Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 378 Hai Rui investigates the Xu family

Now Emperor Zhu Zailei completely believed in radio communication technology and took the initiative to request that a radio room be built in the Qianqing Palace.

Radio stations were also established in Nanjing, Xi'an, Chengdu, Wuchang, and Haojing.

Whether it was the retired emperor Zhu Houzhao or the officials under him, they could contact the emperor Zhu Zailei directly in a relatively short time if they had important matters.

The Ming Dynasty began to enter a new era of information exchange.

This also means that new changes will take place in Ming society, and may even affect the entire world.

But some people still realize this.

There were frequent military wars between foreign vassal states and indigenous countries.

England destroyed Scotland and Ireland and established the powerful British Empire. The monarch Zhu Zaikun continued to exercise autocratic rule. Without the restrictions of parliament, he began to accept the advice of Confucian officials, rested with the people, and even began to export grain to the Ming Dynasty.

However, England still joined forces with Western King Zhu Zaijie to destroy France and divided France's territory equally.

Zhu Zaijie and Zhu Zaiheng, two great descendants of the Ming royal family, seem to have no intention of vigorously developing the commodity economy at present. They suppress the bourgeoisie internally and develop agriculture, monopolize trade externally, export grain to the Ming Dynasty, and even use surplus labor and surplus wealth to expand territory.

The source of the weapons was the Royal Industrial Company, which was controlled by several large financial groups behind the Ming Central Empire.

Of course, the biggest boss behind these consortiums is Zhu Houzhao.

The King of England and the King of the West even fought each other for territory. Under the manipulation of the Ming Central Empire, both sides won and lost. But they finally reached an agreement through negotiations with the help of envoys sent by Zhu Houzhao. They drew a line along the Loire River-Danube River-Carpathian Mountains, with the area north of the line belonging to the King of England and the area south of the line belonging to the King of the West.

Of course, Zhu Houzhao prohibited them from expanding east of the Black Sea.

However, the agreement that Zhu Houzhao made them reach did make them abide by it and they began to build empires one to the north and the other to the south.

The expansion of King Ying Zhu Zaiyun was obviously more difficult than that of King Xi Zhu Zaijie.

Because the Western King Zhu Zaijie took the initiative to join the Catholic Church and took advantage of the conflicts in religious beliefs to easily unite the various principalities to defeat the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the governor of Ceuta of the Ming Dynasty also joined forces with the Western King in order to open the Suez Canal and prevent the Ottoman Empire from moving south.

But for the country, these are not things that deserve much attention.

During Zhu Houzhao's trip to England, the Ming Empire's victories in several naval battles made the Chinese people realize that it was now difficult for overseas vassal states to resist the Ming court. Even if the court asked them to pay taxes now, they would not dare to disobey.

Domestic politicians are still focusing on how they can gain more benefits and live more luxuriously in this peaceful and prosperous era.

On the second day after Zhu Zaile returned from Zhu Houzhao, the censor He Weibo impeached Qi Jiguang for crimes such as killing ministers without authorization and being tyrannical, and requested that the case be brought to the Ministry of Justice for prosecution. However, his petition was rejected by the Left Censor-in-Chief Yang Lin.

The reason why the Left Censor-in-Chief Yang Lin fought back was that Qi Jiguang was not considered to be killing without authorization, because Qi Jiguang was complying with military law. Zhao Wenhua was also killed because he participated in military affairs, and he should go through the military law system. As long as the Privy Council of the Guards and the Chief Military Law Office had no objection, the Censorate had no right to interfere.

"The Emperor's move was really cruel. He let military officers take charge of the Censorate and civil officials serve as censors of the Censorate. This is equivalent to letting military officers control us civil officials. Now that the impeachment memorial of Censor He Weibo cannot reach the ears of the Emperor, we can only hold our noses and accept this loss!"

Xu Jie was helpless after knowing this.

Seeing that the civil officials were not causing much trouble now, Zhu Houzhao also understood the reason why he had appointed a military official to the post of Left Censor-in-Chief.

After all, officials like Yang Lin, who was originally a senior general of the Imperial Guard, knew military law and dared to go against the entire civil service group.

Zhu Houzhao did not massacre the gentry in the Ming Dynasty as he did the English bourgeoisie in England. Therefore, with the help of open trade and industrial development, the power of the domestic gentry was still very large. To be precise, they were the middle class of the empire. The Ming Dynasty was the most developed country in the world, so naturally it had the largest number of middle class people.

Therefore, there are still many gentry in the Ming Dynasty, but now they have to pay taxes and are subject to more fair legal restrictions.

The Ming Dynasty's maritime trade as well as large-scale mining, manufacturing and financial industries were all controlled by the Ming royal family and several large chaebols controlled by the royal family. In other words, the most profitable businesses in the Ming Dynasty were basically controlled by the royal family and several large chaebols, and these middle-level gentry could only deprive the lower-level Han people if they wanted to leap into wealthier chaebols.

