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Chapter 396 Use Lantian to See Li Chaosheng's Loyalty and Traitor

"What, Zhang Xianzhong wants Lantian County?!!"

Chongzhen's eyes widened all of a sudden: "This piece of Xianzhong has such a big appetite, and he wants to occupy Lantian County as soon as he surrenders. Lantian County is now an important granary for Ming Dynasty. How can it be given to bandits? No, I won't!"

Yang Sichang knelt on the ground without saying a word, and Chongzhen's reaction was also in his mind. Lantian County is now an important arm for Chongzhen to dare to challenge the princes in the court. Lantian will give Chongzhen a lot of taxes every year. And most of this tax has entered Chongzhen's internal funds, and the court officials can't get it. After all, Lantian is still a county in the Ministry of Households. Emperor Chongzhen has always emphasized that Lantian is only a county, and taxes should be paid. According to the collection of land in a county.

As for Lantian itself, now the taxes paid by Lantian have caught up with the taxes paid by Shaanxi all the way during the Tianqi period, so what about the rest of the extra money?

All of them went into Chongzhen's internal funds. Over the years, Chongzhen dared to refute the ministers, and even overthrew many ministers' long-planned "beneficial country" policy. The biggest reliance is to rely on the taxes paid by Lantian to Chongzhen. This money is Chongzhen's confidence. .

However, if this money does not enter the household department, it cannot be controlled by the princes of the court. This is a variable, and the most disliked by the princes of the court are variables.

Therefore, Lantian has always been a thorn in the eyes and a thorn in the flesh of the princes of the court. It's just that Lantian is too powerful to do anything, and directly moving Lantian is tantamount to touching Chongzhen's small treasury. Chongzhen will definitely be vigilant and let this matter be done. no.

So we must wait for a suitable opportunity, and this opportunity is very good. His Majesty should agree to exchange a blue field for the stability of the northwest of Daming.

Moreover, as long as His Majesty agrees, it means cutting off most of His Majesty's income, which will make His Majesty feel stretched all at once. In this way, His Majesty will agree to some policies even if he disagrees, and this is where the princes profit.

Thinking of this, the corners of the princes' mouths turned up slightly, ready to watch the excitement of Chongzhen.

Yang Sichang knelt on the ground and waited for Chongzhen to vent his emotions. Chongzhen is not a stupid emperor. It doesn't matter if Wei Zhongxian, who is the most popular and influential, gets rid of it.

After all, Wei Zhongxian was so ferocious at that time that all the princes in the court would look up to him, but Chongzhen took power in just two sentences when he came to power, turning him from a powerful nine thousand years old to a helpless old slave.

This made Chongzhen taste the taste of power all at once, and at the same time he also misjudged his ability, thinking that the whole Ming Dynasty was under his control.

In fact, he was obviously limped by the Qingliu of the imperial court. He can control the Ming Dynasty. He can handle the powerful Wei Zhongxian. That's because Wei Zhongxian's power comes from the emperor. Now you have an emperor in the hands of an eunuch Right, isn't that easy and enjoyable?

But what about the princes of the imperial court?Their rights do not come from the emperor's bestowal, they have their own foundation, if they want to move them, they will affect the whole body, if there is trouble, the court will stop, this is a price that Chongzhen dare not bear.

So Chongzhen discovered that since he came to power, he was almost in a desperate situation step by step, and Wei Zhongxian's experience of defeating the power when he was young made him feel very wise, so there were more sassy operations.

In this way, Daming was brought step by step to where he is today.

Chongzhen is not a fool, but a fool, and he is also a fool who thinks he is very smart.

And precisely because Chongzhen is not a fool, but a fool, he is easier to manipulate and deceive.

Just like the case of Lantian, Yang Sichang would not even mention this matter if it were placed on a foolish king, because although the foolish king is stupid, he knows what he needs. , that is, they will desperately pull good things into their arms.

Lan Tian is his current purse, so it must be covered tightly. Whoever dares to play Lan Tian's idea, stretch out his hands, stretch out his feet, and stretch out his hands and feet, we will chop off his head.

One thing is very simple, it is impossible for a foolish king to sacrifice his own personal interests for the sake of the national interests.

But Mingjun will.

The so-called Mingjun is one who is willing to give up personal enjoyment and interests to make the country prosperous. Such a king is a Mingjun.

What about Chongzhen?
A fool who wants to be a Mingjun.

Mingjun has a premise that he must be smart, at least he must have self-knowledge, but what about Chongzhen?
No.

He belongs to the kind of person who takes notes crazily in class, and never dares to be lazy for a moment. On normal days, when others are playing, he is also writing and drawing, but he is the kind of person who takes the bottom of the exam.

