Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 127: New Currency Circulation, Construction of the Capital's Outer City Begins

Liu Zhu did not know that the southern gentry had already sold grain and cloth to the court, so he was very surprised at the behavior of civil servants from Jiangnan such as Gu Dingchen.

After hearing what Gu Dingchen and others said.

His mouth was half open.

He remained silent for a long time.

"Don't they care that Yuanyin was asked to be handed over to the Jinyiwei?"

"Does this mean that I alone have to fight for the right to custody the criminals who burned grain?"

Liu Zhu was puzzled and complained in his heart.

then.

A sense of fear grew in Liu Zhu's heart.

because……

Without the support of these officials who came from the Jiangnan gentry.

It would be difficult for him to resist the imperial power by himself.

It can be said……

As for him personally, the emperor had many legal ways to kill him.

And his reasons for refutation are indeed untenable.

at this point.

Liu Zhu himself is clear about it.

The reason why he dared to refute it was that all the civil servants in the court were willing to question and deny the justice of the Jinyiwei, not because there was real evidence to prove that the Jinyiwei had done something disloyal.

"why?"

"why is that?"

"Why don't you help me!"

Liu Zhu therefore became anxious and shouted in an inappropriate manner to Gu Dingchen and others who had already walked away.

Shouting and shouting.

He started crying.

But there's no use crying.

You have to walk on the path you have chosen, even if it means crying.

Liu Zhu was eventually thrown into prison.

After Liu Zhu was thrown into the imperial prison, Lu Song, who was in charge of the Northern Pacification Division, came to him and said indifferently: "Liu Jijian, you didn't expect that you would eventually fall into the hands of our Northern Pacification Division."

"Your Majesty is protecting you so much!"

"It is doing something that undermines holiness."

"I want to see His Majesty!"

Liu Zhu said as he grasped the cell door bars with both hands and shouted, "I want to see His Majesty!"

"The Emperor is too busy to see you."

"Your Majesty, this is not a cover-up. It means you are not allowed to deny the Royal Guards at will!"

"You should also thank the emperor. If the emperor hadn't ordered you to be locked up here, you would have died soon!"

Lu Song said, "No one can protect you from those people behind you!"

Liu Zhu suddenly looked up at Lu Song: "Why do you say that?"

"Because a large amount of food and cotton cloth will be delivered soon, your attempt to stop His Majesty's plot to reshape the money law will only fail."

"The people behind you have even known about this in advance, so it is impossible for them to do something futile for you."

Lu Song said.

Liu Zhu knew that the people behind the scenes that Lu Song was referring to were the Jiangnan gentry.

Liu Zhu now only asked curiously: "Why are there so many grains and cotton cloth delivered?"

"Naturally, they were bought from the South."

Lu Song replied with a smile.

"Bought?"

Liu Zhu was silent.

He suddenly realized that he had underestimated the emperor's determination to reform the currency system.

He also overestimated the determination of the Jiangnan gentry in resisting imperial power.

"Could you please tell His Majesty that I, the guilty minister Liu Zhu, still want to make progress and have another chance to serve the people of the world?"

Liu Zhu suddenly looked at Lu Song with a pleading look and asked.

Lu Song stood up and left, saying, "If the emperor wants to use you, he will think of you. However, don't hold your hopes too high. Those who are waiting to pledge their loyalty to His Majesty have long lined up from Qianbu Gallery to all corners of the country. Many of them are honest and loyal, and some have even castrated themselves in advance in order to enter the palace directly and serve the emperor by cleaning toilets. Therefore, it is unlikely that you will get your turn."

As Lu Song said.

Many people are still waiting to serve Zhu Houcong.

no way.

The best official shop on this continent is the one in the Ming Empire.

The surrounding countries are all not very civilized, and their ruling style is only more brutal than that of the Ming Dynasty, not more gentle. The key is that the people are not as easy to rule as those of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, no one wants to flee abroad and make achievements unless it is absolutely necessary.

Yang Tinghe was still waiting for the emperor to re-employ him.

But now, the reform is still going on, and the Ministry of Revenue is still borrowing from the internal treasury to cope with the increased court fiscal budget.

The emperor has not yet shown any intention of allowing him to return to the court.

Yang Tinghe was still waiting. He was waiting for the day when the emperor would lose the will to reform and only wanted to maintain the status quo.

The things that a person cannot get are often the things that he cannot let go of.

The more Yang Tinghe failed to get the opportunity to have the emperor join him in rebuilding the Hongzhi era, the more he longed for it.

When Yang Tinghe learned that his son Yang Shen was demoted to Daxing Dianshi, he only comforted Yang Shen by saying:

"Your Majesty is just still angry and has not yet fully realized the benefits of being a ruler who maintains the status quo, so he severely demoted you because of what you said in the past." "But Your Majesty is not a mean and ungrateful person. After all, he has shown some mercy and allowed you to continue to serve as an official in the capital. You just need to endure it steadily, and when Your Majesty changes his mind and only wants to maintain the status quo, and when your father returns to the cabinet, you will return to the court."

"That's when!"

"You will return to the court with a great reputation for crying out for the people of the world. This will only benefit your governance!"

Yang Shen nodded with a dejected look, then prostrated himself on the ground, kowtowed to Yang Tinghe and said, "Thank you, father, for your comfort, son!"

Yang Tinghe patted his shoulder and said, "Go and take up your post. Do your best as the Dianshi!"

"My son must be a good historian!"

Yang Shen nodded.

Yang Shen is now feeling both frustrated and angry.

What was frustrating was that he, a gifted man of heaven, a top-ranked scholar and a compiler of the Imperial Academy, had fallen to the level of a small historian.

