Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 436 Casting a wide net

"Hmm. That's quite thoughtful." Zhu Changluo nodded and casually asked, "Isn't Cui Yuan afraid that Master Sun will take away all the credit?"

"Being able to share the worries of our Lord is the blessing that bastard has earned in eight lifetimes. It is his duty to do the job well. If he misses the big thing because of trying to take credit for the work, he will be ashamed of heaven and earth and let down his master." Cui Wensheng said hurriedly.

"You're starting to become more articulate," Zhu Changluo was about to praise Cui Wensheng, but the words that appeared before him made his brows, which had just relaxed, furrow again. "Well! These bastards are actually planning to take our pay."

Although the emperor was muttering to himself, the chill between his teeth still gave the eunuchs goose bumps all over their bodies.

"Since they dared to lay their hands on this life-saving money," Zhu Changluo flipped his hand and slammed the letter of report onto the imperial desk. "Then don't blame me for taking their lives!" He seemed to have a vision of the scene of the fall of Liaoyang City in the text of this report.

"Master!" Cui Wensheng jumped up from his chair and asked fiercely, "Otherwise, I will have their mansion surrounded right now!"

Zhu Changluo took a deep breath and quickly calmed down. "Where are those people's confessions?"

"My Lord," Cui Wensheng said, "They are all stored in the East Depot." Cui Yuan's confession filled a small box. Thinking the emperor wouldn't waste time reading through each copy, Cui Wensheng didn't bring it with him.

On the night Sun Chengzong used his tactics to sow discord, Cui Yuan conducted a second interrogation of the prisoners. This interrogation went very smoothly, with almost every person confessing. To Cui Yuan's surprise, the first person to confess was Li Laicai, the leader of the United Merchants Group.

During the interrogation, Li Laicai, seemingly venting his anger, recounted all the dirty work he'd done for the Li family over the years, as well as the iniquities of the Wuqing Marquisate. And unlike the others, Li Laicai didn't even beg for mercy. It felt as if he was simply trying to drag the Li family, or Li Mingcheng and Li Guorui, down with him. He had the audacity to take someone down with him even if he died.

Zhu Changluo thought for a moment. "Cui Wensheng."

"I'm here!" There seemed to be fire dancing in Cui Wensheng's eyes.

"The Beitang case will continue to be handled according to Cui Yuan's idea of ​​not disturbing the people, and all the insects that should be caught will be caught. Send a letter to Cui Yuan and ask him to send people to escort those dogs to Beijing as soon as possible and lock them up in the prison of Neidongchang." Zhu Changluo gave the order.

"Yes, I will do it when I get back!" Cui Wensheng responded quickly.

"Wang An." Zhu Changluo turned his head and looked at Wang An again.

"I'm here." Wang An quickly stood up.

"Collate and simplify the confessions," Zhu Changluo said. "As soon as these bastards arrive in Beijing, we'll share their contents with the upright officials in the Ministry of Justice and let them take the lead."

As he issued this order, Zhu Changluo suddenly had a flash of inspiration, realizing a small incident that had occurred not long ago. He thought to himself: Perhaps Zhao Yanqing, who had been banished from the capital, had borrowed someone's knife to keep chasing Luo Sigong. Who could have secretly handed Zhao Yanqing a knife under the nose of the Jinyiwei leader and not been discovered? It could only be the Factory Guard.
"Alas," Zhu Changluo sighed inexplicably at the thought. "With all my passion, I've been used as a pawn in factional strife. How pitiful." Zhu Changluo wouldn't bother with this kind of intense factional strife. If the various government offices were truly harmonious, he, as the emperor, would be unable to sleep.

Wang An didn't understand what the emperor was mumbling to himself. He swallowed his saliva and said cautiously, "Master, I dare to ask you, who are you going to lay off?"

Zhu Changluo was stunned for a moment, then realized Wang An had misunderstood him. He stared at Wang An intently, hammering the report paper in front of him with his hand. He said in a firm and resolute tone, "The abridged report is already this large. This confession is definitely more than just one or two pages. I asked you to give a concise summary, not to shield anyone. I've already given them a chance, but they were greedy and insisted on running into the trap."

"Yes," Wang An breathed a sigh of relief. Only then did he fully grasp the emperor's resolve. He feared that this time, the Li family's only hope of saving themselves would be to resurrect the old empress dowager.

Zhu Changluo retracted his gaze and waved towards Cui Wensheng. But Cui Wensheng did not leave. Instead, he bowed again and said, "This servant has one more thing to report to the master, may your majesty live forever."

