"In the case of Hu Kezuo, Li Zong and Kong Yan were too harsh in tracing the deficit, and it showed a distrust of the ministers, which violated the original intention of governing the country with faith. In addition, the court should take into account that local officials would be affected by various reasons. If a short-term deficit occurs due to an unexpected situation, a certain amount of response time should be given to them to make up for the deficit, instead of asking them to investigate immediately. This is really too tight and is detrimental to the stability of the place."
Liu Hongxun was reading Yan Guan's latest advice to Zhu Youxiao here.
After hearing this, Zhu Youxiao said: "I still don't trust them! And if they treat me and the court with sincerity, they shouldn't be afraid of investigation! As for harsh punishment, let alone, I just let them check their losses over the years, so that It’s just compensation to his previous officials!”
"Having said this, we must remind the provincial officials that they must not take advantage of this opportunity to make up a name, or even borrow money from the private sector to temporarily make up for the shortfall, in the hope that they can get away with it. Once confirmed, they will be severely punished. Not only will their homes be searched, but they will also be killed. Boss! Reporting the deficit honestly is their best choice now!"
"yes!"
"Liu Pei, the right-hand man of the Engineering Department, said first that the disadvantages of shortfalls are accumulated over the years, but it is too harsh to ask successive officials to seek compensation based on the situation reported by them. Moreover, most of the shortfalls are caused by the poor and poor, and the low-level officials. It was caused by people being deceived, and it would be quite unfair to blame only the previous chief officials, so I think the imperial court should forgive his crime."
Liu Hongxun responded and continued reading.
"If you are on a job, you are asking for cards, and the people below are being deceived. How can you, as the chief officer, not know about it? Then how did he become an official? I don't care about anything else. I only know that I gave him the power to govern a place. Then He must take responsibility for this!"
Zhu Youxiao said.
"Your Majesty said so."
Liu Hongxun echoed.
Zhu Youxiao went on to say: "Don't worry about those who spoke out about the investigation of the deficit. They are all speaking for their relatives, friends or bribers in the name of showing leniency to local officials. There is nothing wrong with that." Listen."
After Zhu Youxiao said this, he looked at Han Zanzhou in Dongchang: "Since Wei Zhongxian left, Dongchang's ability to investigate corruption is far less than before. We need to work harder. I don't think that the world's officialdom has been so clear that there are not many corrupt officials! This There is no cat in the world who doesn’t steal fish!”
Han Zanzhou felt quite ashamed when he heard what Zhu Youxiao said: "It's all because of the ministers' incompetence in doing things, please forgive me!"
Zhu Youxiao said: "I know this can't be entirely your fault. Over the years, the local Dongchang officials have been corrupted. You have to use some tricks. If you dare to offend people, don't just wait for the inner factory to do so." If you find out the person, you can deal with it!"
Han Zanzhou therefore replied: "Ministers, keep this in mind!"
"Your Majesty, there are many local governors and inspectors who have suggested that the imperial court should not exempt the land tax forever. There are naturally many reasons, but from my perspective, the fundamental reason is to allow the local government to no longer exploit the people, especially the lower-level people. Officials, therefore, all want to hinder the good governance of the imperial court. After all, it will be easier to exploit merchants in the future than to exploit farmers, because merchants can leave if they are exploited too harshly, but farmers cannot move away because of their land, so they can only endure if they are exploited too harshly."
Liu Hongxun continued.
Zhu Youxiao laughed after hearing this: "Of course their thoughts are very obvious. They refute them all. Dongchang will investigate the people who talked about these things, as well as those who just made suggestions about the deficit." , If you are just interceding for your relatives and friends, it is okay, but if you are receiving money, it is another matter!"
"yes!"
Han Zanzhou replied.
…
"The princes continue to stay in office, and the imperial court has also issued additional orders to track down deficits and strengthen the moral requirements of scholar-bureaucrats. It seems that the coming days will be very difficult!"
Chen Wei said to his father Chen Qiyuan.
Chen Qiyuan was very disappointed after hearing this: "Why did the eldest son of the emperor stay in Haining?! What went wrong."
