Zhang Jing nodded in agreement after hearing this.
Because in order to get along with the scholar-officials in Nandu, he also bought usury IOUs worth thirty thousand taels of silver dollars from these scholar-officials, and now he has all of them in his hands.
Zhang Jing could imagine that even he, an idle eunuch who was not part of the inner circle, could get usury IOUs of 30,000 taels of silver dollars at the beginning when the usury IOUs, or bonds as they were called in later generations, were more valuable than gold.
It can be seen how much money the entire bureaucracy in Nandu invested, and how much money they prepared to seize from the people of the country through the Qing army's conspiracy.
But now, the problem is that Zhu Yijun's leadership guessed their intentions and issued a decree to strictly prohibit the Qing army from colluding with the army to force them to stop.
In fact, the imperial court did not hesitate to rectify the Jinyiwei, arresting many people, and killing many bureaucrats to stop it. As a result, all the initial investment of these bureaucrats and gentry in Southern Capital was lost.
Especially those like Zhang Jing who hold a large number of loan sharking loans.
certainly.
Zhang Jing himself didn't care, because he was ordered to spend money to get close to the scholar-bureaucrats, so it was regarded as a loss of the emperor's money.
Just to let the scholar-bureaucrats regard him as one of their own and not know his true purpose, he still had to pretend, so he went to find Qiao Yinfu on this day with a dejected look on his face:
"Didn't I make money as soon as I reorganized the military affairs? But now, no one has come to pay off their debts to me. A bunch of loan sharking bills have fallen into our hands!"
"Father, it's not our fault, it's because Qi Penglai is too cunning!"
"Now, why don't you just take the IOU and go to the debtor to repay the money? Maybe you can get some money back. It's not like those of us who are already in debt and have to work hard to pay off the debt."
"Since we haven't seen any ships coming south, we have had to drive the slaves out of the house to save money!"
Yang Yingkui complained helplessly to Zhang Jing, who also pretended to be helpless and smiled bitterly and said: "How do you ask me to go to them to repay the money! I can't afford to offend the one who borrowed these loan sharks? What's more, this violation IOUs for interest cannot be exposed to light!"
Zhang Jing's face darkened as he spoke, and he said deliberately: "However, you are right. If you want to blame him, Qi Penglai is really not a good person. Not to mention rectifying military affairs, he will not make life easier for the people of the world! Such cruel officials Traitor, why didn't God strike him to death with thunder!"
"It is no longer helpful to talk about this. Now the imperial court encourages people to complain to officials and has established a whistle-blowing system. Each major post station has special guards in uniform who are responsible for delivering whistle-blowers to Beijing."
"In this way, let alone the Qing army's seduction, we will have to be more careful even in normal gatherings."
"Everyone in the world will be in danger!"
Yang Yingkui sighed as he spoke, punched the table, and said, "In this way, you supervise me and I supervise him. Everyone has to be wary. This will make everyone suspicious of each other." !”
Zhang Jing nodded.
This is indeed the case. After Zhu Yijun decreed the establishment of an informant system to facilitate people's complaints, it indeed made the bureaucrats and gentry all over the world very uneasy.
They are not worried about people reporting them, because people rarely know their details. As long as they don't directly bully people, people will basically not report them.
What they worry about is that in order to advance their own fame, wealth and status, their colleagues will be willing to expose the problems of their political opponents in the name of people's appeal to help themselves advance to the next level.
However, although the bureaucrats and gentry feel uneasy because of the whistleblower system, there are still bureaucrats and gentry who cannot control themselves and want to do evil.
Because Lu Shude did not want to pay a high price to buy a young girl as a concubine, but he wanted to have a romantic night and enjoy the blessing of a pear tree weighing begonias, he did what Cao Cao did and raped the wife of a young tribesman and kept him in his room. , and threatened that if this tribe member dared to report, he would be expelled from the human tribe, forcing the young tribesman Lu Heyou to accept the reality, and at the same time promised him fifty acres of land.
