Chapter 444: Endless Greed

Emperor Jiajing lived fifty-nine years old in the history of normal development, which was considered a long life at that time, when he came out of Jingchu's Xingxian Palace, his body was very sensitive and delicate, and it is said that he could not even stand the pungent smell, which is also the reason why he believed in the Taoism of quiet and inaction. Perhaps some of the Taoist health preservation methods really worked, and Emperor Jiajing's body was far inferior to Jingchu's Jingshi in the climate, but gradually improved.

It is noted that Jiajing was still full of black hair at the age of forty, like a young man of twenty, which seems to be a fuss, but in the sixteenth century, it was common for a forty-year-old with gray hair.

However, in this time and space, Emperor Jiajing already has a lot of gray hair, this year is the nineteenth year of Jiajing, and he is only thirty-four years old. Now he has a lot of good reputations, such as the diligent monarch, such as the king of the sage, which has been operating normally for hundreds of years.

The system of checks and balances between the celebrant and the cabinet completely collapsed after he launched the purge of the land. Now many things that need to be handled by eunuchs need him to do it himself, and it must be said very objectively that the so-called eunuch chaos is not a common phenomenon in the Ming Dynasty.

Because in the past three hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, there are only a few people who know about the great traitors and evils, and the rest of the eunuchs of the prisons, divisions, and bureaus are just like the officials of the six ministries, they are just parts of the operation of the imperial machine, and the reason why those eunuchs have learned from rough writing is because they have studied with the cabinet scholars in the inner study, and if they are traitors and evils, how much responsibility should the person who teaches them.

Emperor Jiajing, whose nature is fun-loving, was deceived by Huang Jin, Lu Bing and the Jingshi merchant group, and he felt that if he always believed in the foreign ministers so much, he was in the deep palace and did not listen to the affairs of the world, and sooner or later he would have to repeat the situation between the land inspection case.

However, the consequence of pro-government is that he is tired and abnormal, and the affairs in the world are extremely complicated, and nearly 10,000 officials in the six ministries and three departments of the cabinet are still in chaos, let alone an emperor.

As a result, it became more and more inadequate, and the scholars of the cabinet always said kindly and cordially, and the following small matters would be handed over to the ministers to deal with, and the real military affairs would certainly not be hidden from the emperor, and they must be subject to the emperor's decree. Of course, it is up to these civil officials to decide how to define the standards for big and small things.

Emperor Jiajing already regretted it in his heart, and wanted to regain control of Jinyiwei and Dongchang to restrain the already almost uncontrollable civil official group.

But what he didn't expect was that the cabinet and the six ministries greatly supported this, and there was no hindrance to the opinions in the slightest, and after the reorganization, it was found that the two minions of the former emperor had lost their former power and became complete sheep.

The reason is very simple, all the sources of income of Jinyiwei and Dongchang have been stripped by civilian officials into the six departments, don't think that you can maintain the operation of a huge armed intelligence agency by extortion, you must have income, from the former Dongchang and Jinyiwei have part of the tax and monopoly power, this is the power and scale of that kind. This point, presumably Huazhou's Liu Twelve and Luo Yi understand the most profoundly, Sima is engaged in the outside, the pro-military camp is inside, the number of the two institutions combined is only two thousand, but the cost is almost half of the cost of the Yizhou fleet, Jinyiwei and Dongchang such a less efficient and larger cost can be imagined.

The attitude of the cabinet scholars towards the commander of the Jinyi Guard and the commander of the Dongchang is very simple, if you want to be majestic, immediately choke your budget, there is no money to spend, see what else you can do.

Besides, in the past two years or so, the manpower of the factory guards has disappeared, most of them have been scattered in all directions, and at this time it has been rebuilt, and the civil servants who hold power have installed countless of their cronies in it, how can such an institution be close to the emperor, this is not a minions, but the eyes and ears of others.

The eunuchs and officers beside Jiajing are not the people they used to be, Huang Jin in the past was also a decisive role, and the current Rui Xiaosan was originally a low-level eunuch, except for listening to Jiajing's words and doing things, he no longer has any other strengths, and the heads of the land prosecution case have long deterred him, although he is now the highest level of eunuchs, but he does not dare to say a word or do one more thing, for fear of getting into trouble.

Zhou Lin is even more so, he is already satisfied when he sits in the position of Admiral Jingwei, and he will not ask for anything more, and he is already a loyal warrior, he does not have so many scheming organs of power, and the safety of the Emperor is enough to be competent, but it is not enough to use it in other aspects.

