Song Cang, the left Shaoqing of Guanglu Temple, could recite at the age of five and became a junior student at the age of fourteen. In the third year of Zhengde's examination, he met Yang Shen and the two became irreversible friends.
"Yongxiu, how should I deal with it?" Song Cang asked.
Yang Shen asked, "Are you greedy?"
Song Cang said anxiously: "How can I have time to commit corruption?"
"Brother Boqing, don't blame me. It was foolish brother who made a mistake." Yang Shen quickly apologized.
Song Cang was a Jinshi in the third year of Zhengde, and had been Zuo Shaoqing for three years. He could be promoted again at any time, and the promotion speed was so fast. Of course, there was a relationship with Yang Shen, and he was appreciated by Yang Tinghe through this method, but Song Cang was really not greedy, because
He is not free.
This guy is a workaholic. When he was a member of the Criminal Department, he ate in the office for two consecutive years. Not only did he complete the current work, he also handled thousands of backlogged cases and corrected countless unjust, false and erroneous cases. After being transferred to Guanglu Temple, the same trivial matters continued.
After work, he also likes to read. Whenever he has free time, he shuts himself in the study and doesn't even bother to pay homage to his superiors. How can he have any free time for corruption and bribery?
Historically, Song Cang became ill due to overwork and died of exhaustion. He was on patrol in Sichuan when he encountered a rebellion by the Baicao barbarians, and used a clever plan to regain the Eighteen Villages. Zhenzhou gathered 30,000 people to rebel, and he put it down within three months. In
While suppressing the rebellion, he also found time to deal with other government affairs. The imperial court promoted him to the position of Minister of Rites. When he was free, he immediately fell ill and died on his way back to Beijing to take up his post.
Song Cang said: "Yong Xiu, there is something I don't know whether to say or not."
Yang Shen hurriedly said: "Brother, please speak frankly."
Song Cang was extremely entangled and said: "Brother Yu is a disciple of Mr. Yang Ge. He has been promoted by Mr. Yang Ge many times. Although he was not admitted to the Shujishi, he was directly taught by Zhongshu Sheren and was promoted to a member of the Criminal Department. Mr. Yang Ge's
Well, I can't repay you in this life. But Guanglu Temple's long-standing shortcomings are getting deeper and deeper. Brother Yu has long wanted to rectify it, but it is difficult to do it because it is too involved. Wang Shangshu wants to attack Guanglu Temple? Yu Gong? Brother Yu should give his full support. But,
In private..."
Yang Shen smiled and said: "Brother, don't think too much? Just handle it impartially."
"Where is Mr. Yang Ge?" Song Cang asked.
Yang Shen said: "Don't pay attention? My father has a stupid brother to explain it. My brother can just visit Wang Shangshu directly."
"That's very good." Song Cang finally felt comfortable.
…
Ministry of Rites.
Wang Yuan stared at Song Cang with interest. He didn't expect that Party Yang would take the initiative to report on his work. He asked with a smile: "What does Song Shaoqing have to say?"
Although Song Cang did not rectify Guanglu Temple, he knew the situation of Guanglu Temple well. He said: "If you want to rectify Guanglu Temple, you will have to offend many ministers. Does Wang Shangshu know?"
"An important minister in the court? Are you still looking at that little bit of oil and water?" Wang Yuan said with a smile.
Song Cang said: "Of course the ministers are disdainful? But it is hard to say about their children."
Ministers of the third rank or above can sponsor their sons to be students of the Imperial College. Those who need support to enter the Imperial College are naturally the kind of people who have no hope of taking the imperial examination. They don't think about studying and taking exams, and just hang around all day waiting to be assigned jobs. As for the miscellaneous officials of the Five Temples
? This is the position that these Enyin disciples like to hold the most.
For example, the supervisor of Guanglu Temple? He is only an eighth-grade, low-ranking official the size of a sesame seed? But he can make a lot of money from it.
If you want to attack Guanglu Temple, you must thoroughly investigate these Enyin disciples? The result will be to offend their parents? So for a long time no one has dared to clean up.
Wang Yuan nodded and said: "Is this one of them? What else is there?"
Song Cang added: "The increase in kitchen servants in Guanglu Temple is not only due to the eunuchs working privately, but also because there are more and more officials from various yamen in Beijing."
Wang Yuan said: "Tell me in detail."
