golden scales

Shi Kefa sent Yao Kang out dumbfounded. After thinking about it, he first wrote a festive letter about Huguang slaves becoming Daping, and asked his staff to copy and send it.Speaking of it, the slave change at most is to cause some troubles. As long as the flag of rebellion is not raised, it will subside within five or seven days at shortest time and more than ten days at long time.

What's more, the crown prince has already issued the decree of "regarding oneself as a mortal from Chen's nationality", which is tantamount to denying all body certificates in disguise. There is no way to gather more troops.

The reason why the slavery system was not directly abolished was because there were many slaves who stood against slavery. They were loyal and wanted to be slaves to their masters for generations. Naturally, the crown prince was not worth taking greater political risks for this.

When Shi Kefa thought about this, he couldn't help sighing: This crown prince is really a delicate person with a careful heart.

At this very moment, the careful crown prince was strolling through the Nanjing palace, followed by a group of noble officials and relatives from Nanjing.

These people were either descendants of famous founding generals, or after Jing Nan's meritorious service, the "upstarts" of the Chenghua Dynasty like Zhu Guobi could only obediently walk at the very back of the brigade.

Because of their status, these people kept silent under the general trend of denouncing the crown prince. This is the only capital they still have the face to enter this imperial city.

Those civil servants outside who have no face to come in can easily ask these relatives to help speak out——

Once Nanjing is abolished, the officials are like monkeys and birds on trees, and they can be moved away.But these noble relatives are vines that rely on the nourishment of the big tree to survive, and can only slowly wait to wither and die.

"It's really difficult!" Zhu Cihong suddenly looked up to the sky.

Xin Chengbo Zhao Zhilong hurried forward and said: "His Royal Highness, there are really some villains who don't know human affairs, so there is really no need to get angry with them."

"I don't think it's anger. I can't handle the current situation. I wanted to report to the emperor and go down to An Lishu, but I attracted people to hate ghosts. Why bother?" Zhu Cihong said to the past years The noble relative in Pentecost sighed.

"Your Highness, the newspaper is the easiest thing to confuse right and wrong. The ministers and others were talking about it in private before. Letting their dry pen stick nonsense in the newspaper is really hurting the hearts of honest gentlemen! I wanted to ask Your Highness to ban the newspaper, but I was afraid of offending people. Criticism from "the mouth of the people"; I thought about finding someone to write some articles to set the record straight, but they refused to publish them in the newspaper; the ministers even raised funds to run the newspaper. Want to advocate for His Highness, no, it's from the Metropolitan Procuratorate The approval has come down, but the manpower for editing and proofreading, the artisans for engraving..."

"Okay, I know what you're thinking." Zhu Cilang interrupted Xin Chengbo's self-defense.From this point of view alone, these noble relatives in Nanjing really seem to be loyal to the Tian family with all their hearts.

It's a pity that the crown prince is not a fool in his early twenties who doesn't know much about the world.

"What I say is difficult is that you are all relatives who have died with the country. How can the Tian family share the joys and sorrows with you?" Zhu Cihong sat down on the throne, showing no trace of the legendary virtuous corporal.Watching these five or sixty-year-old old people standing in the cold spring with peace of mind.

As long as someone left a name of loyalty on the original historical script, Zhu Cihong would not use such an extreme method of killing them all.

But in the history books of Zhu Cihong's previous life, it was these relatives and civil officials who stayed behind in Nanjing who collectively sold the city without any resistance, and handed over Jiangnan to the Tartars.Helping the tyrant to abuse the emperor led to dozens of massacres in the south of the Yangtze River.

Men are not responsible for what they have not done, but that does not make these men any less guilty of ignorance and greed.

"Isn't that the case now?" Xin Chengbo cautiously accompanied him, and when he raised his eyes, he saw Wang Zhixin walking over with a thick pile of books, standing behind the Crown Prince with low eyebrows and bowing slightly.

"Do you want me to tell the truth?" Zhu Cilang's voice turned cold: "When the emperor was in the most difficult time, he collected all the gold and silverware in the palace. He only collected 8 to [-] taels of silver. Do any of your families have less than this amount? What!"

Zhao Zhilong trembled slightly, but kept silent.

No. 11 Wei Guogong Xu Wenjue stepped forward and said: "Your Highness, it is said that the south of the Yangtze River is rich, but in fact, when it comes to family property, each family is only less than 7 taels. How can there be a real wealth?" As the number one in Nanjing Wei Guogong, a relative of Xun, came forward.Others such as Lingbihou and others echoed.

"Well, it seems that I have wronged you?" Zhu Cihong suddenly smiled and said, "Wang Zhixin, prepare pens and ink for them, and ask them to write down their property one by one. Sure enough, it is less than 7 taels. I recognize this wronged Xun." The crime of the minister."

There were twenty or thirty families of Xunqi, looking at each other, and saw the eunuchs coming out one after another holding pens and inks, lined up in a row, and retreated again.The guards who originally guarded both sides of the crown prince stepped forward one after another, forming a human wall in front of the crown prince.Each hand pressed the handle of the knife with a murderous expression on his face.

This situation was a bit like torture. Wei Guogong was about to speak when he suddenly heard the thunderous sound of cannon horns, faintly coming from outside the city.

