When it comes to the issue of feudal king Lumi and local finance, there is something to be said.
It can basically be said that Lord Lumi has been troubled by the court since the time of Zhu Yuanzhang.
In the ninth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang gave the prince an annual salary of 50,000 shi and 25,000 guan in banknotes. In addition, he also provided brocade, cotton, winter and summer cloth, salt, and tea.
During this period, the prince's responsibilities and powers were far greater than those after Yongle. Because Zhu Di rebelled, we must not imagine the Hongwu period based on the situation of the vassal kings after Yongle.
In fact, being a prince in the Ming Dynasty was completely different for different people in different historical periods and the same period.
During the Hongwu period, there were nine great fortress kings, because Zhu Yuanzhang entrusted each of his sons to border towns to guard the center.
Among the nine fortress kings, the more powerful ones are the second king of Qin (Xi'an), the third oldest king of Jin (Taiyuan), the fourth oldest king Zhu Di (Beiping), the oldest thirteenth generation king (Datong), and the most recent rebellious king of Anhua. Ancestor, Lao Shiliu King Qing (Ningxia).
Because Zhu Yuanzhang was the founding emperor, the first generation had a small number of people, and he could control these dragons and grandsons. Therefore, he dared to give the vassal kings more responsibilities, let them take on some affairs, contribute to the court, get more money for more work, and still understand it.
On the other hand, there are few people, and 50,000 dan per person is not a problem for the court.
However, this policy, which seemed decent at the time, soon turned into a burden.
A burden that started from the time of Zhu Yuanzhang.
First of all, we need to give a general concept: Zhu Yuanzhang reigned in the world for thirty-one years. Initially, there were 24 princes and 1 county prince. By the time of his death, there were 58 clan members with various titles.
So before he was alive, he already felt that something was wrong with this growth.
In September of the 20th year of Hongwu's reign, Zhu Yuanzhang issued an edict: The Prince's Mansion will give him 50,000 shi of rice per year, but he will not give any other items such as tea, salt, cloth, and wadding.
In the leap month of the twenty-eighth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang believed that "descendants were in great numbers" and the military and civilian expenditures in the world had doubled compared with previous years, so he issued an order to reduce the annual allowances of each king to fund the military and state.
Specifically, the original 50,000 shi lumi for the prince was reduced to 10,000 shi, the prince's salary was reduced from 6,000 shi to 2,000 shi, the following was reduced to 1,000 shi for the general who ruled the country, and 800 shi for the general who assisted the country... Wait, what is it like? Lieutenant Fengguo, logically speaking, he is also a descendant of Zhu Yuanzhang, but he can't control it anymore. He pays 200 dan a year and lets him go.
There is a special rule for the 'salary reduction' this time, that is, the eldest son of the county king, who inherits the title of county king, will receive half the annual salary compared to the original county king. That means that if you are not the original county king, then you will only get one thousand stone.
If that's all, it seems pretty good.
Hey, it's not that easy.
The 'salary cut' in the 28th year of Hongwu's reign was an express decree, so let's just give it, right?
The name of the Minister of Household Affairs at that time was Yu Xin. He reported to the emperor and said: Since the prince has agreed on the annual rice, please order the Secretary to give it to him in full.
Zhu Yuanzhang thought about it, some places are still poor and cannot give in full!
Therefore, I ordered the king of Jin, the king of Yan, the king of Chu, the king of Shu, and the king of Xiang to give them in full. The people of King Dai, King Su, King Liao, and King Qing each had little tax, and they were given five hundred stones per year. There was only one successor, King Qin. Because he was young and could not go hungry, he ordered "Si Yuejin".
You see, no matter how cruel Emperor Lao Zhu is, he is still kind to the people. He knows that the situation is different in different places.
Therefore, some people think that the Ming Dynasty vassalage did not consume much Lumi. You see, it was written in the decree that it was ten thousand shi, but it was not given at all. So they complacently thought that others did not have deep knowledge of history and did not study it carefully.
But there is a problem with this logic - if the consumption is indeed not large, then why not give it all?
In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang took the lead in "arrears of wages", which caused serious arrears among Lumi in all dynasties since him.
From Xuande to Hongzhi, who was more protective of his shortcomings, and then to Jiajing, who was born in the clan, they all owed rice to the clan.
The reason is simple, you can’t afford it.
During the Hongwu period, there were 58 clan members, which increased to 127 during the Yongle period. Eighty years later, the number of clan members during the Zhengde period was 2,980.
The reason why it can be accurate to single digits is because these 2980 people are all recorded.
By the late Jiajing period, the number of clan members had increased to 30,000. By the Wanli period, the "Records of the Ming Shenzong" recorded that in the thirty-third year of Wanli, the number of the Jade Sect branch totaled more than 157,000.
