People live in the Ming Dynasty, evil spirits are soaring into the sky

Chapter 416: Low-rent housing appears in Beijing
Princess Ning'an and her companions had done such a big thing in Ningbo that the news soon reached the capital.

Although the capital city is developing very well now, especially since the opening of Daming Engineering College, famous craftsmen from all over the world want to come and try their chances. After all, the conditions offered by Daming Engineering College are so generous.

You can get subsidies just by passing the exam, and if you have a patent for the technology, you can get even higher subsidies.

Although they were all craftsmen, they had heard in the village that students didn't have to pay tuition to teachers in private schools nowadays, but at such a large school like Daming Engineering College, students could eat well, live well, and have a good environment, but they didn't have to pay tuition and even received subsidies.

Isn't this simply pie in the sky?

Therefore, it is reasonable that the assessment of the School of Engineering is very strict.

After all, it would be a great tragedy if all kinds of trash could get in, and the court can't keep trash around every day, right?
Daming Engineering College is located on the bank of the Yongding River, not in the city, in order to provide students with a very good and quiet environment for their classes. However, as more and more craftsmen moved to nearby villages to prepare for the exam next year, the flow of people here suddenly increased.

Even during the annual temple fair, the price here can increase three or four times.

This place has become the most prosperous place outside the capital.

The main street here was also renamed Guogong Street because this is where Chen Han’s mansion is located.

At this moment, the streets and alleys of Guogong Street were filled with the aroma of snacks, making Zhang Juzheng and others who had just finished court and came to Guogong Street salivate.

They probably didn't expect this place to become so prosperous so quickly, and they were also surprised at the liveliness of the place.

Bustling with people and crowded with tourists are the best words to describe this place.

Looking further away, you can see flags fluttering on the Yongding River, and ships for different purposes constantly traveling back and forth on the river, transporting all kinds of goods.

The workers at the dock were busy unloading cargo and their shouts were extremely loud.

When Zhang Juzheng saw this worldly scene, he stroked his beard and smiled particularly brightly.

"The Duke once told me how to govern the world well. In fact, governance is only one of the key points. The real way to make people live a prosperous life is to make them rich. And the way to make people rich is to develop business."

He was very emotional as he spoke.

Zhang Juzheng was also a rare genius, but when he met someone like Chen Han who had a God's perspective, he sometimes had to admit that he still lost at certain times.

Although he somewhat disagreed with Chen Han's execution of so many officials, when he saw the images in front of him, he realized that sometimes you have to destroy before you can rebuild, otherwise there is no chance for you to reorganize.

The officials now had to admit that although the Duke's fund was not in line with the kindness of their Confucian scholars, they could only smile awkwardly when they saw the achievements they had made. It turned out that they could be achieved in this way.

"I heard that the Duke has renovated a lot of houses nearby for the common people to live in? They are called low-rent housing?" Zhang Juzheng was a little unfamiliar with this term.

But this is just the literal meaning. For geniuses like them, many unfamiliar things can be understood with just a little thought.

The official in charge of Guogong Street came forward to explain: "Your Excellency, this low-rent housing was proposed by the Duke. Compared to the extremely expensive housing in the capital, the low-rent housing here charges less than 10% of the rent each month, which greatly reduces the pressure on people who come to the capital to make a living."

An official said, "There is one thing I don't understand. Since our court is now thriving and the Duke has achieved such success in all aspects, why do you still charge such a small rent?"

Even Zhang Juzheng felt that this person was just looking for trouble when he heard this.

They didn't dare to mention these things in front of Chen Han, but he dared to do so in front of the manager.

There is no other reason, it is just because many of his family members and friends died at the hands of Chen Han, and these people dare not vent their anger on Chen Han.

Of course, they can actually do this, but Chen Han's approach is more radical. It is easy for him to label such people as rebels and then kill them.

So of course they didn't dare to say anything in front of Chen Han.

Now that Chen Han is leading his troops to fight outside, of course they dare to be active.

