People in the Ming Dynasty are lawless

Chapter 506: The Queen Mother's Family with Ulterior Motives!!

When Xia Yuanji heard what Lan Yu said, he looked at the family curiously. It didn’t seem like a big family. What was going on? Was there something else going on?
Lan Yu saw that Xia Yuanji's eyes were full of doubts and explained: "This family is the family of Queen Mother Sanfuqi. They once followed other ministers to oppose the new policies of their new king."

After hearing this, Xia Yuanji said, "Is that the king who committed suicide?"

Lan Yu hummed, "Logically speaking, this family is very powerful. It allows the Queen Mother to control all the power, and even when the King is still alive, it can force the King to become a lonely man. This is not an ordinary family."

This made Xia Yuanji very curious.

According to the information collected by Jinyiwei, the size of this family does not seem to be very large, not even half the size of the Bolu family.

Lan Yu explained: "It is reasonable that this family is not as considerate as Bo Lu, because their family does not focus on trade, but focuses on controlling the bureaucrats throughout the country."

Xia Yuanji became even more interested after hearing this. "This is quite interesting. Tell me how they did it?"

Lan Yu shook his head. "We need Wang Bi to explain it. I just heard him say that."

Soon Wang Bi was called over.

He was just discussing with his generals the territory allocated to them by Xia Yuanji and planning what to plant to achieve a high yield.

Most of the crops grown in the Srivijaya area are cassava and Champa rice, and the yield is good, but their farming technology is a bit lacking.

Many of the naval officers and soldiers were from farming families. During the war, they only had to take a casual look at the conditions in the fields of Sanfuqi to know that this was a land that needed to be cultivated carefully.

If we cultivate the land well, with the excellent climatic conditions in Sanfuqi, we can definitely increase the yield by more than one third.

So when the soldiers saw that such good land was not being utilized, they all said it was a waste of resources.

Just now, Wang Bi was discussing with his generals how to introduce more advanced farming techniques from the Ming Dynasty.

How did the world develop? Invasion is sometimes cruel, but in order to achieve high production, the invaders must obtain the technology of the colonial country, and the colonial areas developed in this way.

So war is the easiest way to promote the development of science and technology. This is a bit immoral in itself, but this is how science and technology develop.

After Wang Bi was called over, Lan Yu immediately said to him, "Tell the Grand Commander about the family of Queen Mother Sanfuqi. Didn't you speak so eloquently at that time, fearing that I wouldn't understand you? Tell the Grand Commander the same thing now."

After hearing this, Wang Bi was no longer sleepy.

After all, this family is so special and so typical.

When they took over this family, they thought it was so interesting that it didn’t seem like a family but more like an academy.

Wang Bi then said: "It's a bit interesting to talk about the Queen Mother's family. The fun thing is that this family is almost the only official in Sanfuqi who teaches in private schools!"

Xia Yuanji was stunned for a moment: "What do you mean? Please explain it more clearly."

Wang Bi laughed: "If the Grand Commander wants to hear me, I have to tell you the ins and outs of this family. Of course, I only know this after some inquiries."

So Xia Yuanji and Lan Yu drank the local black tea and listened to him speak.

"The formation of the Queen Mother's family has a lot to do with the bureaucratic system of Sanfuqi. Their officials are not selected or recommended, but are promoted based on seniority. For example, if they have six ministries, the selection of the ministers of these six ministries is not just about ability.

To a certain extent, it doesn't depend on how powerful your family is to determine whether you can become the leader. It all depends on how many years your family has been in Sanfuqi.

After getting this pass, these people still need to get the approval of the Queen Mother’s family before they can take office.”

Xia Yuanji asked: "What's the reason for this?"

Wang Bi explained: "It is said that an elder of the Empress Dowager's family once went on a diplomatic mission to the Yuan Dynasty and was personally received by the Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty and awarded a gold medal.

During the Yuan Dynasty, shipping was well developed. A large fleet even sailed southward and swept across the country of Nanyang, frightening many small countries so that they dared not resist at all.

Many countries took the Yuan Dynasty as a model and copied their model.

