Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 411
"A new yamen will be added..."

"This time it's a benevolent government, and it can be considered as a solution to the livelihood of the group of people in the nursing home who eat the imperial court and some old and weak women and children..."

On the second day of May, when Zhu Youjian's decree was issued to the capital, the Ministry of Industry got busy again.

Fortunately, this time they set up a bureau, not a department, otherwise they would probably have ridiculed Zhu Youjian secretly.

Since Zhu Youjian took power and Qi Wangfu intervened in the cabinet, the central yamen was divided into three classes: Ministry, Division, and Bureau.

Right now, there are six ministries, 35 divisions, and 86 bureaus in the Ming Dynasty, of which nineteen divisions are the chief secretaries of the local provinces, and the remaining sixteen divisions are directly affiliated to the central government.

In the sixteen divisions, there are such high-status yamen as the Shibu Division, the Salt Division, the Tea Division, the Wine Division, and the Mining Division, as well as many Qingshui yamen.

In the Bureau, there are such important places as the Ordnance Bureau and the Gunpowder Bureau, as well as the Huimin Pharmacy Bureau, which was previously included in the system and has nothing to do with it.

Although the Environmental Sanitation Bureau manages a lot of people, they are all old, weak, sick and disabled, and looking at the various rules written by His Royal Highness Qi Wang, it is obvious that the significance of this work is more beneficial to the people than political.

"One percent, wouldn't it be necessary to recruit 10,000+ new people?"

In the Wenhua Hall of the Imperial Palace, Shi Fenglai frowned and spoke, and in front of him were Gu Bingqian, Bi Ziyan, Yuan Keli, and Sun Chengzong.

Facing dissatisfaction, Yuan Keli calmed down and said calmly:

"The people in the nursing home are raising and raising. Why don't you take this opportunity to let some old and weak people come out, and there are also many old women in the local area who need this job."

"There are more than [-] counties in the country. The lowest wages range from [-] Wen in Nanjing City to [-] Wen in Beijing, and then to [-] or [-] Wen in Yunnan, Guangxi and other places. The level is different, and the expenditure is also different."

"The Ministry of Household Affairs has made some calculations. Even if we take one of them and raise more than 50 people, it's only an extra [-] million taels of silver per year."

"This year, the taxes of the Salt Division, the Wine Division, the Tea Division, and the Mining Division have all increased. The Shibo Division and the Nanchang Weaving Bureau have also increased a lot of taxes. These 10 taels of silver are very important to the court. does not matter."

"Your Highness makes such an arrangement, so there is naturally His Highness's reason..."

"Old man..." Hearing Yuan Keli's words, Shi Fenglai's eyes twitched.

"Your Highness on the left, there is another truth. Those who don't know may think that you are a person trained by King Qi."

Shi Fenglai cursed secretly in his heart, while Gu Bingqian, Sun Chengzong, and Bi Ziyan also glanced at Yuan Keli.

In the final analysis, the people sitting in the cabinet, who didn't take advantage of the situation to sit up?
But the problem is that everyone is borrowing the power, basically borrowing the power of the party. Even Yuan Keli, Sun Chengzong, Bi Ziyan, and Gu Bingqian came to power after Zhu Youjian nodded, but Zhu Youjian also saw that they had power and sat down. They had to be in a stable position to let them come up.

This group of old fritters has grasped Zhu Youjian's idea, that is, Zhu Youjian personally does not want generals to become big, which will cause chaos like the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.

The current Daming actually has signs of becoming a general, and the first to bear the brunt is Huang Long who fought bloody for Daming in South Asia.

If you have money and soldiers, you just need to raise your arms.

This is also due to the fact that the soldiers and common people of Ming Dynasty respected King Qi and the emperor. If King Qi and the emperor lost the popular support, Huanglong could take the Old Port to separatist rule and fight against the Mughals at the same time.

The size of Xiaoxiyang, Jiugang, and Nanzhou is not small. If it is really calculated, the things directly controlled by Huanglong will look like this on paper:
With a territory of more than 500 million square kilometers, and a population of 4000 million in South Central India, Ceylon, Old Port, and Nanzhou, the 45th Battalion of the Twelve Guards has nearly 20 troops, and more than [-] million mu of arable land. More than sixteen million taels.

It can be said that Huanglong's territory is equivalent to a small Ming Dynasty.

