Shanxi, Pingyang Prefecture.
I don’t know when it started, but winter is coming earlier and earlier, and the weather is getting colder and colder.
Compared to Taiyuan Prefecture in the north, snow here in Pingyang Prefecture always comes later, and it usually starts snowing after frost.
But it was just after the Mid-Autumn Festival, and snowflakes began to fall intermittently in the sky, and the temperature suddenly dropped.
Zhu Shenzui was walking towards home with one foot high and one foot low. Due to the early snow, the snowflakes on the already poor road quickly turned into snow water, and the ground became muddy.
The sky is getting darker, there are fewer pedestrians on the street, and the excitement of the day is about to end.
In an inconspicuous place, refugees and beggars in rags are leaning against the wall and hiding. Just like the Ming Dynasty today, it looks so prosperous and powerful, but in fact it is full of holes.
It has been several years since Zhu Shenzui came to this world.
The Ming Dynasty clan, the second son of Zhu Jixi, the second generation of the Jin Dynasty, the grandson of Zhu Meiyi, the king of Jiaocheng, and the lieutenant of the Juefu Kingdom. In terms of genealogy, he is the same generation as the current emperor, the Wanli Emperor.
This is Zhu Shenzui's current identity. Compared with his previous life, this identity is not noble. Unfortunately, when Zhu Shenzui understood this era, he was completely speechless about his identity.
It stands to reason that as a member of the clan, Zhu Shenzui has been a master since the day he was born. According to the clan's title, even if he is only a low-level lieutenant of the auxiliary country, his rank is from the fifth level.
People often say that a county magistrate of the seventh grade can become a county magistrate in the Ming Dynasty. So what is the concept of a county magistrate of the fifth grade? According to the level conversion, it is equivalent to the deputy department level.
When Zhu Shenzui first worked in the government agency, the director of their county bureau was only a senior official, two levels behind the county magistrate, not to mention the superior deputy director.
Well, now, Zhu Shenzui, who didn't even get into a deputy department in his previous life, became a deputy department in the blink of an eye. Isn't this a good thing? But this is not the case at all. Being a clan member in the Ming Dynasty is the most unlucky thing in the entire feudal dynasty.
In the era of Lao Zhu, that is, Zhu Yuanzhang, the days of the Ming Dynasty clan were the best. At that time, the vassal kings and ordinary clans lived a really good life. They had soldiers and territory, and the clan received generous treatment from Lao Zhu. There is almost a local emperor's presence.
Unfortunately, not long after the good days passed, Lao Zhu Yiga and stunned Qing Jianwen came to power and became emperor, and that day changed.
Jianwen is surrounded by a bunch of big liars who can only brag and talk big words. Why can't they do it? But Jianwen just likes to hear these things. Jianwen, who was deceived and abducted, wanted to be a holy king, so he started to sharpen his vassal and sharpen his sword as soon as he slapped his head. Huo Huo Xiang Shu Wang.
In just one year, the kings of Zhou, Qi, Xiang, Dai, and Min were imprisoned to death by their eldest nephews. For a time, the people of each vassal were in panic and everyone was in danger.
Then, Jianwen prepared to attack Zhu Di, the most powerful king of Yan.
Zhu Laosi is also a ruthless person. He pretends to be crazy before Jianwen can take action. He talks nonsense, burns the stove and covers himself with quilts in the summer, and fights for food with others on the street... I heard he even ate dog feces?
To put it bluntly, this is not surprising. Zhu Laosi is not the first, and he is definitely not the last.
Sun Bin, the one who had his knees cut off, did this. Brother Song Jiang and Song Gongming also did this. After Zhu Laosi, Tang Bohu, who painted erotic pictures, also did this. Even Wu Sangui, a child who is only seven years old now, also did this before he fell out with Kang Mazi decades later.
The trick is an old trick, but the effect is good. This trick actually fooled the young Jianwen.
Just when Jianwen thought that Zhu Laosi was crazy and howling like crazy, who would have thought that Zhu Laosi would take advantage of Jianwen's carelessness and find an opportunity to suddenly raise his troops to rebel, and under the banner of Jingnan, he rolled up his sleeves and prepared to fight with his eldest nephew.
When Jianwen heard that Zhu Laosi was raising troops, he was stunned for a moment and then laughed happily, leaning forward and back to applaud.
rebel? Ouch, Fourth Uncle, you did a great job! I was originally thinking about how to attack you if you were crazy, how to label you, but now I have jumped out? Isn’t this just rushing to self-destruction?
How many people do you have, Mr. Zhu Laosi? It's only a hundred thousand. How many troops do I have, nephew? A full six hundred thousand! Six hundred thousand versus one hundred thousand, the advantage is mine!
Jianwen immediately ordered troops to quell the chaos, intending to take this opportunity to directly kill his disobedient uncle.
Unexpectedly, Li Jinglong, the first-generation God of War, whom Jianwen had chosen from thousands of people, led his troops to the expedition. Instead of defeating Zhu Di, he was defeated again and again. The 600,000-strong army was wiped out in the blink of an eye. Instead, Zhu Di's troops fought more and more, and in one breath they came from the north. We reached the city of Nanjing in the south.
When Zhu Di's troops entered the city, Jianwen still hadn't come to his senses. He couldn't figure out how his 600,000-strong army was defeated by Zhu Laosi's 100,000 troops, and how the so-called impregnable army was defeated by the other party. of the capital.
But it was too late to think about it at this time. Jianwen had no chance to escape. Zhu Laosi's troops had already entered the city and surrounded Nanjing. Jianwen did not have a special plane to escape from the sky. Jianwen, who was helpless and filled with grief and anger, could only He took his wife, children and whole family together and set himself on fire.
