Chapter 64 Administration
Although the temporary cabinet was just a makeshift team hastily put together by the emperor, the officials had worked hard for more than ten days after setting up the stage, and at least they had brought the situation back on track, and they were qualified to consider some more long-term measures.
It was at this juncture that the officials from the six ministries who had gradually become accustomed to the new cabinet began to perform the traditional art that had been passed down in the Da'an officialdom for a hundred years, that is, commenting on current affairs, or gossiping about people behind the scenes. The ministers who had plenty of free time watched from the sidelines for several days, and privately listed the cabinet ministers in a table. Following the old example of Wang Anshi, they gave the new cabinet a nickname "Birth, Old Age, Sickness and Death".
This nickname is not difficult to understand. Among the several people in the cabinet today, Xia Yan is old and sick and is dying. Although he still has a title, he actually does not take care of things at all, so he is given the words "sick" and "dead"; when faced with a major event, he could not shirk it, so Li Jurong could only sigh and frown, which made people feel painful just by looking at him, so he was given the word "bitter".
The so-called "old" refers to the two most senior ministers, Yan Ge Lao and Xu Ge Lao, which is also a subtle criticism of their decadence and inaction. Originally, the person with seniority had the most weight in his words, but now the situation was ambiguous and the progress was unclear. The two officials who had practiced for many years simply practiced Tai Chi every day, sitting in the duty room every day and unable to utter a complete sentence. When they were pushed to the limit, they simply said that they were deaf and could not hear. The old man is so frail and relies on his age to bully others, which is really annoying.
Old age, sickness, death and suffering are all in such a mess. Over the past ten days, all the major affairs of the court have been basically controlled by the Prince of Mu, who just turned 18 and entered the cabinet only 20 days ago, but has been ordered to take charge of confidential matters. That is the only word "life". The living are full of vitality. No matter whether the prince is fearless like a newborn calf or is fully committed to shouldering his responsibilities, at least he never dawdles or plays Tai Chi for the court. After the documents from the six ministries were delivered, Lord Xu and Lord Yan were still grumbling and pretending to be deaf and dumb, while Lord Li was still respectfully waiting for instructions from the two elders. The prince had already slammed the table and stood up, picked up the documents and left:
You ministers are not doing your job, right? That's great, give it to you guys!
Elder Yan and Elder Xu, who were about to hum a few more times, said: ………
Officials must also pay attention to efficiency when doing things. According to the rules, official documents should be sent first to Yan Fenyi, the acting Prime Minister. However, seeing a few old men hesitating and procrastinating without making a decision, the officials who were tired of waiting would of course prefer to find young people who were energetic, efficient and had emotional value. So it became a routine after a few exchanges, and finally one day, Lord Yan came to the cabinet to work reluctantly, and found that there was not even a single document on his desk!
Could it be that now that the world is at peace, there are so few political affairs? Lord Yan was puzzled, and after calling the guards to ask, he realized that the Prince of Duke Mu had come early and said that these were urgent official business and he was afraid that the elderly would be tired, so he simply took them all away!
——How can I put it? The power grab has reached such an undisguised level that even Lord Yan, who has always had a calm mentality, was almost furious on the spot!
This is really intolerable. With the usual habit of life-and-death power struggles, we really have to fight back. But after Lord Yan was imprisoned by Xiyuan Chunshen, the Yan Party, which was once powerful under his command, had become much dimmer. For a time, they were seriously injured and dared not to move lightly. So Lord Yan thought about it and decided to humiliate them in return and crush them with his eloquence.
Taking into account the cultural level of the Prince of Duke Mu, he didn't do anything fancy. He just picked a time when everyone was around and started to curse at the air, advising some young people to be careful, not to be too aggressive, and at least to respect the elderly!
The effect was obvious after the harsh scolding. At least the Prince of Duke Mu was stunned and speechless. Lord Yan felt slightly relieved and sat down leisurely.
The prince was silent for a moment, and finally spoke in an unbelievable tone:
"Why do you say that, Lord? Although Prince Yu is only in his twenties, he is a descendant of the royal family and was personally selected by His Majesty to be the regent. Even if he is a little younger, how can you make such a reckless comment?"
