Now that the summer tax collection is about to begin, it is a very important question for the officials, gentry, and right-wing officials to pay taxes honestly.
Xiao Yin also asked Yang Yingkui at this time: "Quuzi is now the magistrate of your hometown. Your government intends to pay the actual grain and poor silver first, but you hope that Quanzi will only increase miscellaneous taxes and fire expenses on the common people to reflect the difference between high and low. After the taxes and duties are collected, I will refund the fire and miscellaneous items from the vassal treasury to make up for the regular taxes paid by your government. I wonder what the public thinks?"
"Now the emperor has six personal guards, and the Ministry of Household Affairs is under the control of Haigangfeng. We can't be greedy for temporary gains and be unable to enter the officialdom for several generations. We can't be so short-sighted!"
"I will write back to dissuade this matter. You still have to pay the taxes you should pay! Don't do this, your son, otherwise you will be found out and it will inevitably implicate several generations."
Yang Yingkui asked Xiao Yin to stop this without hesitation.
Zhang Jing deliberately teased him and said, "According to my family, it's nothing. Will the Ministry of Household Affairs really come to check how much miscellaneous taxes and expenditures have been collected by the local government?"
"Don't be afraid of ten thousand, just be afraid of the worst!"
"Let's hope that the Queen Mother and the dignitaries in the court can grant the temple land without paying taxes in the name of paying homage to the Buddha! This kind of ordering thing for the noble and the humble cannot be just us, it is better for the nobles to come forward. After all, they are the ones with the most farmland."
Yang Yingkui said.
"That's fine!"
"I'll write back to Quanzi so that he doesn't have to do this!"
"As the public said, it is not appropriate for us scholar-bureaucrats to stand out anymore, especially now that due to the whistle-blower system, even Lu Gong and others are at risk. Everyone in the scholar forest is in danger. Who dares to compromise for the sake of high status and low status?"
Xiao Yin sighed as he said this: "Okay, just be patient and let the rich and powerful do whatever they want!"
"How long do you have to endure it? Once the powerful cannot control them, they will become powerful ministers!"
"Although our family is a minister, we have now taken care of Nandu, so we are not considered a powerful person. Like you, we are just people who live on rent and profit. It is not a good thing if we really want the powerful people to become bigger and wantonly annex our fields."
Zhang Jing said at this time.
Yang Yingkui smiled and said: "Don't worry, sir! There are too many people in the world who are cultivators, scholars and heirs, and it is difficult for the powerful to fight against the world's scholars. Otherwise, if the soldiers are as powerful as Qi, Li, etc., they will not always dare to be independent."
"Besides, I can't bear it for long."
"Although the emperor is the lord of the world, it is not the emperor who truly rules the world, but the officials and gentry!"
"Although it is difficult for officials and gentry to act in unison because of different regions, different ideas, and different moral qualities, as more and more people enter the officialdom, they will be the children of officials, and it is difficult for ordinary people to have noble sons, and the officials of the world will have their own children. There will be more and more eminent officials, and in this way, the barrier will be formed by itself, and the top and bottom will be consistent!"
"No matter how fierce the fight is with each other, no one will speak out for a common man and disturb the noble and the humble."
Yang Yingkui continued to say a few words, then stood up and looked at the clouds outside the building, and said:
"Furthermore, the traitors in the imperial court have not been liquidated, so the bureaucrats all over the world have no choice but to take the initiative to help the families of virtuous officials to win the first place more easily, thereby preventing ordinary people from studying to become officials!"
"After all, those who are villains in the court are obviously the children of poor peasant families! It can be said that the poorer the people are, the more shameless they become after studying and becoming officials. There is no bottom line whether they are amassing money to deceive the emperor or greedy for power and flattery, which makes the officialdom corrupt and corrupt. If the Chao Gang is in disarray, it is better to cut off the way forward."
"In this way, the day when everyone is in full glory will come soon."
Yang Yingkui said and looked at Zhang Jing with a smile.
…
“It’s great to speak so righteously about imperial examination fraud and monopoly of imperial examination quotas!”
"Although it is easy for the children of common people to become officials and they cannot resist the temptation, they are also more willing to work diligently, more willing to innovate, and more aware of the people's sentiments! If the imperial examination system really leads to the same ending as the nine-grade Zhongzheng system, then the Ming Dynasty is really not far away from the collapse of the country!"
After receiving the secret report from Zhang Jing, Zhu Yijun frowned and thought deeply, thinking: "It seems that not only do we need to rectify the Buddhist temple, but we also have to tighten the imperial examination discipline in the future!"
After Zhu Yijun said that, he asked Sun Xin from Dongchang: "What's going on with the powerful people in Beijing these days?"
