Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 131 Take the initiative and repay God’s grace!
Liang Chu held the ivory tablet in front of his abdomen with both hands, looked at the clouds in the sky thoughtfully, and said with a smile:

"Your Majesty has actually made a good start!"

"We will not investigate the underground bank this time. We will only confiscate a large amount of illegal money. This is a reassurance for all officials."

"Next, what we have to do is to start with the easy and then move on to the difficult. First we need to lay the foundation, then put up the roof beams, and finally the tiles."

"In any case, the Ming Bank should be established first."

Liang Chu said with a smile, and Mao Ji followed suit and said:
"Yes, His Majesty has clearly stated that the Bank of Ming Dynasty is directly under the Cabinet, and the power to mint coins and banknotes belongs to the Bank of Ming Dynasty. This also means that both coinage and banknote minting belong to the Cabinet!"

Jiang Mian nodded: "That's right."

For the three cabinet ministers, the currency reform mentioned by Zhu Houcong was the thing that made them happiest.

Because this means that their cabinet also has its own financial power, and can establish a treasury belonging to the cabinet in the name of setting up the Ming Bank.

The Ministry of Revenue, Ministry of War, Ministry of Works and other outer court offices all breathed a sigh of relief after the emperor did not continue to investigate the people behind the underground money houses.

These officials were afraid that the young Emperor Jiajing would be too harsh, so they not only confiscated the underground money houses, but also tracked down the backers behind the underground money houses.

of course.

They were still very sad when they thought that the stolen money they had kept in the underground banks and had not yet dealt with, as well as the property entrusted to Fahui, had now all fallen into the hands of the emperor.

But no matter how sad they were, they could only swallow their anger and remain silent.

but……

Although these bureaucrats had no way to express their grievances, they still restored underground money houses based on actual needs, and once again placed their illegal assets in the name of other Buddhist temples, asking them to lend money on their behalf and make a profit.

It is obvious that if Zhu Houcong wanted to succeed in a thorough financial reform and achieve his goal of knowing exactly how much assets each government office in the Ming Dynasty had and how much deposits each bureaucrat had, it would not be accomplished or achieved by simply summoning the cabinet ministers and giving them instructions.

The Ming Dynasty continued to follow its previous path in finance.

The various government offices still fail to distinguish between public and private affairs, public and private property are still unclear, and it is still unclear who is corrupt and who is honest.

On the surface, the civil servants are all very honest.

Because many people are still borrowing money to make ends meet.

But it is.

It’s just like an honest censor in the Zhengde Dynasty who was able to build a grand Humble Administrator’s Garden in Suzhou.

Many officials are still planning to return to their hometowns to build large and luxurious gardens or purchase other properties after retirement.

In short.

The bureaucrats had little interest in the emperor's legalization of financial operations, nor did they have the motivation to change the status quo.

They would even rather endure the emperor's behavior of confiscating all their properties when he got the chance, rather than change.

After all, legalization means disclosing to the emperor how much money they and their government have, which is a more terrifying thing for them.

The only effective thing at present is that the new money of the Jiajing Dynasty is still flowing into the hands of ordinary soldiers and civilians through the infrastructure project of building the outer city of the capital, and then because these soldiers and civilians go to the court’s grain bureau to buy food, a lot of it is recovered by the court.

Here, the soldiers and civilians worked hard, and the outer city of the capital gradually took shape.

but……

The wealthy families in the capital were still speculating in grain, hoarding goods, and even saving the new coins they received to prevent them from circulation. They even took the initiative to collect the new coins to prevent their circulation and prevent the successful reform of the currency system.

Although the impact of these actions was small compared to the large amount of new money and grain released by the court every day.

But this does not mean that Zhu Houcong would sit idly by and watch the wealthy families in the capital so unscrupulously undermine the currency reform.

He knew that many of the civil and military officials in the court were not very enthusiastic about the reform.

Many officials even feel that the world is peaceful and there are no major problems, so there is no need to make a fuss.

