Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 234: Stripping the gentry of their official titles and robbing monks and nuns!

In fact, although the court officials attracted attention for Wang Qiong's reinstatement, the gentry in the world were still actively speaking out against the removal of the governor who spoke for them.

Immediately after Huguang Inspector Chai Wen was replaced, Huang Wensheng and other Huguang local officials immediately came to the Huguang Fuyuan to petition Governor Shu Sheng, asking him to submit a petition on behalf of the people and request an imperial decree to retain Inspector Chai Wen.

"Your official titles and honors have been revoked. According to etiquette, you should kneel before me!"

But at this time, Huguang Governor Shu Sheng told them a piece of news that they were very reluctant to hear.

Huang Wensheng, who was born in the Hanlin Academy, asked in disbelief, "Is what the Zhongcheng said true?"

"Of course it's true!"

"The Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Rites have sent documents to this court deposing our officials, titles and honors."

"The summer tax has passed, and you and your family's official titles and honors have been stripped!"

Shu Sheng said.

Huang Wensheng and several other gentry present fainted.

Those Jinshen who did not faint also stood there in a daze.

Among them, Deng Mo asked Shu Sheng: "Zhongcheng, can you show us the document?"

"Your Majesty!"

Shu Sheng suddenly shouted.

Deng Mo and others had no choice but to kneel down reluctantly.

then.

Shu Sheng then asked the yamen runners to hand the documents to them themselves, and said, "It will be handed to you anyway, so let's hand it over now."

"Remember, you are now commoners, so you have to pay the service fee."

Shu Sheng then gave another reminder.

Deng Mo shuddered when he saw the document, and then asked Shu Sheng: "Zhongcheng, can you ask the court on our behalf if we can restore our official titles and honors now that we have paid the full amount?"

"It's not easy for my children to pass the imperial examinations!"

"Besides, a family of nobles and officials has suddenly become a commoner. It is a disgrace to our ancestors!"

Deng Mo knelt on the ground and cried.

"If I had known today, why would I do it in the first place!"

"Hurry up and pay the outstanding debts, including the corvée money that is already due!"

"Don't wait until the imperial court issues an order to prevent your children from taking the imperial examinations for the rest of their lives, or even for three generations."

Shu Sheng sneered and then started talking.

Let’s talk.

Like many officials in the court who did not support the removal of official titles and honors from the gentry who failed to pay the full autumn grain on time, after the gentry knew that Zhu Houcong had made concessions and issued an edict stating that they only needed to pay 80% of the full autumn grain to avoid being stripped of their official titles and honors, the gentry who owed autumn grain did as Mao Ji and others said, and instead thought that Zhu Houcong did not dare to use force and did not dare to really strip them of their official titles and honors, so many of them did not take the imperial edict seriously.

But the fact is that when the summer tax was levied, all officials and scholars from the gentry families who failed to pay the autumn grain on time were dismissed from their posts and stripped of their honors.

The Minister of Personnel Wang Yangming directly dismissed these people from their posts according to the list of retired officials who failed to pay the autumn grain reported by the Ministry of Revenue!
The Minister of Rites Wu Yipeng also received an imperial decree to strip all those scholars who failed to pay the autumn grain tax payable from their official posts.

Capital.

"An Pan, you have been demoted to a commoner because the Sichuan Provincial Inspector General reported that your family did not pay the autumn grain tax on time!"

"This is the document from the Ministry of Personnel deposing you as a commoner."

"From now on, you can no longer stay in the Imperial City, otherwise you will be treated as a thief!"

An Pan, the Left Censor of the Military Department, who was actively advising people to criticize Wang Qiong for being treacherous and useless, received a document in the Six Departments Corridor announcing his demotion to the rank of commoner.

"No, is the court really coming?!"

An Pan was stunned when he saw the document from the Ministry of Personnel demoting him to a commoner.

"Leave quickly!"

At this time, the guards on duty in the imperial city had already begun to drive him away.

An Pan had no choice but to leave the imperial city first.

