Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 423 How to deal with the land of the vassal king

Zhu Youjian took the memorial and read it carefully.

After reading it, Zhu Youjian was quite surprised by this,
He didn't understand why the achievements of resisting the Manchu victory this time were so valued by the civil officials, and they even hoped that he would use it to sacrifice Xiaoling.

Because after the first victory against the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the civil officials did not suggest that they sacrifice to Xiaoling. Why did they value it so much this time, and even said that it was a great achievement that could comfort the ancestors of Tianen.

As the saying goes, the strong wind starts at the end of Qingping, Zhu Youjian does not think that the content of this memorial is just as simple as making sacrifices to Xiaoling.

Zhu Youjian thought about it for a while and felt that these civil servants deliberately exaggerated the achievements of the Ming Dynasty's victory over the Manchus and went south to the south. The emperor has done a good job, and his meritorious service is comparable to that of Yao and Shun, at least he can submit the paper to Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang.

And the purpose of these civil servants doing this is probably just to dissuade themselves from the Northern Expedition.

But what Zhu Youjian didn't expect was that the cabinet votes were drafted so quickly this time, and even the supervisor of ceremonial affairs became popular so quickly. It can be seen that many officials in the central internal affairs departments such as the cabinet and the supervisor of ceremonial ceremonies no longer want to The Northern Expedition.

"Forget it, if it's approved, let's approve it, and it will be arranged by the Ministry of Rites."

Zhu Youjian did not stop the decision of the cabinet and the supervisor of ceremonies, because now it is impossible to fully see the purpose of these civil servants based on this memorandum. The remonstrance of some civil officials made these civil officials mistakenly think that they were really complacent and wanted to comfort Taizu and then settle down in the south, so that they could know the next move of these civil officials.

As the emperor, Zhu Youjian didn't believe that there was no civil official who didn't want to go to the Northern Expedition, and there was no civil official who didn't want to stand up and stop these civil officials from wanting to live in peace.

Zhu Youjian felt that only by tearing these civil officials apart could he achieve his goal of further reforming the Ming Dynasty's interest structure by taking advantage of the internal struggle of the civil official group.

Even Zhu Youjian said directly to Lu Jiude: "This Cheng Jun knows the way of benevolence and filial piety, so let's promote him to Shao Zhan."

When it came to the day of sacrifice, Zhu Youjian cooperated with the ceremony arranged by the Ministry of Rites to perform sacrifices to Zhu Youjian. This was not the first time he had come to Xiaoling Mausoleum, but at this moment, in the light of spring, he It was the first time to offer sacrifices to Xiaoling, seeing Zhu Yuanzhang's appearance, Zhu Youjian couldn't help laughing secretly.

While saluting Zhu Yuanzhang according to the ceremony, Zhu Youjian muttered to himself: "Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang, you can't blame me for your Ming Dynasty to come to this point. If it wasn't for my hard work to keep half of the country, otherwise, with your descendants ability, as early as three years ago, your Great Ming Dynasty was almost defeated."

"But now it's a good thing, these descendants of yours don't know how to thank me, but they still sing against me, but don't worry, I will clean up your unworthy descendants for you!"

Zhu Youjian said that he wanted to deal with Zhu Yuanzhang's unworthy descendants. Naturally, he was referring to Lu Wang Zhu Changxiao and Fu Wang Zhu Yousong and other vassal princes. He would not be led by the nose by these civil servants. Transforming the vassal is something he has been concerned about.

However, shortly after Zhu Youjian finished offering sacrifices to Xiaoling, Zhu Youjian received another memorial, which was from Guozijian’s sacrifice to Xu Ke, which said that the palace where His Majesty Zhu Youjian lived had not been rebuilt. , The imperial mausoleum has not yet been built, which makes the officials feel uneasy and so on.

Zhu Youjian was even more affirmed when he saw this memorial. He confirmed that these civil servants wanted him to shift his attention to repairing the palace and building the imperial mausoleum.

However, this time, Zhu Youjian chose to stay in China, and he never gave these civil officials who did not want the Northern Expedition a clear confidence.

At this time, I hope that the officials of the Northern Expedition, after seeing Zhu Youjian's move, began to think that Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youjian was still aggressive and wanted to go to the Northern Expedition. Just leave it unpublished.

Therefore, officials who hoped that the imperial court could start the Northern Expedition also began to submit memorials. The first one to submit memorials was Chen Chunde, the censor of Zuodu. Take care, like the northern capital is occupied by the Hu people, as a minister, you should not settle down in the south of the Yangtze River, you should go to the north as soon as possible, recover the northern capital to revive the Ming Dynasty, etc.

When Chen Chunde said this, the officials who did not want the Northern Expedition did not dare to oppose the Northern Expedition, but they still found an excuse to say that the Northern Expedition should be postponed. Rest with the people and so on.

Officials of the two factions who supported the Northern Expedition and asked to suspend the Northern Expedition or even did not want the Northern Expedition began to quarrel, but the emperor Zhu Youjian did not participate.

Needless to say, King Lu and King Fu, he and his family will be executed, and Zhu Youjian's idea for other vassal kings who did not follow the uprising is to resettle all these vassal kings back to Beijing, but their fiefdoms are not Cancel instead prepare to reschedule.

"Now these vassal kings are in other places. Although they don't participate in local government affairs, they haven't played the role of guarding one side for the court. Instead, they are easily instigated by villains to make troubles and threaten my country and society. Now King Lu and King Fu This is an example, so what I mean is to recall all these vassal kings to the capital, so that they can be supervised."

When Zhu Youjian said this, Gao Hongtu, the chief assistant of the cabinet, stood up first and said: "Your Majesty, my vassal king of Ming Dynasty actually has little influence on the court in terms of rebellion. After all, they have no military power and no matter what they do. It's unjust. I thought that what they really threatened me, Ming Dynasty, was the fertile land they occupied. These feudal lords had too much fertile land, but they didn't pay taxes, so I thought that the most important thing now is how to get rid of these lands. The land occupied by the vassal king is returned to the people."

"I've already thought about this, how much land these vassals have, I will give them ten times the land in exchange," Zhu Youjian said.

The chief assistant of the cabinet, Gao Hongtu, and the Minister of the Household Department, Liu Wanchun, were both surprised, and Liu Wanchun exclaimed even more: "Your Majesty, didn't we say that the biggest problem of the vassal king is that he occupies too much land? Why do you have to use ten times as much land?" Land exchange?"

"The ten times the land I'm talking about is here." Zhu Youjian pointed out the location of America and Oceania in Kunyu Wanguo Quantu and said: "You can change the territory of King Gui to a certain place here, and you can seal the territory of King Lu. The territory should be sealed here, these lands are vast, not to mention ten times or twenty times as vast, and I am willing to change them."

(End of this chapter)