"Ladies and gentlemen, before the second thing, this king will invite a man to come in, and he will introduce a matter to you!" Zhou Chong looked around at the cabinet ministers present, and then ordered someone to call Yan Song, who was already waiting outside the door, to come in, what he wanted to discuss with the cabinet today was related to the bank, and Yan Song, who was in charge of the central bank of the Ming Dynasty, naturally also came.

After a while, Yan Song, who was waiting outside, also came to this small room, speaking of which the central bank during this period of time can be said to be out of the limelight, after the integration of the central bank, all the commercial banks across the country have a new look, attracting many people to deposit money in the bank, in addition to the banknotes issued by the bank are also more and more people accepting, every one or two silver banknotes issued, it is equivalent to adding one or two incomes to the treasury, and it is with these incomes that Zhou Chong dared to boldly carry out economic and military invasion of the grassland, otherwise, it would be very difficult to support such an action only by relying on the original treasury of the Ming Dynasty.

Yang Tinghe and the others present all knew Yan Song, and after seeing the other party come in and salute them, he said: "Ladies and gentlemen, now that the bank has developed during this period of time, it has completely turned the Fourteen Money Village into a new type of bank, and these banks are all under the supervision of the central bank. Even some large counties also have banks, and I believe that in a few years, there will be banks at the county level in Daming! ”

After listening to Yan Song's introduction, Yang Tinghe and the others nodded with satisfaction, and many officials still had some objections to the opening of banks by the imperial court. Think it's a competition with the people. even lost the face of the imperial court. However, as the central bank played its role, the currency of the Ming Dynasty began to be standardized, the circulation of goods became faster and faster, and the tax revenue of the imperial court also suddenly increased significantly, which are the functions of the bank, so now most of the officials have recognized the new thing of the bank.

Zhou Zhong also smiled with satisfaction after hearing this, the bank is one of the sharp weapons for rectifying the rule of officials, and now the bank is ready. Now it's time to get down to business. Wang Qiong and the others also understood the reason why Zhou Zhong asked Yan Song to come in to introduce the bank, so they all sat there and smiled, but although Yang Tinghe guessed what Zhou important was doing, he didn't know how Zhou important did it, let alone what role the bank played in it?

"Yes, now that the development of the bank has reached the expectations of the king, then the first step to rectify the rule of officials can begin, and now the king has announced that in the future, all the distribution of the Ming officials' salaries will be issued by the bank. The imperial court would deposit their money in a bank, and the officials would have to go to the bank to collect it in person. ”

Zhou Zhong paused when he said this. Then he said: "In addition, the income of officials has not risen since the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, but now the price of prices in the Ming Dynasty is no longer the same as at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, so the king has ordered people to assess the prices and reformulated the income of officials at all levels, which is much higher than the previous income, enough for officials to live a decent life, but if anyone dares to be greedy for ink in the future, then don't blame the king for being unkind!" ”

Hearing Zhou Chong's words, Wang Qiong and the others had already been mentally prepared, so they were very calm, but Yang Tinghe's face changed greatly when he heard this, and he stood up and said: "Prison country, this matter is inappropriate, the habits in the Ming officialdom have been formed for many years, and they can be eliminated by a few decrees, so please think twice!" ”

"The king of what Lord Shoufu said naturally understands, but it is also the Ming officialdom that has accumulated shortcomings for a long time, so it is necessary to use this thunderous means to clear it, from today on, the imperial history of the Metropolitan Procuratorate is the same as the grade of the Cabinet University, and the grade of the supervision of the imperial history in various places has been upgraded from the seventh grade to the fifth grade, and the Jinyi Wei is temporarily under the control of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, if the supervision of the imperial history in various places finds that there are officials who are corrupt and bribery, they can directly order the Jinyi Guard to arrest them and send them to the capital, and they will be personally interrogated by the Criminal Department!" Zhou Zhong spoke again in a solemn tone, his father-in-law Wang Lun had been promoted to the left capital imperial history, and there was also a right capital imperial history, and the two had been informed by Zhou Zhong in advance in advance, so they were not surprised to hear this.

Yang Tinghe heard Zhou Chong's words but his face changed greatly, the Imperial Procuratorate originally had the function of supervising hundreds of officials in the world, and the Ming Dynasty also attached great importance to the Imperial Procuratorate, in addition to the imperial history in the Imperial Procuratorate in the capital, various places were divided into thirteen ways to supervise the imperial history, adding up to a total of hundreds of people, although the grade of these imperial histories was not high, but the power in their hands was great, but the imperial history could only supervise and impeach, and did not have the power to directly arrest people, and now Zhou Zhong has improved the grade of supervising the imperial history, and let the brocade guards around the country obey the orders of the supervision of the imperial history, so that The power in the hands of these supervisors is too great, and most of the people who can sit in the position of the imperial history are stinky and hard, and they value reputation more than anything, and now these people have the right to arrest people, and I don't know how many people will be arrested for corruption.

