Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 891 News
While feeling happy, he looked at the three of them with satisfaction and appreciation, especially Zhu Qiuqi who gave him a big surprise.

Not only can this be done, but it will be extremely beneficial to the Ming Dynasty if it is done successfully. In addition, an incident just happened in the Ministry of Clan Affairs, so it is very convenient to take this opportunity to promote this matter, and there will be no obstacles.

However, it is not easy to do this well. Firstly, the coverage rate of the Ming Royal Bank is insufficient. Although the Ming Royal Bank has been established and its business is constantly expanding, its coverage rate is actually limited to the northern region. Moreover, there are only a few provincial capitals and prefectures in the northern provinces that have branches, and there are only about a dozen head offices in the capital.

Secondly, the royal family of the Ming Dynasty is spread all over the country, in every province. Even if this model is implemented in provinces and prefectures where the Ming Royal Bank is not set up, it will not have any effect, but will instead lead to opposition from the royal family.

The reason is simple. If you open an account in a bank, you must have a bank branch to cash out and withdraw money. If there is no branch where you are, you can only do this in a state capital with a branch.

But the problem is that now is not the future. Nowadays, it takes a long time to travel from one place to another even by official roads, and the roads are not safe. In addition, the Ming Dynasty’s regulations do not allow royal family members to leave their place of residence without permission, and they are not even allowed to leave the city. This also makes it impossible for royal family members of the Ming Dynasty to travel as conveniently as ordinary people.

In addition, even if this problem did not exist, it would be the same. Senior royal family members were fine, but the annual salary of ordinary royal family members was not that much. For example, when Zhu Shenzhui was a royal family member, his title was Lieutenant of the Auxiliary State. According to the salary set by Zhu Yuanzhang, it should be 300 dan of rice a year. But in fact, this salary has been constantly discounted since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. At first, it was half and half in cash, and later it became 30% and 70% in cash. At that time, the Ming treasure notes had become waste paper. In this way, the original 300 dan of rice was only 90 dan, which was equivalent to about 45 taels of silver in the late Wanli period. If this number was actually paid out, it would be considered a good number for ordinary people. However, it would often be deducted and delayed at various levels. It would be good for an ordinary royal family member to get 20 taels of silver a year, and the unlucky ones would only get a few taels.

With such a small income and many restrictions on the royal family in the Ming Dynasty, it was not easy for a royal family to support the elderly and children. Zhu Shenzhu felt this deeply. Moreover, it was impossible to go to other prefectures to withdraw the money, which would take time and risk, and the expenses on the road. In this way, a good thing would become a bad thing. Zhu Shenzhu had to consider this.

Zhu Shenzhu also thought about changing the restrictions on the royal family of the Ming Dynasty, but it was impossible to do so now. He had just taken the throne, and the power of the southern civil officials, aristocratic families, gentry and merchant groups was strong, and the world was not yet completely under control. If he opened the restrictions on the royal family of the Ming Dynasty at this time, it would be like asking for trouble. As the saying goes, the head follows the buttocks. Zhu Shenzhu's thoughts when he was a royal family were completely different from his considerations as an emperor now. The restrictions that were previously tied to the royal family were actually a good thing for him as an emperor. In order to stabilize the imperial power, it was still necessary to continue the previous regulations.

However, this restriction will eventually have to be gradually relaxed. There are too many royal family members in the Ming Dynasty, and the country cannot afford to support them if it continues. In the future, we must find a way for these royal family members to be self-reliant and have the ability to make a living, rather than relying on the Ming Dynasty to collect salaries and bring a burden to the court.

All of these have to be done step by step. You can't eat hot tofu in a hurry. One move can affect the whole body. Zhu Shenzhui understands the reason very well.

Let's put other things aside for now. The issue of the payment of royal family salaries is the top priority, but it will take some time to truly implement it. So after a little thought, Zhu Shenzhui decided to conduct a pilot program in the prefectures and provincial capitals where the existing Ming Royal Bank operates. As for other places, continue to use the previous model, and at the same time strengthen supervision to ensure the payment of royal family salaries.

After listening to Zhu Shenzhu's opinion, Zhu Minfeng, Zhu Minyu and Zhu Qiuqi were very impressed, and at the same time they secretly blamed themselves for their negligence. They only thought about the feasibility of this matter, but did not carefully consider the possibility of execution, until Zhu Shenzhu reminded them.

"We have neglected these issues. This is our fault. Please punish us, Your Majesty." Zhu Minfeng and others stood up and admitted that they had not considered carefully and almost did a bad thing with good intentions.

Zhu Shenzhui smiled and waved his hands, saying disapprovingly: "It's good that you can come up with this suggestion, and doing it according to your suggestion can indeed solve this problem. It's just that the Ming Royal Bank is not yet able to fully assume this responsibility. It's not your fault."

The three of them quickly said they dared not, saying that this was the clan's business, and it was what they should do as members of the clan, and that it was also their duty to help the emperor solve his problems.

