Emperor Zhengde
Chapter 302 Jiangnan Commodity Economy
Chapter 302 Jiangnan Commodity Economy
"How ridiculous! The road permit system has been abolished for many years. The people of the Ming Dynasty have the freedom to migrate. No official or individual may illegally detain or restrict their freedom. The Kong family is the descendant of a saint after all. Not only did they violate the ban on mining, but now they are using the clan covenant to restrict the freedom of the people of their hometown, and even privately set up criminal laws to deal with them. What do they want to do? Do they want to set up another court?"
Zhu Houzhao said angrily that he really didn't expect that the Ming Dynasty actually had a rule like "Fugitive Law".
The attendant Wen Zhengming did not dare to say a word after hearing this, wondering if the Emperor was going to treat the Kong family as traitors. However, the Kong family did go too far, but how many clans in the world are not like this? Clan covenants are sometimes more stringent than laws, and even more frightening to the scholars and people.
But Wen Zhengming had to reply after seeing what Zhu Houzhao had just said to him: "Your Majesty, although Nanzhili has set up a police department, and Zhang Cifu's administrative reform system has included the village head level in the assessment of the Ministry of Personnel, the power of the clan is still very strong among the people. The people are governed by the clan and protected by the clan. The village and clan covenants are the principles of local peace. At present, the Confucius Mansion is just like all the clans in the world, but it may have gone a little too far."
At this time, the Minister of Agriculture Yan Song replied: "However, I have been in charge of Nanzhili for a period of time, and now I am promoting sweet potatoes throughout the country. I have also found that in recent years, the gap between the clans and the people has become increasingly larger, even among scholars, and even the eldest son of the legitimate family is trying to escape the control of the clan."
"What are you talking about?" Zhu Houzhao knew that the ancient agricultural civilization gave birth to clans, but now after hearing what Yan Song said, he seemed to realize that with the development of capitalism, the clan society that played an important role in stabilizing the agricultural society may be collapsing.
"Reporting to Your Majesty, the people along the coast are unwilling to stay in their hometowns to farm, but would rather go to other places to work, which can earn them a lot of money. In this way, the elders and gentry of the clan naturally have no tenant farmers to farm the land, so they must be strictly bound by clan rules. In the past, scholars relied on their clans to study and become officials, but now they rely more on the court's efforts to popularize education. Therefore, when scholars become successful, they are no longer grateful for the support of their clans, but they also feel bound by their clans, so they also rush to escape from their clans.
"Of course, the rift between clans and the people is the most obvious. In order to control their people from going out, many clans can only strictly prohibit it through clan covenants. But now everyone in the world knows that the benefits of working are greater than those of farming, so countless people still flee," Yan Song replied.
"It seems that the civil society of our Ming Dynasty is really changing. The court must keep up with this change. Clans are no longer just able to maintain peace and prosperity, but will also hinder the people from getting rich and increase social conflicts. Although our Ming Dynasty advocates self-governance by villagers, this clan agreement is obviously illegal!"
As Zhu Houzhao saw that the Kong clan members were about to have their hands and feet chopped off, he hurriedly ordered a Jinyiwei, "Go and stop it and rescue those civilians. Then, Guo Rong, in your capacity as the Left Commander of Jinyiwei, report this matter to the officials of Shandong Provincial Inspection Office and let them handle it."
Guo Rong accepted the order.
The Jinyiwei who were ordered by Zhu Houzhao to rescue the civilians also went to the mining area and successfully rescued them. But not long after, Kong Wenshao also learned that the Jinyiwei appeared in his mining area and rescued several common people from his clan. He became very nervous for a moment and thought: "Why did the Jinyiwei suddenly interfere in the affairs of my clan? Is His Majesty still sending people to keep an eye on our Kong family? What do they want to do by taking these people away? Do they want to use them as witnesses to accuse my clan of its affairs before the emperor?"
