The New Year is approaching, and the festive atmosphere in various places is getting stronger and stronger, and even Zhu Cihong, who occasionally comes out of the imperial city to breathe, is infected by this atmosphere, and his heart has become warm.

A few days before the New Year's Day, Zhu Cihong doubled the income of officials in Fengyang Mansion and other prefectures that implemented Tuntian, and issued a one-year income at one time to let them have a good year.

These officials, especially those from Fengyang Prefecture, have been working with him for nearly a year, and the results have been very remarkable, and it is time to improve their salaries.

The excitement in the hearts of the officials who got the money, especially these magistrates and prefectures, since the strict crackdown, they are greedy and dare not be greedy, and they are not greedy for expenses and not enough, and they have really tightened their belts and done things in the past year.

Daming from the seven-grade official month seven stones, is the seven-grade official month of Lu seven stones and five buckets, from the six-grade month of eight stones, is the six-grade official month of ten stones...... There are 35 stones for the third grade of the month, and 87 stones for the first grade.

According to the conversion of one stone of grain and half a tael of silver in the Wanli period, the annual salary of a Qipinzhi County is only forty-five taels of silver, which is equivalent to an annual salary of more than 42,000 yuan in later generations.

Zhengyi's monthly salary is eighty-seven stones, the annual salary is one thousand and forty-four stones, and the silver is five hundred and twenty-two taels, which is equivalent to the annual salary of 500,000 soft girls in later generations.

In the troubled times, the value of grain was better, which made the officials' salaries appreciate a lot, but the premise was that the imperial court could distribute them in time.

In addition to raising the salary of officials, Zhu Cihong also transferred the expenses that were originally spent by the officials themselves to hire the master and hire a carriage and sedan chair to the government, that is, they can be reimbursed with public funds, but the amount of monthly reimbursement will be limited according to the grade of the official.

In the past, officials not only had to support their own people, but also had to spend their own money whenever they did, and the life of officials was very poor, and corruption was easy to occur.

Zhu Cihong did this, but only to prevent or reduce corruption, some officials, if you give him several times more money, they will not be able to help but stretch out their hands to be greedy, for this situation, Zhu Cihong is considering how to increase defense and supervision.

Zhu Cihong personally went to Zhu Dadian's house, talked with him, and told him that he would rest at home for a while, and he would still have a place to use him in the future.

Zhu Cihong sighed in his heart, although Zhu Dadian is greedy for money and has made a lot of money in his tenure as governor of Caoyun, he still left a strong mark in history.

After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Yangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou and other important towns in the Southern Ming Dynasty were conquered by the Qing army one after another, Zhu Dadian scattered all the property obtained from corruption, recruited soldiers, and consolidated the small city of Jinhua in his hometown, so that the Qing army lost troops and lost generals, and could not be attacked for a long time. The Manchu Qing Dynasty used high-ranking officials to appease Zhu Dadian, but Zhu Dadian was not only unmoved, but also tore up the letter of appeasement on the spot, expressing his determination to resolutely resist the Qing Dynasty.

In order not to be insulted by the Qing soldiers, Zhu Dadian's wives and concubines committed suicide with their children, while Zhu Dadian and his subordinates detonated the gunpowder in the gunpowder bureau, and died together with the nearby Qing army, and died heroically.

Zhu Dadian is also flawed, in front of the Qing army, he maintained the national integrity, if the military and civilians in the Southern Ming Dynasty are like this, the world is not yet known.

On Chinese New Year's Eve, Zhu Cixi looked to the north and spent the festival outside for the first time after coming to Daming, and some missed the life and family of Jingshi.

Zhu Cihong suddenly had an idea, he could miss his family, and the soldiers would naturally miss home and relatives, thinking of this, he immediately ordered a banquet in the Tianwu Army camp to celebrate the New Year with the soldiers.

The main generals of the Tianwu Army have returned to Zhongdu early, because according to the imperial court etiquette system, every year on the first day of the first month of the first month to celebrate the emperor to meet the emperor, the ministers have to meet the emperor and have to meet the crown prince, although Zhu Cihong is not in Beijing now, but the officials near the central capital still have to come to the court on the first day of the new year.

