Reborn Ming Dynasty as Emperor

Chapter 409
In the blink of an eye, it has been the 13th year of Tianqi, and before he knew it, Zhu Youxiao found that he had been emperor for six years.

In just six years, the Ming Dynasty has completely transformed from a declining feudal dynasty with various social conflicts intensified and on the verge of extinction into a trust empire with highly developed productivity, sharply increased social wealth, and greatly enhanced national defense capabilities.

In this regard, Zhu Youxiao felt very relieved. In the past six years, although he could not be said to have done his best, there was indeed not a day when he did not devote his time and energy to state affairs, so that he did not make a good effort to be a foolish king.

But to make the Ming Empire into what it is today, all this is worth it.

For Zhu Youjian who was escorted back from the Northwest, Zhu Youjian did not execute him. After all, Zhu Youjian did pass his various temptations, which also shows that Zhu Youjian may be black-bellied or ruthless, but It is indeed a person who has a country and a country in his heart and understands righteousness.

This may be the reason why the original Emperor Chongzhen chose to hang himself despite many mistakes during his reign.

Although in fact, Zhu Youxiao is just a modern person, and he and Zhu Youjian are not brothers, but when he thinks that Zhu Youjian is also a tragic historical figure, he has some pity for him. One of the reasons why the school did not execute Zhu Youjian at the beginning was not only considering whether killing Zhu Youjian without authorization would be completely eccentric and vicious, but also not ruling out sympathy for the future Emperor Chongzhen.

Now that Zhu Youjian has no intention of becoming an emperor and is much more honest, there is no need for Zhu Youxiao to give himself the reputation of killing his younger brother.

What's more, now that I have absolutely mastered the military and financial power of the whole country, and the entire social class has also changed, even if Zhu Youjian wants to rebel, there is no possibility of rebellion.

But in order to declare his majesty as an emperor, to show other vassals to be honest, Zhu Youjian was still deprived of all his positions, and he was still detained in Xiyuan, letting him and the Zhou family live a leisurely life life.

However, in the months after Zhu Youjian was escorted to Beijing to his removal from office and his detention in Xiyuan on the grounds that his improper command caused huge losses in the Western Expedition, Zhu Youxiao did not meet Zhu Youjian.

Until the Spring Festival in the 13th year of the Apocalypse arrived, Zhu Youxiao and Queen Zhang Yan held a family banquet with the palace to entertain Zhu Youjian and his wife Zhou Shi.

Mrs. Zhou was very happy. Instead of letting Zhu Youjian go out and suffer all kinds of hardships, it would be better to be detained in Xiyuan by the emperor's brother. Although he couldn't go out, it was considered peaceful.

And Zhu Youjian was obviously much more honest than before. When he saw Zhu Youxiao, he came over and saluted first: "I have seen Your Majesty!" He called "Your Majesty" instead of "Emperor Brother", which was obviously much more respectful. But Zhu Youxiao also felt that the distance between Zhu Youjian and himself was a little farther.

However, it can also be felt that the years of military career have made this impulsive and irritable His Royal Highness Xinwang a lot calmer and more cautious. At least he finally has a sense of awe in front of himself, the king.

"As long as you are afraid of me, I don't expect you to be grateful to me," Zhu Youxiao couldn't help thinking, and then let Zhu Youjian sit down, and said: "Since you are back in the capital, don't worry about it anymore." After marching and fighting, you have to think about the future, and don't think about living like this. I, Ming, never support idlers. Now the Ministry of War is preparing to publish a newspaper about military equipment. To be an editor with the title of chief officer of the Ministry of War, don’t think it’s just a job with a pen, but the knowledge in it is not small, and it’s the most patience to test people, are you willing to do it?”

Zhu Youjian didn't dare to disobey Zhu Youxiao's wishes, not to mention that now that he is idle and doing nothing, he is very happy to have a serious job to do, so he hurriedly thanked Zhu Youxiao for the order.

Zhu Youxiao is also happy to be a follower of enthusiasm. In a short time, he does not intend to let Zhu Youjian participate in the military war. After all, Zhu Youjian is now participating in the recovery of Liaodong and the elimination of the Horqin and Khalkha tribes and the Western Expedition He has made many meritorious deeds in the war, and has gained some prestige in the military system because of this, so from the perspective of the emperor's selfishness, he intends to temporarily hide Zhu Youjian.

