Why did Wang Yuan want to investigate Zhejiang Beiguan?
Of course, it is not to fight corruption. His main task is to open up the sea, so why bother with all the details.
But in order to open the sea, Beiguan must be captured. Because all goods in South Zhili must pass through here before they can finally flow to the sea.
If Beiguan falls into the hands of those who oppose the opening of the sea, as long as they impose excessive taxes and extort money, the transportation cost of goods north of Hangzhou will increase exponentially. By then, I am afraid that many merchants will choose to smuggle instead of going to the sea from the official port of Hangzhou.
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In addition, Wang Yuan opened a palace and built a palace and had a thousand soldiers, which required a lot of financial support.
For example, when Wang Yangming trained troops to suppress bandits in Jiangxi, he used Jiangxi commercial tax dollars. Wang Yuan's side was similar. He also relied on Beiguan and Nanguan Customs Bank to feed himself. How could his own job be taken by others?
Finally, if the officials involved with Beiguan, Zhejiang, dare to use political means to resist the opening of the sea, then Wang Yuan will directly detonate the thunder at Chaoguan. At the worst, I will fail to open the sea and return to Beijing. You can just wait to lose your official position and be exiled!
Li Long, the commander of the Zhejiang capital, was so frightened that he did not dare to come to see him in person. He only asked his close associates to send him a local specialty - shark's fin cooked by a Hangzhou chef.
"Why did you bring it back?" Li Long asked.
A close confidant reported: "Mr. Wang took a bite and said he didn't dare to eat more seafood for fear of getting upset."
Li Long racked his brains and couldn't figure it out, so he could only call his master: "Sir, Mr. Wang took a bite and brought it back. He also said that he didn't dare to eat too much seafood for fear of getting upset. What did he mean?"
The master thought carefully and said: "I'm afraid, Mr. Wang's intention was not to drink wine. Since he took a bite, he showed that he would not fall out directly. As for his words, I'm afraid he doesn't trust the local officials and is just asking us to cooperate.
He opened the sea."
"How can it be so easy to open the sea?" Li Long shook his head.
The master smiled and said: "We might as well cooperate on the surface, at least we can't offend Mr. Wang."
Li Long asked: "How to cooperate on the surface?"
The master said: "Du Si can pay a visit in person and test Wang Zongzhi's tone."
"I'll think about it again and see how the Chief Secretary and the Inspector General will respond." Li Long said.
…
The current Zhejiang censor is named Tang Fengyi. He was a Jinshi in the third year of Zhengde and has a good relationship with Yang Shen.
Historically, this person rose to the rank of censor of Zuodu and took charge of the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate. He had two major political achievements -
First, when he was patrolling Zhejiang, extravagant weddings were common in the local area. Both dowries and betrothal gifts were very high, which led to many unmarried couples constantly postponing their marriages. Tang Fengyi was so imaginative that she directly implemented a year-limited law, stipulating that men and women must be crowned and hairpinned before they are crowned.
Get married to stop the extravagant trend of marriage.
Second, when he was patrolling Sichuan, the imperial court changed the status of Zhenxiong Mansion to local chieftains, which provoked a rebellion among the local chieftains. Just after the imperial court sent troops to put down the rebellion, the chieftains next door started rioting again. Tang Fengyi therefore went to court, saying that the change to local chieftains made the nearby chieftains uneasy.
, simply turned the exiled officials into native officials. As a result, Zhenxiong Mansion was still effectively ruled by the chieftains, the rebellion ended, and Tang Fengyi was promoted due to his merit.
Hangzhou Government Office.
The prefect Liang Cai said angrily: "Wang Ruoxu is a man who is lucky to be a sycophant. He was born in the wild land of Guizhou, and his actions are also barbaric. Although he is the number one scholar, he acts like a warrior. He is a governor of the sea, how can he act like a warrior?"
He has the power to lead troops to surround Chaoguan and check the accounts! If the governors of various places are so domineering, how can local political affairs continue to be managed?"
