A large-scale manhunt and arrest operation that affected several provinces took only three days to completely reveal the truth, and the operation affected hundreds of gentry families in many southern provinces, and in the operation, thousands of people were killed by the Fu Han army because of armed resistance, and as many as 20,000 people were captured, which simply swept away the southern gentry and clan.

At the same time, the government and the opposition were also deeply shaken by this action, and dozens of officials and ministers of the Metropolitan Procuratorate wrote to Ning Yu to request a suspension of the reform, in their opinion, such a reform would simply offend all the gentry in the world, which was really irrational behavior.

Ning Yu didn't say much polite to them, and directly demoted all these officials to Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, and went to the grassroots yamen who had just changed their land and returned to the stream to become officials, which can be said to be very different from the image of Kuanren in the past, which made the court also silent, for fear of touching Ning Yu's scales.

The reason why he was ruthless to these people was because Ning Yu didn't want to continue to endure it, and he didn't need to be patient. Because through this action, Ning Yu had thoroughly seen through the nature of the gentry's fierce inwardness, and they no longer had any scruples when they started, and they didn't have any courage to make a mess at all.

Therefore, after the arrest operation was announced, Ning Yu directly and quickly convened an enlarged cabinet meeting, and made an exception for Ning Luoyuan, the shadow leader, to attend and make a comprehensive report on this operation.

"Since the beginning of this operation, the shadow and the military have dispatched a total of more than 47,000 troops, affecting seven provinces and regions, arresting more than 20,000 rioters, killing and wounding more than 1,700 people in the arrest operation, seizing more than 20,000 bird guns, 147 artillery pieces, 184 casualties of our army, sealing and seizing a total of more than 1.2 million taels of gold, 21 million taels of silver, and 36 ........million mu of land and deeds."

Ning Luoyuan's hand trembled slightly, he didn't expect that through this scientific expedition petition, the old bottom of the southern gentry would be exposed at once, although this time it was not all the gentry, but it still made him feel a little nervous and excited, this was a big victory no less than the front line.

Of course, the aftermath is also very serious, since the large-scale manhunt, almost all the gentry in the areas close to the direction of the Qing court, almost all of them have fled with the old and the young, and many local officials have even abandoned their official positions and fled, if it were not for Ning Chu's effective control of the army, I am afraid that there would be a certain amount of chaos in the army.

This is also the reason why there are complaints about the emperor inside and outside the court, which is too cruel and excessive, almost making people feel that this is the emperor deliberately using the topic to play and want to catch the gentry and the big families.

However, when the ministers heard the numbers reported by Ning Luoyuan, their heartbeats began to accelerate, and some people even felt dizzy for a while, this time the seizure was comparable to two years of annual income, and even exceeded, some ministers still wanted to speak, but now in front of these figures, they were completely silent.

However, Shoufu Ning Zhongjing still felt a headache, Ning Chu this time can be called a historical precedent, you must know that no one has ever dared to treat the gentry like this before, this is simply the birthday boy hanging himself - don't die!

The reason why there has not been any major chaos so far, there are many reasons, firstly, Ning Chu has effective control over the local area, and the officials have been directly sent to the county level, and a large number of veterans have been arranged to control the countryside, and secondly, after all, the war has not been over for a long time, and many gentry have been exhausted in the previous war, so it seems that there is no great chaos, but if it is replaced by the Qing Dynasty, I am afraid that the next day there will be smoke everywhere!

But even so, Ning Zhongjing had to sigh, with this time, I am afraid that the gentry of the world will be embarrassed with Ning Chu in the future!

Ning Yu looked at the different expressions of the ministers in the group, but he didn't have so many worries, and snorted coldly: "From now on, the imperial examination petition was not a big case in the first place, but why did I make such a big move?" The reason is very simple, that is, to cut off the minds of certain people, and to make them completely realize that they are complete enemies with me and Da Chu themselves! ”

After saying this, the ministers couldn't help but be stunned, there had never been an emperor who said his thoughts so bluntly, although he was telling the truth, but there was no high-sounding set on the surface, which still made the courtiers feel a little uncomfortable, and seemed to lack some atmosphere.