As soon as Jianwen died, Zhu Laosi came to power and became emperor.
I originally thought that after Zhu Laosi became emperor, he would treat his uncles better than his eldest nephew, Leng Touqing. After all, we are brothers, and the reason why you, Zhu Laosi, are in peace is because of something your eldest nephew forced you to do? Comparing one's feelings with one's own, now that you are the emperor, you have to put things right after all, right?
Unfortunately, the ideal is beautiful, but the reality is skinny.
To describe it in one sentence, you, the vassal and clan, really think too much. Why don’t you just think about how Zhu Laosi came to power? How did the appeasement succeed?
The biggest fear of rebels coming to power is that others will imitate others, and Zhu Laosi is no exception.
After becoming the Dabao, Zhu Laosi dealt with his brothers and nephews even more ruthlessly than Jianwen. Not only did he eliminate all the vassal king's real power with three strokes, five and two, but his method of controlling the clan was the most severe in all dynasties. of.
In order to prevent anyone in the clan from following his example and successfully rebelling in the future, Zhu Laosi directly imprisoned all the clan members, and also asked local officials, Jin Yiwei and other institutions to supervise each other and closely monitor each other. If there was any trouble, the punishment would be extremely severe.
In this way, since the Yongle year, the Ming Dynasty clan has become a group of "pigs" in captivity. Apart from carrying the name of a clan on their heads and living with the salary provided by the court, they can do nothing else.
It would be fine if it was just like this. After all, it would be fine to just get paid and not work. It would be fine to just lie down, eat, drink, hug the beauty and concentrate on making little people. But as time goes by, the clan has more and more children, one generation after another. The amount of salary given to the clan by the court has been increasing for a long time, and this expenditure is getting bigger and bigger every year.
The landlord’s family doesn’t have any food left! The same goes for Lao Zhu's family.
Therefore, starting from the year of Hongzhi, Emperor Hongzhi, who was known as the benevolent emperor, took action on the clan and announced that the clan's salary would be reduced to half. The so-called half of the salary was a salary discount in layman's terms.
The earliest rule set by Lao Zhu was that the royal family's salary should be distributed in lumi. Since the original was divided into half and half, only half of the lumi that was supposed to be distributed was received. What should be paid to the other half? Issue treasure money!
Baochao was still quite valuable in the early days of Lao Zhu. However, after the indiscriminate issuance, the value of Baochao dropped like an elevator. By the time Lao Zhuga came to power, Baochao's credit had reached the edge of bankruptcy. After Zhu Laosi came to power, Baochao's value dropped like an elevator. Although banknotes are still considered an official currency, in fact no one uses them at all.
From Zhu Laosi to Zhu Pangpang, Cricket Emperor, and the second-generation God of War Baozong, and to the good old Hongzhi coming to power, decades have passed in the blink of an eye, and the treasure banknotes have become complete waste paper.
The so-called half-and-half bonus is equivalent to a "fracture" in salary, and the other half of the treasure notes are useless at all. It is too hard to wipe your behind with this thing. And according to the regulations, half-and-half only refers to princes. If it is a county prince or a clan below the county prince, he cannot even get half, and it will be cut to 40% off.
That's not all. When Taoist Jiajing, who was keen on cultivating, came to power, he went even further. He first introduced a reform of the clan salary system that was distributed in silver. Because the price of food was high and the actual purchasing power of silver was low, the ratio of silver to silver was stipulated by the court. , which is equivalent to another wage discount on the original basis.
The discount this time was not huge. Although there was some loss, the clan could barely accept it. But who would have thought that the Taoist priest thought that this was not enough after he considered his family's financial situation? Just one year before the most famous Hai Rui in Chinese history wrote the letter, in order to solve the serious problem of the imperial court not being able to pay wages, the Taoist priest once again attacked the clan members. , this time it was even more ruthless.
Two policies were directly introduced. The first policy was to directly increase the age at which clan members can enjoy benefits from the initial age of ten to fifteen. The second policy is to discount 30% of real money and 70% of cash.
These two policies directly allowed the clan's salary to be discounted again from the original basis, from 40% to 30%. The increase in age also saved a lot of time for young clan members to receive their salaries, thus once again taking away money from the clan. A layer of skin.
The two tricks played by the Taoist priest can be said to make the clan members complain endlessly. The life of the big guys is already difficult, why do you want to do this? Do you want us to live?
Fortunately, Hai Rui wrote a letter the next year and scolded him so much. Maybe he scolded him too much, which caused him to become disillusioned and obsessed with him. In the end, he failed to succeed in cultivation. He finally managed to survive until the end of the year when his feet were stunned.
The Taoist priest shouted, and the clan members looked sad but secretly clapped their hands and cheered secretly. Thanks to Hai Rui, he scolded this old boy to death. If he were allowed to continue doing this, everyone would not be able to live a good life.
But who would have thought that just a few years after the stable life, when the little fat man Wanli came to power, he would start tossing up the clan again.
In the eleventh year of Wanli, Little Fatty issued an edict to announce a clan quota system. This system is called "Yongwei Quota", which means that in the future, the court will no longer pay salaries based on head count, but will directly pay out the total amount limited by each feudal, regardless of the salary of each feudal. If the clan's population increases or decreases, the money will be given according to the fixed quota every year. If there is more or less, you will have to find a way, and the court will no longer care.
As a result, life for the Ming Dynasty clan became increasingly difficult.
After all, high-level clans, such as princes and princes, have different statuses. In addition, they have the right to allocate real estate and vassals, so they have little impact. However, for ordinary clans, Wang Xiaoer's New Year is not as good as every year, especially for people like Zhu Shenzui. A low-level clan, it is said that their life is not as good as that of ordinary people!
