Jiajing Chengming

Zhang Cong was not surprised when Zhu Houcong asked this.

In his view, the emperor is worried that the bureaucrats under him may over-execute or even conceal or exaggerate things to curry favor with him, and that maintaining a certain degree of suspicion of the outstanding achievements made by the bureaucrats under him is the basic awareness that a mature emperor should have.

Therefore, Zhang Cong only explained seriously at this time: "Your Majesty, please allow me to report that this Huizhou prefect Nie Bao is the teacher of Xu Jie, the current Confucian official in the Eastern Palace, and is also a disciple of Xinjian Earl Wang Gong. He is trustworthy, so I believe he will not deceive his subordinates and conceal the truth for the sake of seeking credit."

The Xinjian Earl mentioned by Zhang Cong is Wang Yangming.

Wang Yangming had now been granted the title of Earl for his two contributions in suppressing rebellions.

But after hearing what Zhang Cong said, Zhu Houcong became even more suspicious.

Because he never dared to fully trust Xu Jie, and he also knew that not all people who studied the School of Mind were upright gentlemen.

After all, he knew that in history Xu Jie was nothing more than a hypocritical sanctimonious person. Although he was much less notorious than Yan Song, he was no less greedy than Yan Song, and even more vicious than Yan Song.

It is rumored that Hu Zongxian, a famous official who fought against Japanese invaders, was killed by Xu Jie.

In history, Hai Rui was also brought back to his hometown by Xu Jie because he uncovered the heinous crimes of the Xu family.

Therefore, although people of this era did not think that Xu Jie was a treacherous person who pretended to be loyal, even Zhang Cong, the chief minister of the cabinet, was willing to trust Xu Jie only based on his positive performance in reform, but Zhu Houcong still remained suspicious of Xu Jie.

As for Wang's disciples, Zhu Houcong, who came from later generations, also knew that Wang's school of thought, in its later period, often became an ideological weapon for the literati to protect their own interests.

This is because many scholars and officials refused to learn, practice, and change on the grounds that "there is nothing outside the mind, and there is no reason outside the mind", and gradually they became obsessed with empty talk and fell into Zen.

After all, if everyone already had all the truth within themselves, then there would be no need for study or experience.

Therefore, the scholars who advocated the School of Mind used this as a weapon to refuse to give benefits to the people and the country. They believed that the propositions that were in line with their own interests were the truth, and regarded their subjective opinions as objective truth.

In this way, Zhu Houcong did not really think that Nie Bao was completely reliable just because he was a disciple of Wang Xue.

But it is not easy for Zhu Houcong to directly say that he is not the real Zhu Houcong, but a person from later generations.

In addition, he also did not want to discourage Zhang Cong, the Prime Minister, from surveying the land for him, which would have caused discord between him, the emperor, and the Prime Minister.

He had already stood up for Zhang Cong and clearly expressed his support for Zhang Cong. Naturally, it would not be good for him to refuse to support Zhang Cong again just because of Nie Bao at this time, giving those who were secretly waiting for Zhang Cong to fall out of the emperor's favor and then attack Zhang Cong such an opportunity.

What's more, Zhu Houcong was just a suspicion and could not rule out whether Nie Bao was really loyal to the country and caring for the people, and was willing to thoroughly survey all the land in the world for the country and the people.

In addition, land surveying is a matter that offends all landlords in the world. Therefore, there are only a few bureaucrats who are willing to do this in their hearts. Most of them are only doing it passively due to the pressure of centralization. It is necessary to give timely rewards to officials with outstanding land surveying performance in order to achieve the purpose of motivating bureaucrats to actively conduct land surveying.

Zhu Houcong did not say anything more, and only planned to let the Jinyiwei investigate secretly. On the surface, he just nodded and said, "Then let the cabinet consider it. Honor him, his parents, and grandparents, and give his children preferential treatment."

Zhang Cong bowed and said yes.

But Zhang Cong is now willing to trust Xu Jie and his teacher Nie Bao.

Just as Zhu Houcong thought, there were not many bureaucrats who truly supported and were willing to conduct the land survey.

Therefore, if Zhang Cong wanted to succeed in surveying the land, he needed to reward several bureaucrats who performed actively in order to increase the enthusiasm of bureaucrats throughout the country to survey the land.

Psychologically, Zhang Cong was more willing to believe that the officials who supported the land survey were truly supportive.

Huizhou Prefecture.

