The brief meeting between Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue during the day did not reach an agreement, or it should be said that neither of them could accurately determine Gao Jingjing's actual purpose in this Beijing inspection.
As for Jingcha, it is normal operation to get rid of some of the other party's people and replace them with some of their own. Everyone knows this very well. It's just that the highly pragmatic approach to doing things sometimes seems too unrestrained for them, and it's difficult to grasp his intentions and make corresponding preparations.
Shen Shixing tends to believe that Gao Pragmatic intends to perform a major operation on Nanjing's officialdom, in other words, to get the real power in Nanjing.
Although the Beijing inspection mainly targeted officials below the fourth rank, and the superior officials of the Six Ministries in Nanjing went directly to the emperor to report themselves, and the emperor ultimately decided who should be retained and who should get rid of them, in fact, there were not many officials below the fourth rank who held real power.
Unlike most dynasties, the Ming Dynasty officially implemented the "dual capital system". As we all know, Nanjing is one of the few cities in Chinese history that has been the capital of more than a dozen political powers, and its geographical advantages are self-evident.
When Zhu Yuanzhang started his army, he was very clear about Nanjing's advantages. His early adviser Feng Guoyong suggested to Zhu Yuanzhang that he should decide on Jinling first. He once suggested to Zhu Yuanzhang: "Jinling is the capital of the emperors, where dragons and tigers are inhabited. We must first pluck it out as the foundation. And then it is the foundation." Go out on four expeditions, advocate benevolence and righteousness, win people's hearts, and don't be greedy for your children, treasures, and silk, because the world is not stable."
Since the economic advantages of Jiangsu and Zhejiang were greater than those of the south at that time, occupying Nanjing was equivalent to possessing the wealth foundation of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang was able to maneuver with ease in the position of the Fourth War, defeating Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng, and then went on to the Northern Expedition to the Central Plains.
But this does not mean that Zhu Yuanzhang is completely satisfied with Nanjing as the capital. In fact, in Zhu Yuanzhang's heart, Nanjing is too peaceful and cannot stabilize the whole country. There has always been a saying that "Jinling is Nanjing and Daliang is Beijing. I patrolled it back and forth in the Spring and Autumn Period." " idea.
However, in the eleventh year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang thought after careful consideration that Daliang, also known as Kaifeng, was not suitable to become a capital because of its geographical location and the location of the Fourth War. However, Zhu Yuanzhang never gave up looking for a new capital. He had three goals: " Luoyang, Xi'an, Peiping". These three cities each had their own advantages, but Zhu Yuanzhang died before he could make a decision.
After Zhu Di launched the Jingnan Campaign to seize the throne, he almost immediately began to consider the issue of moving the capital. The reason was also very simple. After all, Beijing was his "Longxing Land", so he very much wanted to add a reasonable basis to his succession. The reason is, as the saying goes, "Emperors from the past have either taken up commoner robes and pacified the world, or foreign vassals have taken over the throne, and they have all been promoted in the places where they made their mark."
On the other hand, Beijing's geographical location was more conducive to fighting Mongolia and controlling the north, so Zhu Di decided to move the capital. In the 18th year of Yongle, the construction of the Beijing Palace was completed, and Zhu Di decided to move the capital to Beijing and change Nanjing as the remaining capital. However, this did not mean that the Ming Dynasty regarded Beijing as the only capital from now on.
After Zhu Di's death, Emperor Renzong of the Ming Dynasty and Zhu Gaochi once wanted to move the capital back to Nanjing. Later, Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty stopped it in time, and only then did Beijing's position begin to stabilize.
The capital city has been moved, but that doesn’t mean that the institution has also completely moved here. The situation at that time was that the yamen in Nanjing had to hear cases and maintain the operation of the country during the capital relocation process, so they were not abolished. After the capital move was completed, the yamen in Nanjing were useless. Therefore, all the six departments in Nanjing in the late Yongle period were preceded by "Nanjing". "" two words, thus forming the unique Nanjing Six Bubu of the Ming Dynasty.
The six films in Nanjing actually don’t look much different from the six films in Beijing. According to the system of the Ming Dynasty, each of the six ministries has one Shangshu and one left and right minister. The Metropolitan Inspectorate has the left and right censors, the left and right deputy censors, and the left and right censors. It has 13 supervisory censors and 110 censors. ten people.
These institutions also exist in Nanjing, but they are still different from the Six Ministries in Beijing: there is no Zuo Shilang in the Six Ministries in Nanjing, there is no Yuanwailang in the Yamen of the Ministry of Personnel, and there is no Zuo Du Yushi in the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate.
The Six Ministries in Nanjing basically have nothing to do. For example, the Nanjing Criminal Bureau can only manage cases in Nanjing and has no right to hear cases in other places. The Nanjing Civil Affairs Bureau can only evaluate officials in Nanjing. Most of the yamen in Nanjing are holy places for retirement. It is a pleasure for everyone to retire from Beijing and enjoy the benefits in Nanjing.
