The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 616 Game
On the first day of December in the first year of Guangde, only seven days before the birthday of the retired emperor, the chief minister of the cabinet, Qiao Yiqi, and the second minister, Lu Xiangsheng, led dozens of officials from the six ministries of the cabinet to submit a memorial to Emperor Guangde, urging him to immediately implement the "Qi Dynasty Land System" in the southern provinces.

Wang Yingxiong, the Minister of Revenue, wrote in a memorial to Emperor Guangde: "Since the distribution of taxes and grain in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces is uneven, the common people are particularly burdened. We should follow the example of Liaodong, Shandong, and Henan. We should abolish foot binding, level land rights, abolish private property, crush the wealthy, plunder the gentry, and replenish the national treasury..."

Minister of Rites Chen Zizhuang wrote in a memorial: "All land under heaven belongs to the king. All land, regardless of north or south, should follow the laws of Qi. The state relies on the southeast for taxation. Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Taicang, these fertile areas, should take the lead in setting an example for Fujian, Guangdong, and Sichuan to follow."

In addition, Chen Zizhuang also suggested that in Zhejiang and Jiangsu, not only should land ownership be equalized and private property abolished, but also those wealthy families who had previously funded Zheng Sen and Zuo Liangyu should be held accountable and punished according to the amount of assets of each family...
In addition to the cabinet ministers, governors and prefects from Shandong and Henan provinces submitted memorials one after another, persuading the young emperor to follow the example of the retired emperor, to use thundering means to kill the rich and help the poor, to save the people in the south of the Yangtze River, and to consolidate the "Land System of the Qi Dynasty."

One student in Nanyang Prefecture, Henan Province, even penned a blood oath, imploring Liu Kan to reinstate the pre-Ming Dynasty system of skinning people to punish those large landowners who had annexed state land. He specifically singled out the Xu Jie family of Songjiang Prefecture. It was said that by the first year of the Guangde reign, the Xu family had occupied as much as 200,000 mu of fertile farmland...

The rain is coming and the wind is all over the building.

Liu Kan kept these memorials from all over the country and did not send them out.

However, the young emperor only verbally commended several radical Liaodong prefects and did not make any other comments.

On the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, the day before the Emperor's birthday (the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month), the Minister of War Du Yinxi submitted a memorial requesting that Wu Aheng's corps be dispatched south to blockade the Yangtze River estuary with naval warships to prevent Zheng Sen's pirates.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see who the navy is trying to guard against now that it has appeared at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

At the same time, the main forces of the various corps stationed in Nanjing also showed signs of being deployed to Hangzhou, Suzhou, Taicang and other places.

This series of outrageous actions by the King and his ministers of Qi left the wealthy and powerful people in the south, who had been living a peaceful and romantic life, dumbfounded.

Fujian and Guangdong were still easy to deal with, after all, the Qi army was out of reach. However, provinces such as Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, etc., which were close to Nanjing, were completely under the threat of the Great Qi. The gentry and wealthy families in these places were frightened and at a loss, and some were even scared to death.

Suzhou, Hangzhou and Taicang are home to many aristocratic families, including the Wang family of Taicang (Wang Xijue, Wang Shizhen, etc.), the Xu family of Suzhou (Xu Yanlu's line), the Xu family of Songjiang (Xu Jie)...

These aristocratic families that have been passed down for hundreds of years, such as the Taicang Wang family, are a branch of the Taiyuan Wang family.

For them, let alone Liu Qi replacing the Ming Dynasty, they have seen all kinds of storms, from the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty to the Battle of Yashan in the Southern Song Dynasty.

To these people, the change of dynasties is no big deal at all. It is nothing more than changing jobs in a different company. They can still hold high positions and enjoy generous salaries, and still rule a region and act tyrannically.

For example, Wang Xijue, a nobleman of Taicang Prefecture and the chief minister of the Wanli Dynasty, was expelled from the capital by Zhang Juzheng after the love affair incident, but he was able to make a comeback.

Wang Xijue did not have the same great talent as Zhang Juzheng. He rose to prominence through his daughter Wang Taozhenbo, and used his daughter's reputation (Yun Yangzi) to influence the local area and then influence the court's public opinion. Shortly after Zhang Juzheng's death, Wang Xijue returned to the center of power.

In the second year of the Wanli reign, Wang Taozhen ascended to heaven in Zhitang, Taicang (a Taoist priest passed away), with over 100,000 people watching. This incident alarmed the court and also brought considerable fame to Wang Xijue, who was now unemployed.

With 100,000 people, it is impossible to say that there was no support from Wang Xijue behind such a grand scene.

·····
These aristocratic families who were once powerful and influential in the former Ming Dynasty suddenly found that they had entered a strange country.

This group of northern barbarians in Nanjing City do not play by the rules at all.

Instead of emulating the sage and benevolent monarch, and unaware of the truth that imperial power does not extend below the county level, they came to power and started shouting for war and killing, and even wanted to bring the land distribution activities in Liaodong to the south.

