prosperous age

"Shandai, this is an order from the palace, take a look."

The chief minister of the cabinet was on duty, and it was almost time to adjourn the office. The four cabinet ministers gathered together to deal with some difficult matters or official business that needed to be informed to their colleagues.

After discussing the official business handled today, Zhang Juzheng took out the imperial edict he received from the palace in the afternoon.

In fact, it was just a reply to the memorial submitted by the cabinet. The meeting of the Nine Ministers went very smoothly. Everyone supported that severe punishment should be imposed on such cases of destroying farmland and resisting land survey, so they all supported that the court could forcibly expropriate these wastelands.

Although it seems a little unreasonable, who told you to destroy the fields and land? That is even more inconsistent with the way of saints.

Wei Guangde took the reply from the palace and glanced at it, his eyes slightly narrowed.

In this case, the two nobles had hit a wall. Wei Guangde only allowed them to enjoy a little more wealth, and the palace had no intention of confiscating their property or taking back the red book and iron scroll.

However, based on the cabinet's request to deduct three years' salary, the palace directly removed the two from their positions in the Beijing camp.

This punishment was proposed at the beginning, but Wei Guangde has always tried his best to avoid such punishment.

Unexpectedly, the palace finally brought it up.

"The two queens were very angry when they heard the news. After all, they lived among the people in their early years and knew the significance of land to the people."

Zhang Juzheng whispered what he knew to Wei Guangde so that he wouldn't think that he was interfering.

The government affairs were already facing many difficulties, and Zhang Juzheng did not want to create unnecessary trouble and compete with Wei Guangde in the cabinet.

It's okay to occasionally reach out and trip someone, but in some things it's better not to do that.

In today's incident, Zhang Juzheng really did not do anything behind the scenes. It was mainly because Empress Dowager Li was angry when she saw two nobles destroy hundreds of acres of land.

Even though the Li family is rich now, let’s take a look at what life they lived in their early years.

It was because of her poor family that she had to work as a maid in Prince Yu's mansion at a young age in exchange for a chance to survive.

If her family had these fields at that time, no, even if it was just ten acres of land, she wouldn't have to do this.

Of course, she would not regret entering the palace because of this. No matter what, her son is now the master of this empire, the emperor, the supreme being.

At home, because of her, her father has been conferred a title, and the Li family will no longer live in poverty, but that doesn't mean she won't be angry about it.

This matter is not a big deal, but it is not a small deal either, so it is not appropriate to directly arrest the two nobles, but dismissing them from office is still acceptable.

As for the other Empress Dowager Chen, her life was much more comfortable, after all, her father was the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

So, Empress Dowager Chen did not say much about this matter.

Those two nobles had nothing to do with her at all, so there was no need to hurt their sisterly feelings for irrelevant people.

So, this approval came out.

Even if Li Yingchen, the Earl of Xiangcheng, and Wu Jijie, the Marquis of Gongshun, gave gifts to Feng Bao, he would never stand up for them at this time.

After listening to Zhang Juzheng's explanation, Wei Guangde forced a smile and said, "Since it is the palace's intention, let someone draft an order."

When nobles are dismissed from office, they only lose face and more money.

If they delay it for a few years, as long as they behave themselves and give a reason, the Grand Marshal's Office can ask for permission to arrange other tasks for them.

It doesn't mean that you can't be reinstated after being dismissed from office. There will be opportunities to come out again in the future.

Hearing Wei Guangde's words, Zhang Juzheng smiled and said to Zhang Siwei and Shen Shixing: "This matter has caused a lot of uproar in the capital in the past two days. I think it is better to send out the imperial decree as soon as possible to calm the people."

"That's exactly what should happen, so that those who still have a chance of getting away with it will know the consequences of doing so."

Zhang Siwei immediately supported it.

"That's good. If there are any local gentry who dare to do this in the future, if there are officials in their families, they will also be arrested. Then it will be easy to push forward the land reclamation.

Officials should write to their families to ask them to cooperate with the government in land surveying.”

Shen Shixing has been doing practical things all the time, so he naturally knows how much help this will be in carrying out the survey work below.

To be called a gentry, there must have been officials in the family in recent generations.

Even if the official is no longer with us, he still has disciples and old friends.

Local affairs, in fact, mainly involve the network of relationships among officials and are very difficult to handle.

If we can use the example of striking down on the nobles to stop the officials from making secret moves, the land survey will proceed smoothly.

After all, some fields are nothing compared to power.

After these words, it was considered to have passed the hurdle of the cabinet. The decree could be issued by imperial edict as long as the six departments had no objection.

This is where the Ming Dynasty restricted the imperial power. The cabinet and the six ministries could seal and reject imperial edicts.

However, neither the cabinet nor the six departments would do this.

