In this way, Zhu Youxiao and his group lived in Qianhu Institute. In order to conceal Zhu Youxiao's identity, Yang Feng also specially summoned the officers of Qianhu Institute and told them that Zhu Youxiao was a son and nephew of Gu Bingqian, the young master who just took office in the first month of this year and the grandfather of the Crown Prince's Grand Secretary Jianji Hall. He just passed the imperial examination this year and is now out for a trip.

After hearing this explanation, the officers of the Thousand Household Institute were relieved. In the feudal society with inconvenient transportation, many officials and families have always had the habit of letting their children go out for travel after they were finished. First, they can increase their knowledge and broaden their minds, and then they can make friends and lay the foundation for their careers in the future. After all, if they only know that they can study behind closed doors at home, they will only cultivate nerds, not qualified elite talents.

Although some people still don’t understand why the children of such an official family are not going to a colorful world like Nanjing, but instead run to a place where birds do not shit, most people still welcome this. After all, being able to get in touch with the sons and nephews of a minister of the Ministry of Personnel, known as the Heavenly Official, will naturally benefit their Thousand Household Institute in the future, so they naturally have no reason to object.

One night, after dinner, Zhu Youxiao took Yang Feng to chat in the backyard of Qianhu's house as usual. This was a habit that Zhu Youxiao had developed in recent days. Through these days' contact, the sensitive Zhu Youxiao immediately discovered that Yang Feng was very different from the civil and military officials he had contacted on weekdays. The biggest feature is that Yang Feng's view of things is very different from the current mainstream consciousness of the Ming Dynasty.

For example, when talking about the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, Yang Feng did not use anything like the civil and military officials today. As long as the court has a small tax and light labor force, he will regulate the officials, and the emperor is close to the gentleman and stay away from the villain, and he can cure the officials in the Qingming Festival and the world is peaceful.

Yang Feng told him very bluntly that the biggest problem of the Ming Dynasty today is that the court has no money. Secondly, after hundreds of years of infiltration, the chaebol forces led by the Donglin Party members have reached their hands into the court. All the policies issued by the court will support them as long as the Donglin Party members are beneficial to them, and those that are harmful to them are firmly opposed. For example, the Guangning Gate Incident during the Wanli period is the best example.

This is what happened. In the first month of the 35th year of Wanli, Long Tong, the magistrate of Taixing County, Jiangsu Province, went to Beijing to participate in the "big plan" (the Ming Dynasty official assessment system, which assessed officials every six years, and assessed foreign officials' names "big plan"). He was demoted to the official due to poor performance. When he walked to Guangning Gate, he encountered the tax supervisors Zhao Lu, Wang Tai, Zhang Xian, Xing Xiang and others collecting taxes. Seeing Long Tong arrive, he ran blackmail. Unexpectedly, Long Tong's luggage was empty, and the tax supervisors beat him and kicked him. Long Tong was beaten to death with blood.

After the incident, the vast majority of "just" people wrote a joint letter in anger, which was presented to the emperor by the Ministry of War to strictly handle the tax prison in accordance with the law. Emperor Wanli, forced to imprison the perpetrator, executed Zhao Lu, and Xing Xiang and three others assembled.

OK, the above is the official statement. But is it true? The real fact is that after the three major levies in Wanli, the Ming Dynasty was out of money, because the expenses required for the three major levies quickly consumed the silver accumulated by Zhang Juzheng's reform. Seeing that the court was out of money, Emperor Wanli was anxious, so he sent a large group of people, mainly eunuchs, to collect taxes across the country. What taxes do they collect? They mainly collect mining taxes, iron salt tea and other taxes, and this touched the interests of the Jiangnan landlord class. Of course, the Donglin Party members, as the representative of the Jiangnan landlord class, could not tolerate it. In their opinion, collecting taxes from them was to touch their life roots. This matter could not be tolerated, so this farce was planned.

After the Guangning Gate Incident, all parts of the Ming Dynasty impeached and even attacked the tax officials sent by Emperor Wanli. The final result was that Emperor Wanli's tax plan had to be declared bankrupt. By the end of Wanli, the tea tax for the huge Ming Dynasty was only 16 taels throughout the year. Such a ridiculous thing is probably unique in the history of China.

When Yang Feng said this to Zhu Youxiao, he found that Zhu Youxiao listened very carefully, and was sometimes excited and angry, and sometimes couldn't help but sigh angrily. After several days of contact, Yang Feng found that Zhu Youxiao listened very carefully when listening to him talk about these things. If he didn't understand, he would even tirelessly pull Yang Feng to ask in detail, like a curious baby.

Faced with Zhu Youjian, who was so curious, Yang Feng even doubted whether he was the carpenter emperor in history books who was known as the only person who favored the eunuch Wei Zhongxian and the wet nurse Keshi.

In fact, Zhu Youxiao was also very pitiful. When he was a child, he was not favored by his grandfather, Emperor Wanli, and had no education, nor did he study in the cabinet. When Emperor Wanli was alive, he refused to make this Changsun the eldest grandson, nor would he let the Changsun go out of the cabinet to study. It was not until his death that the emperor Changsun Yi was enthroned immediately and entered school.

A few days later, Zhu Youxiao's father, Emperor Taichang, ascended the throne, and the ceremony of enthroning Zhu Youxiao should naturally change from the crown prince to the crown prince. However, Emperor Taichang was not enthusiastic about enthroning the crown prince. Later, after repeated requests from the ministers, he issued an order: "Imperially appointed the Eastern Palace and choose the ninth day of the ninth month." But the man's calculations were not as good as the heaven's calculations. Emperor Taichang actually passed away on the first day of the ninth month. Zhu Youxiao's crown prince had not made it, and the crown prince had not had time to do it, and he had not officially read the book for a day, so he actually wanted to inherit the throne. There was only one such successor to the throne in the Ming Dynasty.

After Zhu Youxiao ascended the throne, he felt that his culture was insufficient, so he developed the habit of being eager to learn and not ashamed to ask. Now he found that Yang Feng could actually interpret the problems of the Ming Dynasty from another perspective. For him, it was like pushing open another window. In this way, he would not have the reason not to pull Yang Feng to ask.

At a stone table in the backyard, Zhu Youxiao, who had just finished dinner, couldn't wait to ask Yang Feng, who was sitting next to him, and said: "Yang Aiqing, you said yesterday that the problem of my Ming Dynasty is taxation first. So, according to your opinion, how should the problem of taxation in the Ming Dynasty be solved?"

Seeing Zhu Youxiao asking, Yang Feng said bluntly: "Your Majesty, in the eyes of the empress, there are actually problems with the taxes of the Ming Dynasty. The national tax policy established by Emperor Taizu at the beginning of the founding of the country now does not meet the needs of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty now needs to re-establish a new tax law, so that we can solve the financial problems of our Ming Dynasty."

“Re-enact the tax law?”
Chapter completed!