However, Lu Heyou was not willing to suffer this humiliation, and his wife was also very chaste, so he directly chose to hang himself. At the suggestion of Huacheng, Zuo Shaoqing of Nanjing Taichang Temple, a political enemy of Lu Shude who was also dissatisfied with Lu Shude, he paid a large sum of money to an overseas Chinese businessman to invest in a foreign inn. The prosecutor accused Lu Shude of incest and rape.
Although Lu Shude advocated Neo-Confucianism and hoped that people in the world would "eliminate human desires and preserve natural principles," like many scholar-bureaucrats, he found it difficult to control his desires when they arose, especially within his clan, and he considered himself the elder of the clan. The tribesmen all rely on themselves to survive, so they have completely forgotten the ethics of the saints and the laws of the emperor and the country. Even because they suppress their inner desires too hard when trying to show the image of a moral gentleman to the outside world, in front of the tribesmen who have absolute status, they are compared to others. Worse than a beast.
However, what Lu Shude obviously forgot is that there are people in this world who are unwilling to be wronged.
As a result, Zhu Yijun learned about the matter through a whistleblower, and immediately ordered Lu Shude to be dismissed from his post and taken to Beijing.
"Hu Zan, the former Right Chief Minister of Guangxi, colluded with bandits to massacre fifty-six households in one village, and colluded with subordinate officials to seize 3,024 acres of land."
"Qi Fengchang, a former Shanxi doctor in the household department, became an official and returned to his hometown. After he returned to his hometown, he killed his son with a stick because he was afraid that the ashes would be revealed."
…
Zhu Yijun knew quite a lot about bureaucratic scandals and misdeeds like Lu Shude through the whistleblower boxes of major stations, so much so that Shen Shixing reported two more cases to Zhu Yijun that day.
After hearing this, Zhu Yijun shook his head: "It is said that government is based on virtue, but according to this situation, I'm afraid no one will be able to use it. What do you think, Master Shen?"
Shen Shixing couldn't help but lower his head for a moment: "Your Majesty, after the boom in business, selfish desires become more difficult to curb, so it is inevitable; but the world is not without gentlemen, at least not all sanctimonious people!"
"Your Majesty is the lord of the world. If you can reconcile yin and yang, distinguish between loyalty and evil, and uphold the justice of the world, you will not cause disorder in the world!"
"In addition, the so-called rectification of the origin, if Your Majesty upholds virtue, I believe that most people in the world will still uphold virtue and uphold integrity. However, I also ask Your Majesty to be lenient when necessary, so that people in the world have a chance to correct themselves. After all, no one has ever made a mistake, and they can only make mistakes. If you change, you can become a sage!"
"That's what the master said."
"I encourage the evildoers in the world to change their ways, but I feel that the discovery of so many dehumanizing and extremely evil things through the whistle-blower system does not mean that although the carnivores in the world all learn and speak benevolence and morality, , but essentially it has to eat people?”
"Now because of the strict control of the imperial court, they can't eat the people from outside the country. They can only eat the weak ones in their own family or the weak people in the village. Anyway, the people who are more vulnerable than them must be eaten by them."
"And if the imperial court wants to stop this kind of evil, it must follow their desires and satisfy their desire to become a master."
"Because, maybe the new gift will bring them not only the loss of money and land, but also the increasing cost of cannibalism."
"What do you think, Master Shen?"
After Zhu Yijun said that, he looked at Shen Shixing.
He admitted that what he just said was speaking from the standpoint of the ruling class, but he had to admit that this was the way to govern in the Ming Dynasty, and the real needs of the entire ruling class had to be taken into consideration.
For the ruling class of the Ming Dynasty, which was dominated by the landlord class, the loss of economic interests was indeed nothing. The most unacceptable loss was that it was difficult to enslave people at low cost and become a master.
This is something Zhu Yijun needs to pay attention to.
(End of chapter)
