Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 87
"The wind and snow are getting stronger..."

On the East Palace Square, Zhu Youjian was wearing regular clothes and a big fur, walking in the snow, looking at the red walls and white snow of the Forbidden City, and lamented that the wind and snow had gotten a little bit heavier.

"Did Yang Lian receive the letter?"

He turned his head to look at Lu Wenzhao who was following behind him, Lu Wenzhao nodded and said:
"After sending five hundred miles to rush to Yanshan camp last night, Yang received the news during the incident."

"After learning that Xiong Tingbi was slandered, Yang Geshizhong immediately went to the siege, and asked Zuo Guangdou, his second assistant Liu Yixiu, Guanglu Shaoqing Zheng Sanjun and others to go to the siege as soon as possible."

"Presumably, several officials in the court have stood up for Xiong Tingbi together, but Xiong Tingbi belongs to the Chu Party. If he is so sparse, the Chu Party may already regard Xiong Tingbi as a traitor..."

After Lu Wenzhao spoke, he looked worried, but Zhu Youjian was unmoved.

In his opinion, it would be better for Xiong Tingbi to belong to the Donglin Party now.

Historically, when Xiong Tingbi was killed, among the eunuchs, the Chu Party was silent, the Zhejiang Party was the loudest, and most of the Donglin Party also said they wanted to kill Xiong Tingbi because of Wang Huazhen.

At this time, it was Yang Lian from the Donglin Party who led a small part of the Donglin Party to stand up for Xiong Tingbi.

From this point, it can be seen that Yang Lian is right and wrong.

Although Xiong Tingbi belonged to the Eunuch Party and Wang Huazhen belonged to the Donglin Party at the time, he still turned to Xiong Tingbi for the war in Liaodong.

On the contrary, Wang Huazhen, at the time when Donglin was still fighting among himself for "protecting the bear and scolding the bear", Wang Huazhen had already realized that the Donglin Party building was about to collapse, and decisively abandoned the man who was still running around defending himself for "returning to the throne". The Donglin Party turned to Wei Zhongxian.

Wei Zhongxian took the opportunity to use him to frame Yang Lian and others in the Donglin Party for "corrupting the Liaodong army's salary", defeating the remaining forces of the Donglin Party in one fell swoop.

After this wave, Wei Zhongxian directly killed more than half of the capable and factual people in the Donglin Party, and more than [-]% of the remaining people were people like Qian Qianyi and Fang Kezhuang.

At that time, only a few cadres such as Sun Chengzong, Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua, Yuan Keli, Fan Jingwen, Ni Yuanlu, and Li Banghua survived.

Therefore, just because he knew who Yang Lian was, Zhu Youjian dared to pat his chest and say what Yang Lian would say when he knew someone was impeaching Xiong Tingbi.

It's just that I don't know how noisy Wenhua Palace is now...

"Yao Zongwen and Xiong Tingbi, the governor of Liaodong, were impeached!"

Just when Zhu Youjian was still thinking about what kind of noise the Wenhua Palace would be, he didn't think that the Wenhua Palace had just begun to fight.

Zhu Youxiao, who had been prepared for a long time, frowned immediately when he saw Yao Zongwen stand up.

"Yao Jizhong, why do you want to impeach Xiong Tingbi?"

According to the procedure, Zhu Youxiao asked Yao Zongwen tirelessly, and when Yao Zongwen saw this, he intensified and said:

"My minister impeached Xiong Tingbi to manage Liaodong for more than a year, and there was no plan for everything, which made Puhe fall."

"Secondly, conceal the news and don't report it. Shangfang's sword is not seeking to help the state, but only for himself to do his best."

"Ridiculous!" Someone stood up suddenly, holding a wat board and shouted sharply:
"Long live, the censor Zuo Guangdou, the minister Zuoqian, thinks what Yao said in the incident is purely absurd!"

"Long live! Before I finished speaking, I was interrupted by the censor of Zuodu. I thought that the censor of Zuoqin should be punished for disrupting the Chang Dynasty!" Yao Zongwen snapped when he heard that the Donglin Party was going to stand up for Xiong Tingbi.