Without Zhu Youjian, he would have been able to rely on his current capital to be promoted to the most powerful third empire in the world at the moment of separatism, even if Spain and the Holy Roman Empire were behind him.

Because of this, Zhu Youjian sent Lu Xiangsheng to Xiaoxiyang, and at the same time extended the sphere of influence of the Southern Army Governor's Mansion to Jiugang, and kept Shen Tingyang in Jiugang.

With these people around, and the fact that the seven major shipyards of the Ming Dynasty were all in the hands of the imperial court, Huanglong had no chance to raise the flag.

Of course, Huang Long was unwilling to raise the flag in his heart, because Zhu Youjian was still there, and his feelings for Zhu Youjian were three points grateful, three points fear, three points respect and one point complaint.

I am grateful that Zhu Youjian promoted him, I am afraid that he knows how easy it is for Zhu Youjian to deal with him, I respect him because he admires Zhu Youjian's methods, and that point of complaint...

Naturally, it comes from the fact that Zhu Youjian does not sit on the throne.

Huang Long has always looked down on Zhu Youxiao, or in other words, he has looked down on everyone except Zhu Youjian.

His small thoughts, in the eyes of a group of people who watched him closely, could not be hidden at all.

This is also the reason why civil servants know that Huanglong is easy to incite, but no one is willing to incite.

To put it bluntly, if Zhu Youjian was in that position for a day, Huang Long would be a house slave for a day.

They didn't dare to disobey Zhu Youjian, but many times the people below were dissatisfied, and they could only give some dissatisfied reactions.

Zhu Youjian is no longer the political novice back then. He also knows the difficulties of these party leaders and knows that they don't want to be enemies with him, so he didn't embarrass them personally.

It's easy to kill them, even if Zhu Youjian is hundreds of miles away in Dading Palace, as long as he signals, all the party leaders will be eliminated.

It's just that after the settlement, the Yanshan family is dominant, and the leaders of the various parties who came up later must also hate the Qi Palace, which is not worth the candle.

Although Shi Fenglai and the others were annoying to watch, they still didn't have the guts to do some treasonous things, and it might be a little uncertain if they were replaced by a group of people.

They are like this, they act weak at critical moments, and they will be tougher when necessary, but toughness often leaves enough room for Zhu Youjian.

Yuan Keli moved out Zhu Youjian right now, obviously showing weakness, and Shi Fenglai naturally couldn't refute it when he saw this, after all, he moved Zhu Youjian out.

Originally, he was discussing policy issues, but now Yuan Keli promoted him to Zhu Youjian, and his rebuttal was tantamount to opposing Zhu Youjian.

Maybe Zhu Youjian would smile openly after hearing about this kind of thing, but maybe that group of jackals in Yanshan...

Shi Fenglai closed his mouth, but Yuan Keli sneered in his heart, Bi Ziyan sat on his ostrich with his head down, Sun Chengzong was helpless, Gu Bingqian was there.

The five old foxes all shut their mouths, and none of them said a word.

Helpless, in the end it was Bi Ziyan who had the most things to do to break the deadlock:

"The Ministry of Household Affairs is expected to have a surplus of 740 million taels this year. This is also a good thing for the Environmental Sanitation Bureau. I support the approval of the bonus."

After all, Bi Ziyan made the case, and Yuan Keli and Sun Chengzong followed suit.

"support"

The two spoke one after the other, and Shi Fenglai saw the appearance of the two of them, his teeth itched with hatred in his heart, so he could only follow suit: "Support..."

All four supported, except for Muxiu's Huang Liji and Zhu Xieyuan who were not present, Gu Bingqian was the only one left.

Gu Bingqian didn't need to express his opinion, he only needed to nod or shake his head.

Now that Yuan Keli and the others have already approved the proposal, he naturally nodded in front of everyone:

"In this case, let's issue it. As for the doctor of the Environmental Sanitation Bureau, how about Chen Zizhuang, a member of the Ministry of War, who is a foreigner?"

Chen Zizhuang is one of the officials of Tianqi's four-year attachment to the Qi Royal Party. His family is a famous family in Nanhai, Guangzhou.

Last year, after Qi Wang's party was transformed into Gu's party, he withdrew from Gu's party, and Gu Bingqian used his reason, to put it bluntly, to install a person who did not belong to any party.

