Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 165
"He will come when he wants to, and I'm afraid he won't make it?!"

On the twenty-second day of the twelfth lunar month, when the southwest was corrupt and the northeast was hostile, a voice sounded from a majestic palace in Xiangfu County, Kaifeng Prefecture, Henan Province.

This palace occupies almost one-tenth of the space in Xiangfu County, and it is a huge palace built entirely on the basis of the Northern Song Dynasty palace.

As the number one vassal in the world, Zhou Fan has one of the biggest advantages over other vassals, that is, the large population.

As far as the clan's children are concerned, there are forty-six county kings alone, and there are more than twelve thousand generals, lieutenants, princesses, county heads, etc.

For such a large clan, the prince's ruling methods need to be tested.

The ancients said, self-cultivation, family harmony, and world governance.

People in later generations don't understand it, but they think it's a bit too escaped to suddenly jump from the Qi family to rule the world.

However, in the feudal dynasty, the so-called "Qi family" does not refer to the small Eastern and Western families of later generations, but refers to the entire family.

Europeans can't understand the difficulty of "Qi Family", but if you understand the power of the clan, the Chinese children will know how difficult it is.

A village is a "family", a family is a family, and a household is a household.

To subdue the masses and govern a family with hundreds, even thousands, or even ten thousand people, the talents needed can be said to be the ability to be sent to a place immediately to serve as a county parent official.

Just because the family has a large population, the more people there are, the more difficult it is to manage.

The prince of Zhou Fan is the benchmark of the prince who governs the subordinates of the clan under his command.

It is precisely because of the need for personal ability and strategy to govern the clan's children, which led to Zhou Fan's fate. It can be said that they are the best representatives of Zhu Fan.

The huge farmland, the long time to maintain the place, and the many descendants of the clan...

All of these make Zhou Fan's princes often the best among the kings.

Therefore, compared with the silent kings, the one who lost his temper first when he heard the news was the current King of Zhou, Zhu Suqin.

At the age of fifty-eight, he is currently sitting at the head of the meeting hall, with the officials of the palace sitting on the left and right, and there is also a subordinate official who came to pass the message on his knees in the meeting hall.

It is worth noting that beside the fifty-eight-year-old Zhu Suqin, there is still a county king in his forties, and next to the county king is a young man in his early twenties.

The two watched Zhu Suqin's anger, they just watched without saying a word.

At this time, an official on the left side of the hall bowed and said, "Your Highness, there is no need to be so angry. His Highness Prince Qi is also your nephew."

"Emperor nephew?" Zhu Suqin frowned, then said contemptuously:

"You've already started attacking the clan's children, what do you still call the emperor's nephew?"

Speaking of this, Zhu Suqin gritted his teeth: "You are so vicious at the age of eleven, and you will be so vicious when you grow up..."

At this moment, Zhu Suqin completely lost the respect he had shown to the imperial court in the past, and he gritted his teeth.

Naturally, this appearance couldn't have come out of thin air, but was touched by interests.

Zhu Youjian's clan innovations in Shanxi and Northern Zhili were tantamount to poaching the flesh of a great feudal clan like him.

From the general of Fengguo to the head of the county...

These eight short words will make Zhou Fan's nearly ten thousand children leave.

Perhaps those members of the clan would clap their hands and applaud happily when they got the news, but for the prince and county king, this is very vicious.

To put it bluntly, like many disciples under the banner who were thrown outside the pass to blow the cold wind after the Manchu Qing seized the world, the disciples of the Ming clan were also very hard-pressed.

For example, like Zhou Fan, with tens of thousands of clan members, it is entirely possible for them to cultivate Zhou Fan's farmland, and it can be said that they are regarded as their own tenants.

Therefore, among the many vassal kings, it is a fact that the children of the Zhou vassal had the worst experience.

For Zhou Wang and Zhou Fan County King, most of these people are relatives who have been out of Wufu, and Zhou Fan is needed to support them, so it is appropriate to contribute some labor.

In the eyes of many clan children, if they can't pass the imperial clan's imperial examination, can't do business, can't work part-time, and don't have their own farmland, they can only live and endure the exploitation of the prince and three servants.

If you can't bear it, you can't even go to the nursing home, you can only starve to death on the street.

Therefore, they have no choice, as long as they can survive.