Therefore, after Zhu Houcong expressed his intention to let the cabinet take the lead in planning the legalization of financial operations and the establishment of a banking system, he asked Liang Chu to recommend only Zhang Fujing and Wang Yangming to come to the Imperial Study. Together with Liang Chu, they served as ministers of the Imperial Study under the guise of giving daily lectures on classics and history to the emperor outside of the imperial lectures, and provided advice to Zhu Houcong on the reform.

"The wealthy families in the capital are still hoarding goods and speculating on grain and new money, which makes many people even more reluctant to take out the new money for trading and prefer to save it."

"This is undoubtedly not conducive to the reconstruction of money law. Do you have a good plan to deal with this?"

Zhu Houcong asked.

Liang Chu thought for a moment and said, "We have no way of knowing how much grain the wealthy families in the capital have, and it is not easy to send the Royal Guards to search their homes. So, in my opinion, it is impossible to send the Royal Guards to arrest them directly."

"Your Majesty, I think what the Prime Minister said is true. Now it seems that if we want to do this well, we can only use other methods."

Wang Yangming then began to speak.

Zhu Houcong nodded and asked Wang Yangming to continue.

"It has always been the case that large households are the most heavily in arrears with taxes."

"So in my humble opinion, we can collect the arrears of taxes and make these big households pay the taxes. They must hand over their money and grain, and they must pay in the official currency."

"This way, we can legitimately confiscate their money and suppress their arrogance in opposing the promotion of the new currency by the imperial court!"

After Wang Yangming said this, Zhu Houcong agreed, but he still looked at Liang Chu and Zhang Fujing: "What do you think?"

"Your Majesty, this strategy of the Grand Marshal is indeed a good strategy to curb the arrogance of the wealthy families."

“But it is not easy to collect the taxes owed by the wealthy families in the capital.”

"Because most of the wealthy families in the capital are powerful and noble, many of them are relatives of the emperor or close ministers of the royal family, so if you want to do this, the officials in charge of this matter must not be afraid of offending people, and even dare to take the blame for Your Majesty."

"In this way, Your Majesty can play the good cop and appease them afterwards, so that Your Majesty will not have discord in the harem." "As ministers, we sometimes have to consider not only whether the people of the world can live in peace, but also whether the harem of our sovereign and father is peaceful and harmonious."

"If you only consider the people of the world and don't consider whether the emperor and his father are safe, there will inevitably be a danger of regicide in the inner court! And then the cause of the revival will collapse!"

Liang Chu replied.

Zhu Houcong nodded, expressing his deep agreement with the concerns raised by Liang Chu.

Once the reform affects the interests of those around the emperor, there is no guarantee that someone will not go to extremes and end the reform by replacing the emperor.

After all, in an era when imperial power was supreme, killing the emperor was indeed the simplest and most effective way to end the reform.

At this time, Zhang Fujing was willing to step forward and take responsibility for this matter because he thought about the great favor the emperor had shown him.

In his opinion, the emperor did not dislike his frivolity because he talked about state affairs when he was a small tribute scholar in the past. Instead, he repeatedly used him and promoted him several times.

This undoubtedly shows that the emperor is truly a leader who is keen on reform and is determined to revive the Ming Dynasty.

At this time, people like me are needed to stand up and do the most difficult things for the emperor, so as not to let the emperor be frustrated on the road of innovation.

then.

Zhang Fujing took the initiative to say, "Your Majesty, I am willing to take on this responsibility and collect the taxes owed by the big households in Shuntian Prefecture."

Zhu Houcong looked at Zhang Fujing, smiled and said, "Then you will take on this responsibility. You will supervise the Shuntian National Taxation Bureau as the Shuntian Governor."

"at the same time."

"This time, the tax collection is still the same as the tax collection in Jining Road, Shandong. The new tax collection system will no longer rely on clerks to collect taxes, but professional tax officials will be used instead."

"The National Taxation Bureau sends tax officials and tax soldiers to collect taxes, and the taxes collected are still first stored in Taicang."

"The new batch of taxation experts trained by Xingming Academy can also be put to good use. They will be assigned to Shuntian Prefecture as tax collectors. As for the taxation soldiers responsible for armed taxation, they will be drawn from the Gyeonggi Province Inspection Office."

"These soldiers of the patrol have received a certain level of education and discipline training, and will be very reliable in collecting taxes."

