Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 321 Paving the Way for Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng
The transport planes roared away, leaving the Jiajing Emperor and his officials with nothing but shock.

In the following days, everyone tacitly refrained from mentioning the matter again, and continued to attend court and work as before.

However, there are no more court assemblies now.

Since that day, Emperor Jiajing claimed to be seriously ill, lying in the West Garden every day without coming out, and not going to the Qianqing Palace either, as if he were dead.

It wasn't until late April, several days later, when the large bird reappeared over the palace, that Jiajing, who was on his deathbed, was startled awake and miraculously recovered.

"The Great Ancestor is here! The Great Ancestor is here!"

When Jiajing heard the news in the Western Garden, he was overjoyed. He immediately ordered Huang Jin, Chen Hong and others to help him get dressed and hurriedly headed towards the Qianqing Palace.

When he arrived, the Blue Whale 10 had already landed, and Lao Zhu took the lead as he walked out of the cabin.

Behind him followed Zhu Zaiji and Zhang Juzheng. Unlike when they came with trepidation, the two now had calm expressions, even a hint of joy.

Xu Jie and other officials had heard the report beforehand, but since the Daming Gate was quite far from the Qianqing Palace, they had not yet arrived.

Jiajing came over first.

Once he arrived, his attitude changed considerably. He was no longer as hysterical as he had been a few days ago. Instead, he straightened his clothes and finally stepped forward respectfully, bowed, and said, "Grandson greets the Great Ancestor."

"Ugh."

Old Zhu sighed and said, "Come with me."

After saying that, he strode towards the Qianqing Palace.

Jiajing hurriedly followed behind, and came to Zhu Zaiji's side, whispering, "My son, quickly tell your father what the celestial realm is like?"

"Forehead"

Zhu Zaiji hesitated, but just as Jiajing was urging him to speak, Zhu Zaiji had already entered the main hall and sat on the high dragon throne.

Everyone looked at Zhu Zaiji and Zhang Juzheng, who knelt down respectfully and kowtowed, saying, "Greetings, Emperor Taizu."

"Greetings to Emperor Taizu."

The two of them knelt down, and then Huang Jin, Chen Hong, Feng Bao, and the surrounding guards knelt down as well.

Emperor Jiajing hurriedly knelt down and echoed his sentiment.

"Be flat."

"Thank you, Taizu."

"Have all the officials arrived?"

Old Zhu looked down.

Huang Jin hurriedly replied, "Reporting to the Emperor, I will be there immediately."

The group waited for a while.

More than ten Grand Secretaries of the Cabinet, Ministers of the Six Ministries, and Vice Ministers, including Xu Jie, Li Chunfang, Guo Pu, and Gao Gong, entered the room.

Upon entering the hall, everyone saw the crowd standing obediently below, while Old Zhu sat high in the main seat.

Unlike last time, there were no hostages this time. However, everyone, including Jiajing, stood solemnly. Everyone present was shrewd and naturally guessed the reason.

It seems that the identity of the founding emperor has been confirmed, but no immediate action has been taken. His gaze turned to Huang Jin, Chen Hong, and the others.

Huang Jin gave everyone a wink, then announced loudly, "All officials pay homage to His Majesty the Great Ancestor!"

"Your humble servants pay homage to His Majesty the Great Ancestor!"

Hearing Huang Jin's shout, Xu Jie and the others were relieved and hurriedly knelt down to kowtow.

"Be flat."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"My purpose in coming to Jiajing this time is to eradicate the root cause of the chaos in the Ming Dynasty."

After everyone had taken their positions, Zhu De slowly began to speak: "Since the reigns of Chenghua, Hongzhi, and Zhengde, land annexation has become increasingly serious, displaced people have scattered, and the people have become impoverished. When Jiajing ascended the throne, things were alright in the early years, but afterwards he became obsessed with Taoist practices and appointed treacherous officials like Yan Song to amass wealth for himself, leading to rampant corruption and making life increasingly difficult for the people. His successor, Longqing, died young, and the country was handed over to an incompetent Wanli, resulting in constant border troubles and countless internal rebellions. The country perished in less than a century."

He then looked at the crowd and said, "I have come to set things right, to kill some people, to support some people, and to dismiss some people. Do you understand?"

Jiajing hurriedly said, "I know my virtue is shallow, and I leave everything to the Emperor Taizu to decide."

"Your words"

Old Zhu pondered for a moment.

He used to get angry at Jiajing's stubbornness.

The original plan was to simply cripple him and let him fend for himself, waiting to die slowly in the deep palace.

Since his identity as the founding emperor has been confirmed, even if Jiajing reigned for forty-five years and his power was deeply entrenched, it would be a matter of a single word.

But after all, they are descendants of the Zhu family.

Zhu Yuanzhang had this one flaw: he was overly lenient with his own blood relatives.

When dealing with those beastly sons of Zhu Di, even though they had committed countless evil deeds, they were only stripped of their princely titles and imprisoned for life; the authorities did not have the heart to kill them.