However, his words were ignored by Zhu Youxiao eccentrically. Zhu Youxiao looked at Zuo Guangdou and said:

"Zuodu Censor, is there any evidence for what you said?"

"Long live! I heard that the merchants who entered Liaodong once said that since Xiong Tingbi's management of Liaodong, although there have been small defeats, it is not a battle."

"Xiong Tingbi played his troops properly. When the old slave was captured in Kaiyuan and Tieling, the whole Liaodong was in danger."

"However, in June of this year, the old slave attacked Shenyang with an army of tens of thousands, but was repelled by the commander-in-chief He Shixian and You Shigong. Isn't this enough to describe his achievements?"

"What a joke! When will being beaten to the bottom of the city wall be counted as meritorious service?" Feng Sanyuan, the imperial censor, sneered, but Zuo Guangdou said angrily:

"What? From Feng Yushi's point of view, isn't protecting the city a credit?"

"The old man didn't say that, please don't frame up Gao Sicheng." Feng Sanyuan felt uncomfortable being fought by Zuo Guang, but the most powerful Donglin Party in the court was the verbal debate.

"Minister Zhao Nanxing of Taichang Temple thinks that Xiong Tingbi is innocent!"

"Chen Guanglu and Shaoqing Zheng Sanjun thought that Xiong Tingbi was innocent, so he was really wronged!"

"Liu Guojin and Xiong Tingbi, the principals of the Chenbing Department, are indeed useless to the Liao affairs. Long live, please remove them."

"Chen Huke seconded the matter to Yao Zongwen!"

"The censor Feng Sanyuan seconded the proposal!"

"minister……"

"It's started again..." Zhu Youxiao only felt tired when he saw the chaos in front of him where he started to stand in line again because of political affairs.

He has been watching farce like this for a whole month.

Gradually, he understood why his imperial grandfather and father didn't go to court often, but only dealt with memorials in the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Because such a permanent dynasty is useless to the operation of the court, it will only intensify the degree of party struggle.

but……

The corner of Zhu Youxiao's mouth suddenly curled up into a smile. He didn't expect that his good brother could really invite Yang Lian and Dong Lin to serve Xiong Tingbi.

It's just that Yao Zongwen and others are just small shrimps, real big fish...

Zhu Youxiao looked at Sun Ruyou and Fang Congzhe who were standing in the queue of cabinet ministers.

What disappointed Zhu Youxiao was that these two people were not moved at all, as if they didn't need to do anything about such a trivial matter.

But if they didn't make a move, Zhu Youxiao wouldn't have any opponents and good shows to watch.

Therefore, he picked up Yang Lian's memorial and said:
"All right……"

As soon as he opened his mouth, the minister of Honglu Temple struck the bell, and when the bell rang, all the officials stopped talking.

Zhu Youxiao took Yang Lian's memorial, looked at the officials and said:
"During the military affairs, Yang Lian told me that if he wanted to investigate whether Xiong Tingbi had embezzled military pay, or whether he was engaging in malpractice for personal gain, it would be better to send someone to Liaodong to investigate."

"Zhu Tongmeng from Zhongshushe..."

"The minister is here!" Hearing the emperor calling himself, a plain-looking forty-year-old civil servant came out. This person was Zhu Tongmeng from the Qi Party.

"I'll let you go and investigate the Liaodong incident." Zhu Youxiao said to Zhu Tongmeng, which made the officials of Donglin Party, Chu Party, and Zhejiang Party all look at the leader of the Qi Party, Yushi Qi (qi) Poetry teaching.

It's just that Qi Shijiao didn't look sideways. It seemed that he couldn't impeach Xiong Tingbi because of Fang Congzhe's status as Fang Congzhe's disciple.

The reason is also understood by everyone, it is only because of one person...Qi Party Zhou Yongchun.