However, before Yang Tinghe could object, Zhou Zhong once again proposed several reform plans, the most important of which was to break the barriers between officials and small officials, and allow small officials to be promoted to officials, and in the future, whether they were Jinshi who passed the imperial examination or students in the Guozi Prison, they all needed to serve as small officials in the local area for a certain number of years, and only if they were qualified in the position of small officials, they could be promoted from small officials to officials.

In addition, Zhou Zhong also proposed to expand the tax department of the household department, not only in the state capital to set up a tax department, even at the county level to set up a special tax department, in the future, the Ming tax will be collected by these special tax departments, no longer collected by the local government, and the tax department will also be linked to the bank, all the taxes received are deposited in the bank, and the tax department is also subject to the supervision of the imperial history, it can be said that under this supervision, the local officials basically have little opportunity to contact the most prone to corruption taxes, As for the finances required by the local government in ordinary times, it must be reported to the state government, although the state government can make a decision, but it must be reported to the court for the record afterwards, and whoever approves it is responsible.

Zhou Chong spoke very quickly, and from time to time he instructed some people to be responsible, such as Yan Song in charge of the bank, Wang Lun in charge of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and Zhang Cai in charge of the Tax Department of the Household Department.

It was not until Zhou Zhong finished ordering all the things about the rectification of the government that Yang Tinghe finally had the opportunity to stand up and said: "Prison country, although there are some drawbacks in the Ming officialdom, but you can't be in a hurry, and I hope that the prison country will focus on the overall situation, and you must not act rashly!" ”

"Lord Shoufu has been thinking a lot, for the rectification of the rule of officials, this king has been thinking about it for a long time, and has made countless preparations for this, and it is definitely not going to fail!" Zhou Zhong said very confidently, before Zhengde went to Xuanfu, he had already begun to prepare for changing the status quo of the Ming Dynasty, and now that it is finally time for actual implementation, it is naturally impossible to give up easily.

"This ......" Yang Tinghe saw the resolute look on Zhou Chong's face, and then looked at the confidence on the faces of Jiao Fang, Wang Qiong and others around him, which made him sigh secretly, he should have been mentally prepared before, but when it came to the end, he couldn't help but be a little flustered, after all, if he wanted to sweep away the shortcomings of Daming, this not only required superhuman talent, but also extraordinary determination, he did not have such talent and determination, maybe these people in front of him would really bring some changes to Daming.

"Alas~, even so, the old minister has nothing to say, I only hope that the prison country will focus on the overall situation, and must not be in a hurry, in addition, God has the virtue of a good life, I hope that the prison country will observe the heart of heaven and be able to make less killing!" After Yang Tinghe finished saying this, his face suddenly showed a look of defeat, because he knew that if the officialdom was rectified according to Zhou Chong's thunderous means, I am afraid that I don't know how many people would commit crimes because they stretched out their hands that should not be stretched, and then in order to threaten other officials, Zhou Chong would definitely be dealt with severely, I am afraid that the Ming Dynasty will be full of people, which may be the biggest killing in the officialdom after the Ming Dynasty established itself.

Yang Tinghe's guess is indeed not wrong, Zhou Chong wants to implement reforms, first of all, to rectify the rule of officials, and this is related to the interests of all Ming officials, so at the beginning of the implementation, there will definitely be strong resistance, but for these, Zhou Chong has already made psychological preparations, so when he rectified several reforms of the rule of officials began to be implemented a few days later, even if there were countless officials in the court every day to oppose it, but Zhou Chong was cold and did not back down at all, until then most of the officials found that usually this smiling Zhao Wang did not have the slightest shelf, In fact, it is much tougher than His Majesty the Emperor.

Zhou Chong wanted to let the reform go smoothly, and naturally it was impossible for the court to continue to be so noisy, so a few days later, Zhou Chong began his own counterattack, first the corruption of the ministers with the most fierce opposition in the court was exposed, and the human and material evidence was conclusive, and as a result, all these people were arrested in Dali Temple for trial. In fact, none of the officials of the Ming Dynasty are clean, as long as they are seriously investigated, even Yang Ting and the first assistant of the cabinet are guilty, the key is whether Zhou Chong is willing to investigate? (To be continued......)