There are 25 vassal kings living in the Ming Dynasty, which is not too scary overall. The reason why there are still not many vassal kings under this pig farming policy is probably because Zhu Di’s genes are not very good, and his descendants are long.
There are not many people who have lived, and the probability of surviving infertility is also very high, so most of them are removed from the vassal because they have no children.
There are twenty-five princes and more than one hundred princes, and it is not difficult to understand how many strange things appear among them. It is like the investigative officials sent to the fief of Zhao King of Anyang, Henan brought back some strange news.
According to him, there is something strange about the death of King Zhao. Although the prince’s mansion reported that he died of illness, it is rumored that King Zhao hanged himself. Now the tomb of King Zhao has not been built yet. I hope it can be re-established again.
The body was examined. Zhu Houcan agreed, but the answer he got shocked everyone.
The old King Zhao did commit suicide because he ran into his son and concubine, and felt that he had no face to face his ancestors, so he hung him. Zhu Houcong never expected that his old Zhu family would have such a thing.
The honest man, after sighing, he readily demoted the Zhao Wang family to two levels.
There are many similar people, deep mansions, high places, far away emperors, and vassal kings are prone to floating around if they have poor self-control. There are various things that break through the lower limit.
But among them, no one is shocking.
The first king Yi was the grandson and the twenty-five sons of the ancestors. After Zhu Di took office, he favored this little brother very much, so he gave him the very prosperous Luoyang. As a result, after King Yi became a vassal, he began to ruin the people of Luoyang.
It was him, his son, grandson, great-grandson... there was no good person in this branch.
By this generation, it has been passed down to the eighth generation. This King of Ren Yi is even better than his ancestors. He doesn't say anything about forcing the women to seize the houses, and even harms local officials. The local county magistrate wants to serve the people.
He stepped forward and was caught in the mansion and tortured, and then threw it to the door to kneel down to admit his mistake.
He compared himself to the emperor in his fiefdom, and even established an east factory and west factory, even the royal palace was in the palace specifications.
After the investigative officials discovered all kinds of evil deeds, they were furious and wanted to report to the emperor immediately, but were caught by King Yi halfway, pulled out all the official's hair and beard, and then cut them a few more resentful cuts.
Fortunately, the official was young and in good health. He survived, and then bribed the guards and pretended to be beggars and went out of Luoyang, worried that he would be found begging all the way back to the capital.
Jiajing was furious when he learned this news. Finally, he decided to put the overall situation first and temporarily let King Yi return the seized land to the people, and then settle the accounts after the rest.
However, when the court's writings arrived in Luoyang, King Yi publicly resisted the order and scolded Zhu Houyi openly and secretly. When this incident reached the capital, all the civil and military officials were shocked and kept silent and stopped paying attention to it.
If there were another emperor, the soft-hearted might ban King Yi and reduce the title to his son, and the hard-hearted might directly withdraw this branch. But Zhu Houcong was different. He had always had a clear love and hate, and he didn't care about reputation at all, otherwise he wouldn't have
When he ascended the throne, he insisted on executing Jiang Bin Qian Ning. So this time he not only withdrew the title of King Yi's family, but also ordered the factory guards to go out and hit forty pillars with King Yi.
It is basically unlikely to survive this order of magnitude.
Sure enough, after just halfway through the fight, King Yi died. Zhu Houcong also became the second emperor to actually take the order of a vassal king since the founding of the country. However, now there is no more Zhu Di, who holds heavy troops in their hands.
The pig farming policy of more than a hundred years is enough to raising all these people. Today's vassal kings are no different from the fat pigs to be slaughtered in the face of imperial power. Zhu Houcan took his sword and fell into the ground.
Xian Ruxing didn't react much after knowing this. After all, she also hated the Ming Dynasty's policy of vassal kings. When she discussed with Zhu Houcon, she even thought about whether to follow the Qing Dynasty and include all the royal relatives in the future.
Under the emperor's nose.
