Lu Ming

Chapter 563 Receiving ([-])

When the traversers and the power they brought crossed the sea and took root in Guangdong, the ancient and slow southern country became fast-paced.

The land with the new district at its core is like a vortex, attracting people and resources from all directions, and spit out all kinds of industrial products beyond the times.

Even the rudimentary industrial age brings about social change.All kinds of commodities, all kinds of new ideas and new cultures are impacting the natives all the time.Just like the steam locomotive is to the sedan chair, the slow-paced life habits of the aborigines are slowly and firmly speeded up without a sound.

Another characteristic of industrial society is "noisy".The originally peaceful Nantian City became restless and restless after that, and its muscles became stronger and full of vitality day by day.

In comparison, what Li Dazui did in Haojingao is insignificant.After all, there is no Internet these days, and everything that happens far away from the core area is difficult to spread to the public.

Even the heart of the Ming Empire knew nothing about it.

At the end of May 1631, the capital.

Thousands of miles away in the north, at this time of year, even in the Little Ice Age, the weather has already turned hot.

More than a year has passed since the catastrophe last year.The ancient capital seems to have regained its bustling face of people and horses, but the internal trauma is far from healed.

The ruler of the city, who was also the ruler of the Ming Empire, was the industrious Chongzhen Emperor.

Since the emperor is diligent, early court is probably indispensable. In the early morning at the end of May, the young Emperor Chongzhen held an early court ceremony at the imperial gate as usual.

The imperial gate is the gate of the imperial hall.Before the name was changed in Jiajing 41, the Imperial Hall was originally called Fengtian Hall.In the second year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, the Imperial Hall was renamed the Hall of Supreme Harmony, commonly known as the Hall of Golden Luan, which is familiar to later generations.

Not to mention the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, in fact, except for major political events and festivals, the place where the emperors of the Ming Dynasty opened their morning courts was not inside the Golden Luan Hall, but at the gate.This rule was established by Zhu Yuanzhang back then, and there is a name called "Yumen listens to politics".

Today is no exception.

At 5 o'clock in the morning, with the ringing of bells and drums on the Meridian Gate Tower, hundreds of Beijing officials who had been waiting for a long time entered the gate of the Forbidden City. Los Angeles at four o'clock in the morning?Please, see you every day in Beijing City at 4 o'clock in the morning.

At the same time, Emperor Chongzhen, who was wearing a black dragon robe, also walked out of the apse with a large number of eunuchs and court ladies.After the ministers were in place, the emperor sat on the dragon chair in front of the imperial gate on time.

Kneeling once and knocking three times, the mountain shouts long live.

After the routine was finished, with the slight morning light, the routine began in front of the imperial gate.

Today's morning is very ordinary, and it seems to be another familiar boring scene.High-ranking officials will act in front of their Majesty, and low-ranking officials who are not qualified to go forward should prepare background boards and try to leave work early
In fact, since Zhu Yuanzhang, the extremely inefficient governance model of the Great Dynasty was abandoned by later emperors.After Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor felt that the morning court was too tiring every day, so he changed to reviewing memorials to deal with various affairs, and the morning court was only held occasionally.Even more ruthless are Jiajing and Wanli, who have not been to the early court for more than 20 years.

Although Emperor Chongzhen was a model worker, he did not have the habit of detaining all civil servants in the capital in the Forbidden City and not doing practical work.So soon, in essence, it has been reduced to the regular court of the ceremony, the next court.

After the imperial court, with the dispersal of the numerous low-ranking officials, the real central government decision-making system of the Ming Empire began to operate: the small court meeting composed of a small number of officials such as the emperor, university scholars, and six ministers.

Today's small court meeting, the participants are relatively complete, basically all the big men above the second rank in Beijing are present, and even two or three honored and veteran ministers have come - although the honorables never speak, but if people want to listen, the emperor and the bachelor You can't push people out, right?

After the small court meeting began, the monarch and his ministers first talked about a few idle government affairs.After that, it was the highlight of the day: dealing with the memorial sent by Guangdong.

The content of the memorial mentioned here is naturally the document about the "conflict" in Macau last month.

In fact, from the day when the conflict occurred, officials from Guangdong have been writing memorials to the court one after another.Later, the governor's yamen of Guangdong and Guangxi, the local yamen, and even officials from all over Guangdong, Jinyiwei, even local gentry, retired officials, etc. all ventilated the court.So from the first ten days of April to the present, the imperial court has received a lot of memorials, and has a relatively clear understanding of the Macau incident.

However, the Yamen of Zhangchao General Army, the most critical in this matter, did not send the memorial to the capital until mid-May.In other words, it was at the end of April or early May, nearly a week after the end of the war, that Zhongyong Bo Cao Chuan slowly walked the ordinary post road and sent a memorial to the court.

After the imperial court received the memorial, they naturally had to study it carefully and savor it carefully: the rest of the people from all walks of life wrote their books early, but your chief surnamed Cao delayed the time. What's wrong with this?
In this way, when the various leaders of the imperial court figured out the cause and effect of the memorial through private channels, the time has come to the end of May.This is exactly the theme of today's Xiaochaohui: Huizhi.