Song Cang explained: "There are only a few thousand kitchen servants, and more than a thousand are sent to the inner palace; more than a hundred are sent to the Imperial Wine Supply Storehouse, Candle Temple, and Bangan Temple; more than 500 are sent to the Shangshan Supervisor;
Many yamen such as the Cabinet, Six Branches, Six Ministries, Hanlin Academy, etc. were all separated. There were also military missions such as customs defense, inspection, patrol, etc., which added up to several hundred. Guanglu Temple itself only had less than a few left.
There are three thousand kitchen servants. The late emperor set a regulation, and the number of kitchen servants can be supplemented if the number of kitchen servants does not reach four thousand. Guanglu Temple's increase in kitchen servants does not violate the regulations, but is a helpless move."
If this statement is true, the implications are too wide, and it is certainly not something that the Minister of Guanglu Temple and Shaoqing can solve.
Wang Yuan's own working meal at the Ministry of Rites occupied the kitchen staff of Guanglu Temple!
Wang Yuan asked again: "What else?"
Song Cang said: "There are still two disadvantages, one is to buy free time and occupy the labor force, and the other is to sit and enjoy the monthly grain."
These two shortcomings can actually be classified into one.
Kitchen servants' families have a special household registration (i.e., youth registration). They only need to serve as kitchen servants for the palace and the government, and do not need to perform other corvee services. In this kind of family, the eldest son must be a cook, and the remaining heirs can do whatever they want, and they can even study.
Take the imperial examination.
As the government continues to increase the number of kitchen servants, how can families who are serving in the kitchen keep themselves busy? So they buy idle servants.
One is that Guanglu Temple hired idle people from society to serve as temporary kitchen servants, but did not provide them with full monthly rations, or even monthly rations. The withheld monthly rations were eaten by the officials - the monthly rations are the kitchen servants' subsidy, which is four buckets of rice per month.
One is that the kitchen servant's house hires idle people to take care of the kitchen service for itself, but also does not provide full month's food, and eats up the difference in price.
This approach is to buy free time and occupy the labor service, and enjoy the monthly rations.
And why are those idle people in society willing to be employed as temporary cooks even though they cannot receive sufficient monthly rations?
Get some oil and water!
Just steal some ingredients and sell them, which is more than the monthly ration of four buckets of rice.
In other words, from the various yamen who were assigned kitchen servants, to the officials of Guanglu Temple, to the kitchen servants at the bottom, they were all embezzling and stealing money from Guanglu Temple.
Don't underestimate this amount of money, it adds up to a huge amount of money every year, so many famous officials in history have taken action to rectify the situation. For example, Yan Song, Xi Shu, Han Wen, Xu Jie... wrote memorials specifically on the matter of kitchen servants, so take it seriously.
Do it as a big deal.
No matter what the reputation of these ministers is, at least they are doing their job!
However, Wang Yuan's predecessor, Mao Cheng, the Minister of Rites who had just died of illness, did not dare to take action against Guanglu Temple, which led to corruption and theft becoming more and more serious, and even the nonsense of giving leftovers to foreign envoys. Mao
Cheng was also an incorruptible minister in the history books, but in Wang Yuan's view, he was just a guy who sat on his back and ate nothing.
Suddenly, Song Cang said again: "The rare and exotic animals that your Majesty raises require more than 6,000 taels of breeding fees from Guanglu Temple every year."
"How can it be possible to spend more than six thousand taels of silver every year to feed those beasts?" Wang Yuan asked in shock.
Song Cang said: "It's really more than six thousand taels."
Wang Yuan wanted to scold his mother. When he conquered the Western Regions, Shangshu asked for money to immigrate to Shibian, but the Ministry of Household Affairs took a long time to find 10,000 or 20,000 yuan. The general in the border town asked for funds to buy war horses. After pleading hard, he only allocated a few dollars.
Thousand taels of silver passed by.
And the animals raised by the emperor cost more than 6,000 taels every year!
This is not the responsibility of Zhu Houzhao alone. Since the time of Zhu Yuanzhang, envoys from various countries have continued to send rare birds and animals. Haidongqing, lions, rhinos, elephants, tigers, leopards, and even Western pet dogs, during the Chenghua Dynasty
It costs more than 2,000 taels per year.
Don’t you think it’s amazing that the rare birds and animals raised by the emperor actually have to be fed by Guanglu Temple?
Wang Yuan said to Song Cang: "Send people to check the daily meals of each yamen, and recall all the redundant kitchen servants. We also need to check the food of those animals... If you can't do this, I will go directly to Your Majesty. Anyway, we need to check the kitchen servants first.
