Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 254 Bringing back so much gold and silver!

It is now mid-spring of the twelfth year of the Zhengde reign. All things are sprouting, and the capital, which has been dry for a winter, has added a hint of warmth and humidity. The Ming Emperor Zhu Houzhao also got up earlier than usual and went to Hanbi Hall in the Royal West Garden to discuss government affairs.

The Qianqing Palace in the Forbidden City is not a suitable place for the emperor to work.

After all, when Emperor Yongle built the Forbidden City in Beijing, it was initially just a temporary residence. It is no wonder that emperors such as Zhengde and Jiajing moved out of the palace in history. Even the emperors of the Qing Dynasty had to build the Old Summer Palace outside to live in instead of living in the Qianqing Palace.

Zhu Houzhao had to admit that the front hall of the Forbidden City was magnificent, but the inner court was indeed a bit narrow compared to the emperor.

What's more, the political system of the Ming Dynasty has changed.

It is no longer the Cabinet and the Imperial Household Department that decide all military and political affairs.

Naturally, there was no need for Zhu Houzhao to discuss matters with a group of ministers in the cramped cabinet and the Silijian duty room every day.

Zhu Houzhao basically handed over all daily administrative power to the cabinet, and in order to facilitate the cabinet ministers in handling daily government affairs, he specially allowed them to use the Wenhua Hall as their office place.

The Silijian was basically in name only, because Zhu Houzhao was not an emperor who was willing to be a hands-off boss. As long as he continued to be involved in state affairs, the eunuchs in the Silijian could only be senior secretaries who could only give their approval on memorials.

The Five Military Governor's Office had naturally long been in name only, and the four divisions and one branch of the Imperial Guards were now temporarily using the office of the Five Military Governor's Office, and had become the highest military command body for foreign wars, almost sharing military and political responsibilities with the Cabinet.

Zhu Houzhao now only reviews memorials in Hanbi Hall, which is considered one of the emperor Zhu Houzhao's daily offices.

Hanbi Hall not only housed eunuchs from the Imperial Household Department, but also some of Zhu Houzhao's civil servants.

Zhu Houzhao now has two attendant rooms.

One is the attendant's office in charge of financial affairs, which was headed by Xu Jing and employed a group of literati who understood money, law and economics. They served as Zhu Houzhao's think tank for economic control and even had people who directly managed the royal investment business.

One is the attendant room responsible for cultural propaganda, which was headed by Tang Bohu and employed a group of literati who were responsible for media propaganda and public opinion manipulation, serving as Zhu Houzhao's think tank for ideological and cultural control.

In terms of military power, the Imperial Guards and the Ministry of War maintained checks and balances, so Zhu Houzhao naturally did not worry about the emergence of warlords.

thus.

As long as the emperor now controls the empire's economy, ideology and culture, it means he can control the entire Ming Empire.

As soon as Zhu Houzhao arrived at Hanbi Hall, the eunuchs from the Imperial Household Department had already divided the matters that the emperor needed to deal with today into three categories: military, administrative, and judicial, and at the same time arranged the emperor Zhu Houzhao's itinerary and plans for the day.

Zhu Houzhao first picked up the military memorials and read them, and then the administrative and judicial ones.

These memorials had all been drafted long ago by the heads of various departments of the Imperial Guard, the Cabinet, the Dali Temple, and the Censorate. Zhu Houzhao basically just took a look at them and then asked the eunuchs of the Imperial Household Department to approve them on his behalf. However, if Zhu Houzhao had any doubts, they would be rejected.

This is equivalent to separating the military power, administrative power, judicial power, and supervisory power, avoiding the phenomenon of power centralization by the cabinet or the Imperial Household Department.

At the same time, in Zhu Houzhao's view, this would also improve the efficiency of the Ming Dynasty court's governance and make the court's governance more professional.

Zhu Houzhao basically didn't have to spend too much time dealing with the daily tedious military and political affairs. He could handle all the affairs in just over an hour, and had more time to do other meaningful things. But at this time, Zhu Houzhao saw from the cabinet's memorial that Xia Yan had returned from his visit to the West.

This aroused Zhu Houzhao's interest, and he quickly ordered Liu Jin: "Arrange a time for Xia Yan to come to the palace!"

After Liu Jin accepted the order and said yes, he turned around and went to Lan Cui Xuan, which was now the duty room of the Silijian, to rearrange Zhu Houzhao's schedule. Then he came back and reported: "Your Majesty, you will have time to see Minister Xia after noon the day after tomorrow."

Zhu Houzhao had never expected that his schedule had been scheduled for the day after tomorrow, so he didn't say much, just nodded and said, "Then let's do it the day after tomorrow!"

