Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 373: The national treasury increased greatly, and the royal family issue was solved through discussion!
Although many powerful and wealthy people who made profits from smuggling were angry because the Ming court received another large sum of money from Japan, Emperor Zhu Houcong himself was very happy.

With this money, he can naturally invest more to expand his base.

The royal family can finally be properly managed.

The children of military households can also be well educated.

Before Zhu Houcong, he had not reformed or re-managed the royal family.

It’s because of insufficient financial resources.

After all, if you want to reform the clan system, you need money to solve the problem of insufficient salaries for the middle and lower-level clan members and their royal relatives.

Otherwise, it would be better to maintain the status quo and watch some royal family members cause trouble in the government, giving the bureaucrats a headache and preventing the middle and lower-level royal family members from transferring their resentment to the emperor.

The same applies to the military households in the garrisons.

Without the financial resources to reform the military household system in the garrisons, it would be impossible to forcibly rectify the problem of military households deserting.

Zhu Houcong planned to reform the royal family first.

Win over the royal family.

To prevent the royal family from joining forces with the conservatives and continuing to be exploited by the literati, who would then become dissatisfied with the emperor.

Now that Zhu Houcong had additional financial income, he naturally began to have this idea.

"I congratulate Your Majesty. It is because Your Majesty's virtue is so widespread and your prestige is so great that the Japanese chieftain Ouchi paid three million koku of grain in exchange for peace and was willing to allow our dynasty to trade with him, but raised taxes by two million!"

Seeing the continuous flow of grain and silver being sent to Taicang, Prime Minister Yang Yiqing and other ruling ministers were also in high spirits and excited, and they saluted and congratulated Zhu Houcong who came to see the money and grain.

Zhu Houcong looked at the money and nodded with a smile, saying, "You all have contributed to this. I order that Huo Tao, Zhang Tong and others who have made contributions in inspecting Japan and suppressing the Japanese invasion should be rewarded. In addition, the ministers of the Imperial Study should be awarded the first-rank salary and given the title of Shangzhuguo. The Ministry of Personnel should also recommend rewards to those who have made contributions in assisting and cooperating with the government."

"Your Majesty, we did not do anything in this matter, so we cannot be said to have made any contribution, and we dare not accept the reward. Please take back your order!"

Yang Yiqing hurriedly bowed and declined.

Wang Qiong and others followed suit: "I second your motion. Please revoke your order!"

"You have reported matters to the emperor, and you have been loyal to the country, and you have not interfered, and you have coordinated and planned this matter, so how can you not be considered meritorious?"

"Furthermore, such efforts to enrich the country and benefit the people do not promote the ruling party, nor do they help encourage future rulers to be determined to enrich the country and benefit the people."

"So, don't refuse!"

Zhu Houcong said.

Yang Yiqing and others quickly agreed, and their expressions became even happier.

For them, salary increase is not important. What is important is that multiple prestigious official titles will look better when written on the steles hundreds of years later, and will also ensure wealth and prosperity for their descendants.

"What do you think should be done with these three million dan of grain and two million taels of silver?"

Zhu Houcong asked at this time.

Yang Yiqing said, "Your Majesty, we have discussed this and we think that if we use these three million dan of grain as military pay for next year, we can save more than four million silver dollars. In addition, the two million taels of silver shipped back from Japan this time, after being minted into silver dollars, will bring the total amount of silver dollars stored in Taicang to seven million!"

"The treasury is so full, which will undoubtedly reassure the people of the world! It is also a sign of revival that the country has not seen for a long time. I am afraid that no one in the world will dare to slander that the Ming Dynasty is weak!"

Zhu Houcong nodded after hearing this.

then.

Zhu Houcong smiled calmly and said, "I remember Xunzi's words: 'A king enriches his people, a hegemon enriches his scholars, a surviving country enriches its officials, and a perished country enriches its chests and fills its treasury.' If we really follow Xunzi's words, if we only use money to fill our treasury, it will lead to the country's demise."

Speaking of it.

Zhu Houcong looked at everyone and asked, "Do you agree?"

