Chapter 51 Bad Guys
The first batch of businessmen who worked hard to feed the border troops lost all their money and their families were ruined, but there were still "bad guys" who persisted in their evil intentions.
The second person who wanted to solve the problem of enough food for the border troops was really a "bad guy" who was "heinous" according to historical records - Liu Jin.
Yes, it is Liu Jin who enjoys the 3357 fish scales. Eunuch Liu was stabbed for three days in total. He couldn't hold it back on the second day and died after being stabbed for more than 400 times. The third day was the ritual slicing of the dead body.
According to official history, all the eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty, except for Zheng He and a few others, were bastards. However, three of them are known as "full of evil": Wang Zhen, Wei Zhongxian, and Liu Jin. Among the three, he met the worst end: Wang Zhen had his head smashed with a hammer and died the most happily, Wei Zhongxian hung himself from a southeastern branch and died the most leisurely, Eunuch Liu... died the most tragically. The executioner temporarily acted as a sashimi chef, cutting and selling slices from Eunuch Liu's body. The food was cheap and delicious, and the ingredients were fresh. People in the capital enthusiastically bought it with money, and then ate it raw on the spot in front of Eunuch Liu. Got it!
In fact, honestly speaking, Eunuch Liu really wants to help these people!
A sigh.
According to the mainstream view, Liu Jin must have committed a heinous crime. However, if you look carefully, even those "official histories" reveal clues between the lines. We can say that he is a bastard, we can say that he has no brains, and we can also say that he is ruthless, but we cannot say that he is really a bad person.
The people of the Ming Dynasty suffered.
Although the dignitaries have become more and more like the common people, even if they are fighting against the common people, they are still trying their best to cheat each other for their own survival - of course, they all hold up the noble banner of ethics to the outside world.
Give two examples.
1. Widows observe festivals. What should I do if my husband dies and leaves an orphan and a widowed mother? Your husband’s family doesn’t want you to remarry—otherwise, the family property will be much cheaper for outsiders! So they will do everything possible to obstruct it. Then what? Abuse! Bully the widow to death. Those without children are the best. The property can be divided directly among everyone. Those with children can sell the unlucky child (they have children at home), or adopt it into their own home (the child is very young and ignorant and cannot be born on their own). (baby), this property still belongs to the husband’s family. Some even put the poor widow into a well in the middle of the night and drowned her, and then reported it to the government to claim that she had died as a husband and ask for a few reward coins! Of course, all these immoral things will be covered by a dazzling banner: keeping integrity.
2. Hold a big funeral. Just like today's big weddings, if someone dies in the family, you have to invite as many people as you can - you can receive gift money. If you invite me, I have to invite you, otherwise I will lose money! After giving a gift, I felt unbalanced because I missed one chopstick at the banquet, so I made irresponsible remarks: Look at the clothes I bought for his father, they are not silk clothes. Look at the coffin I bought for his mother, why is it so thin? , Look, the cemetery you chose is next to the river... People who are really too poor to find a job, in order to avoid being looked down upon, have no choice but to park the body at home and delay holding a burial ceremony. Because these accusations are also protected by the banner of filial piety, making them invulnerable.
When Eunuch Liu heard this, he was angry: Bastard! Isn’t this fucking bullying? According to the order of our family, all widows will be remarried to our family! All dead people in the family will be cremated! Violators will be investigated by the government!
Then, the world was in chaos - a one-size-fits-all order will always be like this.
However, we can see that although Eunuch Liu was a little reckless, he did think about the people.
Of course, after the civil servants' extravagant propaganda, Eunuch Liu finally offended the people - well, the people also forgot about the short-lived and worthless emotion they felt when Eunuch Liu persuaded Emperor Zhengde to reduce taxes.
Laishui is a small city near Baoding Prefecture. One time, Liu Jin passed by (one said that Liu Jin paid tribute to his own house, and the other said that his friend's family had passed away and Liu's father-in-law went to pay tribute). All the officials along the way were extremely extravagant to greet and see him off. Only Wang Xun, the magistrate of Laishui County, spent his own money to set up a table by the roadside. Prepare some paper money. Of course Eunuch Liu was very angry: Did your mother look down on my father-in-law and deliberately treated our family poorly? Someone, check him out! Jin Yiwei went to check and reported that there was nothing else in the Laishui County government office except the office desks and chairs and a few nails driven into the wall to hang clothes. We also went to his house. The magistrate's wife was wearing coarse clothes and was spinning a spinning wheel. The two little boys were looking at the pancakes on the table with tears in their eyes, waiting to be taken down to eat.
