The next few days will be the imperial examination. As the first scientific examination in the new dynasty, Jia Ke attaches great importance to it.
He arrived at the Wenhua Hall early, and by this time the Wenhua Hall was ready. Jia Ke sat on the throne and began to recruit this time's tribute students into the hall to salute Jia Ke.
After the ceremony, hundreds of tables were moved to the Wenhua Hall, and the tribute students began to sit upright.
After that, Jia Ke took out a sealed bag from the desk and handed it to the examiner this time, Sun Yan, the foreman of the Military Aircraft Department.
Sun Yan opened the bag and took out the test questions, then put them on the mat and announced them. After that, these Gongsheng students began to answer the questions.
And Jia Ke was not idle either. His eyes were on these Gongsheng, and he thought that one of them was the young master.
In terms of age, there are probably only a dozen of them. Coupled with Qin Keqing's beauty, it seems that Qin Keqing's younger brother is also a young and handsome scholar.
So Jia Ke looked around the hall, and finally asked him to target a few people. These were all local young talents.
After Jia Ke read it, he whispered a few words to Li Deshan next to him. Li Deshan's eyes turned around on these people and then quietly retreated.
After a while, Li Deshan came in holding a plate of paper.
Jia Ke took the information from Li Deshan and looked at it one by one, and then compared it with these Gongsheng students, only to find that these people were very innocent and had no flaws at all. This made Jia Ke a little troubled.
"These people need to be closely monitored and cannot be taken lightly."
Jia Ke can only give this order now. We can't just arrest everyone without any reason.
After the palace examination, the rankings came. This time, Jia Ke did not interfere, and the rankings sent by Sun Yan and Li Wenbin were completely accurate.
After the imperial examination, Jia Ke announced to the civil and military officials his decision to reorganize the court's tax revenue. Immediately, these people were in an uproar.
The income of the previous dynasties mainly came from farmers' taxes, but now Jia Ke changed his mind and even planned to target these businessmen.
This caused losses to the civil and military interests of the Manchu Dynasty, because none of these officials had a few caravans under their command, and none of them had received the filial piety of the merchant gangs.
So a large group of people knelt down in the main hall of Qianqing Gate, admonishing Jia Ke not to be too eager for quick success.
But Jia Ke comes from modern times, so he naturally knows the shortcomings of ancient times. Although he had great power in the past, there was still someone above him. Now that he has finally secured his position, he naturally wants to reform.
So Jia Ke fought back all these voices of remonstrance, and several of Jia Ke's die-hard confidants came out to speak for Jia Ke and refute these officials who fell on their knees.
Only then did this decree pass reluctantly in the court.
When this imperial edict was sent from the capital to various places, merchants all over the world began to complain.
Unrest caused by merchants has occurred from time to time in various places, but merchants have had little status since ancient times. The ranking of scholars, farmers, industry and merchants is not just talk.
If taxes were increased on farmers, the princes would have jumped out to oppose it in order to gain a good reputation.
But when the merchants came, no scholar came forward to speak for them. They were all afraid to speak for the merchants. After that, his reputation among the scholars was greatly damaged, and he was considered by other scholars to have the stench of copper.
Therefore, although these businessmen made a fuss, it was over due to the strong policies of the government and the strong preparedness of the armies from various places.
The Shanxi merchants and Hui merchants among the three major business gangs did not have any objection to this reform. Although they have suffered losses due to this reform, Jia Ke has also treated them well. He used to give Jia Ke
Ke Jin's donation of money was also waived. If he continued to object, it would be disrespectful.
Therefore, with the presence of these two major business gangs in the north, the commercial tax was implemented smoothly and did not cause further disturbances.
But it was not so easy to calm down in the south. Fortunately, Zhang Chaoxin was still in charge in the south as the imperial envoy.
Since Zhang Chaoxin went to the south on Jia Ke's order to deal with the troubles caused by the scholars, it can be said that he has been conscientious and conscientious.
He arrested twelve wealthy gentry families at once, and sentenced to death one to two thousand people.
It was under Zhang Chaoxin's high-pressure policy that the gentry in the south became honest. Those gentry who were forward-minded were almost all dealt with by Zhang Chaoxin, and the remaining people were just outsiders. Seeing that the dynasty was stable
I didn't dare to take any action.
This time it happened that Zhang Chaoxin had not returned to the capital yet, and Jia Ke gave him another order, which was to suppress the businessmen in the south who rose up to stir up trouble.
Zhang Chaoxin is now in the south. It can be said that he can stop the child from crying at night. Jia Ke can rest assured that he will handle this matter.
Besides, the Jiangnan merchant gang was headed by the Salt Gang, and the Salt Gang was headed by Wang Yinggeng. This time the court's order greatly damaged the interests of their salt merchants. They had to pay one-tenth of their annual profits to the court.
In addition to the fees paid when purchasing salt from salt farms, their profit losses are the greatest.
Moreover, Wang Yinggeng had an ulterior secret, so this time Gang Yingen was on the verge of jumping up and down. He kept contacting famous business houses in Jiangnan, preparing to go on strike together to fight against the imperial court.
