I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 270 The real plan

"Mr. Guan, can you tell me what the current emperor looks like?" asked a villager.

Grandpa Guan has rested for a long time now, and the villagers who are eager to hear more new things from the outside world have also organized themselves. In order to make Grandpa Guan less tired, they selected several issues that they are most concerned about.

"The emperor's appearance. I have seen the emperor several times in the capital." Grandpa Guan drank his tea slowly, whetting the audience's appetite, and then said: "Don't think of the emperor as too mysterious. The emperor is actually a human being. Except that he is taller and stronger, his appearance would be considered a famous handsome man in our villages."

Grandpa Guan's words caused a heated discussion among the villagers. Grandpa Guan's description made it easy for the villagers to understand, and made the villagers feel that the emperor was not as strange and distant as before.
"Old man, do you think the current emperor is a tyrant? I heard that the chaos in recent years was caused by the current emperor." Another villager continued to ask.

Mr. Guan immediately sat up straight and his expression became serious.

He looked at the villager who asked the question with a stern look and said, "Of course the current emperor is not a tyrant! If you dare to say that the current emperor is a tyrant in front of me again, be careful or I will break your legs with my crutches!"

Having received such great favor from the emperor, he simply could not tolerate such a problem!
The villager who asked the question had an embarrassed expression on his face and said quickly: "I'm just asking, old man, calm down and don't take it seriously."

Old Master Guan snorted coldly, glared at the villager, then turned to look at the others and said, "It is said that seeing is believing. The legends you have heard are not accurate. I, who have met His Majesty several times, say the truth. Let me put it this way, the current emperor is not only not a tyrant but also a sage king rarely seen in a thousand years!"

“But it’s not surprising that you’ve been deceived. There are treacherous officials in the court. The chaos in the past few years was caused by those treacherous officials. The emperor was young in the past few years and was deceived by those treacherous officials. Later, the emperor woke up and began to reform the bad policies, which led to the low price of salt this year.” Grandpa Guan explained.

"Didn't you hear this from others? You didn't see it with your own eyes," another villager retorted unconvinced.

"How could I not see it? I saw with my own eyes that His Majesty arrested many treacherous officials!" said Old Man Guan without showing any weakness.

"The other day, His Majesty summoned us. In the Golden Palace, we told His Majesty about the suffering of the common people in consuming salt and asked His Majesty not to raise the price of salt any further. After His Majesty heard us, he immediately promised that the price of salt would definitely not rise. Not only would it not rise, but the price of refined salt would be reduced to less than ten cents in the future. His Majesty said all of this in front of me, and I heard it clearly."

The villagers around him listened to Grandpa Guan's story silently, and their expressions changed.
"The next day I heard the news that His Majesty scolded the ministers at the court meeting, scolding them for making the people of the world eat expensive salt for so long. Then in the afternoon I saw many more Jinyiwei on the streets. They were following His Majesty's orders to arrest those treacherous ministers and salt merchants. They arrested them for several days in a row. Many treacherous ministers and salt merchants were arrested. The people in the capital were all celebrating and cheering, as if it was New Year's Day. I saw all this with my own eyes. If I, an old man, lied, I would be struck by lightning." The more Master Guan spoke, the more excited he became, and in the end he even swore an oath.
"No, no, we believe it, we believe it," the villagers hurriedly tried to stop it.

Although Zhu Houzhao's reputation had improved due to low-priced salt and continuous publicity by members of the Propaganda Department, it was not so easy to change the ideas of most people. However, when the village elders returned home with honor, Zhu Houzhao's reputation was fundamentally improved.

After all, in the past, the common people only heard about it from others, but now people they know have gone to the capital to see it with their own eyes and hear it with their own ears, so the publicity effect is very different.
After being passed on by word of mouth by the people, the reputation of Zhu Houzhao as a wise emperor gradually spread to the hearts of the people in the four northern provinces.
After all, it is better to have your own people say it once than to have outsiders say it a thousand times. This is why Zhu Houxuan tried so hard to encourage the villagers to go to Beijing. However, there are more reasons why Zhu Houxuan encouraged the villagers to go to Beijing and treated them so well.
In fact, the Royal Group has the most powerful propaganda resources in the capital. Even if the elders do not come to Beijing, the propaganda tools and methods controlled by the Propaganda Department are enough to control public opinion in the capital.

Public opinion in the capital was one-sided before the village elders came to the palace. That was because the Propaganda Department did not take action and Zhu Houxun wanted to induce more people to come forward on their own initiative.

After the village elders knocked on the palace gate, public opinion immediately turned around. It was not entirely because of the village elders' knocking on the palace gate, but because the Propaganda Department mobilized the propaganda force it controlled.

What Zhu Houxuan pursued from the beginning to the end was not only to control public opinion in the capital, but also to have a lasting influence on public opinion in the four northern provinces.

The village elders were the means he used to break the control of local gentry over local public opinion.

In the Ming Dynasty, due to the limitations of management level and communication means, the imperial power did not extend below the county level, which means that the officials sent by the imperial power only reached the county level, which constituted the entire bureaucratic system. Below the county level, local gentry were mainly responsible for self-governance. Such personnel or organizations did not belong to the formal bureaucratic system, and the imperial power could only rely on this force to achieve indirect rule over the grassroots.

Therefore, public opinion in various parts of the Ming Dynasty was actually controlled by local gentry. Since ordinary people had no means to obtain information from the outside world, whatever the local gentry said was what was believed.

The village elders are the nails that Zhu Houxuan hammered into the grassroots level below Daming County. They are living propaganda fulcrums. These village elders will play a long-term role. The Royal Group will provide them with all kinds of information and influence the public opinion direction at the grassroots level of Daming through them.

This is all Zhu Houxuan’s plan.

The benefits of being able to influence public opinion in the Ming Dynasty are obvious, and improving Zhu Houzhao's reputation is one of them.

Zhu Houzhao's reputation is still worth investing in. The better Zhu Houzhao's reputation is, the more benefits the Ming Royal Group backed by Zhu Houzhao will get.

With the ability to influence public opinion in the Ming Dynasty, the sales and publicity work of the Ming Royal Group will benefit from it.

Moreover, Zhu Houxuan would not be satisfied with just influencing public opinion. His goal was to gradually extend the tentacles of the Ming Royal Group to the grassroots level of the Ming Dynasty as the Ming Royal Group continued to grow.
(End of this chapter)