"My dear friends, in three days, I will go to the south to inspect the provinces. After I leave Beijing, the Queen Mother and the noble concubine will supervise the country. All my dear ladies must perform their duties and do not slack off!"
"I will obey the Holy Order!"
After conferring the title, Zhu Cixi directly announced the plan for the southern tour.
Although everyone was very shocked that His Majesty was leaving Beijing for a tour to the south, they still knelt down and worshiped him immediately.
As for the voice of opposition, there was not a single voice. Obviously, both civil servants and military generals now know that His Majesty's words are correct.
Talking too much nonsense will only annoy him.
After the disbandment of the dynasty, Zhu Cihong selected another 3,000 people from the imperial army to join the martial arts hall. This was also the last batch of crash courses.
After graduating in the second half of next year, you can be sent to the ten towns and completely control all field armies.
In the next three days, Zhu Cihong took Lady Hong to visit the industrial area in the west of the city.
The construction work of the entire industrial zone has been outsourced to those military attaches, and it is divided into five phases of construction. Having these thousands of military attachés responsible for organizing the construction has indeed saved the inner court a lot of trouble.
Normally, you only need to monitor the living conditions of the workers and pay wages. After the work is completed, the quality will be uniformly inspected. If the work is not up to standard, money will be deducted and the work will be rebuilt. In serious cases, you will be charged.
So no one will dare to cut corners in the short term.
The scale of the textile factory has not been increased for the time being. It is still 70,000 spinning machines. It is not that it does not want to increase, but it has reached its limit.
Almost every military household near the capital had a loom, and more than 400,000 pieces of cloth were woven every month. They were all made of coarse cotton. The rich would not buy them, but ordinary people would only buy them by a few feet.
Yes, only military households in Datong Xuanfu and Beijing could afford it.
Therefore, it is mainly sold to the south, but now the people in the south are not rich, and the cotton cloth merchants in the south are also selling at reduced prices, so hundreds of thousands of pieces of cotton cloth have been stocked in the warehouse.
Because he had too much cotton in stock and could not sell it, Zhu Cixiang wanted to replace it with new military uniforms and asked the Ordnance Supervisor to purchase more than 200,000 pieces of cotton in one go. However, there are still more than 300,000 pieces of cotton in the warehouse, plus every
The sales are increasing every month, so there is an urgent need for sales.
The only way to increase the sales of cotton cloth is to increase the income of the people. This is why Zhu Cixiang is eager to go south.
The Ming Dynasty had a population of more than 100 million, and more than half of the 400,000 pieces of cotton cloth were left every month. This shows how poor the people at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty were.
Zhu Cixiang also felt that his pace seemed too big. Four hundred thousand horses a month, excluding two months during busy farming periods, would be four million horses a year. Just hearing it was scary.
However, for the time being, he can only build more warehouses and stockpile. It is impossible to stop work. Anyway, what he lacks most now is money.
Because in just one year, the commercial prosperity of the capital city has already exceeded that of the Wanli period.
The outer city can no longer accommodate today's commercial needs. It is overcrowded almost as soon as the end of the month and all the streets are completely blocked.
The reason why it is so prosperous is that in addition to thousands of wealthy military attachés, there are also more than 70,000 female spinning workers and more than 200,000 craftsmen, who have fixed wages of one to five taels per month, plus all are included.
Food and accommodation are definitely included in the consumer group.
In addition, the hundreds of thousands of military households in the capital also had some spare money, and the military households who came to work from Datong Xuanfu also had to purchase things when they returned.
If the treasure banknotes were not strong now and everyone started to save and stopped spending randomly, the goods needed would be far from enough.
Even so, the prices of various commodities in the capital have risen a bit, causing some invisible inflation, which is beyond anyone's control.
Because the demand far exceeds the goods, even if there is money to recycle treasure notes, prices will inevitably rise.
Regarding commercial matters, Zhu Cixiang had already made it clear to Liu Xinlan that the main work in the next two years would be to extend the royal stores to the southern provinces and improve the postal administration's freight system.
Government affairs also adopt a policy of inaction, with Jin Yiwei and Dongchang supervising the unauthorized collection of taxes.
So it is mainly for military convenience.
"My dear concubine, after I leave, you will exchange the talents of the three governors of Datong in Xuanfu and the four governors near the capital, and ask them to check with each other to see if there is any favoritism when dividing the land.
Especially for those general banners and small banners, with thousands of households, I estimate that those scholars must have more land allocated to them. Once anyone is found to have problems, he will be directly promoted to one level. If he also engages in favoritism and malpractice, he can reduce some of his guilt.
."
He absolutely believed that those scholars who promoted talents strictly followed his requirements and allocated land to ordinary military households.