The more Kong Wenshao thought about it, the more horrified he felt. He couldn't help but slam his head on the table and said, "We must go all out. We can't let this Jinyiwei return to the capital to summon the Seventh Master!"
The Shandong Provincial Surveillance Commissioner was also shocked after receiving Guo Rong's letter, and hurriedly brought officers and soldiers to Dongchang Prefecture to investigate.
However, just as the Shandong Provincial Surveillance Commissioner left Jinan, someone brought the news to Kong Wenshao. Upon knowing the news, Kong Wenshao suspended the mining in Dongchang Prefecture. Instead, the people who were forced to work in the mines had no food to eat and several of them starved to death.
Kong Wenshao, on the contrary, took advantage of this incident to report to Li Huai, the Imperial Censor of Shandong Province, that the Embroidered Uniform Guards were harassing the local area, and that the Censors were in collusion with each other, resulting in the closure of the Kong family's property. The landless Kong clan members suffered from hunger and cold as they had no work, and several people starved to death.
"It is truly despicable that the descendants of the saints are being abused by corrupt officials and powerful officials!"
When the Imperial Censor Li Huai learned about this, he immediately submitted a memorial to impeach the Jinyiwei and Shandong Provincial Surveillance Commissioner Wang Shou and others.
at the same time.
When Zhu Houzhao was about to leave Dongchang Prefecture, he encountered a group of thieves.
This group of thieves had no idea that the person sitting in the carriage was Emperor Zhu Houzhao. They only knew that the Jinyiwei who appeared in the coal mine run by the Kong family were in the carriage, so they rode their horses directly over to kill this team of Jinyiwei.
Hearing the neighing of horses outside and the nervous shouts of "There are assassins!" from the Jinyiwei, Zhu Houzhao also became inexplicably nervous. He had never thought that he would encounter horse thieves while on a secret tour inside the Great Wall, and in an area like Shandong, which is located on the bank of the Grand Canal. This made him begin to doubt the public security of his Ming Dynasty.
Of course, although Zhu Houzhao was traveling incognito, there were quite a few plainclothes Jinyiwei following him, and there was even a company of guards, who immediately opened their rifles and shot directly at the invading enemy.
The sound of bullets crackling could be heard.
More than a dozen horse thieves fell to the ground immediately, and the Jinyiwei fought very hard because they were protecting the emperor. They killed or injured more than a dozen horse thieves in close combat. The remaining horse thieves realized that they had encountered a strong enemy and naturally could not silence them, so they had to flee in panic.
However, this assassination experience had a great impact on Zhu Houzhao, and he almost couldn't recover for a while.
To be honest, this was the first time Zhu Houzhao was assassinated.
Even though he had been outside the Great Wall, no Mongolian cavalry dared to assassinate him.
But this time, Zhu Houzhao did not expect that he would be assassinated again, and in the mainland.
Of course, what Zhu Houzhao is still not sure about is who wants to assassinate him and who is so stupid.
Zhu Houzhao admitted that as an emperor he certainly had enemies, but there were also many people who wanted to protect him for their own interests and emotions. It was undoubtedly impossible for them to assassinate him!
But what Zhu Houzhao didn't know was that these horse thieves didn't want to assassinate him, but wanted to get rid of the Jinyiwei who had gone to the coal mine run by the Kong family.
It was just that these horse thieves assassinated the emperor by accident.
After all, only a few people knew that the emperor was on a tour here. It was naturally even more difficult for Kong Wenshao, who was far away in Shandong and had been stripped of his title, to know about it.
But no matter what, Zhu Houzhao's mood was now extremely bad.
At this time, Guo Rong, the Left Commander of the Imperial Guard, came over and said, "Your Majesty, the injured horse thief confessed that it was a man named Qi Ye who took action and said he wanted to wipe out our team of Imperial Guards, but they didn't expect that we would hide so many people."
