For the Ming Dynasty since Zhengde, nearly a hundred years of magnificent glorious history, Zhengde six years is not a special year.

Compared with the historical events of drinking the Rhine River and sealing the Rocky Mountain, the six-year history of Zhengde can only be described as ordinary, and it is not even as wonderful as the eradication of the three ministers in the early years of Zhengde.

However, hundreds of years later, Professor Fang Chuan, an authority on imperial history at the Imperial Central University of the Ming Empire, which has the highest research level on the history of the Ming Empire, claimed in his best-selling monograph "The Six Years of Zhengde" that the six years of Zhengde were the real signs that the Ming Empire had entered the era of exploration and the era of primitive capital accumulation!

Because in this year, the official immigration administration officially reinstated, and the country was officially opened, and it has not been closed again.

"Although in this era, the empire has not yet opened the sea, and it has destroyed the fleet that was once the most powerful in the world, but under the influence of the great Zhengde Emperor, the rulers of the empire have once again opened their eyes to the world, and the Marquis of Shouning and the Marquis of Jianchang, who were ordered to rebuild the Zhijiang Shipyard, are examples of this, these two princes who were hated by the civil officials never thought that their actions at this time would go down in history!"

Professor Fang Chuan wrote in his book.

When the cabinet was carrying out the matter of clearing the acres of land and the border towns were ordered to set up a city shipping department to carry out border trade, Zhu Houzhao himself did not expect that Zhang Heling, the Marquis of Shouning, and Zhang Yanling, the Marquis of Jianchang, who were still studying at Beijing Normal University, would go to the imperial court at this time, hoping that the imperial court would rebuild the Zhijiang Shipyard, because the sea could not be without powerful warships, and the Ming Dynasty was the overlord of the sea, and could not give up the great sea frontier to the Western barbarians.

Of course, the real purpose of these two people is to verify whether the earth is a sphere.

Zhu Houzhao had already done a good job of these two relatives who couldn't stand the heavy studies of Beijing Normal University and cried to the Queen Mother, so that he could let him go free, but Zhu Houzhao didn't expect that his two uncles did show a strong interest in geography and navigation, which made Zhu Houzhao very relieved.

Because he had to admit that his two uncles were indeed very excessive in doing evil, and did a lot of bad things about seizing land and bullying the people, and sometimes it was not to blame the civil officials for often impeaching these two people.

But because the queen mother really spoiled her two younger brothers, she even added her two brothers-in-law to the marquis before her death, although she was the emperor, but in the end she was a junior, and sometimes she really couldn't directly get rid of these two relatives who would cause trouble for the royal family.

Now that it's okay, staying like this in Beijing Normal University has allowed these two relatives to have their favorite business, and Zhu Houzhao doesn't need to worry about these two people coming out of Beijing Normal University to continue to cause trouble and finally force himself to deny his six relatives.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao did not hesitate to approve the request of these two relatives to rebuild the shipyard, and personally ordered Zhang Heling to drop out of Beijing Normal University to supervise the Zhijiang Shipyard, and allocated 2 million taels of silver from the Royal Taxation Bureau, that is, Zhu Houzhao's internal funds, to Zhang Heling to rebuild the ship.

In addition, Zhu Houzhao also appointed Zhang Heling to go to Guangdong to learn water warfare, so as to serve the empire's maritime trade in the future.

The civil officials were very surprised by this, they did not expect that His Majesty the Emperor would agree to the behavior of the two relatives to rebuild the shipyard, in their opinion, the two relatives were trying to make money from the imperial court, in addition, the civil officials also knew through the recent study of the behavior of Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling that the real intention of the two relatives was to verify an unrealistic conjecture, that is, to prove that the land was spherical.

"Have you heard, Zhang Yanling, the Marquis of Jianchang, established the Daming Maritime Association, and he is trying to win over the officials and gentry to invest money to let them complete a feat, saying that it is to prove that the land is spherical, and that it is to start from Daming and go all the way forward to see if he can finally return to Daming!"

"Don't you know, this Zhang Yanling pulled a group of people from Beijing Normal University to set up this association, saying that it was to inherit the will of the Three Treasures and revitalize the Ming Dynasty, but in fact it was just an opportunity to accumulate money, and the Taoist officials had already played the impeachment, but His Majesty did not object, and even the cabinet voted to pass, and even now His Majesty has rewarded this maritime association with 100,000 taels of silver, saying that the royal family will also contribute to the revitalization of the Ming Dynasty! Isn't this an obvious gift of silver to the Marquis of Jianchang! ”

"Although it is said that it is the royal treasury, but in the end it is also a tax levied from the hands of merchants, the emperor is so wanton to squander, give to relatives, will not hurt the people, and the revitalization of maritime affairs is also not a good government, when the three treasures of the father-in-law seven to the West, wasted countless money and food, resulting in the lack of poverty and people, now Your Majesty this move is undoubtedly to follow Taizong to cause all countries to come to the dynasty of the prosperous world! Your Majesty is so happy, I'm afraid it's not a blessing for the community! ”

In short, they were very disgusted by Zhu Houzhao's behavior of conniving and pampering his relatives, and at the same time, they were also very reluctant to see Zhu Houzhao follow Yongle's feat of going to the West again, and even many of them were worried that Zhu Houzhao would open the border and then open the sea.

