Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 224: The quarrel between the Prime Minister and the Censor
Wang Hua, the chief minister of the cabinet, took off the Liang Guan and put it in the hands of the maid, but did not ask the maid to take off her official uniform. He sat on the chair and rubbed his temples, and asked Xue Fengming who was still standing in front of him: "Mr. Yan, if you intend to impeach Zhang Cong, why don't you tell your teacher first!"

Wang Hua shook his head as he spoke. He originally thought that his student Xue Fengming was only discussing the issue at hand and proposing some improvement methods for the immigration to the border. After all, he also felt that because the court advocated immigration to the border, the officials below would inevitably only care about pleasing the superiors and not take into account the feelings of the people below.

However, what Wang Hua did not expect was that Xue Fengming's purpose in presenting the "Map of Refugees" to him and having him meet the emperor was not to propose reform measures for immigration to the border, but to use this incident to impeach Zhang Cong. Everyone knew that Zhang Cong was a close confidant of the Emperor, and this move would undoubtedly anger the Emperor.

Wang Hua would naturally be angry about this, not to mention that he seemed to be being used by his own students.

"I have already put my life and death aside. Zhang Cong only knows how to be your majesty's lackey, not caring about the safety of the country. If I don't impeach him first, he will only be a great trouble to my scholars in the future!

Moreover, because of the immigration of Zhang Cong and his ilk to the border, the people in the interior of the country have left, the land has become barren, and the clan has collapsed. If Zhang Cong is not removed, more villains will be allowed to immigrate to the border in the future."

Xue Fengming spoke more bluntly in front of Wang Hua.

"Are you saying that the court's policy of settling immigrants on the border is not a good policy?" Wang Hua asked in surprise.

"That's right, the students think that immigration to the border is a bad policy!" Xue Fengming answered without hesitation.

"What's wrong with immigrants settling in the border areas? Border towns have always been plundered by the Tartars. The reason is that there are few Han people and many Hu people in border towns! Moreover, there are many unowned fields in border towns. In recent years, due to the annexation of the powerful and wealthy, the number of refugees has increased day by day. If these refugees are not moved to border towns to cultivate land, will they be allowed to cause trouble to the villages?"

Wang Hua asked excitedly.

"But now, not only are refugees migrating to the border, but a large number of tenants are also moving with them! As a result, the land rent has been greatly reduced. How can the powerful and wealthy people in the world support themselves?" Xue Fengming continued to ask.

"That's because some powerful nobles have exploited the people too much. If they are willing to reduce rent and interest, who would be willing to leave their homes? Naturally, people would be willing to abandon their relatives and settle in other places if they can live a better life in the border towns!
I know that your family is a big family in Suzhou, and my Wang family is also a big family in Zhejiang. We also have tenants leaving and the land is barren, but we can propose these and find ways to solve them, instead of denying the policy of immigration to the border! The people's hearts are like water, it is better to drain them than to block them. Don't you understand that even if we don't immigrate to the border, do you think the people will not flee? ! "

It was the first time that Wang Hua spoke to someone excitedly, but he was so excited because Xue Fengming was his student.

"My dear teacher, you are a shareholder of the Royal Bank and have invested in various business groups. You earn no less than 100,000 taels of silver in dividends every year. Everyone knows that your Wang family no longer relies on land rent to make a living. You naturally don't care about the loss of tenants and the reduction of land rent. Not only you, but also most of the cabinet and the nine ministers are those who shared the royal benefits of the world by following His Majesty. You are naturally of the same mind as His Majesty the Emperor!