Giving away the precious silver to those peasants and the untouchables! Isn't this a sin?
What shocked the wealthy families in particular was that the little emperor, who originally looked harmless and kind with thick eyebrows and big eyes, was actually a tyrant, even more cruel than his father!
It was not easy to escape, as Qi's soldiers were everywhere, including on the sea.

According to the laws of the Great Qi Dynasty, anyone who escapes with property without reason will be beheaded.

The only thing that comforted the gentry was that not all of the eight cabinet ministers supported the implementation of the Qi Dynasty Land System. In other words, there was still a glimmer of hope.

Moreover, the retired emperor never issued an edict to express his opinion on this matter from beginning to end, which means that there was a rift between the retired emperor and the young emperor.

Although Emperor Guangde had already taken power, everyone with a discerning eye knew that the military and political power of Qi had always been in the hands of Liu Kan's father, Liu Zhaosun.

Among the cabinet, the only ones who did not submit a petition to the emperor were the Minister of Personnel Wang Huazhen and the Minister of Punishment Jiang Dejing. The gentry seemed to have grasped at straws.

In early December, wealthy families from all over Suzhou and Hangzhou used their connections to offer gifts and write letters, desperate to knock on the door of the two ministers' homes, simply asking the two ministers to "have mercy on Suzhou and Hangzhou and prevent cruel officials from running rampant in the southeast, protecting the people, oppressing the gentry, and seeking fame to disrupt the government."

Wang and Jiang neither refused nor agreed to these requests, but just spoke vaguely.

They said that the court would not "steal profits from the people" or bully the rich, and asked everyone to wait patiently.

Although the Holy Emperor is young, he is wise and powerful, and is no less powerful than the Supreme Emperor. I believe that Emperor Guangde will give everyone a satisfactory explanation.

Finally, Wang Huazhen emphasized that Da Qi would never wrongly accuse a good person, nor would it let a bad person go.

The two cabinet ministers' attempt at playing Tai Chi and smoothing things over did nothing to calm people's hearts. Instead, it made the wealthy gentry in the southeast even more panicked...

Amidst the anxiety, time came to the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month of the first year of Guangde.

The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is the birthday of Emperor Liu Zhaosun, also known as the Tianshou Festival.

During the Jin Dynasty, "the emperor's birthday was designated as the Heavenly Longevity Festival." According to the History of Yuan Dynasty, "the emperor's birthday in August was named the Heavenly Longevity Festival."

The birthdays of emperors of ethnic minorities were no less grand and lively than those in the Central Plains.

The ministers of the Yuan Dynasty often used "Long live a hundred million years" as their congratulatory message.

The emperor came from Liaodong and had sworn blood alliances with Jianzhou, Haixi Jurchens, and the Mongols more than once.

He already had a barbaric temperament in his bones. When he was guarding Kaiyuan, many customs in the general's mansion were influenced by the Mongolian Jurchens.

Therefore, it was not groundless that the rulers and ministers of the Southern Dynasty called Liu Zhaosun a Northern Barbarian.

On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, Nanjing was decorated with lanterns and colorful lights. Emperor Guangde led the cabinet ministers to congratulate the retired emperor on his birthday.

Thousands of congratulatory letters were sent to Nanjing City from the territory of more than 10 million square kilometers of the Great Qi, filling the imperial desk.

The emperor emeritus celebrated with the people and issued an order to lift the curfew in Nanjing for three days and exempted some businesses from commercial taxes for half a year.

The people of Nanjing are grateful, but for the gentry in Suzhou, Hangzhou and other places, this year-end is destined to be difficult.

Starting from the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, a strange atmosphere spread over the major cities such as Suzhou, Hangzhou and Taicang.

The bustling scenes of the streets in the past disappeared, and those wealthy families who seemed to be respectable on weekdays seemed to have suddenly wilted overnight.

On the tenth day of the twelfth lunar month, Wang Heng (Zi Chenyu, son of Wang Xijue), who was unemployed in Taicang Prefecture, hurriedly ordered his servants to paint the red gate of his house black. Painting the gate in vermilion was originally a violation of the law, but the discipline was lax in the former Ming Dynasty, and the Wang family was a prominent family in Loucheng (Taicang), so naturally no one cared.

But now, times have changed, and the vermilion gate is a real usurpation of power.

More importantly, this would be seen as a display of wealth, which could easily cause trouble for the Wang family during this critical period.

The young thugs who used to show off their power on the streets of Suzhou have also disappeared, as if they had evaporated from the face of the earth.

According to the "Land System of the Qi Dynasty", these young people were to be exiled to Ningguta as soldiers. If they killed someone, they would be skinned directly...
What is most shocking is that some officials who are usually notorious either burned their families to death or fled with their property overnight to Guangdong, Guangxi and other places.

(End of this chapter)