Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 176, the ultimate goal

"What do you understand?"

Emperor Hongzhi looked at Zhu Houzhao's appearance, with a look of relief on his face. He finally looked like a prince. He was also curious now, what did Zhu Houzhao understand.

"Father, do you know what the price of grain is now?"

Zhu Houzhao did not answer directly, but instead asked about the price of Emperor Hongzhi's grain.

"This... is probably about seven or eight cents a catty. After all, there is a famine."

When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he was immediately speechless. He stayed in the palace every day, surrounded by important officials in the court. Although there was a famine now, he was more concerned about how to relieve the disaster and how to adjust the grain. As for the arrival of the folk grain How much per catty, he really didn't know.

"Now the price of grain has reached more than [-] yuan a catty. When there was no famine, the price of grain was only a few cents a catty. This grain has increased more than ten times."

Zhu Houzhao is very clear about this. When he was in Tianjin, he was free because he had nothing to do, and Liu Jin asked him to show compassion for the victims, so he knew the price of the food very well.

"More than fifty cash a catty?"

When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he was immediately dumbfounded. Even though he couldn't distinguish the five grains, his body was not active, he opened his mouth when he came to eat, and stretched out his hands when he came to clothes, he knew how terrible the food had reached.

"The grain in Dezhou warehouse and Linqing warehouse must have been taken away by those grain merchants and officials in partnership. Now the grain is as expensive as gold, and people must eat it when they are hungry. Even if they go bankrupt, they must first It’s important to fill your stomach.”

"Now that they hold a large amount of grain, it's no different from holding gold and silver mountains. They also get the grain from the government. It's not up to them how much the grain sells for."

Zhu Houzhao sneered all over, and saw everything behind it clearly in an instant.

"Not bad, not bad. I didn't expect you to be able to see this layer. You really have grown up a lot. It seems that going to Tianjin this time is really not in vain."

Emperor Hongzhi looked at Zhu Houzhao and said with a smile.

Why did the grain in the official warehouse disappear? Emperor Hongzhi must have known that the officials below colluded with the merchants to resell the grain in the official warehouse.

Such things are normal and have happened since ancient times.

The officials guarding the granary are like the rats in the granary, each of them eats their brains full of fatty intestines and is full of oil and water.

In normal times, various means emerge in endlessly to exchange new grain in the granary for old grain, polished rice for bad rice, good rice for secondary rice, sand in the grain, reselling grain, false reporting of loss, etc., and so on. Every time an inventory is taken of the granary, various problems can be found out.

Although Emperor Hongzhi always knew about this, he was helpless, because even if a group of officials were abolished and replaced with new ones, they would soon repeat the old path, and the leeches were not full, and they became even worse. sharp.

Most of the time, he just turns a blind eye. As long as it is not too much, it is a tacit consent to such a behavior. This is a very helpless thing. Even as the emperor, he does not any solution.

This time, the grain in the official storehouse was gone, and he guessed it all at once. Most of the grain was resold by officials and grain merchants colluding with each other.

It's just that what he didn't expect was that at this juncture, these officials dared to resell grain on a large scale, which was almost lawless.

"Of course I see clearly, and I also know that they have bigger plans."

Zhu Houzhao was slightly complacent. He seldom received compliments from Emperor Hongzhi, so he was naturally very happy now, and continued: "It's not their real purpose to make money for the country."

"In fact, their real purpose is to target me, the prince, or our royal family."

What Zhu Houzhao said was shocking. When Emperor Hongzhi and Empress Zhang heard it, they couldn't help but widen their eyes, and they couldn't believe their ears. Why did Zhu Houzhao raise this matter to the height of targeting the prince and the royal family.

"Father, don't you believe me?"

Zhu Houzhao looked at Emperor Hongzhi, who was a little surprised, and continued: "When I was in Tianjin, Liu Jin told me that many industries in Tianjin and the Xishan Coal Industry and Glass Factory in Beijing When we go to buy grain, even if they are willing to pay a high price to buy grain, none of these grain merchants are willing to sell grain to us on a large scale, and every time they are calculated, they only sell for two or three days."

"There are tens of thousands of people working for me in Tianjin. In Beijing, there are more than [-] people working for me in Xishan Coal Industry and Glass Factory. If there is no food, these tens of thousands of people will make trouble. Get up, something big will happen."

"What a good plan!"

Zhu Houzhao couldn't help being dormant by the other party's calculations, almost intertwined.