"The Ministry of Personnel and the Censorate have rated Nie Futai as excellent. The Cabinet has also issued an edict under the Emperor's order, asking Ji'an Prefecture to erect a memorial archway in his hometown to commemorate Nie Futai's loyalty and diligence. They have also granted his son the title of Imperial College student, and promoted his grandparents and parents to a higher rank!"

"It can be seen that the emperor and Zhang Fujing really believe that our Huizhou Prefecture was the first to complete the land survey under the governance of Nie Futai."

When the local gentry and wealthy families learned through the "Di Bao" that Zhu Houcong had issued an imperial decree to commend Huizhou prefect Nie Bao, and that the Ministry of Personnel and the Censorate also listed Nie Bao as excellent, they were all very happy, as if they had been commended as well.

Therefore, the local gentry and wealthy families talked about this matter at a gathering. However, these gentry and wealthy families were not happy because Nie Bao received the commendation from the emperor, but because Huizhou Prefecture did not really complete the land survey, or even did not conduct a land survey at all.

After all, the so-called increased farmland area after the land survey in Huizhou Prefecture was all filled in by the gentry and wealthy families in each village in collaboration with local officials.

All the inflated fields were falsely attributed to the local common people, especially those with small surnames and households, while the hidden fields of the gentry and wealthy families were not measured.

Huizhou prefect Nie Bao naturally understood that this meant that the national policy of surveying land only added exponentially to the burden of the people of Huizhou and failed to achieve the goal of alleviating the people's difficulties.

When the summer taxes and autumn grains are collected, many people will inevitably lose their homes and even rise up in rebellion.

But Nie Bao doesn't care about that.

Because he believed from the bottom of his heart that the role played by the people in the thousands of years of history was not that big, and the destruction of the people's homes and the loss of their lives could not affect the general trend of the world most of the time. As for rising up in rebellion, it was not a big problem.

After all, once the people rise up in rebellion, they become bandits and should be eliminated, which provides an opportunity for the shepherd officials to make further contributions.

The more reforms there are, the harder life becomes for the people, and this should be the people's fate.

After coming into contact with the School of Mind, Nie Bao developed another path of the School of Mind. That is, he abandoned the Confucian idea of ​​"people are noble" as Mencius said without any psychological burden. Instead, he increasingly believed that the people were ants. They should either awaken their conscience and become superior people, or be eliminated by society because of their ignorance. If they resisted the will of their superiors, they would be like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.

Therefore, Nie Bao did not delve into how his subordinates conducted the land survey. He just waited for his own promotion in the future, or for a civil uprising to occur so that he could gain new merit by suppressing it.

As for if any problems were found during the re-examination of the land survey, he would not be afraid, because he could simply put the blame on the officials and gentry under him.

He believed that the officials and gentry under him would be more active than he was in preventing problems from being discovered during the review of the land survey.

After autumn.

Hu Zongxian, a successful candidate from Huizhou Prefecture, was preparing to go to Beijing to take part in the next year's imperial examination, but on his way he saw a group of officials collecting taxes in front of a private house along the way.

It’s just that the way taxes are collected is a little different.

Because a man in the family was tied to a cypress tree and was being whipped by an official, while a woman and two children were kneeling on the ground crying and begging the official, this attracted Hu Zongxian's attention.

"Sir, please don't hit my man. He's not sick yet. If you kill him, how are we going to live next year?"

"I don't care about that! The higher-ups are going to survey the land, and they found out that your family has thirty acres of land, which is half more than what's on the fish scale register. If you don't pay the extra half in taxes and fines, we'll be the ones to be beaten!"

As the officer said this, he whipped the man tied to the tree again.

Snapped!
The man trembled a bit, without even the strength to scream. He just lowered his pale head even lower, and then said weakly: "My family doesn't have 30 acres of land, you keep talking nonsense."

The officer became even more angry after hearing this, and could not help but roll up his sleeves to continue beating the man:

"Oh, you still dare to take the blame? The village chief measured it himself, and the higher-ups have confirmed it. How could it not be there?!"

"You actually refuse to admit it. Are you still planning to refuse to admit that you are a citizen of the Ming Dynasty?"

The man's wife was even more upset when she saw this, and said, "Master, if you want to hit me, hit me!"

"This national policy of surveying land should not be implemented!"

Hu Zongxian couldn't help but sigh when he saw this.

Snapped!
Then, Hu Zongxian heard another whip crack and saw another red scar on the man's pale face, so he hurried over and said, "Wait a minute!"

The officer looked towards Hu Zongxian and saw that he was wearing a silk robe and was followed by a number of servants. He knew that he was a nobleman who was not easy to mess with, so he stopped and asked, "I wonder if you are my husband or my master?" (End of this chapter)