For most civil officials who studied Confucianism, the opening of the sea is the same as the opening of the border is an act of valuing commerce and hurting the peasantry, and it is also an act that does not conform to the teachings of the sages, after all, the Ming Dynasty is already the center of the world, and it is the upper kingdom of the Celestial Empire that occupies the interests of the world, and other foreign countries should not earn their interests or even plunder! Rather, it should be shown its favor so that it will be grateful to the Celestial Empire.

After all, the empire is already so powerful and rich, there is no need to compete with some small barbarian countries for benefits, not to mention that these benefits of trade with barbarians should be given to the people, and the court does not have to possess them, and in the final analysis, it is not necessary to compete with the people for profit.

However, the civil officials can't do anything with Zhu Houzhao now, Zhu Houzhao is not a dynasty that is willing to make the Ming Dynasty a superficial scenery, and he is not willing to be fooled by the civil officials, so now the entire civil gentry group can only be forced to accept Zhu Houzhao's transformation of the empire.

But although these civil officials were reluctant in their hearts, they responded very well on the surface, while secretly criticizing Zhang Heling's Daming Maritime Association for not doing their job, and on the other hand, they tried their best to let the children of the family join the Daming Maritime Association, and even after Zhu Houzhao gave silver to the Daming Maritime Association, they also rushed to donate money to the Daming Maritime Association, in order to please His Majesty the Emperor.

Not only that, after more and more civil officials realized that they could not fight the emperor Zhu Houzhao, they all began to learn to meet Zhu Houzhao, and before Zhu Houzhao began to propose the opening of the sea, there were already smart civil officials through their keen sense of smell, and first put forward the proposal of re-establishing the city and opening the sea.

For example, Lin Tingxuan, the governor of Liangguang, suggested that the imperial court open up the sea for trade on the grounds that most of the poor people in Liangguang and Guangxi made a living by the sea, and urged the countries of the South China Sea to come to the court.

Although Lin Tingxuan, the governor of Liangguang, made many courtiers scold him, saying that he was just a courtier who figured out the emperor's heart for his personal merits.

However, Zhu Houzhao was still very much in favor of Lin Tingxuan's proposal to open the sea first, and allowed him to set up a city port in Guangdong and open the port for trade as a pilot place.

The civil servants now understand more and more that His Majesty the Emperor does not like the old officials, but likes to change the new officials, so naturally they have begun to propose reforms.

In addition, today's examination law no longer mainly requires officials to be honest, but mainly examines the officials' political achievements, that is, what they have done, so that officials have gradually shifted their main energy from managing their own reputation to creating some new political achievements.

Zhu Houzhao can now receive a lot of criticism about innovation and eliminating malpractices every day, but he has to admit that few of them are really of practical significance for reform, but there are some that are really worthy of reform, and Zhu Houzhao will also take them seriously.

Speaking of the examination law, since the implementation of the examination law, the Ming Dynasty officials have indeed improved a lot, Zhu Houzhao learned through the investigation of the West Factory, although the civil and military officials in the court will still take the silver and find ways to make money in their own pockets, but they have indeed begun to do some practical things.

Especially those who used to become officials only knew how to write a few articles, manage some reputation, and even spend money to get important positions in the imperial court.

Because whether it is Zhu Houzhao's appointment, the cabinet six ministries and nine secretaries, or the ministry will recommend, they will inspect in advance the political achievements of each recommended candidate for important official positions, and their resumes will also be publicized by the Emperor Ming Bao during their tenure, and what achievements they have done are clear, and they will even be seen by the people all over the world.

Ordinary people don't know how to read and don't care very much, but for the scholars of the poor family, if a certain bigwig in the court makes the children of his family promoted without any political achievements, they dare to bring the lawsuit to the emperor.

Because of this, the examination law not only ensured the tax revenue of the empire, but also greatly changed the people's livelihood.

And the emperor Zhu Houzhao and the cabinet Shangshu and other important ministers also received a lot of praise because of this, and no longer fluttering, and even the examples of filial piety are also much less, so that the rule of officials is not as in the original history, since the Zhengde Jiajing began to corrupt, the upper officials only take care of money, the lower officials only manage to collect money, and the officials only make money to divide the good and bad, not the good and bad of the officials.

It is also because of the gradual clarification of the rule of officials, so that the reform of the border trade system of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Zhangtian acres can be smoothly implemented, and most of the officials have to do their best to complete the instructions of the central court in order to promote their official positions.

Of course, whether it is the examination law or the border town switch and the Qingzhang Tianmu reform after the examination of the law, they are all forced to be implemented by the emperor and the reformist civil officials using the power in their hands, and for the vast majority of gentry groups and even rulers such as nobles and vassal kings, they are unwilling to do this in their hearts.

But there is no way to do it, the reason why the reform is changed is because the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of people has led to the aggravation of social contradictions and affected social development, and it is necessary to change the social benefit distribution system to make it more reasonable, so that wealth can be in the hands of people who can help increase social wealth.