Seeing that the meeting seemed to be over for the day, Wei Guangde was about to get up and say goodbye, but Zhang Juzheng suddenly said, "There is one more thing today, and I would like to hear everyone's opinions."

After hearing this, Wei Guangde sat back down and waited for Zhang Juzheng to continue.

Zhang Siwei and Shen Shixing also turned their eyes to look at Zhang Juzheng.

“In fact, Shandai has told me about this before. Because the Censorate is short of censors, the censors sent to various places have to travel back and forth, which delays their travel, especially those in remote areas.

According to the system, the inspectors are replaced once a year, but for various reasons, some places only get a rotation every two or three years, which makes the inspectors stay in the local area for too long, and inevitably they have more contact. "

In fact, everyone knows what Zhang Juzheng was talking about.

There were thirteen censors in the Ming Dynasty, and there were several censors in each of them. In theory, it would be more than enough to replace one inspector every year.

However, the actual situation is not like this. Don’t think that the censors just keep an eye on officials. In fact, they are also widely involved in various government affairs.

In other words, in addition to the imperial censors who went on tour, the imperial censors who stayed in the yamen also had to undertake other work, not just reporting rumors and matters.

For example, when the Ministry of Personnel inspected officials, the censors had to participate. When the Ministry of Revenue collected grain and taxes from various provinces, the censors would also participate in the verification. For matters like these, the Censorate actually had a lot of work to do.

It is also said that most censors are unwilling to go to remote provinces like Yunnan.

So when it is time to arrange for a replacement, some people will deliberately use various reasons, such as not completing the tasks at hand, as an excuse to politely refuse to go on patrol.

This meant that some censors would go to local places and work there for two or three years without ever getting the chance to return to the Censorate.

Zhang Ke, who has now been transferred back to the Ministry of War to serve as a vice minister, had also served as an inspector in Zhejiang beyond his term.

But that was wartime, and in fact, Hu Zongxian was the same. During his two thousand and three years as the Inspector of Zhejiang, there was no Censor of Zhejiang Province to take over.

There was a war going on there, so naturally a weak scholar would not want to go there.

This is also the reason why after Hu Zongxian was captured, his power was transferred by the court to Zhang Ke.

There was really no suitable official to take over, and power could not be transferred to the Zhejiang Governor.

It can be said that the censor in the Ming Dynasty was actually a jack of all trades, having to be familiar with military affairs, government affairs, criminal penalties, etc.

Many of the Ming dynasty's provincial governors actually had experience in the Censorate in their early years. So when Zhang Juzheng talked about this, Zhang Siwei and Shen Shixing nodded slightly, and only Wei Guangde guessed that Zhang Juzheng might have made his own decision on Hai Rui's matter.

But it would be fine if he supports this matter, but if he disagrees, it would be difficult to argue with him.

Unless the Censorate intends to forcibly promote the person, but that will offend the Prime Minister. Given Chen Yu's character, I think he would not do anything that would cause controversy in the court.

Wei Guangde did not say anything, but just looked at Zhang Juzheng quietly, waiting for his next words.

Zhang Siwei and Shen Shixing glanced at Zhang Juzheng, and from time to time they glanced at Wei Guangde to see his reaction.

But it was obvious that nothing could be seen, and Wei Guangde didn't think much about it.

In fact, Hai Rui was not his man, so why should he care about it?

He paid attention to Hai Rui, but in fact he just wanted to use his reputation. On the one hand, he wanted Jiangnan to implement the court's decision and push forward the land survey. On the other hand, he wanted to set up a tax office to collect local commercial taxes.

In this regard, no one is more suitable than Hai Rui.

No matter how much the gentry argue, the common people will only believe their own judges.

Sure enough, Zhang Juzheng then told the Censorate that they wanted Hai Rui to be appointed Left Censor-in-Chief of the Nanjing Censorate.

Shen Shixing was still calm. Zhang Juzheng had said before that Wei Guangde knew about this matter.

However, Zhang Siwei's face did not look very good. Hai Rui's knife was too sharp, and Zhang Siwei was very clear about it.

Hai Rui could issue an ultimatum and threaten to arrest even a retired cabinet minister and the benefactor who saved his life, let alone others.

Many officials outside did not know this and thought that Hai Rui was hesitant because of Xu Ge Lao's face, thus offending Gao Gong.

But in fact, Zhang Siwei knew that Hai Rui really wanted to settle the matter peacefully because of Xu Ge Lao's life-saving grace, and even offered to return half of the land.

Of course, the negotiations failed in the end, and Hai Rui issued an order to arrest the person.

However, Gao Gong was not satisfied with this, so he took Hai Rui away and replaced him with his own people, directly targeting Xu Jie.

For such a person, people in power actually don't like to use him.

Disobedience is the original sin.