But as soon as he made any move, he was detected by the secret guards, and the information was clearly sent to Zhang Chaoxin's desk.
After reading this information, Zhang Chaoxin sneered. This Wang Yinggeng had embarrassed the then-King of Yan last time, and now he came to stir up trouble again. It seemed like his retribution had arrived.
So Zhang Chaoxin immediately wrote a secret order and rushed it 800 miles to the capital.
When Jia Ke received this secret message, it was already three days later.
After Jia Ke read Zhang Chaoxin's memorial, he also had a sneer on his face. He said to Li Deshan who was standing aside: "Do you think this salt merchant has made too much money and has burned out his brain? Wang Yinggeng dared to jump out.
Go against me."
After hearing this, Li Deshan hurriedly said: "Long live Lord, although Wang Yinggeng gets a lot of money every year, he spends even more. I have been monitoring Wang Yinggeng during this period and found that a large amount of his money is missing every year. And the money in his mansion is missing."
But the money cannot be used for consumption, and it is not even as good as some ordinary salt merchants."
Jia Ke immediately became alert after hearing this. Wang Yinggeng received silver in a year, but if it reaches more than one million taels, it will be a huge wealth for anyone. If it is used for evil purposes, it will be a huge capital.
Jia Ke knocked on the table gloomily, thinking that no matter what Wang Yinggeng did with the money, as long as it was not done openly, it would be a huge hidden danger. It seemed that this time it was just right, except for him.
So Jia Ke immediately wrote an imperial edict and ordered it to be delivered to Zhang Chaoxin. The content of this edict was to allow Zhang Chaoxin to act expediently. Shouldn't he have any scruples about Wang Yinggeng?
After Zhang Chaoxin received this imperial edict, he immediately put down the stone in his heart. With this imperial edict, no matter how many officials Wang Yinggen bribed, he could not escape retribution.
So Zhang Chaoxin immediately called Wei Kun over, and the two discussed it for a while, and finally decided that Wei Kun would send a secret agent to find out who Wang Yinggeng had contacted in Jiangnan and ask these people to write confessions.
And Zhang Chaoxin acted easily after receiving these confessions.
The secret guards led by Wei Kun have been eating this kind of food for their whole lives. They have penetrated Jiangnan to the point of being pervasive. As expected, within a few days, they found out all the information about the wealthy locals that Wang Yinggen contacted.
.
After that, Wei Kun personally brought people to the house one by one. In fact, all of these rich people were weak. When they saw the imperial spies coming to the house, they were naturally frightened out of their wits.
So before Wei Kun could interrogate these people, he told everything he knew, and at the same time, he sold everything to Wang Yinggeng.
After Wei Kun obtained these confessions, he did not continue to embarrass these businessmen. He only let them write a letter of repentance and promise to pay taxes to the court on time in the future.
After Zhang Chaoxin received the intelligence and evidence from Wei Kun, he was considered stable.
On the second day, Zhang Chaoxin brought out all the imperial guards of honor and led his troops straight to Yangzhou.
After arriving outside Yangzhou City, the prefect of Yangzhou was already waiting there.
Zhang Chaoxin did not immediately follow the payment process, because he knew that Wang Yinggeng was very powerful in Yangzhou City, and if the process continued like this, he would probably jump over the wall in the end.
Outside Yangzhou City, Zhang Chaoxin used the imperial envoy's gold medal to lure 3,000 troops stationed outside Yangzhou City and followed him into Yangzhou.
Then without rest, he went directly to the outside of Wang Yinggeng's house, and then asked the soldiers to surround the place.
On this day, Wang Yinggeng didn't go out, so he heard the housekeeper come to report that the house had been surrounded by officers and soldiers.
Wang Yinggeng was immediately frightened. He had expected that the court might have seen his flaw, but now he could only hold on.
So Wang Yinggeng came to the door with his servants and housekeeper. As soon as he opened the door, he saw a huge army of soldiers outside, and an imperial envoy's sedan chair was parked outside the door of the house.
Wang Yinggen did not dare to neglect, he took three steps at a time and came to the big sedan. He knelt on the ground, raised his hands and said, "Wang Yinggeng, a common man, has met the imperial envoy."
As soon as Wang Yinggeng finished speaking, the curtain of the sedan chair was opened by the boy next to him, and a middle-aged official was seen sitting inside. This man glanced at Wang Yinggeng, and then said with disdain: "You are the salt merchant.
Wang Yinggeng, the leader of
"The grassroots man is none other than Wang Yinggeng."
Zhang Chaoxin had already stepped out of the sedan at this time. He came to the kneeling Wang Yinggeng and asked, "If you don't do your business well, why are you plotting something evil?"
"The common people are wronged. Even if the common people have great courage, they would not dare to oppose the imperial court."
After hearing what he said, Zhang Chaoxin didn't know whether it was okay or not. He just ordered the soldiers next to him: "Pass my order to search Wang's mansion. All men, women, old and young will be detained together. No one can escape."