King Xiang of the Red Chamber

Chapter 823: After scraping the ground three feet, there is no money left!
The situation in Jiangbei gradually stabilized. At least in the last few days of the twelfth lunar month, the reports sent back showed that the situation was very good, which made Zhu Jinghong think that he could have a good new year.

But on the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, the day when the royal family held a family banquet, another urgent delivery was delivered to the capital from Jiangbei.

From the 23rd to the 25th of the twelfth lunar month, abnormally heavy snow fell continuously in Jiangbei, and more than 200,000 homeless people froze to death.

After reading the report, Zhu Jinghong felt horrified at first, but after thinking about it for a while, he felt that it was unlikely. Although it was going to snow in Jiangbei, it would not be so cold that so many people would freeze to death.

Is there something fishy going on here?
Zhu Jinghong ordered the government to provide disaster relief, and at the same time ordered the East Factory and the Embroidered Uniform Guard to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.

The matter was dealt with, but on the sixth day of the first lunar month, Song Ziyu, who had arrived in Jiangbei, sent back a report stating that there were still hundreds of thousands of local victims.

Moreover, the people were so poor that they had little surplus food to survive the famine, and the relief from the Jiangbei government granaries could only last for one month. This was the level achieved in recent years after the court promoted new crops and there was a bumper grain harvest.

According to the experience before the Zhengtong period, the refugees were basically left to fend for themselves, and the government relief was better than nothing.

This requires the transfer of grain relief from other places to prevent more people from starving to death.

There are two provinces in the north of the Yangtze River that were not affected by the disaster and are relatively prosperous: Nanjing and Shandong.

Song Ziyu reported that if the winter wheat planted this year was harvested normally, the disaster relief would only need to last until this summer, which means about four months of food.

According to his calculations, the imperial court would have to transfer at least 600,000 shi of grain.

After the court discussion, Zhu Jinghong immediately issued an edict, ordering Shandong to transfer 350,000 shi of grain and Nanjing to transfer 250,000 shi of grain.

At the same time, Zhu Jinghong also issued an edict to implement the method of work-for-relief, requiring the victims to repair water conservancy, roads and other facilities to prevent accidents caused by people having too much to do and having nothing to do.

The difficulty in disaster relief lies in distributing the food, so capable people must be sent to supervise the work. Song Ziyu is definitely too busy to handle the investigation.

On the seventh day of the first lunar month, Zhu Jinghong issued another decree, appointing Li Ziheng, the Chief Censor, as the imperial commissioner, with full authority to handle all matters related to disaster relief.

On the day he received the imperial edict, Li Ziheng, who had been spending the New Year at home, went to the palace to meet the emperor. Then he went home, packed his luggage, and set off for Jiangbei that same day.

These days, he was busy with "auditing" work in the capital. Although he had uncovered some illegal activities, it was indeed too boring for him.

Just three days after he left Beijing, two relatively important events occurred at the grand court meeting on the tenth day of the first lunar month.

Grand court meetings have strong ceremonial attributes, and generally nothing big will happen. But if something does happen, it will definitely be a big deal.

One was that there were ten craftsmen in the Tiangong Academy who were awarded the title of Congshilang, a seventh-rank official, by Zhu Jinghong for their innovations in gunpowder, guns, shipbuilding, and construction.

You have to know that the official positions given to Jinshi are only at this level, which is enough to show how generous the rewards are for these craftsmen.

This move caused a commotion at court because it was a first.

Even if the craftsmen were only granted official titles of minor ranks, officials considered it a blasphemy to the imperial examination system, and it was natural for them to be dissatisfied.

Of course, no one at the scene dared to object. After all, the training of Zhu's father and son over the years has made many people learn the rules.

Even though they have to accept it even though they can't understand it, and they will persuade themselves to accept it, most people still feel uncomfortable, with a frustrated look on their faces.

The second thing to do at the court meeting was still commendation, but the objects of commendation had become foreign pioneers.

The so-called pioneers refer to the children of wealthy families who, in recent years, have taken the initiative to bring start-up capital and manpower to Luzon, Southeast Asia, Northeast China and other places to open up new territories.

