Rule over Ming Dynasty

Chapter 272

Zhu Youtang ignored the astonished woman and walked straight towards the Kunning Gate.

I thought that the other party was a pretty quiet princess, but if she didn't want her to find an official for her son, she wanted to excuse Sun Ming.Anyone with a conscience would know that the death of a man like Huichang Hou Sun Ming is not a pity.

The princess of Chongqing couldn't see that Sun Ming's judgment had her own will, but she wanted to punish Song Cheng by herself, she was really a stupid woman.

His own court doesn't need a woman who can point fingers, not even a pro-huang aunt.

Liu Jin also looked contemptuously at the Chongqing princess who was trying to turn right and wrong, and led the accompanying eunuchs to the front to clear the way for His Majesty.

"How could this be?"

Princess Chongqing looked at the back of Zhu Youtang leaving, with an unbelievable astonishment on her face.

Although she had already heard that the prince became different after ascending the throne, no matter how his temperament changed, she would still be his aunt after all.

It's just that who would have thought that the emperor would reprimand herself so mercilessly, but it would embarrass her so much.

The most important thing is that she had already taken the benefits of the Huichang Hou Mansion in advance, but as a result, things were not as smooth as she thought, and even failed.

Princess Chongqing's face was terribly gloomy, but as if she suddenly thought of something, a sinister smile appeared on her face: "I'll see how long you can be arrogant!"

Suddenly, an inexplicable cold wind blew up in the palace back garden, and those few dead leaves fluttering in the wind seemed to make the world confusing.

"The concubine has seen Your Majesty!" Empress Chang Yourong was waiting in the neat palace road behind Kunning Palace, saluting Zhu Youtang who had returned.

After this period of tempering, she has become more and more like a beautiful and dignified queen, and she has gradually integrated into the identity of queen.At least she already knew what she should do and what she shouldn't do.

She didn't know much about court affairs, so she focused on taking care of the harem, so that the emperor would not be disturbed every time he returned, and she also had to reasonably arrange the time for each concubine to sleep.

As for being jealous, it doesn't belong to her, this is a basic skill of the mother.

Originally, the most important thing at the current stage is to conceive a dragon seed as soon as possible, and give birth to a prince for Daming Jiangshan, but there are some things that can be harvested without hard work.

Zhu Youtang looked at the elegantly dressed queen in front of him, but he seriously told him: "From now on, on the first and fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, don't let outsiders enter the Palace Garden!"

It is naturally impossible for the princess of Chongqing to deliberately create a coincidence this time to hide from her own eyes.

In order to prevent other royal relatives from following suit, he decided to block this road first, so as not to encounter such indiscriminate and indiscriminate pleading people again.

Although it is impossible for him to be heartless enough not to have contact with these imperial relatives, but now he takes the initiative to set up an obstacle, so that they can understand that it is not easy to walk along the palace road to meet him.

Although the emperor's favor is very attractive, the emperor's prestige is also inviolable, so he needs those royal relatives to keep their tails between their tails.

"The concubine leads the decree! Your Majesty, the breakfast is ready, please go inside to enjoy it!" Chang Yourong felt Zhu Youtang's dissatisfaction, but pointed her pretty face inside gently.

Zhu Youtang has the habit of eating breakfast at Kunning Palace on the first and fifteenth day of each year. These two days are usually served by the queen, and their relationship is constantly heating up during this simple relationship.

Chang Yourong saw Zhu Youtang leave after breakfast, her pretty face suddenly turned cold and she said, "Who bothered His Majesty in the palace backyard just now?"

"Reporting to Empress, it was Princess Chongqing who found Her Majesty in the back garden of the palace just now!" An accompanying palace lady heard the words and immediately reported in a polite manner.

Chang Yourong's brows were slightly frowned, and there was a trace of anger in her beautiful eyes: "Immediately order! Because worshiping Emperor Zhenwu must be sincere, from now on, people will be sent to guard the back gardens of the first and fifteenth palaces, and there will be no official guards." No permission allowed!"

She did not forget her important duties, she wanted to manage the harem well, and not let His Majesty be troubled by the affairs of the harem.

Since the princess of Chongqing took advantage of the loopholes to disturb the emperor by going to the palace backyard, she could also temporarily seal the palace backyard so that the emperor would not be harassed by these royal relatives.

"Yes!" He Shanggong felt the majesty of the queen, but knew that this matter had touched the queen's scales, so he replied respectfully.

The sky is blue, and the palace walls of the Forbidden City present a rare luxury color in this era.

