Chapter 222 Ning Wang Zhu Quan: Zhu Laosi, you are a cruel person!

That night, a grand banquet was held in Prince Ning's Mansion.

Bright lights illuminated the entire Prince Ning's Mansion, and in the huge courtyard, hundreds of dancers danced to the music of drums.

Her graceful figure and fair skin are looming under the light of her movements.

On both sides of the dance floor, tables were lined up from the hall to the door.

A number of civil servants and military generals raised their glasses and talked, and hearty laughter broke out from time to time.

"Your Majesty, I would like to give you a drink!"

Prince Ning, who had a bruised nose and swollen face, raised his glass and toasted to the old man with a smile.

But judging from the faint twitching of the corners of his mouth, it was obvious that his smile had affected the wounds on his face.

The old man glanced at him, hummed slightly, raised the glass to signal, and took a sip.

After drinking, Prince Ning glanced at his sons who were chatting with Zhu Zhangui, Zhu Gaoxu, and Zhu Gaosui, and turned his eyes slightly to look at the old man with a smile on his face.

"Your Majesty, these boys in my brother's family are quite old. Do you think you can make arrangements for them when?"

As soon as Prince Ning said this, the conversation in the hall became quiet.

Prince Ning's sons and the old man looked expectantly, waiting for the other party to be canonized.

The old man frowned slightly. He understood what Zhu Quan meant, that he wanted to claim the throne for his sons.

Prince Ning also mentioned this matter a few years ago, but the old man suppressed it because of the imminent expedition to the north.

On today's occasion, Prince Ning mentioned this matter again because he wanted the old man to express his position in front of everyone.

Seeing that these sons are already in their twenties and thirties, and they have not been banned yet, if this delay continues, these brats will start fighting at home when they see that there is no chance of being banned.

Zhu Zhangui glanced at Prince Ning's sons beside him. Seeing their expectant looks, he sneered in his heart and winked at the old man who was looking over.

On the way back from Asan, the old man and Zhu Zhangui talked about many future developments, including the inheritance of the vassal king.

It is understandable that Zhu Zhangui's great-grandfather, Lao Zhu, did not want his descendants to live a hard life.

But as I said before, it is one thing to be able to understand, but this deceived future emperors.

Under the policies of Zhu Yunwen and the old man to reduce vassalage, the princes of the Ming Dynasty changed from the real princes with real power to the title princes who were just waiting for death.

These guys are idle and bored all day, either eating, drinking and having fun, or making little babies with a lot of wives.

With this hard work every day and every night, even if some died young, the family was still very prosperous.

In addition, if a son is born, the court will support him with a salary. At the beginning, the vassal king had not found a way to make money, so he used the way of making a fortune by having a son.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Lao Zhu created 25 princes. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were a total of 65 princes. By the Chongzhen period, there were still 34 princes, and there were as many as 924 county princes.

The population of Lao Zhu's family has grown from less than a hundred people in the early Ming Dynasty to almost more than 1 million in the late Ming Dynasty, including sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, and so on.

Because of Lao Zhu's policies, these nearly 1 million people need to be supported by the imperial court.

For these 1 million people, the male figure is calculated as 200,000. Taking the lowest salary of Lieutenant Feng Guo, the annual salary is 200 shi. After this year, 200,000 people will be paid 40 million shi. At two shi meters

For the price of one tael of silver, the court would need 20 million taels of silver to pay these people a year.

This is only counting the lieutenants of Fengguo. Many of these 200,000 men are of a higher level, plus those princesses, consorts and princesses.

Calculated in one year, during the Chongzhen period, the court had to distribute at least 30 million taels of silver.

If the country is strong, or in the current era, the emperor can grit his teeth and tighten his belt, but he can still send it out.

But in Chongzhen's generation, every time the money was issued, it was to drain the blood and bones of the imperial court. In the end, Chongzhen was so poor that he could not even pay, and the royal family made trouble with him every day.

Therefore, the policy formulated by the moneyless Lao Zhu of the Ming Dynasty must bear at least half of the responsibility.

Others are cheating on their fathers, but Lao Zhu is cheating on his children and grandchildren, and he is also cheating to death.

Having said that, do these royal families really have no money?

No, not only are they rich, but they are all extremely rich.

With the help of the royal tax-free policy, they acquired a lot of land, and even more than half of it was bought and sold by force.

Therefore, these guys were very rich. During the Chongzhen period, any vassal king who was randomly selected would be richer than the emperor Chongzhen.

In order to prevent future generations from suffering in this regard, Zhu Zhangui kept this matter in mind and wanted to solve it while the old man was around.

When discussing this matter with the old man on the road, Zhu Zhangui told him about the troubles he might face in the future and put forward his own ideas.

