Emperor Chongzhen naturally obeyed Zhang Mingwei's suggestion and immediately nodded in agreement.
After being happy, Emperor Chongzhen brought the topic back to what he had just discussed before, and saw him saying to Zhang Mingwei, "As Mr. Li said, Li Thief failed to attack and open the seal. Now it has been changed to a siege. It is obvious that he is bound to win!"
At this point, he frowned and continued, "The Shanxi soldiers led by Xu Dingguo, the commander-in-chief of Shanxi, were defeated at Qinshui, and the Ningwu soldiers were also defeated in Huaiqing. I have a very good heart in this battle of Kaifeng!"
At this time, Li Zicheng had actually become a leader, and he had countless old thieves under his command. Moreover, he has already put forward the slogan of "not paying for food" and has begun to pay attention to the political aspect.
At this time, ordinary officers and soldiers were no longer Li Zicheng's opponents. If the original historical development is followed, in the next year, Li Zicheng defeated all the officers and soldiers who tried to fight him, and then annexed Luo Rucai's troops, as well as He Yilong's Gezuo Fifth Battalion and Xiao Yuan Battalion , unified command authority, and finally ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor.
Therefore, it was not surprising at all for Zhang Mingwei to hear the news from Emperor Chongzhen. His expression was also calm, and he smiled at Emperor Chongzhen and said, "Your Majesty, in the current strategy for Liaodong, the navy is still needed to harass the hinterland of Liaodong, and the work of containing Jianlu has not been done yet. As long as we can do this again, Liaodong Jianlu will no longer have to worry about it." . And now the amount of money and food copied from the eight major Shanxi merchants is enough for the court to fight several major wars!"
Upon hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen's brows relaxed and he even nodded.
When Zhang Mingwei saw it, he continued, "In addition, Wu Sangui, Bai Guangen and other five-pronged guerrillas have also led troops to Kaifeng, Henan. I believe that they will prevent Li thief's troops from going all out to plot Kaifeng!"
Emperor Chongzhen finally looked much better. After he finished speaking, he continued, "I'm really not worried about the siege of Kaifeng anymore. But there's still something bad going on in other cities!"
Having said this, he picked out a few memorials from the imperial case, and then said, "These have just been sent urgently in the past two days, and several cities have been lost. In the south, Zhang Xianzhong's headquarters and the fifth battalion of Ge Zuo The bandits have united and plan to attack Fengyang, the central capital, and threaten the imperial mausoleum again. And the bandits under Xiao Yuanying's camp are even more rampant in Hebei. It's ridiculous that Zuo Liangyu still wants to threaten me, but Forced by this bandit, he retreated at the first touch and did not dare to block its attack!"
Speaking of these bad things, it was obvious that Emperor Chongzhen was in a bad mood again. There are beacon fires everywhere, and it feels a bit overwhelming and powerless.
At this point, when he saw Zhang Mingwei was about to speak, he took the lead and said, "If the local government can hold on to the city, things will be a lot easier. However, sir's countermeasure is to exempt half of the tax and leave the remaining tax to the local government. They were even allowed to collect money and food from the squires. This should have spread throughout the world. But from my perspective, it still seems to have no effect. The city is being lost one by one..."
Zhang Mingwei heard this, but he was not frustrated. Instead, he smiled and said to Emperor Chongzhen, "Your Majesty, I have actually felt this during my two trips out of the capital. These countermeasures are still difficult to implement at the local level." of."
Hearing that he was already thinking about this matter, Emperor Chongzhen immediately looked at him and asked quickly, "What's the difficulty? I have already issued an order according to what your husband said. These will be included in the assessment of local officials by the Ministry of Personnel." They may not dare to do their best on important assessment matters, right?"
After a pause, he thought of something, and then added, "For those squires whose money and food were expropriated, I also agree that the court will compensate them afterwards, and some of them have local officials report to them to show their merit!"
Having said this, Emperor Chongzhen showed a hint of helplessness on his face and did not speak any more. The meaning was obvious, that is, the results were still unsatisfactory and there were still a lot of losses to the city!
In response, Zhang Mingwei shook his head and said, "Your Majesty, I know all this, please listen to me first!"
"Sir, please speak!" Upon hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen felt that there was hope and quickly responded.
"I just said that after two trips to Beijing, I already know the reason why this matter was not as expected!" Zhang Mingwei saw that Emperor Chongzhen wanted to speak after hearing this, so he continued without pausing, "No matter where it is, Officials and squires all have a sense of luck and think that they will not be captured by bandits. This is the first reason!"
As he spoke, he raised a second finger and continued, "Second, because of the past performance of the imperial court, to put it bluntly, the local gentry has actually lost trust in the imperial court and does not think that they will pay a lot of money and food. What a reward from the court! Therefore, if they can control the money and food already in their pockets and not go out, they will never want to hand over the money and food."
Hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen wanted to refute, but when he opened his mouth, he found that there seemed to be no way to refute this.
When he was speechless, Zhang Mingwei had already raised his third finger and said, "Third, those with more money and food are naturally more powerful. Not only in the local area, but also in the court. If the local officials are not forced to do so, I won’t offend them, for fear of being retaliated by these squires later.”
"How dare they?" Upon hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen immediately interjected with a little anger, "How could I allow them to retaliate!"
Hearing this, Zhang Mingwei shook his head and said, "Your Majesty, if they want to retaliate, of course they won't say they are retaliating by collecting their money and food, but they will use other excuses to retaliate against the local officials! There can be many reasons. The officials must have concerns. Even if the official department clearly states that there will be bonuses in the assessment, it cannot stop the hidden arrows behind it!"
Having said this, he emphasized, "At least they must have thought so. Therefore, if they could not offend those squires, they would naturally not offend those squires. However, when they found that the city was in danger and did not care whether they offended those squires, And it’s often too late! Therefore, local officials who are not particularly courageous will not dare to use it even if they have Shang Fang’s sword in their hands!”
Emperor Chongzhen thought carefully about Zhang Mingwei's remarks for a while, and finally couldn't help feeling a little sad, as if this was really the case!
After a while, he couldn't think of a solution himself, so he asked Zhang Mingwei, "Now that you have considered it, sir, do you have any countermeasures?"
After hearing this, Zhang Mingwei immediately replied, "We need to re-establish the prestige of the court and make rewards and punishments clear. So that local gentry will not dare to violate the government's requirements at will, and they can have expectations for future rewards from the court."
During the Chongzhen period, the world had been in chaos for a long time, and the imperial court had been fighting for a long time. People no longer feared the court rules, but learned to play with them.
If you want to change this kind of thing, it will definitely not happen overnight, nor can it be reversed with a will.
Therefore, after hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen frowned and said, "Sir, having said that, how should we do it?"
"Among the squires, the most powerful and influential ones are undoubtedly the clans of the vassals in various places!" Zhang Mingwei raised his voice slightly and emphasized, "If they can take the lead in responding to the court's call and address the court's urgent needs, for other local squires It will definitely serve as an example and give local officials confidence."
"The vassal clan?" Emperor Chongzhen repeated with some doubts after hearing this.
Zhang Mingwei nodded. Since the two of them were chatting privately, he had no scruples and said to Emperor Chongzhen, "Actually, when later generations summarize the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, the clan policy of the Ming Dynasty is also a very important reason. Your Majesty, please think about it. How many of the vassal clans and clans are receiving salaries now? Can the imperial court still afford it?"
Upon hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen showed a little helplessness and said, "Now the imperial court still has money and food to give them salaries!"
In fact, since the Jiajing period, the imperial court has been cheating. When children of the clan are born, if they are not recognized and recorded on the Jade Butterfly, they will not be paid any salary. So much so that those distant clans had to go begging for food in the end. Because the clan cannot do business, cannot take scientific examinations, etc.
Later, this hole was also opened as a compensation to the clan, allowing them to take scientific examinations, do business, etc. But these compensations can't change much at all for ordinary clans, they can only change a very small number of people.
"The vassal kings are hereditary, and as long as the Ming Dynasty continues, there will only be more and more vassal kings." Zhang Mingwei continued to say to Emperor Chongzhen, "Your Majesty, just imagine, if we work hard and revive the Ming Dynasty, it can last for another three hundred years. , how many vassal kings will there be in the Ming Dynasty? Will all the land in the world eventually become the source of salary for the vassal kings?"
The vassal king's salary was not really paid out by the court, but land was given to them, and the output of the land was used as the vassal king's salary.
These lands are not directly under the jurisdiction of the feudal king, but are responsible for the local government, and the annual grain income is given to the feudal prince's palace. In this way, the local gentry and the government colluded with each other to attribute all their fields to the name of the feudal prince, and they would be exempted from taxes, but the income from the grain fields would not be given to the feudal prince.
In addition, there are some local squires who will use the name of the feudal prince's palace to steal and annex land; especially since their fields do not collect taxes and pass all the taxes on to the ordinary people, they will overwhelm the ordinary people. The people were overwhelmed and abandoned their fields and fled, which further aggravated the degree of land annexation.
As a result, vassal kings from various places were imprisoned by the imperial court. They could only go out of the city to worship their ancestors without the approval of local officials, and their nominal fields even stretched across a province.
In other words, the vassal prince was the one who took the blame, and many of the benefits fell into the hands of the local gentry; the one who suffered the most, apart from the fleeing people, was the court.
This situation naturally exacerbated the turmoil in the late Ming Dynasty.
After Zhang Mingwei explained these situations in detail to Emperor Chongzhen, the emperor, who had never been outside the capital, was stunned.
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