But this does not mean that the yamen in Nanjing are unimportant. As a system to consolidate the capital of the Ming Empire, the Six Ministries of Nanjing can still play a role at critical moments. At least they can directly take over half of the country. It can be seen that everyone usually recognizes that "Nanjing manages the south". One idea. However, the highest administrative body in Nanjing is not Nanjing's Six Ministries, but Nanjing's "Government Conference".
Nanjing usually sets up a garrison to guard Nanjing for the emperor. Most of the Nanjing garrison is composed of princes and ministers, and most of the time it is the Duke of Wei. The garrison hall meeting, composed of garrison, counselor, internal garrison and other officers, is where the highest power lies in Nanjing.
This composition has a certain institutional nature. Among them, the Nanjing Counselor and Mechanical Affairs Bureau is concurrently held by the Nanjing Ministry of War. Therefore, the Nanjing Ministry of War is also a special existence among the Six Ministries of Nanjing. It does have real power, and the real power is very great. The so-called: "Therefore, its duties The five parts are regarded as particularly important."
Among the Six Ministries in Beijing, the Minister of Personnel is called the "Tianguan", who can control the promotion, appointment and removal of officials below the fourth rank. The Tianguan also has strong suggestions for the appointment, removal and adjustment of higher-ranking officials. However, among the six departments in Nanjing, the Nanjing Ministry of War is the strongest and can control all the military training and garrison expenses in the Nanjing area. This means that the Minister of the Nanjing Ministry of War can mobilize troops to support Beijing at critical moments.
However, the six departments in Nanjing are the six departments accompanying the capital. In fact, no matter what they do, they have to be restrained by the six departments in Beijing. For example, if the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing wants to hold sacrificial activities, it must first ask the Ministry of Rites in Beijing; the selection of officials from the Nanjing Ministry of Personnel is controlled by the Beijing Ministry of Personnel; although the Nanjing Ministry of Husbandry collects the finances themselves, it must be handed over to the Beijing Ministry of Husbandry after collection. ...and so on.
Therefore, many Nanjing officials actually feel aggrieved. After all, although the names are similar and the official status is theoretically the same, in fact, the Beijing officials are the wives and the Nanjing officials can only be regarded as concubines.
Shen Shixing's view is that Gao Pragmatic may use Nancha to control the doctors and principals who actually manage various affairs of the Six Ministries of Nanjing - just like the Six Ministries of Beijing, it is impossible for the ministers and ministers to personally manage the specific details, and they have no authority to manage detailed affairs. In the hands of ministers and chiefs of various ministries and departments.
The fifth rank of doctor and the sixth rank of master are all within the scope of Nancha. In Shen Shixing's view, it is still difficult for Gao Pragmatic to directly replace the Tang Shangguan of Nanjing Sixth Division, but if he just replaces some doctors and chief officials, after sacrificing Haigang Peak, it is completely possible, and In this way, Nanjing's administrative system can be actually controlled - anyway, the ministers and ministers have to listen to Beijing on major matters. This is equivalent to elevating the six departments of Nanjing, and the upper and lower departments are not in contact with each other.
As for the garrison meeting, the garrison minister in Nanjing was Xu Bangrui, the Duke of Wei, whom Gao Pragmatic supported. The garrison in Nanjing was from Chen Ju. There was only one Nanjing Minister of War who was a neutral faction. Gao Pragmatic did not need to interfere and would not ruin his affairs.
However, Wang Xijue's views are different from Shen Shixing's. He believes that high pragmatism will not "bloom in full bloom", but will definitely have some emphasis. Wang Xijue believes that this focus will most likely be on financial issues. To be precise, it probably should be on the head of Nanjing Hubu.
The Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs also had certain real powers. It was responsible for collecting taxes and grains from Southern Zhili and Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Huguang provinces. It was also responsible for water transportation and national salt diversion and survey.
Especially the matter of Yan Yin Ke He, the Nanjing Household Department has been responsible for this matter from the beginning to the end of the Ming Dynasty. There were only two years in which the Nanjing Household Department was not responsible for this matter: in the third year of Zhengde, Liu Jin changed the law and the Beijing Household Department was changed. He was responsible for the "Nanjing Yinban, all ordered to be destroyed"; but in the fifth year of Zhengde, after Liu Jin was executed, the Ministry of Household Affairs petitioned the Ministry of Household Affairs to "print Yan Yinban and still be under the Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs", which was approved. It has remained unchanged since.
In addition, the Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs is also responsible for the collection and management of yellow books across the country. These items are stored in Xuanwu Lake, Nanjing. By the way, the Minister of Household Affairs in Nanjing often also served as the Prime Minister's Grain Reserve.
Wang Xijue's eyes focused on taxes and salt production, and he believed that Gao Pragmatic was most likely to take action on these two aspects.