Zhu Cilang clapped his palms, and a high-pitched whistle sounded in the garden.

Before the whistle sounded, a group of soldiers from the First Division of the Guards in iron armor filed out from the doorway, each holding a long knife, and surrounded the relatives in the garden into a group, with a scale of hundreds of people.

"Your Highness, what is the meaning of this?" Uncle Xin Cheng stepped forward, crying, and said, "We are all members of the family of meritorious service since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, with iron bonds for generations, and have never violated the laws of the country... How can we use swords and soldiers to attack us? wait?"

When Wei Guogong saw the sword soldiers, he was in a wretched mess, and he didn't dare to speak any more, so he only asked Xin Chengbo to come forward to intercede.Xin Chengbo is now leading the Nanjing Jingying, and it is this round of relatives who are sitting in the manor, so he should be in the lead.

"You think I haven't seen the world certificate?" Zhu Cihong laughed angrily: "Who's family certificate says that the death penalty for the ninth life is written on it, show it to open my eyes!"

The crowd was speechless.

For a while, he said that his descendants would not die, but after a long time, he believed it.

From the founding of the Ming Dynasty, only the self was exempted from two deaths for crimes of treason, and his son was exempted from one death.The so-called death-free gold medal no longer exists in the grandson's generation.Now these relatives, no matter how late they are, they cannot be exempted from death.

"I really don't know what's going on in your mind... Write it quickly, when I get impatient with you, it will be too late for you to cry again." Zhu Cihong pointed to those cases.

Zhu Guobi glanced at Wang Zhixin, who was nodding at him.

"Your ministers have to die, let alone reporting their family property!" Although Zhu Guobi, Marquis of Funing, was standing at the end of the queue, he was the first one to go to the short ones at this moment, and he looked very dignified.

When he entered the palace, he had already received hints from the heart of the king, making him follow the crown prince's wishes.At that time, Zhu Guobi had a bad premonition, but thinking about it, can such a thing be escaped?He simply braced himself and followed in, to see what grand banquet the crown prince was throwing.

Who knew that the crown prince only had "Hongmen" and no "banquet", and thanks to Wang Zhixin's early warning, he was mentally prepared.

Despite such preparations, Zhu Guobi was still a little timid when he came to the front of the case.It's not that he doesn't know how much his family's property is, but should he write it all down?Wouldn't it be a mess if the crown prince followed suit?

However, the crown prince is the crown prince of a country after all, so he would never do such an open fire thing.

"You should be good at writing the whole thing, and don't do anything to deceive the emperor." Wang Zhixin walked into the circle at some point, and said to a few noble relatives who were submissive with Zhu Guobi.Immediately, he took another look at those noble relatives who stood there blankly, just crying and refusing to move.

Zhu Cihong waved to Wang Zhixin.

Wang Zhixin stepped forward quickly, and listened to her.

"Wei Guogong is standing there, the others will definitely not move." Zhu Cihong said in a low voice: "Announce his guilt."

Wang Zhixin bowed, and took a book from the book he brought.

The word "Wei Guo" was written on the lower left corner of the cover, but when it was opened, it was a record of Wei Guogong's whole family violating the national law.

Among them, the most well-documented evidence is not bullying men and women—with the Xu family's family status, there is no need to do such things—but usurious loans and exploitation of ordinary people.

It was this trip to the south of the Yangtze River that made Zhu Cihong discover another misunderstanding that he had long-standing.

Because of the education in history textbooks, Zhu Cihong believed that the main reason why the Ming Dynasty failed to develop capitalism was the annexation of land and the reinvestment of the silver collected by the landlords into the land.

In fact, after actually entering this society, he found that the problem of land annexation was only a loss to the country's finances, and the people actually benefited—otherwise, no one would be willing to transfer it to others.It is precisely because the pressure of the imperial court's taxation and taxation is much heavier than that of casting names and treacherous posts, that this kind of illegal merger has been caused.

It is usury that really affects the development of social production.

The Ming Dynasty did not have a special lending institution. As for the legendary bank, it was a business model invented by Gu Yanwu and Fu Shan to raise funds against the Qing Dynasty.

At present, most of the lenders are big merchants and big families with a good reputation. They invest the profits they obtain in the loan market and recover them at high interest rates. They do not transform their production tools, do not promote productivity, and at the same time exploit the reproduction capabilities of their borrowers. .

The "Law of the Ming Dynasty" stipulates that the interest on private lending should not exceed one-third. At the same time, regardless of the year and month, only one interest can be paid, and the interest cannot be included in the principal and then charged.Later, the wealthy borrowed money and took more compound interest, the so-called "rolling interest".Later, in order to prohibit this kind of compound interest, the imperial court stipulated that "regardless of the year and month, the interest shall not exceed half of the principal", but this lack of financial control obviously failed to play a role.

If someone lends money at an interest rate of three cents a month, that is, three percent, he is already a benevolent person with compassion.The vast majority of usurers have exceeded the limit of "three cents". There have even been two stone principals in Suzhou, and the monthly interest rate is as high as one stone.

However, the popularity of usury in the Ming Dynasty was so wide that it involved everything from officials to common people.This time, all the relatives who were found to have violated the national law by Dongchang all committed serious crimes on the issue of usury.

Ps:

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