It's kind of interesting!

Not to mention other people, even Zhu Mingzhong himself, after learning from the newspaper that Zhu Cixuan, the king of Gui, actually married the daughter of a merchant as a concubine, he couldn't help but be amazed, after all, although the Ming Dynasty has a tradition of the royal clan not marrying the powerful, but it is the first thing like King Gui to marry a rich girl.

As for the Liang family, Zhu Mingzhong can be said to be extremely familiar, after all, he personally came to invite Liang Tianyou to go out of the mountain and re-route the Jiangbei Sea, which also established the status of the Liang family in the Jiangbei maritime business, of course, it is more important to mention that Liang Tianyou and Ryazan are both presidents of the Beiyang Chamber of Commerce for two generations.

There is no shortage of wealthy people, although the Liang family is a well-known maritime businessman, but how much money does the Liang family have? Zhu Mingzhong has a rough estimate in his heart, at most more than one million taels of assets, which is not a rich man. However, compared with ordinary wealth, the Liang family has an advantage that others can't match - the Liang family is a maritime merchant, and the Beiyang Chamber of Commerce has hundreds of merchant ships!

That's all that matters!

"King Gui is quite good at choosing people!"

sighed in his heart, Zhu Mingzhong became interested in the person who gave him advice.

"It's quite interesting!"

Almost without thinking, Zhu Mingzhong immediately ordered someone to send a handwritten metaphor to the investigation hall, asking them to find out who started this marriage.

The Investigation Department is a department established by Zhu Mingzhong a few years ago, and unlike ordinary imperial court yamen, although the investigation hall is nominally a yamen of the imperial court, they are directly under the orders of the emperor himself, and their salaries are also paid by the inner treasury, which also means that they are equivalent to the emperor's retainers to some extent. It's just that the purpose of this retainer is to supervise hundreds of officials, but they are different from Jinyiwei, the purpose of their existence is to eliminate corruption and promote honesty, in order to punish corruption.

Throughout the ages, in order to completely eradicate the greedy nature of officials, successive dynasties have even resorted to torture. Among them, Emperor Gao Ming was the most severe. He was born as a homeless man and hated corrupt officials very much, and often used extrajudicial punishment on the issue of official corruption, the typical of which is to peel the skin and pull the grass, this punishment is not stipulated in the "Da Ming Law", but Zhu Yuanzhang created this punishment, the scope of application is only for corrupt officials, the peeled human skin made into a drum or filled with straw to make human skin scarecrow stands at the door of the yamen or the door of the local land temple, in order to warn the successor officials, do not be corrupt and pervert the law. However, "peeling the skin and pulling the grass" has not eliminated the occurrence of corruption. On the contrary, the corruption of Ming officials was more serious than in any previous dynasty, and it certainly cannot be compared with "I Tatar Qing".

Later generations of controversy over corruption told Zhu Mingzhong that corruption is often a systemic problem. Relying on the human skin farm to kill chickens and respect monkeys has not played a role, and the problems in the system can only be solved by improving the system. Therefore, in the middle of the first year of Xingqian, Zhu Mingzhong quietly set up an "investigation office." The Office of Investigation is not subordinate to the Cabinet and is not subject to the purportation of sentences. It was directly responsible to the emperor and had absolute authority. The Office of Investigations supervises and investigates officials and severely punishes all officials involved, regardless of their status. In order to effectively expose, investigate and combat corruption, the Investigation Department has been granted extensive investigative powers to combat corruption by the following special decrees of the Emperor. The special authority gives the Investigation Office absolute authority and can effectively supervise the various institutions of the Ming Dynasty.

It is precisely because of the existence of the Investigation Office that since the Xingqian, the corruption of the Ming Dynasty officialdom has been controlled within an extremely limited range, of course, this also has a lot to do with the high salaries and pensions of Ming officials, but the high salaries and pensions of the Ming Dynasty did not draw on the high salaries of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but borrowed from the high salaries of the late Qing Customs, and the high salaries and pensions system made the officials have no worries about the future, and they did not have to take the huge risk of corruption.

Now Daming's high-salary incentive mechanism makes officials "not want to be greedy"; The strict supervision system makes officials "not greedy"; The strict punishment system makes officials "dare not be greedy". These three complement each other and are inseparable. Among them, the most important role of supervision is the most important, and the investigation office is Zhu Mingzhong's tool for supervising hundreds of officials.

Of course, this object of supervision is not only the hundred officials, but also the clan marquis. That's why Zhu Mingzhong chose to let the investigation office handle the matter — that is their job in itself, and that their investigative powers are not limited to corruption. There must be supervision first, and then there will be investigation.

However, it was only half a day, and a report from the Investigation Department was presented in front of Zhu Mingzhong's case, and Zhu Mingzhong nodded lightly from time to time looking at this report.

"So, everything was planned by Pan Renyuan?"

Zhu Mingzhong did not raise his head, and Li Zhi, who was standing in front of the imperial case, immediately replied after hearing His Majesty's question.