"However, in order to improve the efficiency of collecting the arrears of taxes, we can first use courtesy and then force. Let Shuntian Prefecture post a notice, asking the tax defaulters to pay the arrears within one month. As long as 80% of the arrears are paid, the tax will be considered paid. Otherwise, the court will have to collect the arrears by force and impose a fine ten times the amount!"

"In addition, in order to avoid the situation where the people are incited during the compulsory taxation, the officials of Shuntian Prefecture and Daxing and Wanping counties must cooperate well to avoid the situation where the people are incited to make a commotion."

After Zhu Houcong said this, Zhang Fujing bowed and agreed.

after this.

Zhang Fujing officially assumed the title of Governor of Shuntian Prefecture and concurrently took charge of the Northern Zhili National Taxation Bureau. He began to order government offices at all levels in Shuntian Prefecture to post orders requiring households in arrears of taxes to pay the outstanding taxes within one month.

The wealthy people in the capital turned a deaf ear to this announcement and remained indifferent.

Because they believed that Zhang Fujing would not really dare to do anything to them.

Even Wuding Marquis Guo Xun didn't care about this, and said to Hui'an Earl Zhang Wei: "If we hadn't supported Zhang Yongjia, he would have died long ago, and how could he have become the emperor's favorite minister!"

Zhang Wei said, "But after all, we both chose to support His Majesty in recognizing me as the Emperor. We are on the same boat. If he really wants to force us to do so, we can't really break off with him."

"Let's take a look first!"

"The two brothers of the Zhang family have always owed the most taxes. If Zhang Yongjia really dares to take action against the Zhang family, we will naturally obey him and follow suit to pay the taxes owed."

"If he doesn't dare to do so, and is afraid of making the emperor bear the stigma of being harsh on the late emperor's maternal family, then he shouldn't think that we are soft persimmons and should be manipulated by him."

Guo Xun said.

Zhang Wei nodded.

In the following month, although there were few wealthy families in the capital who took the initiative to pay taxes, other major events went smoothly.

Fahui was eventually sentenced to the death penalty of lingchi (lingchi means slow slicing). After being taken to the execution ground, he was skinned alive for three days.

Yuanyin was also sentenced to beheading.

The Ming Bank was also officially established and located in the north building of Wenyuan Pavilion. The construction of a silver vault also officially began in the backyard of the north building.

Zhu Houcong directly named this warehouse the National Treasury, and listed it together with the Neichengyun Warehouse as the two major warehouses in the palace.

All the new money that was not distributed was transferred to the national treasury.

Not long after the establishment of the Ming Bank and the National Treasury, Yang Yiqing and Fei Hong almost arrived in the capital at the same time.

Because the two were high-ranking officials and elder statesmen in power, on the day they arrived in the capital, the troops of the Five Cities Army had already been dispatched in advance to start clearing the streets.

As the prefect of Daxing County, Yang Shen had to get up early and personally lead the yamen runners to assist the Jinyiwei in maintaining public order.

Because generally speaking, handling civil disputes such as murder and fighting is not the responsibility of the Jinyiwei, but the responsibility of Daxing County under Shuntian Prefecture.

Specifically, the Daxing County Dianshi, who was in charge of public security, was directly responsible for such civil disputes, while the Jinyiwei only handled major cases.

Therefore, in order to prevent Yang Yiqing and Fei Hong from encountering fights when they came to Beijing, which would affect these two important officials, Yang Shen had to take the yamen runners and start patrolling the streets very early.

And Yang Shen actually encountered a dispute during his inspection.

The cause of the dispute was that Geng Que, a household servant of the Marquis of Jianchang, was trying to force his way through a street that was being cleared by the Bingmasi, but was stopped by the Bingmasi, so he started beating up the people from the Bingmasi.

Not only did the soldiers from the military command not dare to fight back, they also did not dare to stop them.

Yang Shen took the initiative to stop them, and after asking about Geng Que's background, he said, "You are just a son of a family. Who gave you the courage to fight against the imperial army?"

Geng Que said disdainfully: "My Lord gave me the courage! Damn it, are you dissatisfied? If you are dissatisfied, then take me away if you have the guts!"

(End of this chapter)