Speaking of which, Emperor Jiajing also had this feeling, in the past, when Huang Jin and Lu Bing held power, and the Jingshi merchant group manipulated speech, although he was not well informed, but through some channels, he could finally know what was going on, and now he has become a real deaf and blind person.

He can't form his own judgment at all when he decides something, because what he sees is what the civil officials want him to see, and what he hears is also what the civil officials say, although these are all praise words that praise him as a sage, a saint, an excellence, a rare time, Yao Shun and so on.

Such a situation was also made by himself, and Jiajing could only pinch his nose and admit it.

However, in the spring of the nineteenth year of Jiajing, a new problem was encountered, and the situation of the government treasury being full had lasted for two years, and in this year there was finally a gap.

Although it was the rule of the past few years that even the nobles and meritorious people could not be exempted from taxes on the industries related to them, but after the power of taxation was taken to the Sixth Ministry, the means of getting up and down became more numerous, and a large number of shops and handicraft workshops were used to escape taxes and fees by giving benefits to those in power, and there was even such a situation in Jiangnan, that is, hanging their own industries to the artisan camp to take them.

You must know that of course, there is no tax on the government-run industry, and the people have ridiculed this, saying that in the past, the artisan households were even a few points worse than the slaves and maids, but now the rich and noble people are scrambling to be the artisans.

Taxes and fees are decreasing year by year, the financial expenditure of the Ming Dynasty has never been less, how much should the annual famine occur or how much it happens, and the military expenditure is still so high, these are the so-called Ming Dynasty after all, and the tax revenue has fallen into their own pockets, so naturally don't mention what taxes are collected.

However, the cabinet scholars and officials of the Sixth Ministry were also reluctant to open the sea ban, and if the sea ban was opened, then a lot of the huge profits from smuggling would also be transferred to the state treasury, and this situation was also unwilling of many people, especially the officials from the Nanjing Sixth Ministry and Jiangnan who opposed it more and more strongly.

The factions in the DPRK and China have changed again, the officials of Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Huguang have resolutely demanded that the merchants who evade taxes under the guise of the government or other names, as well as the powerful ministers who shield the merchants, and the other faction are the officials of the provinces in the north and south of the Yangtze River, who insist that the officials of the world are clean and clear, and there are not so many dark things at all, and the sages have said that the merchants are not credible, and the previous phenomenon of the government treasury being full is only temporary, and the state's reliance should also be agricultural tax and servitude.

This is also the true meaning of the so-called ranking of agriculture and industry, and the current situation is like this, if it is to collect industrial and commercial tax, many businessmen in the north and south, the provinces south of the Yangtze River, Fujian and Guangdong have been damaged, and if the method of increasing agricultural taxes and forced labor is used to make up for the gap, then the remote provinces that mainly rely on the peasants are naturally unwilling.

The two sides argued endlessly, but it seemed like a joke to say, the officials in the remote and poor provinces were called "turbidity", and those who took bribes and engaged in corruption were called "clear streams", and the public opinion in the world was overwhelmingly on the side of the clear stream.

The officials of the turbidity stream were reprimanded as selfish people who did not know the general situation and did not care about the safety of the country.

As for why the public opinion in the world is so one-sided, it is very simple, there is a saying that 'Jiangbei military generals, Jiangnan prime ministers, Fengyang can only bury the emperor', the majority of the world's ministers are southerners, academies and poetry clubs, literary societies and other organizations are mostly southerners, and few scholars are from poor backgrounds.

In the hearts of scholars who have no concept of finance, they can pay less than a penny, and their families will earn a little more, and there will be no damage to the country.

These people control public opinion, and whoever collects less of their taxes, they are naturally inclined to that side, and naturally they write articles to support it, and find out all kinds of sage remarks from the book to express their support, this is the so-called Tianxia scholars, this is the so-called pillars of the country.

But his own family has made a fortune, and the words are all over the place, and the gap in the treasury should be less or less, and the ministers' means of solving this matter are very simple, consult with the emperor. In the inner treasury, there is still silver deposited, and the ministers are not willing to suffer losses themselves, so they always have to dig out some silver from the emperor's pocket.

The scholars and the officials of the Sixth Department were concerned, looking at the emperor sitting in the middle with a sad face, no one said anything, and Jiajing couldn't think of any way to let him take out the money from the inside, and he didn't want to, at this time, maybe he couldn't stand this situation.

Sima Tai, the head of the household, hesitated and said:

"There is no war on the nine sides, but the cost of millions of soldiers and civilians is huge, so it is better to consider reduction!"

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