Eunuch Liu was moved: I will go, he is such a good official, I wrongly blamed him! Give him some pigs to improve his food, and some silk to make clothes for his wife! Our family will report to the emperor immediately and reward him! Eunuchs are the emperor's domestic slaves and have no right to reward court officials. Sending meat and silk is a private act, and it is the emperor's right to reward officials themselves. Eunuch Liu was very clear - Emperor Zhengde personally wrote a commendation order for Wang Xun, and he was promoted to the magistrate of Fenzhou!
Through these few little things, we can see: Eunuch Liu is really not bad.
The people Liu Jin offended the most were the civil service group.
Ever since the death of two ruthless men, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, for two hundred years, the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty have been unswervingly doing two things: on the one hand, they are pretending to be that, and on the other hand, they are erecting memorial arches, until they have deceived both the Ming Dynasty and itself. Anyone who tries to prevent them from doing these two things will die, almost without exception.
Both of these things are quite simple to do: the way to be a slave is to take advantage of the common people through corruption and bribery, and the most immediate way to build a memorial arch is to make things difficult for the emperor.
For example, during the wedding of Emperor Zhengde, he asked the Ministry of Revenue for 400,000 taels of silver. The Ministry of Revenue gave him 300,000 taels, but he owed 100,000 taels. By the tenth year of Zhengde (the wedding in the first year of Zhengde, ten years later), we still owed money, but we just wouldn’t pay it—look, we didn’t even give it the emperor’s face. How noble our ethics are!
For another example, during the Zhengde wedding and the establishment of a queen, the civil servants seized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to add to the problem: Look, how profound are the lessons of the exclusive power of relatives in the Han and Tang Dynasties in history? what to do? Hey, let's send a lecturer from the Hanlin Academy to give ideological and moral lessons to Queen Xia and her father, Xia Ru! So the unlucky father-in-law of the great emperor was tortured by these bastards at any time: I promise not to be tyrannical, I promise not to bully men and women... read it ten times and copy it ten times! The civil servants are proud: We are upright, right? Even the emperor’s father-in-law dealt with it! In fact, it was just to bully old Xia Tou to be honest. But if it were a more powerful person, looking at these bastards, they would all fall down and kowtow and call their ancestors - the example of Wei Zhongxian is obvious, that one is just a great emperor. A domestic slave is not a family member, let alone my father-in-law!
In the Ming Dynasty, there was the infamous court stick, which was used to push officials down on the spot with a big board and slap their butts. But don't be fooled, don't think what you think - civil servants like to be slapped with a stick, really. Because I can brag everywhere: Look how awesome I am, I made the emperor so angry that he had no choice but to beat me! I'm so tough, I didn't say a word!
In fact, these people are very thieves: they put on extra pairs of trousers beforehand, and put on thick cotton pads before being beaten, and the person being beaten is just a formality. Then these guys jumped all over the street and shouted: Look, my leg has been broken, I am upright... This was the case before Zhengde. Later, Gonggong Liu got into trouble: "The mat was removed, and I took off my pants and beat her naked!"
The white flowers turned into blood, and for a while there was no one left to fight.
Liu Jin was Zhu Houzhao's childhood playmate. Apart from Wu Zong, he had no one else in his heart. He is also straightforward and courageous. He is always the first to do things that others dare not do.
For example, he collects money.
He knew that there were endless ways for civil servants to make money, so he squeezed them desperately. Needless to say, Beijing officials, foreign officials come to Beijing, the same thing, stop talking nonsense and pay! In fact, this kind of policy does not have a great impact on the really corrupt officials. The most unlucky ones are the officials who are less corrupt or not very corrupt - some borrow money and try to get it back after taking office, and very few Some of them committed suicide. Later, someone made it clear to Eunuch Liu: Are you stupid? They are all rich, it's true. But who would give you their own money? Aren’t they just going around clamoring to give you money and then go back and use the public funds from the treasury to make up for it? You still make money even if you don't pay, but you have to bear the bad reputation on your own!
Liu Jin thought: Yes, that makes sense! How does this work? Check it for me! Fourteen people were sent everywhere to check the accounts. As long as the treasury was in short supply and the accounts could not be paid, the officials themselves would make up for it! Retired people can also chase the stolen goods from me!
All the officials who caught up with him and gave him gifts were convicted!