"Exactly, he is the chief official of King Gui's mansion, and he is the cloth cloth that King Gui met on the way back to Beijing, because King Gui has no cronies around him, so King Gui takes him as his chief envoy."

Li Zhi, who was born as His Majesty's attendant back then, although he was quite famous in the officialdom, there were no more than five people who could recognize him, and this was because the Investigation Department was independent of the officialdom system.

The Investigation Office, which is independent of the government system, avoids human favors to a large extent - for thousands of years, China has been a country that speaks about human feelings, and officialdom affairs are often influenced by human relations, and the intricate human relations have led to the saying that "official characters have two mouths". However, as an institution independent of the officialdom system, the Investigation Office naturally avoids the favor of officialdom, so that it can effectively punish corruption.

"This person does have some talent."

Zhu Mingzhong's tone was a little appreciative.

"It can be seen at a glance who is the most beneficial to make friends with now, although the bank can bring gold and silver to King Gui, but the Liang family can bring him the Beiyang Chamber of Commerce, with the Beiyang Chamber of Commerce, King Gui will naturally get twice the result with half the effort, this in-law, he picked it well!"

Is this the so-called stupid person having stupid clothes?

Thinking of some of Zhu Cixuan's experiences, Zhu Mingzhong secretly thought to himself, maybe this is the will of heaven in the dark!

"Your Majesty, in the Song Dynasty, there were clans and merchants who intermarried, and now he is just following the old things of the Song Dynasty......"

Li Zhi's straightforward answer made Zhu Mingzhong smile.

"It's not necessarily a bad thing to follow suit, for Gui Guo, marrying the Liang family can be said to be beneficial and harmless, and the Liang family ......"

After pondering for a moment, Zhu Mingzhong sighed.

"Now it's also my Ming family!"

The Liang family's money may not be much, but the shareholders of the Beiyang Chamber of Commerce include most of the Ming Dynasty and many officials, and the Liang family's connection with these families is ......

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that now that the Liang family is not married, he might as well send someone to inform Liang Zan and let him stop this thought!"

Li Zhi rarely makes such a suggestion, and a very important reason why he was chosen as the head of the investigation office in the first place is because he does not say much. Not much to do.

The reason why Li Zhi talks a lot today is because he knows that his identity is the emperor's retainer, and the investigation hall is to prevent corrupt officials from destroying the royal foundation. That's why he became a little sensitive in the matter of King Gui.

"No, you don't!"

Shaking his head, Zhu Mingzhong said.

"Since I let King Gui take over the country, there is still such a small amount of tolerance, but it is just ......"

After pondering for a moment, Zhu Mingzhong sighed, and then sighed.

"The two presidents of the Liang family in Beiyang, for my Daming, it is not necessarily a good thing, this year's president of the Chamber of Commerce can be replaced, they are now married to King Gui, it is also a good thing, so, in the future, the Liang family is bound to be a wealthy family of Gui State."

Perhaps now, as the emperor, Zhu Mingzhong rarely has the power to decide life and death with a word, but his words can also determine the future of many people and families. At least for now, the future of the Liang family is already doomed.

The Liang family is not worth mentioning in Zhu Mingzhong's eyes, what he is curious about is Pan Renyuan, and what he is curious about is that after those clans take the country, there will always be some "capable people and talents" around them to give advice, and there are always surprises, as far as the experience of later generations is concerned, those plans often have their merits, which is what Zhu Mingzhong is curious about.

"It seems that this division has also revealed a lot of talents."

In fact, it is not just to divide the envelope to make the best use of talents, it is the change of history now, I don't know how many talents who were originally buried in history have been fully used, just like Li Zhi, who was originally unknown in history, but now, it is the most important part of the Ming officialdom.

"Last time, you said you planned to open an office in each province?"

After dealing with this episode of King Gui, Zhu Mingzhong naturally asked about the work of the Investigation Department. As early as a few months ago, Li Zhi had already revealed that he wanted to set up an office in a local area.

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

Li Zhi replied.

"Your Majesty, now the Investigation Department is to send special investigators to a certain place after the incident to investigate, and then to send inspectors to the local secret inspection, although quite effective, but in the view of the minister, but can not form a long-term supervision system, Your Majesty once said, but as long as no one supervises the person may be corrupt, although, the inspection system can avoid the investigation office and the local intricate relationship, so as to avoid human affection, but also brought about the disadvantages of unfamiliarity with the place, so the minister thought, A permanent presence may be established to work with the Inspector. ”

Regarding Li Zhi's suggestion, Zhu Mingzhong pondered for a while and asked rhetorically.

"So how do you avoid complicity after a long period of contact between the investigator and the official?"

How to avoid the collusion between the two, long before the establishment of the investigation hall, Zhu Mingzhong seriously considered this issue, human favor is a net, and this net can put everyone into the net. Once a permanent office is established, it will inevitably have local employees, and then all kinds of complex human networks will inevitably have an impact on it, and thus affect the fairness of the investigation.

"Your Majesty, that's why the minister thought about whether it would be possible to set up an agency similar to the intelligence station of the Military Department with the local area!"