Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 22: How to write the word "奸" (traitor) makes Xu Jie vomit blood!

Thunder strikes from the sky.

The world suddenly brightened.

Through the windows of the main hall, the lightning shone on the faces of Gao Gong and Yan Shifan who were confronting each other.

"Your Majesty, the treacherous minister has already jumped out!" Yan Shifan felt that today's dispute had to be resolved at the cost of life and death. "Gao Gong is one, and there is also Zhang Juzheng."

Sound is slower than light. When the thunder resounded through heaven and earth, Yan Shifan just happened to call out Zhang Juzheng's name, as if he was the incarnation of the sky.

"The nine million taels of silver spent on the Fujian and Zhejiang military pay are all for reopening the sea route and ensuring smooth passage for merchants. Now, the emperor has approved the military pay issue.

But you are unwilling to prepare for the Western Ocean. According to you, the seas and Japanese pacification of the Ming Dynasty are not for the court, but for those smugglers. "Yan Shifan looked at Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng, and said one against two.

What does it mean to put the blame on someone else?
This is called putting the blame on someone else!
The pacification of the sea and the suppression of the Japanese was originally a plan devised by Yan's father and son for future smuggling.

But at this moment, Yan Shifan used this as an excuse to imply that Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng were colluding with smugglers in the southeast, and that they were unwilling to see the court increase the number of cargo fleets before sailing to the West.

After all, he was young. Zhang Juzheng was startled and answered directly: "I don't think so."

In his conception, the Ming Dynasty sold many goods to the West, not necessarily just silk.

Yan Shifan pressed on, "Then why did you prevent the imperial court from preparing silk and weaving silk in advance?"

With his life and death hanging in the balance, Gao Gong showed not only his toughness but also his wisdom. He actually ignored the conversation between Yan Shifan and Zhang Juzheng and refuted from the beginning: "How do you write the word '姧'? It's two '女' characters plus a '干' character.

I, Gao Gong, am still a married woman who has lived through hardships together with my husband. Little Lord, you just married your ninth concubine the day before yesterday.

I'm afraid the word "姧" cannot be applied to my Gao Gong head."

virtue.

It is always something that officials cannot get around.

Although the Ming Dynasty court did not restrict the number of wives and concubines that officials could marry, and did not prevent officials from having many wives and concubines, the vast majority of officials would not openly take concubines.

Only if the wife has been unable to give birth to a child, in order to avoid being unfilial, will a concubine be taken in.

Like Yan Shifan, who openly took concubines and had many concubines, one reason was for sexual pleasure, and the other was to use it as an excuse to accept bribes.

On the 14th day of the first lunar month, the Yan residence was packed with distinguished guests. Imperial officials below the seventh rank and local officials below the fifth rank were left with no seats available.

Many local officials or officials who had left Beijing and were unable to return to the capital, although they could not come in person, had already presented their gifts.

Denying a person based on his moral character and then completely denying this person was Yan Shifan's specialty when dealing with the Qingliu. Now that it was used on him, Yan Shifan almost vomited blood.

"Stop rambling!"

Yan Shifan couldn't hold it in any longer, and subconsciously wanted to slam the table and stand up. Yan Song and Xu Jie's lightning eyes immediately shot over, and he withdrew his palms and stood up with the table, "Gao Gong, you turned a blind eye to the increasingly empty treasury, and didn't think of ways to increase revenue and reduce expenditure for the country.

He also had some complaints about Emperor Taizu Gao's way of governing the country, and disrespectfully mentioned old events in Henan to discuss new events in Zhejiang.

I think you, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, are just a worthless person who is just sitting there doing nothing."

You criticize my virtue, and I criticize your ethics, and neither of us is willing to give in.

Gao Gong did not respond, and neither did Zhang Juzheng.

Everyone else was silent, only Zhu Houcong stood up from the mat and waited quietly for the heavy rain outside the hall to stop.

There were three thunderclaps, and rain poured down from the sky onto the earth. When it fell to the ground, it instantly broke into countless petals.

Wisps of water vapor rose up, covering the entire capital, Yuxi Palace, like an isolated place. Zhu Houcong looked at Yan Song: "Lord Yan, Yan Shifan said that Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng were not sincere in your cabinet, is that true?"