"What Prefect Liang said is true, I must read his book!" Tang Fengyi said with dignity and awe.
Governors and governors have great power in the local area, but they are afraid of encountering small patrol censors.
Once the governor is impeached by the censor, he will basically be unable to stay in office. Unless an important minister is forced to protect him, the governor has only two options: first, resign directly and leave; second, return to Beijing to prove his innocence.
Well, there is a third option.
The governor can return to the patrol and press the censor. As for the consequences, both the governor and the patrol censor will be investigated and punished, and the lightest punishment is to be demoted.
In the whole of Zhejiang, only a seventh-grade censor like Tang Fengyi could threaten Wang Yuan from an institutional perspective.
Once Tang Fengyi goes to court for impeachment, officials in the court can take the opportunity to launch an attack. At that time, Wang Yuan will either resign, return to Beijing, or be suspended from office along with Tang Fengyi for investigation.
Tang Fengyi returned to the official residence and wrote a memorial, enumerating Wang Yuan's illegal activities in Zhejiang.
Compared with Tang Fengyi's "strong and selfless" and Liang Cai's "incorruptible and upright", Wang Shao, the chief envoy on the left, chose to be a coward and wait and see. After all, he had just taken office for a month. The chief envoy on the right was appointed
Jian Ze was so anxious that he only hoped to survive another month and return to Beijing safely to report on his work. He also prayed to Mazu to protect him from making things worse.
Min Kai, who participated in politics on the left, and Liu Wenzhuang, who participated in politics on the right, were very embarrassed when they left the country. Their immediate superiors, the left and right chief ministers, one had just arrived and the other was about to leave, but they didn't care about anything. They were now in panic all day long, for fear that Wang Yuan would have a brain twitch and explode.
Explode thunder.
No matter what, the attention of Hangzhou officials was diverted. Few people paid attention to Kaihai anymore. They were all staring at Chaoguan, and they had almost forgotten what Wang Yuan was here to do.
…
There were only 200 sergeants left to guard Chaoguan, and the remaining gunmen were transferred back to the Governor's Mansion.
Yu Zhi, the chief officer of Beiguan, began to work as a clean official. He seriously rectified the seven bureaus of Beiguan. If any subordinate officer dared to disobey, he would be thrown directly to the resident sergeant and dragged to the Governor's Mansion for severe torture.
Customs inspectors no longer extort merchants, and the valuation of goods is only slightly higher than the market price.
In this way, the merchants coming and going cheered and called Wang Yuan the Grand Master of Qingtian, and they began to believe in the governor of Zhejiang from the bottom of their hearts.
Immediately afterwards, Yu Zhi began to reform his work.
For those ships that need to pay less than five yuan in tax, the procedures for customs declaration and tax payment will be simplified, and small-amount customs declaration tickets will be issued and reported as needed, called "convenient small tickets". This change has made the overall customs declaration speed one-third faster
, which greatly facilitated passing merchants, and the merchants were more convinced of Governor Wang.
Then, Yu Zhi announced that he would divert funds to build roads and rebuild the dilapidated Chaoguan Street. Moreover, instead of asking local officials to recruit servants, Beiguan would spend money to hire people to build roads. Not only would it not disturb the people, but it would also
Convenience to the people.
Now not only the merchants, but also the entire people north of Hangzhou City and more than ten miles along the river were happy.
Although it is Yu Zhi who is doing good things, people are not fools, and they all know that Wang Yuan is behind it.
The eyes of the people are sharp, and they all hope that Governor Wang can stay in Hangzhou for a few more years. With Governor Wang taking care of things, everyone's life in the future may be better and better.
The people's demands are really not high, and they can win over people's hearts by just doing a few practical things.
This popular sentiment does not include the gentry.
"What a great trick by Mr. Wang to control Duan!" Zhang Cong secretly observed for several days and was so impressed by Wang Yuan's methods that he finally showed up to apply for the job at the Governor's Mansion.