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

Chapter 162 A Gentle Reform

After Zhu Cihong left, not only did there not appear to be any disturbances in the capital, but everyone became cautious, more cautious than when the emperor was there.

Especially the civil servants, who were afraid of being caught by the red lady, even had fewer meetings.

And the commanders of the various armies and the chief officers of the towns returned to their respective garrisons, and they also fully supported the reorganization and training of those students, fearing that they would be killed as chickens.

Obviously everyone understands that Hong Niangzi is the knife in the hands of the emperor, which is specially used to kill people and ransack homes.

Almost everyone scolded the little emperor for being shameless in their hearts.

Compared with the emperors of previous dynasties, who used powerful officials and eunuchs to do dirty and rough work, today's use of the red lady, a female traitor, is more lethal than those eunuchs and eunuchs, and they are more carefree.

After all, eunuchs and powerful ministers still have to think about cunning rabbits and dead dogs. They will inevitably have a little selfishness and dare not offend everyone, but Hong Niangzi doesn't care about these at all, and this is the most terrible thing.

However, even if everyone is cautious, what should happen will still happen. Just three days after Zhu Cihong left, Hong Niangzi, as the left governor of the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion, ordered all the civilian staff in the seven major capitals to exchange and review each other.

After the order was issued and arrived at the Baihubao of the guards of the capitals, all the scholars were shocked, and there was an uproar, angry and guilty at the same time.

Moreover, in order to prevent the literati from the Xuanfu of Datong and the capital from colluding on the way, Hong Niangzi also stipulated that the literati from the Xuanfu of Datong should first go south to Ningwuguan, and then from Guguan in the east of Shanxi, via Zhendingfu and Baodingfu. The guards of the four capitals of the capital will arrive within one month.

The literati from the four capitals near the capital all went directly to Juyongguan, and went to the guards of Xuanfu Datong for inspection. They arrived within ten days and reported the inspection within one month.

In addition, the literati didn't know in advance who was going to come to examine them. Almost everyone felt insecure and panicked. They secretly decided to find out something when they got to the place, so as to reduce the crime.

Although Hong Niangzi only announced that she could reduce her own guilt if she found out that others were cheating for personal gain, and didn't mention the corresponding punishment, but everyone knew that if she didn't find out, she committed another crime, and her fate would definitely not be much better.

Otherwise, His Majesty wouldn't just leave and let Hong Niangzi do this. In the end, he would definitely kill the literati, depending on who is unlucky.

More than 2000 scholars are still on the way, and the emperor's edict has been sent to Henan, Shanxi, and the southern part of Beizhili.

The content of the edict is very simple. All the civil officials who surrendered to the rebels, except the northeast of Yingtianfu, and the rest of the civil officials, subject to the arrival of the edict, will commit suicide within three days to apologize.

Although all the civil officials in the capital cursed the emperor for being too cruel and ruthless, they couldn't say anything. The emperor wanted his ministers to die, and the ministers had to die.

Of course, the Jinshi of Enke High School and the civil servants who have been on the bench for several years in the Imperial Academy, although they didn't know how to say it, they all called His Majesty Shengming in their hearts, and they very much supported His Majesty's decision.

The first to commit suicide would naturally belong to a group of civil servants under house arrest in the capital of Datong Mansion, followed by the counties and counties in the southern part of Beizhili.

In just one month, as many as [-] people hanged themselves from civil officials of the third, fourth, and fifth ranks, such as the chief envoy, the inspector, and the prefect, down to the sixth and seventh ranks of the prefecture and county magistrates. Almost no one dared to resist. Honestly choose to hang himself to apologize.

The imperial power of Ming Dynasty reached its peak in one fell swoop.

At the same time, after nearly half a month, Zhu Cihong's dragon boat finally arrived in Nanjing.

Hearing that His Majesty is going to tour the south, the literati, gentry and merchants in the south of the Yangtze River are excited but at the same time very disturbed.

On the day of arrival, there were crowds of people outside and inside Nanjing, which was even more sensational than when Zhang Yan and Hong Niangzi arrived.

Compared to the time when the red lady rode into the city, Zhu Cihong had to be more careful and honestly took the carriage, which disappointed the countless civilians along the street who wanted to catch a glimpse of Longyan.

On the day of arrival, Zhu Cihong took the imperial sister to the ancestral mausoleum to worship, and then went to the palace.

Zhang Yan just greeted her at the gate of the palace and did not go to the pier.

After returning to the palace, Princess Kunxing was exhausted and went to rest, but Zhu Cihuang and Zhang Yan came to the imperial study room and sent everyone out, Zhang Yan then said: "Xiao'er, why are you so serious?" Did you come to Nanjing? Now that all parts of the south of the Yangtze River have calmed down, and the southern provinces have also stabilized, you should be in the capital!"

Zhang Yan's tone was a bit reproachful, blaming him for handing over hundreds of thousands of troops to the red lady, but running to Nanjing himself, it was not the emperor's doing.

"There is no war in the north for the time being, and the south seems to be stable, but in fact it has long been rotten. The boy came this time in person to carry out drastic reforms and strengthen the national strength of our Ming Dynasty."

"Auntie, you have worked hard for more than a year, but judging by Auntie's complexion, the climate in the south of the Yangtze River is really pleasant."

Zhu Cihong said that in the end, seeing that she seemed younger than when she was in Beijing, she also smiled.

