Chapter 165 The laziest emperor is the most powerful
Chapter 165 The laziest emperor is the most powerful
As soon as Chen Yuanyuan returned to the mansion, Li Xiangjun, Dong Xiaowan and dozens of other famous prostitutes gathered nervously around her.
Since the Red Lady left, although the gentry and dignitaries in Jiangnan have not caused trouble to Chen Yuanyuan and the others, they have stopped selling brothels under their name to her.
Obviously, the brothels that Chen Yuanyuan purchased in the past were all based on the influence of the Red Lady. In addition, the prices offered were high, which made many powerful people in Jiangnan give in. They didn't want to cause the concubine's anger because of a small brothel.
Notice.
Of course, although no one has taken advantage of Chen Yuanyuan and the others for the time being, as time goes by, someone will definitely have other ideas.
After all, the brothel industry is the third most profitable industry in Jiangnan, after the textile industry and the salt industry.
There are more than 300 brothels, more than 200 flower boats, and more than a thousand famous prostitutes, including many top-notch prostitutes. If they are run well, they can easily make tens of millions every year.
In the past, this piece of cake was divided up and occupied by nobles and dignitaries from all over the world. Now, Chen Yuanyuan, relying on the power of the red lady, has concentrated it like never before. It is really greedy to death.
As long as Zhang Yan remains in Nanjing, otherwise someone might be tempted to take action.
The dozens of famous prostitutes who gathered around them were all good friends, but they were not in a hurry to get married. Instead, they were determined to follow Chen Yuanyuan and the other girls to save all the suffering women in Jiangnan, and they usually lived in the mansion.
Everyone knows that the brothels and sisters under their jurisdiction have become fat in the eyes of others.
The imperial concubine went to Beijing, but the Queen Mother did not care about her, so during this period she was very worried about her future, and her original ambitions were also severely affected.
"Sister Yuanyuan, what did Your Majesty say? Do you want to sell all the brothels?" Li Xiangjun was the first to rush up and asked, his tone so nervous that he was trembling.
Others also looked at Chen Yuanyuan nervously. Although they were all free, they did not want to end up working in vain for a long time.
"Sisters, sisters, you can rest assured. Not only will His Majesty not sell brothels, but he also supports us very much..."
Chen Yuanyuan hurriedly explained, and in order to appease them, she also took out the official documents given to her by the emperor.
"That's great. Your Majesty is truly an extraordinary man."
"I didn't expect that Your Majesty would be more enlightened than the Imperial Concubine, and he would directly appoint Sister Yuanyuan as the female officer of Fengyue Division."
After everyone heard this, they were very excited. Obviously, they didn't expect that today's people would be so enlightened.
"Sisters, it's okay for us to know this matter ourselves, but we are not allowed to spread it to outsiders. Do you understand?"
Chen Yuanyuan carefully collected the official documents, put them in her arms as if they were treasures, and gave instructions.
"Well, don't worry, Sister Yuanyuan, we all know the seriousness and this matter will never be spread to the outside world."
Everyone hurriedly nodded in assurance, knowing that His Majesty's reputation was at stake and must not be leaked.
Chen Yuanyuan breathed a sigh of relief and explained to them the promotion of the New Deal.
Although Zhu Cixiang mainly asked them to publicize agricultural policies such as sharing grains between farmers and farmers, and integrating government and gentry into paying grain.
But after everyone listened, they were shocked and opened their mouths just like Chen Yuanyuan at that time.
"Your Majesty is truly the eternal sage!"
"Your Majesty is so courageous. Once such a new policy is successfully implemented, it will be difficult for Ming Dynasty not to revive."
In the past, these famous prostitutes often talked freely about their family, country, and world with scholars and scholars. Almost all of them developed a concern for the country and the people. They also had a very high vision and knowledge. Almost all of them understood the benefits of the New Deal.
For a moment, everyone was filled with emotion.
"Sisters, His Majesty only gives us one month. We must not let His Majesty down. Everyone, tell us how to arrange it?"
Chen Yuanyuan looked at everyone and asked.
In terms of ability and talent, Chen Yuanyuan is not outstanding among the girls. She is even a bit weak-tempered and is not suitable to be a leader.
However, only Chen Yuanyuan has a relationship with the imperial concubine, His Majesty, and can talk to her. This is more important than ability and talent, and everyone understands this.
