Regarding Zhang Mingwei's suggestion, Emperor Chongzhen naturally obeyed, and immediately nodded in agreement.

After being happy, Emperor Chongzhen brought the topic back to what he had just discussed, and saw him say to Zhang Mingwei, "As Mr. said, Li Thief's attack failed to open the seal, and now it has been changed to a siege, which is obviously inevitable!" ”

Speaking of this, he frowned and continued, "Shanxi General Soldier Xu Dingguo led the Shanxi soldiers to collapse at the touch of Qinshui, and the Ning Wu soldiers also collapsed in Huaiqing. ”

At this time, Li Zicheng has actually become a climate, and he doesn't know how many old thieves he has. Moreover, he has already put forward the slogan of "no food" and has begun to pay attention to the political level.

At this time, ordinary officers and soldiers were no longer Li Zicheng's opponents. If the original historical development is followed, in the end, in the next year, Li Zicheng defeated all the officers and troops who tried to fight him, and then annexed Luo Rucai's department, as well as He Yilong's Gezuo Fifth Battalion and Xiao Yuan's Battalion, unified the command, and finally ascended the throne as emperor.

Therefore, it was not surprising for Zhang Mingwei to hear the news of Emperor Chongzhen. His expression was also calm, and he smiled at Emperor Chongzhen and said, "Your Majesty, now in the strategy against Liao, there is still a sailor to harass the hinterland of Liaodong, and the matter of containing Jianyu has not been done, as long as this is done again, Liaodong Jianyu will no longer have to worry about it." And now the amount of money and grain copied from the eight Jin merchants is enough for the imperial court to fight several big wars! ”

Hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen's brows relaxed, and he even nodded.

When Zhang Mingwei saw it, he continued, "In addition, Wu Sangui, Bai Guangen and other five-way guerrillas have also led troops to Kaifeng, Henan, and I believe that Li Thief's troops will not dare to plot Kaifeng with all their might!" ”

Emperor Chongzhen finally looked much better, and when he finished speaking, he followed up and said, "The siege of Kaifeng, I am indeed not very worried anymore. But the other cities are still a bit bad! ”

Speaking of this, he selected a few pieces from the imperial case, and then said, "These are all sent in an urgent manner in the past two days, and several more cities have fallen. To the south, Zhang Xianzhong's subordinates and the five battalions of Gezuo have united with these thieves, and they want to attack Fengyang, the central capital, with the intention of threatening the imperial tomb again. And the thieves in Xiao Yuan's camp are even more in Hebei. It's ridiculous that Zuo Liangyu still wanted to threaten me, but he was forced by this group of thieves, and he retreated at the touch of a button, and he didn't dare to block him at all! ”

Speaking of these bad things, it is obvious that Emperor Chongzhen is in a bad mood again. There are beacons everywhere, and it really feels like I can't manage it, and I can't do it.

Speaking of this, he saw that Zhang Mingwei was about to speak, so he took the first step and said, "If the local government can hold on to the city, then things will be much easier." However, the gentleman's countermeasures, which exempted half of the taxes and left the rest in the localities, and even allowed them to collect money and grain from the squires, should have spread all over the world. But in my opinion, it still seems to have no effect, and the city is lost one by one......"

Zhang Mingwei listened, but he was not depressed, but said to Emperor Chongzhen with a smile: "Your Majesty, this matter, I have actually felt it in the two times I went out of Beijing. It is still difficult to implement these measures at the local level. ”

Hearing that he was already thinking about this matter, Emperor Chongzhen immediately looked at him and hurriedly asked, "What's the difficulty?" I have already issued an order according to what Mr. said, and these will be included in the assessment of the magistrates on the part of the ministry, and they may not dare to do their best, right? ”

After a pause, remembering something, he added, "For those squires who have been expropriated for money and grain, I also agree that the imperial court will compensate them afterwards, and they will have the magistrates play to show them merit!" ”

Speaking of this, Emperor Chongzhen's face showed a trace of helplessness, and he didn't speak again, the meaning was obvious, that is, the result was still unsatisfactory, and there were still a lot of things to lose the city!

In this regard, Zhang Mingwei shook his head and said, "Your Majesty, I know all this, and listen to me first!" ”

"Sir, please speak!" When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he felt as if there was hope, so he hurriedly responded.

"As I just said, I have been out of Beijing twice, and I already know what the reason for this unsatisfactory thing is!" Zhang Mingwei saw that Emperor Chongzhen wanted to speak, so he didn't pause, and said directly, "Whether it is a magistrate or a squire, they all have a fluke mentality, and they feel that they will not be captured by thieves, this is the first reason!" ”

As he spoke, he raised a second finger and continued, "Second, because of the past performance of the imperial court, to put it mildly, the local squires have actually lost their trust in the imperial court, and they don't think that they will get much in return from the imperial court if they pay a lot of money and food!" Therefore, if they can control the money and food that are already in their pockets, they will never want to hand over the money and food. ”

Hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen wanted to refute it, but when he opened his mouth, he found that he really couldn't refute this.

