"I am announcing that Dong Wan, the supervisor on the left, and Li Jun, the supervisor on the right, are going to pay homage to our emperor. Long live my emperor, long live him!"
This was the second time Dong Xiaowan and Li Xiangjun had met the Holy Spirit. After they were brought into the Imperial Study Room, they were only a little better than the last time. Their voices were still trembling with excitement.
"Get flat!"
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
After the two thanked him, they stood nervously. They couldn't help but secretly take a look at the little emperor behind the dragon case.
Seeing the little emperor looking directly at them, their hearts skipped a beat, and they immediately lowered their heads and began to have wild thoughts.
Especially Li Xiangjun, who still maintains a perfect body. Ever since he entered the propaganda prison, he has been thinking about how to get the little emperor to go to bed and fly on the branches like a phoenix.
"How is the imperial residence registration going?"
Naturally, the little thoughts of the two women could not be hidden from Zhu Cihong, but he was now at the age of maintaining health and did not want to waste too much energy. After all, the days of enjoying happiness were still behind him, so he kept restraint.
"Back to Your Majesty, the first issue of the Royal Residence Newsletter has been planned and will be printed in large quantities as soon as Your Majesty sees it."
The two girls felt a little disappointed when they saw that Zhu Cixiang was asking about the royal residence report, but Dong Xiaowan still hurriedly answered.
After saying that, he took out a sample newspaper from his pocket.
Zhu Cixiang looked at the book-sized newspaper in her hand, frowned suddenly, and secretly thought that he had made a mistake. He left in a hurry and did not explain clearly to them.
"This sentence is too difficult to read. Didn't I ask you to write poetry or prose and make it so obscure and difficult to understand? Even ordinary people who know some words, let alone illiterate people, can't understand it, right?"
Zhu Cixiang looked at the three-character sutra-like sentences in the Di newspaper and suddenly became speechless.
What kind of newspaper is this? It's just like a thousand-character essay. Each sentence does not exceed five words. It simply compresses the sentences to the extreme.
"Your Majesty, if the writing is too straightforward, a simple matter will require at least several hundred words. No matter how fine the handwriting is, it will be impossible to write on a newspaper."
Li Xiangjun hurriedly explained.
In order to be able to finish writing about the New Deal in a newspaper, they spent a lot of effort and effort these days.
Who would have thought that His Majesty was not satisfied at all, and felt a little uneasy in his heart, and how could he dare to think any more.
"If you can't write, then make the newspaper bigger and the words smaller instead of condensing sentences.
Also, it can’t just write about the New Deal, but also some anecdotes, so as to increase everyone’s interest in reading.”
After Zhu Cixiang finished speaking, he showed them the size, which was as big as half a bookcase.
Both women were shocked and stunned, obviously they didn't expect that the newspaper could be so big.
Zhu Cixiang ignored their surprised expressions and explained to them in detail how to typesetting, how to illustrate, and how to make the fonts different sizes and colors dark and light.
"Do you understand everything?"
"Back to Your Majesty, I understand." The two women nodded quickly.
"Well, go back and make corrections immediately. I only give you three days. You must finish it and then type and print it.
Remember, don’t worry about whether the sentences are beautiful or not, the more understandable and understandable the better, some complex words can also be replaced with simplified words.”
Zhu Cihong warned again.
In his opinion, with the literary accomplishments of the two women, as long as they figured out what was going on, a newspaper, not to mention three days, should be enough to get it done in one day.
"Your Majesty, I have remembered it all. It will be completed within three days. I, my ministers, will retire."
When the two girls saw that Zhu Cixiang didn't want to talk about anything else, they both looked disappointed and reluctantly left.
Three days later, the two women came to the imperial study room again holding a huge newspaper, looking slightly tired.
The newspaper is divided into six sections. The front page in the middle is the New Deal. The font is thicker and all the content of the New Deal is introduced.
The two smaller panels on the left and right above are about officials bribing the magistrate in order to stay in the local area, and finally losing their wives and soldiers.
When measuring land, the landlords and gentry bribed officials and engaged in malpractice for personal gain. In the end, they were discovered by the inspection censor and punished by the officials.
There are three small sections on the left and right below, and the two larger ones are about military and commercial aspects. Military is responsible for introducing the military rank system and the new military system, and commercial is mainly about introducing the Royal Bank, Royal Store, Salt Industry, etc.
The last and smallest section contains some anecdotes recorded, and it turns out to be a romance novel.