The ancestor of the Empress Dowager's family was very smart. He had obviously only received a general reception from the Yuan Dynasty emperor, but after returning to his country, he dared to say that he had obtained the true scriptures and claimed that his method could make Sanfuqi more prosperous.

The king at that time believed it and married his daughter as queen. From then on, the king and their family reached a close cooperation.

The Queen Mother's ancestor then established a complete bureaucratic screening system, and only the descendants of families who had prospered in the land of Sanfuqi for more than 50 years were eligible to enter their door and receive real official training.

So the system of seniority began, and the older the family, the more opportunities they had.”

When Wang Bi said this, Xia Yuanji and Lan Yu actually knew what was going on.

It is nothing more than using the so-called knowledge to control all the families in Sanfuqi.

The king was also a smart man and he probably knew long ago that the Queen Mother's family was being mysterious, but his political needs required just this kind of mysterious thing, to sanctify the position of officials and make more families submit to the king's rule in order to become officials.

No wonder there is always a woman who becomes queen in every generation of the Queen Mother’s family. This is a deal, a game of power.

The kings of all dynasties were also very smart to use the queen's family to bind the entire country's family.

However, this also has a big disadvantage, which is equivalent to cultivating a natural rival to the king in Sanfuqi.

A stronger king can intimidate the Queen Mother's family, but a weaker king will be directly controlled by the Queen Mother's family. This is a super in-law family, and the kind of in-law with disciples all over the world. This is simply terrifying.

No wonder the new king saw this drawback and wanted to reform it.

Allowing ordinary people to be tax-free and making the rich pay taxes is just the first step.

The second step might be to allow children from poor families to enter the officialdom and change the one-sided control of the government by the queen's family.

But unfortunately, the king obviously did not expect the queen's family to be so powerful. His original intention was good, but his strength was too weak. Even his childhood friend who grew up with him betrayed him at the most critical moment.

The reason why Lan Yu was surprised at the beginning that this family was also controlled was because this family had disciples and former officials all over the world, and it was not so easy for them to surrender.

Even ordinary business families wanted to resist, and they all wanted to lie dormant for a while and then wait for an opportunity to rise again. Not to mention the families that truly controlled the power of the country. If they surrendered so easily, the king's new policy reforms would have been implemented long ago, and the country would not have been destroyed now.

To put it bluntly, although the king has the final say in the country of Srivijaya, the internal power should be firmly controlled by this family.

They did not even agree to the king's reform of merely exempting the people from tax and making the rich pay taxes, let alone agreeing to Xia Yuanji's statement in the court that the entire Sanfuqi should be ruled by the Ming Dynasty and implement the imperial examination system.

Allowing more children from poor families to study and take the imperial examinations to become officials is simply to subvert the entire legitimacy of this family and to dig out their roots.

Will they be convinced?
So this is the most bizarre part.

This is also why Lan Yu found it strange when he saw that this family was willing to become puppets of the Jinyiwei.

Even he, an outsider, felt that there was something wrong here, not to mention the entire Queen Mother's family.

They must have made this decision after a lot of careful consideration, and there must be some unspeakable secrets behind this decision.

After listening to Lan Yu and Wang Bi's words, Xia Yuanji became more interested in this family.

If this family had been able to control all the officials of the country in some way before, then they could use the name of this family to make their disciples and former officials obey a wrong signal and follow the footsteps of the Ming Dynasty.

It can be seen that this family must be planning some grand plan, which is a bit like sleeping on straw and tasting gall.

Then let you know, our ancestor who used the tactic of forbearance is right in front of you, and he is trying to do the same to us to let you know what it means to lose the rice while trying to steal the chicken.

Xia Yuanji asked: "I seem to remember that the Queen Mother is not dead either?"

Lan Yu replied: "Such a person will not die easily. It was this queen mother who controlled a lot of power in the beginning. Even the mobilization of the army was in her hands. She did not allow the king to mobilize 30,000 elite soldiers, which led to the Majapahit Kingdom breaking through many cities in Srivijaya, forcing many people to pick up hoes and fight against the Majapahit Kingdom, resulting in many casualties.

