Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 444 The Tian family is ruthless
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, the lively summer vacation passes by with time.

Compared with the excitement of the capital, Xie Jin's life in Nanjing's imperial prison was worse than death.

Ji Gang did not torture him, but still adopted the method of blocking his sight and locking him in a dark prison with no one to talk to him.

This method made Jie Jin lose weight day by day, and his cheeks and eye sockets became abnormally sunken.

Finally, when the weather turned cold, Xie Jin suddenly saw the cell door being opened, and a dazzling fire appeared in front of him.

Jie Jin saw Ji Gang, whom he had not seen for several months. He walked into the prison with several Jinyi guards and sat in front of him with a chair. Four Jinyi guards stood beside him.

Not long after, there was a table inside with four meat dishes on it, which made Xie Jin feel hungry after not seeing meat for many days.

After Ji Gang came in, he sat there, eating meat and vegetables and drinking wine, as if he had nothing to say.

"I won't say anything, Ji Gou, don't think about it..."

Xie Jin stubbornly spoke his thoughts, but Ji Gang just glanced at him and suddenly smiled after hearing his words of "nothing to say".

He had heard that when treating prisoners, Jin Yiwei would pierce the prisoner's cheek with red-hot iron wire, repeatedly piercing it, and finally set up a shelf so that the person's tongue could not move, and once it moved, it would pull the wound.

"In addition, Jiangxi will also investigate thoroughly for me, and jointly handle the case with the West Factory, the Sixth Department, and the Sixth Army Governor's Office!"

"Hmph, do you think you are still a bachelor of Jie University?"

Time passed little by little, and when Ji Gang walked out of the imperial prison with a thick document, he took the document to the west corner gate of the palace city without thinking.

In front of him, Ji Gang put an iron needle about a foot long into the stove. After a while, he saw that the steel needle was so red that it was almost melting.

"I said! I said!"

"I'm not that stupid. I said I'm different from them..."

Standing aside, Yi Shiha made careful suggestions. Zhu Gaoxu nodded and said: "Send more manpower to the West Factory, and at the same time, let the officials who are preparing in Beijing go to Jiangxi and prepare to choose a place to take up their posts."

Ji Gang chuckled and did not say anything specific, but soon Xie Jin knew what Ji Gang wanted to do to him.

After everything was packed up, Ji Gang re-entered the cell and sat on the chair with a disgusted expression: "Tell me, your methods..."

Before Jie Jin could breathe a sigh of relief, he yelled crazily, and two guards in royal robes stepped forward to take action.

"We..." Jie Jin, who had not left the scene just now, spoke blankly, explaining clearly their network of relationships, as well as the number of people who hide their land and slaves on a daily basis.

After Ji Gang finished speaking, before Jie Jin could speak, he suddenly said: "Take off his clothes..."

Normally, if he could see the light of fire and have a stove for heating, such a day would make Xie Jin extremely happy, but at the moment, he felt like he was falling into an ice cave.

Jiangxi's population on paper is nearly 10 million, but in reality it is probably more than 10 million.

Zhu Gaoxu remained calm on the surface and readily agreed to him, but after he left, Zhu Gaoxu turned gloomy: "This guy thinks I don't know about his dirty deeds..."

It was September and the weather was slightly cooler, but Zhu Di's words made people feel like it was winter.

Looking through the booklet in his hand, Zhu Di didn't expect Xie Jin to explain it so clearly.

"Ji Gou, you dare to use lynching!!"

"We have caught a few people you have relationships with, and now there is no point in you talking about it."

It seems that he is not as strong and steely as written in his poem...

"I accept the decree!"

Ji Gang was excited, confiscation of homes was the way to make a fortune. Although Xichang was involved, there were few people in Xichang and there were not many places to inspect, so he still had to make the most of it himself.

Not long after, he met Zhu Gaoxu in the East Palace, and by the way, he told everything about Xie Jin and Jiangxi.

Its population is equivalent to the four provinces of Beizhili, Shanxi, Henan and Shaanxi combined.

Ji Gang smiled and spoke, then slowly stood up: "Originally you were the only one here, and I didn't dare to torture you, but now..."

An hour later, the booklet appeared in Zhu Di's hands.

"Your Highness, why not send more manpower to the West Factory?"

Ji Gang frowned and seemed to want to take action, but after some consideration, he finally put down the pliers and asked someone to clean up the mess Xie Jin had made.

"Ji Gou!"

"Try my method. This method is completely different from the people below."