It sounds surprising, but you will understand just by looking at a specific example. In the fifth year of Hongzhi, Yang Cheng, the governor of Shaanxi Province, reported that the prince of Qingcheng County in Shanxi Province had given birth to 94 children as of August this year.
During the Zhengde period, King Qingcheng himself was not sure how many people had been born, and even reported to the court to request a census for his family.
With this amount, how is it possible to get enough Lumi?
However, this lack of payment has caused a very serious problem of clan crime.
Therefore, in the official history, when looking at the records about sects and vassals, it is often to go to the capital to ask for begging, even if the emperor's ancestral precepts have clearly stipulated that the prince's palace is not allowed to directly report to the court.
Another is to tamper with the rules and blackmail the households. Because Lumi is three-quarters true color and seven-cent color. The imperial court strictly prohibited the princes from changing the exchange ratios of true rice and discounted rice without authorization, but the princes did not care about this. They either lied about the poor quality of the rice and took advantage of the opportunity to exploit the people, or they did not follow the official pricing and conversion, and often the price was three or four times higher than the market price. times.
What's even more bizarre is that some princes are not willing to ask for the original color, but prefer to get the broken color (that is, silver), so they force the people to change the true color into silver. After all, money is more convenient, and can be used as "expenses for wine, food and travel" and "funds for gambling and debauchery". Some clans have just received their annual salary and can "all return to their creditors" in the blink of an eye.
This is actually a kind of robbery, so where there is a prince's palace, the people are often miserable.
And not only the common people, but also the clan's Lumi arrears directly intensified the conflict between the feudal king and the local government. Some sects and vassals began to attack local government offices, harassing government ministers, and even rushed into the government offices to rob them collectively.
In the ninth year of Zhengde's reign, Zhu Xuncheng and Zhu Xunli, the generals of the Shen Mansion's auxiliary state, once "led the crowd into the warehouse to beat up the officials."
In the thirty-seventh year of Jiajing's reign, Guangning and other royal family members of the Dai Mansion besieged the Yamen of the Chief Envoy due to the failure of Solumi, and injured the Chief Envoy Zuo.
In the forty-first year of Jiajing's reign, all the clan members of the Han Dynasty also tried to kill the magistrate of Pingliang with the help of rice. This incident caused such a big fuss that Emperor Jiajing ordered the culprit to be punished and asked the King of Han to arrest the culprits of the sect. As a result, many members of the Han sect were dissatisfied and openly drove away the escorts and then attacked the Pingliang yamen.
These historical facts can show that
The vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty basically committed all kinds of evil in the local areas. They gathered in the government, insulted local officials, robbed the people, caused fear and unrest in the people, and even attacked the government offices. These things have made the society no longer "stable in all directions" and become a factor of turmoil.
The root of all this is that vassals have become slaves to wealth. Most of the vassal problems since Xuande are due to money.
However, there were indeed good vassal kings. For example, Hongzhi treated his brothers very well, often giving him rewards such as 10,000 salt quotas and 300 hectares of land.
Generally speaking, the closer the relationship is with the emperor and the more favored the vassal king is, the life will be very good. For example, the wealth that Emperor Wanli rewarded King Fu is an astronomical figure.
Therefore, the gap between the rich and the poor between the feudal king and the feudal king is very huge. This is a basic fact.
Closer to home, Huguang Chengxuan Political Envoy Division, its scope is roughly equivalent to today's Hubei and Hunan areas.
In other provinces, one or two vassal kings would be a big disaster, and Huguang was particularly concentrated. It was the province with the most feudal vassals in the Ming Dynasty.
In the third year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang's fifth son, King of Chu Zhu Zhen, was the first vassal king to be granted the title of Huguang;
After that, King Zhu Zhi of Liao was granted the title of Jingzhou;
Min King Zhu Xun granted Wugang Prefecture;
King Zhu Zhan of Xiang first granted the title of Changsha and later moved to Xiangyang;
King Zhu Zhanku of Jing was first granted the title of Jianchang, Jiangxi Province, and moved to Qizhou, Huguang in the tenth year of Zhengtong;
Ji Wang Zhu Jianjun granted the title of Changsha County, Changsha Prefecture;
The king of Xing, Zhu You, granted the title of Anlu, Hubei;
Longevity King Zhu Youguo joined Fan De'an;
In the twelfth year of Hongzhi's reign, King Yong Zhu You established the vassalage of Hengzhou. This guy moved mountains and earth to build King Yong's Mansion, forming a prosperous street. Fortunately, he died in the second year of Zhengde without any heirs, so Zhu Houzhao directly removed the vassal.
There are only princes above, but in fact there are also some county kings. For example, Prince Huayang is the second son of the first Shu king. According to the rules of demotion and ascendancy, he became the county king in Lizhou.