Grain tax is not a commercial tax. The four provinces under the jurisdiction of Nanjing have always been large tax payers. After the "Hai Rui and Xu Jie", a whipping method has been implemented in Nanjing provinces for more than ten years. Now these four provinces have no Instead of collecting taxes in kind such as grain, silver and copper coins are all levied.
Now Gao Pragmatic is the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs. According to Wang Xijue's observation and understanding of him, this Gao Situ is particularly stubborn on tax issues. It is hard to believe that he will not trust the Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs to do this on his own.
In particular, the amount of taxes collected by Nanjing last year was not up to standard, with a shortage of more than 73,000 taels of silver. The reason was that there was a hurricane at the turn of spring and summer last year, which affected the harvest in Zhejiang and other places.
Wang Xijue was in Suzhou at the time, so he naturally knew that this matter was nonsense. The storm disaster was real, and the impact was indeed there, but it actually had nothing to do with the collection of grain taxes.
Why? Because the amount of tax collected by the court is relatively fixed, it will not change because of your disaster. There is only one exception, and that is when the emperor specifically approves a tax exemption for a certain place due to a disaster, or explicitly allows a certain place to reduce taxes by a certain amount in a certain year.
In the past few years, Zhu Yijun often approved tax reductions and exemptions because the imperial court was much wealthier than in the past. Among them, the year of Huangzhuang's reform was the most severe. The total tax reductions and exemptions for all parts of the country were as high as 700,000 taels. Although he was very pragmatic at that time and did not care about finances. , and was almost pissed to death.
After his persuasion, Zhu Yijun restrained himself. In the following years, most of the tax exemptions and tax reductions nationwide were kept within 300,000 taels each year. As for last year, because it was decided to open the vassal ban, Zhu Yijun was even more strict in this regard. The annual reduction was only 140,000 taels, and the Jiangnan typhoon basically ignored it.
In other words, the Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs said that the over 70,000 taels of tax money was undercollected because of the storm. This reason is not legally sound in the first place.
Secondly, although the Jiangnan typhoon will definitely cause economic losses, the Jiangnan grain tax has long ceased to rely on Jiangnan's self-produced grain. The provinces in Jiangnan have to buy grain from Huguang. How will the Jiangnan typhoon affect grain taxes? Huguang's grain tax is also under the jurisdiction of the Nanjing Household Department, but Huguang has not been affected by the storm, and it is even less likely to be affected.
However, last year's typhoon still affected some economic activities. For example, if mulberry trees were blown down, silk production would be affected. Weaving mills, paper mills and other workshops were unable to operate during the typhoon, so they were more directly affected by the disaster.
Many of these people are landowners, such as Wang Xijue, a family with both official and business interests. Therefore, after the disaster, they have to find some way to make up for it.
This is actually how the reduction in grain taxes came about. Ordinary people cannot enjoy it, but those who can enjoy it are people who the Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs does not want to offend.
Wang Xijue himself was one of them. Of course, he would first think that Gao Pragmatic was eyeing this matter, and then he would extend his hand into Nanjing's financial power.
Although Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue did not reach an agreement, their interests were always relatively consistent, so they both began to make arrangements according to their own ideas after returning.
Shen Shixing wrote another letter to the senior officials of the Xin School in Nanjing, reminding them not to just focus on writing their own statements, but also to pay more attention to their subordinates of the Xin School. At least they must write better in their test papers, and at the same time, they must also We must pay attention to "protecting cadres" in all other aspects.
Wang Xijue was more direct. He first wrote a letter to his family, asking them to sort out their accounts and make sure that every income and expenditure was "reasonable, reasonable and legal". At the very least, they couldn't play more than others, so as not to have trouble in the future. Something went wrong in the investigation.
Immediately afterwards, he wrote to the relevant officials in the Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs, asking them to check the accounts immediately and fill in the accounts that should be "balanced" as soon as possible. Every income and expenditure must be clear, at least it seems that there is no problem.
Specific to last year's typhoon tax reduction, although Wang Xijue refused to put it down in writing, he also hinted that Nanjing must adhere to the principle of "under disaster conditions, forced taxation cannot be tolerated" and must not rely on other reasons. .
Don't worry about whether there are people who are making trouble with the system. Just say that you can't bear forced conscription and that's it.
The reason is very simple. The system is there and cannot be circumvented. However, "cannot tolerate forced recruitment" elevates this matter to a moral issue. Needless to say, what was the status of morality in the Ming Dynasty? As long as the failure to raise taxes was transformed from a legal issue into a moral issue, the nature would be very different. Even if Gao Pragmatic finally found an excuse to investigate, he could only hold it high and lightly. lay down.
"Gentlemen" enjoy magical immunity in this society, and sometimes even breaking the law cannot be punished.
After the two old gentlemen in the pavilion finished doing this, they felt a lot more at ease, and they could only wait for Gao Pragmatic to make a move.
----------
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friend "His Royal Highness Kyle" for your monthly ticket support, thank you!