After seeing that the rest of the trivial political affairs were almost dealt with, facing the rising sun, the Chongzhen Emperor, who squinted his eyes slightly, turned his face and nodded to Fang Zhenghua, who was on duty today.

Fang Zhenghua, who understood what he understood, immediately left his shift, raised his voice and said to the civil servants group on the left hand side of the steps: "There is an oral order: Do you have a receipt for the papers handed over from the south?"

Comrade Wen Tiren, who had been prepared for a long time, came out in a hurry, bowed and took out a document from his sleeve and handed it: "The ticket has been drafted."

The next moment, after the young emperor reached out to take the cabinet draft, he looked at it carefully from the beginning.

In other words, during the reign of Chongzhen, the power of the supervisor of ceremonies was greatly reduced.The reason is simple: Chongzhen was a workaholic. After the memorials sent to the capital from all over the country were drafted by the cabinet, the emperor often took them directly for imperial review and annotated instructions. There was no such thing as a supervisor.

The same is true today.After Wen Shangshu handed over the memorial drafted by the cabinet, the emperor directly began to review it.

The memorial to Zhangchao Zongbing Yamen who arrived late is divided into three parts.

In the first part, a certain soldier told the onlookers that on a small island in the far south, there was a small "conflict" between the Ming army and the Franji.

Yes, according to the results of the cabinet's subsequent discussions, the traversers defined this war as a "conflict".

The reason for this characterization is very simple: if the Franji people (including all the colonists) are described as the enemies of the ferocious and barbaric country, the sentence "reform and opening up allows all foreigners to enter Guangzhou to do business" will be mentioned later in the memorial , will not be established.

It is also based on this that the memorial to Zhangchao General’s Yamen did not go through the military’s urgent delivery, but sent a plain letter: This is a small conflict, which does not reach the level of war that requires the court’s attention, so I sent a plain letter .No matter how the rest of you make up the book, I will define it as a conflict here. Anyway, I believe it.

As for the specific content of the memorial, the master of the General Army Mansion naturally downplayed the scene that day in various spring and autumn styles: there was a little quarrel between the Ming and Fu families. In view of the previous years of friendly cooperation between the two countries, everyone agreed to use Macau City Take the outer bastion as a bet, and play a friendly match.In the end, the "Cao Jun" laid down the bastion, although the loser was defeated, the two sides shook hands and made peace, and the Franji people peacefully handed over the city of Macau. The women and children were unharmed, and everyone was happy. This is a model of international relations.
The above is the content of the first stage of the memorial: report.

The content of the second stage is to announce the good news and give gifts to the imperial court.

After recovering the island, the first is the good news of "returning the government".After the first few days of military control, Cao Zongbing stated that he had handed over the jurisdiction of Macau Island to the Yamen of the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi.

Secondly, since the city of Macau, which the Portuguese have been operating since the Jiajing period, has been won, there must be some "gain".Simply because Cao Zongbing came from a reckless background, he is the most loyal. This time he opened the city, naturally he will not forget the emperor and court thousands of miles away. Everyone eats meat and drinks soup.So Zongbing Cao presented big gifts to the emperor and the court respectively.

The following is the bonus gift list for the imperial court, in total:
15 taels of silver
General Franji has ten cannons, and several cannons and ammunition;
Thirty guns in the center of the Franc machine, and several guns and ammunition;

Francine cannons, a total of hundreds of mother and child guns;
100 Franco gunner instructors (for hire).

There are 5 land deeds for Sanri Dao Datian Zhuang (the location is located in the north of Annan) that the Frangji people "Le Shu" gave to the Celestial Dynasty.

After the court gift list, is Cao Zongbing's personal gift list to honor the emperor:
15 taels of silver;

[-] pieces of Francine machine curiosities;
[-] new curiosities released by Cao's Workshop;
Zhongyong Bo filially gave the emperor a hundred loads of daily miscellaneous goods;
There are 5 private Datianzhuang title deeds of three-ripe rice (located in the north of Annan) that the Frangji people "leshu" gave to the emperor of the Chinese dynasty.

that's all.

After the first two parts of the memorial are over, the key third part comes: the master of the General Army Mansion quotes scriptures, from the Kunlun slaves in the Tang Dynasty to the Yicile people in the Song Dynasty, and now to the Franji today, all kinds of nonsense, by the way He also criticized Daming's foreign policy, thinking that it is not advisable to shrink back and forth. Now that he has Cao Zhongchen, it is a good time to boldly open the door and do business.

In the end, the memorials were exhausted, and thousands of words were turned into one sentence: reform and opening up, open up a new area outside Guangzhou as a pilot, allow foreign ships to dock, allow foreign merchants to buy properties, and exchange needs between China and foreign countries.

This memorial has a strong warrior style.The content of it can be seen at a glance, the three paragraphs of content are giving face, giving benefits, and making demands, without any concealment, and they are frank as hell.

And the young Emperor Chongzhen carefully read the cabinet draft attached to the memorial at this moment. Although there were words on it, the final conclusion was only one word: "Allowed."

(End of this chapter)