Emperor Hongzhi looked at Zhu Houzhao with a look of relief on his face. He finally looked like a prince. He was also very curious now about what Zhu Houzhao understood.
"Father, do you know what the price of food is now?"
Zhu Houzhao did not answer directly, but asked Emperor Hongzhi about the price of food.
"This...is probably only seven or eight cents per catty. After all, this is a famine."
When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he was immediately speechless. He stayed in the palace every day, surrounded by important ministers. Although there was a famine now, he was more discussing how to provide disaster relief and how to adjust food. As for the arrival of folk food,
He really didn't know how much it cost per pound.
"Now the price of food has reached more than 50 cents per catty. When there was no famine, the price of food was only a few cents per catty. This food has increased more than ten times."
Zhu Houzhao knew this very well. When he was in Tianjin, he had nothing to do and Liu Jin asked him to show sympathy to the victims, so he knew the price of this grain very well.
"More than fifty cents per catty?"
When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he immediately became speechless. Even though he couldn't distinguish between the grains and the four limbs, he could open his mouth when food came and stretched out his hands when clothes came, but he still knew how terrible the food had become.
"The grain in Dezhou warehouse and Linqing warehouse must have been taken away by grain merchants and officials in partnership. Now this grain is as expensive as gold, and people must eat it when they are hungry. Even if they lose everything, they must first
A full stomach is the most important thing.”
"Now that they have a large amount of grain on hand, it is no different from holding a mountain of gold or silver. They also have the grain in the government, and it is not up to them to decide how much the grain will be sold for."
Zhu Houzhao sneered and instantly saw everything behind this clearly.
"Yes, yes, I didn't expect you to be able to see this level. You have grown up a lot. It seems that this trip to Tianjin was really not in vain."
Emperor Hongzhi looked at Zhu Houzhao and said with a smile.
Why did the food in the official warehouse disappear? Emperor Hongzhi must have known that the officials below colluded with businessmen to sell the food in the official warehouse.
This kind of thing is normal and has happened since ancient times.
The officials guarding the granary are like rats in the granary. They are all full of fat and fat.
In normal times, new grains in the granary are replaced with old grains, polished rice is replaced with bad rice, good rice is replaced with inferior rice, sand is added to the grain, food is resold, losses are falsely reported, etc. Various methods are endless, almost every day
A variety of problems can be found during every inventory of the granary.
Although Emperor Hongzhi always knew about this, he had nothing to do, because even if a group of officials were dismissed and replaced with new ones, the old path would soon be repeated, and the leeches would not be full, but would become even worse.
sharp.
Many times, he would turn a blind eye. As long as it was not too excessive, Quan should have acquiesced in the existence of such a behavior. This was a very helpless thing. Even as an emperor, he did not
any solution.
This time, the grain in the official warehouse disappeared. He immediately guessed that the grain was probably resold by officials and grain merchants in collusion with each other.
But what he didn't expect was that at this juncture, these officials would dare to resell food on a large scale, which was simply lawless.
"Of course I saw it clearly, and I also knew that they had a bigger plan."
Zhu Houzhao was slightly proud. He rarely received praise from Emperor Hongzhi. Now he was naturally very happy and continued: "It is not their real purpose to enrich the country."
"Actually, their real purpose is to target me, the prince, or our royal family."
Zhu Houzhao's words were simply earth-shattering. When Emperor Hongzhi and Empress Zhang heard this, they couldn't help but widen their eyes and didn't believe their ears. Why did Zhu Houzhao elevate this matter to the level of targeting the prince and the royal family.
"Father, you don't believe it?"
Zhu Houzhao looked at the surprised Emperor Hongzhi and continued: "When I was in Tianjin, Liu Jin told me about the many industries in Tianjin and the Xishan Coal Industry and Glass Factory in the capital.
When we went to purchase grain, even if they were willing to pay high prices for grain, none of these grain merchants were willing to sell grain to us on a large scale. They always calculated and sold only two or three days' worth."
"There are tens of thousands of people working for me here in Tianjin. There are more than 30,000 people working for me here in Beijing, Xishan Coal and Glass Factory. If there is no food supply, these tens of thousands of people will cause trouble."
Get up, something big will definitely happen."
"What a good plan!"
Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but be trapped by the other party's calculations, almost intertwined with each other.
