Wanli Xinming

Chapter 311

Beginning in the autumn of the 12th year of Wanli, the fat and strong horses kept breaking the speed records of the racecourse, and the minds of the people in the capital were also stirred up.

The Censor Desk and Liu Ke almost swarmed up, impeaching the clan headed by the King of Zhou.On the one hand, this bet on horses has indeed corrupted the social atmosphere, and on the other hand, impeaching the clan can be regarded as the political correctness of the Ming Dynasty—an old tradition.Especially after the reform of the clan, the princes stationed in Beijing were closely monitored by the clan's mansion and the imperial censor.

King Zhou didn't think too much before he took the lead in organizing the horse race. As a descendant of Taizu who used to dominate the fiefdom, he felt that he was restrained in holding a horse race.I didn't force people to gamble, did I?On the contrary, according to the idea given by Zheng Wang, each betting ticket of the Jockey Club has a limited bet, and the maximum limit for each person to buy a horse is no more than ten taels of silver—only 20 silver dollars. What is this money for?
Besides, Master Xuanzong of this dynasty especially liked to play with crickets. He searched from the south of the Yangtze River. One good cricket was dozens of taels.The old man started gambling, winning and losing hundreds of thousands. When the whole country followed the game, no one jumped out to admonish him. Instead, he did the deed of "rule of benevolence and propaganda".

In today's peaceful and prosperous age, hammer pills, polo, cuju, rugby, archery, javelin and other projects are in full swing. The emperor will go to Beijing Normal University to watch the game every three or five minutes, and sometimes he personally presides over the kick-off ceremony - this is what the emperor of Taiping looks like!
I just added some fun and excitement to the horse racing event, how could I be wrong? !What went wrong?The belly button of the Beijing Cuju guild gambling is all black, and there is one person in it, and there is no manure shovel in the horse club.
This is not rough, but who made him come from the clan?The Cuju guild was run by merchants, and the censors would lose their share of the battle with them.Therefore, the unfortunate King of Zhou waited for two months to play the chapter, and he had to tell the court, and was forced to hire a staff to help write the defense memorial.

Although Dan Zhang was waiting for him, Zhu Yijun and the imperial clan kept all the memorials about horse racing, and there was no good way for the imperial censor and the gimmick.In this way, this horse club opened its doors amid the scolding from the court and the opposition, and in less than half a year, despite the infamy, it grew into the largest trading company in the Jingshi service industry.

The pressure from the imperial censor and the incident was not a big deal, but the public opinion of the two major daily newspapers in the capital could not stand it.When Zhou Wang first moved to the capital, he read the newspaper every day: "Today's Commentary" and "Serialization of Novels" in each issue did not fall into place, and he even arranged for someone to cut the newspaper.If the serialization is interrupted any day, he must personally go to the newspaper to make a noise.

But recently this paper can't be read.There must be people who scold him and the clan. In the past, King Zheng was aggrieved by himself, and because of the relationship between King Zheng and the dean of the Gewu Academy, he had a good reputation among the people, and now it stinks on the street - I don't know which one is quick to blame King Zheng. The matter of giving advice to King Zhou and participating in the stock market was shared with reporters.

One day, the master who helped Zhou Wang write the memorial was suddenly blessed, and he came up with an idea: "My lord, this newspaper can't scold any flowers, why don't you buy a few xiongwen with a lot of money, and let the newspaper wash your body with sewage? Zhang Yuande, who is in charge of "Jingshi Daily" and Sui'anbo, who is in charge of "Xinmin Daily", can still see your old man standing in this cesspool without pulling?"

Zhou Wangxian frowned while covering his nose and said, "Sir, what do you mean by standing in a cesspool? What do you mean by 'don't pull'? You're not using the word 'pull' well."

A picture suddenly appeared in the staff's mind, and he almost vomited, and apologized with a wry smile.King Zhou was disgusted with disgust, but he was good-natured, took the post to visit Zhang Yuande and Chen Shu in person, and asked these two guys to help.

The two didn't dare to agree at first, but King Zhou had a lot of face and couldn't make it hard, which made him embarrassed. ——But the words that the newspaper is the mouthpiece of the emperor have long been rotten in the stomach of the two, and they can only hesitate.

A few days later, Suian Bo seized the opportunity to ask for his decree, and the Xinmin Daily immediately dispatched a newspaper to interview King Zhou at a large sum, and decided to help him cleanse him. From then on, King Zhou became a British prince who was a black man in the Jingshi Daily and who was arrogant. Zhang Yuangong's knee followed his brother Zhanbaoer with an arrow, and the King of Zhou scolded him when he saw him, saying that Zhang Rong had given birth to two bad seeds.