A vassal king like Zhu Youjian did not pose much of a military threat in the Ming Dynasty. Before, at most it would bring a heavy economic burden to the central court. Now these vassal kings are locked in the capital, and all have to engage in various industries and beyond. Self-sufficient, although the salary given by the imperial court is still quite generous, but they can no longer carry out land annexation and they also have to pay taxes, and they can no longer become a burden on the empire.

Therefore, the current Zhu Youxiao no longer worries about how much trouble these vassal kings will cause and how much trouble they will bring to him.

But now for Daming, the biggest problem is no longer the financial pressure brought by the privileged class of vassal kings and gentry, but now the biggest problem is that with the development of industrial capital, new capitalist classes begin to appear, and Now, due to the Thomas capitalism adopted by Ming Dynasty, that is, the state controls capital, the officials who control the state machine have begun to transform into capitalists. They represent different capital forces behind them, and as a result, official strife is still serious.

The struggle between the first assistant and the second assistant is still intensifying. Li Mingrui thought that he could successfully help His Majesty Zhu Youxiao get rid of Zhu Youjian, and thus further establish his position in Zhu Youxiao's heart.

But what Li Mingrui didn't expect was that his trip to the northwest actually rescued Zhu Youjian from the bitter cold in the northwest. Still feeling very depressed, he thought that he failed to show his resourcefulness and talent in front of His Majesty Zhu Youxiao this time.

But Qian Qianyi was different. When he saw Li Mingrui's displeasure over Xin Wang Zhu Youxiao's miscalculation, he immediately became in a good mood, and even deliberately asked Li Mingrui why he was angry.

Zhu Youxiao also expressed his helplessness regarding the open and secret fight between the two cabinet scholars. He naturally hated the party struggle, otherwise he would not return. Will it make the party struggle in the court more intense if he comes to the government?

In the Chongzhen Dynasty in the original history, the struggle between Lu Xiangsheng and Yang Sichang had never stopped, and even Chongzhen was used to being used by these civil officials, so that whenever there was trouble, they would be made a big fuss by these civil officials. The character defect made many ministers wronged innocently.

Now Zhu Youxiao doesn't want to be used by these civil servants, so he is impartial to the struggle between Qian Qianyi and Li Mingrui. Of course, he will beat it from time to time, at least not let the struggle between the two parties affect the normal state of the court. Operation and policy planning.

Li Mingrui is a core member of the royalist party, and also a key figure who initially chose to stand on the side of the emperor Zhu Youxiao to challenge the ruling class of scholar-bureaucrats. Therefore, Zhu Youxiao also gave him many benefits in the royal capital.

Not only let him get dividends in the royal capital, but also allow the Li family to invest in new products such as soap, perfume, and facial masks that the court cannot take care of, just like letting the Mao family run the Royal Weaving Bureau.

Therefore, the current Li Mingrui family is also extremely rich, and is even regarded as a big capitalist in essence. Especially after the opening of the sea trade, the Royal Minsheng Company run by his Li family has made a lot of money.

It can be said that Li Mingrui has now become Wu, the representative of the emerging capitalist family, and not only him, but also his son-in-law Gong Yonggu, Yang Tingchun, Minister of Industry Huo Weihua, Minister of Household Affairs Guo Yunhou, and the military officers of the imperial guard system, etc. They are all emerging vested interests after the commercial tax reform and the opening of maritime trade.

They advocated that Ming should continue to expand overseas trade and open the markets of some closed countries, especially Japan, in order to maximize their commercial interests. They even advocated the use of giant ships and cannons to recapture what originally belonged to Ming but was now taken by Western colonists. Go overseas vassals.

And Qian Qianyi was able to enter the royalist camp, from the beginning it was not because of the same political ideas as Zhu Youxiao, and even the pursuit of interests was not the same as the royalist party, and the reason why he was able to become the chief assistant was because he Shameless enough and cruel enough to himself, he first voted for burning Donglin Academy, then won the affirmation and recognition of Zhu Youxue by cutting off his descendants, and finally relied on his shameless advantage to become the leader and assistant.

But in essence, he is still a traditional gentry, representing the interests of the traditional gentry class. He was the highest-ranking official in the imperial court, so he became the leader of the new traditional gentry officials.