While the examinees in Fengtian Temple were still scratching their heads and answering the questions, Zhu Youtang was already driving along the palace road in a dragon chariot, but he was about to "punch in to work".

Zhu Youtang looked at the palace road leading to Xihua Gate, but felt a sense of weight.

Although the princess of Chongqing can't affect her progress at all, but seeing this kind of royal family who only cares about their own interests, it is not easy for Huaxia to really take off.

In fact, the key to the prosperity and strength of a country and a nation is money.

Even though the finances of the Ming Dynasty are still healthy, and the annual fiscal revenue is not small, the people's livelihood projects and the army are a huge expenditure, and they still have to support a large number of imperial relatives, civil and military officials, and foreign relatives.

If Huaxia is compared to a roc spreading its wings, then the imperial relatives, military relatives, and corrupt officials are like blood-sucking insects attached to the roc, so even a roc that flies will be short-lived.

That's why, even with the obvious increase in salt tax and grain tax, his budget at the beginning of this year was only 300 million taels.

It's just that everything needs to be compared. Judging from the assets of the internal treasury of the emperors of all dynasties, Zhu Youtang now belongs to the "rich emperor".

Zhu Youtang never felt that he was rich, and had already spent more than half of his silver taels just to build a Tianjin Royal Shipyard that produced large-scale transport ships.

In fact, many time-travel novels are deceptive. The country has only so many resources. How can it be possible to easily get tens of millions of taels from a corrupt official's family, and get hundreds of millions of taels of silver by just clearing the land.

Zhu Youtang thinks that he has done a good job, and has even racked his brains to increase income and reduce expenditure, but the expectation of several million taels per year is already the limit.

In fact, the most effective way to make money in the past dynasties is to increase taxes. After all, each person only needs to pay a small one tael of silver, so in theory, tens of millions of taels can be collected.

Like the alchemy emperor in the back, he not only solved the Japanese pirates problem completely through additional conquests and dispatches, but also built large-scale projects such as the Chengtian Palace, the outer city of the North City, and the Three Great Halls.

It's just that he always kept a bottom line in mind. The later dynasties could not raise taxes on the people in the early stages of the dynasty, and he had no reason to embark on this road.

While he was thinking wildly, the Dragon Chariot entered through the Xiyuan Gate, and soon came to the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Although he was dubbed lazy by many literati for stopping the daily talk and the banquet, he has always been very self-disciplined and hardly ever misses a day.

As usual, Zhu Youtang sat down in front of the imperial case and began to deal with today's government affairs.

Although Daming's jurisdiction covers two capitals and thirteen provinces, now Daming's tentacles have extended to the East China Sea and Indochina Peninsula, so he often has the same connection with these two places.

Xu Shiying's memorial had already been sent to the case, but what appeared before his eyes was a small exquisite sandalwood box with a leaf lock.

Since the leaf lock was invented, he also opened the secret box system, and the correspondence with important local officials such as Xu Shiying was passed through a small locked wooden box.

Click!
Liu Jin took the key that was paired with Xu Shiying, Governor of the East China Sea, and quickly opened the box. Inside was the latest report from Governor Xu Shiying of the East China Sea.

Zhu Youtang was worried that Xu Shiying would be useless earlier, but now he has proved that he has picked the right person, and Xu Shiying has managed Donghai with great vigor.

After Xu Shiying's multi-party coordination, not only has a firm foothold in Sanzhi Island, but also completely entered the North Korean cotton cloth market through the agency.

It's just that it's not Xu Shiying's character to be complacent, nor is it in the fundamental interests of Daming, so it has been advancing to the Japanese market since the beginning of this year.

Japan has just officially entered the Warring States Period, and it is in a turbulent social period.

The Emperor of Japan is actually a virtual emperor, who has been a puppet for thousands of years. The person who really holds the real power has always been the general who conquered barbarians, commonly known as the shogun.

The shogun was responsible for organizing the shogunate to run the whole of Japan, and was not only the supreme commander of the daimyos, but the object of allegiance to all daimyos.

Ordinarily, this political system is fairly stable, but the sixth-generation shogun Ashikaga Yoshinaka was assassinated by Akamatsu Mansuke in his mansion in Kyoto, which opened the prelude to the decline of the Mofu shogun.

Ashikaga Yoshikatsu, who was only nine years old, was appointed as the seventh shogun of the shogun, but he fell off his horse and died the following year after less than a year in office. The real cause of death remains a mystery.

After everyone discussed, his brother Ashikaga Yoshimasa took over as the eighth shogun, but at this time the real power of the shogun had fallen.