When Zhou Yongchun of the Qi Party was governor of Liaodong and Sarhu suffered a disastrous defeat, all the parties impeached him. Fortunately, Xiong Tingbi was on Zhou Yongchun's behalf, and praised Zhou Yongchun's contribution and said:

"If the Guanxi horses were not fed by Zhou Dutang, the dead horse bones would be as high as Yiwulu Mountain."

Zhou Dutang is a respectful name for Zhou Yongchun. Yiwulu Mountain is a famous mountain in the northeast, and Zhou Yongchun and Xiong Tingbi's close cooperation repelled Nurhachi's attack, and the situation in Liaodong has initially stabilized. Add insult to injury.

However, it can also be seen that Xiong Tingbi is clearly a member of the Chu Party, but he wants to speak for the Qi Party. No wonder the Chu Party is silent now.

"Okay..." Seeing Qi Shijiao acquiesced, Zhu Youxiao also nodded and said:
"Let Zhu Tongmeng from Zhongshushe go to Liaodong to inspect Liaodong and see if the impeachment that everyone said is true..."

When Zhu Youxiao said this, a little eunuch at the door turned around and rushed towards Xuqin Palace, and told Zhu Youjian about it.

"Still arguing? Arguing for so long? Is this group of people not doing it?"

Hearing what the little eunuch said, Zhu Youjian was also very speechless.

He originally wanted to ask the little eunuch to go to the Wenhua Palace to see if the good emperor brother is coming to court, and then go to Qianqing Palace for a meal.

I never thought that the Wenhua Palace was still noisy.

"Returning to Your Highness, the ministers are arguing about the two deputy candidates to go to Liaodong. Among them, Zuo Guangdou, the censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, has the most quarrel with Yao Zongwen in the case of Huke."

"Yao Zongwen, Feng Sanyuan, and Liu Guojin won the battle against Zuodu Censor alone, and the servants were still arguing when they came back."

"That's right..." Zhu Youjian had a smile on his face when he heard the eunuch's words.

In his opinion, if the Donglin Party's lip service is put on the business, it is definitely a good thing that benefits the country and the people.

What's the point of always being partisan?It is better to have a small group of more than a dozen people like Yang Lian, so that they will not lose the chain at critical moments.

If he wanted to live so much, Zhu Youjian wanted to kill the other group of people in the Donglin Party who were eating nothing.

Although Yang Lian often impeached him, at least this little old man considered things from the perspective of the court.

His empty talk has a certain cognitive premise, and he will not be like the Donglin Party in the early Chongzhen Dynasty, who can only talk and nothing else.

"Anyway, Zhu Tongmeng has settled down, right?" Zhu Youjian thought about the Donglin Party issue in his mind for a while, and then asked about the eunuch.

The eunuch nodded and said, "Zhu Tongmeng from Zhongshushe has decided to inspect Liaodong."

"Then it's not a big problem." Zhu Youjian felt relieved.

Although Zhu Tongmeng is a member of the Qi Party, he is the kind of person who can do things in the Qi Party.

Historically, Zhu Tongmeng did not slander Xiong Tingbi after he entered Liao and returned to Beijing, probably to repay Xiong Tingbi's kindness for not slandering Zhou Yongchun.

but……

"This Fang Congzhe is actually from the Zhejiang Party..." Zhu Youjian only felt a headache.

At first he thought that Fang Congzhe had no party or affiliation, but he didn't think that this guy was just a non-partisan on the surface, but actually belonged to the Zhejiang Party.

Fortunately, this guy didn't get any great achievements in the case of moving the palace, otherwise Zhu Youjian probably wants to die now.

"We must kill the Zhejiang Party first..." he thought to himself.

The scope of the Zhejiang Party in Wanli, Taichang, and Tianqi years was extremely wide. Under the environment of uniting the Suzhou Kundang and Fengyang Xuandang, Su, Yang, Nanjing, Zhejiang, and northern Fujian all belonged to their scope.

This place gathered a quarter of the population of the Ming Dynasty, a third of land taxes, and a third of miscellaneous and commercial taxes.

If the Zhejiang Party is killed, even if someone in the Donglin Party wants to expand to southern Jiangsu, as long as Zhu Youjian is fast enough, he will be able to tear a piece of meat from it.