Zhu Shenzhui nodded slightly, praised them a few more times, and then said: "Fourth and Fifth Brothers, the two of you are still in charge of the clan affairs. Make preparations for the follow-up matters first. Although it is impossible to hand over all to the Royal Bank for the time being, it is no problem to operate part of it first. You two should do this matter carefully, and let Eighteenth go to coordinate with the Royal Bank. Kang Youfu is in Shandong now. Eighteenth, you should settle the affairs in Beijing, discuss with the Fourth and Fifth Brothers, and take out a detailed charter to find Kang Youfu. Just tell them that I have instructed you to let the Royal Bank fully cooperate and gradually advance this matter."

"We understand, and we will do our best." The three answered in unison. Zhu Shenzhui was very satisfied with their attitude, so he encouraged them a few more times and discussed their views on the matter with them in detail. After chatting for half an hour, the three stood up and said goodbye. After Lu Jiude sent them away, Zhu Shenzhui did not continue to read the memorial immediately, but concentrated on thinking about the matter for a while, picked up a pen and wrote something on a blank piece of paper, and then put it away.

"Your Majesty, there is a secret letter from the Embroidered Uniform Guard." Not long after, Lu Jiude hurried into the hall, holding a secret letter box in his hand.

As Zhu Shenzhui stretched out his hand, Lu Jiude took a few steps forward and handed him the secret letter box. After taking the box and looking at it carefully, when Zhu Shenzhui saw the lacquer seal on it, he knew who sent the secret letter.

Waving his hand to let Lu Jiude leave, Zhu Shenzhui opened the secret memorial box and took out Zhang Xijun's secret memorial.

Zhang Xijun had been in the south for more than two months. During this period he would send secret reports to the capital almost every few days. In addition to the secret reports from the Jinyiwei and the reports from Du Xun in Nanjing, Zhu Shenzui had been paying close attention to the progress of events in the south.

Looking carefully at the contents of the secret memorial, Zhu Shenzui's expression did not fluctuate, but if you look closely, you can see a barely perceptible flash of anger in his eyes.

After reading it, he closed the letter, clenched his fist, and stood up.

Zhang Xijun did make some progress in the south, but it was not as good as expected. It was not because Zhang Xijun was incapable, but because the obstacles he faced were too great and many things were difficult to investigate.

At present, Zhang Xijun has preliminarily verified the mining situation in Yiwu. Not only in Yiwu, but also in several other places, there are similar problems. The actual situation is far more serious than he originally imagined.

During the Wanli period, the civil service group strongly opposed Emperor Wanli's dispatch of mining supervisors and tax supervisors to local places. The reasons they raised were that they were competing with the people for profits, harassing the local people, and causing complaints from the people. In fact, there were indeed similar situations when Emperor Wanli sent eunuchs to do this. After all, when these eunuchs arrived at the local areas, in addition to getting money for Emperor Wanli, they would also use their power to get benefits for themselves. This would naturally lead to the situation of exploiting the local areas, and there was also public resentment in some places.

Just like the reason why Li Hu and others in Yangtou Mountain occupied the mountain and robbed houses was because they were forced by the mine supervisor and the tax supervisor, and they had no choice but to riot and kill the mine manager and become bandits. But similarly, there were many cases where they opposed Emperor Wanli in the name of people-oriented, but in fact they did it for their own interests. In order to force Emperor Wanli to make concessions, they secretly instigated the conflict between the two sides and intensified it to cause civil unrest.

To put it bluntly, it was nothing more than a matter of interests. The annual output and profit of a mine was extremely huge. Once the emperor swallowed a piece of fat meat, others would not benefit. In order to fight for this benefit, it was inevitable to find various reasons to oppose. This was also the main reason why Emperor Wanli and the civil officials and gentry groups fought endlessly for this, but still refused to give in.

After the death of Emperor Wanli, the mining tax policy of Emperor Wanli was suspended, and the civil officials and gentry groups celebrated their victory. But not long after the good days, Emperor Tianqi used Wei Zhongxian to make a comeback, and the next struggle began again. This time the struggle ended with Emperor Tianqi falling into the water and dying of illness. The powerful eunuch Wei was also forced to commit suicide because of the ascension of the new emperor.

After Emperor Chongzhen came to power, the Donglin Party gained momentum, and naturally the previous mining tax policy became a piece of waste paper. Since the Chongzhen period, the court completely stopped mining, but in fact, after the court stopped mining, local forces took advantage of the situation and took over the mines in various places without the court's knowledge, thus turning the country's mineral resources into a source of their private profit. Over the years, various places have made huge wealth from these mines. Officials at all levels from provinces to prefectures to counties, from the central government to local governments, plus gentry and businessmen, etc., everyone has made a lot of money.

Zhu Shenzhu had calculated before that if the mine in Niutou Mountain in Yiwu alone had an annual income of 150,000 taels, it would be an astronomical figure of 1.5 million taels. Now, according to Zhang Xijun's investigation, there are more than a dozen mines similar to Niutou Mountain in the entire Jiangnan region, that is, in the areas of Nanzhili and Zhejiang, which means that there are more than a dozen private mines that have been verified so far, and the amount of income from these mines is not as much as that of Niutou Mountain, but some are higher than that of Niutou Mountain. It is preliminarily estimated that the total income from these verified mines alone is more than 2 million taels per year, and over the past ten years, the court has lost more than 20 million taels.

(End of this chapter)