As Ji Gang said this, he brought the iron needle close to Xie Jin, which frightened Xie Jin and made him think of Jin Yiwei's methods.

"Okay, according to this manual, you go to the Criminal Division to get the driving ticket, and arrest all the people involved in it."

"It's really very involved..."

At this moment, Xie Jin was so frightened that he became incontinent, and the whole cell was filled with an unpleasant smell.

Ji Gang picked up the iron needle with pliers, stood up slowly and walked to Jie Jin.

After a while, the coals in the furnace turned red and the temperature of the entire cell rose.

Thinking of this, Jie Jin trembled with fear, but Ji Gang chuckled and said, "Haha, do you think I'm going to penetrate your face?"

Thinking of this, Ji Gang slowly exited the West Corner Gate and walked towards the East Palace.

A stove was brought in, Jin Yiwei added coal to it and opened the vent of the cell.

Jie Jin was tied to a wooden bench and could not move at all. He could only scream in horror.

At present, Jiangxi has not yet implemented the New Deal, so it still adopts the tax method of fixed land tax. The annual quota paid is three million shi set by Zhu Gaoxu.

However, on paper, the amount of cultivated land in Jiangxi is 40 million acres. Even if the yield per mu is one stone, four million stones should be handed over after the New Deal.

Of course, if we want Jiangxi to pay more land tax and reduce the burden on the people, then rectifying the administration of officials is the right way.

Now there are more than 700 officials and more than 57,000 staff in Beijing.

Compared with the size of Jiangxi, this amount is obviously not sufficient.

Therefore, Zhu Gaoxu could only say: "This year, students graduating from primary schools with first-class scores will be selected as civil servants. How many do you estimate there will be?"

"According to the situation in previous years, there should be more than 36,000 people." Yi Shiha gave the answer after recalling it, and Zhu Gaoxu was also very satisfied.

It takes two years to digest Jiangxi and then attack Zhejiang. This speed is not slow.

"Let Hu Lun keep an eye on Ji Gang. If he enriches his own pocket, you can ignore it, but you must know how much he has eaten."

"As much as I eat now, I will make him spit it out later."

After the words fell, Zhu Gaoxu was also immersed in the memorial processing.

At the same time, Ji Gang, who had received Zhu Di's order, began a vigorous investigation and house raiding.

Starting with the officials in Nanjing, starting from noon, thousands of Jin Yiwei walked in large numbers through the streets and alleys of the capital, searching among the six departments.

Even officials who were just mentioned by Jie Jin would be arrested and brought to justice by the Jin Yiwei.

For a time, people in the entire capital were in panic, and there were sounds of houses being broken into and ransacked until late at night.

During this process, Ji Gang often targeted people who had a grudge against him. Even if the other party had no friendship with Jie Jin, Ji Gang would collect charges and arrest them.

Among them, the three more famous remonstrators, Geng Tong, Chen E, and Zhou Xin, were arrested by Ji Gang because they had impeached Ji Gang, Chen Ying, Yuan Gang, and Tan Heng Pengbi for deceiving and framing innocent people.

It was just that he arrested the people and sent them to prison, and then Hu Lun released the three of them. Ji Gang was angry but did not dare to say anything, and just vented his temper on the others.

Nearly 30% of the more than 3,000 Beijing officials and more than 20,000 civil servants in Beijing were searched by Jinyi guards sent by Jigang. More than 500 officials were arrested, and as many as 4,000 civil servants were arrested.

If Zhu Gaoxu hadn't prepared enough backup officials in the capital early, he might have arrested enough people in the past few days to paralyze the capital.

Ji Gang's madness puts everyone in the temple in danger, regardless of faction.

Officials organized themselves and knelt down to worship the temple outside the West Point Gate.

"Your Majesty, Ji Gang and Chen Ying deceived the Holy Spirit and harmed loyal people. Please punish them severely!"

"Your Majesty, Ji Gang is causing trouble to Chao Gang, please ask His Majesty to judge!"

"Be born as a straight minister, and die as a straight ghost. I will wait until death to remonstrate. I ask Your Majesty to severely punish Ji Gang and Chen Ying!"

"His Majesty……"

Outside the West Corner Gate, thousands of Beijing officials knelt down and worshiped. The scene was even grander than the Great Court Meeting during the Zhengdan Festival.

They cried and sang at the top of their lungs, but they never saw Zhu Di coming out of the west corner gate.

However, they were not discouraged and continued to kowtow, sing, and speak out about the injustices they saw.

Among them, the three remonstrators, Geng Tong, Chen E, and Zhou Xin, who were fished out by Hu Lun, had red and swollen foreheads and burst into tears.