From the above examples, it can be seen that what Eunuch Liu, who has been cut across the board, likes to play the most is this kind of one-size-fits-all game.
All the officials hated him.
Liu Jin couldn't have done anything wrong with this money. After all, he was a eunuch, not a saint. But most of them were to enrich the emperor's small treasury - Taicang's money! This point was tacitly "forgotten" by the civil servant group who later wrote history!
Let’s take another example. Before Zhengde, the Ming Dynasty had always implemented a maritime ban: except for tribute ships from vassal states, cargo ships were not allowed to dock. In the fourth year of Zhengde's reign, a Siamese cargo ship encountered a storm and sailed to Guangzhou for repairs. The chief envoy of Guangdong convened a meeting of the leadership team and unanimously decided that the ship was damaged and could no longer carry cargo to sail. The ship owner could be allowed to sell the goods on the spot, and the Guangdong government could collect some taxes.
Xiong Xuan, the eunuch of the City Shipping Department, was excited when he heard that there was a tax to be collected - the City Shipping Department was responsible for managing the tribute ships, and all the revenue went to the emperor's small treasury. So he wrote a letter asking him to collect taxes and return them to the royal family. At this time, Zhengde was not yet enlightened, so he was deceived by the civil servants. He scolded him for "arrogating power", dismissed him from his post, and replaced him with the supervising shipping department. So the Guangdong government legitimately collected the tax.
This can give civil servants a taste of the sweetness. Why didn’t we expect this income before? Profitable, the civil servants talked about the same principles: when all nations return, we must be considerate to those far away, the heavenly country must be open-minded, and the waves are dangerous, so kindness must be spread widely... Therefore, the so-called sea ban , opened a back door. In the future, the tribute ships can carry some goods and sell them locally to subsidize the expenses along the way. Thirty percent of the total payment will be paid to the Chief Envoy of Guangdong for customs duties! 30%! Are you convinced?
Well, it’s said to be the back door, which is wider than the front door: as long as you pay tribute to the great emperor, you will be a tribute ship, right? As for the tribute, it can be a piece of grass. This is called sending goose feathers as a gift from thousands of miles away, but it means less affection and more goods. Even if you bring a few Tyrannosaurus rex, as long as you pay 30% of the selling price, our Ming government will definitely protect taxpayers. legitimate rights and interests!
As the news spread, there was an endless stream of ships coming to pay "tribute"!
The father-in-law who took over the shipping company was named Bizhen. We have said before that eunuchs are actually a severely stigmatized group. The vast majority of them, no matter how bastard they are, are always extremely loyal to the emperor: if they leave the emperor, they will die! This is exactly what happened - just over a year after Xiong Xuan was dismissed from office, he submitted another letter, requesting that the Municipal Shipping Department collect the tax of up to 30% of the value of the goods.
The civil service group is angry! We racked our brains and talked a lot before we got this piece of fat. Do you want to snatch it? no way! Isn't it just a quarrel? Our specialty! Submit a letter, who is afraid of whom?
Zhu, the great emperor of Zhengde, approved it: "It's like Xiong Xuan's old routine."
The civil servants were overjoyed: Humph, we have to be the ones who want to sue for the lawsuit!
After reading the imperial edict, Eunuch Liu grinned at the civil servants. The civil servants were so happy that they felt terrified: What, you dare to openly defy the decree?
Eunuch Liu asked kindly: "Everyone, do you all understand the spirit of this imperial edict?"
The civil servants were puzzled: "Of course, it's written in black and white on a white paper, oh, no, it's written clearly in yellow, brocade and Zhu characters!"
Liu Jin was still happy: "How do you understand it? Tell me."
Civil servants: "Xiong Xuan originally asked the Municipal Shipping Department to collect taxes. Didn't His Majesty give instructions and ask us to collect them? Isn't that what he meant?"
Eunuch Liu was so happy that he said, "You have made yourself stupid by studying, haven't you? Let me explain it to you. Last year, Xiong Xuan requested that the Municipal Shipping Department collect taxes, right? The Holy Spirit said, just follow what Xiong Xuan said last year Do it! The explanation is over."
After saying that, Eunuch Liu dropped his smile and started to glare: "Are you dissatisfied? Our family will ask Jin Yiwei to come to your house to investigate!"
In this round, Eunuch Liu won completely.
However, from the capital to the local areas, he completely offended the civil service group.
Then, the big bad guy Liu Gonggong began to offend the generals again.
