In the conference room of the Wenhua Palace, after Huang Liji, Cui Chengxiu, and Feng Quan read the emperor's handwritten letter brought back by Zhang Shijie, the three of them suddenly fell into silence.

Although I don't know what the emperor's mood was when he wrote this letter, from the wording of this letter, Feng Quan knew that the emperor's mood would not be very good. As Choi Chengxiu's deputy, he basically never interfered in the affairs of land reform, so he always felt that he had suffered an unwarranted disaster.

Compared with Huang Liji and Cui Chengxiu, Feng Quan's fear of the emperor is obviously deeper, because he has never been alone. In the past, he was attached to Wei Zhongxian, but now he is dependent on the emperor, without the emperor's support, he would not be able to grasp the current power.

Huang Liji and Cui Chengxiu were different, they had their own team from the beginning, and their relationship with the emperor was more akin to a political alliance. Therefore, compared with the panicked Feng Quan, the two of them are much calmer.

However, no matter how calm they were, they still couldn't ignore the emperor's handwritten letter. Seeing that the two were silent, Feng Quan finally couldn't hold his breath and said, "What should we do now?" ”

After Huang Liji glanced at Cui Chengxiu beside him, he said bluntly: "Isn't this what the two are responsible for?" You have done this errand, is it possible that the cabinet will wipe your ass with you? As His Majesty said in his letter, if you also think that there have been mistakes in the land reform, then let those who oppose it form a commission of inquiry to review the land reform committee. ”

Feng Quan suddenly said with a bit of a gaffe: "How can that work?" If the gentry bureaucracy opposed to land reform had seized power, the first thing they would have done would have been to blame us. What we are implementing is the decision of the Council of State, so how can we change the order overnight? ”

Huang Liji glanced at him and said, "Didn't Your Majesty already give you time, if you can't calm down the current dispute at the end of November, then Your Majesty will authorize me to set up an investigation committee." You have 40 days left, and now you can make a decision, whether to proceed with the land reform? Or are you going to be investigated by a commission of inquiry? ”

Cui Chengxiu, who had been silent for a long time, finally said mockingly: "Your Majesty just wants us to stand in line, whether to stand on the side of those who oppose land reform, or on the side of Your Majesty." ”

Cui Chengxiu stopped talking about this, and what he didn't say was that the emperor used this letter to warn them that even if they wanted to compromise with the gentry and landlords who opposed the land reform, it would not be their turn to come forward to be good people.

After a long sigh, Choi Chengxiu turned to justice and said, "The Land Reform Commission has not violated the policy of the State Council, and has always acted within the scope of the land reform policy.

This time, these Hebei landlords colluded with the Shandong gentry, not only selling the land of Hebei to the Shandong gentry without authorization, but also uniting with these Shandong gentry to oppose the established national policy.

What is raised is not used, what is used is not raised, the family will be harmed, and the country will be in danger. Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the gentry have been well maintained for national use. However, today, most of the gentry only know that stealing the country is a private plan, and they do not know how to share the worries and relieve the labor of the country, which is really the biggest harm of our country.

For example, the people are crying to be fed today, but the national treasury is withering, but the gentry and landlords are all over the country, crossing states and counties, and drinking and singing every day, disrespecting the king and not caring for the people. Your Majesty's policy of ordering us to carry out land reform is really to find a way for the people of the world to survive.

It's ridiculous that these local tyrants and inferior gentry not only don't take the king and the people in their eyes, but they are also embarrassed to use the master's righteousness to accuse the court of plundering the people's fat and people's ointment.

Cui Chengxiu blamed the gentry who opposed the reform, and at the same time observed the expressions of Huang Liji and Feng Quan, Feng Quan listened to his insults to the gentry and showed some unbearable meaning, but Huang Liji listened to his rebuke with a blank face.

Choi Chengxiu finally concluded: "I think that the gentry officials who oppose the land reform policy this time are not accidental, but someone is behind the scenes to form a party against the imperial court and against Your Majesty. It is to overthrow the imperial court and seek to usurp the throne..."

Hearing that Cui Chengxiu wanted to raise a big case, Feng Quan suddenly became a little flustered, and Huang Liji finally spoke: "There may be a party for personal gain, is this conspiracy to usurp the throne too much?" ”

After reading Chongzhen's handwritten letter, Cui Chengxiu knew that he had no way back. No one knew better than him about the emperor's determination to promote land reform. He sometimes felt that if Hou Jin was really willing to retreat in Liaodong, maybe the emperor would really make peace with Hou Jin for decades. But if someone wants to delay the implementation of the land reform policy, Chongzhen will never let it go so lightly.

