Zhao Han comforted him and said, "I don't blame my uncle for this."
"This is a common thing in ancient times. The ministers are in danger, and the emperor is also restless and suspicious of each other. There are only a few Liu Bei and Zhuge, and there are many Sima Cao Shuang."
"Hey, is there a solution?" Wang Ziteng sighed.
His decades of experience in old officialdom cannot solve this problem.
Faced with the emperor's distrust, there were only two options: either rebel, or retire and die of illness.
Civil servants can choose to retire. Anyway, they will have little influence if they leave the center.
One eunuch and two imperial soldiers can handle it.
But for a veteran in the army like him, the only way out is death from illness.
Because he knows how to train troops, how to fight, and how to rebel.
Therefore, it is impossible to make the emperor feel at ease unless he dies.
Zhao Han sighed, and she thought of Cao Xueqin. Cao Gong was imprisoned by the Qing Dynasty and did not know Western thoughts.
We obviously have Western things, but we don’t know about the new Western imperial system.
If he knew about things in the West, he would know that he could write about an undefeated family.
That is to restrict the monarch and open up the people's wisdom.
Instead of living in vain, becoming a monk is the only way out.
So she said to the prince: "Uncle, this matter is like seeking scriptures from the West. If you want to solve this problem, you can find it in the West."
"The West?" Wang Ziteng thought of his opponents this time. Their tactics were from the West, which was indeed difficult to deal with.
Only he knows how difficult it is to fight.
We were able to defeat them all by cutting off the opponent's supplies.
If the opponent also has good supplies, he has only one way to retreat.
"Yes, the West has long had a way to resolve the distrust between ministers and emperors. That is, if a prince breaks the law, he is guilty of the same crime as the people. Regardless of whether the monarch or ministers, they can only abide by the law and rely on the law to restrain each other. As long as you do not break the law
, even if you do something wrong, the monarch cannot kill you. At most, he can deprive you of your official position and title and turn you into a commoner."
"Ah, isn't this a rebellion?" Wang Ziteng was shocked.
He couldn't understand the meaning of these words.
Isn't it nonsense to ask the emperor to abide by the law?
The emperor's words are law, and the emperor can do whatever he wants. The only thing that can stop the emperor is public opinion and moral pressure, as well as etiquette, plus the potential power of officials... For example, if the emperor falls into the water, he will be replaced by someone who is obedient.
But usually, there is really no reliable way to restrain the emperor.
Whoever the emperor wants to deal with will have great righteousness innately.
This is all due to Confucianism. In order to kneel down and lick it, all the good things of ancient Confucianism were thrown away, completely lying at the feet of the emperor, allowing the emperor to stand high and say that the king, the king, the minister, the king wants the minister to die, the minister has to die.
"Rebellion, no. Mencius has long said that the people are the most valuable, the country is second, and the king is the least. But after all, it has been two thousand years, why has it not become a reality?" Zhao Han said seriously.
"That is the world of great unity proposed by Yasheng, and it is still far away." Wang Ziteng shook his head.
"Haha, if everyone doesn't do it, this world of great harmony will always be on the horizon." Zhao Han shook his head.
Wang Ziteng was silent.
In fact, there have been disputes between the power of the prime minister and the power of the king since ancient times.
It’s just that my nephew is still too ideal.
Everyone abides by the law. The problem is that officials want the emperor to abide by the law, but they don't want to abide by it.
For example, he himself used his power to help his nephew Xue Ban escape from crime several times.
His influence was also borrowed by his niece Wang Xifeng.
Now it seems that if you don't abide by the law, the emperor naturally doesn't abide by the law.
So he has nothing to complain about.
No one is innocent.
If the officials stand up together and abide by the law, there is nothing the emperor can do.
The problem is that officials themselves cannot do this.
It is no wonder that the emperor took advantage of the situation. Even if he had done nothing wrong, he could still be killed with a glass of poisonous wine.
Of course, after death, you can still get a good posthumous title.
After all, the dead pose no threat to the emperor, so the emperor can show his benevolence.
But the emperor never showed that he obeyed the law.
Zhao Han saw Wang Ziteng's thoughts.
As expected, it was impossible for Wang Ziteng to accept new ideas.
This is the old bureaucracy.
They value family ties but don't care about the law. The same is true for emperors.
The law is for the common people.
She only needs to protect her good sisters and good sisters, and she doesn't need to care about others.
Thus, a conversation between uncle and nephew ended.
Wang Ziteng then went to court and retired from the post of general on the grounds of serious illness, old age and frailty.
It was impossible for him to rebel, and he had no way to follow Jia Baoyu's methods. Faced with the emperor's distrust, he could only show his innocence like those self-protective officials in the early Ming Dynasty.
