In the fifth year of the Apocalypse, this is definitely like a frosted eggplant for the scholars and merchants in the south of the Yangtze River, from the original high-pitched noise to wilting.

No one would have thought that the emperor would suddenly come with such a hand.

Without warning, Dongchang and Jinyiwei went out on a large scale and arrested thousands of people.

It's really the kind that doesn't make a move, and the kind that makes people peel off their skin as soon as they make a move, and for a while, in the Jiangnan area, those who have criticized the emperor are terrified.

"Did you hear that? The prefect of Zhenjiang Prefecture was arrested, his home was raided, and the whole family was exiled to Heilongjiang. ”

"What is this, the Nanzhili garrison was arrested by the Jinyi guard after scolding the emperor a few words after drinking, and he was directly killed in Nanzhili's Zhenfu Division Prison on the same day."

"Guards? Isn't that person the other way around? ”

"It's all dead in prison, and it's a fart! Why did those big-headed soldiers in Nan Zhili rebel for a dead man? What's more, there are two infantry divisions of the Central Army stationed in Nanzhili! ”

"The students of Nanlu Academy were also arrested by Jinyiwei for more than 30 years, and now they are released, but all their fame has been cut off, so don't think about participating in the imperial examination in the future."

All kinds of appalling news continue to circulate, and examples of one-word disasters are endless. In just a few days, a group of bureaucrats, nobles, and merchants became so silent that they did not even dare to talk loudly about the imperial court at home.

Of course, they can say whatever they say at home, as long as they don't say it in public. Although Jinyiwei and Dongchang also planted eyeliner in the homes of these people, there are still certain conditions for conviction.

For example, they have made remarks in public that can condemn them, or they have written articles about it. Only with witnesses and physical evidence can the guilt be judged.

The literati and officials who had written all kinds of articles criticizing the emperor and the current affairs of the imperial court would begin to be revealed.

Because Jin Yiwei found a lot of hand-copied newspapers in the homes of many literati, and there were many articles on these hand-copied newspapers.

Who gave the hand-copied newspaper and who wrote the article above?

Jinyiwei and Dongchang are touching melons. There was another wave of arrests everywhere, and more literati were implicated for a while. Many of them are also merchant families, and for those merchants, it is definitely a blood mold, and huge fines are issued to their homes.

A few days later, another decree from the Jingshi reached Nanzhili.

Zhu Youxiao announced the implementation of news control throughout the Ming Dynasty, and the content of all newspapers must be approved before they can be put on the market for circulation. All newspapers are required to register and pay a deposit according to the scope of distribution. The county-level security deposit is 1,000 yuan, the provincial security deposit is 3,000 yuan, the provincial security deposit is 8,000 yuan, and the national security deposit is 100,000 yuan.

The newspaper, which could not be paid, closed its doors.

A newspaper that is not registered is an illegal newspaper. It is an offence to publish more than 10 illegal newspapers, including hand-copied newspapers.

In the future, all news must be reviewed before it can be published or printed. Violation of this regulation. Shut down the newspaper and hold accountable.

At the same time, false advertisements are not allowed to be published in newspapers, etc., and fines will be imposed if relevant acts are found.

After such a policy was issued, the effect was immediately achieved. The messy newspapers in the Gangnam area disappeared without a trace overnight.

However, there are some literati who have very hard bones, and they feel that they can't hold back their pen as if they are holding urine, so they want to write something to criticize current affairs.

In the face of these thorns, Jinyiwei and Dongchang are naturally willing to rectify.

The behavior of Jinyiwei and Dongchang. quickly reminded people that today's Ming Dynasty is still a feudal imperial system. The emperor could not be provoked. The court should not discuss it in vain.

Otherwise, you will be burned and the consequences will be serious.

This kind of consciousness is the result of bloody lessons.

In the sixth year of the Apocalypse, Zhu Youxiao successfully suppressed the rumors that deliberately smeared the court and the emperor through a high-pressure policy.

At least in public, no one dares to speak out about the Central Committee and the Emperor anymore.

Ordinary people didn't feel anything. Basically, please go in and have tea. However, for those nobles and merchants, the consequences of this were very serious.

They have to rein in their pens.

However, Zhu Youxiao's countermeasures have also completely gained a reputation for brutality. These high-level workers are like this, and they scold the emperor if they can't do anything about it. Even if he didn't dare to scold at the time, he would still scold when the emperor died.

Why was Zhu Yuanzhang scolded so badly? It is because Zhu Yuanzhang stands in the interests of ordinary people to govern the country. It harms the interests of these wage earners.

There is also a very important reason why these nobles and merchants stopped making trouble. That is the threat from the emperor, and it has not yet burned on them.