When discussing the details of the implementation of the land reform policy with the emperor, Chongzhen often made no secret of his contempt and dislike for the old gentry and landlords. The emperor also scoffed at the loyalty of these gentry and landlords, and Chongzhen once said to him: "These people keep saying that they are loyal to the Ming Dynasty and to me, and they are willing to give up even their own lives."

But if I move a little bit of their land, they will cry and cry out to me to put on the hat of a faint king. People who are reluctant to contribute their own property to me, but say that they will die for my country, it can be seen that they are a group of liars. It's just a peaceful and prosperous world, everyone fools each other, and they can still make the world fine.

The Ming Dynasty has come to this point today, if you don't drag this group of liars out of the Ming Dynasty, what's the use of keeping them? If a farmer raises a pig, don't they have to slaughter it for meat during the New Year? If you don't kill your own pigs and eat them, do you really want to keep them for the robbers to sacrifice their teeth? ”

Cui Chengxiu knew only now how jealous the emperor was of those useless gentry and landlords. In addition, although he was pushed by the emperor to be the head of this agrarian reform committee, in fact it was the students of the village schools who actually did the work.

Since Chongzhen's accession to the throne, he has begun to promote new elementary schools, and the primary schools in the Gyeonggi Hebei area are the most outstanding ones. These new primary schools teach pinyin, vernacular Chinese, simplified characters, and simple mathematics, history, and geography, and the primary schools are also the strongholds for literacy in the villages.

Although there are many farmers who feel that their children are not needed and refuse to go to school, some farmers who are clever and far-sighted still jump their children out of a few smart schools to go to school, and they don't need money anyway. And some clever and lively adults are also willing to go to school for a literacy class. After all, with the communization of the countryside, it was easier for those who had read books to be elected as the leaders of the commune.

In the fifth year of Chongzhen, some of the children of peasant households who were thirteen or fourteen years old, fifteen or sixteen years old had studied for three years, and some had entered the upper primary school from junior primary school, and now these people are all seventeen, eighteen to twenty years old.

Naturally, the knowledge of these people cannot be compared with those who study the imperial examinations as their profession, but they are not blind, and they can also understand the announcements of the government and the articles of the Ming Times, and know how to use their own brains to think about some things, instead of being submissive to the gentry and landlords like their fathers.

But more importantly, the number of students produced by these new primary schools is far higher than that of the wealthy families. Thanks to the camaraderie formed by their studies at school, it is easier for these young people to unite against the old customs of the countryside and defend the interests of the peasants.

In the south, such people will be regarded as Diao Min by the gentry and landlords, and they will either be suppressed by the government or co-opted for their own use. But in the Gyeonggi Hebei region, the number of Diao people trained by these new primary schools is too large. And with the school system, they were able to find supporters on the side of the government, so the old tricks used by the gentry and landlords against the few people were not very good.

And in the eyes of these gentry and landlords, Diao Min is also the most supportive of the land reform policy in the countryside, because it is in their interests. But as long as the peasants who have read a few books, there are very few honest people who are willing to continue to live like cattle and horses, and there are always three or four young people who have studied in elementary school, and there are always three or four people who want to change their own situation and live the same life as the old men.

Once it is generated, it will want to change, and the land reform policy can break the old rural order, which is naturally supported by these young people who have read books. Of course, there are some more ambitious young people who will choose to join the army, trying to change their fate like those predecessors who joined the army and retired from the army and entered the yamen to work.

It was thanks to the help of these young people in the countryside that the land reform policy was able to sweep across the Gyeonggi River region in just a few months. It was difficult for those small and medium-sized landlords to unite against the imperial court, so they had to try to find foreign help.

It was precisely the eagerness and astonishing strength of these young people in the countryside who wanted to break the old rural order in the past that made Huang Liji, Cui Chengxiu and others tremble and try to retreat from the land reform policy and compromise with the gentry and landlords who opposed the reform.

Compared with Huang Liji, who is difficult to think deeply because of busy government affairs, and Feng Quan, who is good at scheming but has no vision, Cui Chengxiu actually sees this force more thoroughly. Now it is only five years since the establishment of the new primary school, if you add two years of middle school and three years of university, then after waiting for Chongzhen to ascend the throne for 10 years, the emperor will undoubtedly have another group of talents outside the imperial examination.

In contrast to those who have their own doors, the new primary-secondary-university school system, through a unified textbook, will only produce students with very similar values. When the imperial court opened the channel for these students to enter the official career, the fate of the scholars under the old imperial examination system was inevitable.

Even if Cui Chengxiu has tied his family to the emperor's chariot, the words of the sage he has learned since he was a child still make it difficult for him to accept this reality. But when he was forced by the emperor to stand in line, he clearly understood that the future over there was brighter, and even thought in his heart, since he couldn't compromise, then the Cui family had to get a place in this force. This is why he said such a decisive proposition to Huang Liji and Feng Quan.