On the second day after Zhennanguan garrison congratulated Zhan, a handwritten letter from Wu Zhun, the inspector of Zhennanguan, also arrived at the government office of Liu Ji, the chief minister of the cabinet in the capital.
In fact, when Wu Zhun knew that his men had injured He Zhan's "godson" Xiao Li, Wu Zhun knew that these followers of his had caused a huge disaster. Although on the surface he can control everything at Zhennanguan, he can do anything. But anyone with a discerning eye knows that he is lucky enough to be the inspector of Nanguan in this town because he is the chief minister of the current cabinet.
On weekdays, these subordinates rely on their own power to do evil in Zhennanguan, but I can still protect them. After all, if one person achieves enlightenment, chickens and dogs can ascend to heaven. But this time the person being beaten was not an ordinary person, but the "godson" adopted by He Zhan. This bastard Xiao Li was He Zhan's bottom line! Normally you can bully him however you want, but if you touch his bottom line, this matter may be difficult to handle. Wu Zhun knew He Zhan's temper. Even honest people would get angry one day, and this anger might be the fury of thunder.
Therefore, when Wu Zhun found out that his two bastard men were fighting He Zhan's "godson", he was immediately shocked and cursed: "You two slaves killed me!"
Wu Zhun personally tied up these two bastard men and brought them to He Zhan's house to plead guilty, but Wu Zhun didn't know that He Zhan, who had always been honest, was playing tricks on him this time. On the surface, he accepted Wu Zhun's apology, but that night he ordered his private servants to quietly leave the city and go to the capital with the written imperial certificate. By the time Wu Zhun got the news, it was already too late to intercept and kill him. He Zhan's private followers had already gone out of officialdom.
Wu Zhun naturally knew the consequences of this discount. He himself was a soft-spoken man and it would be fine even if he was dismissed from office. But behind him was the hub of power in the bureaucracy of the Ming Empire. If anything goes wrong, he is afraid that the entire clan will be wiped out. Wu Zhun quickly wrote a handwritten letter and ordered him to be sent to Liu Ji's house in the capital on a fast horse, so that the chief assistant could prepare himself and wipe his butt.
When Liu Ji, the chief assistant of the cabinet, received the handwritten letter from Wu Zhun, he crumpled it into a ball and threw it in Wu Zhun's face. He cursed privately: "Idiot, waste! Even the dogs under his command I can’t even control it!”
Seeing Liu Ji's rage, the private servant was so frightened that he fell to the ground and trembled. He was afraid that this adult would kill him in a fit of anger.
Sitting next to him, Li Guang, the newly promoted Minister of Rites not long ago, took a sip of tea and said, "Your Majesty must have known about this matter. Today is a troubled time. We must not offend Longxu because of this idiot Wu Zhun."
Liu Ji had a gloomy face and said nothing. At this time, the hall was extremely quiet, and the private servant who came to deliver the letter was trembling, listening to his own "thumping" heartbeat. Suddenly Liu Ji slammed the table, and the private servant shouted "Ah" in fright.
Liu Ji lowered his voice and said, "Go back and tell Wu Zhun to submit his resignation to His Majesty. He knows what to do."
When the messenger heard that Liu Ji had no intention of killing him, he quickly nodded in agreement and ran out crawling.
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In the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Youtang summoned Xu Pu, the second assistant to the cabinet, to enter the palace to discuss matters. Zhu Youtang showed Xu Pu the imperial certificate of He Zhan and wanted to hear Xu Pu's thoughts.
Although Xu Pu was very dissatisfied with Liu Ji, the paper elder, he did not dare to say it too clearly. He just made a roundabout way and said: The previous order is invalid. Now there is no new order. There are not a few people in the court who form cliques for personal gain. There are many requests for help. "
Zhu Youtang naturally understood what Xu Pu said. It has been a taboo for emperors since ancient times for courtiers to form cliques for personal gain, especially in the years after the Chenghua Dynasty. This kind of thing was not uncommon. The courtiers may have long forgotten all the laws and regulations enacted by the imperial court. Thinking of this, Zhu Youtang said with a serious face: "Li Guang goes and asks Huaien to convey my will.