"You know how to make fun of my aunt. Your aunt, who was tossed by the noble concubine a while ago, couldn't sleep at night. If you don't transfer her back to Beijing, my aunt will be scared to death by her."

Zhang Yan glared at him reproachfully, and then said concerned again: "Xiao'er, you've been exhausted all the way, you'd better go and rest first, let's talk about things tomorrow."

"No need, my boy is in good spirits, let's talk about business first, auntie, let's talk to my boy about the salt industry first, how is it going now?" Zhu Cihong waved his hand.

"Ying'er just disposed of the hundreds of salt merchants. The staff members under them are still performing their duties. It has little impact on the salt in various places, and the price is a little cheaper. However, it is not a long-term solution. Many civil servants Shangzuo wanted to rectify the salt industry, and my aunt did not dare to make decisions without authorization. She was planning to tidy it up and report it to you...

As Zhang Yan said, she took a large stack of memorials from the shelf beside her and put them on the dragon table.

Zhu Cihong picked up a book, flipped through it casually, then threw it aside, not bothering to read it again.

"What's the matter, Hong'er?"

"Baby has already regulated the salt industry, so it doesn't matter if you don't look at it."

"Oh? Then how does Lang'er plan to rectify the salt industry?"

"The salt industry is completely nationalized. Haier will set up a salt bureau under the Commercial Supervision Bureau. This salt bureau will be fully operated in accordance with the business model. The royal family will hold [-]% of the shares, and the state will hold [-]%. In the future, it will be responsible for the production and processing of salt. Set up a sub-bureau and unify the price, anyone can come to the sub-bureau to buy salt and sell it everywhere..."

Zhu Cilang told her in detail about his salt monopoly plan.

He plans to establish a huge salt production area in Lianghuai, and then divide it into three types according to the quality. The salt is packaged in oil paper bags according to the amount of one catty, and a special mark is printed on the bag. From now on, all the salt in bulk will be private. Those who dare to secretly sell salt will beheaded and ransacked their homes.

The Salt Bureau does not sell the salt directly, but is only responsible for processing and packaging the salt, and then transporting it to the provincial branches for wholesale. Anyone can come to buy salt and sell it.

In addition, the royal shop will also sell it, and there will be no more high prices in the future.

"This is quite novel, and it can also prevent salt merchants from exploiting the people and salt households. It's just that they are all packed in paper bags, and each bag is only one catty. Will it be too cumbersome? It will also increase some costs."

Zhang Yan's eyes lit up after listening to it. In fact, she is not very satisfied with the salt policy played by the civil servants. They just change the soup without changing the medicine. After a long time, I am afraid that it will be the same as today's salt industry, fattening the salt merchants. , Suffering for Yanhu and ordinary people.

"It's a bit of a hassle, but it's worth it in order not to let the common people eat those poisonous salts in the future. The big deal is not to make money from the common people, but only from the rich."

"From now on, I plan to divide table salt into three types. One is refined salt, which costs at least two renminbi a catty; One catty, of course the specific price will have to wait until the baby has been to the place of origin.”

After Zhu Cihong finished speaking, Zhang Yan also nodded appreciatively, and obviously understood that even if the price was very different, those rich people would not eat coarse salt.

"In other respects, how does Lang'er plan to reform?"

Zhang Yan knew that all political reforms have always been earth-shattering events, with many difficulties and few successful ones, so she was very concerned about how he wanted to reform and strengthen Zhongxing Daming.

"This time, Haier plans to carry out reforms in the four aspects of commerce, agriculture, government affairs, and imperial examinations. First of all, commerce. The Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Taxation will be established to manage commerce and collect commercial taxes. Then, agriculture will be re-measured for land registration. Officials and gentry pay food as a whole, except for land tax, cancel all miscellaneous taxes, government officials and officials should also be included in the official system, and the imperial court will distribute salaries uniformly, and the imperial examinations should be divided into departments to select scholars. How to implement the reform, I have to think carefully. "

Zhu Cihong knew that the reform would not be accomplished overnight. He planned to take it step by step. First, collect commercial taxes, open the sea ban, set up a city shipping department, then re-measure land, formulate agricultural taxes, carry out government reforms at the same time, and finally reform the imperial examinations.

In Zhu Cihong's view, such reforms are only applicable within ten years, and there will definitely be another cross-generational reform after ten years, and there will be constant adjustments during the period.

But in Zhang Yan's view, this is simply an earth-shattering reform. Compared with Zhang Juzheng's reform back then, it is like a candlelight and a bright moon. She was so shocked that she didn't recover for a long time.

After a long while, he trembled nervously: "Lang'er, isn't this too radical?"

"That's it, still radical?"

Zhu Cihong didn't have a good mood, compared to beating the local tyrants to divide the land, completely abolishing the status of lowly slaves and so on.

The New Deal he is going to implement is already quite moderate, far worse than Wang Mang's back then.

Of course, the main consideration is the thinking and philosophy of people in this era. This kind of new policy is already at its limit. If you rashly engage in the fight against the local tyrants to divide the land and everyone is equal, I am afraid that in the end, like Wang Mang, people will betray their relatives and end in misery.

Because all the generals and ordinary soldiers followed the emperor, the biggest pursuit is to abolish these.

All the people hated the big family, but what they hated was the big family itself, and what they hated was why they were not big families with luxurious houses, beautiful wives and beautiful maidservants, not this system.

(End of this chapter)