Yan Ge Lao was stunned:...Ah? !
·
Unable to win the political struggle or the argument, the control over the cabinet situation basically fell into Mu Qi's hands. As the opportunity arose, he did not hesitate to implement the strategy he had been thinking about for a long time.
The day after Chan Yunzi's confession was submitted, the cabinet sent a letter to Henan and surrounding provinces, urging officials to investigate the crimes of local vassal states and Yin Ni in their collusion with each other, and to submit a report on many past illegal activities. All localities have spies in the capital. Once they receive inside information and compare it with official documents, they will immediately understand the cabinet's hint: the time has come to settle old scores with the princes and vassals!
Ever since Lao Deng abolished many restrictions on the royal family, the local princes' descendants have been running rampant and unscrupulous, causing great trouble to the local officials. For example, King Yin, who is now imprisoned and beaten to death every day, has a lifelong hobby of seizing other people's houses and land, throwing living people into tiger pens, and watching them struggle for fun. Previously, in order to expand the royal palace, he had whipped the Tongpan and Changshi of Luoyang several times, and pulled out their hair and beards to force them to hand over the land.
Previously, the local officials were helpless because of the protection provided by the imperial power. But now that the world has changed dramatically, the local officials will of course take revenge. Even if the status of the royal family members cannot be arbitrarily punished, the local authorities will definitely dig deep into the ground and use all means to dig out all the small coffers accumulated by the manure-making machines over the years - they will never give up until the slightest grievance is vindictive, and such high morale and enthusiasm are absolutely unquestionable.
Of course, the cabinet was aware of such twists and turns in mood. The reason why Mu Qi quietly acquiesced and even deliberately condoned it was not only to prepare the public opinion basis for the subsequent vassal reforms, but also to find ways to save some expenses. By now, the Little Ice Age that has swept across half of East Asia has begun to show signs of emerging. Since the second half of this year, droughts, floods and droughts have occurred one after another in the Central Plains and northern provinces, with almost no respite. The old Taoist priest has been squandering his money after years of practicing Taoism, and the reserves in the treasury are almost gone. Natural disasters and man-made calamities pushed each other forward, leading to the situation in the late period of Lao Deng where "every household was like hanging chimes" and "every family was empty", a situation that was close to the destruction of the country.
Therefore, tacitly allowing local officials to confiscate vassal kings' property was actually to prepare some savings for the provincial treasuries to prepare for emergencies in the event of natural disasters in the future. Different from ordinary house searches, few people dare to lay their hands on the "rebel assets" involved in a major case of treason, thus ensuring safety to the greatest extent possible. After the local governments had plundered all the floating wealth, the cabinet would freeze all the fields of the local princes in the name of a detailed inventory. If the land was dealt with directly, there was a chance that the landlords would collude with officials to embezzle the land privately. However, after it was designated as counter-intelligence property and forcibly frozen, the ownership of the land was transferred to the court. The countless tenants who originally rented the land from the princes only needed to pay taxes to the court from then on, without having to endure the exploitation of two or three hands in the middle.
This is a way to reduce land rent and enrich the people's strength, and the idea is very subtle and detailed, and it is more effective than simply cutting salaries. Zhang Taiyue had been following the prince's work for several days. After seeing this memorial, he was greatly impressed and praised it sincerely. But the prince just raised his hand calmly and humbly declined:
"These are all strategies of our predecessors. I am just copying their ideas. How can I deserve your praise?"
He meant what he said. Because this strategy of first plotting rebellion, then confiscating property and finally replenishing the treasury, the idea of using the royal family, nobles and downtrodden civil officials as fat pigs to be slaughtered, is a new strategy that emerged when Gao Suqing and Zhang Taiyue were in power in Da'an. It is sophisticated and precise, and is one of the most suitable prescriptions for Da'an's constitution. If it can be done for a long time, even if the fundamental contradiction cannot be resolved, it will not be a problem to prolong life for decades. It was a pity that he died before his career was halfway completed. After several decades of rule, the state had become a complete mess and could no longer be managed.
