Qin Tai's meeting with his friend Zhang Juzheng this time can be said to be very unsmooth, and it can almost be said that they broke up unhappily.

Zhang Juzheng is no longer the amiable Zhang Juzheng who regarded Qin Tai as his relative.

At the beginning, Zhang Juzheng and Qin Tai became friends, although most of the factors were because they had similar interests and similar personalities, but it also contained Zhang Juzheng's emotion of treating Qin Tai as his own nephew.

Zhang Juzheng is the eldest son in the family, but not the eldest child in the family, Zhang Juzheng's father first married a lady and then married Zhang Juzheng's biological mother.

In other words, Zhang Juzheng's biological mother is not Zhang Juzheng's father's original match, but a house, so there are three half-sisters on top of Zhang Juzheng.

In ancient times, both men and women married relatively early, women were engaged to marry at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and boys were often fathers at the age of fifteen or sixteen.

Zhang Juzheng's eldest nephew is only six years younger than Zhang Juzheng, and Qin Tai is more than enough to be Zhang Juzheng's junior.

Zhang Juzheng treats Qin Tai as a confidant and friend, but he takes care of Qin Tai as his own nephew in life.

At that time, Zhang Juzheng almost doted on Qin Tai, and Mrs. Zhang also said that Zhang Juzheng gave almost all his father's love to Qin Tai, an outsider.

Qin Tai would remind Zhang Juzheng very tactfully even if he had some different suggestions at that time, just like his son admonished his father, Zhang Juzheng would also correct it in time.

But now the two people have changed dramatically in terms of age and identity, which has led to changes in the relationship between the two people.

Qin Tai, who is gradually maturing, looks at the problem more and more sharply, and his vision is very vicious. Every sentence, every question is the key, unless you don't say it, you will get to the point.

It is often some questions that Zhang Juzheng is unwilling to mention or answer positively, which makes Zhang Juzheng very embarrassed and embarrassed.

Since Zhang Juzheng became the first assistant of the cabinet, he likes to act arbitrarily in both things and problems, and few people dare to target him so head-on.

Qin Tai is not an official of the DPRK and China, let alone Zhang Juzheng's subordinates, so he dares to speak out about the issues that Zhang Juzheng does not want to mention.

Although these problems are not Zhang Juzheng's fault, Zhang Juzheng has more or less played some responsibilities for fueling the trouble or letting it go.

It's not that Zhang Juzheng doesn't want to take care of it, but that Zhang Juzheng doesn't dare and can't care about these things. In fact, to put it bluntly, these issues were discussed between Qin Tai and Zhang Juzheng at the beginning, but Zhang Juzheng was not the first assistant of the cabinet at that time, so he could talk cool on the side.

Now Zhang Ju is the number one in charge, and he can't make these things public, let alone make the problem clear at this time.

The so-called problems are no more than three points, the government and the opposition, and the river workers. The most serious problem in the Ming Dynasty is the problem of official corruption, the local yamen exploit the common people, the six central yamen are full of private pockets, and the royal family encroaches on land and competes with the people for profit.

These are all problems in the governance of officials, and they are not new to the present, but are left over from history. However, it was more serious in the Ming Dynasty, and there was a possibility of outbreak at any time.

Zhang Juzheng began to pay attention to this problem when he was young, but he could not find a solution.

Qin Tai is not a person who talks on paper, he proves his determination to punish the officials with his actual actions.

But Qin Tai's behavior made him an outlier in officialdom, and soon after Qin Tai became a public enemy of officialdom, Qin Tai was suppressed again and again, and finally forced to leave officialdom.

Zhang Juzheng went from his original support to later regret and sympathy, and finally had to ignore Qin Tai.

Since then, Zhang Juzheng has actually betrayed Qin Tai and given up his and Qin Tai's original ideals, which is equivalent to betraying Zhang Juzheng himself.

To put it bluntly, the government and the opposition are the distance between the officials and the people, especially the biggest contradiction between the officials and the emperor and the common people.

Ordinary people work hard for their livelihood every day, and they almost struggle desperately not to starve to death. However, the government and the royal family at all levels can eat and drink well without working, and they can oppress the people at any time, which has made the people living at the bottom unconvinced.