"Your Majesty, the cabinet is filled with the most dedicated ministers of our Ming Dynasty." Yan Song said slowly.

Everyone was stunned.

Even Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng did not expect that Yan Song would still speak well of them at this time.

Yan Shifan felt so aggrieved that he was about to explode. He had not been feeling happy since he woke up that day.

From the promise the old father made to Xu Jie outside Yuxi Palace, to the protection the old father showed to Gao and Zhang inside Yuxi Palace, in the old father's heart, it seemed as if he was the only outsider.

"What about Yan Shifan's ninth wife?" Zhu Houcong raised his voice.

Yan Song answered calmly: "She was a Kunqu opera singer who went to the mansion of Duke Chengguo with her father to perform. However, she made a slip of the tongue and angered Duke Chengguo. Her father was beaten and both father and daughter were driven out.

Later, her father died of his injuries. The land in the capital was expensive, and the woman could not afford to bury her father, so she sold herself to bury her father. Then she was bought by Yan Shifan and taken as a concubine.

"So, Yan Shifan is a kind man. Are the life stories of his previous wives so miserable?" Zhu Houcong suddenly turned his gaze to Yan Shifan again.

Yan Shifan was shocked and knelt down. "I will send the wives back home when I get back. Those who have wives will be sent back home, and those who don't will be found good families to marry."

Behind a tragic life story, there are often hidden secrets that cannot be told to others.

Especially the nine wives' life stories suddenly became miserable after they met Yan Shifan and were favored by Yan Shifan.

Zhu Houcong stopped looking at him and looked at Xu Jie. "Lord Xu, the cabinet is eager to increase the production of 200,000 rolls of silk this year. You are the Minister of Revenue. I want to ask you, how many acres of mulberry fields are needed to increase the production of 200,000 rolls of silk?"

Increase mulberry fields?

Everyone immediately grasped the key words the emperor said.

Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng's faces changed. Even though they had argued so much in front of the emperor, could they still not stop the replacement of rice with mulberry?
Xu Jie straightened his face, but his voice was full of excitement: "Your Majesty, if it is mature mulberry trees, 200,000 acres will be enough.

But we have to wait a month to change the crops, and the second half of the year will still be mulberry seedlings. Moreover, the silk produced by mid-autumn and late-autumn silkworms is less than that produced by spring silkworms, so at least 500,000 mu of mulberry fields are needed.”

As a fellow official in the Ministry of Revenue, Gao Gong also had a general idea of ​​what Xu Jie knew about silkworms.

Five hundred thousand mu of grain fields were converted from rice to mulberry trees, and by the next year at most they will become mature mulberry trees. The spring and autumn silkworms combined will produce far more than 200,000 rolls of silk.

The number of 500,000 acres of mulberry fields was just the amount of land in Zhejiang that Yan Song and Xu Jie wanted to annex after discussion.

It's really cruel. The Yan and Xu families just lost hundreds of thousands of acres of land, and they want to make up for it from other places. They don't care about the lives of the people of Zhejiang at all.

Zhu Houcong smiled and said, "Lord Xu has a good plan. But for these fields, why should we touch the rice fields of the people in Zhejiang? I just got 500,000 acres of land here, so why not change them all?"

Say it.

Lu Fang led a few young eunuchs and carried out two sandalwood boxes from the side hall.

Xu Jie and Yan Shifan looked at the box and it seemed so familiar to them. It was exactly like the boxes of the Xu and Yan families. Even the sealing strips had the unique logos of the two families.

Once the seal was removed and the box was opened, even the title deeds inside were exactly the same as those presented by the Xu and Yan families.

Xu Jie felt a salty taste in his throat and forced himself to swallow the surging hot blood.

Using his, Yan Song's and Yan Shifan's ideas, they converted the land of the Yan and Xu families and did not harm the people of Zhejiang at all. Is this something a human can do?
Yan Shifan was more cunning than Yan Song, but Xu Jie was still less cunning. In his rage, blood flowed from the corners of his mouth.

What a beast, what a beast, what a fucking beast!

(End of this chapter)