Sitting in the west corner gate, Zhu Di was as steady as a mountain and was not affected by this group of courtiers at all.

Many of these people were remonstrators and direct ministers, but that did not prevent them from hindering the development of the Ming Dynasty.

The implementation of the New Deal is imperative, and it is better to have hundreds or thousands of officials die than thousands of people to die.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, they relocated all the powerful gentry and wealthy households in Jiangxi. This made it difficult for them to incite the people. As long as the people were not incited, the implementation of the New Deal would not sacrifice too many people who were easily fooled.

Zhu Di concentrated on processing the memorial, but soon he heard footsteps.

He looked up and saw Yi Shiha walking into the palace. When their eyes met, he knelt down and kowtowed five times and three times: "Your Majesty, this is the newspaper that the prince asked his slave to deliver. Please read it."

"Newspaper?" Zhu Di was stunned for a moment, and Wang Yan stepped forward to take the thick stack of newspapers, took it back and handed it to Zhu Di.

Zhu Di opened it and found that the newspaper was relatively thick, two feet long and one foot wide, with many contents written on it. The left side was surrounded by a black frame and read "Da Ming Yue Bao".

Zhu Di flipped through and found out that among the pile of so-called newspapers, there were more than 20 newspapers such as [Da Ming News], [Fan Guo News], [Overseas News], [Nanyang News]... and so on. Specifically broken down, they include the 14th Chief Secretary and Dusi newspapers, as well as local newspapers mainly from Yanran, Bohai, Uszang, Sanxuan and Liuwei, Luzon, Jiugang, overseas officialdom, overseas countries and vassal countries.

The final summary was the [Da Ming Bao], which mainly summarized various places. It also had the most content, but only recorded some major events.

For example, the [Da Ming Newspaper] in Zhu Di's hand contains the story of the Ming Dynasty's return to exile in Guangxi, the case of Jiangxi civil servants and gentry powerful officials protecting each other, and the distribution of taxes to ordinary people, and the mining of gold and silver in Kunlun Island overseas. Mines, as well as various policies for recruiting immigrants in official circles in Southeast Asia and the West.

In addition, there are also the governance situations and directions of each province, as well as some projects and policy directions of the Ming Dynasty.

I have to say that this newspaper is more comprehensive and has a broader coverage than all the [Di Bao] in the Ming Dynasty.

After reading the [Da Ming Newspaper], Zhu Di looked at newspapers from Daning, Shaanxi, Yunnan, Sanxuan and Liuwei and other places. With just a brief glance, he understood the general situation of the Ming Dynasty.

"What do you mean when I ask you to bring these to me?"

Zhu Di put down the newspaper and looked up at Yi Shiha who was kneeling on the ground.

Hearing this, Yishiha bowed and said, "His Royal Highness said that after more than ten years of mandatory official education promotion, the literacy rate in the world has probably increased to 15%. Therefore, public opinion is no longer limited by word of mouth, but can be passed through Newspapers to spread.”

"The resistance to the New Deal in many places is simply because the people do not understand the content of the New Deal and can only judge it through hearsay."

"In addition, officials from various places will also misinterpret the meaning of the imperial policy and cause unnecessary trouble."

"In this case, if we take the [Daming Daily] as our direction, face the people directly, and tell them the court's attitude, the people will not be easily deceived by local officials and the powerful gentry."

"in addition……"

Yishiha read out everything Zhu Gaoxu said to him without deleting a single word.

Zhu Di listened very carefully and finally said:

"This is indeed beneficial to the court, but the newspaper must be in the hands of the court to avoid being incited by people with serious intentions."

Although he thinks newspapers are useful, Zhu Di does not think it is a good thing for newspapers to be available to the people.

After all, the Ming Dynasty was a family. If the speech was too indulgent and the people were dissatisfied with the court, the object of their dissatisfaction would often be attributed to the emperor.

In the long run, the emperor will undoubtedly help local officials bear many scapegoats, so it is necessary to grasp the measure.

"His Highness is going to send thirty-six officials from the East Palace, and then select 3,600 people from the first-class graduating students, and finally send them to various places, from the state capital to the Chief Secretary to lay out the newspaper office."

Yi Shiha explained Zhu Gaoxu's idea. Although Zhu Gaoxu wanted to start with the [County Newspaper], there were more than 1,700 counties in the Ming Dynasty, so the scale was too huge.

In comparison, the scale of less than 300 prefectures is relatively manageable.

