Daming: I, Yang Xian, really govern Yang!

Chapter 193: There are endless descendants (4k)

"Mr. Yang Guogong, what did you just say, did you not hear clearly?" a censor spoke subconsciously and asked.

The rest of the people also cast questioning glances at Yang Xian.

They were all waiting for an answer from Yang Xian.

Yang Xian looked at them, raised the corners of his mouth slightly, and smiled.

"I said that just like Li Xiangguo, I also went on the memorial list to persuade people to move forward."

As soon as he finished speaking, it was like a huge stone falling directly into a small pond, and the entire hall of Chengyi's Mansion immediately exploded.

"Mr. Yang Guogong, do you know what you are talking about?" Chen Huaiyi looked at Yang Xian with anger on his face and said in disbelief.

"Brother Chen, maybe Yang Guogong doesn't know the harm of enfeoffing the kings to the Ming Dynasty." A censor's official on the side pulled Chen Huaiyi and explained.

"Let go, you don't have to deceive yourself anymore. Yang Xian is Liu Zhongcheng's disciple, he was born in the Han Dynasty, and he is familiar with history books. How could he not know the dangers of enfeoffing kings?"

Chen Huaiyi directly broke away from the pull of his colleagues, pointed at Yang Xian, and said sadly: "He did this just like Li Shanchang and other ministers, in order to please the Holy Emperor and for the sake of his own high-ranking official and generous salary, while ignoring the safety of the country , this is the greatest disloyalty to the country!"

Yang Xian smiled and said: "I really don't know the dangers of enfeoffing the kings. Why don't Yushi Chen tell me about it."

Chen Huaiyi snorted coldly and said: "The emperor of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, carried out a large-scale enfeoffment, which resulted in the chaos of kings. Emperor Li Longji of the Tang Dynasty established vassal kings everywhere, which resulted in the Anshi Rebellion. Since the Han and Tang Dynasties, the history of the chaos of kings has It can be used as a lesson for others.”

"Didn't Mr. Yang Guogong read books when he was in Hanlin? The original intention of the emperors in the past dynasties to confer princes was to guard the borders. But in fact, the troubles did not come from outside the borders, but from the kings themselves. They supported the troops and vassal towns, and ceded territories There is no reason to be king without chaos."

What Chen Huaiyi said is certainly reasonable.

But this principle is of no use to Zhu Yuanzhang.

Yang Xian smiled and said: "Chen Yushi, do you want to say that several of His Majesty's princes will become rebels who support troops and cause rebellion in the future? What do you want to do?"

"Falsely accusing the royal bloodline and alienating the flesh-and-blood relationship between the Emperor and the princes?"

"Do you know what your crime is according to the laws of the Ming Dynasty?"

Every time Yang Xian said a word, his aura became stronger, and the faces of the supervisory censors standing opposite him became paler.

Only Chen Huaiyi was still stiff-necked, his face flushed, and he wanted to argue, but for a moment he didn't know what to say.

In the end, only the following words popped out.

"You, you are talking nonsense!"

Yang Xian looked at Chen Huaiyi, the smile on his face faded, and he said: "Chen Yushi, go back and think about what I just said, and finally decide whether to write a letter to dissuade him."

"The same goes for other colleagues."

Yang Xian's eyes swept across their faces one by one, and then he said: "Xiao Liuzi, see off the guests!"

Xiao Liuzi took a careful look at Liu Bowen, and after seeing Liu Bowen closing his eyes and nodding, he followed the instructions and started to see off the guests.

From beginning to end, Liu Bowen did not say a word.

And this already represented Liu Bowen's attitude. Those who originally wanted to wait for Liu Bowen to speak for them finally accepted the reality and turned around with disappointment.

After all the officials and censors from the Metropolitan Procuratorate had left, Liu Bowen let out a long sigh and said, "Xiwu, why are you doing this? The teacher is already old anyway, there is no need for you to do it for me. Bear this infamy."

Liu Bowen could naturally see Yang Xian's good intentions.

But these censors and officials would not appreciate his kindness. Instead, they would regard him as their enemy.

What Yang Xian did was completely thankless in Liu Bowen's opinion, so Liu Bowen said why did he bother to do it.

If Yang Xian had not come today, Liu Bowen would have done this himself. At this time, he had already had the idea of ​​going into seclusion, and he no longer cared about the opinions of these colleagues.

Yang Xian smiled and said casually: "Teacher knows me. I only do things based on whether they are worthwhile or not, whether they are right or not, whether they are willing or not. As for other people's opinions, it has never been important to me. These people are also doing good for the Ming Dynasty. , Let’s count as many as we can save.”

In the original time and space, these censors and officials risked their lives to give advice on the issue of enfeoffing the kings, which happened to hit the point of Lao Zhu's gun. In the end, they were benevolent and gained benevolence.