And now, as a latecomer who plagiarized the brilliant ideas of his predecessors, after collecting the memorial, the prince deliberately turned his head and smiled at the still young original creator as a great tribute.
But Zhang Taiyue obviously couldn't understand this. Before the prince's earnest gaze, he shivered quietly and felt a little cold.
·
Judging from the current situation, if the Ministry of Revenue is to barely survive these troubled years, its surplus will have to increase by at least one third. In order to come up with such an astronomical figure, Mu Qi had put in a lot of thought; in addition to the large-scale crackdown on the royal family's looting of wealth, he also set his sights on all kinds of extravagant and extravagant fasting and prayer ceremonies and Taoist temple projects in the capital - sometimes one has to admit that the timing of financial reform is very important; according to convention, every year on Lao Deng's birthday, there would be a Luotian Grand Ceremony with tens of thousands of people praying for his birthday, and the food and various expenses alone would add up to 700,000 or 800,000 taels, all of which were paid from the national treasury; now that Lao Deng is seriously ill in bed, all expenses will of course be waived. As for those Taoist temple projects that cost an equally staggering amount of money...
"I have been thinking about one thing recently." Mu Qi found Li Zaifang after leaving the court: "This is a bit disrespectful, but I dare to say this to Eunuch Li - Eunuch Li, think about it carefully, haven't His Majesty suffered too many disasters in the past few months?"
Li Zaifang was busy doing some work in the palace and was just speaking casually. But when he heard the word "disaster", he couldn't help but stop:
"What does the prince mean?"
"I am also a foolish person." The prince whispered, "Think about it, sir. The Holy Emperor is under the care of all spirits, so why has it been so unlucky in the past few months?"
The speaker has intention, and the listener has even more intention. The rest is fine, but when Li Zaifang heard the word "unsatisfactory", his pupils immediately shrank - the ministers in the outer court might only know about the disaster of the fire in the Forbidden Garden, but he followed His Majesty and knew his master's background very well: as early as the beginning of spring this year, the emperor had been sometimes furious, sometimes wildly angry, and sometimes furious (why was it all anger), and his behavior was almost upside down and confused!
It would be fine if he didn't think too much about it on a normal day, but now that it has been pointed out, the whole story is connected to each other, and immediately a chill went down his heart - having served Master Feixuan for so long, Eunuch Li also believes in these Shinto metaphysics!
He glanced around and lowered his voice as well:
"The prince is saying..."
"What I mean is that all the recent accidents that Your Majesty has encountered seem to have happened after the construction of the palace." The prince said slowly: "Eunuch, think about it, is it because of the time when the construction started, or the Feng Shui..."
Li Zaifang's face turned pale with horror!
After a long silence, he hesitated and said:
"These projects have been reviewed by experts, they shouldn't be..."
Before he finished speaking, Li Zaifang shut up. The so-called mysterious door to all wonders, which expert in metaphysics dares to guarantee anything? Besides, even if there was some expert giving advice, what the emperor had experienced in the past six months was real. Seeing that things have turned out like this, will you ask Master Fei Xuan to admit that he was not good at judging people and let a wolf into the house, and he deserved to be burned to a roast pig, or will you blame the master for his lack of skills and misreading the Feng Shui veins?
Is Master Feixuan the kind of person who would reflect on himself?
Li Zaifang's mind raced and he made up his mind immediately. But before executing it, he still had to negotiate with the cabinet:
"Even if there is a problem with the Feng Shui, the Taoist temple has been built for the most part. How can we stop it for no reason..."
"That's not difficult." The prince smiled, took out a memorial from his sleeve, and handed it to Li Zaifang: "Just say that the court is practicing the virtue of benevolence and frugality. In order to cut expenses, all projects in the capital should be stopped. It can also be regarded as understanding the difficulties of the country."
The memorial was titled with the three words "Gui Zhenchuan". Eunuch Li took a quick glance and felt that the person looked familiar, but after thinking about it, he had no impression of him. He guessed that he was just an unknown person. But it doesn’t matter whether he is a small soldier or not. As long as this memorial is there, Master Feixuan will have a way out. It really doesn't look good to close a Taoist temple just for the sake of Feng Shui. It would be much better to have a reputation for frugality!