Ning Yu looked at the ministers coldly, and said loudly: "Before this incident, it was not that no one had persuaded me, in fact, there were many people who had persuaded me......." Speaking of this, Ning Yu glanced around at the ministers and slowly spoke, "Some people say that the Northern Expedition is about to be!" You can't push the gentry to the side of the Qing court! But I want to say that we should solve this problem before the Northern Expedition, because in the future, we will march into the North, and we will have to solve the problem completely and cleanly! ”

"You all know this question in your hearts, that is the land issue that I have repeatedly emphasized, as long as there are still a large number of clan gentry who hold land, as long as they do not obey the management of the new policy, they are the enemies of my Great Chu!"

In fact, for any dynasty, the struggle between the court and the gentry has always lasted from beginning to end, and the more wise and powerful the emperor, the more he will attack the gentry, for the simple reason that if the dynasty is compared to a normal person, then the gentry is a cancer attached to it.

The reason for this is not the amount of wealth, in fact, Ning Yu has never worried about how many silver dollars his merchants have, but he is particularly vigilant about the amount of land occupied by the gentry, because through the land, the gentry can control a large number of people, and when these populations are not under the jurisdiction of the imperial court, it will be a very dangerous problem.

Before Ning Chu started, the Ning family was such a typical gentry clan, at that time, through the power of Ning Zhongyuan, coupled with the Ning family's own resources and relationships, almost built an environment of their own power in Hanyang Mansion, not only controlled a large amount of land, but also controlled the population on these lands, and even became the root of the Ning family's rebellion later.

And such an environment is not uncommon, any large-scale gentry clan, their clan location, is usually their sphere of influence, in this range, the role of the imperial court will be suppressed, or even can not play any role, so anyone who goes to Hanyang as an official needs to seek the help of the Ning family.

Now that Ning Yu himself became the emperor, he naturally had a very jealous psychology towards the gentry, and the various bills and policies passed successively were aimed at weakening the power of the gentry, so at this stage, the contradictions between Ning Chu and the gentry had become public.

It's just that since Yongzheng came to power, in order to implement his new policy, he actually took the initiative to destroy the relationship with the Han gentry, so the gentry had no way to continue to get close to the Qing court, so it can be said that they chose a wait-and-see attitude.

Under this wait-and-see attitude, Ning Chu took other provinces in the south one after another, and his wings were completely enriched, so Ning Yu was determined to directly wage war against the gentry group to avoid the problem from continuing to delay until unification in the future, otherwise the scope of involvement would be more extensive, and at the same time, it was also dividing the power of the gentry group.

Moreover, for Ning Yu, there is another advantage of solving the gentry problem at the moment, that is, the potential of finance and taxation will be greatly increased, because after such a reform, the problem of land and land will be alleviated, and a large number of yeoman farmers and small landlords will be created, and they will be the best taxpayers.

Of course, there are problems, the first thing that can be expected is that the northern gentry may start to move closer to the Qing court, and they will not watch Ning Chu dominate the country and then deprive them of their land - this is already conceivable, so Ning Yu will not care too much.

What really made Ning Yu more concerned was another point, that is, the problem of grassroots rule, because the gentry controlled the land and population, so they themselves were also the actual partners of the imperial court below the county level, and now Ning Yu passed the land area gradient taxation bill, depriving these people of too much land, but also depriving them of their actual dominance at the grassroots level.

Without these people, Ning Chu would have to rely on the bureaucracy, and this is also a part that Ning Yu attaches great importance to.

"Second assistant, how many people have passed the Xiucai exam in this imperial examination?"

This time, the new imperial examination was completed by Cui Wancai, the second assistant, together with the relevant examination content formulated by the Ministry of Education, and together with the examination institutes of the provincial education departments.

