The ruthless emperor in the late Ming Dynasty forced Chongzhen to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 161 Emperor Nanyuan
"My loves, three days later, I will go to the south to inspect the provinces. After I leave Beijing, the queen mother and imperial concubine will supervise the country. All loves must perform their duties and not slack off!"

"My ministers, please abide by the decree!"

After conferring the title, Zhu Cihong directly announced the southern tour plan.

Although everyone was shocked that His Majesty was going to leave Beijing for a tour, they still knelt down to worship right away.

As for the voice of opposition, there was not a single one. Obviously, whether it is a civil servant or a military commander, they all know now that His Majesty is right now.

Talking too much nonsense will only annoy him.

After the imperial court was over, Zhu Cihong selected another 3000 people from the Imperial Forest Army to join the lecture hall. This was also the last batch of crash courses.

After graduating in the second half of next year, they can be dispatched to ten towns and completely control all field troops.

In the next three days, Zhu Cihong took Hong Niangzi to inspect the industrial area in the west of the city.

The construction work of the entire industrial zone has been contracted out to those military officers, and it is divided into five phases of construction. Thousands of military officers are in charge of organizing the construction, which has indeed saved a lot of trouble for the inner court.

Normally, you only need to monitor the living conditions of the workers and pay the wages. After the work is completed, the quality will be uniformly inspected. If it is unqualified, the money will be deducted for repairs, and if it is serious, it will be charged.

So no one would dare to cut corners in the short term.

The size of the textile factory has not increased for the time being, and there are still [-] spinning machines. It's not that I don't want to increase, but it has reached the limit.

Almost every household in the military households near the capital has looms, and the cloth weaves every month is as high as more than 40 pieces, and they are all coarse cotton. The rich will not buy them, and ordinary people buy them by a few feet. , For this, only the Xuanfu of Datong and the military households in the capital can afford it.

So it is mainly sold to the south, but now the people in the south are not rich, and the cotton cloth merchants in the south are also selling at a lower price, so hundreds of thousands of cotton cloths have been hoarded in the warehouse.

Because the hoarded cotton cloth was too much to sell, Zhu Cihong wanted to change to new military uniforms, and asked the Ordnance Superintendent to purchase more than 20 pieces at one go, but there were still more than 30 pieces in the warehouse. increase, so there is an urgent need for a market.

To increase the sales of cotton cloth, the only way is to increase the income of the common people, which is why Zhu Cihong is eager to go south.

With a population of more than 1 million in the mighty Ming Dynasty, more than half of the 40 bolts of cotton cloth per month are still left, which shows how poor the people at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty are.

Zhu Cihong also felt that his steps seemed to be too big, 40 horses a month, excluding two months during the busy farming season, and 400 million horses in a year, just listening to it is scary.

But for the time being, he can only repair more warehouses and hoard them. It is impossible to stop work. Anyway, the most important thing he lacks now is money.

Because in just one year, the commercial prosperity of the capital has surpassed that of the Wanli period.

The outer city is far from being able to accommodate today's commercial needs. It is overcrowded almost at the end of the month, and all streets are congested in a mess.

The reason why it is so prosperous is that in addition to thousands of rich military officers, there are more than 7 female spinning workers and more than 20 craftsmen. They have a fixed salary of one to five taels a month, and they all have food. Envelope, it is definitely the consumer group.

In addition, the hundreds of thousands of military households in the capital also have some spare money in their hands, and the military households who came to work from Datong Xuanfu also have to buy things when they return.

If it weren't for the fact that the banknotes are strong now, and everyone starts to save them and stop spending them randomly, the commodities they need are far from enough.

Even if this is the case, the prices of various commodities in the capital have risen a little, which has caused some inflation invisibly, which is beyond the control of anyone.

Because the demand far exceeds the commodity, even if there is money to recycle the treasure, the price rise cannot be avoided.

Regarding business matters, Zhu Cihong had already made it clear to Liu Xinlan that the main work in the next two years would be to extend the royal store to the southern provinces and improve the freight system of the Post Office.

Government affairs are also governed by doing nothing, and Jin Yiwei and Dongchang will supervise the unauthorized tax collection.

Therefore, it is mainly for military convenience.

"My concubine, after I leave, exchange the three capitals of Xuanfu Datong with the scholars of the four capitals near the capital, and let them check with each other to see if there is any favoritism in the land distribution.

Especially those general banners and small banners with thousands of households. I reckon those talented scholars must have allocated more land to them. Once someone finds out that something is wrong, they will be directly promoted to a higher level. . "

If it was said that those scholars and recruiters strictly followed his requirements and distributed the land to ordinary military households, he absolutely believed it.