This piece of meat is big enough to last the Ming Dynasty for thirty years...

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian kept thinking about how to bring down the Zhejiang Party.

After much deliberation, he still put the problem on the Jingcha three years later.

"If Gao Panlong, who is extremely vindictive, is in charge of Jingchao, I am afraid that the Zhejiang party will either die or be injured."

He analyzed the characters of the leaders of the Donglin Party. According to Yang Lian's character, he was definitely not suitable to be the chief inspector of Beijing.

Yang Lian will definitely protect the capable ministers and officials in the Zhejiang Party, which is not in line with Zhu Youjian's thinking.

On the contrary, the vengeful talker Gao Panlong, in the several Beijing inspections during the Wanli period, turned the Zhejiang Party to death. This is the person Zhu Youjian needs.

However, there are still three years left in Jingcha. During these three years, maybe he can think about where to start.

In the land of the south of the Yangtze River, it is impossible for Zhu Youjian to eat all kinds of things such as land tax, miscellaneous items, commercial tax, textile tax, salt tax, mining tax, tea tax, wine tax, deed tax, and customs duties.

If you want to eat, you must choose the largest and most reasonable food, and it will not make the Zhejiang party hate him.

The land tax is not good, and most of the official supporters behind the Donglin Party are squires. Even if they get the land tax, the Donglin Party will inevitably demand that the land tax be reduced.

Jiangnan Tianfu is mainly in Nanzhili, which accounts for one-fifth of Daming's Tianfu, and Zhejiang occupies one-tenth.

There is very little money and food that can be extracted from Tianfu, and it is valued by all officials.

Even if the land tax is reduced by one percentage point, the overall loss will be about a million stones, which is only five hundred thousand taels in silver.

Miscellaneous items must not be available, and if you want to collect them regularly, you must send troops south.

Textile and business tax benefits are great, but I have no experience in running them. Salt tax and mining tax are mostly controlled by nobles and gentry.

If tariffs are to be moved, there is no need to be in the south of the Yangtze River. It is completely possible to control Xiaoliuqiu and do business while deploying water divisions.

The East-West sea trade in this era is not so exaggerated, and the annual exchange of goods is only two to three million taels of silver.

Even if the ten taxes are one, at most two to three hundred thousand taels of silver will be received.

Therefore, Zhu Youjian's goals are only tea tax, deed tax, and wine tax!
Thinking of the tea tax, Zhu Youjian's brain appeared in Jiangnan's painful tea tax income.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, private tea was strictly prohibited in Nanzhili, so the tea tax revenue in Nanzhili was more than [-] taels.

However, due to the poor population statistics of grassroots officials and the ineffective collection of tea introductions and tea classes, the tea tax in Nanzhili and Zhejiang was outrageously low.

In terms of population, the current tea tax in Nanzhili and Zhejiang is only a few thousand taels of silver, which is even lower than that in the early Ming Dynasty, but the population has more than tripled.

If the taxation was carried out strictly in accordance with the taxation in the early Ming Dynasty, even if the tea farms in Nanzhili and Zhejiang were state-owned, it would be enough to triple.

That is a basic income of at least two million taels of silver, and to facilitate this, it is entirely possible to use the imperial shop of the Yumajian.

This is just a tea tax. If the wine in Nanzhili and Zhejiang is also state-owned, then there will be at least four to five million taels of income.

This is considered to be a minimum. All dynasties have monopolized salt, wine and tea taxes, among which wine taxes and tea taxes are the most profitable.

For example, during the Renzong period of the Northern Song Dynasty, the annual income of the wine class in the Northern Song Dynasty alone was [-] million guan, which was equivalent to about [-] million taels of silver.

Of course, the wine tax in the Northern Song Dynasty was high, but even with a discount, there would be seven million taels of income.

As for the deed tax, it is the deed tax for people buying and selling fields, houses, etc. with contracts. As long as the deed tax of the Ming Dynasty is strictly collected, it is not difficult to collect one million taels of silver a year.