If the Ming Dynasty had not reformed the clan system, they would have been squeezed by the feudal lords until the dynasty perished, and they would have to be buried with the dynasty.

But it's different now. Zhu Youjian gave the world's clan a hope.

You know, even if it is [-] mu of land, judging from the current prices, in a place like Henan, at least fifteen taels of silver are needed to buy one mu.

In other words, as long as they are obedient and do nothing, and wait for Zhu Youjian to develop the land, they can harvest [-] mu of land worth [-] taels of silver for nothing.

This is still the bottom lieutenant of Fengguo, and the other lieutenants of Zhenguo and Fuguo can benefit more.

This is like being beaten and scolded for working at home today, a beggar who does not work and has no food, but the next day he gets the surprise of twenty houses in the local area.

Three hundred taels of silver, this is the silver that ordinary people in Henan can only earn for fifty-four years without eating or drinking.

This kind of value is enough to drive the clan disciples below crazy, and the fact is also like this.

Although it hasn't been long, the news has spread from Shanxi and Beizhili to Shandong, Henan, northern Huguang, and Shaanxi.

The first reaction of the clan disciples who heard the news was "Impossible!"

They have not received their salaries for decades, and they don't believe that the imperial court will give them land, even if the land needs to pay [-]% rent and cannot be traded.

You must know that this is not twenty acres per household, but twenty acres per person.

As far as the present is concerned, it is not surprising that there are seven or eight people in an ordinary family, but according to the news that spread, it is the lowest lieutenant of Fengguo, and a family can have [-] or [-] mu of land.

What kind of concept is this? This is the wealth that an ordinary family can only accumulate after working for hundreds of years, or even two hundred years.

Therefore, nearly [-] people from the [-] vassals north of the Yangtze River couldn't believe it.

But as time went by and the news spread longer and longer, someone finally couldn't bear it anymore and wrote letters to the clan children in Shanxi and Northern Zhili, and the content of the reply letters made people tremble with excitement.

It's gone!It's really crazy!
The children of the clan who heard the news went crazy. Although they dared not blatantly support King Qi's innovation, they were talking about when King Qi would reform in the south.

Such a change naturally cannot escape the eyes and ears of the vassal princes everywhere.

However, for most vassal kings, the number of their clan children is no more than a thousand, and the number is no more than a few dozen. They don't feel that innovation has harmed their interests at all.

For example, in a small feudal clan like King Su's, there were not twenty people in the entire feudal clan, and the farmland was less than [-] mu. In addition, the imperial court did not pay salaries, so they used the [-] mu of land in the northwest to support more than [-] people, that is, It's just richer.

But if they support the reform of the clan system, then according to the new law, although Su Fan lost more than [-] mu of farmland, he got a salary of tens of thousands of taels of silver every year.

A small fan like Su Fan couldn't resist Zhu Youjian's innovative conditions at all, and even many people couldn't help but take the initiative to support the innovation.

It was in such a situation that the vassal who had more clan children became the one who suffered the most.

But the embarrassing situation is that Zhu Youjian cleaned up the four kings in Shanxi, Beizhili, and northern Henan as soon as he made a move.

In this way, only the Zhou, Min, and Chu sects were left with the feudal kings with more than a thousand clan members.

Zhu Suqin's anger was also because of his teammates' lack of strength.

Needless to say, the Min Fan was not welcomed at all, and it was close to Guizhou. If they dared to have any opinions, they would be cleaned up immediately.

Although Chu Fan occupies a luxurious place, there is a dark history of the "false King of Chu case". If Zhu Youjian wants to splash black water, Chu Fan may be cut off.

As a result, only Zhou Wangfu was left in Dafan, which can be described as isolated and helpless.

If only Zhou Fan was sparse, the emperor would not care at all, and would even reprimand Zhou Fan.

Zhu Suqin didn't want to take this risk, so no matter how angry he was, he still didn't dare to break his face.

because……

His good nephew really has soldiers...

Thinking of this, Zhu Suqin's beard trembled angrily, but there was nothing he could do.

But the county king next to him said: "Father, it's okay to be soft, and it's not just us who are worried about the innovation right now, it should be the one in Luoyang, many princes in the world, and more than three hundred county kings."

The king of the county who spoke was Zhu Gongyun who, when facing Li Zicheng's siege in the future, scattered gold and silver and defended Kaifeng once for the Ming Dynasty.