Because more points and less points are not good for them.

But those retired veterans and low-level military officers are different, at least for a few years they have been colleagues with these scholars.

According to the urgency of the literati in this era, and the tradition of Chinese people's sophistication, even if those old soldiers and military officers don't give benefits, those scholars will give them more or less more points.

Although he knew that this situation would not be too outrageous, Zhu Cihong still wanted to investigate and severely punish some people.

It's not that he doesn't want to part with those lands, but that this habit is bad. He wants all the literati to know that he, the emperor, can't rub a little sand in his eyes.

"Your Majesty, if it is found out by then, how should we deal with it?"

The red lady nodded, and then asked for instructions.

"If other people's favoritism is found out, they will be demoted to a lower level. If no one else's favoritism is found out, but they themselves are also favoritism, they will be dismissed from their official positions and sent back to their hometowns. If they accept bribes, they will be killed without mercy!"

In the end, Zhu Cihong also had a murderous look on his face, obviously he didn't want to hide it in front of the red lady.

He can't tolerate bribery at all, because these literati are the targets of his future reform.

What's more, I give them a salary of ten taels of silver and a bonus of two taels of silver every month, which is twice as high as those of the military officers, which is enough to make the whole family live comfortably.

"Your Majesty, what about the veterans and military officers?" Hong Niangzi didn't care at all about the life and death of those literati, she cared about those veterans and military officers.

"Those who don't pay bribes don't care. Those who pay bribes are dismissed from office and demoted to ordinary military households. Half of the land will be confiscated."

After Zhu Cihong finished speaking, Hong Niangzi also heaved a sigh of relief.

"By the way, Concubine Ai, there is one more thing, have you heard of Liu Rushi?"

"The concubine knows that, together with Yuanyuan and the others, they are called Qinhuai Bayan, as if she married that old man Qian Qianyi as a concubine."

The red lady looked at Zhu Cihuang strangely, if she didn't know that the little emperor was not a lustful person, she would have thought that he had fallen in love with Liu Rushi.

"That's right, Qian Qianyi was sent to North Korea by me, and no news has been found yet, but judging from the situation at the time, he was definitely captured by Jiannu. I was worried that he would surrender and become a traitor. Then Liu Rushi I admire her noble character very much, but I didn't expect her to be implicated by Qian Qianyi.

Concubine Ai, please take some time to talk to her in private, and ask her to reconcile with Qian Qianyi as soon as possible and get rid of the relationship. If she doesn't want to, you can tell her that Qian Qianyi has become a traitor. "

After Zhu Cihong finished speaking, she also had a wry smile on her face.

He originally wanted to directly label Qian Qianyi a traitor, because at that time the king of North Korea surrendered voluntarily, and the old dog could not have died in the chaos.

With Qian Qianyi's identity, after being captured alive, Jiannu would definitely not kill him, and would definitely surrender. As for his cowardly and cartilaginous piss, he would definitely become a traitor, but there has been no news.

All the civil officials did not believe that Qian Qianyi, a great Confucian in Donglin, would be a traitor. Zhu Cihong could only wait for this, and then slap them in the face when the evidence was conclusive.

"Oh?"

"Your Majesty admires Liu Rushi so much? The concubine wants to see her!" The red lady also smiled in surprise.

"My concubine, don't get me wrong. I just admire her integrity. Alas, the contrast between a prostitute and a Confucian scholar is too great..."

Zhu Cihong said at the end, and waved his hand, now that history has changed, some things can't be explained clearly to her, as long as he knows what's in his mind.

A traitor like Qian Qianyi definitely wanted to ransack his family and exterminate his family, and erect a monument to warn future generations, but he didn't want to implicate Liu Rushi.

"Your Majesty appreciates her so much, the concubine will naturally handle this matter well, so don't worry, Your Majesty!"

Seeing his appearance, the red lady didn't ask any more questions. When she saw Liu Rushi, she would know why His Majesty was so caring.

She really didn't believe that His Majesty really took a fancy to Liu Rushi, even if Liu Rushi was all over the country, could she still surpass Chen Yuanyuan?

The next day, Zhu Cihong set off for the south, and he only brought along five thousand imperial guards and hundreds of scholars.

These literati are all in the north this year, Enke did not go to high school, and they did not want to go back, and finally switched to the military.

The reason why there are scholars is that Enke in the north is also holding the general examination and the rural examination in the capital.

This time Zhu Cilang brought Princess Kunxing with her, one is to let the imperial sister see the scenery in the south of the Yangtze River, and the other is that the Royal Bank will also spread in the south.

(End of this chapter)