"First, all the grain merchants united to hoard strange houses and drive up grain prices, and then colluded with the officials in the official warehouse to hold the last grain in their own hands. After completing this step, their purpose soon became apparent."

"On the one hand, someone in the imperial court will definitely ask Father to use your internal funds to buy food for disaster relief, because the treasury is almost starving to death, only Father's internal funds are very abundant now, and there were hundreds of them before. Ten thousand taels of silver, my glass factory has handed over another million taels of silver, plus the income from this period of time, they must be able to calculate it, and they will cut the wool clean in one go."

"Then this is not enough. They will definitely focus on the business of my glass factory. At that time, someone will inevitably report that I, the prince, is fighting for profit with the people, and criticize me for participating in the glass factory and many industries in Tianjin. The officials above will definitely respond positively."

"In the end, it was mostly proposed that the glass factory and many industries in Tianjin should be nationalized and transferred to the national treasury. Once that time comes, the glass and mirror manufacturing technology will definitely flow out immediately. In the end, the glass factory will become They were worthless, and they managed to transfer the golden hen into their own hands."

Zhu Houzhao peeled off the cocoon, analyzed it logically, and revealed a huge conspiracy against the current prince and the royal family.

Hearing Zhu Houzhao's words, the faces of Emperor Hongzhi and Empress Zhang suddenly became extremely ugly. It was not easy for my family to master a little profitable business, but I didn't expect to be targeted immediately, and then the famine came to me. The side played tricks, and he didn't take the emperor and imperial power seriously.

"It's really a good plan. Not only did we suck up all the wealth we saved with great difficulty, but we also wanted to get rid of the hen that lays golden eggs in our hands."

"But that's not what they're ultimately aiming for."

While analyzing, Zhu Houzhao gave his opponent a thumbs up. At the same time, he became excited. The feeling of seeing through all the enemy's schemes is really good.

"Then what is their ultimate goal?"

When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he also hurriedly asked.

"Their ultimate goal is to control the imperial power, to control me and you, father."

Zhu Houzhao said coldly, after the analysis, everything has been clarified.

"Control you and me?"

"Control the imperial power?"

When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he was immediately full of doubts. Although he was highly regarded in history and was a rare sage, he was too kind to civil servants and trusted them too much. Simply put, he was actually a good person and truly In terms of intelligence, playing tricks, etc., he is far inferior to Zhu Houzhao, let alone Zhu Houcong behind him.

"Liu Jin said it very well. The reason why a superior person is a superior person is because he has information and resources that others do not have."

"Since the Tumu Fortress change, civil servants have become more and more powerful. In the past, the military power was directly controlled by our royal family, but now the deployment of troops needs to go through the Ministry of War."

"The other one is the right to appoint and remove officials. Although our royal family has the right to appoint and remove the most important personnel, the right to recommend all the six important officials and the officials of the frontier is still in the cabinet, in the hands of civil officials, and in the final analysis is still in the hands of civil officials. "

"In addition, the financial power is also under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Household Affairs, but the treasury has always been very empty, which means that our royal family has lost financial control."

"Now the glass factory under my command and your father's Xishan Coal Industry are very profitable, especially this glass factory, which is very profitable. The money earned by this glass factory and Xishan Coal Industry is not included in the national treasury, it belongs to our internal funds and death. Library."

"This also means that this money is out of their control, and they have no way to financially restrict our royal family and limit our imperial power."

"And as long as we have money, it will be difficult for them to control what we want to do. It is difficult for them to control us like before."

"So the imperial court must be poor, the treasury must be empty, and our imperial treasury must not have too much silver, because only in this way, when we want to do something, just saying that the treasury is empty is enough to dissuade any of us. Thoughts, thus maintaining the previous situation, has been under their control."

Listening to Zhu Houzhao's analysis, Emperor Hongzhi looked at Zhu Houzhao as if he was looking at a monster. He really couldn't believe that he could think so far and so deeply from these things now that he even doubted the whole person in front of him. Could it be his own son, Zhu Houzhao, who can only pretend to be sick and skip classes, willful and playful?

But listening to Zhu Houzhao's layer-by-layer analysis, his whole face became extremely gloomy.

　From my personal point of view, the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty restricted imperial power largely because of finances. As long as the emperor said to levy commercial taxes, he would be immediately opposed by the officials. Among them, there must be representatives of merchants, but there must also be this reason, so to In the middle and late stages, the emperors who wanted to make a difference would reuse eunuchs, because eunuchs could get money for themselves and do what they wanted,

　　
　
(End of this chapter)