As long as the state capital newspaper is completed, the county newspaper can also be slowly advanced.

Of course, the most important thing is that Ming Dynasty's finances are relatively tight, and the implementation of county newspapers requires too much funds.

Newspapers cover many aspects such as politics, economy, military, agriculture, people's livelihood, etc. The reporters who work need to visit, and there are no cars in this era, so they can only be equipped with horses.

In this case, the cost is relatively high, so it is easier to start from the state capital and work upwards.

"Okay, I understand this. When can this newspaper be pushed away?"

Zhu Di asked Yi Shiha, and Yi Shiha estimated: "About two years. In addition, each edition of the newspaper is published at a different time. For example, the [Daming Daily] is published on March, and the Zhili and Zhejiang Chief Secretary's newspapers are published on January 1." The state capital newspaper publishes it relatively quickly, every ten days.”

"It's a bit slow, but just wait until the steam locomotive comes out." Zhu Di nodded and mentioned the steam locomotive, which made the eunuchs on duty who didn't know about it very curious, but they didn't dare to ask more questions.

"Okay, go back to Chunhe Temple."

Zhu Di waved his hand, and Shiha quickly returned the greeting and left.

After he left, Zhu Di continued to work on the memorial, ignoring the cries of ghosts and wolves from Zhou Xin and others.

Zhu Di ignored them, so they had no choice but to watch helplessly as Ji Gang dealt with the Beijing officials involved and then changed direction and headed for Jiangxi.

The news from the capital has spread to Jiangxi, and the six Jiangdong prefectures have learned from the past. The smarter powerful wealthy people quickly worked with the officials to change the "Fish Scale Atlas" and "Yellow Book".

It would be very slow to check this kind of thing if it were done by Ji Gang, but every gentry and powerful family knew how many fields, how many high-grade fields, how many low-grade fields, and how many sloping fields were under their names, so it was very simple for them to change the records.

Of course, smart people are always in the minority. Some gentry and powerful people have not yet discovered the sense of crisis and think that the court is just a big thunder and a small rain.

But their idea was shattered when the 60,000 Jiangbei officers and soldiers in Jiangxi began to take over the city defense.

More than 7,000 people from Xichang, Jinyiwei, Criminal Ministry, Dali Temple, and Metropolitan Procuratorate entered Jiangxi in a mighty manner. They started from Jiujiang Prefecture and went south to arrest the officials involved. They then investigated the "Fish Scale Atlas" and "Yellow Book" based on the officials' confessions. 》, verify the land and household registration status.

As the Beijing-Inquisition team arrived in Jiangxi, the literati in Jiangxi protested one after another, but in the face of the army, their protests seemed particularly weak.

Inciting the people is their common tactic, so bloodshed is inevitable during the inspection process.

Within less than a month of Jiujiang Prefecture’s capital inspection, twelve major and minor conflicts occurred in succession. Memorials were sent to Nanjing like snowflakes, almost filling Zhu Gaoxu’s desk.

"These people are really stupid. The court is here to help them, but instead they defend these guys!"

On the fifth day of October, Zhu Zhanhe, who was returning home from school, was qualified to read the memorials.

When he saw the report of twelve conflicts during the implementation of the Jiujiang government's new policy, Dang even couldn't help but cursed.

Zhu Gaoxu looked at Zhu Zhanhe's appearance, and while his face was calm, he couldn't help but give him instructions:

"It is human nature to be easily incited. The difficulty of being incited depends on the complexity of one's own values, thoughts and other issues."

"It is difficult for people with diversified thinking and diversified values ​​to be instigated by others, because if you want to instigate a person, you must grasp the sensitive points that he cares about. For example, what the people care about is land, and the court takes action against the powerful and wealthy households, relying on The people in the land they hold are easily instigated.”

"You should have learned these things in politics class. You shouldn't be focusing on science and not even take politics class well, right?"

"No!" After hearing his father's words, Zhu Zhanhe said awkwardly: "Of course I did. After you reminded me, father, I also remembered it, but I was a little impulsive..."

"It's normal to be impulsive when young. The Tian family's status is sensitive, so you should pay more attention to this." Zhu Gaoxu explained, and at the same time said to Zhu Zhanhe:
"People are easily incited, mainly because they don't know what the New Deal is. In addition, Jiangxi has always been united and has strong clan ties, so it is not surprising that such conflicts can arise."

"Their sensitive points are mainly farmland and the unknown future."

"This group of people who were incited had either a clan relationship or an employment relationship."

"The tenants' land is in the hands of the landlords. If the landlords go down, they will face a situation where they have no land to farm."