When he was dumbfounded, Zhang Mingwei had already raised his third finger and said, "Third, those who have a lot of money and food are naturally more powerful. Not only in the locality, but also in the imperial court, there are generally people. The magistrates would not have offended them if they were not forced to do so, for fear of being retaliated against by these squires afterwards. ”

"How dare they?" As soon as Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he immediately interjected with a little anger, "How can I allow them to retaliate!" ”

Hearing this, Zhang Mingwei shook his head and said, "Your Majesty, if they want to retaliate, of course, they will not retaliate by collecting their money and food, but will use other excuses to retaliate against the magistrate!" There can be many reasons for this, and the magistrate must have had concerns. Even if the officials clearly say that there is a bonus in the assessment, they can't stop the hidden arrow behind it! ”

Speaking of this, he emphatically emphasized, "At least that's what they think, so if they can not offend those squires, they will naturally not offend those squires." However, by the time they find out that the city is in danger and don't care about offending them, it's often too late! Therefore, the magistrate who is not particularly courageous really dares to use the sword of Shang Fang even if he has the sword in his hand! ”

Emperor Chongzhen thought carefully about Zhang Mingwei's statements for a while, and finally couldn't help but feel a little gloomy, as if this was really the case!

After a while, he couldn't think of a solution by himself, so he asked Zhang Mingwei, "Since Mr. has already considered it, what countermeasures do you have?" ”

When Zhang Mingwei heard this, he immediately replied, "We must re-establish the prestige of the imperial court, and the rewards and punishments are clear." So that the local squires did not dare to arbitrarily resist the requirements of the government, and they could have expectations for the future rewards of the imperial court. ”

During the Chongzhen period, the world was in turmoil for a long time, and the court party fought for a long time, which has made the world no longer afraid of the court rules, but learned to play with the court rules.

If this kind of thing wants to be changed, it is definitely not an overnight thing, nor can it be reversed by a will.

Therefore, after hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen frowned and said, "Sir, having said that, what can be done?" ”

"Among the squires, the most powerful and influential are the feudal royal clans in various places!" Zhang Mingwei raised his voice a little and emphatically said, "If they can take the lead in responding to the call of the imperial court and being anxious about what the imperial court is anxious about, they will inevitably have an exemplary role for other local squires and can also give confidence to the magistrates." ”

"The vassal clan?" Emperor Chongzhen listened and repeated with some doubts.

Zhang Mingwei nodded, because it was a private chat between the two, so he had no scruples, so he said to Emperor Chongzhen, "Actually, when later generations summarized the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, the clan policy of the Ming Dynasty was also a very important reason. Your Majesty thinks about it, how many of the vassal royal clans are there now? Can the imperial court afford it? ”

As soon as he heard this, Emperor Chongzhen showed a little helplessness and said, "Now the imperial court still has money and food to give them money!" ”

In fact, since the Jiajing period, the imperial court began to rely on the skin. When the children of the clan are born, they are not recognized, and they are not recorded on the jade butterfly, so they do not need to be paid. So much so that those distant clans could only go to ask for food later. Because the clan can't do business, can't conduct scientific research, and so on.

Later, this opening was also opened as compensation for the clan, so that they could conduct scientific research, do business, and so on. But these compensations can't change much at all for ordinary clans, and they can only change a very small number of people.

"The vassal kings are hereditary, and as long as the Ming Dynasty continues, there will only be more and more vassal kings." Zhang Mingwei continued to say to Emperor Chongzhen, "Your Majesty, just imagine, if we work hard and revive the Ming Dynasty, and it can last for three hundred years, how many vassal kings will there be in the Ming Dynasty?" Will the land of the world eventually become the source of the vassal kings? ”

The vassal king's income was not really given money and grain by the imperial court, but the land was given to them, and the output of the land was used as the vassal king's income.

These lands were not directly under the jurisdiction of the feudal king, but were under the responsibility of the local government, which gave the annual grain income to the feudal prince's government. In this way, the local squires and the government colluded with each other to put all their fields under the name of the vassal king, and they were exempted from taxes, but the income from the grain fields was not given to the vassal king.

In addition, there are some local squires who will also take advantage of the name of the feudal palace and annex the land; In particular, they did not collect taxes on their fields, and after passing on all the taxes to the ordinary people, they crushed those ordinary people, causing them to be overwhelmed and abandon their fields and flee, which further aggravated the extent of land annexation.

As a result, there were feudal kings in various places who were kept captive by the imperial court, and they had to be approved by the local government to go out of the city to worship their ancestors, and their nominal fields even had a continuous province.

In other words, the pot was carried by the vassal king, and many of the benefits fell into the hands of the local squires; The most suffered, except for those fleeing people, is the imperial court.

This situation naturally also exacerbated the turmoil at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

After Zhang Mingwei told Emperor Chongzhen about these situations in detail, the emperor, who had never been out of Beijing, was dumbfounded.

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