In the summer of the ninth year of Chongzhen, a catastrophe is coming!
In Beijing, in the West Nuan Pavilion of Wansheng Palace, a Umrah is underway.
After attending that great court meeting, Zhu Youjian began to live a good life as a king who never went to court early.
Of course, not attending court early does not mean not managing politics. It's just that he doesn't hold the torturous imperial court hearing early in the morning, but spends an hour or two in Xinuan Pavilion to deal with national affairs carelessly. In fact, most things are very easy to handle, because the cabinet will give out instructions in advance and just follow them. Zhu Youjian now understands that when he is an emperor, he must pay attention to the big and let go of the small. Well, that's definitely not good.
Therefore, after Zhu Youjian became emperor, while focusing on military reform and fiscal and taxation reform, he also used a step-by-step approach to implement a government reform aimed at improving administrative efficiency.
This reform is not as dramatic as the military and financial reforms, but it is no less important than the military and financial reforms.
The key points of this government reform are two-fold, one is delegating power, and the other is passing the examination.
Among them, the method of delegating power is divided into two parts: central and local. On the central side, the cabinet and the six ministries are integrated into one, and at the same time, the six departments who dare to exercise the power of refutation are constantly replaced, so that the six departments are withdrawn from the decision-making circle. The power of the censors was also restricted, and all memorials they submitted involving military and political affairs were left unpublished. In fact, it also allowed the Metropolitan Procuratorate to launch an administrative and military decision-making circle.
In this way, the central government's decision-making power on government affairs was concentrated in the hands of the emperor and the cabinet, and the responsibilities were very clear.
On the local side, provinces were established in the North and South Zhili and the big government system was established in Liangzhili, Lianghu, and Lianghuai, as well as in Datong, Xuanfu, Yanshan, Daning, Liaoxi, and Liaodong (Mao Wenlong's territory), Yulin, Ningxia, Gansu and other solid border towns implement the general soldier responsibility system.
The test-taking method is an old method left behind by Zhang Juzheng. However, Zhu Youjian did not implement the examination law throughout the Ming Dynasty. Instead, he implemented the examination law and the decentralization law together.
Any place where the law of delegating power is implemented must pass the examination - and after delegating power, local power will be vested either in the central government or in the main town. There will be less room for wrangling, and there will be no place to shirk responsibility. It is possible to be dismissed from office and imprisoned. People!
Otherwise, a bunch of officials below would be arguing with each other, holding each other back, and vying for credit, so that Emperor Zhu didn't even know who to treat, but at the same time he couldn't kill them all... just kill them all. The same goes for a group of people coming up. Because the system itself is designed to make the people below dog bite dog, it is impossible not to involve each other.
After the implementation of the decentralization method, Emperor Zhu only needed to use the examination method left by Zhang Juzheng to take the examination for the following officials such as the general office, the main town, the feudal territory, and the ministry.
Therefore, in places where the big government system is not implemented, Zhu Youjian's requirements are much lower. He can barely cope with it. If he can't, he will be dismissed from office, and he will basically not go to jail.
With the obvious results of the two reforms of delegating power and passing the examination, Zhu Youjian finally gained a little more confidence to deal with Tianjie.
"Long live my Lord, His Royal Highness the Tang Dynasty, the Governor of the Three Borders Mei Zhihuan, and the Governor of Gansu Province Yang Jiamo jointly reported that the spring famine in Gansu Province was serious. Except for Xining Guard, Nian Bosuo, and Zhuanglang Guard, all other guards reported famine and lack of food. , requesting to open a warehouse for relief."
"Long live my Lord, Guyuan Town, Lintao Town and Pingliang, Lintao, Gongchang and other prefectures under the jurisdiction of Shaanxi Province have also reported that there is a lack of food in the spring and the price of food is high. We sincerely request that we send food to relieve the famine."
"Long live my lord, Yulin Town and Yan'an Prefecture and Qingyang Prefecture under the jurisdiction of Shaanxi Province have not had a drop of rain since the first month of the lunar month. The drought situation is very serious. The people of the two prefectures and one town have begun to gather, and they may have to go to Guanzhong for food. ..."
"Long live my Lord, there has been less rainfall in the prefectures in western Henan since the first month of the year. It seems that there will be another drought this year..."
"Long live my lord, the rainfall in Shanxi and Beizhili this year has been less than last year. I'm afraid this year's autumn grain production will be reduced again!"
