The six-dimensional pictures of emperors of all dynasties were exposed, and the ancestors panicked

Chapter 615: Zhang Juzheng Going Against the Current
[On October 18, Hanlin Academy editor Wu Zhongxing, reviewer Zhao Yongxian, Criminal Department deputy minister Ai Mu, and director Shen Sixiao submitted memorials to impeach Zhang Juzheng.]

……

Zhang Juzheng on the sky curtain is wearing a long robe.

He looked at the group of uninvited "evil guests" with a stern face and said nothing.

"Uncle, what Zidao said makes sense."

An old man twirled his beard and said earnestly:
"You have been working hard for the public day and night. It has been nineteen years since we last met."

"The son has grown from strong to powerful, and from powerful to weak, just like the father has grown from weak to gray, and from gray to old. We have never seen each other's voice or appearance."

"Now that the elder has passed away thousands of miles away, it is a farewell forever. Even if he cannot lie prostrate on the grass, he can only lie in a coffin beside the grave. The feeling and reason are too great to bear."

Several others followed suit and bowed to Zhang Juzheng, who had a grim look on his face:
"Yes, Prime Minister, you know your teacher."

"Although the words are sarcastic, the truth is always flawless."

"You can serve as a subject for several years, but you cannot serve as a father for even a day... It is difficult to be both loyal and filial, but you cannot abandon filial piety and pursue loyalty."

"Uncle, you are staying here now as a precedent, but you are brazen enough to join us. If there is a big celebration or sacrifice in the future, and you are a prime minister, if you say you will avoid it, it will be against the principle of monarch and ministers."

"I want to leave, but I feel uneasy about the deep relationship between father and son."

"Uncle, how will Your Majesty handle Juzheng at that time, and how will Juzheng handle himself?"

"Yes, the most important thing for the country is moral principles. The prime ministers are the representatives of moral principles. If moral principles are ignored, how can the country be safe?"

Zhang Juzheng endured it again and again, and said:

"What are you all here for?"

The leader paused, clasped his hands and said:

"Please ask Uncle Da to write a petition to rescue these people."

……

[After the memorials were submitted, Feng Bao kept them for several days without sending them out, and asked Zhang Juzheng to draft the imperial edict.]

【Zhang Juzheng was furious and agreed with Feng Bao to punish these four people with caning in the court.】

【Wang Xijue, the president of the Hanlin Academy, gathered dozens of Hanlin scholars and officials from the Imperial Academy to seek an explanation from Zhang Juzheng, but Zhang Juzheng refused to see him.】

【Wang Xijue went straight into Zhang's house and asked for a solution on behalf of the people who had submitted the petition.】

【Zhang Juzheng said: "The emperor's anger is unpredictable." Wang Xijue said: "Even if the emperor is angry, he is angry for the old gentleman."】

[Zhang Juzheng knelt down in anger, raised his hand to ask for a knife, and made a gesture of cutting his neck, saying: "The emperor forced me to stay, but you guys chased me away and wanted to kill me!" He then shouted again and again: "Come and kill me, come and kill me."]

[Wang Xijue was so frightened that he quickly ran away, and the behind-the-scenes drama of seizing the love also came to the fore.]

[On October 22, Emperor Wanli issued an edict: He ordered the Jinyiwei to arrest Wu, Zhao, Ai, and Shen and bring them to the front of the Meridian Gate to be beaten with sticks.]

[Wu and Zhao were each given 60 strokes of the cane and sent back to their hometowns as civilians, never to be employed again.]

Ai and Shen were each given 80 strokes of the cane and sent to the border as soldiers. They would not be pardoned even if pardoned.

……

Great Qin.

Ying Zheng snorted coldly and said two words lightly:

"A corrupt scholar."

Everyone in the hall agreed with this.

Meng Tian stroked the mustache on his chin and shook his head:
"The house is on fire here, and the master is dead over there. Do you want to cry for the master first or put out the fire first?"

"This principle is so obvious, why bother making such a fuss?"

Wei Liao put his hands in his sleeves and said calmly:
"There is a desire to seize power, but there is also a desire to defend moral principles."