"Even if the government has announced that the land will be distributed equally to tenants, if you were a tenant, you wouldn't believe it. After all, the land value is too high."

Zhu Gaoxu explained to Zhu Zhanhe, and Zhu Zhanhe gradually understood.

The slogan of equalizing land has been around since ancient times, but few have actually implemented it, especially the policy of equalizing land after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Zhu Gaoxu was able to successfully equalize land mainly because he used students from outside Jiangnan to carry out reforms in Jiangnan, so both parties had no time to establish interests.

If Zhu Gaoxu were asked to carry out land equalization reform in Bohai now, he would definitely not be able to carry out the reform, because the local situation has stabilized and it would be very difficult to change it.

But if he uses Jiangnan officials to reform Bohai, that will be another situation.

As Zhu Gaoxu spoke, he turned his attention to Zhu Zhanhe: "You also know about the newspaper, right?"

"I understand, when will Nanjing Daily and Daming News be published?"

Zhu Zhanhe knew that other newspapers were not laid out so quickly, but the "Daming Daily" and "Nanjing Daily" were published quickly because they were right at his feet. Now he couldn't wait to see what his classmates thought of the "Newspaper". evaluate.

"It will be published in about three days. By then, middle schools can also use the credits to redeem it, one copy for one credit."

Zhu Gaoxu told Zhu Zhanhe about the newspaper, and Zhu Zhanhe was happy when he heard the news: "I want to see what the classmates say then."

"They come from all over the world. They may not know the situation in other places, but they definitely know the situation in their own hometown. And this is also the fastest and cheapest way for them to obtain the situation in their hometown."

"That's right, but the Ming Daily is timely and publishes every three months. It basically publishes things that happened three months ago." Zhu Gaoxu reminded.

Zhu Zhanhe doesn't have a young master's temper, which is the most satisfactory thing about Zhu Gaoxu's free-range education.

But after he thought about it, it seemed that most of the emperors in the Ming Dynasty didn't have a young master's temper, otherwise they wouldn't have developed so many hobbies.

On the contrary, those vassal kings had a bad temper and would kill their slaves at every turn.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu asked Yi Shiha: "Since the promulgation of the "Zong Rules", has anyone committed the crime again?"

"Yes!" Yi Shiha said without hesitation: "After King Yi took over Hanzhong, he often rode on horseback in the countryside with slingshots and swords, and frequently attacked the people who could not escape."

"In addition, his life is indulgent and unrestrained. He usually shaves his hair, gets naked, and mixes with men and women without any scruples, and takes pleasure in it."

"After the "Zong Regulations" were promulgated, Shi Wangkun, the chief minister of the Prince of Yi, invited Xie Ran, the prefect of Hanzhong, to give King Yi fifty sticks and imprison him for three years in accordance with the rules of the "Zong Regulations."

"The King of Yi was dissatisfied with Shang Shu, but his servant rejected it..."

"King Yi?" After hearing this title, Zhu Gaoxu thought for a while and then remembered that this was Zhu's royal title.

Zhu is eight years younger than Zhu Gaoxu, and he is still acting like this at the age of twenty-four. If he is not severely punished, he will definitely cause trouble again.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu said with a stern face: "The missionary order punishes Zhu to wear coarse cloth and linen clothes and plow the fields for the people who have been attacked by him."

"Aren't Geng Tong, Chen E, and Zhou Xin good at admonishing, so I sent them to supervise Zhu."

"After the spring plowing is over, if Zhu commits another crime, he will be demoted to a commoner!"

After Zhu Gaoxu finished speaking, Yi Shiha bowed in response, but Zhu Zhanhe said a little unbearably: "Father, King Yi is my grandfather's brother after all..."

"Absurd!" Zhu Gaoxu interrupted Zhu Zhanhe and said sternly:
"They are violating the law in the name of the Zhu family. If we don't punish them severely, then the people will only say that the emperor indulged them, and finally blame everything on the Tian family."

"If you can't bear to deal with them, you have to bear to suppress the people's rebellion in the future. You choose one..."

Zhu Gaoxu waved his hand: "Go down and think about it yourself. If you can't make a decision, it can only mean that you are not suitable to be the future prince of the Ming Dynasty."

"My son, please retire..."

Zhu Gaoxu rarely loses his temper with Zhu Zhanhe, let alone harsh words like this.

Zhu Zhanhe was startled and looked a little panicked.

Seeing his father waving his hand, he quickly left the Chunhe Hall...

(End of this chapter)