"What's the matter?" Zhu Changluo picked up the teacup and took a sip of the slightly cool water to moisten his throat.

"Master," Cui Wensheng said, "Cui Yuan's secret agents stationed in Zhongwei, Tianjin, have discovered that there is an extremely serious problem of tax evasion on the grain transport route."

"Tax evasion?" Zhu Changluo put down the memorial he had just picked up. "How did you evade it? Tell me in detail."

"Yes." Cui Wensheng explained: "When merchant ships pass through the customs, they must stop for inspection, and the ship tax is calculated and paid according to the number of beam heads and the length of the ship. However, grain transport ships do not need to pay taxes, and the customs along the way have no right to stop the grain ships for inspection. So some people took advantage of this and stuffed their own private goods into the grain ships at the docks along the canal. As long as they passed the customs, they would stop the ship and take out the private goods. In this way, private goods on the canal completely avoided taxation. And it's not just grain transport ships, any official ships that the customs have no right to inspect may be used as a basis for tax evasion. When Cui Yuan went to the south before, even..." At this point, Cui Wensheng stopped in a hurry.

"What's wrong with going to the south?" Zhu Changluo glanced at Cui Wensheng.

"This..." Cui Wensheng's mouth twitched. At this moment, he really wanted to slap himself in the face.

There was suddenly a hint of silent teasing in Wang An and Wei Chao's eyes when they looked at Cui Wensheng. Only Liu Ruoyu blinked blankly, not quite understanding what was going on.

"Why don't you finish what you are saying? What are you thinking about?" Zhu Changluo urged.

"Yes," Cui Wensheng began, but this time, his tone lacked the previous enthusiasm. "When Cui Yuan went south, he discovered that the Nanjing Jinyiwei would often brazenly fly Jinyiwei flags and lanterns on their ships to help wealthy local merchants evade taxes."

After Cui Wensheng finished speaking, Zhu Changluo didn't respond immediately, instead falling into a moment of deep thought. "Convert Zhongwei and Beitang Stations into permanent detective stations, and then continue to establish a detective network further down the river. Secretly infiltrate the market, inspect the docks, and find out who's profiting from this."

"Master, the Zhongwei Station has already identified many suspects," Cui Wensheng suggested. "We can arrest them directly and then follow the clues to investigate."

"No rush." ​​Zhu Changluo waved his hand. "Tax rectification still needs to be led by the Ministry of Revenue. The East Depot should infiltrate along the river and cast a wide net. Before making a decision, we should try to identify as many suspects as possible and their connections."

"Yes." Cui Wensheng responded respectfully without saying anything more.

The Ming Dynasty's commercial tax system was deeply flawed. Using grain transport vessels and government ships to evade ship tax was only one of the problems. Problems arose regarding which commercial taxes to levy, how to collect them, how much of the collected taxes should be retained by the central and local governments, and what to do with the remaining local taxes.

These issues require the design of an entire civil service system to support them, and even once it is designed, it will need constant adjustments. Zhu Changluo originally intended to have Li Ruhua lead the reforms, but Li Ruhua couldn't handle the situation and returned. The Ministry of Revenue now only has Wang Zuo as its acting seal holder. It will take time to assess the character of Wang Yingjiao, the new Shangshu recommended by Li Ruhua, and whether he can oversee tax reform. As for allowing eunuchs to meddle in taxation, this is truly nonsense. Zhu Changluo had a clear vision for the inner court system: it could only be a central agency suspended in the sky, with its reach in the local areas limited to supervisory agencies and the imperial factories. This was the only way to ensure that the inner court system remained loyal to the imperial power. Bypassing the outer court and allowing the inner court to handle taxation or other important military and political affairs would either end up like the Han and Tang dynasties, or end up with a deformed system similar to the Wanli mining tax.

Thinking of this, Zhu Changluo added, "And the Ministry of Revenue! I want the East Factory to investigate all the current officials in the Ministry of Revenue, including Wang Yingjiao, who has not yet taken office. What industries do they have, who are they associated with, and what industries do their associates have? Find out everything clearly for me."

"Yes!" Cui Wensheng began to get excited again. The fact that the emperor was willing to entrust these matters to the East Factory instead of the West Factory or the Imperial Guard meant that he truly treated him like a trustworthy family dog. Being a dog wasn't scary; being a homeless stray dog ​​was.

Zhu Changluo looked at Wang An again. "If the East Factory needs more manpower and budget, just submit it directly to the Imperial Household Department for review and filing."

"Yes." Wang An understood that the emperor wanted him to tighten the leash around Cui Wensheng's neck himself.