"The instructions are given to the bureaus in Beijing. From now on, the five government offices, the six ministries, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the General Administration Department, Dali Temple and other yamen must abide by the ancestral constitution and must not entrust each other to the detriment of the public and self-interest. If internal and external officials dare to write posts to entrust anyone, the internal The official will be sent to Dongchang, and the foreign official will be sent to Jinyiwei for disposal. If you dare to conceal it during the period, you will be punished with a serious crime after the incident!"
After hearing this, Li Guang said solemnly: "I obey the order."
Zhu Youtang added with a sneer: "Make another copy of this decree and send it to our Liu Shoufu's house."
Xu Pu knew that Zhu Youtang was trying to knock the mountain and shake the tiger, and reminded Liu Ji that if you don't restrain yourself, don't blame the emperor for freeing up his hands to settle accounts with you.
When Li Guang just left the house, Zhu Youtang shouted again: "Yan Hai, please pass on my second decree, ordering the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of War to remove the senior officials from the Yamen Hall of the two capitals, the Fifth Prefecture, the Sixth Ministry, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate, as well as the second division of the governor who is guarding the outside. The magistrates and garrison guards all wrote their official titles in large letters. Their dates of official service, household registration, and which officials they held were all posted in the Wenhua Hall for my viewing. From then on, the two departments posted them every season. For those who advance, are promoted or leave their posts due to accidents, their old names will be removed and the new names will be replaced.”
Xu Pu was very pleased with this imperial edict, and the emperor would start to manage the government diligently. Xu Pu took advantage of the situation and said: "Your Majesty, since the last years of Chenghua, the eunuchs have been powerful and have made numerous petitions to fight for salt in the Huaihe and Zhejiang provinces. However, the land of the two Huaihe Rivers has accumulated a salt shortage of more than 5 million yuan, which has led to stagnation in trade and salt laws. Bad. If we don’t send people to clean up the Salt Law as soon as possible, there will be endless harm!"
From the perspective of future generations, Zhu Youtang naturally knew the importance of salt in ancient times. Salt is an electrolyte in the human body. If a person does not eat salt for a long time, the brain will not be able to think normally and body functions will be destroyed. Moreover, salt is a major source of national finance and a necessary product for people's daily lives, which is related to the national economy and people's livelihood. In the traditional era when the country was founded on agriculture and industry was not very developed, it has always been the exclusive responsibility of the government.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the budget was in deficit for consecutive years, and the wealthy private businessmen "smelted and boiled salt, making a fortune of tens of thousands of dollars, but they did not help the public's urgent needs and the people were in dire straits." Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty knew the importance of the salt industry to taxation, so he sent the Grand Sima Sang Hongyang to preside over the implementation of the "salt cage iron" system and re-state the salt industry management rights. In the salt-producing areas, a "Salt Officer" is set up as a representative of the government to supervise the salt production of the salt people. The salt is purchased, transported and sold by the government.
With the development and changes of social economy, the expansion of the market, and the increasingly dense population, it is becoming increasingly impossible for the country to monopolize the salt trade in its own hands. Therefore, since the Song Dynasty, there have been discussions about liberalizing state monopoly and allowing designated officials and businessmen to operate. During the founding of the Ming Dynasty, salt monopoly rights were transferred to ordinary merchants to promote commercial development.
During the reign of Mr. Hongwu, the Ming government implemented three systems of military garrisoning, grain transportation, and opening up to China and France in order to solve the problem of food and salary supply for the more than 800,000 troops stationed in the "Nine Borders". This means that the sergeants cultivated crops to be self-sufficient, the common people paid to the border towns, and the merchants added salt to the grains. It was customary to call it the grain of the village, the grain of the people, and the grain of salt. However, the northern line of the Great Wall is located in high and cold conditions, and the output of farmland is limited. Therefore, the government must recruit farmers from several provinces in Northern Zhili, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shandong every year to transport the paid grain to designated border towns. However, in the era of inconvenient transportation and donkeys and carts, it was not easy to transport hundreds of thousands of stones of grain to the frontier. It not only hindered farming, but also was very costly. Shanxi Province reported this common problem to the Ming court and suggested that the government use the state-controlled salt monopoly to allow merchants to pay 1 stone of rice to the Datong warehouse, 1 stone to 3 buckets of rice to the Taiyuan warehouse, and give Huaiyan a small amount of salt. It is about 200 kilograms, and then the salt is exchanged for salt transportation and sales to make a profit. This not only saves shipping costs, but also ensures sufficient side storage. Zhu Yuanzhang felt that this law would benefit the country, facilitate the people, and benefit business, so he ordered it to be implemented throughout the country.