However, this idea was dispelled in a flash. The main reason is that the national conditions of the Ming and Qing dynasties were different. The Qing Dynasty dared to do this because his foundation was the children of the Eight Banners, the emperor was the banner owner of the Eight Banners, and all the important positions of the country were controlled by the Eight Banners.
It is difficult to shake the imperial power. However, the civil officials and eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty did not stop and let their clans enter the center of power rashly, and they may participate in the struggle in minutes. Moreover, even in the Qing Dynasty, the problem of princes interfering in politics at the end of the Qing Dynasty was very serious.
When Xian Ruxing and Zhu Houcong got together, they had studied the policies of the vassal kings one by one, trying to find the root cause from it, but after searching for it, they still fell on the issue of land.
As we all know, in addition to salary, the royal family also has farms granted by the imperial court. These farms are actually tax-free. The prince alone has 100,000 acres, which are passed down from generation to generation. Because of this, many wealthy families will take the initiative to ban the farms.
In the name of the royal family, this is used to avoid taxes. In the long run, the Ming Dynasty's tax revenue was getting smaller and smaller, and the national treasury became increasingly empty. The court's solution to this problem was to increase taxes for ordinary people, which in the end could not afford it, so it could only
Sell land to the rich, and then the rich find ways to exempt taxes, which leads to a vicious cycle.
You should know that the Ming Dynasty now has the basic base of two capitals and thirteen provinces, and there are other territories in name. As a result, the tax on land collected every year is less than one-third of that of the Southern Song Dynasty.
At first, Zhu Houcong thought about checking the accounts, but the more he looked, the more shocking he became. Without even saying that, he had calculated in his mind that if he continued like this, at most thirty years, there would be no penny in the treasury.
Change! Must change!
So this time, Zhu Houkeng tried his best to take down the royal family even if he was infamous.
In fact, at the beginning, he was actually like Wang Qiong, who wanted to take a gentle move and start with his salary first. However, Xian Ruxing stopped him. The female Taoist priest asked just one question and completely asked the little emperor.
"Do you believe in the 'wisdom of future generations'?" Xian Ruxing looked straight into his eyes and said calmly: "Your Majesty, do you believe that after you leave, your descendants will completely solve the problem of the royal family?"
Zhu Houcon didn't say anything, but in fact he certainly didn't believe it, so he just started from the root honestly.
This time, the killing of King Yi was also considered as a shaking pig. While giving the order, Zhu Houcon immediately asked the people to be more vigilant. The result was the same as he thought. Even King Ning planned for several generations and finally the thunder sounded loud and the raindrops were small, and the rest were
Not to mention. The vassal kings not only did not rebel, but instead tried every means to send gifts to the capital, hoping to find out the emperor's true intentions. Like Xian Ruxing, he has received a lot of them recently.
When the data on Qingzhang land was presented, even if they were mentally prepared, everyone gasped. If the income of the farm was included, the fiscal expenditure of the royal family would account for nearly one-third of the Ming Dynasty!
After a lot of discussion, Zhu Houcan directly issued two instructions.
First, from now on, the titles of vassal kings will decrease in turn when they are inherited. The eldest son will attack the prince, and the rest will attack the generals of the state, until the last lieutenant of the state. If there is no special situation, the next generation will be directly demoted to civilians.
Second, in the future, only the first three levels of royal family can be exempted from land tax, and the rest are no different from ordinary people.
As soon as these two imperial edicts were released, Zhu, the whole world lamented that many vassal kings wrote directly to the letter saying that they could not survive, and even some requested to go to the grandfather and the ancestor cried to the grave.
Zhu Houcan sneered and ignored them.
However, adhering to the principle of giving a sweet date with a stick, he did not do too ruthlessly and gave them some compensation. First of all, except for the first three levels, the salary of all the royal families increased by 20%. Although most of them were used
The filling of treasure money is better than nothing. Second, from now on, the royal family will no longer be restricted from participating in the military and imperial examinations. If you really have talent and have nowhere to display, you can enter the court through these two points.