, then more than 8,000 cooks are needed?"
Song Cang, a workaholic, immediately got into gear, and in just half a month, he calculated the amount of food for each government office in the capital and converted it into the necessary number of kitchen workers.
It doesn’t take more than 8,000, just 3,500 people!
As for what the extra cooks are doing? Either they are called by eunuchs and officials to do private work, or on paper, the cooks actually get paid.
Wang Yuan was quite reasonable. Three thousand five hundred cooks could do the job. He set the number of cooks at four thousand. If you exceed this number, you will be held accountable to the Minister of Guanglu Temple. If you cannot take on this job, resign as soon as possible!
At the same time, Wang Yuan also strictly regulated the working meals of each yamen to prevent extravagance and waste.
Then, Wang Yuan personally went to Zhang Yong and Gu Dayong and asked them for a list of rare birds and animals. Then according to the conversion, those animals could be fed with more than 3,000 taels of silver per year. Wang Yuan temporarily fixed the quota at 4,000 taels of silver, leaving a few
The difference of one hundred taels allowed eunuchs and officials to commit corruption. From now on, whenever there are new animals, they must be reported to Guanglu Temple and fed according to the actual situation.
All the hired idlers were dismissed without even bothering to question how many ingredients they had stolen.
These measures alone can save 60,000 taels of silver every year!
By the way, if we look at the expenditure of Guanglu Temple in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, we know that Emperor Longqing was the most frugal. In the Longqing Dynasty, Guanglu Temple only spent more than 10,000 taels per month, and in the Wanli Dynasty, the monthly expenditure increased sharply to nearly 30,000 taels.
2. Although Emperor Chongzhen himself was frugal, he could not cope with the abundance of moths, and his monthly expenditure was more than 20,000 silver.
The Jiajing Dynasty was more nonsense, because the emperor believed in Taoism, so the concubines and eunuchs in the palace would hold fasting festivals from time to time to please the emperor. The fasting festival was when monks and Taoists set up a fasting altar, where they not only had to eat, but also offer sacrifices. The ingredients and sacrificial items were all made by
Guanglu Temple provided it, causing Guanglu Temple's expenses to skyrocket.
While investigating the kitchen servants, the previous accounts of Guanglu Temple were also uncovered, and Wang Yuan impeached more than fifty officials at one time.
There is no way to catch people at the level of Si Cheng and above, because even if they are embezzling, they are secretly collecting money from filial piety, and there is no problem at all from the accounts. Even if they want to be held accountable, it can only be said that they have neglected their duties and are lax in their duties.
Liu Rui of Guanglu Temple was so frightened that he resigned.
After reorganizing Guanglu Temple, Wang Yuan reorganized Taichang Temple and Honglu Temple, again forcing two temple ministers to resign, and investigated and punished nearly a hundred officials from the ninth rank and above.
Liang En, the Guanglu eunuch and the supervisor of the Shangshan Supervisory Bureau, casually returned the occupied kitchen servants and took the initiative to return a large amount of dirty silver. Wang Yuan still impeached him with five memorials in a row, and was finally thrown into guarding the imperial mausoleum by Zhu Houzhao.
Such a rectification will not only clean up the officials of the three temples, but also save one hundred thousand taels of expenses every year.
The civil and military officials were so frightened that they no longer dared to reach out to the yamen under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Rites, let alone say anything because of Wang Yuan's treatment of their heirs.
At the same time, a large number of scientific officials changed their impression of Wang Yuan. They no longer regarded him as a sycophant, but considered Wang Shangshu to be an upright and honest minister.
Many of these science and education officials are actually very cute, and they are really full of passion.
Take Fang Feng, the imperial censor, for example. The most outrageous thing this guy did was to impeach his own brother in the early years of Jiajing. The reason was that his brother was attached to Zhang Cong and Gui E, and he felt that Zhang Cong and Gui E were both
Opportunistic villains.
This approach is to help Yang Tinghe lead the charge, but do you think he is Yang Tinghe's party member?
No, Yang Tingyi, Yang Tinghe’s brother, was impeached by Fang Feng until he resigned. After Fang Feng impeached his brother, he impeached himself because his behavior was unethical.
Is the operation very awkward?
They impeached Yang Tinghe’s younger brother first, then impeached Yang Tinghe’s political opponents, impeached his own brother and then impeached himself. They definitely have no selfish motives!