However, the royal family and wealthy tycoons who controlled the Ming regime naturally did not want these gentry to exploit the lower-class Han people too harshly. Therefore, Hai Rui, who represented the interests of the court, would naturally not be too polite to these gentry after arriving in Yingtian Prefecture.

As soon as Hai Rui arrived in Yingtian Prefecture, he strengthened the management of Yingtian Prefecture. The gentry also knew Hai Rui's temper, and they were much more restrained than usual. Merchants no longer gave gifts to officials, and officials no longer dared to take bribes, in order to avoid being caught in a sore spot by Hai Rui and punished.

Although these gentry were very cautious, there were still common people who complained to Hai Rui, and they directly complained that the chief minister of the cabinet, Xu Jie, had occupied the people's land.

Zhu Houzhao changed everything in the Ming Dynasty over the years. Even the imperial examination system was evolved into a national higher education entrance examination and official selection examination hosted by provinces. However, he did not carry out land reform, nor did he change private land ownership into public land ownership.

Therefore, the phenomenon of land annexation still exists, and naturally there will still be conflicts between people and land.

It was just that Zhu Houzhao turned landless people into urban workers by developing industry.

It is not surprising that local noble families like the Xu Jie family would still occupy people's land in this world. In many cases, the people could only accept the fact that their land was occupied, but they did not revolt because they could still survive by working in the city.

Of course, the people of the Ming Dynasty would not be willing to see their land occupied. Moreover, after the popularization of education, they would be more likely to use the law to actively fight for and safeguard their rights.

Now that Hai Rui came to Yingtian to serve as the governor, these people naturally became more emboldened and immediately filed a complaint with Hai Rui.

Although the Ming Dynasty now has the performance evaluation system and strict anti-corruption laws, and the officials' income and treatment are much more generous, the administration is not really clean. After all, as long as you are a human, you will have selfish desires. Even though many officials in the Ming Dynasty are members of the Loyal Emperor Society, those who can be officials are smart people. How can they be brainwashed by one or two theories? They may even be the most opposed to the theory. Although the administration cannot be as clean as water, just as there can be no absolute fairness in this world, the rights of ordinary people have also increased greatly. They are no longer as worthless as grass, and it is even more impossible to become slaves, unless they are really too lazy and willing to sell their dignity to survive in this world.

Therefore, these gentry and officials did not dare to oppress the people too harshly.

Now that the literacy rate has increased, there are not many ignorant people, and the people are becoming more and more independent-minded. The emergence of officials like Hai Rui naturally gives the people a better opportunity to protect their rights and interests.

Hai Rui was naturally not afraid of power. He found out the truth and forced the Xu family to return all the embezzled land. He also reported to the court all the violations of the law by the Xu family.

When Emperor Zhu Zaile saw the memorial about all the illegal acts committed by Hai Rui and Xu Jie's son, he did not authorize the arrest of Xu Jie's offending son, but suppressed the matter.

The reason is very simple. Emperor Zhu Zailei doesn't want this matter to become too big a deal.

Zhu Houzhao originally sent Hai Rui to Yingtian to be the governor in order to teach Xu Jie a lesson. Now, whether Emperor Zhu Zaile wants to punish Xu Jie's son according to the law, he naturally won't care. He believes that the people will ask him to do so.

Because the Ming Dynasty today is no longer the Ming Dynasty that ruled the world in the past. The people gradually regard themselves as the masters of this empire, and gradually begin to demand that the rulers of the empire do things according to their will.

Hai Rui reported the fact that Xu Jie's sons had embezzled hundreds of thousands of acres of civilian farmland to the local newspapers in Yingtian Prefecture. Now that radio was in use, the Huangming Daily also reported the matter immediately. As a result, people all over the world soon knew that Xu Jie's two sons were incompetent.

Yang Jisheng, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Justice, submitted a memorial to the emperor requesting that he punish Xu Jie's son according to the law. After all, the evidence provided by Hai Rui was already conclusive, and the Censorate had already reviewed and approved it. They were just waiting for the emperor's approval before arresting the person.

Emperor Zhu Zailei was not in a position to shield Xu Jie, so he had to agree that Yingtian should deal with Xu Jie's son according to the law.

Xu Jie was also helpless about this. He knew that even if he was in a high position and had great power, it would be of no avail when he encountered such a serious official like Hai Rui. Even if the emperor was willing to help him, it would not be of any use. But he believed that he was not the only one who did not want to see Hai Rui in Yingtian Prefecture.

Of course, the only person who could help Xu Jie was the retired emperor Zhu Houzhao.