In the fourth year of Hongwu, Mr. Zhu formulated the rules of Zhongyan. The method of opening Zhongyan can be roughly divided into three steps: reporting the middle, guarding the branches, and changing the market. According to the report, the salt merchants transported the grain to the designated border granary in accordance with the requirements of the government's investment invitation list, and exchanged it with the government for salt imports; the back support was that after the salt merchants exchanged the salt imports for the salt imports, they used the salt imports to the designated salt farms to wait for the salt supply; Market trading is when salt merchants transport the salt they obtain to designated areas for sale.
The regulations for merchants to use salt in nanometers are published by the Ministry of Household Affairs, and are determined based on military conditions, food prices, routes, and profits. Therefore, many border towns called merchants to sell salt, and the transportation and sales of salt were organically integrated with the supply of military supplies. In order to save costs, businessmen simply hired farmers to cultivate crops in the border areas and deliver grain to the military and military warehouses nearby, which was called Shangtun in history.
In addition to its function of solving military needs, the Kaizhong method was also an effective way for the Ming government to cooperate with businessmen to build public utilities and solve social problems such as famine, water transportation, and disaster victims. During the Yongle period, in order to move the capital and build the capital of Peking, Zhu Laosi twice ordered various places to suspend the opening of the country and concentrate grain shipments to Beijing, so that the grain reserves in Peiping would be enough for hundreds of thousands of craftsmen to wait for several years.
Zhu Youtang also naturally knew that corruption was serious due to collusion between officials and businessmen in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming Empire, not only was political corruption also intensified, the royal family, nobles and officials used their power to seek rent. Especially during the Zhengde, Jiajing, Longqing, and Wanli years, it became common practice to operate Huangzhuang and Huangdian, seize people's land, and do business for profit. If you want to revive a prosperous world, you have to pay attention to the Salt Law. Thinking of this, Zhu Youtang said: "Then according to Mr. Yi Ge, who should be sent to clean up the Huaihe River and Zhejiang Salt Law?"
Xu Pu already had a candidate in mind. When the emperor asked him, he said without hesitation: "I recommend Li Si, the left minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs. Li Si is not only a Jinshi, but also good at governing. At that time, there was an uproar in Jiangxi over the loss of Fu, and Li Si did not go there. It will take a few days to complete this errand."
Zhu Youtang listened to Xu Pu's words while rummaging through the booklet sent to him today. Zhu Youtang, the person recommended by Xu Pu, was naturally relieved. So he nodded and promised: "I'm sure."
Sure enough, Zhu Youtang found the memorial handed over by Li Si. The memorial said: "The two Huaihe Transportation Departments have claimed more than one million yuan for salt diversion in successive years, but the amount of salt diversion paid by the merchants is only one or three. If it is not strictly prohibited, then Unprofitable businessmen are constantly speculating, and the salt law is even worse." Li Si's words indicate that the macro-management of the Ministry of Revenue is out of control. In other words, only 20% of the salt diversion from the Lianghuai Salt Field is actually used by Kaizhong merchants to produce nano-mineralized salt, and most of the rest has been Alluding to officials and businessmen.
Zhu Youtang immediately issued the third edict: he ordered Li Si, the left minister of the household department, and Peng Shao, the right minister of the criminal department, to concurrently serve as censors of Zuoqiandu to go to Lianghuai and Zhejiang to clean up the salt law, supervise the officials of various ministries, and prohibit cheating and cheating. If there are any military or civilian officials who dare to commit crimes, be greedy or cheat, except for those who are above the third rank who need to report to me, the rest will follow the law. If there are officials in the transportation department who are honest, honest, law-abiding and fair, they will also be rewarded and encouraged. As ministers of the imperial court, you have been entrusted by me to do your best to promote the salt law, eradicate evil and evil, smooth the flow of merchants, and provide sufficient supplies on the frontier. "
Today, Zhu Youtang issued three decrees in a row, all of which were extraordinary and shocked the government and the public. In order to avoid the censor Pan Gu's death with a stick from happening to them, the officials no longer dared to comment blatantly on Zhu Youtang's policies. There were a few stubborn officials who wrote several letters of opposition and sent them over, but Yan Hai, the head of Qianqing Palace, knew clearly what his prince wanted to see and what he didn't want to see, so he suppressed all the objections.