The day after tomorrow at noon, the spring scenery is gorgeous.

Zhu Houzhao summoned Xia Yan to Hanbi Hall.

Xia Yan wore a black gauze hat with long wings on top and a scarlet official robe. As soon as he saw Zhu Houzhao appear, he bowed and kowtowed.

Zhu Houzhao shouted "No need to greet" and found a chair to sit down. Looking at Xia Yan with a long face and goatee, he only smiled slightly and said, "You have indeed lost some weight. I don't know if it is because of the long journey across the ocean or because the Western barbarian women are too passionate and unrestrained."

Zhu Houzhao had naturally learned from the Western Factory what had happened to Xia Yan along the way, so when he saw Xia Yan, Zhu Houzhao did not ask him directly about serious matters, but only told him some jokes first.

Xia Yan's face turned red. He didn't expect that the Emperor would know about the fact that he brought back the Western Yi woman so quickly. He didn't know how to respond for a moment.

Zhu Houzhao continued to joke and asked, "My dear, how does it feel to ride this white horse?"

At first, Xia Yan didn't understand what Zhu Houzhao meant, but when he looked up at Zhu Houzhao's smirk, he understood it all at once and stood up quickly:
"Your Majesty! Did you summon me into the palace just to ask about this? Your Majesty is the king and father, so you should be solemn and dignified. Why are you teasing me for no reason?"

Zhu Houzhao knew that Xia Yan had a straightforward personality. Seeing him so anxious, he found it even more amusing: "How can you be so weak against jokes? Do you dare to say that you don't have any Western women in your house?"

"Your Majesty, I dare not deceive you. I am the one who said it, but Your Majesty, you should ask me about serious matters. You don't need to ask me about this." Xia Yan didn't know how to answer at first, but in the end he could only force himself to say a few incoherent words.

Zhu Houzhao saw that Xia Yan was not good at joking, so he did not joke with him anymore. He just continued to ask Xia Yan: "What did you see and do when you went to Xiyi? What can you bring back to the Ming Dynasty?"

"Your Majesty, I went to Rome and Florence during my trip to the Western Barbarians. I met their Pope and the Lord of Florence. I killed their Pope and forced them to recognize the law that the succession of the Pope must be approved by the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. I also brought back a group of painters that your Majesty likes, such as Leonardo da Vinci. In addition, I brought back more than 2,000 kilograms of gold and more than 60,000 kilograms of silver! All of which were handed over to the Royal Tax Bureau!"

After Xia Yan finished speaking, Zhu Houzhao was stunned for a long time. The first thing he didn't expect was that Xia Yan had killed the Pope.

Secondly, Zhu Houzhao never expected that Xia Yan would bring back more than 2,000 kilograms of gold and more than 60,000 kilograms of silver during his trip to Xiyi.

"You, are you telling the truth?"

Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but stand up and asked.

In the Ming Dynasty, ten thousand taels of silver was considered a huge sum of money, but Zhu Houzhao did not expect that Xia Yan would bring back so much gold and silver in one voyage to the West. This was equivalent to the Royal Tax Bureau earning millions of taels of silver at one time!
1. Let me answer the doubts of the readers. Will Xia Yan's killing of the Pope in the West cause the whole West to unite for revenge? There is no need to worry about this, because the Pope has no authority at this time. In the 1515th century, France occupied the Papal States and imprisoned the Pope, which seemed to be called the Prisoner of Alvernon. Despite this, France was not attacked by other Western countries, and the Holy Roman Empire burned Rome. In the novel, Xia Yan went to the Papal States in , so if he dealt with the Pope, other Western countries would not be enemies with the Ming Dynasty for a Pope, because Xia Yan did not mean to eliminate Catholicism. He just killed a Pope, which is different from Persia. Readers can understand that the Pope is just the monarch of an ordinary small Western country. Even if several Western powers unite to seek revenge on the Ming Dynasty, it is okay. Xia Yan brought a naval fleet. When the Western countries knew about it, he had already left the West and had no time to seek revenge on Xia Yan. It is even more impossible for them to travel across the ocean to cause trouble for the Ming Dynasty.

2. In this chapter, the amount of gold and silver brought back by Xia Yan is not exaggerated. According to the information, Spain in the first half of the 2292th century, which is the era in the novel, plundered kilograms of gold and more than kilograms of silver from the Americas every year, so it is reasonable to write that Xia Yan brought back more than kilograms of gold and more than kilograms of silver. After all, Xia Yan's fleet robbed along the Portuguese route and also robbed the gold stored by Portugal in Ceuta, so the amount of gold brought back was no less than more than kilograms.

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(End of this chapter)