Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 20
Because the Liu family of Zhou is now the official residence of the right governor, and now he is also responsible for guarding Baoding.

In order to express his respect for himself, Zhu Youjian specially recognized Liu as his younger sister and gave Liu's national surname, taking Zhaoming as his name and Jinwo as his character.

After all, now I have caused Zhou Yuji's family to lose a son.

Now let the mistress of her family face the pursuit of two armies of thieves.

Zhu Youjian had to express this in order to soothe the hearts of loyal ministers and good generals a little bit.

"From now on, you are not only the wife of Uncle Ning Wu and Zhou Yuji, but also my younger sister, and you are a relative of the Emperor of Ming Dynasty!

So, please rest assured, Aiqing, my brother will never abandon you and other officers and soldiers defending the city. After the south is settled down in the future, I will definitely let Zhou Yuji lead the army to meet him. I hope that the imperial sister must persist! "

As soon as Zhu Youjian said that, he took the initiative to bow his hands to Mrs. Liu to express his deep trust.

As a girl, Mrs. Liu never imagined that today, His Majesty the Emperor would value her so much, and even bestow the name of the country, becoming the younger sister of the Emperor of Ming!

Although he is actually older than Zhu Youjian, the honor of being a royal relative is unmatched by anyone.

From now on, she suddenly had a sense of mission to protect her family, and was even more moved by Zhu Youjian's behavior, so she hurriedly vowed that even if the last person died in the battle, she would protect Baoding for the emperor's brother Zhu Youjian City and other languages ​​in January.

At this time, Zhou Yuji also had mixed feelings in his heart. Even though he knew that his wife was likely to die because of this, but he received such an honor from His Majesty because of this, he could be regarded as death without regret. Zhou Yuji also had to swear allegiance to the emperor Zhu Youjian even more.

Since Zhu Zhaoming, Madam Liu, was already a relative of the emperor, Empress Zhou took Zhu Zhaoming over to exchange greetings and gave gifts. This was not only the closeness of the sister-in-law to the sister-in-law, but also thanks to Zhu Zhaoming for protecting the Daming royal family.

In addition to Zhu Zhaoming, the right governor, who stayed in Baoding, Ni Yuanlu, the Minister of the household department, was also left behind.

In the days of guarding Baoding City, the most difficult thing is to collect food and grass, recruit and mobilize the bravery of the city, and call on the people to try their best to defend the city. In this regard, Ni Yuanlu, as a civil servant, is naturally more suitable than the military general Zhu Zhaoming.

What's more, Baoding City is an important city on the canal. Although the wealth of the common people was almost robbed by Li Jiantai at the beginning, most of the money and food in Baoding City were still concentrated in the hands of the local gentry.

Ni Yuanlu, as a Qingliu official and a member of the Donglin Party in the south of the Yangtze River, naturally called on these gentry to donate money and food to help the Ming army defend the city.

Of course, Zhu Youjian also had his own selfish intentions to keep Ni Yuanlu in Baoding City instead of taking him south.

Because Ni Yuanlu belongs to the Donglin Party.

Zhu Youjian predicted that in the future, once he rebuilds his foundation in Nanjing, he will inevitably be constrained by the Southern Donglin Party.

Therefore, if you can bring one less Donglin boss to the south now, try to bring one less one.

Even though Ni Yuanlu is considered a more virtuous official of the Donglin Party, and in the original history, the whole family could sacrifice for himself, but as an emperor, arranging officials is like playing chess, and cannot be arranged based on their moral character.

Naturally, Ni Yuanlu readily agreed. Zhu Zhaoming, an ex-girlfriend, dared to agree to defend the emperor Zhu Youjian for a month. As the dignified household secretary, he naturally couldn't back down.

In addition, he now also wants to do something for Daming and His Majesty the Emperor. He wants to show Zhu Youjian that he is not only loyal but also a capable minister in troubled times.

Although Zhu Youjian had selfish intentions, he was not stingy with the courtesies that should be given to these civil servants on the bright side. He immediately added Ni Yuanlu to the position of Dongge University Bachelor, and he was named Prince Taibao, so that he changed from a second-rank official to a first-rank official. A senior official, and becoming a cabinet minister, can be regarded as a show of respect.

Staying with Ni Yuanlu is Wang Chengen, the admiral of the East Factory.

Wang Chengen, as a minister, is Zhu Youjian's slave and a real confidant.

Zhu Youjian asked him to stay in Baoding City, but he didn't let him, the East Changchang, perform the post of supervisor of the army, but to be ready to sing a bad face at any time.

Zhu Youjian knows the virtues of the bureaucratic gentry in Ming Dynasty today, but they are all fat and oily, but they rarely provide money to help the refugees. Now that the defense of the city needs the support of soldiers, horses, money and food, Zhu Youjian can't send himself south. All of Zhenzhi's materials were basically kept in Baoding, so if these gentry refused to donate food, he could only let the people in Dongchang make charges and force them to collect money and food from the gentry.

The gentry who embezzled the people's fat but did not pay the national tax had to bear a lot of responsibility for the Ming Dynasty to reach the point it is today.

But they are the foundation of the entire empire rule.

Especially at the grassroots level of society, the clan rule of these gentry is more effective than the emperor himself.

Therefore, in the future, if Daming wants to revive its foundation, Zhu Youjian will have to deal with the relationship with the gentry group.

It is necessary to distribute part of the gentry's interests to the common people, but not to offend all of these gentry and make the entire gentry group completely deviate from Daming. In that case, it will be difficult for the emperor himself to make Daming rise again.

After Li Zicheng entered the capital, his biggest failure was that he did not realize that he was already the emperor of the whole world, not just the emperor of farmers, so he chose Beijing to torture all officials and extort money, which made the bureaucrats and gentry completely deviate from him. The emperor, and chose to cooperate with Jiannu.

Mr. Gu Cheng mentioned in his book "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty" that the reason why Jiannu was able to enter the Central Plains and the reason why Li Zicheng failed was the result of the cooperation between the military aristocrats of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the bureaucratic aristocrats of the Han people.

Li Zicheng's failure was because he only united the lower class Li and Shu, for example, Chuang Wang came with the slogan of not paying food, but failed to unite the upper class gentry group.

As the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youjian naturally could not completely abandon these bureaucratic gentry who were attached to him, but he could not continue to allow the bureaucratic gentry group to exploit the common people of Li.

As an emperor, he wants to redefine the relationship of social interests, so that people of all classes can rekindle their confidence in him as an emperor, and believe that following him will gain more benefits.

Most of the current gentry groups still have feelings for the Ming Dynasty. One is the influence of traditional Confucian ethics, and the other is that under the control of the civil service group, many policies of the Ming Dynasty are beneficial and lenient to the gentry, even excessively beneficial and lenient. .

In the south, all production relations, including population and land, were controlled by these gentry, so Zhu Youjian didn't have to worry about not being supported by the southern gentry after he moved south.

But now Zhu Youjian has to consider whether he will be controlled by the southern gentry after moving south, especially the Donglin Party, the representative of the southern gentry.

"Back then, after Song Gaozong moved south to Lin'an, when the world was at ease, Qin Hui went to slander Song Gaozong and kill the general Yue Fei, causing the Northern Expedition to fall short. Follow the old path of the Southern Song Dynasty, but I don't want to be Song Gaozong, Ning Wubo can't be the second Yue Fei, and I don't want the civil servants present to be the second Qin Hui, understand?"

After Zhu Youjian decided to stay in Baoding officials, he held another court meeting on what to do after moving south. At the court meeting, he straightforwardly told all the officials what he thought.

(End of this chapter)