The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"San Sheng came to see me yesterday and told me about you."

Seeing that Wei Guangde was so young, Zhang Juzheng could not help but think of himself nine years ago and became interested in chatting with him.

The three provinces he mentioned naturally refer to Zeng Xingwu. Although Zhang Juzheng did not admit it, Zeng Xingwu always treated him as a teacher and student every time he saw him.

Last year, after I went to Beijing to pass the exam, I wrote him a letter. In the letter, I mentioned that my friend Wei Guangde from my hometown of Pengze County had passed the exam.

However, Zhang Juzheng did not actually take Wei Guangde seriously at that time. Even if he later read in the Di newspaper that Wei Guangde chose a commoner, he was just repeating his own path.

Choosing a common scholar is naturally envious for those who are eliminated, but for Zhang Juzheng, he naturally knows that choosing a common scholar is of no use. It only means that you can and are qualified to stay in the Hanlin Academy. But if you want to After passing the Hanlin Academy and finally entering the cabinet, without the support of noble people, it will be in vain.

As for him, if it weren't for the intentional or unintentional help of his mentor Xu Jie, it would be difficult for him to review and edit the Hanlin Academy.

More shujishi were transferred to other yamen after the election instead of staying in the Hanlin Academy.

In a short period of time, this Wei Guangde broke the rule of three-year selection of Shujishi and was directly appointed by Emperor Jiajing. Later, he shined in the battle of Xuanfu and became a rising star in the Ming Dynasty. A new political star, it was only at this time that he began to pay attention to Wei Guangde.

Of course, this emphasis is just to pay more attention to the news about Wei Guangde, and it has not yet risen to the level of becoming a political opponent.

After all, everyone's official position is actually very humble, and it is really laughable to say that they are opponents.

Seeing Wei Guangde today and seeing Wei Guangde's youth, Zhang Juzheng naturally couldn't help but think of himself. If Gu Lin, the governor of Huguang, had not deliberately suppressed him, he would have won the imperial examination at an even younger age, and perhaps he would have rushed to the capital without hesitation. Taking part in the examination and becoming a Jinshi at the age of thirteen is unknown.

To say the least, he should have entered the Hanlin Academy at this age. Perhaps Emperor Jiajing would also look at him differently.

According to Gu Lin, the reason why he failed the examination was that he hoped that Zhang Juzheng would be trained more and become something great in the future.

After that, Zhang Juzheng's road to the imperial examination went smoothly, which seemed to confirm what he said back then. In the past, Zhang Juzheng was a little complacent about this in his heart, but at this moment, when he saw Wei Guangde, he somehow felt a trace of hatred for Gu Lin. dissatisfaction.

Zhang Juzheng returned from illness and returned to the court. For a seventh-rank official, it was just a little excitement in the Hanlin Academy, which did not last long.

On the contrary, after Wei Guangde's leave request was circulated from the General Affairs Office, it quickly spread among the officialdom of the capital.

Officials with a keen sense of smell have already known that Wei Guangde's family should be related to the Duke of Wei in Nanjing and have a hereditary family. Hehe.

For a promising official like Wei Guangde, this marriage is actually not the best choice. It would be more conducive to Wei Guangde's career development if he chooses a family in the civil service group.

However, naturally no one would say such a thing.

Parents order the matchmaker's advice, so where should others take care of it.

In Xiyuan Yongshou Palace, Emperor Jiajing saw Wei Guangde's memorial and had no reason to refuse. He naturally nodded in agreement, and the subsequent red approval process became a matter of course.

The three great joyous events in life are meeting an old friend in a foreign country, being named on the gold medal list, and the wedding night.

Within three days, the memorial submitted by Wei Guangde was returned to his hands. The cabinet and the Supervisor of Ceremonies had already given their approval. The only thing left was naturally that Wei Guangde asked to see Yin Taiyin, the commander-in-chief, to confirm the date of leave.

Emperor Jiajing naturally would not give special care to Wei Guangde. It was all approved in accordance with the court's regulations, and the wedding period lasted two months.

It's just that in this era, because of the inconvenience of transportation, the court was still very humane and had specific requirements for this. To put it simply, the holiday was calculated from the moment Wei Guangde arrived home, and the time spent on the way back home was not included in the holiday. .

In addition, in fact, Ming Dynasty officials also used one of the most important ways to increase their vacation time, which was to not return after the deadline.

The Ming Dynasty had relatively loose penalties for officials who failed to return after taking leave or who lied about false reports. First, because everyone did it, and it might happen to them one day. Second, naturally, they did not return to their natural state for a long time after taking leave. You can put your own people in the position, and official duties cannot be delayed.