The prosperous Jiangnan area is the top priority for tax evasion.

In other words, as long as Zhu Youjian can eat one of the three taxes of tea, wine, and deed, he can get millions or even millions of taels of silver.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian couldn't help scolding his mother.

If the Ming Dynasty adopted the same taxation method as the Qing Dynasty, or the same taxation method as the Song Dynasty, it would be possible to more than double the annual revenue.

At that time, those civil officials said that there were many miscellaneous items, and Zhu Youjian directly called on the emperor to abolish the miscellaneous taxes that earned three to four million taels, and all the "salt, iron, tea and wine deeds" were run by the government.

At that time, it will really be no longer a dream to earn [-] million yuan in cash every year.

As long as you have enough money, the Ming army can fight you to the other side of the ocean.

"It's really greedy..." Thinking of the hidden tax potential in Jiangnan, Zhu Youjian was so greedy.

Now he can't wait to lead his troops to the south, chop up those who owe taxes, and then return to the capital with tens of millions of taels of silver.

But this thing is just thinking about it. Compared with these, what he should do more is how to think, and deal with the opportunity to make a move after three years of Beijing inspection.

No matter it is Jingcha or what, he must first have his own people, especially those who can read and understand arithmetic.

There are many such people, but not many belong to Zhu Youjian.

"Cheng'en, find someone to figure out how many children in the Nursing Homes in the North Zhili area have kindergartens who can read and write. It's best to find children between the ages of ten and sixteen."

"Your maidservant takes orders..." Wang Chengen quickly replied when he heard this, but after returning the gift, he said:

"Your Highness, do you need to speak to Long Live?"

"Naturally!" Zhu Youjian has no reason to hide from the good emperor brother, and hiding from the other party will only create a gap between the two.

Therefore, not only looking for young children, but also various other things, except for things that did not happen, other things need to be told to Zhu Youxiao.

When Wang Chengen heard this, he sent people to Qianqing Palace to inform Zhu Youxiao about the matter, and then arranged for people to investigate the Nursery School in Beizhili area.

After all these things were done, he turned his attention back to Zhu Youjian, and when Zhu Youjian saw that the wind and snow had stopped, he asked someone to lead the horse to the rear left door, and continued to prepare to play riding and shooting.

And not only riding and shooting, he also needs to learn swords and guns. After all, this era has not yet reached the level where he is invincible with firearms.

Firearms are too weather-dependent, and the quality of flint in the Ming Dynasty is not good.

As far as flintlock guns are concerned, even if the subordinates are asked to make them, judging from the craftsmanship of the people in the Military Weapons Bureau, it is estimated that they would not even dare to use the things they made.

He has already done enough things right now, if he still wants to intervene in the affairs of the Military Weapons Bureau, then one day there will be a gap between him and the good brother.

The current situation is quite good. He doesn't have to worry about the armor factory making armor and shipping it to Changping to equip the army.

Thinking about it, Zhu Youjian said to Wang Chengen:
"Tell Sun Liang of the armor factory that in the future, the armor factory will mainly manufacture cloth face armor, tie armor, chain mail and arm armor, hats with hats and phoenix-winged helmets, and other armors will not be manufactured."

"In addition, the firearms will be recast with [-] catties and [-] pieces of Flang machine guns, [-] catties of stone bullets, and [-] catties of shotgun shells."

"Tell him to make armor and guns every day. The cloth face armor still needs [-] yuan, the chain mail and gauntlets are the same, and the hat is the same."

"This..." Hearing this, Wang Chengen could only salute:
"Your Highness, although the armor factory has a fixed iron forehead, it still needs some silver to reward the craftsmen for manufacturing armor and casting artillery like this day and night."

"Transfer [-] taels of silver from Changping, and you will check it yourself after it arrives in the capital." Zhu Youjian said arrogantly:
"The craftsmen each had five taels of silver, and the extra one thousand taels were distributed to Sun Liang and all the eunuchs, telling them not to reach out to the craftsmen, and whoever dares to do so will have their head chopped off!"

