Ten miles away from the north gate of Wuchang City, there is a welcoming pavilion on the official road, and Fang Kongzhao, the governor of Huguang, is leading the civil and military officials and gentry of Huguang to greet here.

In order to show the enthusiasm of Huguang officials, Governor Fang Kongzhao also specially invited an honor guard music class to play and play on the side, waiting for the crown prince's honor guard, which was very festive.

After the officials had waited for two quarters of an hour, the ceremonial officer who had gone to the river to meet him hurried over on horseback and said, "Your Excellency, the crown prince's fleet is marching east along the river!" ”

Governor Fang Kongzhao said with a puzzled face: "What did the crown prince do when he changed his itinerary?" ”

The faces of Ji Haoyan, the governor of Biyuan, and the generals of several guards changed slightly, and their foreheads were faintly sweating, did the crown prince of the secret path find something?

Two quarters of an hour later, a guard of the Yongwei battalion rode his horse and said in a loud voice: "The crown prince has decreed, and the officials will go to the east gate to meet them!" ”

Fang Kongzhao had no choice but to take the officials to the East Gate Yingguan Pavilion to wait, everyone was talking while walking, Ji Haoyan, the governor of Biyuan, kept beating the drum in his heart, the crown prince changed his route, and the underwater dragon king cannons in ambush in the river were useless, what should I do!

After waiting for nearly an hour at the east gate, the officials of Huguang only heard the thunderous footsteps ahead, and a large number of ironclad troops in a phalanx came under black pressure, enough to reach 10,000 people.

That kind of momentum shocked all the civil and military officials in Huguang, there are so many strong troops, no wonder the crown prince can defeat 100,000 thieves and chase them out for thousands of miles.

Soon, the army arrived in front of the Yingguan Pavilion in Dongcheng, the various departments stopped advancing, and a thousand brave guard battalions escorted Long Ran to continue to advance.

The people of Wuchang who got the news went to the east gate one after another, along the official road moat all the way to the palace of the king of Chu in the city, and they were full of people to greet and watch the lively flow.

Zhu Cihong walked out of the dragon chariot, and after saying a few words casually, he let the army enter the city and went to the palace of the king of Chu to station.

There are many vassal kings in Huguang, among which the king of Chu in Wuchang is also the richest vassal king in Huguang, the first generation of the king of Chu is Zhu Zhen, the sixth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, and it has been passed down to the ninth generation.

Speaking of the ninth-generation Chu King Zhu Huakui, there are quite a few stories, his life has been questioned, some people say that he is the child of the old Wang family next door.

The eighth king of Chu had no son before his death, and left a posthumous son after his death, which was conceived by a palace maid in the palace, and gave birth to a pair of twins.

One of them is Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, Zhu Huakui was an uncle when he was young, acting as a vassal of the clan, and after he grew up to be in power, he severely cracked down on the people who were at fault, which caused strong dissatisfaction among the people of the Chu king's lineage.

In the thirty-first year of Wanli, Zhu Huayun, a lieutenant of the auxiliary state of the Chu Sect, who was known for his toughness, was reprimanded by Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, because of the incident, so he united with the 29th of the same sect to send people to Beijing to sue the emperor, saying that the current king of Chu is an impostor, the son of a family surnamed Wang, and not the royal bloodline.

Pretending to be the royal bloodline is not a joke, this puppet Chu King case quickly became a big one, the Wanli Emperor was furious, sent a special Qin to investigate, and finally found nothing, no evidence can only saliva, because the ministers are different parties, involved in the controversy, and finally triggered the court party dispute.

In the end, Emperor Wanli directly announced that he would not investigate, and also abolished Zhu Huayun's family who provoked the incident and sued the emperor as concubines and imprisoned them in the Fengyang high wall.

Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, was very angry for the rest of his life, cleaned up a large number of people from the same sect, and instructed his subordinates to beat Zhao Kehuai, the governor of Huguang, who had a grudge against him, to death, which was very tyrannical, and this matter slowly passed.

.......

The mansion of the vassal king in the Ming Dynasty was a city within a city, which not only covered a huge area, but also had a set of institutions dedicated to serving the vassal king and subordinate to the vassal king, such as loose officials, school captains, and chamberlains, with a number of up to several thousand, and they all had corresponding rations, rations, and public food.

Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was afraid that his descendants would starve and be poor, so he set a system, and this cost was borne by the treasury of the imperial court.

Since the martyrdom of the Ming Dynasty, although the imperial court has always adopted the policy of cutting feudal domains, it still retains a lot of preferential policies in terms of kinship, which is mainly reflected in the generous rewards given to the grange.

By the time of Jiajing, the number of the Ming Dynasty's vassal clans had reached more than 100,000, and the imperial court needed to pay a huge amount of money and rice grain every year to provide the lives of the clans, which became a heavy burden on the country's finances.

In the early years of Wanli, the national financial expenditure was about 18.54 million taels, of which about 5.52 million taels were paid to the feudal clans in various places, accounting for 29.76%!

There are two types of farmland, one is rewarded by the emperor and the other is bought with his own money.

The area of the farmland rewarded by the emperor is very large, and there is no need to pay taxes, but the income is also very small, because these farms are controlled and taxed by local officials, and 0.3-0.5 taels of silver are generally levied per mu, but only 0.015-0.03 taels are handed over to the vassal kings, and most of the land rent income is divided between these civil officials and local large landlords.

Emperor Wanli's son, King Fu, has a fief of 2 million mu, which seems to be a lot, and he should be able to collect a lot of rent, but in fact, he can only get 40,000 taels of silver every year from the officials who help him collect taxes.

Emperor Wanli's younger brother King Lu had 4 million acres of fiefdom, which was the fattest of all vassal kings, but he could only get a total of 60,000 taels of silver every year.

So where did the vassal kings get all that money? Except for a few feudal kings who were allowed to collect miscellaneous taxes, most of the other feudal kings spent their own money to buy land, and then used the purchased land to collect their own rent, and became their own general agent, and the rent of 0.3-0.5 taels of silver per mu of land was collected into their own pockets, so as to avoid being fished by officials.

But this land is not so easy to buy, the palace must compete with the bureaucratic landlords for bidding, so the vassal kings seem to be chic, but in fact, they also have hardships, and the king of Fu, who is a later king, has few resources in his hands, and only about 6,000 acres of land he bought.

The King of Chu has a different lineage, developed in Wuchang Mansion for more than 200 years, whether it is the underworld or the white way, after the efforts of the King of Chu, the King of Chu has about 200,000 acres of private land under his name, that is, he spent money to buy, not counting fiefdom, and the rent of these lands can get about 100,000 taels of silver every year.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the number of clans was already hundreds of thousands, and the imperial court's finances were becoming more and more difficult.

For a long time, without the help of the imperial court, the life of these clans was miserable, hungry and cold, and there was no way to complain, and some even went to the road of crime, they stormed the local yamen, beat and insulted local officials, and even forged official seals and fraudulently spent money.

Many people look glamorous on the outside, but only they understand the pain in their hearts.