He calmly put the memorial into his arms and nodded slightly:
"We will definitely pass on your message. I'll leave the rest to the cabinet."
"The cabinet is a small matter, how dare I say it's troublesome?" The prince was very humble: "Let the eunuch know that we are also ready. Tomorrow we will double the wages of all the craftsmen and laborers and let them go home to rest. There is no need to explicitly stop the project, just say it is for the blessing of the emperor. After your majesty recovers, we will make plans."
After a few words of explanation, the two bosses smiled at each other and understood each other tacitly. As people who had at least a little experience in government affairs, the two men knew very well that the bulk of the construction project came from money, corruption, huge timber shipped from Yunnan and Guizhou, and spices bought from Southeast Asia; the actual laborers who laid the plaster and mud did not spend much money in general. Instead of being stingy and cutting back, it is better to be generous and add some to make them happy, so that they will be willing to say a few good words for Your Majesty in private. This kind of prayer is decent.
Harmony brings peace, discord brings violence. The capital is facing a sudden change, so we must be cautious in everything we do.
·
The order to stop the project came down very quickly and was delivered to the cabinet almost on the day the memorial was submitted. It seems that Feng Shui is indeed the only way to deal with Party A.
If the emperor wanted to cancel the project, the other ministers would not have any objection. Only after reading the imperial edict, Lord Yan's face immediately turned blue, red, blue and green, which was difficult to describe - these palaces and temples were the major projects he had worked hard to suppress dissidents and intimidate public opinion, and to promote for Master Feixuan. They could almost be regarded as one of the important steps for Yan Fenyi to start his career. And now all of them were withdrawn without a sound, which was undoubtedly a hard blow to his face!
It would have been fine if it was just a ruthless blow, but once he found out who was the instigator of this imperial edict, Lord Yan would be really furious!
——Damn it, you bullied me before I became the Prime Minister, and you still bully me after I became the Prime Minister. Didn’t I become the Prime Minister in vain?
Mr. Mu, don’t go too far!
Unfortunately, the current Yan Ge Lao is like a ball of cotton. He dares not go out to vent his anger, for fear that Dian Gong will accuse him of disrespecting Prince Yu. So he endures it and dares to jump up and down at home and curse:
"You are a young boy, a flatterer, a shameless villain! It's fine if you bully me, but you even bully Your Majesty! He thought about stopping the project as soon as Your Majesty was sick. Isn't this premeditated and deceiving the emperor?! How outrageous and shameless!"
After a few rounds of scolding, Yan Donglou, who was serving beside him, finally couldn't help it:
"Dad, the suspension of the construction project is an imperial decree from His Majesty..."
"That was also his deliberate deception and his intentional disrespect for the imperial power!"
"It can't be said that he was disrespecting the imperial power." Yan Donglou said: "Shi--he just stopped the project. He still paid great attention to coastal defense and tribute trade..."
This is also the truth. Ever since the great changes in the capital diverted the attention of the court, many matters previously assigned by the emperor have been left unsupervised and have been delayed intentionally or unintentionally. This is a reflection of the fickleness of the world. However, since the prince took power, he has been doing everything he can to urge various matters of coastal defense and trade, and trying his best to implement the emperor's previous orders to reorganize military affairs. He even went so far as to slam the table with the six ministries one by one, racking his brains to squeeze out a budget for coastal defense. How can this not be considered doing things in a down-to-earth manner and being loyal to his master?
The construction of the Taoist temple cost about one million silver coins in scattered pieces, and it was just a one-time investment; the coastal defense is a super money-eating beast that cannot be stopped by three to five million silver coins. Every year, you have to feed these big guys with money on time, and you can never slack off. The prince was willing to squeeze out money for even this insignificant expense, so why would he be stingy with the small amount of money from the Taoist temple? Therefore, when he ordered people to gently persuade the government to stop the construction, it was probably because he really cared about Feng Shui and the True Lord, and he had no other thoughts.
