Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 50 I will take care of it to the end

Zhu Houcong summoned the Prime Minister Liang Chu here again.

Once again, he showed his attitude of working diligently and seeking good governance, which made everyone in the court, including Yang Tinghe, more jealous of Liang Chu.

However, Zhu Houcong summoned Liang Chu to clear the fields and pacify the people, not to discuss rituals, which Yang Tinghe was concerned about.

He knew that the group that was most anxious to negotiate the gift was Yang Ting and those who wanted him to stop recognizing his parents as his parents.

Therefore, the more anxious these people are about this, the more he will put effort into clearing the fields and will not easily declare that the new policy of clearing the fields is over.

What's more, he also needs to use the Qingtian incident to build his own base.

The smooth progress of the field clearing gave the cabinet ministers a sense of accomplishment.

After all, this is indeed a benevolent policy that benefits the country and the people, and is destined to be recorded in history, even though it will be hated by some powerful and conservative people.

Therefore, Liang Chu now feels very refreshed, as if he has rekindled his ardent ambition to assist the king and benefit the people of the world when he was young. After meeting Zhu Houcong, he performed a great salute to Zhu Houcong with full energy.

When Liang Chu found that the emperor began to smile at him and could not hide his joy, he could not help but feel more accomplished.

Because he suddenly felt that what made him happiest was not that he had settled the more than 200,000 refugees and the disbanded military schools, but that he had satisfied the emperor's benevolent desire to pacify the people and let the emperor taste the joy of governing the country with all his energy.

To make the king as good as Yao and Shun is the ideal deeply rooted in the bones of most Confucian scholars.

Liang Chu is no exception. Now the possibility of realizing this ideal is increasing because of his own efforts.

This naturally made him very pleased.

"Your Majesty, I wish you the best of health!"

"I am safe!"

Zhu Houcong could also see that Liang Chu, who usually showed awe towards him as the emperor, looked more content and pleased today.

After Zhu Houcong replied, he said, "I heard that the common people who followed me to Beijing and the dismissed military officers have all started to get land due to the clearing of farmland. I am very happy, as if I had drunk nectar."

"Your Majesty is as benevolent as heaven, and the military and civilians will surely be grateful to you."

Liang Chu stood up and kowtowed in reply.

Zhu Houcong pressed his hand, motioning Liang Chu to sit back, and continued with a smile:
"It is true that only when the ruler and his subjects get along well can things be accomplished."

"This matter is also thanks to Yuan Fu's loyalty to the country and his dedication to my work. Yuan Fu's noble character should be recorded in history!"

After Liang Chu sat down, he had to stand up and kowtow after hearing what Zhu Houcong said, "I am ashamed to receive your praise, Your Majesty!"

no way.

When the new emperor praises people, his mouth sounds like it's covered with honey.

Liang Chu's bones were softened after hearing this, so he had to be more respectful and quickly stood up and bowed again.

Although this was very cumbersome, Liang Chu was quite happy about it and hoped to do this sitting and kneeling dozens of times.

After all, these were words of praise from the emperor, and they would be recorded in his biography in the future, so people would not dare to be disrespectful, and future kings would have to look up to his Liang family.

Therefore, the more praise the emperor receives, the better.

"I know that Yuanfu likes to be modest and simple."

"Let's not talk about that."

When Zhu Houcong said this, he waved his hand, asked Liang Chu to sit back down, and then said:

"For now, it may not be enough to give these resettled soldiers and civilians farmland, farming tools, and grain seeds. If we really want them to be safe for a long time and even make contributions to the court, we must continue to protect them. Protecting the people is like planting seedlings. Only after they grow strong and healthy can we truly complete a benevolent policy for the revival of the country."

"Your Majesty, Holy Might!"

Liang Chu bowed and replied.

"So, people all say that I have accomplished a great revival of the country."

"It's hard to live up to the reputation. Is it enough to just resettle more than 200,000 soldiers and civilians?"

"Obviously it's not enough!"

"My meaning is that since we want to keep the people safe and govern the country, we have to continue to manage it so that these soldiers and civilians can truly become the foundation of the country."

"No matter what, I don't want these hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians to become a burden to the court in the future."

After Zhu Houcong said this, Liang Chu quickly agreed, secretly sighing that Your Majesty was really willing to spend time and energy on the matter of pacifying the people.

Zhu Houcong also asked Liang Chu at this time: "How are the living arrangements for the soldiers and civilians who have been allocated land?"

"Your Majesty!" "At present, they are all arranged to live in the wasteland near the city gate, according to the lijia. This arrangement is so that if there is a war, they can enter the city in time to escape. Secondly, if the people have vegetables, chickens and ducks to sell in the future, they can quickly enter the city to pay taxes and sell them, so as to avoid being too far away from the city and being exploited more."

After Liang Chu answered, Zhu Houcong nodded: "Very good!"

"Speaking of war."

"I am also worried that the Tartars will see that after the farmlands in the capital have been cleared, a large number of well-off people will emerge, and they may become interested in plundering, or even collude with traitors and take advantage of the speed of their cavalry to sweep through the capital."