"It is said that it was caused by Liu Hongxun's words. He said that the princes had not been magistrates of various counties for a long time and were not experienced enough, so the result was like this."
Chen Wei said.
"This Liu Hongxun!"
Chen Qiyuan slapped the table and gritted his teeth with hatred: "This is a huge loss."
"Not only are the losses huge, many people will also have their homes confiscated."
Chen Wei replied.
"What do you mean?"
Chen Qiyuan asked.
"Because the investigation of shortfalls requires counties to hold the previous chief officials accountable after they find out, and the current chief official will not have any responsibility as long as he investigates the truth."
Chen Wei replied.
Chen Qiyuan fainted on the spot after hearing this.
"Father!"
Chen Wei couldn't help shouting.
Chen Qiyuan only woke up after being pinched.
As soon as he woke up, Chen Qiyuan said: "Go quickly, go borrow money quickly, borrow money and still be short-changed, otherwise your house will be ransacked!"
After Chen Qiyuan finished speaking, he burst into tears, then stamped his feet and cursed: "Liu, I'm not done with you!"
…
"Compensation, how can I compensate? When I left office, Jiangxi's deficit reached more than two million yuan, all of which was spent. How can I have so much money to compensate? Isn't this going to cost me my life?"
In Huguang and Huangzhou, He Jiamo couldn't help but cry bitterly after he woke up, and couldn't help but cursed: "Why don't you let those officials from the capital who came to the place compensate? Let the relatives and friends of those powerful people compensate! If I had known it, I would have been like Hai Rui!" Woohoo!”
"Check, find out immediately how much deficit our government has, and ask all counties to report it according to the facts. Don't make fun of your own black gauze hat. Even if they don't want the black gauze hat, I still want the black gauze hat!"
Gu Hongwen, the prefect of Huangzhou, glanced at He Jiamo with a distressed look. Now he did not dare to neglect anymore and hurriedly issued an order to strictly investigate the deficit.
actually.
The princes and ministers in the capital also had a difficult time because of the investigation of the deficit.
Because many local officials were smart and made an account and other evidence when entertaining these princes and ministers.
Chen Qiyuan asked Chen Wei to borrow money. He asked the princes and ministers in the capital to borrow money, and threatened that if he did not borrow the money, he would let the emperor know how they ate and asked for money, forcing these princes and ministers to also borrow money. Money eliminates disasters.
"These are all good things done by eldest brother! He found justice, but he harmed all the princes and ministers in the world! How can he be the emperor!"
Zhu Cikai was also depressed because he had borrowed a lot of money from the Chen family, and he blamed all these things on the emperor's eldest son, Zhu Ciwei.
Zhu Ciwei did not expect that what he did back then would cause a series of reactions.
But he has no regrets.
In his opinion, if he did not do that, at some point in the future, the emperor and some loyal ministers in the court would find that the local government was seriously short of money and the government was gradually failing.
And in that case, he would disappoint his father even more.
In fact, this is indeed the case.
Because Bi Ziyan had also discovered this problem, and he also took office at the economic strategic level of the Ming Empire, strongly advising Emperor Zhu Youxiao to control the free development of the commodity economy.
In Bi Ziyan's view, local deficits caused by official corruption and the prevalence of extravagance are all due to problems in the economic system.
Although Liu Hongxun took strong medicine according to Zhu Youxiao's instructions, he used the order to trace the deficit and strengthen the construction of work style to strictly control the officials and curb the corruption of the scholar-bureaucrats.
But now Bi Ziyan, Gong Yonggu and Gu Yanwu are trying to fundamentally solve this problem.
It's just that Zhu Youxiao didn't know whether Bi Ziyan's proposal could cure the root cause, so he let them test it first. While letting them test it, he asked Liu Hongxun to use strong medicine to treat the symptoms first.
At this time, Bi Ziyan, Gong Yonggu, Gu Yanwu, etc. took a large number of craftsmen they recruited and took a special train to the south of the Yangtze River, preparing to start their experiments in the south of the Yangtze River.
7017k