There is really no way to count down the generals who govern the country.
Therefore, the proportion of official land occupied by Huguang princes and government officials was extremely high. During the Chenghua period, there was an uprising of Jingxiang refugees. Until the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty failed to properly handle the issue of Jingxiang refugees.
One of the factors is that the Ming Dynasty failed to deal with the issue of vassal kings.
In Yang Yiqing's view, since the emperor last had the idea of 'restricting the wealth of the vassal kings', it is possible for this dynasty to greatly alleviate the financial pressure brought by the vassal kings to the court.
Because the emperor of this dynasty has no biological brothers, it would be different if the relationship is far away.
But he only dared to use words like 'relief'.
The princes and younger brothers of the vassal are all relatives of the clan and the emperor. Even the emperor will not kill people to get rid of the vassal. In the third year of Hongzhi's reign, the emperor ordered the clan members not to use the name of other sects and falsely receive Lumi. The punishment was to have two-tenths of the Lumi received be revoked.
What is this punishment?
It's better not to come out. If he doesn't come out, he can be flexibly convicted.
Now, Emperor Zhengde has not discussed with him in detail how to limit the wealth of the vassal kings.
But many people know about this 'Sacred Heart', and many people are trying to catch it.
The vassal king insulted local officials and oppressed the people. Many civil servants had long been dissatisfied with him, but they had to swallow it because of the emperor. Now the emperor's attitude has changed.
This matter naturally became a 'great deed' that could cater to the holy will, vent one's anger, benefit the people, and leave a clear name.
Qi Chengsui, Minister of the Ministry of War, has never mentioned anything about Huguang in the past, but today he dared to say that "Huguang cannot always be like this". This is the background.
Yang Yiqing is the head of the cabinet, so naturally he will not hand over this good thing to others easily.
"Do you think Huguang should be used as an opportunity?" As a native, he asked directly.
Qi Chengsui did not hide his thoughts, "Huguang has the most vassal kings, and there is Yu Qiao Gong as the governor. As long as Yu Qiao Gong makes a fuss about these memorials, it won't be a big deal."
"I also have this intention."
Xie Qian's several letters asking for food do have the feeling of being dozed off and handing him a pillow.
According to the emperor's temperament, the local officials would allow the request for grain adjustment as long as they could give a reason. The Ministry of Household Affairs also had money specially used for disaster relief. If there was no grain, they could still buy it. This was not a problem.
But the imperial court can adjust the grain supply, and the imperial court can also investigate matters such as Huguang.
Huguang is ripe and the world is rich. Such a land of plenty is always short of food. Why can't the imperial court investigate the actual situation in an upright name?
As long as the results are found out, the matter will naturally become a big deal.
"If there is a pavilion elder, the official will have an idea. When he turns around, the official will personally draft a memorial and ask the court to investigate the matter of borrowing grain in Huguang just like it cleans up the military settlements."
"The method is possible, but the time will be delayed a little longer. His Majesty has already given an oral order. Now Ningxia is cleaning up the military villages, and there are unfavorable things like An Ni's rebellion. It is not appropriate to cause another major case."
this……
Qi Chengsui was a little anxious.
"Mr. Ge, if we don't go, others will."
Yang Yiqing clasped his hands behind his back and said: "You are already a minister, but you are still so impatient. No matter how early you are in this matter, there will be people who are ahead of you. The key is who the Sacred Heart belongs to. And the Sacred Heart belongs to the person. Character, the second is the method used, so this matter is not about speed, the key is to focus on the acupuncture points.
Your Majesty's actions cannot be judged by common sense. In the past, the affairs of the vassal kings were rarely investigated to the root, and most of them ended in an anticlimax. But will His Majesty do the same? No one can be sure. Your method is too light and cannot hit the acupuncture points. It is too heavy to be appropriate, so it is better to come from behind and see what other people say and where His Majesty's holy will lies. "
Qi Chengsui suddenly realized something after listening to it, "The words of the elder in the pavilion should be taught by the lower officials."
Yang Yiqing actually had a direction in mind. The emperor wanted the matter to be postponed. In fact, this in itself showed that the attack would not be light this time. Otherwise, why would he worry about clearing the farmland?
But that was really a big deal, and he wasn't very sure.
"But it's strange." Qi Chengsui muttered.
"What?"
"Cleaning up military camps is such an important matter. It involves a large number of people, and they are all lieutenants and generals. If we really want to come to a conclusion, how can we do it if it is only postponed for a few months?"
Yang Yiqing said: "That's not necessarily true. Yang Xing, the commander-in-chief of the Xuanfu, Yang Shangyi, the commander-in-chief of Jizhou, Shi Feng, the commander-in-chief of Datong, and the commander-in-chief of Gansu are all close associates of His Majesty. Who dares to disobey the imperial edict once it arrives?"