In recent years, there have been either floods or droughts, locust plagues and plagues have hardly been stopped, but the tax revenue of the imperial court still has to be collected by half a cent, and some places have increased the tax revenue.

The common people can't live anymore, they can't pay the taxes, so they have to sell their land, sell their children, and if they can't survive, their families will die together.

This kind of thing is not an isolated phenomenon, but something that abounds. Not only in some places with barren land, but also in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the land of fish and rice, often occur.

The common people were forced to resist in a hurry, but the court had an army to support. These soldiers, who were not able to deal with the enemy, could be said to be able to deal with the common people, and a large number of ordinary people were slaughtered.

Although the civil unrest has been suppressed for the time being, the anger and resentment in the hearts of the common people will not disappear, and this kind of thing will break out again sooner or later.

It is impossible to completely solve the problem without alleviating the contradictory relationship between the government and the people. River engineering, which seems to be an engineering problem, has actually escalated to one of the most serious practical problems in the entire imperial court.

Over the years, the main reason why the Ming Dynasty has been either a drought or a flood, locust plague and plague have often occurred, is that the river water has not been properly controlled.

The Yellow River and the Yangtze River are two great rivers and the source of many problems. In some places, silt deposition not only affects the smooth flow of waterways, but also leads to the safety and livelihood of people along the coast.

As an example, a section of river water is divided into upstream, middle, and downstream. The upstream river water will drive the soil upstream downstream, and the muddy water will come to the middle and deposit in the middle reaches.

At this time, as long as the dredging work is done, it can not only maintain the normal operation of the river, but also ensure the safety of the upstream and downstream.

However, if you are not careful, sediment will accumulate in the middle reaches, the water level in the downstream will drop, and a large amount of water will remain in the middle of the stream.

During this period, if there is a rainy season or other problems, flooding may occur in the middle reaches. If the water in the middle reaches does not go downstream, it will go upstream, and the water in the upper reaches will come up with the water in the middle reaches, which is a backlash, and the disaster is more serious than ordinary floods.

Downstream, there will also be a lack of water, resulting in poor harvests and even droughts. Whether it is a flood or a drought, as long as people die, there will be a plague, and the germs are difficult to control, so the plague will spread in a large area.

When the grain harvest is out or the water source is insufficient, it is also a time when some animals and plants have difficulty surviving, so some animals and plants have to compete with humans for food.

This is how the locust plague was formed, and a large number of locusts had to come to eat crops in order to survive and survive.

Locusts are highly fertile and numerous, and each time they cross the border, they cause the loss of a large number of crops. As long as the ecology is well protected and the locusts, which are harmful animals and plants, have their own living space, they will not affect the normal life of human beings.

Therefore, as long as the river is well managed, these problems can be easily solved. This question is very simple and clear, but why is it that the river is not well managed?

The problem lies with the river yamen and local officials who manage the river. The river yamen was established during the period of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born in the common people, knew the suffering of the common people, so he established this yamen dedicated to managing river affairs.

It is responsible for the management of all rivers, including the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. The main task is to clean up the silt on the river and dredge the river, and the imperial court allocates funds every year to hire people to do the work.

This yamen has a lot of power, and there are a lot of people who can be mobilized, and the chief headed by him is the current official appointed by the imperial court from the second grade.

At that time, the chief executive of a province was only a political envoy of the third grade, which meant that the rank of the governor of the river was higher than that of the governor of any province.

In order to show the results, in order to make the emperor happy at that time, of course, he would do his best. But soon he found that he could not do everything, and if he did so, not only would he not be able to do anything, but he would also make the river yamen useless.

He began to work slowly and carefully, nominally to pay attention to safety and economy, but in fact to find a way to keep the river yamen alive.

Soon after, the first governor of the river yamen discovered that the silt in the river would not be solved all at once, and even if it was cleaned up, it would immediately accumulate again within a few years.

While continuing to grind foreign workers, he suggested to his superiors that a river yamen be established permanently. Zhu Yuanzhang was a pragmatic emperor who knew the enormity and arduousness of this project, so he agreed to this request.