Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 162: Jiangyang seeks favor and the Nanzhi nobles split!

Zhu Houcong also noticed the sincere looks of these candidates for the title of prince consort.

Therefore, after the banquet began, he admonished in a deep voice:

"You are all the descendants of the Edible Heavenly Family Lu who have been carefully selected by the Ministry of Rites, the Imperial Household Department, and the Imperial Astronomical Observatory."

"I believe that you are all people of good character. Even if you cannot marry Princess Shang in the end, you are still talented people picked from thousands of miles away. Therefore, no matter whether you can become the son-in-law of the royal family today, you should be vigilant and not waste your youth by doing things that will ruin your family and career!"

Zhu Houcong's words made Shen Xueli and other candidates for the son-in-law even more excited, and the monarch's love for the country became even more intense.

Because the emperor said he believed they had good moral character and were talented people.

This naturally moved them, and they were even willing to sacrifice their lives to prove that the monarch was not wrong in trusting them.

Even after the banquet was over, Shen Xueli still found it difficult to calm down his excitement.

But for Zhu Houcong himself.

He is just trying to get more people to obey his rule.

and so……

He would say such solemn and encouraging words to anyone.

Even when he visited the Daming Practical School after the provincial examination, he spoke many words of encouragement to the students there.

But for Jia Shiyuan and other students of the Ming Dynasty Practical School, it was a kind of happiness that was enough to move them to tears.

Because his mere appearance in the Ming Dynasty Practical School made them feel that the emperor was not giving them special treatment because he felt pity for their difficulties in passing the imperial examinations and entering officialdom, but that he really had high hopes for them.

From the moment Zhu Houcong appeared at the Ming Dynasty Practical School, scholars such as Jia Shiyuan were in awe of his young, handsome and calm face.

Many of them were even so moved that they were about to cry, as if even if Zhu Houcong asked them to fight on the battlefield, they would not refuse.

In fact, Zhu Houcong really needs them to fight for him next.

But what Zhu Houcong needed was not for them to fight for him on the battlefield, but to go to the southeast.

In the current domestic reform.

Zhu Houcong needed them to carry out a more vigorous reform.

This is because, after Zhu Houcong received the news urgently sent to Beijing by Zhu Xizhou that the tax and labor service lists in many places in the southeast had disappeared or been destroyed, he had already determined that the national policy of further conducting surveys in some local areas was inevitable.

Simultaneously.

Up to now, the new army's Mighty Battalion has been training for four months and is currently being sent to border towns for training to harass the little prince's tribes.

The reason why it is distributed is that they are not all sent out.

That’s because if the entire 20,000-strong Mighty Battalion were to be sent to the border town, it would be a huge military expense.

After all, the military supplies consumption generated by marching and camping is very different.

The military supplies consumed by training and actual combat are also particularly large.

in fact……

Most civil servants opposed military expansion and opposed ensuring that the emperor had strong troops and horses, and in many cases it could not be said that this was entirely out of selfish motives.

same.

Many emperors in history chose to listen to civil officials, not entirely out of lack of ambition.

After all, if productivity is not improved and the pie is not made bigger, the cost of building a strong country that the people of the Ming Empire can bear is really limited.

But the current situation is that the contradiction between population and land has intensified to the point where this idea has seriously affected the empire's self-improvement, to the point where even the central court does not have a strong army to suppress local forces.

This meant that Zhu Houcong did not dare to carry out large-scale financial reforms. He only dared to clear out the farmlands in the area surrounding the capital and make some changes to the salt administration.

Even though he killed many people, large-scale reforms did not really begin.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong wanted to rebuild the Weiwu Camp so that he would have a strong army that could suppress all forces in the world.

then……

He didn't have to worry about a fire in his backyard while carrying out large-scale reforms in the South.

Zhu Houcong wanted to develop productivity and make the pie bigger.

only……

The current situation in the Ming Dynasty is that the gap between the rich and the poor is too large, so large that it has affected the improvement of productivity and the development of new resources abroad.

Because the emperor did not have a strong imperial guard and his imperial power declined, advanced technology and talents were monopolized by the southern clans.

Monopoly often leads to a lack of ambition, and people only pursue pleasure and be content with the status quo.

at the same time……

This will also prompt the beneficiary class to only want to further plunder the wealth of the common people through direct financial means, and not be proactive in improving productivity.

It will also be more difficult for most ordinary people to accumulate wealth, and it will be impossible to promote the growth of the civilian consumer market.

It just makes the luxury consumption market grow stronger.

What's the point of spending thousands of gold to buy a skinny horse from Yangzhou, and spending tens of thousands of gold to buy a boat girl from West Lake.

Although street consumption seems to be prosperous, it is only the prosperity of a small number of beneficiaries and has nothing to do with the people or the court.

Fortunately, Zhu Houcong finally took advantage of the internal conflicts among the aristocratic families and the ideological divisions among the scholar-official group, and united and won over Wang Yangming, Zhang Cong and other ritual advocates, allowing him to rebuild a powerful imperial army of his own.

With this imperial army.

He would be able to carry out larger-scale internal distribution reforms and increase the court's revenue without increasing the burden on the lower-class people.

Then... the imperial court can use this income to promote the development of productivity and explore new resources.

Increase efforts in public infrastructure construction and research and development of new technologies to promote productivity development.

Frankly speaking, the intensity of public infrastructure construction carried out by local gentry and that presided over by the imperial court are different, and the effect of promoting productivity is also different.

As for developing new resources externally, the imperial court can naturally be more powerful than local gentry in developing them externally.

of course.