Diligent enough, but can't do things right.

The imperial court was poor, so Chongzhen took the lead in saving food and clothing, and only two dishes for one meal, which were vegetarian, but how much money could the emperor save?I don't know about open source, I only know about throttling.

As long as he is good to the country, Chongzhen can wrong himself, eat almost too much, work hard, and even give himself an edict of guilt and admit his mistakes.

It can be seen from this that Chongzhen wants to be a wise emperor, and he is willing to sacrifice his personal interests for the sake of the country.

From this point of view, Chongzhen is a person who wants to be a Mingjun, and has the consciousness to be a Mingjun, but he does not have the brains to be a Mingjun, and this desire to be a Mingjun just became a trick for the ministers to pinch him.

Not collecting commercial tax back then was the success of the brainwashing of the ministers. One sentence, Your Majesty, since ancient times, the Ming emperor should not compete with the people for profit, and directly compensated the commercial tax of Daming.

This is also the way the ministers have concluded how to handle Chongzhen, that is, to suppress Chongzhen and lure Chongzhen with national interests, and this trick has been tried and tested.

This is the trick used to abolish Wei Zhongxian's forced commercial taxation, and Yuan Chonghuan's trick to deceive the governor of Jiliao. To put it bluntly, it is a big cake for Chongzhen.

Your Majesty, as long as there is no commercial tax and the wealth is stored among the people, the people of the Ming Dynasty will live in prosperity and well-being, and your Majesty will be a wise king through the ages.

Your Majesty, as long as you give me the right to deal with the affairs of Liaodong, I guarantee that within five years, Liaodong will be pacified and the Ming Dynasty will be stabilized.

His Majesty……

Based on the experience summed up in these years, Chongzhen still followed this method, and the probability of being accepted was as high as [-]% for any opinions put forward to Chongzhen in this way.

Today, Yang Sichang is also planning to use this method to persuade Chongzhen.

Yang Sichang waited for Chongzhen to vent his temper for a while, and when Chongzhen was almost out of anger, Yang Sichang cupped his hands at this time and said: "Your Majesty thinks that Zhang Xianzhong can be promised."

"what?!"

Chongzhen frowned into Sichuan characters, he did not expect that Yang Sichang would agree to Zhang Xianzhong occupying Lantian, what does Yang Sichang mean by this.

Thinking of Chongzhen staring at Yang Sichang, he said, "Yang Sichang, what do you mean?"

Yang Sichang continued to answer at this time: "Your Majesty, don't get angry, this is what I think."

"Now that the rogue bandits have been settled, and the establishment of slaves in the north is stable, it is a good time to clean up Lantian. Lantian is entrenched in the northwest, and its tail is too big to lose. Now it occupies the entire southern Shaanxi area, and even occupies Guihua City on the frontier. What Li Chaosheng wants to do, what he wants to do, I am afraid that no one in the world knows, he is the heart of Sima Zhao."

Chongzhen was silent when he heard this, Li Chaosheng told the truth, Chongzhen didn't know whether he was a loyal minister or a traitorous minister, call him a traitorous minister, but he never lost the court's taxes, and as long as he occupied a place, this place From this point of view, he is [-] times stronger than those corrupt officials in Daming who evade taxes and sacrifice their lives for money. It is not an exaggeration to say that he is the best official in Daming .

But if he was a loyal minister, why didn't he help himself? Except for taxes, the imperial court could not interfere with all administrative and military matters in Lantian, as if it had become a kingdom within a kingdom of Ming Dynasty, and even fortified Guihua City. Such a strategically important place, he won it down After that, he didn't report to the imperial court to let the imperial court send people to manage it and send troops to garrison. Instead, he directly occupied it. What does that mean?

Although they then made up the taxes for Guihua City, this incident was a thorn in Chongzhen's heart, which made Chongzhen uncomfortable.

Chongzhen really wanted to know whether Li Chaosheng was loyal or traitor, good or bad.

Yang Sichang looked at Chongzhen's face, and knew that what he said touched Chongzhen's heart, as long as he picked out Chongzhen's suspicion, his plan would be half successful.

At this time Yang Sichang said: "Of course, although the whole world said that Li Chao survived the rebellion, he did not raise the flag to rebel after all, and he did not lose a grain of tax from the court. It is too early to directly define him as a traitor. , Maybe he will kill loyal ministers by mistake, so I think this time is the time to test him."

Chongzhen tapped on the Longshu case with his fingers, and did not speak, but raised his hand to let Yang Sichang continue, Yang Sichang continued at this time and said: "Whether Li Chaosheng is loyal or traitor, we are not sure, saying that he is a loyal minister, but he encloses land to enrich himself." , You say he is a traitor, but he still pays taxes to the court, and his taxes have done a lot for the court over the years, so we need to find out his position to determine our future attitude towards Lantian."