Standing next to him was his eldest son Zhu Shaojiong.

I have to say that Zhu Gongyun's words are very pleasant to my ears, because Zhu Youjian's reform was carried out on the basis of the interests of many princes and county kings.

The kings of the world have recorded farmlands as high as more than [-] million mu.

Although Zhuangtian pays a fixed amount of salary from the tax after paying the tax, so the proportion is not large, with an annual quota of 157 million taels, but there are still other tenants who take the initiative to put their land in the name of the vassal king to avoid paying taxes.

For example, Zhou Fan occupied one-third of the land in Kaifeng Mansion. Even if he only took [-]%, he still had an income of four to five million taels of silver every year.

The four to five million taels of income, plus the fixed salary, is about [-] taels.

In fact, only Zhu Suqin himself, his uncles, nephews, descendants and other hundreds of people can share the six hundred thousand taels of silver.

In other words, even if it is divided equally, each person will have an income of [-] taels of silver.

Now someone suddenly said that they would be given a fixed salary of [-] taels to [-] taels, and that it would be reduced hereditary, and then asked them to hand over their Zhuangtian and Mintian, which was no different from killing them.

Therefore, those who can really unite are actually princes and county kings who have a lot of fields.

After all, small feudal clans with dozens of people like Su Fan are a minority, and normal suzerains have hundreds of people.

With soldiers and horses, young, and willing to give up profits...

For Zhu Suqin, having such a nephew as an opponent really made him not know where to start, so under Zhu Gongyun's reminder, he could only keep his mouth shut.

However, just because he kept his mouth shut doesn't mean that no one has other thoughts.

Almost only a few hours later, Prince Fu's Mansion in Luoyang received a letter from the capital.

Compared with Zhou Fan, who was in great battle, Prince Fu's Mansion seemed very deserted.

It's just a new feudal clan that has just been in the feudal clan for nine years, but the regulations of the Kefu Palace are comparable to those of the Zhou Palace, and from the looks of the palace, it can be said that all of them are maidservants.

In the study room of the Prince's Mansion, a fat man in ordinary clothes was holding a letter and frowning.

Beside him, a lady in palace attire was waiting.

In the courtyard outside the study, three teenagers, one big, two small, were having a snowball fight, looking very harmonious.

But after reading the letter, the woman in palace attire frowned slightly, and said to her eyes: "Your Highness..."

"Don't panic, my two nephews want to make trouble, just let them make trouble." The man suddenly looked up into the courtyard, and his identity was obvious.

He is the king of Fu, Zhu Changxun, who caused the dispute between the country and the country, caused the conflict between Emperor Wanli and civil servants to break out, and indirectly led to the gradual deterioration of the Ming Dynasty...

The three teenagers running around in the courtyard are his three county kings.

As for the woman next to him, she is the current concubine Fu Yao.

Besides Yao shi, he also has dozens of unnamed concubines.

I have to say that in this kind of mess at the end of Ming Dynasty, Zhu Changxun can say that Zhu Changxun is very nourishing compared to the exhausted and tinkering Zhu Changluo and his son.

The "Fu Lu Banquet" passed down by later generations is half true and half false, but Li Zicheng is not as perverted as he likes to eat human flesh.

But after humiliating Zhu Changxun, he was executed, and by the way, the eunuch of the palace was allowed to collect Zhu Changxun's body and bury him in the unrepaired mausoleum.

It can be said that Li Zicheng was more moral to the old Zhu family, at least compared with the Qing army who wanted to avenge Ming Dynasty, he could be called a moral model.

However, it is estimated that Fu Wang would never have imagined that he would be executed by a shepherd boy.

At present, even though he has felt the danger from the two brothers Zhu Youjian and Zhu Youxiao, he is still sure that they dare not bully him too much.

To put it bluntly, civil servants need to maintain the ancestral system and use the ancestral system to suppress the emperor and gain power.

Then once the emperor did something that violated their standards, he would be besieged by civil officials.

Because of this result, Tianqi and Chongzhen in history did not choose to take revenge on Li Xuanshi and Zheng Guifei.

However, the current situation is different.

Although the imperial power is still temporarily inferior to civil servants, it is in a delicate situation.

Zhu Changxun didn't realize this situation, so it's no wonder that he would die in the hands of Li Zicheng later.

