The swansong of the swansong

Chapter 182 Prince Yu

In the fifty-first year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi, before the Mid-Autumn Festival, he went to the Hall of Supreme Harmony and summoned the princes, princes, ministers of state and important officials of the court. He said in public: "The second prince Yinreng is a traitor who set fire to the palace and raised troops to rebel... However, I cannot bear to punish him. I deprive Yinreng of his title of crown prince and confine him to Xian'an Palace. If anyone dares to imitate the second prince, just bring your troops to fight. I will be waiting for you in the Palace of Heavenly Purity!"

Wow, the emperor who has been in power for fifty-one years is truly domineering and awe-inspiring!

Kangxi’s meaning was extremely clear: Eighth brother, it’s not that I look down on you, but if you dare to play the Xuanwu Gate method of succession, just come on. If I even blink, I will not be called Xuanye!
"Your Majesty!"

At this critical moment, who can say anything? Who dares to say anything?

At that time, kneeling down and praising the emperor is the right way to protect yourself!

"Hengchen, read it!"

"Yes."

"There is an imperial decree!" Zhang Tingyu held the imperial decree high in his hand.

“Hualala…” Everyone in the Hall of Supreme Harmony knelt down.

"The Cabinet has received the imperial decree. The fifteenth son of the Emperor, Prince Yinyu, has made extraordinary contributions in protecting the Emperor and suppressing rebellions... He is promoted to Prince of Duoluoyu and is allowed to inherit the throne for five generations. He is awarded 10,000 mu of imperial farmland, 100,000 taels of silver, and five Niulu of the Bordered White Banner. He is also in charge of the Ministry of Works and the Infantry Command Office. This is the imperial decree!"

"Your son Yinyu, I accept your order and thank you!"

The title was allowed to be inherited for five generations, which meant that Yinyu's son, grandson, great-grandson, great-great-grandson and great-great-grandson, these five generations would not be demoted and could directly inherit the title of Prince Yu.

In fact, according to this method of inheriting the title, there is not much difference between it and hereditary succession!
As we all know, the Ministry of Works is in charge of major national projects, including lucrative jobs such as building palaces and rivers, and is the department that spends the most money.

However, the Ministry of Works is, after all, one of the six formal ministries. When the Ministry of Works carries out projects, there are many eyes watching it, and it is far less convenient than the Imperial Household Department to make black money.

In the past, Yinyou was known as the Prime Minister, but in fact, he was just a steward in front of the emperor who ran errands and did miscellaneous tasks.

Now, Yinyou officially stood proudly in the court as a prince in charge of a ministry.

As for letting Yinwei continue to manage the Infantry Yamen, it was obvious that Kangxi had tasted a great sweetness this time and deliberately let Yinwei have military power in the capital to prevent the Eighth Brothers from raising troops to cause chaos.

However, among all the rewards, what made Yinyu most satisfied was the five new Niulu assigned by Kangxi.

Combined with the previous Niulu, in almost the blink of an eye, Yinyu became the leader of a small banner in the Bordered White Banner, whose strength was second only to the fourth brother.

One Niulu has about 300 men, and five Niulu have 1,500 men. In a broad sense, these people and their families are considered Yinyou's private property!

The owners of the lower five flags, except for the flag master, are collectively referred to as: lords.

Because the remnants of the semi-slavery system in the Qing Dynasty were extremely serious, the lord was the slave owner and had absolute power over the Niulu under his command.

Of course, as the banner kings were gradually tamed by the imperial power, by the Qianlong period, this absolute right of disposal no longer existed.

In the Qing Dynasty, any prince who was not assigned to the Niulu of the Lower Five Banners was considered an insignificant black prince.

To put it bluntly, in order to reward Yinyou for his contribution in protecting the emperor, Kangxi forced Yinyou, a prince, to enjoy super treatment second only to that of Prince Tiemaozi.

Among all the princes, Yinyu's strength within the banner was second only to Prince Ping and Prince Shuncheng.

However, if Prince Ping Narsu died of illness and little Fupeng inherited the title, then the number of Niulu actually controlled by Yinyou would be no more than thirty.

No matter what, Yinyou was very satisfied and in a good mood!
Kangxi finally did not kill his son, which was a victory for humanity.

Yinyou's suggestion to imprison his brother was in line with human nature of not harming brothers and sisters, and was also in line with the moral principles of brotherly love and respect.

The humane character of Little Fifteen not only did not collapse, but he was even more appreciated and favored by Kangxi!
After the court was dismissed, the fourth brother walked up to Yinyou and was about to congratulate him on his rapid promotion.

The more power Yinyou holds, the greater the chances of the fourth brother winning in the future. This is a hard truth that even a fool knows.

Unexpectedly, Wei Zhu came over and took the initiative to say, "Fourth Master, Fifteenth Master, the Emperor wants you two to come to the study in the Palace of Heavenly Purity to see him."

Well, there was no more chatting, so Yinyou had to go with the fourth brother and Wei Zhu to see Kangxi.

"Your Majesty, I, Yinzhen, respectfully wish you the best!"

"You came at the right time. Baohedian is in need of good quality wood. What should we do?" Kangxi asked the fourth brother to come, definitely to allocate money.

Even in modern times, the vice president or director of finance who manages money is often the person the boss trusts the most.

If there is a problem with the vice president of finance, he can send his boss to jail along with him on any charge of tax evasion.

"My dear Khan, there is no more silver in the Ministry's treasury..." As usual, the fourth brother, who was in charge of the silver, cried poor desperately.

Yinyou felt somewhat amused. If the fourth brother, who was in charge of the money, had not been tight-fisted, he would have been kicked out of the Ministry of Revenue long ago.

However, today is different from the past, the prince was deposed again.