The emperor must have thought it over and realized the prince's sincerity, so he agreed so readily and without any hesitation as in the past. Otherwise, considering that Zhenjun has been suspicious and quibbling for decades, would he tolerate others messing with the project he has planned? Sincerity can move heaven, that’s about it.
However, on the other hand, if even Master Feixuan himself does not care about a few palaces and temples, why would Lord Yan be so excited?
Lord Yan was speechless.
Of course, the reason why he was speechless was not purely because he was blocked by a sentence, but because he guessed the attitude of his subordinates from his son's words - Yan's colleagues in the party may not be unaware of the various embarrassments that the elder is facing in the cabinet, but now they are obviously unwilling to stand up for the elder, so from top to bottom, there is always an attitude of keeping the peace and muddling through, and for the time being, they can't cause any waves.
This is actually quite normal. Not to mention that the Yan Party's momentum has declined greatly after the spring in Xiyuan, and it is still in a state of panic where everyone sees enemies everywhere. Even if someone really wants to take revenge, they can only take a step back when looking at the current situation. Back then, everyone followed Lord Yan to bite the Qingliu ministers in the hope of bringing down the Qingliu ministers so that they could take the position themselves. Although the prince is now powerful, he does not have any established "Mu Party" under him. Even if he really tries his best to accomplish great things, what can he get?
It's impossible for everyone to work so hard just to let Lord Yan vent his anger, right? It would be fine if Master Feixuan did this, but do you really think that the Yan Party is your, Yan Fenyi’s toxic fan club?
With his subordinates not willing to fight for his life, even a powerful prime minister can only stay at home and sulk. But he couldn't hold back his anger and just rolled around on the ground in hatred. Seeing that his father was about to get angry, Yan Donglou sighed and couldn't help but speak a few words of advice:
"Father, there is no need to be angry. The situation is more unstable now. As ministers, we have to be tolerant. Let's not talk about anything else. Is Xu Shaohu, who is a clear scholar, better off? Not to mention that Gao Suqing has risen rapidly since Prince Yu became regent, and has already suppressed his predecessor. Even Zhang Taiyue, a good student carefully cultivated by Xu, has now become the property of others..."
Therefore, persuasion should be targeted. When you tried to talk to Lord Yan about forbearance for the sake of the country's interests, he just thought you were talking nonsense; but once you mentioned the current aggrieved deeds of your old rival Xu Shaohu, Lord Yan immediately felt refreshed!
Of course it was hard to endure being bullied, but the mega fury seemed to naturally ease when he thought about his old rival also being bullied. Elder Yan's mind moved, and he suddenly recalled the disgusting expression of old man Xu when Prince Mu summoned Zhang Taiyue to draft an edict, as if he had eaten a fly and was hesitant to speak. His depressed anger was immediately relieved!
——No matter how much I hold my breath, I’m never as cowardly as you, Xu Shaohu! He didn't dare to say a word when the person he had cultivated with great effort was taken away. This bastard really enjoys being a bastard!
The humiliation of an old rival being confronted by someone, of course, the more detailed and accurate the story is, the more satisfying it will be. Elder Yan's mind was wandering, and he couldn't help but ask one more question:
"It's strange to say, how did Zhang Taiyue get pulled over by the guy named Mu? There's no connection between a noble and a Jinshi!"
Yan Donglou snorted, "Of course it has nothing to do with him. But Zhang Taiyue was sent by Gao Suqing. He was originally only supposed to help with some trivial matters at the Duke's Mansion, but after so many visits, they somehow became involved."
Originally, Lord Yan was just asking casually, not taking it seriously. But when he heard the words "hooked up", his heart was moved:
"Speaking of 'long-term contact', I vaguely heard someone mention that when the emperor left me in the West Garden to recuperate, that Mu seemed to have had contact with you a few times..."
Yan Donglou: …………
The young minister suddenly fell silent.
Mr. Yan:? ! ! !
·
During those thirty seconds of hesitation, were you, the young cabinet minister, sincerely thinking about the Yan Party and your own father, or were you thinking about some unspeakable privacy that made you hesitate and hesitate to speak?
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