During the reign of Emperor Taizu Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty, a system was established to provide leave for visiting relatives, worshiping ancestors, etc., except for the round trip, and the leave time was one month. However, during the Hongzhi period of Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty, some officials reported that the leave was too short, so Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty ordered that the leave time be changed. Increased to two months.

As for the review and approval of returning to hometown to visit relatives, it was the most stringent during the Hongwu period of Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. All internal and external officials' requests for leave needed to be reported, and Zhu Yuanzhang would make a personal decision, and then the Ministry of Personnel would review it.

Things changed during the Hongxi reign of Emperor Renzong of the Ming Dynasty. This benevolent fat man basically approved all the memorials of domestic and foreign officials returning to their hometowns in the first year of Hongxi. As a result, many officials took leave to return home during the Hongxi reign.

The atmosphere was bad when the atmosphere was bad, and there was no corresponding punishment system at that time. Many officials and students did not return home overdue. For example, during the Xuande period, the Minister of Rites reported that as many as 60 supervisors returned to their hometowns. The relatives will not return after the due date.

During the Chenghua period of Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty, further regulations were formulated to regulate this behavior. In the 11th year of Chenghua, it was stipulated that only those officials in Beijing who had been away from home for more than ten years were allowed to take leave and return to their hometowns. Otherwise, there was no way!

Perhaps the conditions were too harsh. In the 23rd year of Chenghua, the emperor issued an edict to relax the policy slightly, changing the policy from ten years to six years. Officials who had not returned to their hometowns for six years were allowed to take leave to visit their hometowns and visit relatives if they passed the review.

In fact, there is one thing that was forgotten in Wei Guangde's memorial for asking for leave. If Emperor Jiajing had not received a report from Jinyiwei before, he would probably have sent Wei Guangde's memorial back. That is, for officials who asked for leave to get married, classmates and fellow townsmen officials were required to guarantor. Can.

It's just that people like Wei Guangde who haven't gotten married before passing the Jinshi examination are relatively rare.

For most Jinshi in this era, most of the senior high school students were around thirty years old, and the masters of this age were already married.

There are also many Jinshi in their twenties, but in the Ming Dynasty, late marriage and late childbearing were not practiced, and it was normal for men and women to marry between sixteen and seventeen.

As soon as the system was relaxed, officials would take advantage of the loopholes to seek personal gain. Emperor Chenghua opened a small opening, which was soon torn open by officials into a large gap that could no longer be blocked.

Since the imperial court strictly scrutinizes requests for leave, most of the officials who took the leave chose not to return overdue. It was rare to have time to relax and rest, and they could do a lot of things with their official status.

In the third year of Zhengde reign of Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty, Zhao Song, the prime minister of Guanglu Temple, failed to return home overdue for four or five months. Zhao Song was fined for three months.

Emperor Wuzong Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty was still dissatisfied and ordered the Ministry of Civil Affairs to conduct a thorough investigation on how many officials had failed to return home overdue. This investigation did not matter, but the first investigation was shocking. It turned out that as many as 146 officials had come to visit relatives or asked for sick leave to have overdue appointments. Not return.

The law did not punish everyone, and Emperor Zhengde had no way to deal with so many officials at once, so he had to order that those who failed to return after the deadline would be pardoned for three months, fined for four or five months, three months, and arrested for six or seven months. Ask, those who stay in office for eight or nine months, and those who stay in office for more than ten months.

The existence of this law actually gave Wei Guangde a period of time before he could not return, which was a two-month vacation. In fact, it was a five-month vacation, not counting the time spent traveling back and forth.

Thinking about why there are so many celebrities writing poems and inscriptions in the famous mountains and rivers in China, this is most likely the case.

There doesn't seem to be much difference between rushing back and traveling all the way back. Anyway, it doesn't take up your leave time.

Wei Guangde had three errands on his body. The errands of the Hanlin Academy were originally Wu Qing's job. Wei Guangde felt relaxed and continued to take on the responsibility. Now that he had talked with Yin Tai, he naturally wanted to go to Wu Qing's place.

After that, there were Taichang Temple and Zhan Shifu. Although they were all idle, Wei Guangde still went to visit the officials in charge.

The time has entered October, and a full moon hangs high in the sky, casting endless silver moonlight covering the entire river.

Amid the howling north wind, the weather gradually began to turn cooler, and the sound of boats breaking through the water surface could be heard on the quiet river.

From far to near, a large canoe with two sails appeared in front, breaking through the moonlight reflected on the water and continuing to move forward. The second and third canoe appeared one after another in the gray, and they followed closely behind the ones in front. The canal boat followed the north wind all the way south.

Wei Guangde was going back to Jiujiang Prefecture to get married. The news spread in the capital and naturally reached the ears of Jiangxi businessmen in Beijing.