There was no way he could resist the imperial court head-on.
Just one month later, there was a report from the imperial censor that there was a huge deficit in Ping'an Prefecture, the territory he once served as the governor. It was found that the deficit was caused by Wang Ziteng's tenure.
The emperor decreed that for the sake of military merit, he would only repay half of the deficit.
This half is 400,000 taels, which is already a huge number for the Wang family.
After piecing together here and there, I only managed to collect 220,000 yuan, and the rest could only be owed.
With the emperor's permission, you can pay it off after five years.
…………
at the same time.
In Jia's Mansion.
"Ancestor, mother, we, the Second Mansion, should return to our hometown in Jinling." Zhao Han said to Jia Mu and Mrs. Wang.
"My dear grandson, why is this?" Jia Mu said.
"My uncle has retired because of his great achievements, and we can't stay in the capital for long." Zhao Han hinted.
Jia Mu has a political vision, but she is old and a prostitute. She is also greedy for family relationships, indulges in pleasure, and has no spirit to cheer up.
But now that Jia Baoyu has taken up the responsibility, she will not hold back.
At this point, Jia Mu has shown it in the original text.
On the one hand, he protected Jia Lian, who was able to work outside, and on the other hand, he was frugal with family expenses. Later, he allocated his own money to spend on his children.
Not stingy.
"In this case, you will be responsible for the relocation of the second mansion."
"First we only need the direct relatives to move away."
Zhao Han knew that even if he rebelled, he would not have to worry about being implicated by the nine tribes.
Because I won’t use the Jia family’s name.
Wang Bolun has been beaten by Jia Rong and turned into a puppet.
In my hometown of Jinling, there is naturally a Rongguo Mansion and a Ningguo Mansion.
half year later.
The relatives of the Jia family moved to their hometown in Jinling.
It is three thousand miles away from the capital.
…………
Capital.
Within the imperial harem.
"It seems that the Jia family is sensible and gave up early." The emperor said happily.
"It's just a Jia family, the emperor can destroy it with a backhand." The queen complimented.
"Although the Jia family is not big, it is not easy for four kings and eight princes to have the same spirit and influence the whole body." The emperor shook his head.
"But they went back after all."
"That's because they know how to advance and retreat. Jia Baoyu is still good. Let Concubine De Gui go to Jiangnan to visit the bride."
"The Emperor is merciful."
…………
The emperor thought that the Jia family had given up.
How could they have imagined that this was a precursor to Jia Rong's plan to launch an attack?
After returning to my hometown.
Above the Longjiang River, there is an island somewhere in the center of the river.
It was originally a place where pirates lived.
Half a month later, the Rongyao Group sent a fleet to occupy it, wipe out the pirates, and build many houses.
And began to build fortresses, all of the bastion type.
This place is only a hundred miles away from Jinling City.
If something happens, we can get there in one day.
As for whether they would be discovered, throughout the Dream of Red Mansions, bandits were everywhere, and it was hard to see what officials could do.
In the middle and late periods of the dynasty, the laziness of officials was frightening.
There were sects in the Qing Dynasty who rebelled and entered the imperial city, only to be repulsed by the prince and his men.
The ministers clearly knew about it beforehand, but none of them reported it. This is so absurd.
In later dynasties, unless the ministers' own interests were involved, it was difficult, difficult, difficult to expect them to take the initiative to work.
Of course, if their own interests are touched, for example, if the refugees are trying to eat a large local household, they will immediately mobilize quickly and kill no matter how many people they want.
As for the pirates occupying Jiangxin Island, the prefect of Jinling was not informed, and the government officials immediately suppressed the pirates. The advantage was the 200 taels of snowflake silver paid by the pirates every month.
In this way, it would be more convenient for Lin Daiyu to go home.
Yangzhou and Jinling are very close.
Lin Ruhai is still alive all these years, relying on the new drugs developed by Rong Pharmaceutical Company to hang on to his life and has not died.
Zhao Han chose to return to Jiangnan and serve as the magistrate of a nearby large state, and also provided cover for Jia Rong and others.
At this time, refugees were everywhere in the north and bandits were everywhere.
The scale of Rongyao Company organizing refugees to go overseas is getting bigger and bigger.
People are being bought everywhere.
From 20 taels per person, it dropped sharply to 3 dou meters per person.
That's how outrageous.
There are also people who give away their children for free just to prevent them from starving to death.
Accept them all.
This is what agricultural society is like.
Belittle labor force.
I don’t know that labor force is the most precious wealth.
Because the most important resource that an agricultural society can develop is land.