Capital is weak, as has been proven time and time again by later history.

These capitalist gentry have not directly shaken their interests at this time, so no one wants to jump out and be the first bird.

Everyone knows that being a good bird doesn't end well. The only way is to encourage the people to be the first birds.

But under the emperor's high-pressure policy, the act of discrediting the emperor could only be carried out in secret.

Rumors in the dark still come out from time to time. However, they didn't dare to spread it so blatantly, and the efficiency of communication was much worse. To stir up the people to rebel in order to overthrow the emperor's rule. Unless there are a large number of people who cannot survive, such as unemployed.

But if the business can continue, it is naturally impossible for these businessmen to deliberately lay off employees or anything. Isn't that just tossing yourself!

So soon the situation became, and those scholars and businessmen did not dare to scold Zhu Youxiao in public. However, the reprimands of those officials continued one after another, and many of them basically pointed at Zhu Youxiao's nose and scolded.

However, Zhu Youxiao did not deal with it directly, anyway, he did not go outside to scold, and it would not have any impact on the stability of the Ming Dynasty. As for these officials, they can be included in the blacklist. In any case, these officials who oppose these policies that are beneficial to the country do not want to be promoted in the future. In addition, these officials will also enter the key supervision targets of the Discipline Inspection Commission and the factory guards, and they will be put to death if they grasp the handle.

At this time, Zhu Youxiao made so many reforms that those officials who opposed it did not know where to put the main force of the struggle.

These officials opposed the imposition of commercial taxes and customs duties, and also opposed the land policy of the Northern Zhili. He even opposed Zhu Youxiao's direct promotion of grassroots officials to become officials.

It's just all sorts of opposition. But what's the use of opposition.

Nowadays, the collection of commercial tax in Beizhili, Northeast China and Taiwan has become a foregone conclusion, and the collection of customs duties is also a foregone conclusion. These rotten bureaucrats have fewer and fewer places to restrain Zhu Youxiao.

In terms of taxation, Zhu Youxiao did not rely too much on these civil officials, and few of the tax bureaus were selected by imperial examination. Agricultural taxes are no longer so important to the imperial court. Or that the agricultural tax itself is very important to the state, but the Ming Dynasty now has a terrible agricultural tax collection. It's really chicken. At present, the agricultural tax still depends on those civil officials to collect it, but what Zhu Youxiao has done is to strengthen supervision, and how much can be collected, and it is strictly forbidden for the government to pay Cui Ke to ordinary people.

However, the agricultural tax of Beizhili increased significantly in the fourth year of the Apocalypse, and the amount of agricultural tax in only one province exceeded the total agricultural tax of the northern provinces.

In fact, there are very few businessmen who oppose the commercial tax in the Beizhili area today, because people have adapted to the current system.

In other words, the traditional collusion between officials and businessmen has been replaced by the royal consortium. Nowadays, there are many private businessmen in Beizhili, many of whom have also risen under the new system. The advent of commercial tax has created many private merchants. Because of the traditional collusion between officials and businessmen. In today's Beizhili, it is no longer possible to eat, and if private businessmen want to make money, they have to rely on their real skills, not brainless people to make money.

Of course, private businessmen also want the business tax to be lower, who wouldn't want to! But they are no longer able to grasp the mainstream of public opinion, and they do not dare to stand up and call for anything, because they do not have that qualification. And many businessmen also realized that the business of Beizhili was prosperous. It's built on today's system.

Although the imperial court levied a commercial tax, it also made the cake bigger.

And those mainstream businessmen who were once opposed to business taxes. Most of them have been rectified to either go bankrupt, or flee from Beizhili and be excluded from the Beizhili market.

Such a commercial tax is not as territorial as the mining tax. But smart people have found that the emperor's taxation method is now more clever than that of the Wanli Emperor's mining tax.

Because the territoriality is not so large. The impact is also local. After the part is digested, the opposition is gradually reduced, and the tax efficiency is also very high.

Especially now that the scale has expanded to the entire Tohoku region, and the imperial court now has the money to develop the Tohoku region. In the future, it will not be long before the finances of the imperial court can be completely revitalized.

The old bureaucratic forces are coming and going. In the end, the firepower was concentrated on Zhu Youxiao's official promotion method at this time.

With the recovery of Liaodong in the northeast, four more provinces were opened, plus the opening of Taiwan Province. A large number of new establishments of local officials appeared in the Ming Dynasty. The local leaders alone need to promote more than 100 people, not including other officials. All in all, at least more than 400 principal officials are needed.

As a result, it didn't take long for the cabinet to be promoted directly from the grassroots officials.

Many of the main books and canonical histories of the local government in Beizhili, and even the documents of the state and county yamen have been promoted.

