My father is Yongzheng, and I am Qianlong?

Chapter 407 New Changes in the Harem, Qianlong's New Ambition

While Hongli and Hongzhou were at the Imperial Workshop, the Infantry Commander's Office also received a new imperial decree.

The imperial decree was to search the homes of Wenxi and Cining and arrest members of their families.

However, Infantry Commander Eshan only sent troops to surround the alley where the two families lived, but did not immediately seize them.

He first secretly visited Zhang Tingyu.

Although the officials who were attached to Zhang Tingyu were mainly Han Chinese, there were also some Manchu officials.

Eshan is one of them.

"Your Excellency, regarding this matter of confiscating property, should we take it seriously, or should we use this opportunity to sow discord among the treacherous officials?"

Eshan asked Zhang Tingyu about this.

Zhang Tingyu, having already received the new imperial edict from Hongli appointing Hongzhou as acting commander of the infantry, smiled faintly.
"Admiral, hurry back. A new imperial edict is about to arrive. Prince He will concurrently serve as the Commander of the Infantry."

Upon hearing this, Eshan was stunned: "Is Master so good at divination?"

Zhang Tingyu also sighed: "Therefore, never underestimate His Majesty!"

"After all, His Majesty was a prince who had been through many years of experience before ascending the throne. He knows very well what his subordinates are up to!"

"Then I shall take my leave!"

Eshan immediately bowed and took his leave.

Zhang Tingyu sighed again.

A Manchu official referred to himself as a disciple in his presence.

He dared not admit it, nor dared to deny it, much less dared to be complacent about it.

He knew very well that in the emperor's eyes, it was a big taboo for scholar-officials and Eight Banners veterans to be too harmonious.

Because Hongzhou was concurrently in charge of the Infantry Commander's Office, Eshan could not use this as an excuse to make trouble. Instead, he asked these people to implicate his political enemies by offering to release a few members of the two families on his own.

Next, Hongzhou also selected a new head nanny and a stewardess for the eldest princess.

Both women were chosen from the maternal family of Hongzhou's primary wife.

Hongli knew that Hongzhou's primary wife was a dutiful and sensible person.

Historically, Hongzhou once feigned illness and refused to pay his respects to Emperor Qianlong. Wu Zhaku then went to pay his respects to Emperor Qianlong alone, kneeling outside the Qianqing Palace for half an hour until her knees turned blue.

Ultimately, this earned him the comment from Emperor Qianlong: "My fifth brother's family are wise people."

Emperor Qianlong did not hold Hongzhou accountable.

Therefore, Hongli trusted the family members recommended by Lady Wuzhaku.

Yunying was the new head nanny who was assigned to serve the eldest princess.

After entering the palace, she was summoned by the Gao family and received a generous reward from them.

This made Yunying very happy.

Therefore, when she got home, she smiled and said to her husband Chengbao, who worked in the Infantry Commander's Office, "Guess what job I did in the palace to get such a generous reward? From now on, our family can have braised pork for the New Year."

"I won't guess, and you shouldn't tell! Don't even tell your parents."

"To avoid incurring jealousy and resentment, and having people deliberately slander the mistress you serve, that would not be a good thing!"

"From now on, keep a low profile! Just say you owe the Fujin a debt of gratitude, and focus on your work in the palace. Even if others guess, don't admit it!"

Cheng Bao immediately stopped Yun Ying, who nodded seriously: "Fine, I won't say. I'd rather die than tell you which mistress I'm serving!"

And Yunying then stopped talking about her specific duties in the palace.

In the palace, she was much more respectful and dutiful than Wenxi had been before, and most importantly, she loved to praise the eldest princess.

"The eldest princess learns so quickly, unlike my own daughter, who is always so slow and has no hope of being selected as a palace lady in the future!" "The eldest princess is simply the most gentle and dignified girl I have ever seen. She truly has the demeanor of an imperial family. She is so much better than the daughters of the princes and princesses I have ever met."

For example, when Yunying was teaching the eldest princess how to celebrate the Cold Food Festival, she kept praising the eldest princess, which made the eldest princess feel a little uncomfortable.

Yunying did this because the new system now determined that the reputation of the eldest princess was related to the fate of her entire family. So she consciously praised her more, first brainwashing herself that the eldest princess she had taught was the best, and then brainwashing others.

Of course, there were benefits to her doing this; at least Consort Gao and the eldest princess were more willing to give her money and gifts.

This led Yunying to believe that praising others would bring many benefits.

Hongli also gradually noticed that the eldest princess was smiling more often.

However, Hongli didn't have much free time to pay attention to the inner court.