Looking back at Jiajing now, one can only say that it was indeed hard to bear killing him, since people now respectfully call him their ancestor.

Therefore, seeing Jiajing's expectant eyes, after hesitating for a long time, Old Zhu slowly said, "Where in this world is there any cultivation or immortality? But you will come with me to Hongwu. We will cleanse the poison in your body and recuperate. Perhaps you can live a few more years."

Are there really no immortals in this world?

Jiajing's eyes widened, and he staggered back a few steps, his face full of disbelief.

"No."

Old Zhu shook his head and said, "Hai Rui is right. Even Tao Zhongwen could not live forever. What makes you think you can live forever? Throughout history, how many emperors have tried to pursue the path of immortality? Has anyone succeeded? Immortality is nothing but an illusion."

Jiajing seemed to have his vitality drained away in an instant, aging him ten years. Yet, he still persisted, asking, "If that's the case, then why did the Taizu Emperor live to such an old age?"

"Me?"

Old Zhu pointed to himself and said with a smile, "Because I am not Zhu Yuanzhang of this world, but Zhu Yuanzhang of the Hongwu era."

"Zhu Yuanzhang during the Hongwu era?" The crowd below was puzzled, not understanding what he meant.

Zhu Yunfeng explained, "Simply put, Hongwu and Jiajing are like two chopsticks placed side by side, which should have been placed one in front of the other and not interfere with each other. But one day, a time tunnel opened, connecting them. Not only Hongwu and Jiajing, but Hongwu can also go to the reigns of Jianwen, Yongle, Hongxi, and Xuande. In fact, before coming to Jiajing, our ancestor had already gone to the Chongzhen reign at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and also to the Southern Ming, where he helped to save the collapsing empire and wiped out the Tartars who invaded the Central Plains and slaughtered Han people!"

"This"

The crowd began to understand what it meant.

It means that Zhu Yuanzhang, who lived during the Hongwu reign, somehow appeared during the Jiajing reign, rather than it referring to Zhu Yuanzhang living to be over two hundred years old and arriving here.

"Father."

At this point, Zhu Zaiji had no choice but to go over and help Jiajing up, saying, "Father, what the late Emperor Taizu said was right. I not only went to Hongwu, but also to the world more than four hundred years later. Indeed, no one in this world can live forever. The fact that Emperor Taizu was able to appear here has nothing to do with cultivating immortality, but rather seems to be related to some kind of science."

"Yes, Your Majesty. The advancement of science in later generations is truly astounding. I believe that the future of the Ming Dynasty lies in the path of science. I have heard that the research on the path of science in later generations has been so remarkable that it has enabled people to live to be over a hundred years old."

Zhang Juzheng also said, "Your Majesty is only sixty years old now, and your health is still quite good. After you go with Emperor Taizu, you should take good care of your health. If, decades later, science makes new progress, it is not impossible for people to live to two hundred or three hundred years old, or even achieve immortality."

He was referring to life sciences. When Zhang Juzheng arrived in modern times, he specifically asked Zhu Yunfeng about the Jiajing Emperor and learned about the state of life sciences in later generations.

In fact, by 2033, the development of life sciences was still quite good. Although it did not significantly extend human lifespan, wealthy and powerful people were already able to receive life-extending injections and break through the upper limit of lifespan.

Some extremely wealthy individuals now live to be over 120 years old.

It is foreseeable that if he maintains a good lifestyle and takes good care of his body with modern medical treatment, given Jiajing's physique, which allowed him to withstand poison pills for more than 30 years before dying, he should have no problem living to 80 years old.

Emperor Jiajing slumped down on the steps below and said nothing more.

Old Zhu then said, "That's settled then. Tomorrow you will pass the throne to Zhu Zaiji and then come with me. Otherwise, you will die this December. Think carefully about whether you live or die."

Then he added, "Where is Hai Rui? Bring Hai Rui here."

"I will go and deliver the message immediately."

Huang Jin quickly ran out.

After he left, Zhu said again: "After Zhu Zaiji ascends the throne, Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng can serve as prime ministers. The two of you have different temperaments. But I have said beforehand that although Zhang Juzheng is the second prime minister, all considerations should be based on Zhang Juzheng."

Gao Gong, standing below, was startled and hurriedly asked, "Emperor Taizu, have I done something wrong?"

“You did nothing wrong, but you acted arbitrarily and your reform measures were too radical. In comparison, Zhang Juzheng’s reforms, although they adopted your reform measures, were done better.”

Old Zhu shook his head.

In this matter, Zhang Juzheng's reforms did indeed draw heavily on Gao Gong's reforms.

Gao Gong's reforms mainly focused on governance, military affairs, and the economy.

The system of official evaluation adopted the Ministry of Personnel's performance evaluation regulations, which were later abolished by Zhang Juzheng as the "three-path system" and further improved into the performance evaluation method.

