The swansong of the swansong

Chapter 195 The Legendary Cruel Official
"Eighth Master, don't worry. When he recommends his own people, we will take the opportunity to impeach him for forming a clique for personal gain!" Xiao Yongzao bowed and put forward his suggestion.

Lao Ba thought about it carefully and felt that Xiao Yongzao's suggestion was indeed worthwhile.

But Lao Jiu said, "My dear brother, Khan Ama is pampering that poisonous snake, I'm afraid the night will be long and full of dreams!"

Lao Ba thought about it again and thought, well, it does make sense.

The Tenth Master thought very simply, and said carelessly: "Brother Ba, when that bastard takes up all the vacancies of the clerks, even if our people hold the positions of Shangshu and Shilang, they will be sidelined!"

Lao Ba nodded but said nothing.

Because, this guy, Old Ten, has too many criminal records and always causes trouble for Old Eight.

"Ma Qi has been coming less frequently recently, ninth brother, do you know why?" The eighth brother suddenly remembered something important and turned to ask the ninth brother.

Lao Jiu rubbed his teeth and said angrily, "That old guy was scared by Khan Ama's beating last time. He stayed at home all day and didn't even dare to go out."

Xiao Yongzao sighed secretly, the Eighth Master was really respectful and generous, he was good in every way, his only flaw was that he was indecisive!

In addition, the eighth brother dotes on the ninth brother too much and almost obeys his every word.

However, as the situation gradually became clear, no matter how many faults Old Eight had, he was still countless times better than Old Four, that mean and ungrateful guy!
In high society, once you have chosen a side, you cannot change your position at will, even if you suffer a great loss.

Xiao Yongzao coughed lightly, and when Lao Ba turned his head to look at him, he continued, "Master Ba, please forgive me for speaking frankly, but we can't attack you in groups anymore."

Lao Jiu was very unhappy to hear this and retorted, "Xiao Zhongtang, if we didn't have so many people, Khan Ama would have imprisoned the myna long ago."

In fact, what Lao Jiu said is not wrong in some aspects.

Kangxi simply imprisoned the princes who had no power, such as the eldest prince.

Now, since the prince is not dead, everyone knows that the emperor will not kill his own son!
Xiao Yongzao wanted to persuade him again, but suddenly, an ugly maid came in from outside the door. She knelt down and bowed, then said loudly, "Master, Fu Jin wants you to come over. She said she has something important to discuss with you."

Lao Ba quickly put down the teacup in his hand, stood up and bowed, saying: "Everyone, please stay for a while!" He followed the ugly maid and hurried away.

Xiao Yongzao frowned. Alas, besides being easily influenced by others, the Eighth Master was also henpecked.

The emperor particularly hates Lao Ba’s fear of his wife, but Lao Ba refuses to change, which is a big taboo!

In such a prestigious Beile Mansion, there is actually such an ugly maid. Thank you, Eighth Lady, for your concern!
"Nineth Master..." Xiao Yongzao wanted to negotiate with the Ninth Master and not be fooled by Yinyou.

However, Lao Jiu didn't want to say anything more to Xiao Yongzao, so he got up and left.

Looking at Lao Jiu's back, Xiao Yongzao stomped his feet heavily, sighed, and left the Eighth Prince's Mansion.

At this moment, Yinyou was in the inner study, waiting for someone.

Not long after, a middle-aged man wearing a sapphire hat and a peacock robe walked into the study. After seeing Yinyou, he knelt down and greeted him.

"Your servant Bai Huang, the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner of Guizhou, wishes to greet your master."

Bai Huang was a member of the Han army of the Bordered White Banner, and happened to be a servant of one of Yinyu's six Niulu.

According to the rules, when a bannerman meets the leader of his banner, no matter how high the official is, he must kneel down and pay his respects.

"Brother Jinwei, please stand up quickly!" After accepting the full salute, Yinyou took the initiative to help Bai Huang up.

As one of the small banner leaders of the Bordered White Banner, Bai Huang was the only relatively capable third-rank official among Yinyu's servants.

The rest of the servants are either incompetent or of too low a rank, and none of them are up to par.

Bai Huang returned to the capital to report on his work this time. After the audience with the emperor, he came to pay a visit to his master Yinyou. It was just a routine matter.

With the same mentality as Zhang Tingyu, Bai Huang was both a member of the imperial party and a lone minister, and he never sided with any of the princes.

However, Bai Huang never dreamed that Yinyou, who had suddenly become powerful at a young age, would be so polite to him.

Bai Huang was flattered and said quickly, "Master, how can I afford such courtesy?"

Yinyou's desire to win over Bai Huang was not strong.

However, as Yinyou was a prince with real power, if none of his servants were promoted, it would not be conducive to encouraging more cavalry captains to join his entourage.

To put it bluntly, whether Bai Huangzhong was loyal to Yinyou or not was not important at all.

What was really important was that Yinyou needed an advertising sign to attract junior officers at the battalion and company commander levels.

Speaking of which, the fourth brother was also quite unlucky. Among his Niulu, the only truly outstanding person was Nian Gengyao.

However, it must be admitted that the fourth brother has good vision.

In history, the fourth brother had long seen Nian Gengyao's potential and used both soft and hard tactics to force him to join the gang.

After the mountain tomb collapsed, Nian Gengyao blocked the food supply of the fourteenth brother, so that he dared not to raise an army to rebel, and made an unparalleled contribution to the fourth brother.

Yinyou had a different attitude towards Bai Huang.

Not to mention the Censor, even the Governor of a frontier province would be of no use in the succession to the throne.

"Someone, serve tea and take a seat!" Yinyu always had the habit of either not acting at all or acting the full way.

Bai Huang pretended to be flattered and said, "Thank you for your grace, Master."