After reading it, Zhu Cixiang was quite unsatisfied, and finally nodded with satisfaction.
"Well, let's do this for the first issue. We will print a large number of copies immediately when we get back. At least 100,000 copies will be printed, and then distributed free of charge in the southern provinces.
At the same time, don’t forget to prepare for the second issue. The number of printings will only increase in the future, so the scale of the printing factory must be expanded as soon as possible, and more storytellers must be recruited.”
For the time being, Zhu Cixiang plans to make money at a loss and distribute the royal newspaper for free. After a year and a half, it will become famous and everyone will get used to reading the newspaper. Then he will just charge some money for the ink.
Anyway, he has plenty of money now, and he doesn't plan to make money by selling newspapers. It doesn't matter if he pays one or two million per year, so those literati will not be able to imitate him.
After the two girls left, Zhu Cihong continued to check the detailed data on acres of land in various places sent by the Ministry of Household Affairs.
These data are reported for the first time.
For several days in a row, Zhu Cixiang took the trouble to check the data until late at night, and was very ready to read all the data of more than 100 prefectures and counties in South Zhili.
Zhang Yan was also quite surprised by this unusual diligence, but more importantly, she saw it in her eyes and was so happy in her heart that she would personally cook a bowl of lotus seed soup every night and bring it to her.
"Hong'er, it's late at night, let's watch it tomorrow! Come on, drink the porridge while it's hot first."
"Mother, you have worked hard these days. Let the maids do these things."
Zhu Cixi put down the booklet, took the bowl she handed and said.
"Hong'er, the data sent by the Ministry of Household Affairs is huge. In fact, there is no need for you to check it in person county by county?"
"No, if you don't check it out in person, county by county, how will you know that the land annexation in our Ming Dynasty is so serious, such as Wuxi County in Changzhou Prefecture, which has a total of nearly 300,000 acres of mulberry fields and more than 200,000 acres of paddy fields.
, a total of 500,000 acres, but only belongs to a few hundred gentry landowners.
All the more than 100,000 people have been reduced to farmers and tenant farmers in the families of these gentry and landlords, working as cattle and horses for them. If this is the case in the entire south, my new policy will at most only increase the tax revenue of the court, which will not have much impact on the people.
benefits.”
Zhu Cixiang finally said and knocked the bowl hard on the table.
"Hey, Xun'er, you don't have to belittle yourself. After all, the imperial court has exempted the people from all miscellaneous taxes and corvees, and salt is cheap now. Even if you pay 60% of the land rent in the end, as long as you strictly supervise it, officials everywhere will not dare to mess around anymore.
After collecting taxes, the remaining 40% is enough for the people to live."
"Snapped!"
"Do you think this is a peaceful and prosperous age? Is this the resurgence of Shenwu? No, it is far from enough. I also want the ordinary people in the world to have enough food and clothing, to eat meat, and for children to learn to read and write."
Zhu Cixiang slapped the table and stood up.
Zhang Yan was so frightened that she trembled. She did not expect that Xun'er would care for the people of the world so much and have such high ambitions, and she admired him from the bottom of her heart.
After a while, she came back to her senses and sighed: "Hong'er, I also hope that all the people of Ming Dynasty can live a good life as you said in the future, but this is really..."
"Yes, with the current situation in the Ming Dynasty, if we want the people of the world to have enough food, clothing, clothing and spare money, I am afraid that the only way is to nationalize all the land and then distribute it evenly to the people."
Zhu Cixiang also sighed. He originally planned to develop industry and expand outward to ease land annexation.
But now it seems that if we want to give people purchasing power in the short term, we still need land reform. After all, it takes time to develop industry and expand outward.
"Xun'er..." Zhang Yan was really frightened this time. She didn't expect that Xun'er would have such crazy thoughts.
Many emperors had thought about nationalizing all the land and then dividing it equally among the people, but even the founding emperors of the past dynasties did not dare to do it.
"Don't worry, Auntie, I know what I'm doing. I won't do anything until the world is completely pacified and slaves are wiped out. For the time being, we still need to continue to implement the new policy and increase the court's tax revenue first!"
Zhu Cihong waved his hand.
He is not stupid. There are still two major rebel kings entrenched in the southwest and northwest, and the threat of slave establishment in the northeast is still there. Naturally, he will not completely break up with the landowners and gentry in the world right now.
Zhang Yan was relieved when she heard this, but she was still very worried in her heart.