As soon as he left the imperial city, An Pan's younger brother An Qin ran over from the direction of the Ministry of Rites, crying:
"Brother, my title of Juren has been revoked!"

"I took the provincial examination five times before I passed. That took fifteen years, and now I'm a commoner again!"

"Woo!"

"It's all your fault for not letting us pay the autumn grain!"

An Qin immediately squatted down and started crying.

After hearing this, An Pan couldn't help but take a few steps back, looking lost.

He really didn't expect the court to be serious.

But Zhu Houcong was serious and also instructed Mao Ji:

"Decree that all the gentry who owe autumn grain and fail to pay the arrears and the additional corvée before July will never be allowed to participate in the imperial examinations and will be escorted to the capital to await questioning!"

……

……

"what!"

"If you don't pay, you will never be allowed to take the imperial examinations again?"

"The court is clearly serious about this. Let's pay the money quickly, or we won't even be eligible to take the exam again!"

The gentry who had been stripped of their official titles and honors were completely frightened after seeing this decree, and they really began to panic.

then.

In July of the third year of the Jiajing reign, all the gentry who were apparently in arrears with last year's autumn grain and this year's summer taxes had paid off. As a result, the court's total revenue from last year's autumn grain and this year's summer taxes still reached more than 30 million dan of grain, thus avoiding the problem of insufficient annual revenue leading to no funds for expenditures.

It is worth mentioning that the Donglai gold mine was able to continue to be mined even after Xia Yan truthfully reported that the mine was not exhausted.

The only difference from before was that the Donglai Gold Mine existed as a mine directly managed by the central government, just like the Zunhua Iron Works and other government-run factories.

Huo Tao, a member of the Ministry of Revenue who had outstanding performance in the Grand Council and was a true member of the imperial party like Zhang Cong and Gui E, became the first general manager in charge of the Donglai mine.

Before Huo Tao went to Donglai, the miners in Donglai were in a state of anxiety.

This was because there were kind-hearted clerks in the Donglai prefecture office who sympathized with them and told them that the local tyrants in Fujian had colluded with the bureaucrats to embezzle the mineral resources and were planning to sell them to the Western barbarians as slaves.

This made them very uneasy, fearing that one day the imperial court would really ask them to reclaim wasteland, but in reality they would be sold to the Western barbarians as slaves by the local gentry and corrupt officials.

"Although our lives here are a bit hard, at least we have a home now, and many of us have even married and have children. But why does heaven treat us like this?"

"Why are those wealthy and corrupt officials so heartless? Many of us were once scholars and officials like them. Don't they have any sympathy at all?!"

Xu Lin, Xu Jie's cousin who was exiled here, made an indignant accusation in front of his fellow townsmen from Nanzhi on the day Huo Tao came to Donglai.

When Xu Lin first came to Donglai, he was very scared, afraid that he would die here, especially when he saw the vast ocean, he felt extremely terrified.

After he was taken to the Donglai gold mine, he cried every night and even in his dreams wanted to go back to Jiangnan. He said that life here was very hard, mining was very tiring, his hands were often hit and his skin was broken, and the food was very rough.

But now, he has gradually adapted to the new environment and even became a commoner couple with a woman from the Gu family in Kunshan.

Therefore, when he learned that the miner's life to which he had adapted with great difficulty was going to be disrupted again and that he would have to live an even more miserable life, he was naturally very unacceptable and uneasy.

His wife, Mrs. Gu, even cried while holding her newborn baby.

After Xu Lin said this, Gu Lutan, who was also exiled here, sighed and said, "This is the sin we deserve! Who made us deceive the emperor and the country first?"

Speaking of it.

Gu Lutan stood up and said, "Now that I have been reduced to being an insignificant person exiled to the border, I understand that I should never go against the court, because it goes against the will of heaven! That's why we are facing such a disaster now!"

"Preserve the laws of nature and eliminate human desires!"

"Although I have been learning Zhu Zi's sacred words since I was young, I have also been reciting them since I was young!"