Yinyou chatted with Bai Huang for more than half an hour, and he found that although Bai Huang was very respectful to him, he had no intention of currying favor with him.

In fact, this is roughly the same as Nian Gengyao's attitude towards the fourth son. Without Yinyu's promotion, Bai Huang would have been a provincial third-rank censor, and even if he waited for seniority, he could have the opportunity to become a governor.

The same was true for Nian Gengyao. Relying on Kangxi's special favor, he directly sat on the throne of a provincial governor. The fourth brother didn't contribute much!
In official circles, when a boss keeps a subordinate for a talk, the longer the conversation lasts, the more importance he places on him.

Yinyou glanced at the time on the clock. Well, the superficial work has been done enough, it’s time to end the show!

"Brother Jinwei, the post of Governor of Pianyuan is vacant. Khan Ama has praised you many times, saying that you are honest and upright and a capable official!" When Yinyu said this, he picked up the teacup but deliberately did not drink it.

Wu Lin, who was standing by, shouted in a deep voice, "Show him away!"

Bai Huang quickly stood up, knelt down, and kowtowed, saying, "I will take my leave."

"Do your job well and don't let me down!" Yinyou did not try to win him over as Bai Huang had expected, but only said a few polite words.

Yinyu gave Bai Huang enough face when he came to visit him for the first time. However, it was only this time.

Next time, Yinyou will be too lazy to waste his time on Bai Huang!
Because Kangxi kept a close eye on the high-ranking officials of the second rank and above, there was no way he would give Yinyou any chance to win over high-ranking officials.

After Bai Huang left, Yinyou drank a sip of tea and asked Wulin: "What do you think of him?"

"My lord, I feel that Bai Huang is a minister who maintains the status quo?" Wu Lin guessed Yinyou's thoughts and gave a tentative answer.

Yinyou nodded. Wulin’s evaluation was very pertinent. Bai Huang was good at maintaining the status quo but not at being enterprising enough.

After the fourth son ascends the throne, he will do many important things. Among them, the pilot program of equalizing the land tax has already appeared in the Xi Dynasty, which is the most important.

The policy of distributing the capitation tax on each piece of land was indeed a good policy. The reason for this was that it distributed the capitation tax on the land, greatly alleviating the burden on the common people and their cattle and horses.

Dingfu, also known as the head tax, was a heavy burden that all adult males had to pay.

In the past, tenants not only had to pay rent to the landlords, but also had to pay a poll tax for themselves.

After the tax was distributed based on the amount of land, all kinds of artisans and tenants benefited from it.

Although the big bureaucrats and landlords could use the method of increasing rent to pass on the burden of tax distribution, if you collected too much rent, the tenants would not be able to bear it and would go to other places to farm.

As long as it is not a monopoly serfdom and tenants have the freedom to choose, the rent cannot rise indefinitely.

This is roughly similar to the relationship between landlords and tenants in modern big cities.

Landlords do seek profit, but they dare not raise rents indefinitely. When there are many job opportunities, there are many tenants and the rent is high. When the economy is bad, tenants cannot make money and would rather go back to their hometowns and live there, so the rent naturally drops.

Whatever the fourth prince wanted to do, Yinyou not only had to support him, but he also had to actively participate in it.

However, compared with the equalization of land tax, Yinyu attached more importance to the gentry serving and paying taxes as a whole.

Making bureaucrats and gentry pay taxes together with the common people and cattle and horses is the best policy ever seen in history.

The big landlords these days almost all have big bureaucrats in their families.

Big bureaucrats and landlords have the privilege of not paying taxes. When the court has no money to spend, the burden will inevitably be passed on to tenants and self-employed farmers.

It’s a pity that the system of gentry serving as officials and paying taxes, which was pushed hard by the fourth brother, was abolished by Qianlong.

When Yinyu was having dinner, Wulin came in with a handwritten report, saying, "Tian Wenjing, the doctor of the Ministry of Justice, is waiting outside. He secretly slipped fifty taels of silver into my pocket. I am too soft-hearted to take it, so I had to report it for him."

As the saying goes, the prime minister's doorman is a seventh-rank official.

Given Yinyou's status, a mere fifth-rank doctor would not be able to see him at all unless he sent him a gate gift.

Wulin was a very smart boy. Whenever he secretly accepted money from others, he would tell Yinyou the truth.

To be honest, Yinyu was somewhat curious about Tian Wenjing.

If I take the initiative to chat with Tian Wenjing, it would be too deliberate.

Now, since Tian Wenjing came to visit him on his own initiative, Yinyou planned to meet him after dinner.

"The Han army of the Bordered Blue Banner, the doctor of the Ministry of Justice, your servant Tian Wenjing, wishes His Majesty the best of health."

In order to try his luck with Yinyou, Tian Wenjing made up his mind and simply stuffed a very heavy door bag with him.

Now, having finally seen the great Buddha statue of Yinyou, Tian Wenjing felt somewhat excited.

"Get up."

Yinyou looked at Tian Wenjing carefully and found that Tian Wenjing looked like a skinny monkey, as if he had not eaten a full meal.

"Brother Yi Guang, please sit down!" Yinyou seemed very polite.

Tian Wenjing was frightened, and waved his hands repeatedly, saying, "There is no place for a servant to sit in front of your Highness. I can't do that, I can't do that!"

"I told you to sit, so just sit. Why are you being so rude?" Yinyu deliberately frowned and reprimanded Tian Wenjing in a deep voice.

Tian Wenjing had no choice but to bite the bullet and lean sideways to sit on the chair.

"I don't know, Brother Yiguang, how can you teach me?"

Seeing that Tian Wenjing seemed rather restrained, Yinyou took the initiative to ask questions.

PS: I drank too much, so I watched it again in the morning!
(End of this chapter)