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

Chapter 406 Acting vigorously and resolutely
In fact, the red line of beheading for embezzling 60 taels of silver was not drawn by Zhu Houchun. This sentencing standard was written by Zhu Yuanzhang in the "Great Edict". Zhu Houchun just mentioned it again, and that was why he had the upper hand.

Zhu Houxuan's actions made the ministers very uncomfortable. You said that Hongzhi's oral order was a law passed down by ancestors, so is Zhu Yuanzhang's law a law passed down by ancestors?

Is the effectiveness of this ancestral law established by Zhu Yuanzhang more effective than the oral order of Emperor Hongzhi?

Zhu Houxuan kept harping on this point and was very serious about it.

The ministers were afraid of getting serious about such things. After all, Zhu Yuanzhang's law had never been deleted, and Emperor Hongzhi's oral order was just an oral order and was not considered a written law.

So no matter how much the ministers explain the system, this point does not make sense.

After gaining the upper hand, Zhu Houxuan began to make political deals with his ministers.

Zhan Bin becoming the governor of Shuntian Prefecture and the establishment of the Jingcheng District were both accomplished so smoothly that political transactions were inevitable.

At this time, Zhu Houxuan had already given up the red line of beheading for corruption exceeding 60 taels, and spared the death penalty for more than people.

Although the death penalty has been abolished, other punishments have not yet been implemented. So when Zhu Houxuan mentioned that "corrupt officials dare not be corrupt", the ministers understood what Zhu Houxuan meant.
Zhu Houxuan was warning them.

The ministers were already determined to oppose, and now seeing Zhu Houxuan's attitude, they simply went with the flow and agreed.

Anyway, the salary increase is a great thing for officials. It is not them who pay the salary. It is Zhu Houxuan who wants to implement this policy. If he cannot implement it, it will be his loss of face. So let's agree to it.
Besides, this policy was only implemented in 24 counties of Shuntian Prefecture, not nationwide, so its financial impact was limited.
Zhu Houxuan found that although he had spent a lot of effort to establish the Jingcheng District, the resistance he encountered in implementing various policies in the Jingcheng District was much smaller than he had imagined.
There is no way. The words "pilot" and "trial" are too useful. There are more than 1500 prefectures and counties in the Ming Dynasty, and the prefectures and counties of Shuntian Prefecture account for less than one-fiftieth of them. The population is larger due to the existence of the capital, but the population only accounts for about one-thirtieth of the entire Ming Dynasty.

The resistance to implementing a policy in such a small area is dozens of times lower than that of a national policy.

Moreover, Zhu Houxuan's move to establish the special zone was supported by some officials. In their view, this was a mature and prudent approach, which was in line with their philosophy of governing a large country like cooking a small fish.

Even if a policy caused great chaos in the capital area, the Ming Dynasty could bear it.

Compared with Liu Jin, who caused unrest in the world with a single political decree, Zhu Houxuan's cautious attitude is truly worthy of praise.

Moreover, the officials are neither blind nor stupid. They are the smartest group of people in the country. They have witnessed the changes in the capital in recent years. Although they don’t understand what is going on, they can see that the country is showing signs of revival.

So they also wanted to see what new tricks Zhu Houxuan could come up with.
As for Zhu Houxun, after establishing the Jingcheng District, his first decree was to increase the salaries of all officials of different ranks fivefold. He also had his considerations.

In fact, it is to use the most direct way to bribe the high-ranking officials in the te district of the capital, hoping that they will cooperate with the new policies of the te district. Of course, it doesn’t matter if they don’t cooperate.

Then there is what Zhu Houxuan said: Let honest officials not be corrupt, and corrupt officials dare not be corrupt. He believed that integrity should not be linked to poverty, and he also disliked the behavior of later generations who sang praises to suffering, and that praising suffering was more hateful than suffering itself.

Finally, the salaries of Ming Dynasty officials were really not high. Given the low base, even if multiplied by 5, the number is still not that high. Moreover, there were only about 100 officials with certain ranks, and the total number was not that high.

Moreover, Zhu Houxun was going to issue silver yuan coupons to these officials. Previously, the salaries of Ming officials were all paid in kind, and changing them into currency was an improvement.

After receiving the order to increase their salaries, officials from all levels in Shuntian Prefecture began to celebrate.

But the celebration did not last long as the Imperial Guards entered the twenty-four counties of Shuntian Prefecture, with three hundred men in each county. They directly controlled the county government offices and sealed up all documents and account books.

Then the Royal Group's staff entered the government offices of various states and counties to check the accounts.
Clean the house before inviting guests!
This is Zhu Houxuan’s attitude. Even if you want to receive five times the salary, you have to see if you are qualified to receive it.

Zhu Houxuan's anti-corruption campaign this time was not limited to corrupt officials, but also included corrupt officials.

Moreover, anti-corruption is natural and what the people want. It is also intended to pave the way for the Royal Group to control the grassroots administrative power in 24 states and counties.

Although the ministers could not stop Zhu Houxuan's actions, they still had to use the necessary political means. Giving this act of control a just cause could reduce the resistance the action encountered.

Under such a sudden attack, the officials and clerks of the 24 counties and prefectures had no time to react, and most of the evidence was preserved.
Zhu Houchun's sudden action caused an uproar, and everyone felt insecure for a while, but Zhu Houchun had a reputation for being righteous, so the ministers were helpless.

They know their own affairs. Most of them were promoted from county officials. They know the ecology of the Ming officialdom very well and are too familiar with the situation of the officials below. Zhu Houxuan's making such a big fuss is definitely not something that can be dealt with by a simple investigation.

Without the protection of officials protecting each other, these officials could not withstand investigation at all, so the ministers had no way to oppose this matter. At most, they could point out the procedural problems in Zhu Houxuan's actions.

This is also the reason why officials hate the Guards. An army with strong combat effectiveness that is out of their control is really unsettling.

You know, even when the emperor's personal guards, the Jinyiwei, were taking action to arrest people, they would more or less receive some information, but when the Royal Guards were carrying out such a large-scale operation, they did not receive any information at all in advance.

After more than a month of investigation, more than 30% of the officials were found to have serious problems and were transferred to the Ministry of Justice. As for the clerks and yamen runners, they were all wiped out...

This result was beyond the expectations of the officials in the court, not because the proportion was too large, but because it was too small. With Zhu Houxuan's intolerant attitude and swift and resolute means, even if more than 80% of the officials were found out, there would be no problems. But now only more than 30% were found out?

(End of this chapter)