Although Ashikaga Yoshimasa and his son Ashikaga Yoshinaka tried to restore the power of the shogun, they all ended in failure, and disputes about the position of the shogun resumed.

Because Ashikaga Yoshizawa has no heirs, he found Ashikaga Yoshinori in a side branch. It was just this year that he was elected as the tenth shogun of the shogun.

It's just that Ashikaga Yoshimasa's official wife Hino Tomiko doesn't like Ashikaga Yoshinori, and is plotting to abolish the new general and replace him with an obedient baby.

Because the shogun is too busy to take care of himself, daimyos from all over the world are becoming self-reliant, and they are less and less treating the shogun as a dish, which has led to continuous wars in Japan over the years.

Zhu Youtang saw that Xu Shiying had contacted Shi Jianguo and Shi Jian's guardian Ouchi family. Since the Ouchi family was one of the two major families that traded with Daming, the two parties quickly concluded the best business partnership.

This result was actually predictable. After all, the Da Nei clan was not considered strong in the mainland, so it was natural to take the opportunity to hug Daming's thick thigh.

Zhu Youtang's gaze was firm, and he wrote earnestly: "According to ancient books, there was a silver mine in Shijian country, and the local people began to mine silver. However, there was a big secret mine in it. You made friends with the Ouchi clan and used cotton cloth Yi silverware, the price is estimated by silverware. When the time is right, if you want to find its big secret mine, you can hire people locally to make silverware and sell it to China and North Korea!"

The largest silver mine in Japan is naturally the Iwami Silver Mine. After the discovery of this silver mine, it has maintained an annual production capacity of more than 50 taels, and it has not been exhausted for a hundred years of continuous mining.

Now that he has met him, he will naturally try to get this silver mine, so that it will become one of the important sources of income for Daming's finances.

It’s just that silver is a metal after all, and even Japan regards gold as a hard currency, so it cannot give too high a status to overseas silver, and needs to weaken its currency attributes as soon as possible.

That's why he now needs to redefine silver, turning silver into a raw material for silverware, not a currency that can be exchanged for Ming goods.

Zhu Youtang had just finished writing the letter to Xu Shiying, when he looked up and saw Liu Jin coming in a hurry, that restrained face clearly indicated that something bad was going to happen.

It's just that after this period of tempering, no matter how big things happen now, I have been able to make the mountain collapse in front of me without changing my face.

Zhu Youtang blew on the wet handwriting of the letter, glanced at the letter in Liu Jin's hand and said indifferently: "What's the matter?"

"Your Majesty, this... this is the memorial sent by the Secretary of the General Administration just now, please read it!" Liu Jin sent the memorial, looking very nervous.

Zhu Youtang opened the memorial that Liu Jin had handed over, and after seeing the content on it, he couldn't help but smiled wryly and said: "Hehe...Zhu Ji really went to the memorial to resign, and the news about Princess Chongqing is even better than me!"

Just now when the princess of Chongqing said that Zhu Ji was going to retire and return to his hometown, although she quickly tried to push the rumors that were spreading indiscriminately to the outside world, she realized that she was very sure of this matter.

Although I already had psychological expectations about this matter, seeing Zhu Ji's resignation letter before him to resign and return home, I still couldn't calm down for a long time.

"Your Majesty, how did Princess Chongqing know about it in advance?" Liu Jin swallowed and spit out her own doubts.

Zhu Youtang put down Zhu Ji's memorial and said with a self-deprecating smile: "The network of relationships in the capital city is more complicated than I thought, and bigger than I thought!"

Obviously there will be no intersection between the commander of Jinyiwei and the majestic princess of the empire. As a result, the princess of Chongqing, who has no sense of existence, knows such important things in advance.

"Your Majesty, what should we do now?" Realizing that the problem was more serious than expected, Liu Jin asked seriously.

Zhu Youtang didn't think too deeply, pointed at Zhu Ji's resignation letter and said, "He's about to run away, so naturally he can't be allowed to do so!"

The reason why he chose to endure Zhu Ji for so long and watched the smoky Jinyiwei do anything wrong, wasn't it because he wanted Zhu Ji to be brought to justice in Jinyiwei's position?

Now Zhu Ji seems to have sensed the danger, but he chooses to run away, which is undoubtedly to disrupt his overall plan.

If I agree with Zhu Ji's resignation now, even if I find Yang Han, the acquaintance of Jin Yiwei, to stand up and testify, I am afraid that Zhu Ji has already fled.

(End of this chapter)