"I read the letter from the mother and concubine, it seems that King Qi and Long Live are very afraid..."

Yao shi reminded his prince, but Zhu Changxun showed displeasure and said:

"Two and a half kids, how can you deal with me? If you want to deal with me, you have to deal with those rotten scholars first!"

Although Zhu Changxun has poor political vision, he also knows that the consent of civil servants is still needed to clean up the vassal king.

This is still an ordinary vassal king. If it is a vassal king like Zhu Changxun who has not given three clothes, he will be easily impeached by civil servants in the name of "mean clan".

This situation is very funny.

The civil servants who had been enemies with Zhu Changxun for more than ten years now became his protective umbrella...

"Your Highness!"

Not long after Zhu Changxun's voice fell, he heard footsteps and the voice of Wangfu Changshi.

After a few seconds, Chang Shi walked into the study and bowed to Zhu Changxun:

"Your Highness, someone from the capital has sent a letter, but..."

As he said, Chang Shi handed over the letter with both hands, and Zhu Changxun also took it doubtfully.

Such doubts were resolved when he opened the letter and saw the contents.

This is a handwritten letter sent by Zhu Guozuo, one of the current cabinet ministers and the leader of the Zhejiang Party.

The content of this handwriting is also very simple, it analyzes the current situation, states the harm of the clan system reform to the vassal kings, and adds a reminder at the end that the vassal kings need to go to the echelon to solve it by themselves.

"Rotten Confucian..."

Zhu Changxun looked at the worthless handwriting, and directly squeezed it into a ball, and threw it into the nearby stove.

"This early bird, whoever likes to be the one."

Zhu Changxun is just greedy for power and sex, but he is not a fool.

He has been targeted by civil servants for more than ten years, can't he see that this is Zhu Guozuo's trick to find someone to be the leader?

I'm afraid this guy not only sent the letter to himself, but also received the letter from other feudal lords.

Now that everyone has received the letter, it means that Zhu Guozuo doesn't want to support him alone.

There is one thing to say, if he really supports Zhu Changxun, Zhu Changxun may be able to bite the bullet and fight with those two elder nephews.

But since Zhu Guozuo wants to make multiple bets and dare not be the first bird, then don't blame Zhu Changxun for turning himself into an ostrich and not caring about world affairs.

He was going to take a look at the attitudes of other feudal kings and follow suit, otherwise he would be caught by those two eldest nephews, and he might be humiliated in some way.

As for his thoughts, when he wrote back to Concubine Zheng, he was transcribed by Cui Wensheng, and finally handed over to the Supervision Department of Jinyiwei.

In the Hall of Mental Cultivation in the Imperial Palace of the Forbidden City on the [-]th, as night fell, the Supervision Department handed King Fu's reply letter to Zhu Youxiao.

Zhu Youxiao looked at the transcribed handwriting by candlelight, expressionless.

But it was this appearance that made Wei Zhongxian beside him feel terrified.

Although Wei Zhongxian is not very clear about Zhu Youjian's plan to move the clans in Shanxi and Shanxi, he probably knows.

But he didn't expect that with the emperor's acquiescence, his own King Qi would dare to play so big.

Two of the four major vassals were rectified at once, and judging from the local reaction, the effect seems to be good.

However, this move caused nearly [-] princes and princes of the Ming Dynasty to flee.

Wei Zhongxian glanced at the mountains of memorials, swallowed, and couldn't imagine how much pressure the emperor had to face.

But without waiting for him to think too much, Zhu Youxiao said:

"Among these memorials, how many people agree with innovation? How many people oppose it?"

As soon as Zhu Youxiao spoke, Wei Zhongxian immediately lowered his body and responded:

"Three hundred and seven princes and county kings, there are a total of [-] eunuchs, of which [-] are in favor of innovation, [-] are veiled against, and nine princes are normal, long live you Please."

After he finished speaking, Zhu Youxiao didn't respond, but crumpled up the letter in his hand and threw it into the briquette stove next to him.

He watched the briquette stove burn the paper balls to ashes, and he didn't speak until there was no light from the fire:

"Is there no movement in the outer court?"

"Some..." Wei Zhongxian cautiously responded:

"The people below have checked the news. In the past few days, long live, you have left the court. The civil servants of various parties have been walking back and forth. They seem to be moving around for His Royal Highness King Qi's move to abolish the three towns, reorganize the guards, and reform the clan."

