Damn it, I'm in the garbage book I wrote

Chapter 479 Ma Zhou Takes Action

It can be seen that Emperor Jingtai wanted to be a good emperor, but the problem was that his ability was very limited. He wanted to play with civil and military affairs, but his intelligence was not up to par, and he wanted to play with political balancing, but his strength was not up to par. As a result, he ended up with a floating party that dominated the country.

In the end, the floating party must bring out its entire opponent to prevent the momentum from being too strong and causing any unexpected changes in the middle...

When it was said that the power of the Fu Party, the aristocratic families and Zhao Shiyuan had reached a delicate balance, Emperor Jingtai announced that he would leave Beijing to inspect Henan Province and let Ma Zhou act as regent in his place.

This broke the original balance almost instantly, and both the aristocratic families and Zhao Shiyuan's new forces felt that this might be the end.

But who knew that Ma Zhou, a member of the floating party, would strike three blows at the floating party right from the start. The first blow was the reform of the imperial examination. The questions and papers of the imperial examinations in the north and south were different. The difficulty in the north was reduced by three levels, while the difficulty in the south was increased by three levels.

This policy is particularly targeted, as it is intended to balance the promotion pressure between students from the north and the south. Otherwise, in two years the court will be filled with people from the south.

The second is to ban private armies. This will cut off Xia Lin's vital artery. The aristocratic families should have been opposed to it, but the problem is that they now know that if they oppose it, they may only be able to mobilize 30,000 to 50,000 people, while Xia Lin can mobilize 300,000 to 500,000 people.

So this policy was ostensibly aimed at cutting the power of the aristocratic families, but in fact what it really cut was the strength of the floating party, so the major aristocratic families agreed to abolish their private armies.

The third article is to abolish the replacement system. The most interesting thing about this policy is that many positions and posts nowadays actually have a replacement system. For example, if the father is Sima Qian, then after his death, Sima Qian may be his younger brother, son or nephew.

Ma Zhou's move hit the target precisely here, cutting off all the substitution systems at once. This caused a huge shock in the government and the country. The reaction from the aristocratic camp was extremely strong, and some even dared to point at Ma Zhou's nose and scold him. However, what was unexpected was that this wave of reinforcements for Ma Zhou was not from the Floating Party but from the young New Party led by Zhao Shiyuan.

The young officials were eager for channels for promotion, but the aristocratic families looked down on anyone who passed the exam, and the conflict between the two sides reached a climax at this moment.

In other words, Ma Zhou successfully shifted the conflict to between the new rich and the old money.

As soon as the three policies were released, a series of attacks and attacks took place, and the floating party, warlords, aristocratic families, and the upstarts all suffered, but everyone also benefited. After a careful analysis, although some people would call Ma Zhou a beast, no one would say that Ma Zhou was a loser.

Under such a general tone, the pressure on the aristocratic families is undoubtedly the greatest, because they almost take all three swords, but the problem is that if they don't take them, they will be suppressed and rubbed by the other two factions. If they take all of them, their strength will be reduced by half.

If they need people, the new nobles have them. If they need soldiers, the floating party has them. The only thing they can compete with is money, but everyone knows that the treasury is empty and the court has no money. If they show off their wealth at this time, it will basically be a bright light in the dark night.

But if you don't reveal your wealth, you will be suppressed to death.

This is really a difficult situation. They hate Ma Zhou very much now, but they have no way to deal with him, because it is like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the court. Whoever shows power will be attacked by the other two groups.

Otherwise, everyone says that this new party is energetic and the family has a solid foundation, but it is just this bunch of damn floating party, all they have left is their own tricks.

In this extremely unfavorable situation, Ma Zhou suddenly presided over a work meeting and brought together all those who had a say. The main theme of the meeting was that the court had no money.

However, at this meeting, Ma Zhou did not make any demands on anyone, but instead informed everyone of the current situation, under the pretext of letting everyone know about the situation this year.

But after these participants went back, all kinds of small ideas came out. The upstarts thought this was a good opportunity to take advantage of the old money from the aristocratic families.

The people from the aristocratic families thought that this was a good opportunity. They could take advantage of it to win over the members of the Floating Party and give the upstarts a good bet.

The people of the floating party also think this is a good opportunity. Now, no matter whether they are the new rich or the old rich, they will eat their big dicks...

For a while, the court was in chaos, and the fight between the three forces was even more exciting than the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. One party took over and another took the stage, even disregarding even the decency and just started fighting.

The once majestic court is now like a United Nations meeting.

One day, they really fought...

Yes, they did. The three parties had a group fight, it was a mess, everyone had black eyes, their hair was messy, tables and chairs were flying everywhere, and even the leader of the Qianniu Guards who was responsible for maintaining order was hit by an electric cannon.