This reporter is really talented, and he is well versed in the manipulation of public opinion. He has written several articles in a row, and today is the last one discussed at the Zhou Palace.This article starts from the origin of gambling, and then sorts out the laws and edicts that prohibit gambling in the past dynasties.

The article first said that since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, gambling has been prohibited in all dynasties.The most stringent period of prohibition of gambling laws was in the Song Dynasty.The code "Song Xingtong" formulated by Zhao Kuangyin at the beginning of the establishment of the country has a clear legal text on the prohibition of gambling.In actual implementation, it even exceeded the legal restrictions. During the Song Taizong period, the punishment for gambling was unprecedented:
"In the second year of Chunhua, the second month of the second month is ugly, and the capital Pubo (gambling) is ordered to be arrested by Kaifeng Prefecture, and the offenders will be executed. Those who hide gamblers who do not report them will be guilty of the same crime. Those who open cabinets (casinos) will be punished. same crime".Beheaded if caught, nothing more.

The second most severe is the Yuan Dynasty. "Folk gambling is forbidden, offenders can stick seventy, and they will flow to the north, and their money and goods will not be included in officials; officials will be dismissed from office, and miscellaneous duties will be discussed after the term. Opening a blog house, the crime is the same." The regulations are severe and detailed. .

When the dynasty came, Taizu, at the beginning of the founding of the country, once "built Xiaoyao Building in Nanjing, and put gambling equipment on it, and saw gamers, poultry and beasts (referring to cockfighting, dogfighting, cricket fighting), loafers and foodies, Detain them and enter the building, let them relax, and they will all starve to death.”

Well, the old man is very attentive, and I let you manage enough to play, but surrounded Xiaoyao Building without food, you will starve to death - Taizu used this to teach the people that gambling without production is a wrong outlook on life.

In the 22nd year of Hongwu, Taizu issued an edict "Every gambler can untie his wrist." Well, if you catch it, chop your hands, and ask if you are afraid.

Later, in addition to the playful Xuanzong, Chengzu, Xianzong, Yingzong, and Xiaozong all had edicts on prohibiting gambling.

What reporter Zhong wrote were normal words, interesting and textual. Zhou Wang read it with relish, and then saw his writing change:
Paradoxically, in the Northern Song Dynasty, where the punishment was the heaviest and the perpetrator beheaded, gambling was the most violent.The importance of gambling in Song Dynasty is astounding: almost all people's livelihood can be linked to gambling.

For example, the most common marketing method in the Northern Song Dynasty was called "Guanpu". After the seller marked the price of the product, the buyer could take a small amount of money to bet with the seller.The most common is "Hunchun" or "Liuchun" - "Hunchun" means throwing six copper coins with their backs facing up, and "Liuchun" vice versa.

Throw out pure or six pure, the gambling money stays, and the buyer of the product takes it away-this is the only chance for many poor people to spend on luxury accessories, and the chance of winning the product is about 120 in [-].

How popular is this kind of "shutdown"?Many men in the Song Dynasty were sent by their wives to the market to buy soy sauce, and it was a high probability that they did not bring home the money and soy sauce.Of course, there are also very few who originally went out to buy a package of salty salt, but ended up chasing a pig back.

Then the article asked, why did the people of the Song Dynasty take their lives to gamble when they gambled?In the end, the law does not blame the public, and no one can control it - the Chinese people's love of gambling was handed down from the Song Dynasty, and it became more and more intense after the Yuan Dynasty and the Guo Dynasty.

There is still reason and evidence for the article written here, both reasoning and interesting, Zhou Wang saw the great insight.Then Lao Zhong made another stroke and wrote the prohibition order——

The prohibition of alcohol was born almost at the same time as wine. The first prohibition of alcohol in China was issued by Dayu: "Warring States Policy" records, "Emperor's daughter", that is, Yao's two daughters: Ehuang and Nuying, who will be brewed by Yidi. The wine was presented to Yu, and after tasting it, Dayu thought it was delicious, and he said that "there will be people who will destroy their country with wine in future generations", so he ordered Yi Di to stop brewing wine.