At this time, Beizhili had completed the reform of official governance, Zhu Youxiao officially joined the civil service system in Beizhili, and the establishment of local governments was also expanded.

Basically, as long as you have a talent and fame, it is easy to pass the civil service examination and enter the yamen in various places to do things. Civil servants who enter the yamen are subject to a performance appraisal every three months and a major examination every three years.

Such an assessment adopts the system of promoting, retaining, eliminating, and recruiting another group.

Those with mediocre performance and old age or physical illness will be dismissed, and they will be allowed to retire, and at the same time, a group of new people will be recruited into the yamen.

Such a system is welcomed by many readers. Especially some children from poor families, as well as some talents who were not admitted to the Juren and Jinshi.

The new system of Beizhili means that they all have a way to become a leader.

But this is clearly not good news for the old bureaucratic forces. Because many of these old bureaucratic forces were in business, and they themselves had a business background.

The children of merchants were allowed to participate in the imperial examinations, which caused the officialdom to deteriorate rapidly in the late Ming Dynasty. The main reason is that the children of merchants have a great advantage in the imperial examination, and if their children meet a good talent, they can ask a famous teacher for guidance. During the imperial examination, you can even carry out black-box operations. As a result, the imperial examination system soon became an important channel for the merchant class to infiltrate politics.

Under normal circumstances, there is a shortage of officials, so it is natural to open a department and obtain a bachelor's degree.

However, the emperor now has no intention of continuing to open the department, but is engaged in something eclectic and reducing talents, which is simply cutting off an important channel for the merchant class to continue to increase its penetration into politics.

Those officials now covet the interests of the Northeast region. Officials who have dug into the corners of Liaodong in the past will understand how huge the interests of Liaodong are.

However, the emperor's implementation of administration in the northeast region and the promotion of officials from the grassroots level completely blocked them out, and naturally he wanted to gather fire against them.

As Zhu Youxiao began to promote on a large scale those officials who had performed well and had experience in grassroots administration, those officials in the court and the central government suddenly became in trouble. Not only did he constantly oppose the performance, but he also kept jumping out as a-stirring stick in the early dynasty, which made Zhu Youxiao very annoyed.

As the contradictions intensified, every morning was like a vegetable market. The remnants of the Donglin Party had already twisted into a rope and jumped up again above the court. At this time, the Han Emperor Party was no longer Wuxia Amun, and the controversy between the officials of the two factions in the court made the court have no suspense and turned it into a vegetable market.

"If this continues, the court doesn't have to do anything, and it can hold debates all day long." Zhu Youxiao sat on the dragon chair and looked at a group of noisy officials who were quoting scriptures, and inexplicably felt a sense of irritability.

At this time, Zhu Youxiao was no longer the meeting when he first ascended the throne, the situation at that meeting was too bad, and there was no way to break through the control of the Donglin Party without engaging in party strife, and he could only engage in party strife head-on, and many things had to be put aside first.

Now the situation has improved a lot, but now there are more and more national problems to be solved, and natural disasters in this country are becoming more and more frequent.

Therefore, Zhu Youxiao has become more and more disgusted with the party struggle that still exists today.

A good early dynasty has become a place of ramp-and-file again, and there is no administrative efficiency at all. Zhu Youxiao is tired of continuing to be a referee, he has to fight for everything, and after the battle, the emperor came out to be a referee, which is really ridiculous.

That morning, Zhu Youxiao unexpectedly did not make any decision, as if he was watching coldly. After the dispersal of the dynasty, when the civil and military officials went out of the imperial palace and went to work in the yamen, Zhu Youxiao, who returned to the Qianqing Palace, summoned more than a dozen ministers of the Han Emperor Party to hold the imperial meeting.

When many officials received the news, they immediately smelled an abnormal smell.

What does the emperor want to do?

Zhu Youxiao has been on the throne for five years, and many officials have also touched some of his urine. This emperor had many tricks, and he was very decisive when he reformed.

When it comes to means, many of them are not clever. Even simple and crude, with no technology at all. But this emperor knows how to centralize power, and in the Ming Dynasty at this time, the military power has been firmly controlled by the emperor.

Although the emperor's political methods were not very good, sometimes even a little naïve. However, the ability to accumulate wealth is against the sky, and he knows how to train and manage the army, and in just a few years, he has pulled up a strong central army.

What exactly is the emperor going to do?

When a group of key ministers of the Han Emperor Party entered the Qianqing Palace, they quickly understood what the emperor was going to do. The emperor wants to centralize power, not only military power, but also a high degree of centralization of political power.

If the emperor wants to give orders one by one, he can operate efficiently without any nonsense in the court. (To be continued.) )