Although the fourth brother is particularly low-key, in fact, when the eighth brother has been eliminated, the fourth brother's current situation is similar to that before Guangxu came to power.

The Empress Dowager Cixi was reluctant to let Guangxu take power, and Guangxu's father, Prince Chun, was more anxious than anyone else. After discussing with his advisers, Prince Chun secretly made a deal with Cixi, getting money in the name of building a navy, but actually renovating the Summer Palace.

The day the Summer Palace was completed was the day the Empress Dowager returned to power.

Now, before the fourth brother understood the key point, Yinyou had already understood Kangxi's thoughts.

After ten thousand years, it will be your turn to be in charge. However, I don’t think I have seen your filial piety yet!
Well, it should be okay for me to build a few palaces to make myself live more comfortably, right?

"Little Fifteen, what do you think?" Kangxi looked at Yinyou with a smile.

Yinyou had been in charge of the Imperial Household Department, so he naturally knew that the main producing areas of nanmu were provinces such as Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan.

However, starting from the early Ming Dynasty, people liked to use nanmu when building palaces, especially golden nanmu.

However, after hundreds of years of continuous logging, nanmu trees have become a rare species in the Qing Dynasty.

"My dear Khan, the only solution now is to issue an order to foreign merchants to allow them to contribute nanmu to Guangzhou and enjoy certain tax exemption measures."

Yinyou was an old state-owned enterprise owner and was well aware of the many drawbacks and loopholes in state-owned enterprise procurement. Therefore, he suggested to Kangxi that he should simply delegate the power to purchase nanmu in Southeast Asia to foreign merchants.

Since Europe has always emphasized commerce, foreign merchants were absolutely willing to present nanmu to Kangxi in exchange for tax-free privileges as long as it was profitable.

More importantly, the Imperial Household Department was too dark. Procuring a piece of good wood from Southeast Asia would cost as much as hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. Who could bear this?
Not to mention others, the fourth brother standing next to them would definitely not agree!

The total tax revenue of the Guangzhou Customs Supervisory Office was only a few hundred thousand taels of silver a year.

To put it bluntly, even if they don't charge tariffs and only accept towering nanmu trees, it is still a good business with guaranteed profits.

Anyone's interests can be affected, except the interests of the Imperial Household Department. Kangxi did not dare to make a hasty conclusion and seemed unusually hesitant.

"Fourth Prince, what do you think?" Kangxi asked the fourth prince hesitantly.

The fourth son had long been disgusted with the group of rats in the Guangzhou Customs Supervisory Office. He immediately said, "My dear Khan, those dogs and slaves are only good at corruption and bribery, and they don't do any real work. The taxes they collect from the court are not enough to fill their teeth, and are simply insignificant. In my opinion, it is better not to collect taxes for the time being, and only collect the towering nanmu!"

The Ministry of Revenue had always been under the jurisdiction of the fourth prince, who was always asking for money. If the fourth prince had not been afraid of offending anyone, the three treasuries of the Ministry of Revenue would have been emptied long ago given the extravagant lifestyle of Kangxi in his later years.

The fourth brother and Yinyou had surprisingly consistent attitudes, and Kangxi could only stare blankly.

There was no other way. After deposing the crown prince for the second time, Kangxi looked around and found that among the many princes, only the fourth prince and Yinyou were brave enough to take on responsibilities.

That bastard Lao Ba has been trying to win over important officials of the court and strengthen the power of the Ba Ye party all day long.

However, when it comes to serious tasks that involve offending people, Lao Ba always plays deaf and dumb and refuses to offend anyone.

These days, the more you do, the more mistakes you make, and the worse your reputation becomes.

On the contrary, those who do not work would just stand on the shore and watch the fun, but they always hinder you and cause sabotage in secret, just to prevent you from doing your real work.

In his later years, Kangxi was merely lazy in government affairs and fond of pleasure, but he was not senile!
"Little Fifteen, you go and convince them at the Imperial Household Department!" As soon as Kangxi said this, Yinyou and the Fourth Prince understood that the emperor had agreed with their opinions in principle.

However, Yinyou still needs to overcome all difficulties and deal with those rats in the Imperial Household Department.

After all, the Guangzhou Customs Supervision Office was under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The taxes they collected were all the emperor's private money and were not handed over to the Ministry of Revenue's treasury.

Although the tax collected was low, in fact, including Kangxi, the fourth prince and Yinyou, they all knew very well that the prerequisite for handing over 200,000 taels of silver was that the rats took advantage of the royal family and made at least 1 million taels of silver first.

If the bowl is not full, the basin will never be full!

Taking care of the family first and the royal family second is the normal logic of the Imperial Household Department.

It is easy to shout slogans, but if the fundamental interests of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are really affected, there will definitely be a big uproar.

If so, it will be impossible to solve the problem without using violent suppression.

Therefore, Kangxi asked Yinyou to come forward in order to suppress the greed of the rats.

Yinyou had been in charge of the Imperial Household Department for a long time, so he naturally knew how greedy those bastards were.

"Khan Father, I will never be able to convince them just by talking!" Yinyu deliberately spread his hands and kicked the problem back into Kangxi's arms.

Kangxi knew Yinyou very well and knew what he meant: I am willing to step forward and persuade them, but you must give me some privileges to suppress them, otherwise, it will definitely not work.

Most bosses only look at the results, not the process.

Yinyou did not refuse to work, he just made some small requests.

In other words, I will do this, but I have a few small conditions!
Not to mention ordinary bosses, Kangxi also likes this kind of subordinate who does not shirk responsibility and is brave enough to do practical work!
PS: Here is the second update, a little late, sorry. The third update was before 24:, the monthly votes are increasing rapidly, please encourage and comfort me, and strive for the fourth update.

(End of this chapter)