The official named Chen Huaiyi suffered the worst. He was put directly into a sack and thrown to death in front of the gate of the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

Of course, as Yang Xian said, he has done his best to achieve this step.If there is still a blind person who insists on remonstrating, Yang Xian can only tell him that it's a good journey. After all, it's hard to persuade a damn ghost with good words.

Liu Bowen looked at Yang Xian with a complicated expression.

He himself fell into this situation because he was too noble.Liu Bowen originally hoped that as a student, his path would be smoother than his.

But now it seems that it may be even more rugged.

Because of his previous tax reform work, Yang Xian had already offended the Huaixi nobles.Because of the reform of the imperial examination, Confucian scholars were offended.And now he has to offend the official and censor because of the enfeoffment of the kings.

If this continues, Yang Xian may have to be a lonely minister.

Yang Xian's memorial had also passed through Zhu Biao's hands and been handed over to Zhu Yuanzhang.

Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the memorial in Zhu Biao's hand and asked, "Is Yang Xian's memorial about the enfeoffment of kings?"

"Father's guess is really accurate." Zhu Biao nodded.

Zhu Yuanzhang did not rush to see it, but then asked: "Is it dissuasion?"

Because in Zhu Yuanzhang's view, Yang Xian was Liu Bowen's student after all. During this period, the only ones who still firmly opposed the enfeoffment of the kings were the officials and censors of the Metropolitan Procuratorate.Even those Huaixi veterans who had direct conflicts of interest just remained silent.

If it was to dissuade him, Zhu Yuanzhang would not read Yang Xian's memorial again.

Because he has made up his mind to divide the kings.

Zhu Biao smiled and shook his head.

"It's not about discouraging, maybe it's about persuading." Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile.

Zhu Biao handed over the memorial in his hand and said with a smile: "It is indeed to persuade him to come in, but his memorial is different from that of other ministers. Father, please read it yourself."

Hearing what Zhu Biao said, Zhu Yuanzhang showed a curious look on his face. He reached out to take the memorial, took a look, and soon a solemn expression appeared on his face.

"Boss, ask someone to summon Yang Xian to the palace immediately."

"Yes, Father."

After Yang Xian came out of Uncle Chengyi's Mansion, he directly met the palace chamberlain and was taken into the palace.

In the main hall.Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao and his son had been waiting here for a long time. After seeing Yang Xian, Zhu Yuanzhang said in a deep voice: "Mr. Yang Guo, have you thought too much about the contents of this memorial?"

In the memorial, Yang Xian strongly supported the issue of enfeoffing the kings, but he wrote another thing in the memorial.

That is the disadvantage of the royal family law.

This memorial is written in great detail.

It was specified in detail how much money the court would spend a year to support the clan.

The prince's salary is [-] shi per year, the county prince's [-] shi per year, the Zhenguo general's [-] shi per year, the auxiliary general, Fengguo general, and Zhenguo lieutenant are [-] shi each year, and the auxiliary lieutenant and Fengguo lieutenant are one each. Hundreds of stones.

The princess and her consort are entitled to [-] dan per year, the princess and her ceremonial guests are [-] dan per year, the county lord, the county lord and their ceremonial guests are reduced by [-] dan each year, and the county lord, township monarch and their ceremonial guests are reduced to [-] dan per year. .

According to the system established by Zhongshu Sheng, even the lowest Fengguo lieutenant and Xiangjun will have a salary of [-] dan per year.

You must know that before the salary increase, a seventh-grade official's annual salary was only ninety dan.

Zhu Yuanzhang suffered enough hardships when he was a child, and now he finally became the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. It is understandable that he does not want his descendants to live a miserable life again.

But this clan system will bring down the Ming Dynasty and become the last straw that will break the Ming Dynasty in the future.

But Zhu Yuanzhang obviously didn't realize this at this time. He looked at Yang Xian and said: "What Yang Guogong said in the memorial is too worrying. There are only so many people in the clan now. Even if the annual salary is doubled, for the treasury It won’t be much of a burden.”

Yang Xian was thinking about how to explain to Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao more intuitively.

He saw the Go chess piece on the table in the distance.

Yang Xian walked to the chess table.

Zhu Biao looked at Yang Xian's movements and asked doubtfully: "Yang Qing, what are you doing?"

Yang Xian reached out and pushed the chess pieces off the chessboard, turned around and looked at Zhu Yuanzhang and the others, and said with a smile: "Wei Chen wants to borrow some rice from the emperor."

Zhu Yuanzhang was just about to see what kind of medicine Yang Xian was selling in his gourd, and was about to tell his chamberlain to prepare it, when he heard Yang Xian speak next.

