I'm sure of the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong!

Chapter 576 Chaos in North Korea

At the beginning of the twelfth year of Jianwu's reign, Zhu Yijiong had his first foreign imperial concubine.

The eldest daughter-in-law Princess sent by King Lee Yeon of Joseon had been educated in the harem for several years. This year, during the Chinese New Year, she was finally accepted by the emperor.

Mainly, it is not a solution to keep refusing to accept her. Li Ban thought it was because His Majesty the Ming Emperor didn't like it, so he kept sending the Korean eldest daughter to Nanjing every year. Even the cabinet would make insinuations in memorials to admonish the emperor. It should be Put national affairs first.

I don’t know since when, Zhu Yijiong’s harem has become part of the state affairs.

Compared with the emperor's harem, this North Korean concubine is not very beautiful, but she is better than her youth and vitality. Moreover, after several years of harem upbringing, she has already learned Chinese characters, and there will be no hindrance in daily communication.

The emperor accepted the concubine, and after such a night of tossing, Zhu Yijiong was completely defeated, and in the end he could only support his waist and beg for mercy.

The next day.

The emperor, who rarely took a day off, returned to his daily work.

After approving a few memorials, I saw a joint letter signed by Governor Lelang and the prefect of Pyongyang.

Pu Zheng, a North Korean scholar who was randomly used by the emperor as a chess player and placed as the prefect of Pyongyang, seemed to have completely "sinicized" himself into a Ming Korean.

This time he and Governor Lelang jointly signed a petition to the imperial court to send troops to the south to recover the "four counties of Han Dynasty".

The area under the jurisdiction of the four Han counties was so large that it even crossed the 38th Parallel in later generations, leaving only half of the land in the south. This is where the true foundation of the two classes of North Korean ministers lies.

Pu Zheng, the governor of Pyongyang, has obviously done special research and may have speculated on the court's thoughts on North Korea.

Of course, the most critical thing is that civil strife broke out in North Korea!

The Privy Council has not received any news yet, but it should be soon.

The cause of the civil strife in Korea was very abstract. The Korean king Yi Ming, who ascended the throne with the help of the Ming army, adopted the same or even more radical politics as in history in order to consolidate his royal power and declare the legitimacy of his throne. measures.

Li Bang first actively adopted the policy of pacification that had been proposed during the Suzong period on the grounds of eliminating the scourge of party strife. What is meant by "Shang Shu·Hong Fan": "Without partiality and party, the king's way is smooth; without party and partiality, the king's way is mediocre."

But this is all bullshit, just listen to it.

No matter in history or now in North Korea, the policy of pacification is a new round of party struggle due to the interference of royal power. However, in history, due to the intervention of the royal power, North Korean party strife tended to calm down, and the "meritocracy" also provided opportunities for other North Korean gentry who failed in party strife to re-enter the court.

If it is used well, it can rely on the party struggle between the ruling and opposition parties to strengthen the royal power to a certain extent.

But the problem is that North Korea in this time and space is completely different from another time and space, regardless of its political situation, national conditions, and even its territory.

In spite of this, they still adopted a policy of pacification, and even started with the more radical theory of "big pacification". Instead, many defeated Korean gentry and two classes of ministers returned to the court.

As a result, the political situation in North Korea has become unprecedentedly chaotic. Originally, it was just old and young commentators fighting each other in the party. Now, southerners and northerners have been added to the mix. There is even a mitotic split among the original old and young commentators. and Dangpingjun theory (the old theory also divided the Southern Party, the Northern Party, the Eastern Party... I don’t know how to evaluate it).

The political situation in North Korea became a mess, and Li Lan, the instigator, soon had no choice but to start reforming civil affairs.

Then... he abolished the tax system of household cloth, oral money, knot cloth and other tax laws of Suzong Korea, and instead imitated the Ming Dynasty's farming system.

Zhu Yijiong didn't know how to evaluate this homework.

It is not something that can be learned simply and casually, with the officials and gentry sharing the land.