The reason why they are children of big families is that only these big families have the strength to support the expansion across the oceans. The ordinary people who are braver can only follow these people in exchange for a salary.

Of course, in addition to those who took the initiative to go out and explore, the officials who were exiled in recent years were also the main force for external expansion, but these people were atonement so they were not included in the commendation.

In addition to money and supplies, the rewards for these pioneers also included granting them the title of Xuanjie Xiaowei, a seventh-rank military official.

The reward for the above thirty people was still for the purpose of buying horse bones for thousands of gold coins and conveying the trend of the times to the court and the public.

In addition to taking the imperial examinations, smart people around the world can also engage in research and explore the wider world, and the imperial court will not be stingy with rewards of fame and honor.

After the court meeting, Zhu Jinghong returned to the Qianqing Palace and began another day of reviewing. In the evening, he would give a banquet in the Wuying Hall, and those who received rewards today would also have to attend.

After working for a whole morning and finishing reading the memorials, Zhu Jinghong went to Kunning Palace. He made an appointment with Baochai to have lunch together, and he would stay overnight at Yinglian's place that night.

In Kunning Palace, Zhu Jinghong was welcomed into the hall. Baochai said, "It seems that the situation is better than you expected. Today's matter has been settled smoothly!"

Zhu Jinghong expected that directly awarding official positions at the grand court meeting, especially to craftsmen, would encounter backlash, so he made some preparations in advance.

Sitting in the main seat, Zhu Jinghong took the teacup and replied: "I remembered an old story!"

Sitting next to him, Baochai asked, "What's the matter?"

"When I first made achievements in the northwest, someone in the capital spread rumors and slandered me, and one of them was that the concubine of Prince Xiang was a lowly merchant!"

"The Xue family owned thousands of acres of land, and they had a cabinet secretary. My father was a legitimate scholar, but he was just on a job awarded by the royal family. To say that the Xue family is a merchant... is a joke!"

Not only is Baochai indifferent to this now, but she also just laughed it off back then, because such a statement was indeed ridiculous.

If we really look into it strictly, most of the successful scholar-official families have various business dealings at home. In this sense, don't they all belong to the merchant class?

Her biggest flaw back then was that she lost her father at a young age, and this was the main point of the criticism.

"It's not bad to be a merchant. It can help the economy flourish by connecting with all directions. This is also a way to enrich a country!"

"Which family of the scholars and officials in the southeast who are now engaged in maritime trade? They all talk about the words of a saint, but secretly compete to make money. It's really ridiculous!"

Only he, the emperor, could say these words.

"Your Majesty, I used to think I was very knowledgeable, but after watching your Majesty's situation and the various reforms in the world in recent years, I realized that I am a frog in a well with limited knowledge!"

Looking at Zhu Jinghong seriously, Baochai continued, "It is difficult for me to judge what your Majesty has done, but I believe...your Majesty is right!"

At this moment, a warm feeling surged in Zhu Jinghong's heart. It was an effect that Zhang Xiaoyue had danced for several months, Li Huizhen had sung for hundreds of times, and other people had tried all kinds of tricks, but none of them could achieve.

"Our great Ming Dynasty's Taizu and Shizu were the founding emperors, but I think... Your Majesty will also have the merit of founding the country, and your achievements will be no less than those of the two ancestors!"

As an emperor, standing above hundreds of millions of people, it was difficult for Zhu Jinghong to understand his intentions, and he was often puzzled and even misunderstood.

Only in the harem could he find physical and mental comfort, and Baochai and Daiyu gave him the best feeling.

"Forget it, if you keep talking like this, I will become the greatest emperor in the history!"

Seeing Zhu Jinghong's easygoing expression, Baochai smiled and said, "Your Majesty likes to listen, so I will say a few more words, and there is nothing wrong with that!"

However, before the couple chatted for a while, Yu Hai hurried into the hall.

Just by looking at his expression, Zhu Jinghong knew that something bad had happened again, which made him feel depressed again.

"What's the matter?"

Yu Hai knelt down and reported: "Your Majesty, I just received news that dozens of officials had a dispute over the appointment of officials at today's court meeting, which led to a fight..."