Although Zhang Juzheng is now entrusted by Chen Han and trusted by the emperor, he cannot act as unscrupulously as Chen Han.

After all, Chen Han has the military power in his hands. Now the entire Beijing camp is under the jurisdiction of Chen Han, and others can only watch helplessly from the sidelines.

Zhang Juzheng was sometimes very conflicted. He also wanted to kill those people who were just doing nothing, but the reform was still going on and there were not so many people to replace these good-for-nothings, otherwise he would have replaced them long ago.

Faced with this tricky question, the person in charge was about to explain when he heard someone shouting from the side.

"Miss Guo and Miss Sofia are here!!"

Nowadays, Guo Feixue and Sophia are both well-known female heroes in Guogong Street, no, it should be said that they are well-known female heroes in the court.

Although Sophia is a foreigner, everyone knows that her identity is actually similar to Chen Han's woman.

Of course, this is only a subsidiary identity. Her most important identity is the first president of Daming Engineering College, and a female president at that.

When they learned that Sophia was a woman, many old scholars were so angry that they even jointly went to the Ministry of Rites to sue the Engineering College, saying that it was unethical for a woman to be the principal of a private school.

However, when they found that it was of no use at all, they ran to the school gate in anger and started yelling and cursing. After being starved for two or three days by the people from the School of Engineering, the matter was dropped.

However, the criticism against the School of Engineering has never stopped. Even though the School of Engineering, under Sophia's leadership, has completed construction projects such as the Zhaozhou Bridge, it still hasn't made those people shut up.

In fact, those people who are gossiping don’t think that Daming Engineering College is bad. They just wonder why Chen Han doesn’t let Confucian scholars like them manage such a good college.

Why is Chen Han so politically uninformed that he would not give all the credit to the Minister of Works who should be in charge of the engineering project?

Shouldn’t the style of work in official circles be that all the credit belongs to the leader and to everyone?

Why is it that your Daming Engineering College has done such a big thing and we have nothing to do with it? Doesn't this make us seem incompetent?
Also, why can't we, the students of the Hanlin Academy who have already achieved fame, go to the Daming College of Engineering? We are so outstanding, but we can't go. Do you think your Daming College of Engineering is such a prestigious place?

It's just a group of unskilled craftsmen. What's there to be so arrogant about?

You should give all the credit to us scholars. It would be fine if the craftsmen did the hard work and got paid, but now you want to give such a huge credit to these craftsmen. You really don't take us scholars seriously!
Of course, they didn't dare to say these words openly. If Chen Han, the God of Killing, heard such words, he would probably search every household and kill them. He might even start a literary inquisition and kill everyone who had said such words before.

However, secretly expressing their dissatisfaction or even expressing their emotions in strange stories are their specialties.

After all, the records in history books are decided by these scholars.

However, such a beautiful scenery before them was created by a group of craftsmen and a few women, which made them very dissatisfied.

They were even more unwilling to accept the fact that such a great place was created without them even knowing how it happened.

Seeing such a nice place, which is inhabited by a group of ordinary people and various craftsmen, and even hearing from the manager that there are so-called low-rent housing here, which is less than one-tenth of the rent in Beijing, how can they bear it?

The main reason is that the salaries of these civil servants are not very high, but the pressure of living in the capital is still very high, especially the rent.

Places like the capital have been places where every inch of land is worth a lot of money since ancient times, and it takes a lot of capital to gain a foothold here.

Although many officials in Beijing appear to be in a prosperous position on the outside, they actually still have a lot of trouble with food, accommodation and transportation.

That is why they kept complaining about the salaries of Ming Dynasty officials. Or maybe they couldn't always blame them. It was really that the cost of living in the capital was very high, and sometimes they felt helpless.

So now when they heard the manager say that there were so-called low-rent housing here and the rent was so cheap, they couldn't afford it.

When they heard that the rent was only about 10% of the rent in Beijing, they couldn't bear it even more.

The jealousy in their hearts made them say such sour words.