Because there is no benefit to them if they are given too much or too little.
But the situation is different for those retired soldiers and low-level military attachés. At least for a few years, they will be colleagues with these talented people.
According to the literati nature of this era and the Chinese tradition of sophistication, even if the old soldiers and military officers did not give them any benefits, the scholars and scholars would more or less give them more points.
Although he knew that this situation was not too outrageous, Zhu Cixi still wanted to investigate and punish some people severely.
It wasn't that he couldn't bear to part with those lands, but that he couldn't bear this habit. He wanted all literati to know that he, the emperor, couldn't get a grain of sand out of his eyes.
"Your Majesty, what will you do if you find out?"
The red lady nodded and asked for instructions.
"If someone else is found to be engaging in favoritism, they will be demoted to a lower level. If others are not found to be engaging in favoritism, but they are engaging in favoritism themselves, they will be dismissed from their official positions and sent back to their place of origin. If they have accepted bribes, they will be killed without mercy!"
At the end of the sentence, Zhu Cixiang also had a murderous look on his face, and it was obvious that he didn't want to hide it in front of the Red Lady.
He would not tolerate bribery at all, because these literati were the targets of his future transformation.
What's more, I gave them a salary of ten taels of silver and a bonus of two taels of silver every month, which was twice as high as that of the military attachés. It was enough to make the whole family have enough food and clothing. If they have evil thoughts again, they will never be tolerated.
"Your Majesty, what about the veteran military attachés?" The Red Lady didn't care at all about the life and death of those literati. She was concerned about the veterans and military attachés.
"Those who did not pay bribes will be ignored. Those who paid bribes will be dismissed from their official positions and demoted to ordinary military households, and half of their land will be confiscated."
After Zhu Cixiang finished speaking, the red lady also breathed a sigh of relief.
"By the way, my beloved, there is one more thing. Have you heard of Liu Rushi?"
"I know that I, along with Yuanyuan and the others, are called the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai. It seems that I have married that old man Qian Qianyi as my concubine."
The red lady looked at Zhu Cixi strangely. If she hadn't known that the little emperor was not a lustful person, she would have thought that he had fallen in love with Liu Rushi.
"It's like this. Qian Qianyi was sent to North Korea by me. No information has been found so far. But judging from the situation at the time, he was definitely caught by Jiannu. I was worried that he would surrender and become a traitor. Then Liu Rushi
I appreciate her noble conduct, but I didn't expect that she would be implicated by Qian Qianyi.
My beloved concubine, please give her some snacks and talk to her in private, asking her to reconcile with Qian Qianyi as soon as possible and clear the relationship. If she doesn't want to, you will tell her that Qian Qianyi has become a traitor."
After Zhu Cixiang finished speaking, he also had a wry smile on his face.
He originally wanted to directly label Qian Qianyi as a traitor, because the king of North Korea surrendered voluntarily at that time, and it was impossible for the old dog to die in the rebellion.
And with Qian Qianyi's identity, if he is captured alive, he will definitely not be killed by the slaves, but will definitely be surrendered. That greedy and fearful person will definitely be regarded as a traitor, but there is no news.
All the civil servants did not believe that Qian Qianyi, a Donglin scholar, could be a traitor. Zhu Cixiang could only wait and slap them in the face when the evidence was conclusive.
"oh?"
"Your Majesty actually admires Liu Rushi so much? I really want to see her!" The red lady also said with a surprised smile.
"My beloved concubine, please don't get me wrong. I just admire her integrity. Alas, the contrast between a prostitute and a great scholar from Donglin is too great..."
Zhu Cixiang said at the end and waved his hand. Now that history has changed, there are some things that he can't explain clearly to her, as long as he knows it in his own mind.
A traitor like Qian Qianyi would definitely destroy his family and erect a monument to warn future generations, but he did not want to implicate Liu Rushi.
"His Majesty appreciates her so much. I will naturally handle this matter well. Your Majesty can rest assured!"
Seeing his appearance, Lady Hong didn't ask any questions. When she saw Liu Rushi, she would know why His Majesty was so interested in him.
She really didn't believe that His Majesty really took a fancy to Liu Rushi. Even if Liu Rushi became the most powerful person in the country, could he still surpass Chen Yuanyuan?
The next day, Zhu Cixi set out for the south, bringing only 5,000 Imperial Guard troops with him and several hundred scholar-officials.
These literati all graduated from high school in the North this year and did not want to go back, so they finally switched to the military.
The reason why there are scholars is that Enke in the north also held the national examination and the provincial examination in the capital.
This time Zhu Cihong brought Princess Kunxing with him. Firstly, he wanted to let the imperial sister see the scenery of Jiangnan. Secondly, the Royal Bank also wanted to expand in the south.