The old and hoarse voice of Chief Assistant Bi Ziyan read out disaster reports from various places in the Central Plains and Northwest China. Although the real disaster has not yet come, this does not mean that the ninth year of Chongzhen was a good year - if measured by the standards of the Wanli period, there have been major disasters every year since the first year of Chongzhen, and nationwide, The disasters are becoming more severe every year.
It can be said to be a miracle that the Ming Dynasty can still barely maintain stability without civil unrest.
However, the super drought that began in the 10th year of Chongzhen's reign and affected large areas of land in the northwest, the Central Plains, and beyond the Great Wall, and even spread to the Yangtze River Basin, was not as easy to deal with as the disasters that Chongzhen had experienced 10 years ago.
After all, the disaster in Chongzhen ten years ago was still localized. Huguang, Lianghuai, Sanjiang, Sichuan, Fujian and Guangdong were not harvested, but they were not too bad either. In particular, due to the substantial increase in sown area in the Huaihe River and the Huaihe River, the grain output in the Huaihe River and the Huaihe River has increased significantly compared with the previous Tianqi years. It is precisely because of these increases that Nanyang and Xiangyang, the two major famine relief granaries, finally have a solid foundation.
Zhu Youjian patiently listened to Bi Ziyan's report, then raised his eyes at the old minister with an old and tired look, and asked: "Yuanfu, how much grain is stored in the two warehouses in Nanyang and Xiangyang?"
Hearing this, Bi Ziyan immediately became more energetic: "Your Majesty, there are more than 75 million shi of grain stored in the two warehouses! In addition, there are more than 5 million shi of millet stored in the shipping warehouse in Beijing. And the Dutch East India Company and a The official party's ships will also transport 4 million shi of rice, 300,000 shi of potatoes and sweet potatoes within 6 months... If these grains are converted into millet and wheat, it will be more than 6 million shi. Including the two warehouses for waste rice, there are more than 81 million dan in total. Since the founding of the country, the reserves have not been so abundant! Therefore, I ask your majesty to open a warehouse to release grain and provide relief to the victims."
But the coming drought is unprecedented in this dynasty for more than 270 years! Zhu Youjian thought to himself: That is a natural disaster!
"How much grain is left in the warehouses in Gansu Town, Tangwangfu, Ningxia Town, Guyuan Town, and Lintao Town?" Zhu Youjian asked again, "How much grain is left in the warehouses managed by Shaanxi Province?"
After hearing Zhu Youjian's question, Bi Ziyan quickly took an account book from an official from the Ministry of Household Affairs who was following him, and turned it over - if any official had done this in his previous life, he would have thought Zhu Youjian was stupid. The official prescribed it, but Zhu Youjian, who had experienced his own twilight years, understood the elderly's declining memory, so Yu Ji later issued a special order to allow officials to bring their entourage and notes to the court.
Bi Ziyan said: "Your Majesty, in Gansu Town, Tang Palace, Ningxia Town, Guyuan Town, Lintao Town and the official warehouses in Shaanxi, there are a total of more than 800,000 stones of wheat and more than 5 million stones of dried sweet potatoes."
Zhu Youjian spent money to buy these dried sweet potatoes. Although farmers in Shaanxi, Henan and other places have been unable to grow anything in recent years, it is still difficult for them to accept exotic crops like sweet potatoes. And Zhu Youjian's method is also simple, just spend money, oh, it's flower cloth. The cotton cloth collected from the south of the Yangtze River was exchanged for sweet potatoes in Shaanxi, Henan, Shanxi and other places, and then dried and stored in local granaries!
This is a real benefit! Therefore, farmers in these areas planted sweet potatoes that were relatively drought-resistant, and finally had some harvests in the seventh and eighth years of Chongzhen.
But no matter how drought-resistant sweet potatoes are, they are not desert plants... Therefore, if Chongzhen suffers a severe drought ten years later, we still cannot count on sweet potatoes.
"Long live my lord," Bi Ziyan said, "Why don't you release those 5 million stones of dried sweet potatoes... Dried sweet potatoes can also make people alive!"
Zhu Youjian thought for a while and said with a smile: "You can give dried sweet potatoes, but you can't give them for free."
"Not for free?" Bi Ziyan asked, "Are we going to use work instead of relief?"
"No," Zhu Youjian shook his head, "It's not about working for relief, but using soldiers for relief. If you want to eat my dried sweet potatoes, you can join the army and become a military household... If you don't want to be a military household. , then there must still be people who stutter, so let’s continue to endure it in our hometown!”