"Seventh Master, who is Seventh Master?" Zhu Houzhao asked. "Kong Wentai, the seventh in the clan, is quite famous in the Shandong Cao Gang and Yahang, and is called Seventh Master by the people in the underworld," Guo Rong replied.
Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but sneer after hearing this: "What a great Kong family! They actually dared to kill people to silence them!"
And at this time.
Zhu Houzhao also received a memorial from the Censorate regarding the impeachment of the Shandong Provincial Censorate and the Embroidered Uniform Guards for disturbing the local area. He could not help but laugh out of anger:
"This Kong Wenshao is quite powerful. He is good at turning the tables. Not only did he want to silence the Jinyiwei, he even sued the Jinyiwei and the Shandong Provincial Surveillance Department. I ordered Qi Xun, the general of Shandong Denglai, to privately legislate, illegally open mines, and harm the villagers. I have abolished his title of Duke of Yansheng, but he still dominates the village with his title. There is no doubt that he is plotting treason and establishing himself in Qufu without paying attention to the rules and regulations of the court. Qi Xun is ordered to lead the army to eliminate him as a rebel, confiscate his property, and divide the land among the villagers. The Ministry of Personnel is ordered to dismiss the Qufu County Magistrate Kong Yanze and the Shandong Provincial Surveillance Censor, and the Dongchang Inspectorate is ordered to investigate these two people!"
Wen Zhengming was quite surprised when Zhu Houzhao issued the decree. He did not expect that Emperor Zhu Houzhao would directly charge Kong Wenshao with treason and send troops to deal with the Kong family. This was the rhythm of executing the entire family. Dividing the land among the villages was to cut off the retreat of Kong Wenshao and other direct descendants of the Kong family in their hometown.
Even Wen Zhengming knew that if the imperial court dealt with the Kong family in this way, the direct descendants of the Kong family would never have a chance to turn things around.
At this time, Kong Wenshao did not know that he was about to face a catastrophe, and he still kept the coal mine open. In his opinion, the imperial censor's memorial impeaching the Jinyiwei and the Shandong Censorate would have nothing to do with him no matter what the result was, because no matter what, it was a matter between court officials.
Kong Wenshao believed that as long as the Jinyiwei could not find him, he would be fine.
But what Kong Wenshao did not expect was that before he could put his mind at ease for long, Qi Xun led his soldiers to surround the Confucius Mansion in Qufu.
Kong Wenshao was very surprised: "General Qi, what are you doing?"
"According to the imperial order, wipe out the clan of the traitor Kong Wenshao! Mr. Kong, you are too bold to assassinate the current emperor! Even if you didn't know which Jinyiwei team the emperor was in at the time, and Jinyiwei is the emperor's personal army, you can't think of silencing them!"
After Qi Xun said this, Kong Wenshao naturally understood everything. He immediately collapsed to the ground and muttered to himself: "Your Majesty? The Emperor came to Shandong? How is this possible!"
Qi Xun didn't say anything, he just ordered people to surround the Kong Mansion and not let anyone escape. After all, he had just heard about this from other people, and it suddenly occurred to him why he had received an imperial decree to destroy the Kong Mansion.
At this time, Kong Wenshao suddenly knelt in front of Qi Xun after calming down a little, and burst into tears: "General Qi, I am really wronged. How dare I assassinate the emperor! General Qi, you have to see clearly. I am a descendant of a saint. How dare I be so disloyal!"
"The imperial decree has been issued. Mr. Kong, you don't need to quibble anymore. Besides, don't you Confucian officials always say that if the emperor wants his subjects to die, they have to die. Why bother to quibble anymore?"
Qi Xun said as he waved his hand and shouted, "Take him away!"
At the same time, Qi Xun drew his knife, and at this time, Kong Wentai also came out: "General Qi, what are you going to do?"
As soon as Kong Wentai finished speaking, Qi Xun stabbed him with a knife: "According to the order, punish the treasonous rebels!"