Only Zhu Houzhao can now forcibly trample on the law, because he still holds military power and has a high status.

But Zhu Houzhao naturally would not help Xu Jie, after all, he was the one who arranged all this.

Zhu Houzhao would never trample on the laws of the Ming Dynasty for Xu Jie. It was true that he was the person who truly held supreme power in the Ming Dynasty, but he was unwilling to go against the will of heaven and let the people of the Ming Dynasty continue to be slaves of this emperor.

Zhu Houzhao is now also considering the future of the Ming Dynasty a hundred years after his death. If he allows Emperor Zhu Zailei to take over his military power, he can guess that Emperor Zhu Zailei will become the next dictator and possess the most wealth and the most powerful army in the empire.

But what about the emperor after Emperor Zhu Zailei? What if he became a tyrant who only cared about his own interests or an emperor with incompetence? Zhu Houzhao felt that he could not pin the peaceful and prosperous lives of hundreds of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty on the subjective perception that future emperors would be wise.

Moreover, Zhu Houzhao believed that as the people became wealthier and their demands for dignity became higher, they would be less and less willing to have their dignity trampled upon by the emperor, unless the emperor could give them more benefits, so many that they would no longer care about their dignity. However, once the emperor could not give them, they would definitely oppose the emperor and even overthrow him.

Zhu Houzhao discovered that if the Ming Dynasty continued to develop in this way, as people became more and more noble, the emperor would sooner or later be pulled down from the altar or turned into a symbol of etiquette.

"Forget it, just go with the flow. My children and grandchildren will have their own blessings. If anyone is pushed to the guillotine in the future, don't blame me. Blame yourself for being a loser," Zhu Houzhao muttered to himself as he looked at the electric lights that had been widely used in the daily lives of officials and civilians.

Perhaps because of his old age, Zhu Houzhao began to become lazy. He could not think of a good solution for a while, so he simply stopped thinking about it and continued to hold the military power, intending to hand over the power to Emperor Zhu Zailei when he really left this world. As for how Emperor Zhu Zailei would use this power, or whether he would be sent to the guillotine for excessive use, he did not want to care.

Zhu Houzhao discovered that even though he was a time traveler and even though he held the highest power, he could not directly control the future course of history. This made him feel powerless, and he began to feel that there was no point in controlling power. For a moment, he also had a sense of enlightenment.

But Japan still had to be destroyed. Zhu Houzhao could no longer predict and control the general development direction of the Ming Empire, but he could still be sure of specific things, such as whether Japan should be destroyed. After all, history has proven that if the Japanese civilization was not destroyed in advance, he would dare to annex China once he had a little strength. If he was even stronger, he would dare to annex the world.

Qi Jiguang's army had already left Ryukyu, and more than 100,000 troops had begun to advance into Japan as scheduled.

At this time, Japan also learned the news of the Ming army's attack.

At this time, the actual warlord who controlled the Wa shogunate regime was Oda Nobunaga, a very famous military general in Japanese history.

But now Oda Nobunaga has just taken control of the Muromachi shogunate.

The other daimyos of Japan were not convinced by Oda Nobunaga and formed an encirclement around him.

In general, Japan at that time was still in a state of division as reported by the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

However, after learning that the Ming army was going to invade Japan, Oda Nobunaga realized the seriousness of the matter and began to compromise actively. He sent envoys to contact the daimyo who opposed him, attempting to unite these daimyo to fight against the Ming together.

Although Oda Nobunaga controlled the Muromachi shogunate, he was not the shogun and could only be considered a powerful minister. Therefore, even if these daimyo were willing to unite against the Ming Dynasty, they were unwilling to serve Oda Nobunaga as their leader.

The Ming Dynasty had already sent envoys to contact some daimyos in advance, stating that the Ming Dynasty's expedition to Japan was not intended to destroy Japan but to punish the unjust. The so-called punishment of the unjust was to punish Oda Nobunaga, the disloyal and unjust man who usurped power.

The Ming Dynasty was the suzerain state, so there was nothing wrong with it proposing such a reason for war. Many daimyos who had conflicts with Oda Nobunaga really believed what the Ming Dynasty said and were unwilling to join Oda Nobunaga in fighting against the Ming Dynasty. Instead, they became more determined to eliminate Oda Nobunaga.

On this day, Lu Tong, under the order of Qi Jiguang, led the navy to arrive at Nagasaki Port in Japan. He did not encounter any resistance from Japan and was welcomed by the local daimyo.

When Lu Tan arrived at Nagasaki Port, he did not begin to implement the harsh policies demanded by the Ming court. After all, only the navy had arrived in Japan and had to gain a foothold.

Thanks to book friend Zhuqianzi for the 100 starting coins reward. Thank you to book friend 207090513……100 starting coins reward.

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(End of this chapter)