Ming Dynasty: Traveling through the harem, Zhu Yuanzhang was dumbfounded

Chapter 62 Father is yelled at by his son

At this point, the descendant had been forced to commit suicide, and Zhu Yuanzhang did not want to blame him for anything.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang must get rid of every one of the Donglin Party members who have brought disaster to the Ming Dynasty.

How exactly did this group of people use their ancestral teachings to undermine their own descendants?

This resulted in widespread famine among the people and the emergence of refugees everywhere, forcing the Ming army to join the rebels.

Yang Chen was silent for a while, then said:
"Of course these powerful people knew that the Ming Dynasty would fall. In fact, they had already prepared for the fall of the Ming Dynasty since they had been constantly relying on the Ming Dynasty's imperial power to suck blood.

The demise of the Ming Dynasty was the trend of history. I said at the beginning that no imperial dynasty could last more than three hundred years.

The Donglin Party accelerated this process.

These powerful people are hypocrites who are sanctimonious in their daily lives.

They could tell the world's affairs with a pen in hand. Even the uprising army that was obviously impossible to suppress in the late Ming Dynasty became something that could be easily solved after their stories reached the ears of Emperor Chongzhen.

These guys only talk but are unwilling to do any work. They use the power in their hands to eat up the people's wealth and profit for themselves.

Whenever they encountered any difficulties, they would verbally prove that they loved and were loyal to the Ming Dynasty.

However, when these things really happened, nothing happened.

Your Majesty should be aware that I mentioned earlier that someone withheld military pay, resulting in the killing of those who demanded pay, right?
This is a problem with your Majesty's system, which restricts military households to one place, causing the officers above to exploit loopholes in the rules to annex land.

In order to prevent the matter from being exposed, he also joined forces with the civil service group to set up the plan.

This eventually led to many powerful and wealthy people owning tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land, and they did not have to pay taxes on the harvest from these lands.

The reason is that these powerful people take advantage of loopholes to obtain tax exemptions, or the privilege of paying less taxes.

For example, families of scholars, juren, etc. can pay less taxes.

As a result, the powerful classes at that time began to recruit a large number of sons-in-law to marry into their families.

This resulted in a situation where, although the Ming Dynasty was very rich, 90% of its wealth was in the hands of a class that did not have to pay taxes.

All Chongzhen could do at that time was to squeeze as much as possible from the people, who accounted for 90% of the population and controlled 10% of the wealth.

However, these taxes collected are exploited through layers of exploitation, and only a small amount can enter the national treasury.

After finally raising a certain amount of money, Chongzhen quickly ordered his men to take it and distribute it to the military forces in various places.

This process is another new round of corruption, where the big fish eat the small fish and the small fish eat the shrimps.

The layers of ghost soldiers made it so that only 100,000 silver coins could be sent to the local army out of the million silver coins. That was already a lot.”

When Yang Chen finished speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang's face had already turned ashen, and the murderous intent in his body was vented out.

Finally, a powerful voice sounded in the Wenhua Hall.

"Hahaha! Okay! Okay!

What a big fish eating small fish, corruption at every level and eating empty salaries, are they really treating the Ming Dynasty court as a tool to seek personal gain?

These guys are so bold that they actually took advantage of our loopholes and used the preferential treatment we give to scholars to avoid paying taxes.

No wonder I said that the Ming Dynasty had so many acres of fertile land, and that the military households could grow crops on their own to be self-sufficient.

However, the military salaries could not be paid, which resulted in those who demanded them being killed.

Our soldiers are disheartened. We killed too few of these beasts!

Biao'er, we must kill all the corrupt officials. The existence of these corrupt officials makes the Ming Dynasty a scapegoat for the destruction of the people.

It's not our fault, but people think it's our problem.

Now we know that it was these corrupt officials who manipulated the situation behind the scenes to lower the penalty for embezzlement and bribery to five taels of silver.

If anyone embezzles more than five taels of silver, we will kill him! What do you say?" Zhu Yuanzhang's face turned red, and he only calmed down when he thought of lowering the law.

At that time, the only thing on his mind was kill.

Apart from that, he could not think of any way to deal with corruption.

As the founding emperor, he knew best how horrible it was for soldiers who could not get their pay and for the people who could not get food.

At first, the Yuan government levied taxes indiscriminately and oppressed the people, making it impossible for them to survive.

Even temples and other areas suffered disasters, forcing the emperor to finally join the rebels.

These are all the fault of corrupt officials. If it weren't for these corrupt officials, Zhu Yuanzhang would probably still be that honest farmer who only knew how to herd cattle and farm.

Compared to his anger, Zhu Biao seemed much calmer.

He quickly stood up to warn his opponent.

"Father, we can't kill any more people. The original punishment for taking bribes of 50 taels was so many officials died unjustly. They took bribes because they couldn't survive. If we set the punishment to 5 taels, I'm afraid that everyone in the Ming Dynasty will be executed!"

"Hmph! Biao'er! I think you are too kind! Didn't you just hear that a lot of fertile land in the Ming Dynasty has been occupied by them?

These corrupt officials also pointed their fingers at the military pay. If the military pay is embezzled, how can the army fight? "

"But this is not the reason why you, Father, are killing innocent people! There are corrupt officials in the Ming Dynasty, but corruption is a chronic disease. A chronic disease can only be weakened, not eradicated. Even in Yang Chen's world six hundred years later, I believe there are still many corrupt officials.

However, these corrupt officials did not affect his life. Doesn't this prove that the stubborn problem of corrupt officials cannot be solved by killing them alone?"

"Biao'er! Do you know what you are talking about?"

"Your Highness knows! But it's you, Father. Do you know how many people your impulsiveness will kill?"

The father and son confronted each other, and the scene was tense and intense for a while.

Zhu Biao didn't even follow the usual etiquette and bowed to Zhu Yuanzhang. Facing his father's questioning, he held his head high and chest puffed out, responding with fierce words.

There was an unquestionable majesty in his tone.

At this moment, it seemed as if he was the superior and Zhu Yuanzhang was the minister who was talking nonsense.

Especially the last sentence, which is not only passionate but also full of confidence.

Everyone present was immediately stunned.

Zhu Di stood beside the rosewood carved pillar, staring at his elder brother with eyes wide open in disbelief.

He even forgot to breathe. You know, in the entire royal family, there seemed to be no one else except Empress Ma who dared to speak loudly to Zhu Yuanzhang.

Now, the second person appeared, it was Zhu Biao!
Yang Chen's eyes kept wandering between the two of them, as if he was just enjoying the fun.

If there are melon seeds and peanuts, he can eat a whole bowl of them.

As for the father and son, Zhu Yuanzhang was stunned when he heard Zhu Biao's last words.

As the emperor, he was actually yelled at by his son, the prince!

"Father, please forgive me. I was a little impulsive just now. Please don't take it to heart."

He seemed to realize that his words just now were indeed somewhat disrespectful to etiquette.

Zhu Biao quickly bowed his head and admitted his mistake.

On the other hand, Zhu Yuanzhang, who was sitting on the high platform and was yelled at by him, stared straight at Zhu Biao.

There was disbelief and a hint of joy on his face.

(End of this chapter)