The common people all thought that they were well-dressed and superior, but it was this group of superior people who had a hearty winner-winner chicken dinner in the Golden Throne Hall.

This gang fight caused the semi-retired Prince Teng to return to the political arena, and he directly dragged all the dozen or so people who led the fight to the Taimiao and made them kneel.

The next day, during the morning court session, these people hid things in their sleeves and brought all kinds of strange weapons to the court. They didn't dare to do that when the emperor was there, but now they were unscrupulous. Ma Zhou knew what these people were thinking, but he didn't point it out. He just said that this was not a solution, so he called them to the central government in batches for individual talks.

The contradictions were irreconcilable, so there was naturally no possibility of reconciliation. Ma Zhou had become the savior of the three parties invisibly, and his immediate prestige was established in an instant.

Achieving great success with a little trick is the legendary way of gaining the greatest benefit with the smallest cost. Under such a big background, the next plan can be implemented naturally. This is called political wisdom. Dealing with many parties and being invincible and having the ability to overturn the table is called political power.

In short, after this round, no one was the winner in the end, except Ma Zhou, who was like Qin Shihuang eating peppercorns and won.

And this moment really demonstrated the usefulness of Xia Lin as the stabilizing force. He did not show up in this incident, but no one dared to do anything out of line, because if they did, there would be someone more out of line than them.

They didn't dare to say anything like "I don't believe Xia Daosheng would dare to do anything". He was the most ruthless person in the world. If the previous emperor hadn't passed away suddenly, he would have dared to attack Taiyuan...

Now that they have quarreled and fought, they should sit down and talk. If they continue to quarrel, they will not be meeting Ma Zhou, but Xia Daosheng who has come with 50,000 troops from the Jiangbei camp to settle the issue.

No one wanted to see Xia Lin, including the Fu Party. Even though everyone knew that he was the leader of the Fu Party, everyone also knew that if the chairman showed up at the branch's annual meeting, it would most likely be the last annual meeting.

In the end, everyone took a step back. If the aristocratic family said to give some, then give some. It was better than really confiscating the property. The new rich said to turn a blind eye. It was too ugly and no one would benefit.

It was a pity for the floating party. They took out all the eagles, but no one got to eat them. They almost ate the leader's eagle.

After this incident, Ma Zhou truly realized what Xia Lin said about the importance of holding the gun and the pen in one's hands. The problems that had accumulated over the years could now be discussed by the children of wealthy families.

To be honest, Ma Zhou still likes their unruly appearance. If they continue to be so unruly, these problems may not be a problem in the future. After all, Xia Daosheng has been thinking about dealing with them for a long time. The main reason he didn't do it now is because of the overall social unrest. If they can hit this first blow, Xia Lin will jump out of bed happily with a lame leg at night.

Maybe in less than ten days, the relief funds needed for the fourteen worst-hit areas in the south were raised, and at this time the second crop of grain from the black soil of Goguryeo had also arrived. It was truly a perfect combination of time, place and people.

Of course, Ma Zhou also became famous in one battle. No one said that Ma Zhou was inexperienced anymore. This was really amazing. Both his means and methods of handling the situation were worthy of praise.

"The Jinling Times today gave Ma Zhou a very high evaluation."

Gao Shilian put down the newspaper and said to his children and grandchildren with a smile: "What's the matter? Did you suffer a loss at his hands?"

"Uncle, isn't Ma Zhou your disciple? How could he..."

"You guys." Gao Shilian smiled and shook his head: "The court is a place for weighing things. He is not only my disciple, but also one of the most powerful figures in the Fu Party. Did he also kill the Fu Party with one stroke?"

"That's true."

"If that's the case, why are you so upset?" Gao Shilian looked at his nephew's lack of ambition and said, "Also, don't forget that there is someone watching in the capital."

"Are you talking about Xia Daosheng, uncle?"

"You may not know this, but Xia Daosheng is a man left behind by the late emperor. If you really want to make trouble, he will not show mercy."

"Then uncle, should we start preparing to deal with Xia Daosheng?"

Gao Shilian lowered his eyelids and said, "You guys just give it a try."

In fact, Gao Shilian also had a thorn in his side towards Xia Daosheng. He had suffered at the hands of Xia Lin. The grain issue had already caused his family to suffer heavy losses, and later on, the futures issue had caused the Gao family to suffer another setback from Fuliang.

Putting aside his stance, Gao Shilian did admire this man, but who can truly put aside their stance?
"Then uncle, shall we go the literary or the martial route?"

Hearing this, Gao Shilian flew into a rage: "Are your brains filled with lard? Are you fighting him? He can pile your heads outside the palace gate to build a Jingguan! He has done it before! You'd better put away your little tricks. Things are different now. He has been very restrained. Don't put yourself on the edge of his knife, otherwise no one can save you!"

"Uncle, calm down... I understand. We'll do it right away."

(End of this chapter)