"Wei Chen doesn't want much rice. I just need to put one grain of rice on the first square on the chessboard, two grains of rice on the second square, four grains of rice on the third square, and sixteen grains of rice on the fourth square. In this way. By analogy, just fill the entire chessboard according to this ratio."

Zhu Yuanzhang thought to himself, what's so difficult about this?

He immediately ordered the chamberlain to bring a bag of rice to the imperial tea kitchen, and then asked them to start placing the rice according to Yang Xian's instructions.

At first, it was just as Zhu Yuanzhang expected, it was easy, but as it went on, he felt more and more something was wrong.

The chamberlains couldn't calculate the specific amount of rice needed at all. Every time they added a square, a group of these chamberlains had to pick up the abacus and calculate for a long time.

At the 17th grid, the final result of the calculation is that 262144 grains of rice are needed.

A 50-pound bag of rice is roughly the same number.

By the time the 25th grid was reached, the calculated result was that a full 134 bags of rice were needed.

The main hall is almost full of piles.

Zhu Yuanzhang had already begun to sweat coldly.

The abacus in the hands of the chamberlains was about to explode.

You must know that the Go board has 19 vertical and horizontal lines and a total of 324 grids. This is just the beginning.

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao finally realized at this time that if they wanted to fill all the grids on the Go board, the number of rice grains required would be an extremely astonishing number.

Zhu Yuanzhang waved his hand, signaling the chamberlain officers to stop what they were doing and let them go down.

Zhu Yuanzhang's face looked a little ugly at this time. No matter how stupid he was, he finally understood what Yang Xian meant.

"Your Majesty, do you still think that the minister is overthinking?" Yang Xian said.

"Now the emperor has a total of thirteen princes, and in the future there will be thirteen princes, with a salary of 13 stone a year. Plus dozens of other large and small clans, based on the expenditure of the Ministry of Household Affairs in the five years of Hongwu last year, the total will be about The annual salary of 20 stone is indeed not much as the emperor said before."

Yang Xian paused, and then said: "But Your Majesty, the clan will always have children. The further back, the more like the rice on this chessboard, because the original base is large, the more people there will be. Sooner or later, one day, The number of people in the clan will be so large that the entire imperial court will not be able to support them."

Historically, the Ming Dynasty had a history of nearly 300 years. Do you know how many royal family members there were in the end?

From less than a hundred people in the Hongwu year, to the end of the Ming Dynasty, the number of royal family members directly expanded to nearly 60, not 60, not [-], but a full [-]!
No family in the world can reproduce at such a fast rate. Those who will be named Zhu in future generations have a high probability of being Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants.

The biggest reason is the clan system established by Zhu Yuanzhang. After Yongle, the clans of vassal kings and clans everywhere had almost no rights. All they could do was make as much money as possible.

As a result, these royal families launched a fierce reproductive competition. In order to receive subsidies from the court, they naturally continued to have children.

In the fifth year of Hongzhi's reign in the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Zhongyi, the king of Qingcheng in Shanxi Province, set a fertility record. He gave birth to 94 children.

Zhu Yuanzhang's face became increasingly ugly. At this time, he naturally saw the problem.

Regarding the overburden on the imperial court, Zhu Yuanzhang did not take it into consideration at all when he formulated the clan system.

I just didn’t think about it enough.

In the system formulated by Zhu Yuanzhang, the titles of royal family members would be reduced by one level every generation. Princes, except for their eldest son, would be demoted to the rank of county princes, and princes, except for their eldest sons, would be demoted to the rank of generals, and so on.

But until he reached Lieutenant Fengguo, he stopped surrendering.

All children born to Lieutenant Fengguo, regardless of their legitimate concubines, can inherit the title of Lieutenant Fengguo.

Zhu Yuanzhang thought that he had thought it through enough, but now looking at the rice that almost filled the entire hall, his heart was already filled with turmoil.

Even if they are only the lowest Lieutenant Fengguo at that time, when their numbers are large enough, they will overwhelm the imperial court.

In the late Ming Dynasty, one year's court tax collection was not enough to provide stipends to these clan members.

Zhu Biao on the side also took a breath after listening to Yang Xian's analysis.

Zhu Biao looked at Zhu Yuanzhang who was silent on the side. As the eldest son, he could best understand Zhu Yuanzhang's mood at this time.

Because he lost his relatives when he was young, Zhu Yuanzhang paid special attention to his relatives.

Moreover, according to the traditional small farmer mentality, Zhu Yuanzhang wanted his descendants to multiply and prosper as much as possible.

But now that Yang Xian put the issue of supporting the clan directly in front of Zhu Yuanzhang, he had no choice but to face it.

In the main hall, Zhu Yuanzhang fell into a long silence.

(End of this chapter)