Zhu Houcong wanted to carry out larger-scale domestic reforms, but he did not really want to let the army implement them directly.

The army was merely Zhu Houcong's violent agency and a strong backing to assist in the reforms, but the ones who actually implemented the reforms were the bureaucrats trained by the Daming Practical School and the Xingming Academy.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong established the Ming Dynasty Practical Politics School and needed people from the Ming Dynasty Practical Politics School to do this.

For Zhu Houcong, what he wanted was a strong country and prosperous people.

In order to make the country strong and the people prosperous, he now needs to complete corresponding reforms in the southeast, especially in Nanzhi.

Only after completing the corresponding reforms in the southeast, redistributing the benefits, increasing the court's income, and recovering the monetary power, can he develop resources externally and develop productivity internally.

But when the big families in the southeast learned that Zhu Houcong had issued an edict allowing the sons of military personnel who had passed the deputy list of the provincial examination and the scholars who had passed the deputy list of the provincial examination more than twice to enroll in the Ming Dynasty Practical School, they guessed what Zhu Houcong wanted to do.

After all, these people are not stupid.

Therefore, when this imperial decree reached Nanzhi, many children of the aristocratic families began to discuss it.

Even after the Nanzhi County Examination was over, Fang Gao, a candidate for the examination, relied on his grandfather's reputation as the former Nanjing Minister of Personnel in the Nanzhi scholar circle and called together a group of candidates and said:
"The treacherous officials in the court did this in order to prepare for direct land surveying under the pretext that there were accidents with the warehouses in many places. This is a plan by the treacherous officials to make money and harm the people. Therefore, we should follow the public opinion of the scholars. Even if we are qualified to go to the Practical School, we should not go. Instead, we should abide by the laws of our ancestors and take the right path of the imperial examination!"

"Brother Ying Bin is absolutely right!"

"Anyone who follows the wishes of a treacherous official for his own selfish reasons is going against public opinion!"

"This is not what a gentleman does. Since we are scholars, we should act like gentlemen and not let villains get what they want!"

Pan Hongye, a student of Nanjing Imperial College, followed suit.

"We should abide by the laws of our ancestors and take the right path of imperial examinations!"

Many sons of noble families followed suit.

but.

When the results of the provincial examination were announced, most of the scholars who passed the second place on the list decided to buy a boat and head north.

Because by now in the Ming Dynasty, the provincial examinations had long been corrupted by the children of wealthy families through bribery, and had lost their absolute fairness, leaving only relative fairness.

The so-called relative fairness means that when there is no other son of the gentry to choose from, they will choose from ordinary scholars, or only those ordinary scholars who are really outstanding and unlikely to be rejected will be selected.

Therefore, this leads to the situation that many ordinary scholars with good abilities often only pass the second list, or pass the second list several times before passing the first list of the provincial examination and becoming a juren.

This has led to the fact that many ordinary scholars are now unwilling to wait any longer, and would rather go to Beijing to study at the Practical School and obtain the title of Juren first.

But when the results of the provincial examination came out, the fifty scholars from Nanzhi who were on the second list and the new candidates who were on the first list were immediately invited to the mansion by Zhou Song, the president of the Nanjing Hanlin Academy.

Zhou Song said to these scholars from Nanzhi: "You are all scholars from Jiangnan. You should know that the wishes of local scholars should not be violated."

Chen Yuanheng, a second-place scholar, asked, "What do you think of being a hypocrite?"

"Don't go to Beijing to attend that so-called Practical School. That's not the right path, and it seriously goes against the expectations of hypocrites!"

Zhou Song replied.

Chen Yuanheng said: "But this is the imperial decree of His Majesty. How can a hypocrite not allow us to receive the imperial grace?"

Fang Gao was shocked when he heard this and asked Chen Yuanheng, "Didn't we agree that we wouldn't go even if we failed?"

"That's right. Why do you go back on your word?"

Pan Hongye asked.

Chen Yuanheng said: "At that time, it was just you officials' children who were stirring up trouble and forcibly representing our opinions. We didn't say that we really agreed with your opinions. We were dissenters in the first place!"

"That's right. This is clearly an imperial decree. How could a treacherous minister be falsely conveying the imperial decree? Would a treacherous minister show mercy to scholars like us?"

"So, this can only be the emperor's grace, and it can't be the work of a treacherous minister. You don't want the court to clean up the land, so you deliberately confuse right and wrong, but you can't stop us from serving the court. Otherwise, what's the difference between you and the treacherous villains?"

Zhu Jie, a scholar on the second list, also echoed him.

Pan Hongye was very angry after hearing this: "You are not allowed to go!"

"This is the grace of the Emperor. We must go! Otherwise, it would not be a loyal and filial act!"

Chen Yuanheng replied.

Zhou Song also looked gloomy when he saw this, and asked, "Aren't you afraid that you will be completely abandoned by the scholars?"

"Do I have to abandon my king and father for the sake of Shilin?"

Zhu Jie asked at this time.

Gu Zhongli, a newly-appointed scholar who had come to Nanjing this month to check the list, said to Zhou Song, "Could you please spare me a moment to listen to what I have to say?"

Zhou Song nodded because Gu Zhongli was Gu Qing's grandson, took him to his study, and asked, "What do you want to say?"

"My ancestors said that this is an open conspiracy and we cannot resist it."

Gu Zhongli said.

Bang!
Zhou Song suddenly threw the cup of tea in front of him to the ground, and shouted at Gu Zhongli in disappointment: "Just because it's an open conspiracy, do we have to sit back and watch the court ruin the way the country recruits talents?!"

(End of this chapter)