In fact, this is also beneficial to Zhu Houcong, because there is no relative to rely on, so he can only win over eunuchs against civil servants. In the end, if you are not careful, it will easily cause the eunuchs to have too much power, which will make people angry.
How could there be some of the more than 100,000 royal family members be useful...
Zhu Houcong thought uncertainly that this policy will take at least three to five years to see the effect, so he is not in a hurry. Now he has made the vassals that he has thought about in the past dynasties, which is exactly what he is determined to do.
When it was full, suddenly one day, Empress Dowager Zhang, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly came to invite her.
Jiajing raised his eyebrows and casually raised his time door to take people to Renshou Palace.
Since he ascended the throne, Zhu Houcong's series of measures have almost clearly told the world that he is not a good person to mess with. When Jiang first entered the palace, Empress Dowager Zhang was still trying to fight with him and let the other party see him.
It depends on who is the master of the harem.
However, Empress Dowager Jiang only made a high-profile appearance when she came. She lived in seclusion for the rest of the time. She usually raised her daughter and teased her son. The two did not meet each other. After a long time, she became less concerned. And Yang Tinghe's separation
She was even more frightened when she went there. Queen Mother Zhang knew Yang Tinghe's ability very well.
Zhengde had just passed away, and under the instigation of her younger brother eunuch, she actually had the intention of assisting in the government affairs. If she was in her identity, she was fully qualified to do so. However, Yang Tinghe seemed to have noticed something and directly joined hands with the cabinet to finalize the next emperor
Then he started to clean up the people around Zhengde and did not give her any chance at all.
But such a powerful character was driven away by Zhu Houcong. Who would have thought that such a country boy would have such skills! So after summoning Jiajing over, she immediately raised her mind to deal with it.
"I have met the Queen Mother," Jiajing bowed with a very respectful attitude.
The young man was tall and handsome, with a handsome face and a little smile. In a daze, Empress Dowager Zhang seemed to see her dead son again. Speaking of which, he had not spoken to him before he left...
After coming back to his senses, he couldn't help but say warmly: "How can you get along so well? Just call me the queen of mother."
Zhu Hou smiled silently, and for a long time, he spoke, "Auntie has something to ask me for?"
The Empress Dowager Zhang's face instantly became gloomy. The other party's intention was already very obvious. Seeing this, she couldn't help but sarcastically said, "Although Your Majesty has not long been ascending to the throne, her majesty is not small at all. Now she is so harsh to the royal family.
All the complaints have come to me."
Before Zhu Houcong could speak, Gu Dayong next to him hurriedly said, "Empress Dowager, you can't be deceived by villains! Your Majesty has just received the umbrella of ten thousand people from the royal family, and they are all thanking God for your kindness and thanking Your Majesty for giving it to you.
They have a way out!”
This is not a lie, because in the new version of the "Regional Regulations", a large number of lower-level royal families have obtained the status of free people. Although these lieutenants of Fengguo were also royal families, the salary they were given to them every year was subject to the vassal kings of various places.
The exploitation layer by layer was not much, and the fact that the ancestors stipulated that these people could not produce and make money was actually very hard. Now that they have left the royal family, they have also received a severance payment, and they can do whatever they want.
My heart is much better than before, so I am very grateful to Zhu Houcan.
"Down, is there any part of your conversation here?" Zhu Houcong frowned. He didn't like others to go beyond the rules, but the other party was protecting himself after all, so he didn't pursue it.
"I'm a good servant," Empress Dowager Zhang said sarcastically, and turned to change the topic. "I don't understand anything about the previous dynasty. Since Your Majesty knows it, I won't ask more questions.
However, as the mother of the country, I can always take care of the affairs in the harem. Now that Your Majesty has already made filial piety, it is time for a marriage to add children. How dare you ask Your Majesty when will the talent show be held?":,,.