"That's what the Confucian group looks like."

Xiao He looked at the sky and said thoughtfully:

"Zhang Juzheng has some of the style of Shen and Han, which is probably the source of his uniqueness."

Feng Quji twirled his beard, shook his head and sighed:

"Let's not talk about the source for now."

"This measure is too extreme."

"Today you are on stage, and you have done something so extreme. When you step down one day, how will others treat you?"

“You can’t stay on stage forever.”

Liu Bang scratched his thigh and said:

"The mess that is the Ming Dynasty needs to be repaired!"

"If Shang Jun had not cut off Gongzi Qian's nose, would Qin have been able to reform successfully?"

Ying Zheng looked at Liu Bang with appreciation.

……

The period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty
"He wants to be a lone minister."

Liu Che looked at Zhang Juzheng's decisive measures and admired his courage.

This time, he had a complete feud with the scholars and colleagues.

From now on, either you die or I live.

"I just don't know if the little emperor can shoulder the responsibility of being a lonely minister."

……

[On October 24, Zou Yuanbiao, a Jinshi in the Ministry of Justice, again submitted a memorial to impeach Zhang Juzheng for "seizing love". He was finally caned 80 times in court and exiled to the army.

Duyunwei, Guizhou. 】

[On the fifth day of the eleventh month, Wanli ordered Chen Xuezeng, the junior minister of the Honglu Temple, to convey an imperial decree to Zhang Juzheng, asking him to enter the cabinet on the sixth day to handle affairs as the 49-day mourning period for his father had expired.]

【On November 24, Zhu Hongmo, the Imperial Censor of Zhejiang Province in Nanjing, submitted a memorial to appeal for the injustice of Wu Zhongxing, Zhao Yongxian, Ai Mu, Shen Sixiao, and Zou Yuanbiao. Wanli issued an edict: to remove them from their posts and make them civilians.】

[The love affair was a major event in the fifth year of the Wanli reign, and its impact was so great that it shook the court and the country.]

[The streets and alleys were also buzzing with excitement. ]

[However, no matter how formidable the power of traditional ethics and morality is, it is ultimately no match for the powerful power of the regime.]

【In this struggle, Wanli won and Zhang Juzheng won. 】

[As the saying goes, strike while the iron is hot. Zhang Junzheng took advantage of the situation to deepen the progress of the reform. ]

【Fiscal reform.】

……Song Dynasty Shenzong Period
"financial……"

When Zhao Xu looked at these two words, a myriad of thoughts arose in his mind.

After the political reform has achieved certain results, it is time to move on to economic reform.

Because what we have to face is the serious problem of national poverty and people's poverty that has accumulated over a long period of time.

It cannot be achieved without major military action.

We must follow the principles of comprehensively verifying the actual situation and rewarding and punishing according to the merits, and use strict performance appraisal systems as a means to ensure that orders are carried out and prohibitions are enforced, and to prevent reform from becoming a mere formality.

"Seizing love defends the New Deal."

Wang Anshi looked at Zhang Juzheng in the sky, with a flash of admiration and envy in his eyes.

……

[The financial difficulties of the Ming Dynasty have a long history. Let’s not talk about the distant past. From the seventh year of Jiajing (1528) to the fifth year of Longqing (1571), the comparison of the annual silver inflow and outflow of the Taicang Silver Treasury showed that there was no surplus in any year, and all were deficits.]

[In order to get out of the predicament, Zhang Juzheng focused his financial management thinking on increasing revenue and reducing expenditure. ]

【Based on the principle of "the people do not need to pay more taxes and the country will have more money" by Sang Hongyang, a financial expert during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, he proposed the financial policy of "no additional taxes and sufficient money for the government". 】

【But this must be guaranteed by a strict performance evaluation system. 】

[Different from those ministers who only beg for additional taxes to meet the needs of the country. ]

【Zhang Juzheng's "no additional taxes but sufficient spending" is not just a nice-looking slogan, but is backed by concrete measures. 】

【That is, "punishing corruption to feed the people" and "rectifying debts to feed the country." 】

[We will work together to crack down on corrupt officials who use public funds for personal gain and the powerful and cunning who default on taxes, and use the suppression of their illegal gains as a means to increase the country's fiscal revenue.]

