After sending Shen Yi and others away from the palace, Zhu Qiyu fell into deep thought for a while while looking at the flickering candlelight in front of him.
When any dynasty reaches its end, financial problems cannot be avoided, and the same is true for the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, this statement is also true in reverse.
When financial problems become serious and urgent, a dynasty will come to an end.
After wandering around for hundreds of years, Zhu Qiyu saw with his own eyes how diligent and frugal his descendant emperor, who wore patched dragon robes, was. However, you must know that just twenty years before that emperor ascended the throne, the imperial court was still able to launch the three major Wanli expeditions.
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It is said that Wanli neglected the government and levied excessive mining taxes, while Tianqi favored the eunuchs and blocked the sky with one hand. However, when they were in power, although the Ming Dynasty had many shortcomings, it was not forced to run out of money and food.
But during the Chongzhen period, in just ten years, the Ming Dynasty's treasury was empty. Where did the money go?
Of course it will not be in the hands of the people, otherwise, wars would not be raging everywhere.
Although Zhu Qiyu lingers in the Forbidden City, after hundreds of years of vicissitudes, his vision is much more thorough than Chongzhen's.
All this money and food simply went into the pockets of officials from various places and into the hands of merchants traveling around.
I think that Xu Jie was called Qingliu, but his family's land area exceeded 200,000 acres, and there were tens of thousands of weavers. Such people were called models of officialdom, which shows how rotten the officialdom of the Jiajing Dynasty had become.
Throughout the late Ming Dynasty, Hai Rui was actually the only one who could truly be called Qingliu.
If nothing else, just because this person dares to tell the truth!
In the public affairs department, Hai Rui wrote, "It has been a long time since the people of the world have been loyal to Your Majesty." This is true. In fact, from the time of Jiajing at the latest, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty could no longer control his ministers.
Jiajing was famous for his power and manipulation of the court, but as an emperor, Zhu Qiyu still felt that he was pathetic.
It is true that his ability to sit firmly on the throne is closely related to his ability to control the court, but there is a difference between control and mastery.
The Great Ceremony Conference made everyone understand what kind of emperor Jiajing was. Therefore, the ministers of Jiajing Dynasty were afraid of the emperor's power, and at the same time they were bold enough to deceive superiors and deceive subordinates.
On the one hand, he flatters and makes the river clear, but on the other hand, he calls himself a clear stream and does not associate with the strict party.
Jiajing could control the court, but he could not control people's hearts.
The entire Jiajing Dynasty seemed to be peaceful and prosperous, and everything was under the control of the emperor, but in fact it was just gold and jade on the outside, and failure on the inside.
Of all the people in the court, only Hai Rui dared to tell the truth.
When he first took office in Chun'an County, Hai Rui unveiled the biggest fig leaf in officialdom.
For a mere seven-rank county magistrate, the annual regular silver calculation is nearly two thousand taels, which is more than ten times his salary. This is still the official income by default under the condition of "two sleeves of breeze", no corruption and no bribery.
There are 1,427 counties, 163 prefectures, and 32 states in the country. Officials one after another are lying on the bodies of the people to suck blood and exploit them. This is how evil it is.
However, in Jiajing's ears, what echoed every day was the emperor's sage, peace in the world, praise from all the people, and clear seas and rivers.
As time passed, Jiajing himself believed it and practiced Taoism in Taoist temples with peace of mind. Little did he know that the Ming Dynasty was on the road to overthrowing in his hands.
Loyalty is helpful to one's actions. This is what Zhu Qiyu reminds himself all the time.
If there are no honest ministers in the court, the emperor will be deceived. Even if the emperor is firmly seated, if he cannot see the suffering of the people and cannot hear the truth of the world, the country will eventually collapse and overthrow.
Because of this, Zhu Qiyu is unwilling to use many methods, and Zhu Qiyu is unwilling to break some bottom lines, so many times, he chooses the more difficult path.
But the harder the road is, it may mean that it is the right direction.
It is said in the Tao Te Ching that in governing a large country, if you are cooking small dishes, you must always be cautious and not act recklessly.
Therefore, even after seeing a hundred years of history, Zhu Qiyu still considered every decision carefully when implementing it.
There is no doubt that among these, financial issues are the top priority.
The way to govern a country is difficult to say and easy to say. The most important things are nothing more than finance and officialdom.
If the national treasury has money and food, and officials can serve their duties, the national power will naturally flourish.
The matter of Shanglinyuan, to put it bluntly, is a matter of official administration.