Cui Wancai stood up and said in a low voice: "Back to the emperor, due to the relaxation of registration restrictions for this imperial examination, the number of applicants is fully 46,000, and as many as 4,227 people have passed the examination, including more than 1,200 people with excellent results. As for the rest, they will directly participate in the short-term government affairs training courses held by the provinces, and after the completion of the official awards, they will be directly conferred and submitted to the Organization Department for review. ”

Ning Yu nodded, more than 46,000 people applied for the exam to show a problem, that is, many people are still interested in Xinxue, and more than 4,000 people passing is the result of releasing water - in fact, before the exam, so many places have been demarcated, the reason is very simple, the current Ning Chu lacks officials.

The so-called lack of officials does not refer to the lack of official officials, but refers to the grass-roots clerks, because Ning Chu previously classified officials and officials into the official relevant establishment, so there is no so-called high and low at the moment, only by grade to divide.

Therefore, in the future, when these 4,000 people pass the government affairs training course, they will all be assigned to the grassroots level, starting from a non-mainstream official, and only after a certain number of years or having a certain amount of merit can they be promoted to high-grade officials, that is, the most basic from the ninth grade.

As for the history of being able to award high-grade official positions once you pass the Jinshi examination in the past, it is completely gone, and now everyone has to start from the grassroots level, starting from the most ordinary radish pit.

Shoufu Ning Zhongjing was a little worried, he was not worried about these talents, but worried about the financial expenditure of the imperial court, "Your Majesty, although our current financial revenue has increased significantly, our expenditure has increased even more explosively...... If such redundant official behavior occurs in the future, I am afraid that it will completely cause an imbalance between fiscal revenue and expenditure. ”

The meaning of this is actually to say that Ning Chu has given too many places at the moment, in the past, the imperial examination was once every three years, and occasionally an Enke was added, but now it is once a year, in the past, only two or three hundred people were admitted to the imperial examination every year, but now it is thousands of people who are admitted, and I feel that my head is big when I think about it.

Ning Yu didn't see it that way, in the traditional Ming and Qing official systems, although on the surface it seemed that the number of officials was very small and the cost was very low, which was a great thing for the people, but in fact this was a manifestation of lazy government, they just pushed the general affairs to the officials and the gentry, and the burden on the people was not reduced.

"Shousuke doesn't need to worry too much, you can simply calculate an account. In the past, although the number of places in the imperial examination was small, the official qualities awarded by these people were very high, and it was difficult to do something directly for the imperial court. ”

"First of all, we must understand that at present, Dachu is not an unlimited increase in officials, but by the financial income of the provinces plus the allocation of the central government, in order to determine how many specific pits there are, and there are many rich provinces, then recruit more, and their money can be shared by the local government, on the contrary, the provinces without money will have fewer places, and the imperial court will raise more ........."

Speaking of which, everyone understood the emperor's path, and the good guy put the theory of doing business in, and they were all a little crazy.

However, there are still some loopholes in Ning Yu's theory, and Li Fu, the left capital of the Imperial Palace, said in a low voice with a little doubt on his face: "Now the finances and taxes of the southeastern provinces are quite solid, and the problem is not big, but the southwestern provinces are currently financially weak, but they cannot lack officials, otherwise the imperial court will not be able to control these border areas." ”

When everyone heard this, they immediately felt very reasonable, yes, you can't just throw the rich provinces aside and the poor provinces to play!

In fact, this problem raised by Li Fu gave Ning Yu a little headache, because this problem is essentially difficult to solve, except for the road of economic development, the other way is only to delay the emergence of the crisis.

Ning Yu was slightly silent for a while, and then said in a low voice: "For these provinces, the central government will provide financial support, at least to ensure the basic operation of their official offices, which is also the inevitable price to be paid to ensure territorial unity and border stability." ”

Cui Wancai heard this, nodded silently, and then sighed: "What Your Majesty said is reasonable, this is also a major purpose for us to take power from the gentry, otherwise the court will not be able to promote it alone." ”