In the spring of the eighth year of Tianfa, Lin Maomao has lived in the Tokyo court for several years. She has been promoted to a female official with a pen, and has gradually become familiar with the work of handling government affairs.
He is busy with the work of handling numerous ministers' memorials every day, and it is simply too busy for him. Occasionally, Lin Maomao will take the emperor's place to praise him, and even directly approve some low-level memorials.
She has considerable power, and the status of the Bingbi female officer is no lower than that of the Bingbi eunuch in the previous dynasty.
There are always some officials in the outer court who try to get close to her. If they can't get close to her, they try to find other ways to get close to her family, friends, and teachers.
However, most of the female officials were orphans from the war in the late Ming Dynasty. Most of them did not have families, and they had no good impression of the corrupt officials who helped them.
Lin Maomao's social relationship is more complicated. She knows that some people try their best to provide benefits to Qian Qianyi, Liu Rushi and his wife who are idle at home. The purpose is simply to please themselves and get some shady things from themselves.
Lin Maomao was dismissive of this. She had written down some familiar names and asked the young female officer she brought to forward them to the Longyi Guard's Zhenfu Division.
The Emperor is particularly taboo on private communications between the inner court and the outer court. Even today, there are still blind people who dare to violate the Emperor's taboo. They are really desperate.
Emperor Tianfa is a benevolent and righteous king, but his benevolence and righteousness are only applied to the people, not to the courtiers.
In the past two years, the wars that have never stopped since the beginning of the People's Republic of China have almost stopped. All parts of the pass are flourishing, and everything is peaceful and peaceful. It is inevitable that there will be some corrupt officials who are tainted by the bad habits of the previous dynasty.
It jumped out again, and it was just the same old trick of making trouble.
The emperor attaches great importance to this. Last year, in the case of imperial examination fraud in Susong Province, a minister was beheaded and more than a dozen ministers with Jinshi origins. Hundreds of gentry families were implicated in the Jiangnan area. In the end, the number of people who were put on trial and exiled in Jilin and Heilongjiang
, reaching more than 800 people.
Just after the New Year this year, another water transportation corruption case broke out.
The emperor has always attached great importance to the rectification of water transportation. The "Tianyu Zhenggong" of grain collected by the imperial court from the southeastern region every year is about four million shi.
The scale is neither big nor small, but it cannot be considered a small number.
Every year, this large amount of grain is transported north to Xuzhou via waterways, mainly the Grand Canal. After changing ships in Xuzhou, it is then sent to Kaifeng Prefecture in Tokyo and stored in warehouses.
Li Laiheng himself had always intended to directly use sea transportation to replace water transportation. For this reason, he even considered moving the capital directly to Tianjin to facilitate sea transportation.
However, because the Haihe River has not yet been regulated, and Tianjin is located in a low-lying area and is often affected by the flooding of the Haihe River, the conditions for establishing the capital are not as good as Wuchang, which is frequently flooded.
This proposal had to be abandoned, and the idea of sea transportation could only be temporarily shelved, and the old road of rectifying water transportation could be returned to.
The officials responsible for grain collection and transportation include both full-time officials and many part-time officials related to grain collection and transportation. The water transportation manager has direct jurisdiction over grain transportation and is also responsible for supervising the canal transportation troops in several provinces such as Shandong and Jiangning.
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In addition, the provinces that the canal passes through each province have more grain inspectors and grain storage envoys, who are in charge of urging counties and counties to collect grain from the canal and various grains accompanying the canal, supervise the redemption of grain, supervise the escort of the canal, and are in charge of the military guards and the selection of transporters.
and building water vessels, and managing the money and grain expenses used for water transportation.
The leader of each canal ship is a soldier, called Yun Jun, or Yun Ding, one for each ship. There are also nine sailors, who are hired by the transport army itself. The canal ships are divided into gangs, and each province has as many gangs as possible.
There are dozens of gangs, and each gang has dozens of canories. Each gang has one person in charge as the courier officer, and another person from the gang who is responsible for escorting.
In addition, there were also four patrol officers, stationed in Jinling, Huai'an, Xuzhou and Guide, who patrolled the canal section by section to check whether the grain and rice in the canal were carrying illegal salt and various contraband. In addition, they also patrolled the river.
, inspecting the dredging of rivers, and inspecting warehouses, etc.
Various taxes and fees are levied together with the grain, and are borne by households receiving the grain. However, the actual burden of the grain recipients must exceed the rated levy. When states and counties collect grain, they use the top of the grain, kicking the stems, and cutting the bottom of the stems.
, replacing dendrobium noodles, sampling rice, taking the remaining rice from dendrobium noodles, and taking advantage of changes in rice prices to exploit households.
Corrupt officials use the floating system to enrich themselves, and many canals and rivers are blocked by siltation and shallow obstruction, which is also a very serious problem.
After the water transport corruption case broke out this year, the emperor directly took down Liang Qilong, who was then the water transport manager, executed him personally, and exiled his family to the Lelang Governor's Mansion.
This case implicated hundreds of people, so some people say that there were no major cases in the early days of the Shun Dynasty, but there were a series of small cases, and the Longyiwei Town Fusi and various admonishment officials did not have much power, so they wanted to punish people.
But it is very easy. The number of unjust, false and wrong cases is definitely not a small number, but the situation of political clarity is closely related to this terrible threat.
This year Li Laiheng once again revealed his intention to hand over water transportation to gentry and merchants. Lin Maomao and other female officials with pens knew of his intention, and at the emperor's instruction began to draft a specific blueprint for water transportation to be undertaken by gentry and merchants in the southeast.
The local wheat agriculture in Henan is relatively developed, so the main purpose of Shunchu's water transportation is not to supply Kaifeng, the capital, but to transport grain to Beijing, Liaodong, and North Korea to support military affairs.
Therefore, the plan drafted by Lin Maomao was not actually about water transportation, but a proposal to have southeastern gentry merchants undertake the sea transportation of military rations.
In this way, the pressure on water transportation is estimated to be reduced by about half, and the court can save about two million silver dollars every year.
For this reason, Lin Maomao proposed to take the lead in setting up a maritime investment promotion bureau in Ningbo. It was also because the blueprint of this plan was spread out of the palace by someone unknown, causing an uproar in the court and making countless people jealous among the people.
That's why there are a lot of people who come to bribe and curry favor with Lin Maomao even at the risk of beheading.
The reason is that he hopes that his own company can be included among the shareholders of this shipping investment company.
After all, anyone can see that as long as the Maritime Investment Promotion Agency is established, just by undertaking the annual shipping of military rations, one can earn a fortune.
Moreover, the Maritime Transport Investment Promotion Bureau is a business operation, and it is responsible for its own profits and losses. It purchases its own ships. When the time comes, the gentry and merchants will not only transport military rations, but also bring other general merchandise to sell to the border troops, and then transport various in-demand commodities from the border generals back to the south for trade. It is simply
A huge profit.
If the imperial court can save several million silver dollars a year through this, then there may not be any problem if China Merchants Bureau itself can earn several million more silver dollars a year.
Too many people are interested in this matter, and Lin Maomao is the one who initiated the maritime investment promotion plan, so she is under the greatest pressure.
She took a sip of rose hip tea, and the maids on the side put a shoulder gauze dress on Lin Maomao. On Lin Maomao's table was a letter from Qian Qianyi.
The content of the letter contains inside information about Qian Qianyi and Zheng Sen’s private communications.