There are many talented and knowledgeable girls among the girls, but they have never had the opportunity to show their talents before. Now everyone was talking about it, and they quickly finalized the plan, and each gathered their people to get busy.
At the same time, Zhu Cixi also came to the military camp outside the city to review the training of the new army.
The original army of 100,000 soldiers was sent to Huguang by the Red Lady, who took 5,000 old soldiers and took away another 10,000. Yancheng and Yangzhou each stationed 1,000 soldiers, leaving more than 80,000.
After more than half a year of training, we have become well-trained. In addition, the food is good, there is no shortage of military pay, and they are all farmers' children recruited from western Zhejiang, so the morale is very high. After one or two battles, we will definitely become a strong army.
military.
The area of Southern Zhili may not be the largest among the provinces of the Ming Dynasty, but it has the most prefectures under its jurisdiction, with a total of 14 prefectures and four Zhili prefectures under its jurisdiction.
The four states are Xuzhou, Chuzhou, Hezhou and Guangzhou.
Some of these state capitals are huge, some are very small, and many of them are not divided according to the geography of mountains and rivers, which can be said to be extremely unreasonable.
Similarly, the division of state capitals in other provinces of the Ming Dynasty is also very unreasonable, but Zhu Cixiang has no energy to rectify it for the time being. What he has to do now is to allocate his troops.
The fourteen prefectures and four prefectures have a total of 110 counties and prefectures under their jurisdiction. Zhu Cixiang could only establish 110 hundred households according to this administrative division.
There are 100 troops stationed in the county and 150 troops stationed in the state, totaling more than 15,000 people.
Eighteen thousand-household offices were established, including Fengyang, Huai'an, Yangzhou, and Luzhou, with 1,000 troops stationed in the four major prefectures, 800 troops stationed in the other nine small prefectures and Xuzhou, and 500 troops stationed in the remaining three Zhili prefectures.
, a total of more than 14,000 people, Yingtian Mansion does not need to garrison additional troops.
Yangzhou and Yancheng in Huai'an Prefecture already have one thousand each, so they only need to remove another 27,000 people, but the size of the garrison is only normal.
Now that we need to carry out drastic reforms, we may not have enough troops, so Zhu Cihong doubled the number of people and sent a total of 54,000 people to various prefectures and counties.
In this way, the number of troops stationed in each prefecture and county was doubled. After the reform was completed, half of the troops were transferred back.
The remaining more than 30,000 people continued to practice outside Nanjing.
And considering that after the completion of the reform of Southern Zhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Huguang, Fujian, and Guangxi will also implement the New Deal, and various states and counties will also station troops, so Zhu Cixi asked Li Dakai to send people to southern Jiangxi and western Hunan to continue recruiting troops.
, recruit another 100,000 troops and gather them in Nanjing for training.
These newly recruited soldiers and horses, as well as the soldiers and horses sent to garrison in various places in southern Zhili, will be classified into the standing army in the future.
The next day, more than 50,000 troops, led by hundreds of thousands of households, set off for their respective stations.
With such a large-scale mobilization of troops and horses, all the gentry, landlords, and literati near Nanjing City knew that His Majesty must be planning a big move.
However, Zhu Cixiang did not go to court for three days in a row, and Zhang Yan was like squeezing out toothpaste, only revealing a little bit every day.
This made all the civil servants so anxious that they went crazy.
Zhu Cixiang would not waste his time arguing with civilian officials. After arranging the deployment of the army, he began to work on the salt industry and Huangdian.
The imperial shop is very simple. More than a hundred palace maids and shopkeepers go directly to various states and counties with the troops to buy shops and recruit people. These palace maids and shopkeepers are the earliest batch and have quite rich experience.
Similarly, the salt industry is not difficult. Hundreds of eunuchs and palace maids in charge were directly sent to Yancheng to take over the salt fields and recruit manpower to pack the salt.
As for the oil-paper bags needed for table salt, we directly order and cooperate with paper mills and printing factories in Jiangnan.
The papermaking and printing industries in Jiangnan were very developed, so advanced that even Zhu Cixi could not believe it.
The inland river shipping industry is also very developed, and we can cooperate with them to help with transportation. Therefore, for the time being, we only need to set up a salt branch in Wuchang, Nanchang, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, and Hangzhou, which reduces a lot of trouble.
"Auntie, why are there so many memorials?"