Zhu Qiyu knew very well that there were a lot of people like Chen Yong in the imperial court.
Being in a deserted yamen, the future is hopeless. All you can think about is how to make money, protect your official position, and do both things including corruption and bribery, but you just don't know how to do things well. This is actually the current situation of many yamen today, especially at the local level.
This situation is not uncommon.
And speaking of it, the reason why this trend has arisen is actually inseparable from Wang Zhen.
Going forward to the Taizong, Renzong, and Xuanzong dynasties, not to mention other things, at least the official administration was still clear and clear. This was not only the deterrence of the Hongwu Dynasty's severe punishments and laws, but also the restraints of the emperors of the past dynasties.
However, after Sanyang's death, Zhu Qizhen listened to one side and allowed Wang Zhen to take over his power. In just a few years, the officialdom was completely destroyed.
Wang Zhen accepted bribes on a large scale. Anyone who came to see him was required to pay at least a hundred taels, and as many as a thousand taels, making bribery prevalent in the officialdom.
Selling officials and conferring titles, clearly marking the price of court positions, has made the selection system useless, and countless people who have not cultivated their virtues and only know how to flatter others have taken up their posts.
After these people took office, they flattered and bribed people on the one hand, exploited the people on the other hand, wasted the people's strength, and made the official atmosphere dirty.
Of course Zhu Qiyu could tell. Just now in the palace, Chen Yi sighed at how gently he treated the officials.
However, apart from his partial favor for Wang Wen, Zhu Qiyu knew more clearly that last year's Beijing inspection was not essentially a thorough operation aimed at clarifying officialdom.
At that time, he had just ascended the throne, and there were a large number of stubborn emperors in the court. Rather than saying that it was an action to rectify the administration of officials, it was actually more like using the official department as a sharp knife to eliminate dissidents.
No matter what the outside world thinks, Zhu Qiyu himself has a very clear understanding of these things.
During that Beijing inspection, the criteria for measuring officials were not only talent and virtue, but more importantly, stance.
Taking advantage of that opportunity, he demoted all the ministers who had no moral character, lacked talents, and more importantly, stood firmly in support of the Supreme Emperor.
However, out of consideration for stabilizing the political situation, many ministers who were neutral or close to the new emperor did not criticize him too harshly even if there were problems.
From a purely political perspective, this is actually problematic.
However, Zhu Qiyu also understands that in many cases, there needs to be a balance between truth and interests.
Of course, he is not a willful monarch like Zhu Qizhen, nor is he a Machiavellian who only cares about interests like Jiajing. However, this does not mean that he is a gentleman who only sticks to the truth.
just.
Zhu Qiyu knows his direction and the purpose of everything he does. If he sticks to his heart, nothing will go wrong.
As for the trade-offs involved, it is a path that a king must go through, and there is nothing to say.
Since the core purpose of the Beijing inspection was not to rectify the administration of officials, it is obviously inappropriate to use this point to criticize Wang Wen harshly.
However, these words cannot be said openly. In the eyes of the courtiers, it can only be the emperor's preference for Wang Wen.
Of course, even if the core purpose of Beijing inspection is not to rectify the administration of officials, it still plays a certain role in clarifying the officialdom.
At least, what Zhu Qiyu can guarantee is that most of the important ministers in the court today can maintain their integrity.
Not to mention Yu Qian, a pure and innocent moral model with no money left in his family who devoted himself wholeheartedly to the Ming Dynasty. Other important ministers, such as Shen Yi, Chen Yi, and even Jiang Yuan and Zhu Jian, although they have different personalities
, the positions are also different, but at least in terms of morality, there is no big problem.
Of course, as important ministers of the imperial court, they cannot live solely on their salaries like Yu Qian. They should still have some gray income such as regular silver, charcoal and ice, but corruption and bribery basically do not exist.
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Zhu Qiyu is sure of this.
This is also the reason why, except for Yu Qian and Wang Wen, he has rarely favored ministers, or has basically not accepted many ministers as his right-hand man.
The emperor's trust is often a double-edged sword. If you are not careful, if the person you trust does not cultivate his virtue, then he will be a treacherous official, and the impact on the court and the country is inestimable.
The emperor occupies the ninth level and is impartial. This is actually the most ideal state. Unfortunately, this is basically impossible to achieve.
Moreover, even if Zhu Qiyu can be cautious and self-disciplined, the only thing that can be guaranteed now is the basic ethics of important officials in the court. Many officials below still have old habits that are hard to change. The Shanglinyuan incident was a typical incident.