"Go and do your work." Zhu Changluo retracted his gaze and shifted his attention back to the backlog of memorials.

"Yes, I will take my leave!" Cui Wensheng walked to the center of the hall, lifted his robe, and knelt in greeting. "Long live the emperor."

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"The Emperor has arrived!" After the bell for dismissal rang, the Emperor's carriage arrived in front of Jingren Palace on time.

"My concubines, Fu Xueqian and Zhao Yuxian, pay their respects to Your Majesty."

"Your sons Zhu Huiyan and Zhu Huijing pay their respects to your father." During one of their meetings, Zhu Changluo asked them to remove the suffix "Your Majesty". They obediently did so, but still did not dare to call their father "Emperor Daddy" like Zhu Huiti did.

Zhu Changluo had a smile on his face. "Everyone, get up."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, Father."

Behind the concubines and princesses were the eunuchs and palace maids kneeling in a row. When they all stood up, the emperor cast his eyes towards Liu Yun, the chief pharmacist of the Imperial Food Bureau, who was on the right side of the first person in the row, and happened to make eye contact with Liu Yun.

Liu Heng didn't expect the emperor to look at her, and she didn't dare to look at the emperor. She hurriedly lowered her head, clasped her hands together, and her whole face was full of embarrassment and tension.

Zhu Changluo didn't say anything to Liu Heng. He walked past her with big strides and soon arrived at the stone steps at the door of Concubine An Shao Si Shen's bedroom.

"Is Shao Sishen awake?" Zhu Changluo turned his head to look at Concubine Xian Zhao Yuxian who was following closely behind him and asked in a low voice.

"Your Majesty, Concubine An has just woken up." Zhao Yuxian replied.

"Okay." As soon as Zhu Changluo stepped onto the first step, two eunuchs ran up and opened the door.

Zhu Changluo walked into the main hall, crossed the screen and came to Shao Sishen's bed. In Zhu Changluo's memory, this young girl was almost always lying on the bed.

"Your Majesty." When Shao Sishen saw the emperor, his tired eyes immediately flashed with light.

Even though the Imperial Medical Bureau did its best to treat her, and the emperor even arranged for a female doctor to accompany Shao Sishen, Shao Sishen unfortunately still gave birth prematurely.

According to the surviving records of the rewards bestowed upon Shao Sishen by the Crown Prince, it was at the end of May last year, after Queen Wang's mourning period had ended. Therefore, Shao Sishen's due date should have been the end of March this year, but she gave birth on February 23rd.

Shao Sishen's labor was not only premature but also difficult. The entire birth was extremely painful, with wailing lasting nearly two hours. This terrified her fellow palace maids, Fu Xueqian and Zhao Yuxian, who were constantly on edge. Liu Yun, who was accompanying her, was so frightened that her face turned pale. Fortunately, the palace had a team of experienced maids, so she didn't need to assist with the delivery.

After Shao Sishen gave birth, Zhu Changluo played the role of a husband very well. He would visit Shao Sishen in Jingren Palace almost every day and say a few warm words to her.

"How do you feel today?" Zhu Changluo threw away his sleeves and reached out to gently stroke Shao Sishen's face.

"With your majesty's care and concern, how dare I not do anything bad?" Shao Sishen gathered her strength and stretched out her hand. Zhu Changluo also cooperated and grabbed her.

"I am not blessed enough to give Your Majesty another son." Shao Sishen said weakly.

When she learned that the child she had given birth to with so much difficulty was a daughter, Shao Sishen felt not only the joy of being a mother but also a little worry and sadness. And this feeling deepened as her body gradually recovered.

The reason she thought so was not only because of the reality of the palace where a mother's status depends on her sons, but also because her husband was a real jerk. Although Shao Sishen was not the Crown Prince's bedmate when Fu Xueqian gave birth to two daughters, she still saw how the Crown Prince treated Fu Xueqian and her daughters after entering the palace.

"Don't say such things anymore. I've said it before, sons and daughters are all the same." Zhu Changluo said gently, "If you can give birth to the child safely, then you will be an honorable mother."

Shao Sishen felt warm in his heart and tears welled up in the corners of his eyes again.

"Okay." Zhu Changluo stretched out his other hand and wiped away her tears with his sleeve.

"Alas." Fu Xueqian stood by, watching and listening, her expression very subtle. When she gave birth to her daughter, her husband never said such words to her, and almost ignored her. She couldn't help but wonder, was it because her birth was so smooth that she didn't seem pitiful enough?

Zhao Yuxian noticed Fu Xueqian's emotional fluctuations. He took a step forward and gently held Fu Xueqian's hand.

(End of this chapter)