"If I clear the fields and settle the people, it will be a good thing for the Tartars."

Zhu Houcong was indeed worried that such a situation would occur.

Because this has happened in history.

Historically, soon after Jiajing ascended the throne, he cleared the farms in the capital and resettled many refugees. However, when these refugees had settled down and gradually became wealthy and well-off and wanted to increase taxes for the court, Altan invaded and looted the capital. A large number of men, women, livestock, gold and silver were looted and taken out.

This incident also directly led to the issue of building an outer city of the capital and strengthening defense being put on the agenda.

However, due to the limited financial resources of the imperial court at that time, only the southern part of the outer city of the historical Ming Dynasty capital was built.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong had long been thinking about preventing this situation from happening.

Be direct.

As a ruler, he doesn't want the leeks he raises to grow strong and then be harvested by invaders.

The key is that these invaders are immoral and have extremely ugly ways of eating. They uprooted everything and left countless corpses behind. They also demanded that the Ming court clean up their messes after they were done ravaging the land, repair the damage they caused to the land, pay for burying the corpses, and help the orphans and children.

Zhu Houcong felt very wronged and angry when he thought about it.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong was in a hurry to summon Liang Chu and told him that clearing the farmland and appeasing the people could not be done just by clearing the fields and dividing the land, but that the aftermath had to be cleaned up and the matter continued.

However, Liang Chu was a veteran of three dynasties after all. He had experienced the incident in the 18th year of Hongzhi when the little prince led a large army into the capital to plunder. He also knew that the capital was too close to the border town. After the Tartars successfully broke through the pass, it would be easy for them to sweep the capital. Therefore, he had been prepared for military disasters and arranged for the people to live near the city gates.

But for Zhu Houcong, this was not enough.

Because if something like that really happened, it would be a problem for hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate the city, and we would also have to worry about spies infiltrating and causing the city to be breached.

In history, there have been cases where spies have infiltrated the city along with refugees, leading to the destruction of cities and deaths of people.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong still hoped to build an outer city wall and gate in the capital as soon as possible.

This is undoubtedly a very necessary infrastructure project.

Liang Chu was very surprised to hear that Zhu Houcong also attached great importance to preventing military disasters, and even worried that the Tartars would collude with traitors in the future to break through the pass and plunder the capital, causing the people outside the city who lived and worked in peace and contentment in the capital to suffer the tragedy of their families being torn apart again.

He did not expect that this young emperor from the mainland would be so aware of the hidden dangers in the capital, and so familiar with the cunning and shamelessness of the treacherous and traitorous people. This was completely unlike the experience and foresight that a young emperor should have.

Is it possible that there really is a hero sent from heaven in this world?
Liang Chu had to think like this at this time, and he could not help but suppress the desire to compromise a little more, and said more sincerely and uprightly:

"Your Majesty is wise and enlightened! To maintain the stability of the country, it is not enough to simply distribute the land. We must also prepare for the rainy day and manage it to the end."

"Since the Prime Minister has already asked them to live in the suburbs, not far from the city gate, I think it would be best to build an outer city in the future. This will be more conducive to protecting the people and the country than hastily retreating into the city when a major crisis comes."

At this time, Zhu Houcong proposed his idea of ​​building an outer city in the future.

Liang Chu also said frankly: "Your Majesty is right, but the state is short of money and has a serious deficit. There is not enough money to build the outer city. In addition, I am afraid that the public opinion in the court will not approve of this move, and it will only waste manpower and financial resources."

Zhu Houcong nodded.

He knew that although there was money in the treasury, the national treasury in Taicang and other places did not have much money and was in serious deficit.

After all, insufficient budget, chaotic taxation, and inconsistent financial powers and responsibilities were the Ming Dynasty's long-standing financial problems. As a result, the upper and lower levels of the government spent money recklessly, and for a time, regular expenditures became increasingly insufficient, forcing the government to spend money before it could earn it.

In addition, before being thoroughly hurt, most bureaucrats who advocated austerity in the court were indeed unwilling to engage in large-scale construction.

Historically, the imperial court was determined to build an outer city because the scale of the Gengxu Rebellion was too large and the destructive force was too great. Many wealthy and powerful people's manors outside the city were not protected by high walls and were severely looted. Therefore, they finally decided to grit their teeth and build an outer city.

Now, most bureaucrats in the Ming Dynasty, who do not feel much about foreign invasion and even think that the policy of losing military strength is a good policy, are willing to carry out the order to build an outer city, which makes them feel that it is a waste of people's money.

Therefore, Liang Chu's worries are not unreasonable.

Liang Chu saw Zhu Houcong nodded, not surprised or angry at what he said, so he couldn't help but sigh inwardly, thinking:

"It seems that your Majesty is already familiar with the corruption of most bureaucrats and the long-standing problems in the court, so he is very indifferent to what I have mentioned, or even agrees with it."

"It seems that it is fortunate that I did not choose to give up the reform for His Majesty and not serve as the Prime Minister."

"Otherwise, I will be like Yang Xindu, thinking that the emperor is easy to fool and can make him make more sacrifices so that the world can be at peace for a while without changing the big problems."

(End of this chapter)