"No specific information has been found. Nanzhen Fusi should be investigating, but after the reform of Jinyiwei, Dongchang..."

"Okay." Zhu Youxiao said suddenly, and Wei Zhongxian immediately knelt down on the ground in fright.

The reason why he mentioned Dongchang and Jinyiwei was to vaguely remind the emperor that Dongchang controlled Jinyiwei, and now it seemed that no one could restrain Jinyiwei.

It's just that he didn't finish his sentence, and the emperor understood his little thoughts, so he knelt down without a trace of hesitation.

"What to do, what to say, think about it in the future..."

"Yes, yes, this servant will definitely think about it in the future."

Zhu Youxiao opened the other memorials with a normal expression, and Wei Zhongxian nodded again and again.

"Go tell Li Ruolian and Cui Yingyuan to come to Yangxin Hall."

Zhu Youxiao dealt with several memorials, and suddenly said to Wei Zhongxian.

"Slave and servant lead the order." Wei Zhongxian got up when he saw this, and then bowed and retreated respectfully.

After half an hour, footsteps sounded outside Qianqing Palace, and three figures walked into Qianqing Palace and arrived at the gate of Yangxin Palace.

"Long live my minister, long live Sheng An..."

Li Ruolian and Cui Yingyuan, who were announced, opened their mouths and bowed to each other.

"come in."

Zhu Youxiao didn't raise his head, and Li Ruolian and Li Ruolian walked into the Hall of Mental Cultivation under Wei Zhongxian's signal, and lowered their heads to wait for the emperor to speak.

When Wei Zhongxian came to Zhu Youxiao's side, he put down the memorial, and said to the two:

"Where is brother?"

"Long live..." Cui Yingyuan had already received Zhu Youjian's signal that the emperor would answer whatever he asked, so he said:

"His Royal Highness King Qi is currently resting in Nanyuan, Shuntian Prefecture. He will go to Tianjin tomorrow to watch the launching of fourteen sea-going ships at Tianjin Dockyard."

"Huh?" Hearing this, Zhu Youxiao became interested and asked:

"Fourteen what ships?"

"Long live back." Cui Yingyuan continued: "Ten ships with thousands of materials, three ships with two thousand materials, and one ship with three thousand materials."

"However, although it has been built, even the craftsmen in the dock are not sure if it can be done, especially the one with three thousand materials."

"Hmm..." Upon hearing this, Principal Zhu You breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to Wei Zhongxian and said:

"There are too many things during this time, and I actually forgot about the things in Tianjin, and I don't know how the craftsmanship of these shipwrights is. Don't waste wood."

"Long live, if you are worried, you can actually go and see for yourself." Wei Zhongxian encouraged the emperor, because he knew that the emperor wanted to leave the palace very much, and he even wanted to go to Tianjin Dockyard to watch the cargo ship launch.

However, his words made Zhu Youxiao frown and said: "The last time I went out of the palace, Yang Lian and the others went to bed for more than a month. If I go out again this time, then..."

"Long live, the last time I was sent to the school was because there was no one in Beijing, but this time it's different." Wei Zhongxian smiled flatteringly, then bowed his head and whispered something in Zhu Youxiao's ear, which made Zhu Youxiao's eyes light up.

"It is indeed feasible!" Zhu Youxiao didn't know what he heard, and his whole body became more energetic.

Cui Yingyuan and Li Ruolian were very curious, but Zhu Youxiao suddenly looked at them and said to them:

"Who are you from?"

"Naturally, he is from Long Live, from Daming." Li Ruolian and Cui Yingyuan did not dare to neglect, and responded subconsciously.

It's just that after Zhu Youxiao saw their behavior, the smile in his eyes became stronger and stronger.

"Okay!" Zhu Youxiao coughed:
"Since you are my people, what do you think if I ask you to do something now?" Zhu Youxiao used a very formal self-proclaimed name.

"Long live, please!" Li Ruolian and Cui Yingyuan immediately knelt down and bowed, and Zhu Youxiao also said with a strong smile in his eyes:

"Okay, the two of you are worthy ministers of my humerus, since that's the case, then you..."

　Four o'clock and one more

　　
　
(End of this chapter)