"The maidservant takes orders..." Hearing Zhu Youjian's violent words, Wang Chengen knew that the other party was not joking, so he quickly sent the little eunuch to inform Sun Liang.

After notifying, he asked someone to tell Zhu Youxiao about it, and then followed Zhu Youjian to the back left door to practice riding and shooting.

At the same time, Zhu Youxiao also got the news from the eunuch of Xuqin Palace, but he didn't have any big reaction.

Perhaps it was a headache caused by the civil servant's argument just now. After he nodded in agreement, he asked Wang An to transfer [-] taels of silver from Nenu to Xuqin Palace.

His action is to tell Zhu Youjian that he has paid for the armor, and there is no need to transfer it all the way from Changping.

As for the [-] taels, it was the plan to sell grain south that he had promised him before.

After Zhu Youjian came back on horseback, it was already dusk.

Knowing that the silver had arrived, he asked Lu Wenzhao to bring Lu Jianxing to fetch the silver.

The [-] taels of silver were escorted in [-] carriages. Nearly one hundred Jin Yiwei took the [-] taels of silver to Nanzhen Fusi, and the common people avoided them along the way, for fear of getting infected with these guys.

It was not until Yinliang was escorted to the Fusi Yamen in Nanzhen that Lu Wenzhao called Lu Jianxing and his two chief banner officers into the inner hall.

"call……"

After taking a breath of tea, Lu Wenzhao looked at Lu Jianxing who was sitting on the chair, his face remained unchanged and said:
"I won't be able to help you if you leave the capital. If you want to make any requests, please make them earlier."

"Back to my lord, I don't need anything for a lowly job, please wait for the good news about my lowly job!" Lu Jianxing's face was as calm as water, which made Lu Wenzhao very satisfied.

He nodded, and then said:

"Since that's the case, let's just retire. Come get the silver tomorrow morning. When you succeed, I will tell His Highness personally and promote you to a thousand households."

"Yes!" Lu Jianxing couldn't help being excited when he heard the word "Qianhu", but he still suppressed his emotions and retreated with the two chief banner officers.

After they retreated, a figure came in from outside the hall. His face was like jade, his lips were dark red, his body was no more than five feet, a little thin, with a long knife around his waist, a bit longer than the Yanling knife. ruler.

"Take your people and follow them closely. If you have any other thoughts, bring their heads back."

"Okay..." There was no respectful response, but Lu Wenzhao was not displeased, and this person also withdrew.

When he was leaving, a young man wearing ordinary Jinyiwei clothes and carrying a long knife walked out of Nanzhen Fusi Yamen together.

After they walked out, several people came out one after another from the dark alley, and followed Lu Jianxing and the others secretly along the way.

It's just that Lu Jianxing and the others didn't know that a chief banner officer standing next to Lu Jianxing looked thin, with mantis legs and a horse's waist, and there was an ordinary Yanling knife at his waist.

After the other chief banner officer left, the chief banner opened his mouth and said:

"Brother, you are too reckless this time..."

"In this kind of world, if you fail to grasp the opportunity, you will only fail, and you will only be troubled by the second brother." Lu Jianxing looked guilty.

For his ambition, it is indeed selfish to let his sworn brother take his life, but he has no choice.

"Brother, you know that's not what I mean..." Qingshou Zongqi didn't know what to say to comfort him, and Lu Jianxing also raised his hand and said:

"This time going south, as long as you do well what His Highness sent you, you and my brother will be able to come here soon."

"You can restore the glory of your ancestors, and you have used the bestowed knife in your family's collection openly and aboveboard."

"Having said that, I still think it's impossible to earn hundreds of thousands of taels a year." Qingshou Zongqi was very rational, but Lu Jianxing comforted him:

"Don't worry, Jiangnan, I already have a clue."

"As long as you grab a few people and send some money, I don't believe you can't pry their mouths open."

"As long as you can pry the mouth open, everything will be solved."

During the conversation, the heavy snow stopped, and the two brothers walked in the snow, one high and the other low, a little lonely...

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(End of this chapter)