Spring, the fifteenth year of Wanli.
Just after noon in the rainy capital city, Shi Xing, the right minister of the Ministry of War, walked out from the yamen of the Ministry of War holding an elephant wat.
As soon as he came out, he frowned.
Because the streets were wet after the rain, he couldn't bear to put his new shoes on them.
It was not until the slave who brought the carriage to pick him up hurriedly came over and prostrated on the ground that he stepped down the steps, stepped on the slave's back and prepared to enter his carriage directly.
Bang!
But as soon as he boarded the carriage, he saw a guard coming, and he immediately lost his footing and fell to the watery ground. The wat board also fell to the ground and broke into two pieces.
However, these Jinyi guards were just passing by on patrol and ignored Shi Xing.
Shi Xing's expression softened slightly, and then he asked his servant to help him into the sedan. He frowned helplessly and asked the servant outside the sedan, "Have you come back?"
The slave outside replied: "I'm back."
Shi Xing said nothing after hearing this, and just closed his eyes to rest his mind. However, the smell of horse manure on his body made him really unable to calm down.
So after a while, he couldn't help but look at the Jin Yiwei outside the sedan.
Since brothers Zhang Jingxiu and Zhang Maoxiu entered the Jinyiwei, the Jinyiwei has become even more frightening to civil and military officials.
To know.
Although the former Jinyiwei had the power to monitor the officials, basically because the Jinyiweitang officials were afraid of offending others and wanted to stay safe, they took the initiative to turn a blind eye to the officials.
What's more, if this is the case, the foreign ministers will turn a blind eye to Jin Yiwei.
However, after brothers Zhang Jingxiu and Zhang Maoxiu entered Jinyiwei, they strictly rectified Jinyiwei. Promotions within Jinyiwei only depend on ability, regardless of relationship background.
Therefore, today's Jinyiwei has made civil and military officials feel that Jinyiwei has simply returned to the Lu Bing era.
It seems that Jinyiwei no longer tortures or takes people easily, but in fact, the surveillance is stricter and everywhere, and the cases are investigated without any cover-up, which makes the civil and military officials feel afraid, especially After some officials have done something wrong, they always feel that the guards on the street are staring at them.
Many officials couldn't stand it and instigated officials to impeach the Zhang brothers. For example, the two had embezzled millions in bribes and opened prostitution dens and gamblers in prisons.
But Zhu Yijun didn't listen.
Therefore, the officials could only endure it, and secretly resented Zhang Juzheng for teaching the emperor so much respect as a teacher that even the teacher's son trusted him very much.
As for the Wanli Reform, since it adhered to the core purpose of "enriching the country and benefiting the people" and carried out reforms until now, the world has prospered to the point where the wealth of the people has increased dramatically.
Therefore, the Gyeonggi region, the most prosperous region in the north, was even more beautiful and full of flowers in the spring of the fifteenth year of Wanli.
The entire Shuntian Prefecture did not see a sudden increase in the number of hungry people who came to the city to beg for food due to the spring famine. Instead, there was an increase in the number of young people who spent money like water.
The Chongwenmenwai Street that Shi Xing passed by in his sedan chair was even more colorful and full of flowers and goods.
And because this street has become increasingly large due to the domestic demand market, it has gradually developed into selling articles and books.
And there are indeed more and more people who are willing to consume.
Especially after the price of horses in the capital was reduced a lot, many scholars began to actively sell books and read articles to the people with a smile in order to make money from the people.
Nowadays, what book sellers and literati are selling to the common people are books such as "The Chronicles of the King of Chu's Rebellion".
in addition.
Under the secret guidance of Jin Yiwei, these book sellers, in order to make money from the people, have begun to instill in the people that buying this book will prevent them from losing their land and property in a daze. They combine the events with the people's interests and let the people start to pay attention to politics. He was interested in the incident, and began to say that the Chu king's rebellion was caused by the tyrants of the gentry who attempted to annex their property.
Shi Xing accidentally listened to a few words while passing by in a sedan chair and couldn't bear it anymore, so he turned down his face, secretly hating that these scholars from a poor family were willing to humble themselves for profit and actually talked about political power with ordinary people.
Shi Xing wanted to stop it, but after seeing Jin Yiwei appear, he decisively gave up the idea and became even more uneasy.
He was afraid that Jin Yiwei would notice his expression just now and report it to the superiors as an important matter, making the emperor dissatisfied with him!
After Shi Xing returned to his home and got off the sedan, he couldn't help but look back to see if any of the Jinyi guards were following him.
After stopping and watching for a while, and not seeing any Jin Yiwei coming, he breathed a sigh of relief. In his own courtyard, he called his son-in-law Ma Wenqing to him and asked:
"How about it?"
