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

Chapter 296 Weather
"That does make sense." Yang Yiqing nodded.

"But I feel this is just the beginning. King Jing will definitely take other actions." Liang Chu said calmly.

"Brother Zang Yong, aren't you worried at all?" Yang Yiqing said, observing Liang Chu's expression.

"Worried? The King of Jing is just a lone man in the court. He has no foundation and no eyes or ears," Liang Chu said softly.

Yang Yiqing nodded silently.

Zhu Houzhao quickly responded to Zhu Houxun's early court reform and of course approved it. After all, he also hated this kind of early court that had no practical effect.

Zhu Houxuan's reforms of the early court were also implemented with the reluctant consent of his ministers. Who wouldn't want such a good thing?

Zhu Houxuan was also able to relieve himself from the heavy morning court. As for the procedures of the morning court, Zhu Houxuan was not in a hurry to change them, and would take his time. However, he would also suddenly add new topics to the morning court.
The backlog of memorials was dealt with quickly, and those involving practical matters were given priority. Zhu Houxuan did not deal with any of the memorials that impeached each other as long as they had no evidence.

After dealing with most of the backlog of memorials, Zhu Houxuan had time to read the previous memorials.

Previously, his understanding of various parts of the Ming Dynasty was built up through reports from members of the Ming Royal Group, with a grassroots and commercial perspective.

Reading a large number of memorials gave Zhu Houxuan the opportunity to understand various parts of the Ming Dynasty from another perspective, that is, the perspective of middle and senior officials of the Ming Dynasty government.

It is very interesting to compare and confirm the two perspectives.

More than ten days passed like this. During these ten days, Zhu Houxun behaved very quietly. During these days, he also received reports from various places.

At this time, in addition to the morning court, the Ming Dynasty also had an evening court. The evening court usually started at 3 o'clock in the evening and usually lasted for hours. There was no clear regulation on the start time and duration.

There are relatively few people who are qualified to participate in the evening court, and they are all important officials from various departments.

Zhu Houzhao once started his evening court session in the middle of the night, which lasted until three or four in the morning, making a group of important ministers miserable.

This also shows how hardworking Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di were.

I get up at 5am to attend the morning court, and then at 7pm I have to attend the evening court. It’s 10pm when the evening court is over, and the cycle repeats.
This level of strength is unparalleled. The important officials in the early Ming Dynasty were unlucky enough to encounter these two.

Because the number of participants in the evening court was relatively small, Zhu Houxuan did not make any changes to it. However, he would not hold it for three hours. It would usually last about half an hour to an hour, during which he would communicate with the heads of various departments on the government affairs encountered that day.

One evening during the court session, the Minister of Revenue Shi Jie reported to the emperor, "Your Highness, the petitions for relief from the summer taxes in various places that have suffered disasters have been kept by Your Highness for some time. The summer taxes in various places will be collected soon. Please make a decision as soon as possible to avoid affecting the collection of the summer taxes."

The important ministers present all looked at Zhu Houxuan. It was understandable that Zhu Houxuan kept the impeachment memorial. After all, he had just started as regent and did not know the ministers in the court well. It was normal that he could not make a decision for a while. Besides, many ministers who submitted impeachment memorials did not expect that the impeachment would have much effect. They just wanted to express their attitudes.

However, the memorials that Zhu Houxuan left to various places requesting the reduction of summer taxes were very puzzling, so everyone was very curious about why Zhu Houxuan did this.

"Many of those memorials have problems, so I kept them all." Zhu Houxuan said with a smile. What he said caused an uproar in the hall.
After hearing what Zhu Houxuan said, the four cabinet ministers could no longer sit still. Those memorials had passed through their hands and they had all given draft votes. Now saying there were problems, didn't it mean that there were problems with the way they, the cabinet ministers, handled them? This was questioning their professional abilities.

"Although we are old and frail, our eyes are not blurry and our minds are not muddled. We cannot see the problems in those memorials. Your Highness, please tell us clearly..." Liang Chu said bluntly.

This is a manifestation of Zhu Houxuan's lack of prestige. Liang Chu can refute him, the Prince Regent, without any hesitation...

Zhu Houxuan did not answer Liang Chu's question, but asked people to take out those memorials and distributed them to everyone present. "There are indeed problems. Please take a look..."

Everyone was passing memorials around, and Liang Chu also got a copy. That memorial was the one the prefect of Chenzhou submitted to the court about the drought in Chenzhou and requested a reduction in summer grain taxes.

Liang Chu also saw the draft he wrote on the memorial. He quickly read through the memorial but still couldn't figure out where the problem was.

"Your Highness, please give me some advice!" Liang Chu said, looking straight at Zhu Houxuan.

The others also read through the memorials, but couldn't see what the problem was, so they all looked at Zhu Houxuan.

"In fact, it's not your fault that you can't see the problem. It's the weather that's wrong. For example, according to the memorial in the hands of Lord Liang, there was no drought in Chenzhou..." Zhu Houxuan smiled and gave the answer.

Everyone present looked at each other in bewilderment at this answer.

Mao Ji sneered and said, "I think His Highness the Prince of Jing is very good at calculating. Chenzhou is two thousand miles away from the capital. His Highness can calculate the local weather in Chenzhou with just a few calculations..."

A soft laugh rang out in the hall, and everyone was amused by Mao Ji's words.

Zhu Houxuan still had a smile on his face. He was not angry at all. Who made him have no prestige among the ministers? He continued: "Of course I can't calculate, but it doesn't mean that I don't know the weather conditions in Chenzhou..."

The ministers present slowly stopped laughing, and they could all feel the confidence in Zhu Houxuan's tone.

Zhu Houxuan picked up the memorial from the prefect of Chenzhou, shook it and said, "I felt something was wrong when I saw this memorial half a month ago, because a few days before I became regent, I saw a report from the Henan Bureau of the Royal Group's Ministry of Railways..."

Zhu Houxuan paused, his eyes swept across the faces of the people in the hall, "The Henan Bureau has recently been repairing the railway in Henan, and it happened to be repaired to Chenzhou. They reported that Chenzhou has been raining recently, which has delayed the road construction project..."

Although steam locomotives have been difficult to produce and have not yet reached practical standards, the track gauge and load capacity have been determined. After these two points are determined, the railways built on this basis will be able to run steam locomotives in the future. Therefore, the Royal Group has been continuously building railways. Anyway, it is quite appropriate to run Marxist-Leninist locomotives now.

Although the Royal Group’s technical capabilities do not allow them to build a railway bridge over the Yellow River, it does not prevent them from building a railway in Henan, because Henan’s vast plains are perfect for building railways…

After hearing what Zhu Houxuan said, the ministers in the hall all had different expressions...

(End of this chapter)