"The patrolling guards passed by and stopped them, but the head of the Ministry of Revenue, Wei Zhenghong... had been beaten to death!"

"what?"

Zhu Jinghong stood up in surprise. Officials quarreling and fighting was a phenomenon that existed in the pre-Ming Dynasty. He did not expect it to happen again in his own era, and it was rare that someone was beaten to death. Wei Zhenghong, who was beaten to death, was a Jinshi in the third year of Zhengtong. He was his loyal supporter, so he would naturally be despised by the mainstream of the court.

Now that this man was beaten to death, Zhu Jinghong had to suspect that these people might have come for him and wanted to slap him in the face.

"Have all the murderers been arrested?" Zhu Jinghong asked.

"The guards have arrested all the people and are now holding them in the guard room on the east side of the Duanmen Gate!"

After thinking for a while, Zhu Jinghong said: "Send them all to the imperial prison, let the Jinyiwei conduct a thorough investigation, and then let He Gujin provide them with a good pension!"

"Yes!"

Life is like this, there will be good news, but also bad situations. Zhu Jinghong has long been accustomed to this. All he can do is arrange people to investigate.

Time flies. Half a month later, Li Ziheng, the imperial envoy, had been in Jiangbei for seven or eight days, which shows how fast he traveled.

He went to Pizhou, Xuzhou and other places that were hit hardest by the disaster. These places not only suffered from the snow disaster, but were also severely damaged by previous rebellions.

Fortunately, the rebellion has been basically put down now. Even so, there are still bandits lurking around, and it is actually very dangerous for Li Ziheng to go to these places.

But he ignored the danger and took only a few guards with him to investigate directly at the homes of the people. The truth he learned these days shocked him.

In short, with the repeated military operations in recent years, life for ordinary people has been extremely difficult, almost unbearable.

The annual tax increase may not matter to wealthy families, but for ordinary people, even if it is only one or two hundred kilograms, it can make many people unable to survive.

Therefore, the people are very poor and have basically no ability to fight against natural disasters. This has also led to serious land annexation in recent years. People who cannot survive can only sell land to survive.

The causes of the civil unrest previously reported by local officials mentioned factors such as incitement by the White Lotus Sect, heavy taxes, oppression by officials, and the increase in the number of slaves. Land annexation was also mentioned but not elaborated on.

But in Li Ziheng's view, the exaggerated land annexation in recent years is the main reason for a series of unrest.

What worries him even more is that if Jiangbei is like this now, what about the situation in other provinces? How many people have gone bankrupt due to various reasons during the land reclamation in the past ten years?

These are all factors of unrest. If they are not resolved in advance, there will definitely be big chaos in the future.

After a few days of twists and turns, Li Ziheng arrived in Fengyang. The first batch of grain from Shandong and Nanjing had arrived, and more would be shipped over later.

With Li Ziheng personally watching over it, basically no one made trouble with the relief grain, so the relief work went relatively smoothly.

Then he calmed down and began to summarize what he had seen recently and wrote a memorial to explain the matter.

In Fengyang City, the Chief Censor Song Ziyu's investigation went relatively smoothly. The affairs of the Provincial Governor Bai Hongxuan were all investigated, involving nearly 30 officials, including officials from Nanjing and Jiangnan provinces.

The two of them sent their chapters to the capital two days apart, but Song Ziyu's case closing report arrived first.

The results of the report clearly show that He Gujin bears great responsibility for the improper use of personnel, and if we dig deeper, we may even find evidence of corruption.

On the fourth day of February, Zhu Jinghong summoned He Gujin, reprimanded him, ordered him to reflect on his mistakes behind closed doors, and fined him half a year and demoted him three grades.

At this point, He Gujin's plan to join the cabinet has failed, but Song Ziyu will continue to investigate. After all, he still wants to make other achievements rather than just being a tool for political struggle.

On the sixth day of February, Li Ziheng's memorial was delivered and directly transferred to the Ministry of Rites via the Ministry of Public Administration, without going through the cabinet but directly to the emperor.

In the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Jinghong attached great importance to this memorial, so he read every sentence from the beginning very carefully.