Although Qian Qianyi and other conservative officials who are still trying their best to maintain the interests of the gentry class do not dare to directly oppose the New Deal policies of His Majesty Zhu Youxiao, they will often cause some obstacles indirectly. People fight more and more fiercely.

In many cases, although Qian Qianyi, the leader of the conservative school, is a shameless person criticized and reviled by others, most of the officials belong to the Hanlin Academy and Kedao officials. In terms of integrity, it is relatively clean.

Although Li Mingrui and other reformist officials are determined to reform, because they occupy most of the most profitable institutions in Ming Dynasty, it is inevitable that every reformist official will be clean and self-confident in this situation. In many cases, these officials are doing practical things While reaping the benefits as much as possible.

Therefore, when the two factions are fighting, especially when they are fighting with crimes such as corruption, in many cases, the conservative faction becomes the righteous side, while the reformist faction is exposed because of unsuccessful actions.

This forced Zhu Youxiao to stand on the side of the reformists in many times in terms of belief in governing the country, but sometimes he had to support the conservatives intellectually, especially from the perspective of justice.

This seems to be uncommon. When Wang Anshi reformed the law, there was a saying that most of the officials who supported the reform were villains. This phenomenon also occurred in Zhang Juzheng's New Deal. However, in the background of the incident, the Conservative Party represented by Weng Tonghe represented the righteous party, and Zuo Zongtang and other Westernization factions were the villains of this unjust case.

Therefore, this is also the reason why Zhu Youxiao no longer fully understands these conservative officials after eradicating the Donglin Party. In many cases, he will even selectively let some incorruptible or obedient conservative officials occupy high positions and be responsible. The purpose of the important positions is to allow them to play a supervisory role over reform officials.

In particular, let these conservative officials serve as officials in science and technology. In this way, although they have power, they cannot interfere with the direction of the government, but it does make the reform officials have to restrain themselves.

This can be regarded as a kind of emperor's mind, and what Zhu Youxiao has to do is to maintain the balance between the two parties, so that the reformist can promote reform and development stably and effectively, and the conservative officials should play a good role in supervision function, so that the entire Ming Dynasty's official administration will not become rapidly corrupt due to the accumulation of wealth.

Sometimes the corruption of a capitalist country is not much better than that of a feudal country, so Zhu Youxiao has to pay attention to this.

However, there was an incident recently that made Zhu Youxiao smell a bad sign, because Liu Ruyu, the admiral of the East Factory, submitted a letter that was placed in the study of Cao Sicheng, the censor of Zuodu.

However, the content of this letter was written by Cao Sicheng, the censor of Zuodu, to Zhu Youjian, His Royal Highness Xinwang, but the content was just asking about the rhythm of poetry. Even so, this is still a relatively sensitive event.

Because according to Zhu Youxiao's intention, His Royal Highness Xin Wang is forbidden to interact with all officials, except for a few officials of the Ministry of War who have to communicate because of official duties, so this undoubtedly aroused Zhu Youxiao's vigilance.

However, Zhu Youxiao did not rashly arrest a dignified Zuodu censor and enter the imperial prison to ask him why he did not know the benefits and wanted to deal with a declining vassal king who had been controlled, and he was still a vassal king whose identity was still sensitive. This is purely not something that an official with a bit of IQ would do, not to mention colluding with the vassal king is a taboo for officials.

Zhu Youxiao's intuition is that this incident should definitely be a conspiracy, and the greatest possibility is the struggle between the reformists and the conservatives.Therefore, Zhu Youxiao decided to stand still, and ordered Dongchang to pretend that the incident had never happened, but he could investigate secretly.

At the same time, Zhu Youxiao was also waiting to see whether officials from a certain faction would stand up and point fingers at Cao Sicheng after he deliberately did not expose the matter.Many officials in the imperial court are more cunning than foxes. Sometimes it is difficult for Zhu Youxiao to find out the real team of these officials even by relying on Dongchang. In many cases, Zhu Youxiao can only distinguish by insinuating.

Therefore, Zhu Youxiao doesn't know that Cao Sicheng and Li Mingrui are close, so he has to see who will stand up first. As long as whoever stands up and points at Cao Sicheng first, he can judge which faction can't hold back and wants to fight. matter.

But now he can at least judge one thing, that is, Cao Sicheng can no longer be a neutral person on the surface, otherwise no one would get a letter about Zhu Youjian in his study.

(End of this chapter)