If the officials in the capital are like this, let alone the local government, it will be even more serious.
Zhu Qiyu knows these things well, but as a mature emperor, the most important thing is to be calm and calm, and not to act willfully, even if he is doing the right thing.
Zhu Qiyu could have launched a political rectification through the incident of Shanglinyuan Supervisor, but obviously, now is not a good time.
Although the administration of officials is a big issue, there are many things that need to be dealt with urgently in the court, including military settlements, mutual trade, water transportation, taxes and levies, and they still have to be dealt with one by one.
As for financial issues, they are closely related to official governance, but they are not the same.
Again, finance has always been about increasing revenue and reducing expenditure. The so-called expenditure reduction actually means rectifying the administration of officials and checking the accounts.
If the administration of officials is clear and clear, the burden on the people will be lightened, and the country's strength will naturally gradually recover. This is why most successor kings first rectify the administration of officials.
However, Zhu Qiyu's identity is different from that of ordinary successors. Therefore, rather than reducing expenditure, he chose to increase revenue.
Mutual trading was an attempt, and now it seems that it is quite successful.
Then, next, opening up the sea is also a way.
Zhu Qiyu had the vision of the next hundred years, so he could naturally see that the Ming Dynasty was actually at the end of its life in the last years of Jiajing, but Zhang Juzheng was born and continued to live for the Ming Dynasty for several decades.
In fact, Zhang Juzheng's reforms were not his fault alone. More importantly, they were actually supported by the foundation of Longqing Switch.
A whip law, to put it bluntly, is to clarify the administration of officials. Its core is to unify all taxes and pay silver taels.
Many people will focus on the difficulty of implementing the one-whip method, but in fact, the most difficult part of the one-whip method is not how to implement it, but that the Ming Dynasty needs so much silver and the people need so much money.
Only with silver tael can it be truly implemented.
And all of this is inseparable from the Longqing switch.
Therefore, for the Ming Dynasty, the opening of the sea was not only about mutual exchanges and prosperous commerce, but more importantly, only by opening up the sea could the evils of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes be truly eradicated and the administration of officials reorganized.
Not to mention, the economic benefits brought by opening the sea itself are enough to make people tempted.
However, everyone knows the principle, but it is not easy to actually do it.
Not to mention that sea ban is an ancestral family law. Even if this is bypassed, the actual difficulty of opening the sea is not small.
Just like the mutual market, the first consideration when opening the sea is nothing else but safety issues.
One of the important reasons why the imperial court banned the sea was the rampant pirates. This problem has not been solved so far.
Zheng He's seven voyages to the West, in addition to promoting national prestige, also included the intention of destroying pirates.
However, this is obviously difficult. The sea is treacherous and anything can happen. In addition, the sea is vast and far wider than the land. Pirates are scattered here and there. It is no less difficult to completely wipe them out than to fight on the vast grassland.
Exterminate all the grassland tribes.
Therefore, from a rational point of view, the best way is to ban maritime trade. As long as the people of the Ming Dynasty do not go to sea, they will be safe on land.
This is a helpless method, but it is also the safest method.
In fact, if Zhu Qiyu hadn't seen the benefits that the Longqing Switch had brought to the country and the cornerstone of the whip law reform, he wouldn't have had this idea.
But again, it is too difficult to put it into practice.
It is impossible for him to explain this truth to the ministers, and if he wants to open the sea, he must solve the problem of maritime safety. If he wants to solve it, he needs to spend a lot of manpower and material resources and fall into actual government affairs. In fact, it is the next step.
Western!
But even Zhu Qiyu had to admit that today's voyages to the West were a loss-making business for the imperial court, and the losses were huge.
Therefore, he was able to promote mutual trading at the beginning of his accession to the throne, but there was no news about the opening of the sea.
In fact, even if we go to the West, we can only take advantage of this incident to go to Linyuan Supervisor to lay the groundwork first.
If you really want to do it, if you don't spend a few years, I'm afraid there will be no hope.
But, again, no matter how difficult it is, as long as the direction is right, you have to do it!
Zhu Qiyu rubbed his eyebrows and put away his chaotic thoughts.
Although it is said that meals have to be eaten one bite at a time and things have to be done step by step, time does not wait for us...
"Shu Liang?"
"My slave is here."
In the empty palace, I don't know when there was an Admiral of Dongchang standing at his side.
"Zhu Yi, how are the preparations going?"
"Your Majesty, don't worry, everything will go according to your instructions. The young master's side has already started..."