"But in the end, I was still deceived by human desires and forgot about loyalty to the emperor!"

Gu Lutan started to cry as he spoke.

"well said!"

Huo Tao appeared in front of these people at this time, with a smile on his face.

Xu Lin, Gu Lutan and others were startled and looked over. They saw Huo Tao, who was wearing the uniform of a fifth-rank official, holding a torch. His face was dark and his body was thin, but his eyes were bright and sharp.

"I wonder who the master is?"

Xu Lin asked first at this time.

"This is Mr. Huo, the official of the Ministry of Revenue! He is here to manage the gold mines here. You miners, why don't you kneel down and kowtow to me!"

Guo Yong, the magistrate of Jin County who came with Huo Tao, gave an order at this time.

Xu Lin and others were overjoyed and quickly knelt down.

Xu Lin even took the initiative to ask: "May I ask Master Huo, does this mean that we will not be sold to the Western Barbarians as slaves?"

Although the gold mine had changed hands, Xu Lin realized that the conspiracy of the local gentry and corrupt officials to seize the gold mine had failed, but he was still worried that the new officials would sell them to the Western barbarians as mining slaves in order to gain benefits.

"Of course not! His Majesty has issued a clear order that if we, the bureaucrats, smuggle people, including exiled criminals like you, we will be charged with treason!"

Huo Tao replied.

"Great!"

"Your Majesty is as benevolent as the heavens. You have not completely stopped treating us as human beings!"

Xu Lin and Gu Lutan couldn't help but smile at each other.

"In addition, Zhang Lun, the former governor of Donglai, and a group of corrupt officials and powerful gentry have been punished by Your Majesty for colluding to deceive the court and secretly colluding with the barbarians to commit crimes!"

After Huo Tao finished speaking, he bowed his hands to the sky and said, "My emperor is wise! I have issued an order that officials directly sent by the court will be responsible for Donglai's mineral resources and set up mines. You will all be miners directly managed by the court in the future, so the local government will no longer have the right to manage you! I hope you will reform yourself, strive to complete the task as soon as possible, and return to your hometown!"

"We will remember Bu Lang's teachings!"

Xu Lin and others hurriedly replied with a smile.

then.

Huo Tao asked, "Who is Xu Lin from Songshan?"

At this time, Xu Lin replied: "The criminal is Xu Lin from Songshan."

Huo Tao took out a letter from his sleeve and gave it to Xu Lin: "Your brother Xu Bianxiu has a letter for you!"

Xu Lin was overjoyed when he heard this, and hurriedly took the letter. After reading it, he couldn't help but burst into tears and said, "I thought they had forgotten!"

The next day.

Donglai Gold Mine resumed mining.

Xu Lin and others had become very skilled at gold mining and were very efficient. After experiencing the days when they almost couldn't be miners, they no longer rejected the idea of ​​becoming miners.

However, what Xu Lin and other exiles did not expect was that not long after, many new exiles came to their place, and most of them were monks and nuns.

Because of Xu Jie's relationship, Xu Lin was respected by Huo Tao and could often talk to him. He asked Huo Tao, "Minister, why are there so many monks and nuns?"

"Huguang is implementing a new policy to destroy many Buddhist temples!"

“So, there will be more monks and nuns in exile!”

"It's just right. You can be the foreman of these monks and nuns and be responsible for supervising them. Firstly, for the sake of Xu Bianxiu's face, and secondly, you have been to school and managed people. When the time comes, you can take a cut of the mining business these monks and nuns have done as the mining fee you have to pay."

Huo Tao said.

Xu Lin was naturally very grateful and actively supervised these monks and nuns afterwards.

"Hurry up and pick them!"

"You damn bald donkey, if you dare to oppose the new policy, you should know that you will end up like this today!"

Snapped!
After being beaten by Xu Lin, a fat and big-eared monk had to speed up his mining while sobbing in pain.

However, as a result, the speed of mining has increased a lot, and the amount of gold shipped back to the mainland every month has increased significantly.

(End of this chapter)