Without waiting for Zhang Juzheng to ask Zhang Siwei and Shen Shixing for their opinions, Wei Guangde clasped his fists and said with a smile, "Brother, please feel free to speak your mind.

In fact, I have been thinking about this matter for many days, and still can't find any other suitable candidates. The recommendation of the Censorate is the most reasonable. "

Zhang Juzheng glanced at Wei Guangde, smiled and said, "After thinking about this matter, I also think Hai Rui is the most suitable."

Finally, Zhang Juzheng revealed his attitude.

In fact, Wei Guangde had his own guess, otherwise Zhang Juzheng would not have brought it up at this time.

You just need to talk to him in private. As for what Chen Wei does in the end, that is the business of the Censorate.

The main reason why Zhang Siwei was not allowed to speak was that people were too lazy to argue with him. Zhang Siwei would never support Hai Rui's tour to the south of the Yangtze River.

With Zhang Juzheng's nod of approval, Shen Shixing immediately spoke out in agreement.

Zhang Siwei naturally knew at this time that there was no need to argue, so he simply kept silent, which meant tacit consent.

In fact, opposing Hai Rui's entry into officialdom was a common choice, so everyone in the officialdom chose to forget him.

Because whenever someone mentioned him, they could not find sufficient reason to oppose his taking up an official position.

But this troublemaker really does not abide by the rules of officialdom and does not give face to his colleagues.

"With Hai Rui in charge, the Jiangnan officialdom should be cleaned up.

Hai Rui is in charge of the science and technology, which is more powerful than launching an investigation, haha."

Wei Guangde just smiled. The imperial court had been calling for a lot of rectification of officialdom, but few actually took drastic measures. The main reason was that the network of relationships among officials was too complicated and involved too many people.

Zhang Juzheng just smiled after hearing what Wei Guangde said, and then changed the subject and asked, "By the way, you sent a document to each province before, asking about the establishment of an agricultural promotion office in each province. What's the situation now?"

The Censorate did not submit the memorial, so Zhang Juzheng just took this opportunity to inform other cabinet ministers and let them know that he and Wei Guangde intended to let Hai Rui return to power.

This is not a formal decision, and the final choice actually lies with the Censorate.

And the matter that Zhang Juzheng mentioned was what they had discussed before.

However, when setting up offices in local areas, some face had to be given to the local governments, so Zhang Juzheng proposed that Wei Guangde first write to the local governments in the name of the cabinet to listen to their opinions on the separate office of the Agricultural Promotion Bureau.

"Shandong, Shaanxi and Shanxi have all responded, and they all agree. No documents have been sent back from other provinces yet, so they should be on the way."

Wei Guangde didn't want to bring up this matter. After all, persuading the Agricultural Bureau involved further decentralization at the local level and the deprivation of their right to collect taxes.

It is best to do this quietly and not attract other people's attention.

Now that Zhang Juzheng brought it up, he could only answer truthfully.

"In fact, I still hold the same opinion. There are six offices in various places that receive orders from the court. There is really no need to establish a separate yamen. It is too wasteful."

Zhang Siwei spoke immediately.

Although the local authorities did not object, it was because they looked down on the power of the Agricultural Persuasion Bureau, so they were completely indifferent.

But Zhang Siwei had opposed it before, and talking about it now was just a small revenge for Hai Rui's incident.

Although he also knew that Zhang Juzheng would not fight with Wei Guangde over such a small matter.

Zhang Siwei expressed his position, and Shen Shixing immediately spoke out to refute it without Wei Guangde's need to do so, citing the court's policy of emphasizing agriculture as the basis for his rebuttal.

There was no need for Wei Guangde to go there in person, and no one understood what Wei Guangde was thinking.

Yes, no one would think that there is a problem with the government collecting taxes. This is a practice formed over thousands of years. Naturally, no one would have thought that Wei Guangde set up the Agricultural Promotion Bureau, and his greater goal was to establish more government offices directly under the court at the local level.

This is also inertial thinking. Since it has never happened before, no one will think of it.

The decision to set up a separate government office to handle tax collection was a change that Wei Guangde weighed over and over again.

In the past, local areas were managed by one government, so they were able to arbitrarily plunder local taxes, including imposing various miscellaneous taxes.

It is the existence of miscellaneous taxes that places a heavy burden on the people of the Ming Dynasty.

Wei Guangde believed that the separation of government and taxation offices would help prevent such situations.

Of course, doing so requires the imperial court to have sufficient money and grain to cover the expenses of local government.

That is to say, Wei Guangde wanted to expand the size of the court's staff, increase their wages and benefits, as well as the office expenses of local governments, etc.

Only when these are met can further reform be carried out.

The most important government affairs at the moment are undoubtedly to survey the land and increase the imperial taxes. (End of this chapter)