"Can……"

Shi Fenglai did not refute, because in his opinion, the Environmental Sanitation Bureau is a hard job.

"Can……"

Yuan Keli and the other three also spoke one after another, obviously they all looked down on this position, or felt that this position did not affect the overall situation.

"In this case, the old man will approve the red hair..."

Gu Bingqian slowly endorsed the memorial, and then summoned the academicians of the Hanlin Academy to forward the memorial to them.

In this way, Zhu Youjian's order was well implemented.

But after the execution, the topic of getting the five of them together was inevitable.

"Since the beginning of the new year, the Metropolitan Procuratorate has arrested more than [-] officials in the four months before and after. Are these people convicted by the Ministry of Punishment?"

Shi Feng looked at Gu Bingqian and questioned him, but when Gu Bingqian heard the words, he responded unkindly:
"The evidence handed over by Jin Yiwei is investigated by the Metropolitan Procuratorate. The Ministry of Punishment follows the rules. Is there anything wrong with it?"

The Ministry of Punishment has been a hard job in recent years, especially in the civil uprising in northern Shaanxi. Zhu Youjian began to vigorously fight against corruption.

Zhou Yanru was assigned to this position, and Gu Bingqian felt a little helpless.

Compared with the time when Cheng De went to Dading Palace to meet Zhu Youjian, the conversation between the two was only a few days, but in these few days, there were hundreds more officials who were transferred by the Metropolitan Procuratorate to the Ministry of Punishment.

Obviously, after expressing his position to Zhu Youjian, Cheng De's hands became more ruthless.

Lu Wenzhao was searching for evidence, and at the same time checked Jinyiwei and Yumajian himself, Chengde relied on evidence to check people, they finished everything, and finally tied people to the Ministry of Criminal Affairs, leaving this pile of "shit" to Zhou Yanru to eat .

Zhou Yanru ate it, but Gu Bingqian had to help him wipe his mouth.

It should be noted that among the more than two thousand and 800 officials who were punished, two-thirds were members of the Zhejiang Party and the Gu Party, and the remaining third were members of Yanshan and other parties.

This case is equivalent to the severed finger of Yanshan, the severed arms of Gu Dang and Zhe Dang.

Shi Fenglai wanted to find an explanation, but Gu Bingqian still wanted to.

Where is this statement?It's not on the two of Dading Palace.

Let your power and schemes reign supreme, and your schemes are unrivaled in the world, but the first level of officials crushes people to death, and you are the emperor and the courtiers.

Who can stop what the two brothers are going to do?

At such a time, Shi Fenglai didn't lick his wounds, and came here to deliberately find fault. It was strange that Gu Bingqian had a good face.

Naturally, Gu Bingqian did not show a good face, and Shi Fenglai also felt that his tone was too strong, so he continued to add:

"Do you need to check again?"

When he said this, Gu Bingqian was also a little moved, but soon he put this thought behind him, and said:

"The memorial has been submitted to Dading Palace, and the matter has been decided."

"This..." Hearing that the memorials were handed in, although Shi Fenglai was a little depressed, he could only keep his mouth shut.

The appearance of the two made Yuan Keli and the others feel very comfortable.

Bi Ziyan has no party, so he can be said to be obedient to Zhu Youjian, he can be said to be obedient to Zhu Youxiao, and it is even more permissible to be said to be obedient to Gu Bingqian. That's all.

As for Yuan Keli and Sun Chengzong?
Of the hundreds of officials of the Donglin Party, there are only about [-] big and small cats left. The crackdown by Lu Wenzhao and Chengde seems serious, but it is of no use to them at all.

People such as Fan Jingwen and Ni Yuanlu were sent to serve as officials in the three prefectures of Taining. Only Yuan Keli, Sun Chengzong, Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua, and Li Banghua remained among the Donglin officials within the capital and the Great Wall.

However, among these five people, Xu Guangqi still went to work as an official. He will come to the capital to report on his work in the near future, and then he will retire and return to his hometown.

As a result, there are only four Donglin officials south of the Great Wall, and it is difficult to reach them.

As for many Donglin officials who were framed and framed by Wei Zhongxian and Cui Chengxiu at the beginning, they are still farming in Yunnan and Nanzhou with their faces facing the red soil and their backs facing the sky.

Regarding these officials, it is not that Yuan Keli did not go to the school to ask Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youjian to pardon them, but every time he went to the school, nothing happened.