The reason why the people of Srivijaya were so grateful to our Ming Dynasty was because of this accident.

This accident has won our Ming Dynasty a lot of support from the people in Sanfuqi.

After the king committed suicide, the prime minister was pushed to the front and killed. When the queen mother saw that we were coming from the Ming Dynasty, she hid in her family house as if nothing had happened, showing that she didn't care about government affairs at all."

After listening to this, Xia Yuanji smiled slightly and said, "Great! Very interesting! Tell me what the Jinyiwei has heard!"

The Jinyiwei commander stepped forward and reported: "At first, the Jinyiwei didn't pay much attention to this family. It was because after the Queen Mother returned to her family, many officials began to move around in their family, which attracted their attention. So they paid more attention to it and found that this Queen Mother was indeed a bit ambitious.

We have learned that the Queen Mother recently instructed officials to look for the Han people living in Sanfuqi."

The commander's words brightened the eyes of everyone present. It seemed that these people were preparing for a rainy day.

I guess he really wants to find those Han people to learn some Chinese characters or language first, in order to seize a future official position in advance.

There is nothing new about this kind of thing.

"Anything else?" Xia Yuanji asked.

Now that I'm interested in this family, I must study all the movements of these people carefully.

The commanding officer said again: "Also, these officials have begun to send their own children away, either to live with ordinary people or to find a place to stay. The household registration has also been changed."

Wow, this is a case of switching the dragon for the phoenix.

Knowing that the Ming Dynasty would focus on training some children from poor families after coming here, they first disguised their own children as children from poor families, and then trained these people to become the people the Ming Dynasty needed. In this way, they could invisibly grasp the official positions in their hands again.

I have to say that these people actually have some brains and know how to make choices.

But the Ming Dynasty does not need such people.

The good policies of the Ming Dynasty cannot be controlled by people like you. You once controlled the power of Sanfuqi, and now you want to turn around and continue to control the power of the Ming Dynasty here, but it won't be that easy.

So Xia Yuanji thought about it and said, "Let's go! We have to go to this family and see for ourselves. I want to see what the difference is between these people and what tricks they can come up with."

Lan Yu and Wang Bi became more and more interested in this family.

Before, they only knew that this family had produced several generations of queens. They thought that this family specialized in producing beauties or marrying into the royal family. Now they know that the king was also forced to marry the daughter of this family. After all, the power is in the hands of others, and if you don't obey, you may lose your life.

At the same time, we also learned that the new king was facing such a situation. No wonder he was defeated miserably. It was not unfair. They had been planning for so many years and had controlled Sanfuzi for so long. How could they let a young boy like you destroy their thousand-year plan?

However, this family never dreamed that it was because of their greed that the Ming Dynasty went straight south and took over the entire Srivijaya. It is also unknown whether these people would cooperate with the king to carry out reforms if they knew this result would happen.

But maybe it really won't happen. After all, if we reform, it's like cutting our own flesh with a knife, which cannot be done.

Thinking of this, Lan Yu and Wang Bi were both very interested in what kind of surprises they would find if they went to that family now. They also didn't know what kind of sparks would be created when the two groups met.

In particular, the two of them really wanted to see what kind of appearance the empress dowager would show when appearing in front of Xia Yuanji, and whether she would be unable to let go of her airs.

……

The Queen Mother's family.

When the news came that Xia Yuanji was coming to the family, the whole family was in quite a commotion.

Since coming to the Ming Dynasty, they thought they had been very low-key, because they knew that the Ming Dynasty's Jinyiwei were very powerful, so they were very cautious and afraid that if they did something wrong, the Jinyiwei would find out something.

But I never expected that being so careful would still attract Xia Yuanji's attention. What was Xia Yuanji going to do?
The Empress Dowager was still wearing gorgeous robes in the mansion. Ironically, this silk robe was imported from the Ming Dynasty.

Unlike other tribesmen who were nervous, she had seen a lot after all, so she quickly calmed down: "Isn't it just a Ming Dynasty capital? We have seen all kinds of scenes. Don't forget that our ancestors also saw the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty!"

……

(End of this chapter)