"Oh!" Qi Chengsui suddenly figured it out, "If the soldiers are all right! The guarding eunuchs must have blocked it, so Your Majesty suddenly captured Liu Jin!"
Yang Yiqing frowned. If the commander-in-chief and the eunuchs guarding the palace could resolutely carry out the imperial edict, it would be difficult for anyone to stop him.
Otherwise, as Qi Chengsui said, the commander-in-chief would still have some concerns if the guarding eunuchs interfered.
To put it bluntly, these eunuchs don't know how to contact the palace. If they cooperate with Qingtun on the surface, they are actually secretly slandering and complaining. When the feudal king rebels in Ningxia and the emperor's suspicion increases, who can Do you know if something bad will happen?
If this is the case, Yang Yiqing is so admirable that the emperor is so shrewd.
…
…
In fact, the Supervisor of Ceremonies at this time.
You Zhi has begun to take power.
He was also a smart man. He let Liu Jin and Ma Yongcheng go without trial for the time being, and set up a chair to watch his subordinates write urgent deliveries for the garrison eunuchs in various places.
This was the first thing he did.
"According to His Majesty's decree, Liu Jin served you unfaithfully and is now imprisoned. I, the former Chief of Ceremonies, Bingbi Eunuch Youzhi, will take the seal from today..."
The Chief Ceremony Supervisor is the Emperor’s Chief Ceremony Supervisor. No matter who holds the seal, the Emperor’s priority is to take precedence. At present, the rebel king in Ningxia has been defeated in the blink of an eye, and great progress has been made in cleaning up the military camps. The Chief of Ceremonies, in accordance with the holy will, instructs all border towns to guard and report the military camps they occupy. In this way, the past will not be investigated. If anyone still has bad intentions, he will be punished. Of……"
"Eunuch You, what do you think of this?"
You Zhi took all the urgent deliveries and read them one by one, and personally pointed out the inappropriate terms used in them. While correcting them, he said: "We who are eunuchs are different from being officials. When we are officials, we can protect each other and keep each other warm. Disciples are old officials." When they spread all over the world, even the emperor cannot deal with them too casually, but it is different when you are a eunuch. Your words and sentences are still too light, as if you are afraid of offending them? What is punishment? How to punish it? Is it a fine of some money or exile? Behead?"
"That……"
"Write more carefully! Today we will teach you another trick. The way to survive in the palace is rooted in the emperor. Liu Jin is arrogant and strong, right? Whoever he wants to use and where he wants to use it, our family will not interfere at all. I can't do it. Moreover, he is still a former member of the mansion, but so what? With one word from the Holy One, it disappeared into nothingness in an instant. Do you think any official complained about him?
Going back a little further, when the Xiaomiao Temple was there, Li Guang was very famous, but only in an instant, he disappeared.
So remember, it doesn't matter if you offend those people outside. As long as the emperor is satisfied, what can they do? "
And it's them who should be afraid now.
Liu Jin suddenly left his post, and some people probably couldn't even sleep.
"By the way, let's add a sentence and say that our family is ordered to investigate Liu Jin and ask them to report truthfully what they know about Liu Jin's crimes. In the future, our family can go to His Majesty to take credit for them."
This move is also a must.
On the one hand, he established his authority and told them that Liu Jin's case was still under investigation. If any of you had an old relationship with him, you'd better be honest. If you don't obey, it's nothing more than having one more head chopped off.
On the other hand, it also made them break up with Liu Jin. After all, who could care so much about losing their heads. In this way, he, the newly appointed eunuch of the ceremonial department, could quickly eliminate the influence of his predecessor.
He remembered those names clearly, Gansu garrison eunuch Li Ning, Datong garrison eunuch Wang Sheng, Xuanfu garrison eunuch Zhao Cong...
"After writing it, I will send someone 800 miles away as soon as dawn." You Zhi stretched his waist. He hadn't slept much that night and was very tired, but now is not the time. "Let's go meet Liu now." Father-in-law.”
Liu Jin is not dead yet. The emperor has left him alive and is in prison. Even if he is out of the mentality of "turning himself out as a serf and singing songs", You Zhi still has to go there.
"Eunuch You, there is one more thing." You Xi reminded him.
"What's up?"
"It's Zuixian Tower. The people in Zuixian Tower all belonged to Liu Jin before, so those people were arrested. But what should we say about this place now?"
"How did you come up with this question?"
"The city that never sleeps is very valuable, and it was built by His Majesty. Is it just sealed there?"
You Zhi's eyes lit up and he was somewhat satisfied, "I know, you did a good job."
"Thank you for the compliment, father-in-law."
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I can only update a 5,000-word chapter today. Time is very tight tomorrow, I will save a little more now...
(End of chapter)