Except for Kong Wenshao who was escorted to Beijing for severe punishment, the rest of the direct descendants of the Kong Mansion were executed, and the fields of the direct descendants of the Kong Mansion were distributed to other common people with the surname Kong in Qufu. At the same time, all the mines opened by the Kong Mansion were closed.
Zhu Houzhao didn't say much after knowing this, and he never thought that he would deal with the Kong family to this extent. But he also didn't expect that the Kong family would run into the knife edge of his hatred for private mining by the people, and that they enslaved their own people because of mining, and even set up harsh clan covenants privately. What Zhu Houzhao saw was not a benevolent clan but a cannibalistic black power group.
But Zhu Houzhao didn't know that while he was eliminating the Kong family, there were still many other clans that were practicing cannibalism just like the Kong family.
After the Kong family's mining industry was banned, it did not affect the production of local people like the ban on mining in poor areas. Instead, it liberated the local people. In addition, after Zhu Houzhao eliminated the Kong family, the local people had enough land to cultivate, and even eased the class contradictions in Shandong area.
Zhu Houzhao discovered that banning mining was not a policy that would harm the people. For some areas with developed agriculture and abundant arable land, mining was the exclusive business of the gentry and wealthy families. Banning mining could instead curb the gentry and wealthy families' encroachment on agricultural land for profit, allowing the people to have more arable land for agricultural production.
Of course, Zhu Houzhao could also guess that the people in some places did rely on mining for their livelihood, so it was still difficult for him to directly conclude that mining should be strictly prohibited. He had to wait for the results of the inspection by Zhang Cong and others.
Zhu Houzhao went ashore after arriving in Zhenjiang. This time he did not go to Nanjing, but went directly to the Susong area. He wanted to see what the Jiangnan towns were like.
"Who told you to come into the city to sell? Beat them!"
In Nanxun Town, Zhu Houzhao, dressed as a merchant, was about to enter the town from an official road when he saw a group of young men pushing down a cart of raw silk that a man was transporting into the city. They then brought four or five people to beat the man and stepped on the raw silk in his hand.
Zhu Houzhao was very surprised after seeing this, and asked Liu Shi, a Jinyiwei who was familiar with the society in Jiangnan, "What's going on?"
"Your Majesty, this farmer did not follow the rules to sell his goods to the brokerage firm but instead transported his goods into the city to sell raw silk. Naturally, he was beaten by the brokerage firm. According to the rules, whether the farmer sells cotton yarn or raw silk, he must sell it to the brokerage firm, and then the brokerage firm can sell it to merchants. If merchants want to buy cotton yarn and raw silk, they can only buy it from the brokerage firm. These brokerage firms are also called tyrants, and basically all of them have complicated backgrounds."
Jinyiwei Liu Shi replied.
Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but laugh after hearing this: "I didn't expect that there were such tricks in the Jiangnan market. This is all because the court didn't strengthen management at the grassroots level, which made the business order so bad that ordinary people don't even have the freedom to buy and sell! The right to commercial trade is actually monopolized by the rich and powerful!"
(End of this chapter)
You'll Also Like
-
I can equip unlimited.
Chapter 2021 12 hours ago -
The Mutant God in American Comics.
Chapter 267 12 hours ago -
One Piece: Fist of the World.
Chapter 283 12 hours ago -
Meet the Gentleman
Chapter 1277 12 hours ago -
Siheyuan: Starting from the driver
Chapter 553 12 hours ago -
Douluo Dalu: The Unrivaled Panlong Zhentian
Chapter 151 12 hours ago -
Peerless: Rebirth of Tang Wulin, Sister, Please Respect Yourself
Chapter 153 12 hours ago -
I can combine League of Legends skills
Chapter 419 12 hours ago -
I really became a king.
Chapter 649 12 hours ago -
Douluo: Traveling through Huo Yuhao, I am really not a succubus
Chapter 274 12 hours ago