After things were arranged, Zhu Cixiang also had some free time. Thinking that the Chinese New Year was coming soon, he was going to take Zhang Yan and the emperor's sister to Xuanwu Lake for some fun. But when he came to the imperial study room and saw Zhang Yan immersed in dealing with the memorials, he was immediately frightened.
At a glance, there were at least a hundred copies piled on the desk.
"Hong'er, have everything been settled?"
"Come on, these are the memorials submitted by the southern provinces, and you are free. Naturally, I can no longer do it for you..."
Zhang Yan stood up and gave up her position.
"Well, Auntie, why don't you continue to do it for me? The child seems to have something to do..."
Zhu Cixiang said that he was about to turn around, but Zhang Yan grabbed him and said, "Xian'er, after the world is settled, you will have to deal with it yourself. Is it possible that you still want your mother-in-law and mother-in-law to do the work for you?"
"All right!"
Zhu Cixi had no choice but to sit down, pick up a book and start reading.
Looking at the long and convoluted classical Chinese essay, I read it patiently and found that it was actually written by a small magistrate in Guangdong. The whole article was praising him, and I immediately threw the memorial on the desk in anger.
"What's all this writing? It's pure nonsense. There's nothing serious about it. It's just looking for trouble to increase your sense of presence. How could such a memorial be sent here?"
"Nanjing does not have a general affairs department or a cabinet, so memorials are sent directly to the ceremonial supervisor." Zhang Yan explained.
Zhu Cixiang picked up another copy she had reviewed, looked at it, and found that it was also a magistrate from Yunnan who was reviewing the review.
And Zhang Yan actually wrote a reply with a red pen in a serious manner, "I have read it, I love you sincerely."
"Auntie, do you have to read these nonsense memorials and reply to them one by one?"
Zhu Cixiang contacted him and read a few more books, and when he saw that the replies were similar, he also understood what Zhang Yan was doing these days, staying up early in the morning and staying in the imperial study until late at night.
"Although the contents of these memorials are all insignificant flattery, they reflect the officials' loyalty to the emperor. If they do not reply, the officials will think that the emperor does not value them. As the saying goes, the sky is high and the emperor is far away. Over time, the emperor will be far away.
It is inevitable that officials will not be slacking off, not to mention that there are still some important matters involved."
Zhang Yan said slowly.
Over the past year or so, so many major events have happened, and the southern provinces and places have always been very stable, without any major troubles. It is important for the Red Lady to have heavy troops and be in Nanjing.
But it also has a lot to do with Zhang Yan's patient reply to memorials submitted by civil servants from various places.
"Having said that, I really can't do this job, so I'd better stop doing it, otherwise I'll be exhausted."
"That's good. I'll appoint Ma Shiying as the Second Assistant to the Cabinet, and Lu Jiude as the Chief of Ceremonies and Eunuch Bingbi. From now on, let Ma Shiying read the memorial first, let him draft it, and then send it to the Chief of Ceremonies. These nonsense memorials will be left to Lu Jiu
De directly approves the red papers and sends them to the original place, and the important memorials are sent to the Imperial Study Room for my aunt to take care of them."
Zhu Cixiang thought for a while and said that he would have to go crazy to read these long essays in classical Chinese all day long. Although Zhang Yan was patient, he did not want her to be too tired. Besides, there was no need to reply to these nonsense memorials in person.
"That's good, but it's not right if I'm missing six subjects."
Zhang Yan did not say anything, but nodded and said that these memorials, which were not serious matters, should have been handled directly by the cabinet, and there were specific practices for how to respond.
"Then let's appoint six more Nanjing Sixth Sections to Shizhong. As for choosing the aunt, let her decide. If the child has something to do, take the first step..."
"Wait a minute, Xun'er, more than 600 Jinshi in the new department have not yet taken the imperial examination. Now you have time. It's best to choose a date and don't delay any more."
"Well, Auntie has made arrangements. Then the child will just show up."
Zhu Cixiang waved his hands as he walked and said that he didn't care about these new scholars at all. What he was interested in were the scholars after the reform of the imperial examination.
Looking at Zhu Cixi's hurried away figure, Zhang Yan also smiled bitterly, feeling quite emotional in her heart.
The fifth brother was such a diligent emperor, doing almost everything himself, but the country's power was deteriorating day by day.
Xun'er was so lazy that he not only refused to go to court or deal with memorials, but also wanted to leave everything to others. On the contrary, the country was prospering, becoming rich and powerful.