Obviously, Zhu Youjian and Zhu Youxiao did not want to employ Donglin Party officials, and even if they were pardoned, they would not be allowed to return to their places of origin.

This is also the reason why Yuan Keli and Zhu Youjian are at odds politically, because the political ideas of the two have conflicted, and naturally they cannot reconcile as before.

After discussion and discussion, no one can solve this problem.

In this situation, no one can feel at ease.

Cabinet ministers, six ministers, five military commanders...

In the eyes of the people and most officials, these extremely human ministers have climbed to the extreme.

However, they were frightened by any imperial decree of Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youjian, and they ran around, maybe one day they would be abandoned by Zhu Youjian and return home.

In their view, Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youjian should be the most reassuring people in the Ming Dynasty.

However, this is not the case...

"Twenty-eight thousand and twenty-five people, 820 million mu of arable land, and 230 million taels of gold and silver after various goods..."

When Gu Bingqian and others were worried, Zhu Youjian also sat in the Changchun Palace and watched the memorials and processing results sent by the Ministry of Punishment, as well as the results of the inspection.

"With so much gold and silver, the imperial court can breathe a sigh of relief."

Zhu Youxiao sat next to Zhu Youjian, turned his head to look at the content of the memorial, and sighed.

"After all, each of them embezzled more than 800 taels of silver, and for such a small amount of money, they took advantage of the three clans, this is really..."

Zhu Youxiao shook his head, but Zhu Youjian felt that his brother didn't eat meat when he heard the words, so he couldn't help but said:
"More than 800 taels of silver is not a lot. Brother, do you know how many years it takes for a strong man in the outer city of Beijing to earn 800 taels of silver?"

"This..." Zhu Youxiao hesitated for a while. He really didn't understand this for a long time. It was only after hearing that Lifu's wages increased after the drought ended that he felt that 800 taels was not much, so he frowned and said:
"Naturally, ordinary people are not as good as officials, but 800 taels of silver will last for 40 years at most..."

"More than that, it will take 80 years!" Zhu Youjian shook his head, and then said:
"Brother, you haven't visited the capital for a long time. Although the wages of the peasants have risen due to the end of the drought, they have only risen back to the level of the sixth year of Tianqi."

"This is still Lifu in the capital. If it is more remote, such as Yunnan and Guizhou, even if you are a commoner, you will need to eat and drink for 200 years to earn the 800 taels of silver."

"Minfu and Lifu are already people with good incomes everywhere. In fact, the wages of many people are still between five and thirty."

Zhu Youjian's words made Zhu Youxiao stunned. He didn't expect the wages in the capital to rise, but they only rose back to the level of Tianqi's six years.

"How are the prices now? Compared with the six years of Tianqi..." Zhu Youxiao asked hesitantly, and Zhu Youjian couldn't help being a little silent when he heard the question.

How are the private prices?This question is very good, but it is a pity that the current price of goods has increased by about [-]% compared with the six years of Tianqi, while the income of the people has not increased at all, but has dropped.

"It has risen by about [-]%, which is due to various reasons, such as severe drought, inflow of gold and silver and other problems."

Zhu Youjian talked about the inflow of gold and silver. Perhaps Zhu Youxiao didn't understand this economic problem, and neither did many Ming officials.

Even if Bi Ziyan is brought over, Bi Ziyan himself can't understand it, and Zhu Youjian is the person who understands this problem best, and this problem is also his problem.

From the first year of the apocalypse to the present, nearly 30 million gold and silver have poured into Daming from overseas, while the amount of gold and silver circulating in the market of Daming is only [-] billion taels.

How did the gold and silver flow into Daming?Zhu Youjian knows better than anyone else.

It can be said that Zhu Youjian, with his own power, turned Daming, which was originally a silver-strapped country, into a slightly stagnant Ming now.

He also realized this, so he started to store gold and silver to mint coins early.

However, with the outbreak of war between Ming Dynasty and the South Asian continent, the continuous flow of gold and silver into Ming Dynasty became a headache for Zhu Youjian.

Before, there was more gold and less silver, but now there is more silver.

The use of these gold and silver is a loss to Daming, and even more to Zhu Youjian.

Because of this, Zhu Youjian terminated the original national government school, followed by household registration statistics, and finally the rise of the bank, the national one-time strategy of distributing gold and silver, and changed the strategy to a province-by-province model.

