, when the memorial entered the palace, the imperial decree that was rejected was very conspicuous.

Ke's heart skipped a beat, with a bad premonition.

However, she still comforted herself and said, "His Royal Highness's hundreds of thousands of mu of wasteland is more likely to be rejected than my [-] mu of incense fields..."

It's just that her consolation still didn't work after all, because when Wang An walked over to receive the imperial decree and memorial, he deliberately glanced at Ke Shi.

Afterwards, Wang An took up the imperial decree and presented it with both hands, and said softly to Zhu Youxiao:

"Long live, Hubu rejected the imperial decree of the incense field."

"Huh?" Hearing this, Zhu Youxiao raised his head, took the imperial decree, and opened it with dissatisfaction.

Ke Shi looked at Zhu Youxiao eagerly, hoping that Zhu Youxiao would stand up for her.

But after a while, Zhu Youxiao raised his head and said to Keshi:
"The official fields around Kebaba and Nadingxing County are gone, and the Ministry of Household Affairs suggests that the incense fields should be placed in Jimin Town in the north."

"Natural servants are all right. Being able to have incense fields is Long Live's love for slaves." Although Ke Baba wanted to kill the officials of the household department, he could only pretend nothing happened and responded to Zhu Youxiao with a smile.

Seeing this, Zhu Youxiao also handed the imperial decree to Wang An, reminding:
"Since this is the case, let's re-draft an imperial decree and ask the Ministry of Households to allocate [-] mu of incense fields in Jimin Town to Kebaba."

"The maidservant leads the decree..." Wang An took the imperial decree and withdrew, and although Ke Shi was dissatisfied, he still hurriedly saluted:

"Thank you Long Live for your love, slaves are terrified..."

"Okay, this is what you deserve, Kebaba." Zhu Youxiao replied without raising his head, and then lowered his head and continued to process the memorial.

The mountains of memorials gave him a headache, but when Ke Shi got up, he glared at Wei Zhongxian with complaining eyes.

Wei Zhongxian shrank his neck, expressing that he was powerless to help, causing Ke Shi to grit his teeth...

(End of this chapter)