It is precisely because of this that you did not oppose Your Majesty, and that the policies of immigration to the border, opening up the sea, and abolishing road permits were implemented throughout the country. My dear teacher and the officials in the court are no longer members of our literati circle. You are nothing but the emperor's lackeys!
As scholars, we study Confucius and Mencius and read the classics, but we have no chance to realize our ambitions. Even if we pass the imperial examination, we can only be a minor official. If we want to get a high position, we have to abandon Confucianism and study the Hundred Schools of Thought. But this is the behavior of a villain. Who is willing to abandon the right path to follow it! Now, my teacher only knows how to obey the emperor blindly, and helps the emperor to establish the National Academy of Administration, and also appoints Zhang Cong as the right assistant minister of the Ministry of Personnel. It seems that there will be no more ministers of Neo-Confucianism among the nine ministers in the cabinet in the future! They are all Zhang Cong's followers! "Xue Fengming continued to answer frankly, and also answered his real purpose, that is, he impeached Zhang Cong and could not tolerate Zhang Cong because Zhang Cong was going to teach at the National School of Administration, and everyone knew that the National School of Administration would definitely be a place to train high-ranking officials of the empire in the future, which meant that the high-ranking officials who would hold the power of the empire in the future would all be the emperor's lackeys like Zhang Cong. It was precisely because of this that Xue Fengming, a civil servant who believed in Confucianism, could not tolerate this happening.

"Are you calling me a villain?!"

Wang Hua stood up, his lips trembling, and pointed at Xue Fengming and asked a question.

He was both heartbroken and angry at this moment. He was heartbroken that his student did not understand him or the court's painstaking efforts. He was angry that although his student was upright and formidable, he only cared about his own interests and could not see the interests of the country.

Wang Hua admitted that because his son Wang Yun (Wang Yangming) took the initiative to use all his property to support the Emperor, his Wang family became a major shareholder of the Royal Bank. Finally, because the Emperor made a covenant, although his family received huge profits, they could not buy land within the Great Wall and could only buy land or even invest outside the Great Wall.

It was precisely because of the opening of border trade and the reopening of maritime trade that the royal family made the most money because they participated early. Although they did not engage in business directly, they could still receive dividends of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver every year from the Royal Bank and the recently opened Imperial Stock Exchange.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't care about the reduction in land rent and the loss of tenants. As a large family in Zhejiang, the Wang family owns tens of thousands of acres of land and countless tenants. Due to the reduction in land rent and the loss of tenants, the income of other branches of the Wang family has decreased and they have to be supported by himself, the eldest branch, and the amount of silver supported is no less than 100,000 taels!
After all, the Wang family has always been accustomed to a good life. As the eldest son of the Wang family, I naturally cannot let people say behind my back that I have not done my job as the prime minister and that the lives of my family are getting worse and worse.

But Wang Hua also knew that this was not a long-term solution. Even if he earned hundreds of thousands of taels of silver every year, he could not support several generations of other members of the Wang family. For example, even a wealthy court would worry about the huge expenditure on the salaries of the vassal kings. According to the forecast of the newly established statistics bureau, within two hundred years, the court would completely be unable to support these royal relatives, let alone his Wang family.

However, Wang Hua did not want to deny the strategy of immigration to the border, because he knew that after the immigration, the Ming Dynasty would not have to worry about the refugees causing chaos in the interior and wasting military expenses to suppress the bandits. Instead, it could use these people to open fields and mines in the border towns to increase money and grain income. It could also attract a large number of Hu people to make a living. After the Han and the barbarians lived together and became Han people for a long time, the border troubles would be reduced a lot. After all, the Tartars risked their lives to invade the border because they could not survive.

Otherwise, Wang Qiong would not have recently proposed the idea of ​​developing Liaodong.

To put it another way, Wang Hua did not attribute the problem of tenant loss and land abandonment in the interior to immigration to the border, but he was indeed thinking about how to solve this problem. However, what he did not expect was that these students of his did not understand him, but instead regarded him as a villain, a villain bought by His Majesty!
But I never felt that His Majesty was trading with me for any benefit. Everything my royal family got was taken by my royal family. Moreover, as a minister, I should be diligent in the king's affairs, serve the people, and bring peace to the world. Is there anything wrong with that? !

Teacher-student split! Because their class attributes had changed, they had to split! The unbreakable teacher-student relationship within the scholar-officials, which was similar to the father-son relationship, began to break down, which was naturally a good thing for the emperor.



(End of this chapter)