"Currently the household registration statistics in Beizhili are still going on, and I estimate that it will end by the end of the year."

Zhu Youjian looked at Zhu Youxiao's explanation, and continued:

"The number of students participating in Enke and imperial examinations this year is about 30, and the number is much smaller."

"But even so, as long as 30 of the 3 people can be selected, the number of officials in our dynasty will still be in a positive growth state, and those who fail the exam will be recruited as instructors by the Department of Justice."

"Except for Shandong in the north, the number of paper males in the remaining four provinces and four prefectures is more than 300 million. I estimate that the number of students enrolled in the four provinces should be less than [-] million."

"About 15 yuan is needed for teaching this year, and the imperial court's expenditure will increase by 260 million taels accordingly."

"Teachers plus officials, a total of 18 people, the court should add less than 300 million taels of silver expenditure."

Zhu Youjian picked out everything and told Zhu Youxiao, but Zhu Youxiao laughed when he heard the words:
"I've read the memorials of the Ministry of Household Affairs. They estimate that this year they will have a surplus of more than 700 million taels. The 300 million taels of my brother plus the expenditures of the sanitation bureau are only less than 400 million taels."

"The imperial court can still have a balance of 300 million taels, besides, the tens of millions of taels of gold and silver that Huanglong asked to transport will soon arrive in Tianjin?"

"There is a younger brother in the kingdom, and my heart is at ease."

Zhu Youxiao looked heartless, as if the entire Ming Dynasty was thriving and had ushered in a prosperous age.

But everyone knows that there are many hidden internal conflicts under the Ming Dynasty.

The current prosperous situation is ushered in by Zhu Youjian's use of war and various policies to alleviate some people's livelihood conflicts.

Once faced with a more severe situation, if Zhu Youjian can no longer alleviate the new conflicts, then Daming will still show his dejection.

Internally, disaster relief and corruption must be cured, and externally, we must expand the territory...

If Zhu Youjian makes a mistake, or misses a glance at the folks, the ship of Ming Dynasty is still at risk of sinking.

That's a lot of tens of millions of taels of silver, and there are also a lot of tens of millions of rice and wheat in the local stockpile, but Zhu Youjian has already experienced the power of the severe drought.

Just like him in the sixth year of Apocalypse, at that time he thought that next year he would earn more than 6000 million stones and more than 2000 million taels of silver, and that although the severe drought was more difficult, he could survive it.

The results showed slaps in the face, corrupt officials were digging walls, severe droughts caused crop failure in the north, and officials in the south also stole.

They thought that if the fields were divided, the people would get the benefits, and the family would have surplus food. Even if the court did not provide disaster relief, the people would be able to survive the first wave of severe drought in the past three years.

Who knows that the people below don't even want to lose their face for corruption. They have to collect the tax that the court has reduced, and they have to collect the tax that the court has not reduced.

Before the civil uprising in northern Shaanxi, Zhu Youjian thought that in Shaanxi, the common people had thousands of catties of surplus grain, and they could survive the three-year drought with a little hardship.

As a result, after the civil uprising, the reality told him that the millions of people in Shaanxi did not even have enough rice and wheat to feed them for a year.

If there were no corrupt officials in Shaanxi and Shanxi, the graves of Lao Nu and Huang Taiji would be three feet high.

Zhu Youjian's original plan to deal with Jianlu was defeated by this civil uprising, which was abruptly delayed for three years.

Now three years have passed, and five months have passed in the fourth year. Zhu Youjian only has two years and seven months to destroy Jianlu.

He couldn't grasp this opportunity, so he had to wait more than ten years later.

A severe drought that spread to six northern provinces was enough to change the offensive and defensive positions between Ming and Jin. The precarious Jianlu had three years of development time, and now they have achieved self-sufficiency by relying on potatoes and sweet potatoes.

If you don't intervene, I'm afraid that Huang Taiji will gallop outside Daming Pass with the golden army horse infantry who has regained their vitality.

The lesson is right in front of you, Zhu Youjian must first settle the outside before he can rule the inside next.

Thinking of this, he looked at Zhu Youxiao, took a deep breath, and said with firm eyes:

"Brother, I'm going to prepare food and grass to be shipped to Liaodong and Taining in the first month of next year. I will send troops in June and build prisoners in Liting..."

(End of this chapter)