Ma Wenqing lowered his head: "I missed Zhao Mengbai!"
After hearing this, Shi Xing turned around and glanced at Ma Wenqing.
Ma Wenqing couldn't help but lower his head: "He suddenly went out, and our people had no time to give up!"
"I think Zhao Mengbai is a gentleman and will not accuse anyone without evidence."
"But people are unpredictable."
At this time, Shi Xing cursed a few words in his heart, and then looked at Ma Wenqing:
"You go south immediately, tell Mr. Donglin about Zhao Mengbai's situation, and ask them to find a way to get the Jin Yiwei to release Zhao Mengbai in the name of rescuing Zhao Mengbai. After he comes out of the prison, he can make a fuss!"
Ma Wenqing asked: "Why go to such trouble? Why not just bribe Jin Yiwei and let him die violently in the prison?"
"Confused!"
Shi Xing lectured in a low voice: "What can you think of that the Zhang family brothers can't think of? Don't even think about who is actually in charge of the Jin Yiwei now!"
Ma Wenqing said: "Yue Weng said yes!"
…
Although the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was in the capital, the country's economic lifeline was in the south.
Suzhou, Songjiang, and Yangzhou were all the industrial centers of the Ming Dynasty in this era, and it can even be said without exaggeration that they were also the industrial centers of the world.
Silver mined from America, Japan and other places will gather in these places, and the goods exchanged here will be shipped out and sold to Japan, Luzon, Mughals, Europe and other places.
at the same time.
Domestic trade in the Ming Dynasty was basically carried out by merchants purchasing goods from these places, and then selling them through canals to the northern capital and Jiubian, where they were consumed by the powerful bureaucrats and wealthy merchants in the capital, as well as the officials and generals of Jiubian and the barbarian nobles outside Jiubian Pass.
In addition, there are also merchants who purchase goods from these places and transport them through the Yangtze River to Huguang and Sichuan, and are eventually consumed by the Southwest Chieftains, or go north to Hexi via the Shu Road, and then sell them to Hexi.
In short, most of the goods carried by these trade lines, whether international or domestic, came from the important towns in the south of the Ming Dynasty.
And this naturally means there are huge economic benefits.
And Zhu Yijun was able to take away a lot of benefits from it and transfer it to the imperial court just by implementing the new policy of silver dollar. What's more, he also controlled the trading rights of several important trading points in Nagasaki, Hirado, and Haojing in the hands of the imperial court. .
Therefore, the old forces are always unwilling to have their monopoly interests taken away.
But they could not openly stop the trend of centralization, nor could they change the reality that the division of the world's interests would inevitably be dominated by the Ming Emperor. They could only struggle behind the scenes and do something, even if it was to change the master.
However, after the last attempt to make the emperor fall into the water failed, they had to be more cautious and did not dare to attack the emperor directly again. They were deeply afraid of the emperor fishing, so they could only think of selecting a few easy-to-take baits from the vassal kings to go against the court.
But after being chosen by them and successfully deceived into rebelling, King Chu was defeated quickly.
This still disappointed them.
"The king of Chu failed to clear his throne, and Wang Bihe's efforts to restore the privileges and exemptions of officials and gentry, return power to the six ministries, and return punishments and rewards to public opinion came to nothing."
Wu Hongji, who was about to enter the capital as censor, looked at the mighty blue waves on a cruise ship on Wuxi Lake and started talking to his friend Gu Xiancheng.
Gu Xiancheng could not hide his disappointment and said: "Since Hu Runing openly impeached Duke Luo and Wu Daohe for colluding with the King of Chu to rebel, this matter was destined not to happen. It is okay to wake up the emperor with the rebellion of the feudal kings, but I want to count on him." It is very difficult to successfully achieve peace! After all, it is not the emperor alone who refuses to obey public opinion, but a bunch of mercenary villains and a large number of fools who are following him and treating the emperor as a saint!"
Gu Xiancheng said: "However, I have to admit that today's emperor is really too shrewd. After knowing that the King of Chu wanted to collude with the Jin gentry to rebel, he directly exposed your conspiracy to the public!"
"This forced the civil servants all over the world to draw a clear line between themselves and the King of Chu. They flatly denied that they were involved in the King of Chu's rebellion. I don't know whether it was Zhang Juzheng who taught him so well, or someone else who taught him so well."
As Gu Xiancheng was talking, he saw Ma Wenqing coming by boat under the leadership of his younger brother Gu Yuncheng.
Gu Xiancheng asked Gu Yuncheng after they arrived: "Is the matter with the capital finished?"
"No! Zhao Mengbai is still alive!"
"It happened suddenly and we didn't expect it."
Ma Wenqing couldn't wait to answer before Gu Yuncheng.
(End of chapter)