This is a legend, but the prohibition order clearly recorded is the handwriting of Zhou Gongdan: "Jiu Gao" is the first prohibition law in China.Since then, from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the prohibition of alcohol has been issued many times, and many times it has been ineffective.When Yuan Shizu was the most severe, just like the Song Dynasty prohibiting gambling, "the offender died" -- also like the Song Dynasty prohibiting gambling, the Chinese people in the Yuan Dynasty loved drinking, reaching the level of "smoky wind and fierce", up to the princes and nobles, Down to the peddler, whoever can buy wine, many people are drunk all day long.

When Zhou Wang saw this, he was completely confused.Why do people become more arrogant in violating this law when the prohibition of alcohol and gambling is more severe?It doesn't make sense!But these are all facts!
The surnamed Zhong didn't sell anything, and directly explained the argument: "Gambling and drinking are related to human nature. Without the two, there is no life." - These two are too closely related to the people's life and entertainment and human psychology. Just using the word "ban" is uncontrollable, and the stricter it is, the more severe the rebound will be.Therefore, the prohibition of gambling is like a "prohibition of alcohol". No matter how strict the edict is, it will last for a while, and then the ban will be relaxed, and the officials and the people will violate the law, and the law will not work.

then what should we do?You can't let the gambling wind be fiery and unmanaged. This thing has too much impact on social management.The author then leads the solution with irrefutable data:

As stated in "On Contradiction", when things develop to a certain level, they will cause qualitative changes or go to the original opposite.The birth of horse racing and the associated horse betting are typical examples: since the opening of the Jockey Club in the late summer of Wanli 12, the crime rate due to gambling in the capital has dropped sharply. The reporter obtained data from Shuntian Prefecture, and such crimes occurred in the most recent quarter. rate decreased by 44 percentage points.

This data is amazing and convincing!King Zhou was so happy that he couldn't find Bei - I wiped it, I accidentally did a good deed of doing good deeds and accumulating virtue, and making Buddhas born in thousands of families!

The article goes on to say that the rampant gambling epidemic will bring about a series of social management problems, including loss of human relations, breeding crime and even promoting corruption.But in the face of problems, you can't just ban it - you can't ban it, no matter how strong your control ability is, gambling, like alcohol, can't be banned.

How to govern it? The author strongly recommends that the court should "just like water control, and "blocking and dredging" together, so as to change the customs and change the Chinese people's gambling habits."

On the one hand, it is necessary to reiterate the prohibition of Taizu, especially severe punishments to control officials and soldiers to gamble, draw a red line, and punish them severely; on the other hand, the court must list the list of gambling equipment, prohibit private casinos, and strictly prohibit private households and prostitutes from possessing possessions. Gambling equipment, offenders will be punished, etc.

The actions in this aspect of "sparse" should include: informing the localities, promoting education, and publicizing the dangers of gambling; People who like to speculate in their bones have a place to vent; the third is "entertainment" activities including playing mahjong, as long as the gambling capital does not exceed a certain limit, it is not prohibited.

Such a multi-pronged approach of laws, public opinion, etc., can control the proliferation of bad gambling habits among the people and gradually reverse the unhealthy trend of good gambling among the people.

At the end of the article, the benefits of horse racing were positively publicized: Officially approved horse racing can limit the amount of betting and restrain gamblers’ risk-taking; and heavy taxes can be drawn, which is not without a small supplement to finance; and in order to win, the kings must collect rare stallions from many sources— - As long as long-distance, short-distance, weight-bearing, cross-country and other events are set up in the competition system, various improved horses can be cultivated by using private forces, which is of great benefit to national defense, national economy and people's livelihood.

A splendid article, with reason and evidence, can see that the king of Zhou is elated, and he repeatedly praises reporter Zhong for his talent - Suian Bo is really a good man.

After taking out a hundred taels of gold as thanks, a few people sat idle for a while in the study. King Zhou and his staff complimented Reporter Zhong for having an incense stick.In the end, King Zhou's staff said:

"Our country's emperor Xuanzong likes to play and promote weaving. From his old age, up to the emperor, down to the common people, there is no one who doesn't like gambling. And the tricks are renovated, gambling equipment and gambling skills go hand in hand."

Speaking of this, he bowed his hands to the north: "Sheng Ming is like our sage, didn't he personally invent mahjong? Although it is filial piety, how many people in the world are ruined because of mahjong!"

King Zhou listened and nodded with a smile: "Yes, the gamblers don't bet on horses, can't they still play mahjong, push Pai Gow, and roll dice? Just say this mahjong, which level of official dares to ban? Rip him up!"

Reporter Zhong listened to his heart and said, "Don't these two people understand my article? Is what I wrote too classical?"

　Three thousand eight hundred words for votes
　　
　
(End of this chapter)