Economically, the system involved converting grain tribute into silver. Zhang Juzheng eliminated the "marketization reform of the salt administration" and incorporated the conversion of grain tribute into silver into the Single Whip Law.

Militarily, there was a need to improve the professional competence of border generals. Zhang Juzheng eliminated the "radical abolition of post stations" and made important appointments to Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang, thus strengthening military capabilities from the Longqing to the early Wanli period.

However, these reforms were actually formulated by Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng together, but Gao Gong was more radical and autocratic.

Zhang Juzheng was slightly more conservative and was very dissatisfied with Gao Gong's more radical policies.

So essentially, it wasn't that Zhang Juzheng plagiarized Gao Gong's policies; it's just that both of them had the intention to reform these measures, but they disagreed on the specifics.

Ultimately, Zhang Juzheng joined forces with Feng Bao to remove Gao Gongdou from power, thus finally gaining complete control and completing the entire reform.

Zhang Juzheng's reforms were not only more comprehensive than Gao Gong's, but also more detailed.

In addition to military, economic, and official reforms, he also completed reforms in many other areas such as education, land, taxation, people's livelihood, and river management, which greatly strengthened the national power of the Ming Dynasty. It can be said that the effects and achievements are obvious to all.

Therefore, compared to Zhang Juzheng, Gao Gong can only be said to have implemented reform measures.

However, it is not perfect, and its style of action is too radical, which arouses resistance from many interest groups and is likely to end in failure.

Therefore, in Zhu De's view, Zhang Juzheng's reforms were definitely better.

The only potential problem is whether keeping Gao Gong in the country now will lead to ongoing disagreements between the two.

He wasn't worried about that.

Given the prestige of the founding emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, and the fact that Zhang Juzheng was appointed as the leader, the only option was to follow his lead.

Even setting aside the question of who should be the primary or secondary ruler, even if Jiajing were to be deposed, or even if Zhu Zaiji were not to be emperor, anyone could be randomly chosen from the imperial clan and no one would have anything to say.

Because he conquered the country, there would be no Ming Dynasty without Zhu Yuanzhang. Therefore, the affairs of the Ming Dynasty are not only national affairs of the Ming people, but can even be said to be his family affairs.

Seeing this, Gao Gong had no choice but to reply, "Your subject obeys the decree."

"I hate corrupt officials the most."

After Gao Gong responded, Zhu Yuanzhang's gaze turned icy. He then looked down at Xu Jie, the so-called leader of the Qingliu faction, and said in a deep voice, "I have heard that some people have distorted my original intention of treating scholars well. They claim that as long as one passes the imperial examination, the tax reduction I previously issued will be changed to a complete tax exemption. As a result, many farmers are offering their land to those who pass the imperial examination in exchange for not paying taxes to the court. Such rats are everywhere in my Ming Dynasty, causing the amount of farmland to decrease day by day, and the court's tax revenue to decrease day by day. Is this true?"

Xu Jie trembled.

He owns land in his hometown of Songjiang Prefecture, not much, but theoretically it should be 240,000 mu.

In fact, this is the number recorded in the official history, "Biography of Xu Jie" in the History of Ming. According to Fan Shouji's "Unofficial History of the Ming Dynasty" and Hai Rui's "Memorial on Being Argued for Dereliction of Duty", the number is even greater.

The "Unofficial History of Emperor Su of the Ming Dynasty" records 400,000 mu, while Hai Rui said that "half of the land in Songjiang belonged to the Xu family." According to Zhang Juzheng's survey of land across the country in the sixth year of the Wanli reign, Songjiang Prefecture had 409 million mu of land, which means that the Xu family owned 2 million mu of land.

This is certainly an exaggeration, but Fan Shouji and Hai Rui were contemporaries of Xu Jie. Hai Rui, as the governor of Yingtian, even forced Xu Jie to return tens of thousands of acres of land that he had seized from the people and to pay back taxes owed over the years. He can be considered a firsthand witness to the events, so his descriptions are unlikely to be entirely untrue.

Moreover, after Yan Song's downfall, many censors impeached Xu Jie, one of the charges being "possessing vast tracts of land," indicating that the Xu family's wealth was immense.

Xu Jie's father was initially just a minor county magistrate, reportedly owning only 3,000 mu of ancestral land. After Xu Jie rose to prominence, the amount of land he owned expanded rapidly, increasing a hundredfold in just a few decades. Who doesn't know how much shady dealings were involved?
Old Zhu had already investigated Xu Jie's background.

According to historical records, his land holdings mainly came from three sources: first, accepting tributes to avoid taxes; second, seizing government-owned land; and third, taking advantage of famine years to acquire land from bankrupt self-cultivating farmers at low prices.

These three methods basically cover how wealthy and powerful officials and landlords at the time annexed land and evaded taxes.

It can be said that Zhang Juzheng's reforms touched this part of the vested interests.

Now that Zhu Yuanzhang is alive, it is natural to settle his accounts clearly. It is also an opportunity to use his personal prestige to pave the way for Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gong's future reforms.

(End of this chapter)