He has just assumed the position, and his foundation is not yet stable. There is still much to be done, and he needs to devote more energy to discovering opportunities from the details and breaking the bureaucrats' general desire for complacency.

While reviewing memorials in the Hall of Diligent Governance and Appreciation of the Worthy, Emperor Hongli once again came across a memorial from Shi Lin, the governor of Shanxi.

However, something Shi Lin reported aroused his dissatisfaction!
Because Shi Lin was lying and saying that Shanxi had always enjoyed favorable weather.

However, during this period, Hongli had received secret reports from other Shanxi officials. Some officials had explicitly stated that Shanxi had not received rain since August of last year and requested that the court provide relief.

Hongli naturally did not believe that all the officials in Shanxi who submitted secret reports to him were deceiving him, but only Shi Lin was not deceiving him.

What angered Hongli even more was that Shi Lin claimed there was no drought in Shanxi, while simultaneously saying that he had ordered gentry and wealthy households to donate grain for disaster relief.

Shi Lin said that he was not afraid of drought and asked the emperor to rest assured. He also said that he would not be like other governors who would only seek help from the court when there were difficulties, but would take precautions in advance. He seemed to want the emperor, Hongli, to praise him.

However, Hongli saw from his memorials that he was taking the opportunity to embezzle money and extort money from the local people.

"Send an imperial edict to Shi Lin and ask him: I know perfectly well that Shanxi has been without rain since August of last year, so why did he conceal the extent of the disaster?"

"Ask him again, if it is really as he says, that there is no disaster, why would he not use the fire loss funds that are deposited in the province for disaster relief, but instead ask the gentry and wealthy households to donate?"

"If the imperial court encounters any trouble and can only rely on robbing the rich to help the poor, then the imperial court is no different from bandits?"

"The purpose of the imperial court is to benefit the people, to create more wealthy households, and to encourage the wealthy to flaunt their wealth, thereby motivating the people to actively engage in profitable endeavors. If the wealthy are expected to automatically assist officials in disaster relief and rescue the people from suffering, then who would dare to flaunt their wealth?"

"Is he trying to take this opportunity to extort wealthy households? Not only has he already squandered the money meant for local relief and anti-corruption efforts, but now he's going to further exploit the wealthy. I'm afraid he's not just exploiting the wealthy, but colluding with them to plunder the surplus grain of ordinary people!"

"Make him give a clear answer!"

"Furthermore, tell him not to think about saving me money on disaster relief. As long as it's disaster relief, the amount can range from several million taels to several hundred thousand taels. I won't be stingy with money. I don't need him to use the excuse of being considerate of me to extort money from wealthy families!"

Emperor Hongli then instructed the Grand Councilors to write down the answers to Shi Lin's questions.

As a ruler of a prosperous era, Hongli certainly had the confidence to enrich the people.

Of course, he did this in order to prevent bureaucrats from not thinking about saving money or increasing revenue, but instead spending public funds, extorting wealthy households, and then plundering the people.

For Emperor Qianlong, he did not expect all his ministers to be honest and upright, but he required them to at least not hinder the development of civilization, and to increase the total social wealth of the areas under their jurisdiction, as well as the number of wealthy people.

Only in this way can a larger-scale consumer market be formed, the commodity economy be more developed, there be a market that needs a large quantity of industrial products, industrialization be promoted, and a sufficient number of capitalists who rely on industry and commerce to obtain large profits emerge.

These capitalists, in turn, need to occupy a larger market share in order to earn greater profits.

Of course, given the current power structure of the Qing Dynasty, those with the most power will definitely possess the largest amount of capital by then.

First and foremost, there's the emperor!
But Hongli himself believed that only by making his methods of exploitation of foreign powers more sophisticated could he facilitate external expansion.

If all he does is collect land rent, then it will be meaningless for him to occupy a lot of land around the Qing Dynasty in the future.

Because much of the land surrounding the Qing Dynasty did not have much value for agricultural rental income; its value lay only in mining ore and other raw materials.

Upon receiving the imperial edict from the Grand Council, Shi Lin, a member of the imperial clan, threw himself onto the couch with a look of fear on his face, muttering to himself in bewilderment:
"Didn't our Great Qing enter the pass precisely so that all the people of the world would support our Aisin Gioro family?"

"The Emperor's criticism of me is probably because he resents that I didn't share the profits with the wealthy after I seized their money."

After thinking it over, Shi Lin, a member of the imperial clan, decided to report back that wealthy households in Shanxi also wanted to donate two million taels of silver to the Ministry of Revenue for disaster relief, with the intention of putting the emperor at ease.

(End of this chapter)