Historically, Yongzheng's implementation of the system of selling people into acres could only be piloted in some prefectures and counties based on actual conditions. And in fact, it only increased the fiscal revenue of the imperial court. Not only did it not reduce the burden on the people, but it also increased the exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes.

Therefore, don't brag about Yongzheng being a good emperor. His only contribution was to make money for the Qing government's treasury. Well, that's it.

The reason why there were no major problems in the Ming and New Dynasties was that the land area was too small at the beginning of implementation, so the seriousness of the problem was quickly discovered and policy supplements were made. This includes, but is not limited to, direct restrictions on landlords’ tenant rents to prevent landlords and gentry from passing on conflicts and losses to the people at the bottom, thereby maintaining the normal implementation of the shareholding ratio.

This is also because the Ming Dynasty has just been established. As the founding emperor, Zhu Yijiong has unparalleled authority and can do whatever he wants.

North Korea just copied it without any supplementary policies. The results can be imagined. The two classes of nobles in North Korea would not allow Li Bin to seize their foundation like this.

As a result, under the New Deal reform of "dividing the peasants into acres, and paying the grain to the officials and gentry together", the fiscal revenue of the North Korean treasury did not increase first, but the people at the bottom finally couldn't bear it anymore and rebelled.

Originally, the people of North Korea were subjected to excessive levies and exorbitant taxes imposed by the government. In fact, the North Korean government and court were not entirely to blame for this.

Because the Ming Dynasty's garrison in Pyongyang was asking North Korea for military rations every day. Obviously these garrison troops are no longer stationed in North Korea, but serve as garrison troops in Lelang Province. But the two groups of ministers headed by King Lee Yeon and Park Moon-soo of Joseon did not dare not deny it.

Moreover, the Ming army did not take it for free. They all used the money to buy grain. Although the money was mined from the mines in North Korea, the Ming Dynasty only established a coin foundry in the mine. The newly minted silver and copper coins were transported to Seoul that day to be used as funds for the Ming army to buy food.

When the North Korean government collected military rations for Ming Dynasty's father, it was impossible to do it completely in vain, and some hard work money must be extracted from it.

After going back and forth like this, under the layers of exploitation, the amount of money distributed to the people at the bottom has long been astronomical.

I have to say that from this point of view, North Korea is indeed quite similar to the officialdom in the late Ming Dynasty.

As for whether this will starve the people to death, it is just a matter of missing a few meals. Those who starve to death are those with poor health, so why worry?

Moreover, when the people starve to death, the land becomes barren, which is perfect for them to occupy and annex to expand their family business.

The next thing is much simpler. At the end of last year, the Ming Dynasty expanded Lingbei Prefecture, so in order to speed up the opening of the post waterway in Heilongjiang Dusi, it bought more grain from North Korea as military supplies.

The over-exploited North Korean people first became hungry people and stormed the state capital to beg for food, and then were forcibly driven away and suppressed by the North Korean officers and soldiers in the state capital.

The high-ranking officials and nobles in those states and cities were not willing to give out a grain of food.

After being driven away and suppressed by the officers and soldiers, the hungry people not only did not collapse, but a young man named Jin Huan emerged from them, and led thousands of hungry people to rise up.

"Farm to eat, fight into Seoul!"

This is the slogan of the Hungry People's Rebellion Army. It is very simple and unpretentious. Eat first, then attack Seoul.

However, those North Korean officials who first suppressed the hungry people turned a blind eye to this and just sat back and watched as the hungry people fled south.

By the time Lelang Province received the news, these hungry rebels had already fought several battles with North Korean officers and soldiers, and they still won and lost.

In fact, as soon as Pu Zheng's side moved to Nanjing, King Lee Yeon of North Korea also sent troops in two groups, one to Pyongyang to move reinforcements, and the other to go directly to Nanjing to ask for help from Daming's father.

The memorial that Zhu Yijiong saw was actually somewhat lagging behind.

After looking at the memorial and thinking for a moment, Zhu Yijiong said: "The cabinet and the Privy Council have been summoned to come to the palace immediately to discuss matters."

　...Forget it, let’s leave it at that, I feel so sleepy

　　

　

(End of this chapter)