"First, all the grain merchants united to hoard food together to drive up the price of grain. Then they colluded with the officials in the warehouse to take the last grain into their own hands. After completing this step, their purpose soon became apparent."
"On the one hand, there will definitely be people in the court asking you, Father, to use your internal funds to purchase grain for disaster relief, because now the treasury is almost starving to death, and only Father's internal funds are now very abundant. Originally there were hundreds of
Ten thousand taels of silver, and my glass factory handed over another million taels of silver, plus the income during this period, they must have calculated well and sheared the wool cleanly in one go."
"Then this is not enough. They will definitely focus on my business in the glass factory. At that time, someone will definitely report that I, the prince, am competing for profits with the people, criticize my involvement in the glass factory and many industries in Tianjin, and then go to court.
The officials above will definitely respond positively."
"In the end, it was probably proposed that the glass factory and many industries in Tianjin should be nationalized and placed under treasury management. Once that time comes, the glass and mirror manufacturing technology will definitely flow out immediately, and finally the glass factory will become
It was worthless, so they successfully transferred the hen that laid the golden eggs into their own hands."
Zhu Houzhao peeled off the cocoon and pulled out the silk. His analysis was succinct and he revealed a huge conspiracy against the current prince and the royal family.
After hearing Zhu Houzhao's words, the faces of Emperor Hongzhi and Empress Zhang suddenly became extremely ugly. It was not easy for their family to master a little money-making business. Unexpectedly, they were immediately targeted, and then the famine came to them.
He was tricked and did not take the emperor and imperial power into consideration at all.
"It's such a good plan. Not only will it drain away all the wealth we saved with great effort, but it also wants to take away the hen that laid the golden eggs in our hands."
"But that's not their ultimate goal."
While analyzing, Zhu Houzhao gave a thumbs up to his opponent this time. At the same time, he became excited. This feeling of seeing through all the enemy's schemes was really great.
"Then what is their ultimate goal?"
When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he quickly asked.
"Their ultimate goal is to control the imperial power, me and you, my father."
Zhu Houzhao said coldly, at this point in the analysis, everything has been clarified.
"Control you and me?"
"Control the imperial power?"
When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he was immediately filled with doubts. Although he had a high reputation in history and was a rare saint, he was too good to civil servants and believed in them too much. To put it simply, he was actually a good person. He was truly a saint.
When it comes to intelligence, maneuvering, etc., he is far inferior to Zhu Houzhao, let alone Zhu Houcong who will follow him.
"Liu Jin said it very well. The reason why those in power are in power is because they have information that others do not have and resources that others do not have."
"Since the Tumu Fort Incident, the power of civil servants has become more and more powerful. In the past, military power was directly controlled by our royal family, but now the deployment of troops needs to go through the Ministry of War."
"The other is the power to appoint and remove officials. Although our royal family has the power to appoint and remove important personnel at the top, the power to recommend all the important officials of the six ministries and the feudal officials is still in the cabinet and in the hands of the civil servants. In the final analysis, it is still in the hands of the civil servants.
"
"In addition, this financial power is also under the control of the Ministry of Household Affairs, but the national treasury has always been very empty, which means that our royal family has lost financial control."
"Now the glass factory under my command and your father's Xishan Coal Industry are very profitable, especially this glass factory, which is very profitable. The money earned by this glass factory and Xishan Coal Industry is not included in the national treasury. It belongs to our internal funds and death
Library."
"This also means that this money is not under their control, and they have no way to financially restrict our royal family and restrict our imperial power."
"And as long as we have money, it will be difficult for them to control whatever we want to do. It will be difficult for them to control us like before."
"So the court must be poor, the treasury must be empty, and our royal treasury cannot have too much money, because only in this way, when we want to do something, just saying that the treasury is empty is enough to dissuade us from any
Thoughts, thereby maintaining the previous situation, which has always been under their control."
Listening to Zhu Houzhao's analysis, Emperor Hongzhi looked at Zhu Houzhao as if he were a monster. He really couldn't believe that he could think so far and so deeply from these things now that he even doubted the whole person in front of him.
Is it his own son, the capricious and playful Zhu Houzhao who only pretends to be sick and skips classes?
But listening to Zhu Houzhao's layer-by-layer analysis, his entire face became extremely gloomy.