Of course, it cannot be said to be his idea, but the method used by those boar skins in later generations.

That is, each generation is reduced one level, all the way down to the most ordinary civilian.

Yes, they are the most ordinary civilians.

Even if the Boar Skins are lowered again, they will still support those Eight Banners disciples in the end, and Zhu Zhangui will have no bottom line.

Reduced to the civilian generation, the blood relationship between the two parties has been separated by countless generations. Rather than still managing them and wasting the court's money, it is better to let them develop freely.

The old man also fully recognized the concerns raised by Zhu Zhangui.

He could understand his father's thoughts, but he also had to consider his grandson's concerns.

You can't cheat future generations just to be filial to your father.

The two had an in-depth exchange of views on this matter.

However, the old man rejected Zhu Zhangui's idea of ​​directly becoming a civilian when it was too late to surrender.

Lao Zhu just didn't want his descendants to suffer hardship, so he proposed the rules of supporting the vassal king and reduced the descendants to commoners, which was a bit contrary to Lao Zhu's intention.

Zhu Zhangui was deeply suspicious of this statement. The reason the old man said was just for him to deal with. The real reason was that he was afraid of being scolded by Lao Zhu if he went down.

Lao Zhu's main purpose in formulating this policy is not to let future generations starve like he did when he was a child.

If the old man agrees with his idea and lowers the income level generation by generation until it reaches the level of common people, then if there is another disaster year in the future, some members of the royal family will definitely starve to death.

If Lao Zhu knew better and knew that his descendants were starving to death again, he would definitely pull the old man out and beat him every day.

While beating him, he would yell and curse.

"You bastard, why did I rebel back then? Wasn't it because our whole family was starving to death and we couldn't survive? We formulated this policy just because we don't want our family members to starve to death again."

"It's a good thing for you. Our bones are still cold, so you changed this policy. What are your intentions? You are sincerely going against me, right?"

"Not only did you steal the throne from our grandson, but you also starved our descendants to death. I'll beat you to death."

Maybe it was Zhu Zhangui who thought of this possibility. The old man’s idea was to decide on a new title (Guoqin.) when he dropped to the last level.

Give them the minimum alimony so that they won't starve to death. This way, when the old man gets there, he can give Lao Zhu an explanation and won't suffer so miserably.

As for taxation, the old man's plan is to propose the policy of integrating industry and commerce into paying taxes after the enemies on all sides are resolved, and he will ask the royal family to set an example.

In this way, the royal family solved the problem for their descendants by annexing the land without paying taxes.

As for how Lao Zhu would explain it, the old man thought that the worst he could do was get a beating. It was not like he had never been beaten when he was a child, so he was already used to it.

Since Lao Zhu died, the old man, who had never been beaten, always felt weak and itchy.

Looking at the expectant Ning Wang family, the old man patted the little guy who wanted to steal his wine, looked at Ning Wang and sighed.

"Seventeen, did dad give you a dream a few days ago?"

Prince Ning blinked in confusion.

Why is the old man giving me a dream? Do you blame me for helping you to seize the throne of that little bastard Zhu Yunwen?

Oh ho~

Prince Ning suddenly came to his senses.

No wonder Teacher Zhu was so cruel. I bet it was the old man who beat him up in his dream. He didn't dare to confront the old man and choked. He was taking out his anger on me.

Humph! Fourth Zhu, just wait. When the old man gives me a dream, I will tell you all the evil things you have done. When you go down, I will let the old man beat you up.

"Seventeen, what are you thinking about? I'm asking you a question!"

Looking at Prince Ning Zhu Quan who was beaming with excitement as he thought of something, with a smile on his lips, the old man gently knocked on the table and gave a reminder.

"Well, it was because you mentioned my father just now that I couldn't help but think of the days when he was here."

Zhu Quan wiped the non-existent tears from the corners of his eyes and pretended to be like, "Dad, I miss you so much."

The old man snorted softly, and was too lazy to talk nonsense with this guy. He said directly to him: "My father told me about the vassal king in a dream."

Zhu Quan's eyes widened and he felt bad in his heart.

The old man raised his hand and cupped it towards Lao Zhu's mausoleum.

"My father told me that when he formulated the vassal policy, he did not consider it carefully and ignored some loopholes. During this period of boredom down there, he also figured out a lot of things and filled in the loopholes. He came to me specifically to talk about it.

, is to prevent policy loopholes from trapping future generations!"

Zhu Quan felt like shit in his heart.

Damn it, you, Mr. Zhu, are too shameless.

If you think the feudal prince's policies are not good, just say so if you want to change them. There is no need to bring the old man out to make a fuss.
To be continued...