What made him angry was that no minister in the court spoke for him. He was even convicted for his words this time because the Minister of Rites Mao Cheng and other civil servants in the south of the Yangtze River chose to betray him.

When Yang Shen was walking towards the Daxing County Government Office located in the northeast of the Forbidden City, Gui E was walking out of the city with many militiamen.

The two of them did meet each other, but neither of them spoke to each other.

After all, the two are not from the same camp.

But Yang Shen couldn't help feeling a little unhappy.

After all, with his status, in the past, not to mention the Censor, even the Shangshu and the Vice Minister would treat him with courtesy when they met him.

This feeling of loneliness was still very uncomfortable for Yang Shen, who was used to being praised by others.

Gui E went outside the city because an outer city was being built outside the city.

This is a big project.

A lot of laborers are needed, and where laborers gather in large numbers, there will naturally be health and epidemic prevention problems caused by the gathering of commerce and various people.

Therefore, Gui E needs to strengthen the management of order outside the city.

The technical work of building the outer city of the capital was mainly undertaken by officers and soldiers of the Beijing Camp.

It is an old tradition for officers and soldiers of the Beijing Camp to work part-time on engineering projects.

Since the beginning of the country, Tang He's officers and soldiers had built a house for Li Shanchang.

Now, the officers and soldiers of the Beijing camp have long become the best engineering team in the capital city because they have been forced by the powerful to build houses and walls all year round.

Zhu Houcong simply allowed the Ministry of War to transfer the officers and soldiers in the Beijing camp who no longer had combat effectiveness and were not even familiar with drills to the Ministry of Works as a professional technical team for building the outer city, responsible for leading the civilians from Lianghuai to build the city walls.

The officers, soldiers and civilians in the Beijing camp all worked very actively.

Because the wages paid by the court were sufficient.

A civilian laborer received three silver dollars a day, and a soldier received one more cent.

These silver dollars were enough to buy six or seven liters of rice, assuming that each able-bodied man needed one liter of rice per day, and each woman and child needed half a liter of rice per day.

Soldiers and civilians could use this salary to support themselves and a certain number of family members. If the family members were smaller, with only a wife and one child, they could still save a lot of money to buy some salt and meat.

That's right.

The first step for Zhu Houcong to reshape the currency system was to build the outer city and distribute the first batch of new coins minted by the Ministry of Works to the soldiers and civilians involved in the construction of the project. He then let them use the money to buy food, salt and other necessities of life, so that the new currency could be circulated in this way first.

In order to avoid public resistance to the new currency, Zhu Houcong also asked the Grain Bureau to set up official stores directly on the pretext of clearing out old grain and accumulated salt permits, to spend the old grain and accumulated salt permits, and only collect official money, and in this way promote the circulation of the new official money.

"The soil isn't tight enough, tamp it again!"

"Haven't you eaten yet?"

Gao Feng, the general flag of the Beijing Camp, was seriously directing the laborers to lay the foundation. After the laborers had laid the foundation for a while, he would touch the ground from time to time, press it, and then criticize the laborers.

Although Lu Huai didn't understand what he was cursing, he still had to work harder with his companions to lay a solid foundation.

Because he was very afraid of being driven away and becoming a refugee again.

However, what Lu Huai did not expect was that he, a starving man with a broken family, would one day have enough food to eat, be escorted to the capital, and have the opportunity to make money here.

Although, he was having a hard time now and was often beaten and scolded by the soldiers who led them to build the new city.

But now he can get money every day, which is already a very happy life for him.

So he felt particularly satisfied and was not angry because Gao Feng scolded them.

The only thing that Lu Huai is worried about now is his daughter who was kidnapped by bandits.

He didn't know where his daughter was, he could only pray to God to protect his daughter and let her continue to live in this world.

In addition to having a concern, Lu Huai also has a growing worry.

The worry is that the prices of grain and cloth in the capital are increasing day by day.

This forced him to give up his plan to buy himself a cotton coat to keep warm.

He could still endure the cold, and he could drive away the chill by working hard.

But he was quite worried about the continued rise in food prices.

He really didn't want to go hungry anymore.

And he knew that once he got hungry, it would be even colder. If he wasn't hungry, he would be able to hold on no matter how cold it was.

Therefore, in addition to hoping that his daughter is still alive, Lu Huai also hopes that the price of food can come down.

These are his two biggest wishes as a commoner.

As the emperor, Zhu Houcong also wanted to lower the price of grain.

However, the wealthy families in the capital city still ignored his ban on speculation in grain and continued to frantically drive up grain prices, forcing the government-run grain stores that still insisted on selling grain at low prices to limit purchases in order to allow more people to buy cheap grain.

Monk Fahui looked at the reports on the daily rising rice prices published in the Yumin Daily and Wenbao, and smiled with great satisfaction.

He had already secretly asked many temples and monasteries in the capital not to sell their grain to the market, and he also persuaded many wealthy households in the capital not to sell grain by claiming that grain transportation would be cut off and grain prices would rise. Therefore, grain prices are now able to continue to rise rapidly. For him, it feels like he is controlling the situation.

"Zhu Houcong, oh Zhu Houcong, you will regret your behavior of looking down on us Buddhists!"

Fahui even said this when no one was around, with a smug smile on his face.

But just as Fahui finished speaking, Li Zhaohe came up to him and said solemnly:
"The big thing is bad!"

"Liu Jijian, who knew our situation, was imprisoned!"

"In addition, a batch of new grain from Huguang has arrived at the Xi'an Gate Warehouse in the Imperial City. This time it will be directly controlled by the inner court!"

(End of this chapter)