Chongzhen frowned slightly and said, "How to be sure?"

Yang Sichang said: "Didn't Zhang Xianzhong want Lantian to be his garrison? We can promise him and pass an imperial edict to Lantian County Zun Li Chaosheng, asking him to hand over Lantian County to Zhang Xianzhong and transfer him to any part of Henan. The magistrate, the county magistrate, this is a high promotion. If Li Chaosheng is willing to come out of Lantian and take up the post in Henan, then his loyalty is undoubtedly. If he is not willing, we must be careful. This son must have two hearts. You should have prepared earlier."

After hearing this, Chongzhen knocked on the table even louder, looking at the officials in the audience, he pondered for a moment and said, "What do you think?"

Hearing this, Yang Sichang looked back slightly, and at this moment, he saw a person kneeling on the ground, "I want to report to Your Majesty, I think that Lord Yang's move is inappropriate."

After hearing this, everyone looked and saw only one person came out and knelt on the ground. It turned out to be Zhang Shenzhi, the censor. Zhang Shenzhi had always had good friends with Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng. .

Zhang Shenzhi knelt on the ground at this moment and said: "Your Majesty, Master Yang's move is inappropriate. This is self-destruction."

"Master Zhang, are you scaremongering right now?"

When Zhang Shenzhi came out, Zhou Yanru's censor, who Yang Sichang had ambushed in advance, also came out to choke. As professional trolls, trolling them is professional.

Zhang Shenzhi frowned slightly when he saw the imperial censor coming out, then opened his mouth and said: "Master Wang, if you don't understand, don't join in blindly. What Yang Sichang said just now is the way to create chaos, destroying oneself without knowing it. "

"Oh, then I have to ask Mr. Zhang. How did Mr. Zhang see that this is a way to create chaos? Why do I only see that Mr. Yang is an old-fashioned way to seek the country? Is it Wang who misunderstood, or Mr. Zhang? Crawling and biting indiscriminately, there is an ulterior secret in it?"

"Hehe, okay, Lord Wang, and Lord Yang, let me ask you, Lantian is the most fertile land in our Ming Dynasty. At present, Lantian pays as much tax as Daming Road. There are [-] roads in Daming, and Lantian's taxes almost account for What do you mean by handing over such a rich land to Zhang Xianzhong? This Lantian fell into the hands of Zhang Xianzhong. Can Daming still receive a penny in taxes? Zhang Xianzhong got the wealth of Lantian and immediately Will it be able to develop and grow, and will it still be restrained by Ming Dynasty?"

"Wait, isn't this breeding tigers?"

Zhang Shenzhi reprimanded him in a cold voice. After hearing this, Lord Wang looked at Yang Sichang. Yang Sichang smiled and said: "Master Zhang said well, this is indeed a problem, but Zhang Xianzhong only has the right to be stationed and has no right to collect taxes. As long as Zhang Xianzhong enters Lantian, we will also send tax collectors and magistrates to station in Lantian to collect taxes from Lantian, which will not be less than in previous years."

"Secondly, when Zhang Xianzhong entered Lantian, he was guarded by Sun Chuanting. Sun Chuanting is the governor of Shaanxi, and he has [-] to [-] elite Qin soldiers. Look at Zhang Xianzhong's side. Forgive him and Zhang Xianzhong will not be able to turn the sky over."

After Yang Sichang said this, he looked at Zhang Shenzhi and said, "Master Zhang is quite satisfied."

Zhang Shenzhi heard the words and said coldly: "Master Yang, are you really deceiving me and weak scholars who don't understand government affairs? Zhang Xianzhong is a rogue, and his station can only be looted. Li Chaosheng managed to manage the government of Lantian County. Zhang Xianzhong went in. How can our last piece of pure land in Ming Dynasty be clean, how can we maintain the prosperity of Lantian, collect taxes, can our officials still receive taxes there?"

"My lord Zhang, don't think so badly about people. Zhang Xianzhong has been ordered to An, he is no longer a bandit, how can he rob the place, besides, the people who can manage the government in Lantian depend on Li Chaosheng. Since Li Chaosheng is so capable, he can be transferred to other places. If we can build another Lantian, Daming’s taxes will not be less.”

"Master Yang, do you really have the heart to destroy one place and build another?"

Yang Sichang said with a serious face: "For the sake of Ming Dynasty, necessary sacrifices are necessary. I don't know if Lantian is an enemy or a friend, how can I get along with him? If I abandon Lantian, I can confirm Li Chaosheng's loyalty and treachery. I think it is worth it."

(End of this chapter)