"Officials are corrupt and corrupt, land is annexed, and the people are living in misery. This has been the case since the beginning of your Majesty's reign..."

"Later, we had to wage war year after year, taxes and labor service increased, and the house was like a hanging chime..."

The content of Li Ziheng's report was unpleasant from the beginning, but Zhu Jinghong knew that this should be an objective fact, so he could only suppress his emotion and continue reading.

"The people therefore took the name of the new era as an example, and thought: 'Qian Sheng' means that after plundering the land three feet, there is no money left!"

When seeing this sentence, Zhu Jinghong was really a little broken. He thought that he had done a good job and the world was prosperous, but he never expected that the people would laugh at his proud deeds.

Even if this is true, how dare Li Ziheng write it in? Doesn't he really have any fear?

Zhu Jinghong was not sure whether Li Ziheng was afraid or not, but at this moment he was really afraid. He was afraid that Li Ziheng would say something like "People in the world have been disloyal to Your Majesty for a long time."

So he flipped through several pages, and only after he was sure that there was no such "treasonous" words did he feel a little calmer.

Although his pride was crushed, he still thought he did a better job than the old Taoist priest. If he was evaluated as someone who angered everyone, he would really feel broken.

Looking at the memorial on the imperial desk, Zhu Jinghong took at least two minutes to calm himself down before picking it up again and reading it carefully.

In fact, only the first third of the memorial gave a general overview of the situation in Jiangbei. Li Ziheng spoke so openly in order to attract Zhu Jinghong's attention.

He himself had no resentment towards the emperor. He believed that he was a good emperor who worked hard to govern the country, but that his methods were too hasty.

The content of the memorial mainly talks about the situation of land annexation, and analyzes the resulting bankruptcy of farmers, the rise of the White Lotus Sect and the subsequent civil unrest.

The discussion is detailed, the arguments are sufficient, and the data is clear, which speaks for itself.

Zhu Jinghong used to think that Li Ziheng was a loyal minister who was only suitable for the position of censor, but now it seems that his ability to govern the people is not bad.

After reading the memorial once, Zhu Jinghong thought about it for ten minutes and read it again. He then asked someone to get a map of Jiangbei.

According to Li Ziheng's survey data, about half of the land in Jiangbei has now been annexed by local gentry.

In other words, at least half of the people lost their land.

According to the statistics collected during the land survey, there are now more than 3.2 million households in Jiangbei, with a total of more than 13.7 million people.

The real data is definitely more than this, which means that there are more than 6 million landless people in Jiangbei. Even if most of them are tenants, there are still many people living in extreme poverty, and these people will be factors that trigger unrest.

At the end of Li Ziheng's memorial, he mentioned that the situation in various provinces of the Ming Dynasty was not optimistic, which made Zhu Jinghong even more difficult to let go.

At this moment, he felt the powerlessness of a mortal. No matter how the world revered him as the Holy Son of Heaven, objectively he was just a mortal with a pair of hands and two eyes.

"This matter must be thoroughly investigated. The lands that were seized by force must be returned to the people. We must also re-establish laws prohibiting the purchase of slaves, at least within the territory of the Ming Dynasty!"

At this moment, Zhu Jinghong also realized that although he was an expert in commanding operations, he was still very immature in governing the country.

Land surveying and tax distribution were major projects that Zhu Xianming carried out despite internal and external pressures and took ten years of perseverance to complete. They became the capital for Zhu Jinghong's conquests.

Although the two tasks of land survey and land tax distribution were completed thoroughly during the Qiansheng period, the credit should be attributed to Zhu Xianming.

In the nearly five years since Zhu Jinghong ascended the throne, he has not taken any major initiatives in governing the country. He has completely followed the inertia of the Zhengtong period and enjoyed the legacy left by his father.

Under normal circumstances, a king who maintains the status quo is like this. Not making mistakes is the greatest achievement, so there won't be too many problems.

But Zhu Jinghong is different. The times are indeed changing much faster, which requires him to be more cautious and sensitive.

It is true that he is a time traveler, but times have changed a lot now. He no longer has homework to copy, and he has to decide how to walk, fast or slow, by himself!

(End of this chapter)