Guo Feixue and Sophia heard their conversation from a distance and began to feel contempt in their hearts.

Among this group of officials, only Zhang Juzheng could catch their eyes, and the other officials had to step back.

Unlike other officials' travels, Guo Feixue and Sophia did not have any pomp. Even though they were dressed in luxurious clothes and as beautiful as fairies, making the entire market town pale in comparison, no one felt jealous.

Chen Han said something very well: Why shouldn’t people who have made great contributions to the court’s cause enjoy the wealth they deserve?
The more capable a person is, the more material things he or she should enjoy.

The real absurdity is that capable officials must live in poverty all their lives.

Why can't officials enjoy themselves just because they have worked hard? This is a huge paradox.

Guo Feixue and Sophia walked up to Zhang Juzheng and bowed: "Greetings, Mr. Zhang!"

Zhang Juzheng hurriedly returned the greeting: "You two ladies are too polite."

Even though he is now the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, he does not dare to be negligent when facing Guo Feixue and Sophia.

Although Sophia is a foreigner, she is now the headmistress appointed by the emperor himself. In terms of title, she is already an official of the fifth rank and also holds the position of the head of the Ministry of Rites.

Although Guo Feixue does not hold an official position in the court, she is now the saint of the entire White Lotus Sect.

Today, the White Lotus Sect is undergoing transformation and has completely become a sect that benefits the country and the people.

The White Lotus Sect is a mixture of many Taoist and Buddhist doctrines, forming a simple worship among the local people, who worship the idea that doing good deeds and accumulating virtue will bring good luck.

For Chen Han, such a good sect is a good thing for doing good and accumulating virtue, so he highly recommends it.

The most important thing is that Chen Han now needs something from a sect to make the people do good, and at the same time promote his own reform ideas.

Guo Feixue understood what he meant in this regard, and since she was his woman, he was essentially saving the White Lotus Sect, so they were very grateful for what he had done.

During this process, Guo Feixue naturally became a very important person.

During the construction of Zhaozhou Bridge, the members of the White Lotus Sect also showed great sincerity, and even the imperial court attached great importance to them.

Previously, the imperial court had always regarded the White Lotus Sect as a cult. Of course, everyone knows that it was because Emperor Taizu was once a descendant of the Red Turban Army branch under the White Lotus Sect. It is estimated that Emperor Taizu was well aware of the power of the White Lotus Sect and was afraid that such a sect would rebel again in the future, so he simply killed them.

And now Chen Han is giving the White Lotus Sect a chance to turn things around, and the White Lotus Sect will of course seize this opportunity.

After Guo Feixue arrived, she glanced at the official who had just spoken.

Guo Feixue was as pure and flawless as the snow lotus of Tianshan Mountains. Now that she had been in a high position for a long time, she had the temperament of a superior, and her temperament was even more irresistible. Just one glance at her made the official feel a little ashamed and lower his head.

However, Guo Feixue obviously would not argue with such a short-sighted person, but followed his words to explain the real role of low-rent housing.

“What the gentleman said just now is a little wrong. The reason why low-rent housing has to charge corresponding rents is, on the one hand, to offset the cost of building these low-rent housing; on the other hand, this part of the fee is also to pay the workers who maintain the environment around the low-rent housing.

This amount of money may not seem like much, but it has been carefully calculated to ensure that the tenants can afford it while also being enough to pay the workers' wages.

Only in this way can low-rent housing survive in a virtuous cycle.

If there is no money, firstly, the tenants will not appreciate the good things in front of them without paying any price; secondly, there will be opportunists who will impersonate them; thirdly, if the Duke no longer manages this area in the future and his successor changes the rules, who can these poor people go to for justice?

Now that the Duke has set all the rules, successors only need to follow these rules. This is the long-term solution."

After Guo Feixue's full explanation, she won the praise of Zhang Juzheng.

"Well said! Very well said! The Duke has thought it through. Just as the Duke thought, if there is no guarantee of these policies, I'm afraid no one would be willing to provide these to the people."

……

(End of this chapter)