Yang Yiqing and the others were shocked. They immediately understood the emperor's implication.

It is nothing more than sharing wealth with the people.

And keeping wealth among the people has indeed always been the Confucian proposition.

only……

The rulers of this land have always advocated Confucianism in appearance and Legalism in reality, and they don’t really want to share the wealth with the people!
Therefore, after hearing what the emperor said, they knew that Emperor Jiajing Zhu Houzhao was going to implement reforms under the banner of "keeping wealth among the people" again, and continue to use the words of the sages who were originally intended to restrict the emperor to promote his own reforms.

"Your Majesty, what Xunzi said is the correct way to govern a country."

"To share wealth with the people is the way of a king!"

Yang Yiqing replied first.

He supported the emperor's idea of ​​sharing wealth with the people.

At the same time, he also admired the emperor's willingness to use the silver dollars to enrich the people.

After all, since ancient times, emperors rarely took the initiative to give money to poor people when there was no disaster.

Because giving the hard-earned money to the poor goes against the interests of the bureaucratic gentry and will be considered a sin!

Even though they personally may not think so openly, they will all support and care for the people.

But this group naturally needs poor and distressed people in order to absorb all resources, including human resources which are composed of the people themselves.

Zhu Houcong nodded after hearing this: "Since this is the way of a king, we should take advantage of the country's prosperity and use some of the money to enrich the people. We can't just be satisfied with the fact that there are no starving people on the streets and the ditches are full. Politicians can't set such low standards for themselves! Otherwise, the country will still not be able to maintain long-term stability!"

"Your Majesty is holy and wise."

"We are willing to follow your order and use part of the money to enrich the people."

Yang Yiqing and others responded immediately.

"very good!"

Zhu Houcong clapped his hands and smiled, "What I mean is that if we want to enrich the people, we must enrich the royal family. This is not because I am selfish and only think about my own family first, but if we want the country to be stable and long-term, we must first solve the problem of the royal family, let the royal family be content with wealth and be loyal to the emperor and the country, then we can talk about making other people loyal to the emperor and the country. After all, if the people of the royal family don't care about the decline of the country, it will be ridiculous for others to care."

"Your Majesty is right. The royal family issue needs to be resolved urgently."

"On the surface, the expenses of the royal family are very large, accounting for more than half of the national treasury expenditure. If it weren't for the huge increase in income in recent years, the court would almost be unable to make ends meet due to the excessive expenses of the royal family!"

"But in fact, the problem of the royal family is not just the high expenses. Most of the royal family members are poor. To solve this problem, we must make a great determination!"

At this time.

Zhang Cong was the first to agree.

Wang Qiong followed up and said, "Your Majesty, to solve the problem of the royal family and make them content with wealth and honor while being loyal to the emperor and patriotic, we need to discuss with the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Revenue on how to make changes."

"That's exactly what I mean. You, the Imperial Study and the Cabinet, should discuss this with the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Revenue in the Wenhua Hall. The first thing to be decided is that the issue of naming the royal family's jade book should no longer be under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Rites, but should be under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Clan Bureau and supervised by the Ministry of Rites. This is because the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Rites, because they are not royal family members, have joined forces to ask the royal family to pay them money before actively submitting petitions to grant royal family names to the book. This has happened more than once or twice, and it has almost become a common practice!"

Zhu Houcong said at this time.

"Yes!"

Next.

The Minister of the Imperial Study, the Minister of the Cabinet, and the Ministers of Rites and Revenue discussed the matter in the Wenhua Hall.

"I know that the imperial court has a huge increase in treasury now, but the increase is from foreign countries, which is bound to cause resentment among foreigners! So instead of using this money to benefit the royal family, it is better to benefit foreigners! From this money, a part of it should be allocated to encourage the children of foreign dignitaries to study in the capital, and provide them with generous food and scholarships, so that those in power in their countries will be willing to spread the virtues of China!"

During the meeting, Minister of Rites Wu Yipeng expressed his opposition to the reform of the royal family and hoped that the money would be used to support foreign children to study abroad.

(End of this chapter)