Wei Guangde planned to take the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal when he returned home this time. The last time he came to the capital, the canal was frozen due to the cold weather, so they entered Beijing by land.

In the Ming Dynasty, it would be a pity not to take a trip to the ancient Grand Canal.

The merchants were naturally happy about this, because for no other reason, the goods they had hoarded from the north could return south together.

The construction of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal began in the Spring and Autumn Period. The state of Wu dug the Hangou to conquer the state of Qi. In the Sui Dynasty, it was greatly expanded and connected to the capital Luoyang and connected to Zhuo County. During the renovation of the Yuan Dynasty, it abandoned Luoyang and took it all the way to Beijing.

In fact, the so-called Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is a waterway built by making full use of the water systems along the way. The water systems are connected by artificially digging channels to ensure that water ships can go directly from Hangzhou to Tongzhou and even the capital.

However, the cost of building and maintaining this Grand Canal is huge, so all dynasties also collected tariffs from ships traveling on the canal. In the Ming Dynasty, due to effective collection and management, banknote tariffs became an important source of central fiscal revenue, and went directly to the inner court and the Ministry of Household Affairs every year. More than two hundred thousand taels of silver.

It should be noted that although the Ming Dynasty had tens of thousands of ships plying the canal at this time, only merchant ships had to pay customs duties. As an important source of north-south transportation, water ships were actually also important carriers.

Because eating and taking cards has almost become an unspoken official rule in the Ming Dynasty, this has made the life of Cao soldiers difficult, but the burden on them is huge, so most of them are unwilling to run ships to transport Cao grain.

In order to compensate them, the court also gave them preferential treatment, that is, the ships could carry 20% of the private goods privately, and part of the freight and evaded duties on these goods went into the pockets of these soldiers.

These tens of thousands of canals were the main cargo carriers on the canal, carrying the huge merchandise trade from south to north during the Ming Dynasty, while there were far fewer private merchant ships.

The canal checkpoints are all directly under the capital government, so it is difficult for merchant ships to avoid paying taxes, but there is no way. The simplest and most effective way is to invite Jinshi or Juren to use their status to avoid taxes.

From Beijing to Jiujiang, their goods had to pass through six Chaoguan wharves, including Hexiwu, Linqingguan, Jiningguan, Xuzhouguan, Huaianguan and Shangxinheguan. As for the final Jiujiang Chaoguan, for them on the ground, There are ways to avoid it.

With six banknotes, a boat required nearly a hundred taels of tolls. This trip they had assembled five large boats to transport goods, which amounted to several hundred taels of silver.

The merchants elected representatives to find Wei Guangde, and the person who came was naturally Lin Erye of Huitong Trading Company. The purpose was naturally to hope that their merchant ship could go south with Wei Guangde and take care of him along the way.

In return, the Chamber of Commerce will give Wei Guangde a reward of 100 taels of silver for preparing a cabin on the ship. In other words, Wei Guangde will not only need no ship fare when returning home, but will also make a net profit of 100 taels of silver.

What everyone does these days, Wei Guangde also followed the local customs and agreed immediately.

It's not possible to agree. According to the information revealed by Mr. Lin, most of the cargo owners are Jiujiang businessmen. If he doesn't agree, there may be some unfavorable rumors spread in his hometown.

Sometimes, it does not mean that everyone wants to take advantage of the court and harm the public and enrich private interests. It is really a last resort.

Let’s talk about how valuable the hundred taels of silver were to Wei Guangde. In fact, Wei Guangde really didn’t like this small amount of money, but he still had to agree, with a smile on his face.

Wei Guangde's boat was naturally at the front of the fleet. When crossing the river to Xiwu and Linqing Customs and other customs terminals, Wei Guangde came directly to contact the customs officials.

As an overseas agency directly under the imperial court, Chaoguan did not spread the news as fast as the Beijing Yamen, but it still knew the news of Wei Guangde going south in advance. In fact, it has rarely achieved impressive results against the Mongolian Anta tribe in recent years. The most eye-catching one seems to be It was the battle in Baoanzhou last year.

Wei Guangde has become famous all over the world, but he doesn't know it yet.

Everything went smoothly. Wei Guangde had all the procedures on him. Whether it was an official seal or official document, he could easily take it out. After a brief check and confirmation of identity, the bank customs official released it naturally.

They are already familiar with this kind of thing. Wei Guangde is not the only official who travels to and from the canal. Countless officials do this. They also do this themselves, so it is convenient for others.

This seems to be an unwritten rule within the civil servant group of the Ming Dynasty, just like the tax exemption for those with fame and fame. Everyone actually understands it tacitly.

Driven by the north wind, the fleet quickly passed Huai'an. In a few days, it would cross Zhenjiang and enter the Yangtze River waterway. It was already very close to home.