Sun Xin knew why Zhu Yijun asked so, so he replied directly:
"Not really. It's just that when His Highness Prince Lu recently went to pay his respects to the Queen Mother, he stayed by her side for a long time."
Zhu Yijun didn't say anything else. He just stood up and walked outside the hall, looking at the vast galaxy, letting the summer evening breeze blow on his face, blowing his long sleeves like sails.
"Your Majesty, please forgive me! I just reported the truth truthfully and did not dare to slander His Highness Prince Lu."
Sun Xin crouched on the ground and replied.
Because Zhu Yijun did not express his position, he was a little worried that Zhu Yijun would blame him for alienating his brothers.
"Back off."
Zhu Yijun only said this.
Sun Xin thanked him hurriedly, and then retreated uneasily.
Zhu Yijun continued to meditate after Sun Xin left.
He had already learned from Zhang Jing's secret report that some scholar-bureaucrats who were dissatisfied with the imperial court had planned to instigate clan officials to promote the emergence of a tax-free silver system for temple fields, so as to indirectly achieve the goal of exempting wealthy families from paying tax on their fields.
Therefore, Zhu Yijun had to admit that for any dynasty to develop healthily, the biggest problem ultimately comes from whether the emperor dares to kill his relatives out of justice, whether he dares to do something to his relatives, and whether he dares to become a true loner.
Just like officials who want to be impartial and selfless must stop relatives and friends from using their power for personal gain, even if they want to gain a reputation of being inhumane.
Whether the emperor's reforms are successful or not ultimately depends on whether he dares to punish his brothers and children for breaking the law.
After all, in the society of the family world, the distance between the emperor and the emperor determines the amount of benefits he can seize from the world. The closer the relationship is to the emperor, the more money and money will be appropriated from the people, and it will be easier to undermine the stability of the country and become a problem. In the end, he is the person who dares to challenge the country's political affairs the most.
Just like now, many local gentry who are dissatisfied with the government are very smart and know not to force themselves to stand out. They also know how to encourage the powerful to influence the emperor's heart and then influence national policies.
It is precisely because of this that historically Yongzheng had to finally attack his brothers and nephews for the reform of the Qing Dynasty, and he was cruel to him, because the reality is like this. In the end, the biggest obstacle to reform was his brothers and nephews.
It also happened in the history of the Ming Dynasty that the emperor's relatives and foreign relatives wanted to grant land to the emperor. If the emperor had a weaker character, he would directly encircle the people's land as his own farmland and force the households to become tenants of their own land. Then they would go to the emperor to force the emperor to agree. Pay attention to it. Emperors with family ties or cowardly personalities would often agree because "the raw rice has already been cooked."
Of course, it is human nature not to want to antagonize those around us.
You know, even in later generations, it will be difficult for many people to reject strangers, let alone ask the emperor to reject his own uncles and aunts.
But fortunately, Zhu Yijun is a time traveler, which makes him feel much less stressed.
But after all, he had been getting along with members of the royal family for so many years, and King Lu often showed courtesy to him and did courteous things to him. Therefore, if he decided to kill his relatives for justice, he would also need some ideological struggle.
However, Zhu Yijun knew that he had to kill some royal relatives out of justice.
Especially King Lu.
Because he had to admit that King Lu was as greedy as ever in history. He had complained more than once that he did not spend enough money on his wedding ceremony. He also complained a lot about the current ruler and even complained that his brother was too obedient. The words of the rulers.
certainly.
Zhu Yijun didn't really just listen to the ruling officials. He deliberately refused Prince Lu's unreasonable request for his wedding through the mouths of Chief Minister Shen Shixing and Minister of Rites Xu Xuemo, in order to control the cost of Prince Lu's wedding within a reasonable range. , instead of like in the original history, King Lu's wedding cost as much as 100,000 taels, and the crowning ceremony cost 600,000 taels. According to historical records, it was many times more than the emperor Zhu Yijun's own wedding and crowning.
The reason why he is taller than Zhu Yijun himself is naturally because Zhang Juzheng was still there when Zhu Yijun was crowned and married, and the royal family in history did not dare to spend money randomly.
But what is clear is that King Lu was indeed greedy. Historically, the vassal annexed salt fields and grain fields, set up private customs, and spent as much as two million taels of silver every year. He even decorated his own mausoleum. It was built according to the emperor's specifications, and because Emperor Wanli in history was very indulgent of his younger brother, he didn't care about it.
Now Zhu Yijun naturally had no intention of indulging him, so he followed the advice of Shen Shixing, Xu Xuemo and other ruling ministers and limited the expenses of King Lu's wedding from the very beginning.
(End of chapter)