The camp of the Tianwu Army was full of joy, staggered, the whole camp celebrated, and the laughter and laughter in the whole camp were endless, diluting the suppressive atmosphere in the barracks.

Zhu Cihong was dressed in civilian clothes, and first made a speech, promising that before next year's New Year, the relatives of the soldiers would be brought to Jiangnan to enjoy the blessings.

Zhu Cihong took advantage of the approaching birthday of Empress Zhou, prepared a million taels of silver for people to send to Beijing to congratulate, a few days ago when Chongzhen's birthday, Zhu Cihong also sent a million taels of silver a month in advance to pay respect, he believed that the emperor's father looked at the face of the silver, and would not deliberately make it difficult to prevent the relatives of the soldiers from going south.

On the first day of the new year, Fengyang city began to be lively, and all parts of the city began to send business cards for the New Year, there is a way: you don't have to enter the house door for New Year's greetings, send business cards to meet people, and the New Year is like this everywhere, giving a large sum of gold to the paper shop.

On this day, a red paper bag is pasted in front of each house, with the word "blessing" written on it, for the release of flying post business cards.

In the Song Dynasty, it was popular to let the servants hold the name of the New Year's greeting to pay New Year's greetings, and the business card of the Ming Dynasty was more prosperous. ”

After the officials of Nanzhili congratulated in the Fengtian Palace, there was already a long queue in front of the forbidden wall of the imperial city, there were hundreds of people, and they were all big bags and small bags, and they brought a lot of gifts, these are the representatives of the local squires and powerful families in Nanzhili, and everyone also held business cards in their hands, obviously to meet Zhu Cihong.

Xu Sheng, who was in charge of the defense of the forbidden wall, ordered that only business cards be accepted, not congratulatory gifts, so that the squires and powerful representatives were helpless.

Zhang Dabiao, Li Xing and several other Huizhou businessmen also handed over posts to visit, and Zhu Cihong met with them and had a serious conversation with them.

During the conversation, Zhu Cihong asked Zhang Dabiao and other Hui businessmen to build a grain shop in Nanzhili, and the funds were provided by the government, and the grain shop usually purchased the people's grain and was responsible for storing grain, and the government also filled the grain paid by the households into the grain store.

In the event of a famine, the grain store will sell the grain at a limited price according to the previous price to stabilize the grain price.

To put it bluntly, Zhang Dabiao and his people are equivalent to imperial merchants, and the grain shops in charge are half officials and half people, regulating the market for the imperial court, which makes several Hui merchants happy for a long time.

In the end, Zhu Cihong told them that if this matter is done well, there will be more profitable good things waiting for them in the future, which is related to the way for their children and grandchildren to make money! Several Huizhou businessmen were shocked after hearing this, and decided to go back and work hard to do their errands.

On the day of the beginning of spring, Yang Tinglin, the prefect of Fengyang, was very busy, and other officials were on vacation, but he had important things to deal with, and he had to take the farmers to whip the spring cattle.

It is an important custom to whip the spring ox, fireworks and firecrackers are set off endlessly, colorful flags and gongs and drums are noisy, and the scene is very lively.

Yang Tinglin, the prefect of Fengyang, first used the "spring whip" to decorate Huayang, and whipped the first whip on the ox made of clay, and then the officials below whipped it in turn according to the size of the official position, until the mud ox was beaten to a pulp, and the farmers rushed up to scramble for the broken soil, and the farmers threw the broken soil they fought for into their fields, which meant the beginning of a year's farming and a symbol of a bumper harvest.

On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, a group of women dressed in festive costumes walked out of their homes in groups, crossed the bridge and crossed the danger, and traveled together.

They climbed on the wall of the central capital, admired the light everywhere, and sometimes laughed and laughed, and the soldiers who originally defended the city had long since left.

Walk a hundred diseases on the city, is the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to have a custom, limited to women, after entering the wax moon, women are generally very busy, housework, physical fatigue, easy to get sick, so every year on the sixteenth day of the first month, then to exorcise the disease as the reason to go out and wander around, take a walk, no disease.

The excitement of the New Year lasted until after the Lantern Festival, and the people slowly returned to their former busyness.