There is always not enough food to put it into the market to meet everyone's needs.
In fact, the land was annexed, and most of the grain was buried in the annexers' granaries.
The problem is that the annexers do not fully participate in the market and do not sell much food. This is the fundamental drawback of the small-scale peasant economy:
The annexers have a large amount of grain, but most of it is not put into the market and is stored in cellars and granaries.
People who are short of food have no labor force and time, but cannot rely on labor to exchange for food from the annexers.
If you can only rob with violence, what else will you do?
This is the root cause of the so-called land annexation, which led to the collapse of the dynasty. Once the land is divided equally, ordinary people will have land and can produce their own food.
However this is not stable.
What is truly stable is to establish a business mechanism that allows acquirers to transfer the anchor of wealth from food to something else.
Grain can be put into the market in time and transformed into basic materials for economic circulation.
If you want to establish this kind of commercial circulation, you have to build it on the basis of technology, sea transportation, land transportation, water transportation. In short, you need to be able to distribute food as evenly as possible everywhere and sell it at a relatively stable price.
In this way, as long as the population does not exceed too much, it will be stable.
The premise is that there will be no war.
However, the war came at a time when no one was aware of it.
…………
Capital.
On the first day of March, there will be a great meeting.
"I have written this report. I have heard that someone has been trafficking people overseas on a large scale recently."
"There are many hidden dangers, one of which is: loss of population, no one to farm the land, and insufficient taxation."
"Secondly, people overseas have no ties and have no idea what they do."
"Three, the exodus of people and all kinds of beggars are detrimental to the dignity of our dynasty."
"My former minister, Xia, sent me a memorial to order all the county governments to strictly investigate the outflow of people and prohibit them from going to sea at will."
At this time, a doctor from the household department said: "According to Liu Yushi's remarks, how can the refugees make a living since they can't go to sea and have nowhere to settle down?"
"Even if you starve to death at home, it will be a safe death of hunger. It is better than living overseas without a body, and it is better than gathering a crowd to rebel." Liu Yushi said righteously.
The doctor was stunned when he heard this.
There is no excuse.
"What Ai Qing said is true. It is decreed that refugees are prohibited from going out to sea at will. Violators will be severely investigated."
The emperor thought that this was indeed the case and immediately issued an order.
Among the ministers, only a few people thought it was inappropriate, and most people thought it was good.
Because this allows them to charge higher rents for their land.
If all the people go to sea, who will use 80% to rent their land?
Not many people know that this is equivalent to adding a lid to a pressure cooker.
In other words, they know it, but they don't care. They always feel that they can still suffer the people. They are not afraid of some infamy, as long as they don't lose money.
However, these people did not expect that their stick would hit the vital part of Rong Pharmaceutical Company.
What is the foundation of Rongyao Company?
The goal is to absorb labor from the mainland and continuously colonize and reclaim the islands outside.
Now it is explicitly prohibited for refugees to enter the sea, which is extremely destructive.
Because the dynasty at this time was still capable of execution.
Soon, government officials in coastal counties began to get busy.
Refugees need to pay more to go overseas...
In the past, when a refugee boarded a boat, the prefect was eager to send him away, but now each one costs five taels of silver, and some even ask for twenty taels.
Isn't this a scam?
To attract one million refugees a year would cost 20 million taels, which Rongyao Company simply could not afford.
Even if I can use it as military expenditure, wouldn't it be better to beat you?
Moreover, many officials who wanted to climb up the mountain sent people to guard the pier, drive away the refugees, and prevent them from getting close to the pier.
There are still few channels for refugees to go to the sea, and many are afraid of trouble. Due to the strict ban by the government, more than 100,000 people could escape from the sea in a month, but now less than 10,000 people can leave.
"Fight, we must fight!" Jia Rong said harshly.
"Fight in the name of Wang Bolun, he has surrendered to us." Jia Lian followed.
Then they prepared to send out two fleets.
A fleet set off first and approached the capital from the north.
This was to allow the imperial court to mobilize troops from the south.
Sure enough, the court was soon shocked.
Pirates come ashore.
Directly plundering people everywhere. In the past, they were refugees, but now they are taking away blacksmiths, carpenters, and scholars...
Many ministers were shocked to find that the land near the capital was quickly depleted of people.
Not to mention 80%, not even 10%.
The crowd quickly requested that troops be mobilized to help the king.
The Minister of War said: "The opponent is likely to attack the east and attack the west, and attack the north from the south. Compared with the capital, Jiangnan is richer. Why don't the pirates attack Jiangnan?"
Everyone thought it made sense, so they sent the Minister of War to the south of the Yangtze River, taking only two hundred guards with him.