……

Ming Dynasty Yongle Period
"A two-pronged approach..."

Zhu Di twisted the ring on his thumb, frowned and thought:
“Isn’t this a bit general?”

Zhu Gaochi took a step forward and whispered:
"Dad, I have some immature ideas."

Zhu Di raised his eyebrows, leaned forward slightly, looked him up and down, waved his hand and said:

"put!"

Empress Xu slapped him in annoyance.

Zhu Di rubbed his arm and smiled apologetically, then turned to Zhu Gaochi and said seriously:

"Well, what are your thoughts?"

Zhu Gaochi bowed and said:

"First, it curbs the expenditure of the state and court finances."

"Reduce the establishment of officials in Nanjing, terminate or reduce the palace's weaving projects, save expenses on palace festivals and banquets, and reduce large-scale engineering and construction projects."

"Second, strengthen the management of money and grain and military farms in border towns to avoid or reduce the increasing financial pressure on military pay in border towns."

"Third, restrict the privileges of officials, curb the abuse of power by the royal family, and reduce the quota of students."

“Fourth, strengthen the financial affairs of the Ministry of Revenue.”

"A large-scale reorganization of the tax collection books."

"Supervise the attendance of the officials of the Thirteenth Bureau of the Ministry of Revenue, such as the Deputy Directors and Chief Officials."

"Conduct a survey of the actual situation of border pay and formulate a border pay policy."

“Strengthen the reporting of local governments’ financial status to the Ministry of Finance so that the Ministry of Finance can operate finances based on the national financial situation.”

Zhu Di stared at Zhu Gaochi, who had a serious expression on his face.

"You have been thinking about this idea for a long time."

Zhu Gaochi nodded and said softly:

"Dad, the deepest problem of the Ming Dynasty is still the ancestral system."

"Nothing can be done without destruction, it's easy to say."

"It's better to fix the problem at the beginning."

"Dad, your majesty is enough."

"Grandpa is reopening China, it's incomparable."

"Let's focus on the people of the world and the vast country!"

Zhu Di looked at him, motionless.

I do not know how long it has been.

The emperor sighed.

"Great, you are worthy of being our kind!"

……

On the canopy.

Zhang Juzheng, dressed in an official robe, looked at the territory of the Ming Dynasty with a solemn expression.

On the territory, squares representing land surveys appear.

And behind him.

The young emperor in a dragon robe stood with his hands behind his back and his back to him.

……

[The first and most unavoidable fiscal reform is to survey the land and grain.]

[In November of the sixth year of the Wanli reign (1578), Zhang Juzheng ordered, in the name of Emperor Wanli, to implement a trial land survey in Fujian Province.]

[In September of the eighth year of the Wanli reign (1580), the land survey in Fujian was completed, and hectares of land that had been concealed and tax evaded were found.]

【So Zhang Juzheng, together with cabinet ministers Zhang Siwei, Shen Shixing and the Minister of Revenue Zhang Xueyan, decided to implement the Fujian measurement method throughout the country.】

【Wanli approved it and immediately issued eight items for land measurement and tax collection.】

[At the same time, an order was issued to all parts of the country: "All governors and inspectors should carefully check and implement the order, and not be careless and cause trouble."]

In December of the ninth year of the Wanli reign (1581), Wanli investigated officials who had a negative attitude towards land measurement, including Yan Bangning, the prefect of Songjiang, Guo Siwei, the prefect of Chizhou, Ye Mengxiong, the prefect of Anqing, and Li Haowen, the seal-holding official of Huizhou Prefecture. They were suspended from their salaries and were ordered to make amends for their mistakes.

[Under strong political pressure from the imperial court, from the eighth year of the Wanli reign to the eleventh year of the Wanli reign (1583), land surveying work was completed in various parts of the Ming Dynasty.]

(End of this chapter)