"If he wants to come, I'm afraid he won't make it?!"

On the twenty-second day of the lunar month, when the southwest was erosive and the northeast was a foreign enemy, a voice sounded from a majestic palace in Xiangfu County, Kaifeng Prefecture, Henan.

This palace occupies almost one-tenth of the space of Xiangfu County, and is a huge palace built on the basis of the Northern Song Dynasty Imperial Palace.

As the first feudal domain in the world, the Zhou domain has one of the biggest advantages over other feudal kings, that is, there are many people.

As far as the children of the clan are concerned, there are forty-six county kings alone, and there are more than 12,000 generals, lieutenants, county lords, county lords, etc.

With such a large number of clan disciples, what needs to be tested is the governing methods of the prince of Zhou.

The ancients said that self-cultivation, family harmony, and rule the world.

People in later generations don't understand, they only feel that jumping from the Qi family to ruling the world is a little too jumpy.

However, in the feudal dynasty, the so-called "Qi family" does not refer to the small family of the East and the West in later generations, but refers to a whole family.

Europeans can't understand the difficulty of the "Qi family", but if you understand the power of the clan, the Chinese children know how difficult it is.

A village is a "family", a family is a family, and a household is a household.

To serve the people and govern a family of hundreds, or even thousands, or tens of thousands, of people, it can be said that the talents required can be immediately sent to the local area to serve as the parent official of a county.

Because the family is prosperous, the more people there are, the more difficult it is to manage.

The prince of the Zhou clan is the benchmark of the vassal king who governs the children of the clan under his command.

It is precisely because it requires personal ability and strategy to govern the children of the clan, which led to the fate of the Zhou Domain, which can be said to be the best representatives of the Domain.

The huge farmland, the long-term maintenance of the place, and the many children of the clan......

All of this, so that the prince of the Zhou domain is often the best among the kings.

Therefore, compared to the silent kings, the person who took the lead in losing his temper when he heard the news was Zhu Suqin, the current king of Zhou.

At the age of fifty-eight, he was now sitting in the main seat of the hall, with the officials of the palace sitting on his left and right, and in the hall kneeling a servant who had come to deliver the message.

It is worth noting that next to the fifty-eight-year-old Zhu Suqin, there is also a county king in his forties, and next to the county king is a young man in his early twenties.

The two of them observed Zhu Suqin's anger, but they were just watching, and they didn't say anything.

At this time, an official at the left head of the hall spoke: "Your Highness, there is no need to be so angry, His Royal Highness King Qi is also your imperial nephew." ”

"Imperial nephew?" Zhu Suqin frowned tightly, and then said with contempt:

"They have all started to attack the children of the clan, what else do you call the imperial nephew?"

Speaking of this, Zhu Suqin gritted his teeth: "It's so vicious at the age of eleven, and when you're older, you still get ......."

At this moment, Zhu Suqin completely lost his previous respect for the imperial court, but gritted his teeth.

This appearance naturally cannot come out of thin air, but has been touched on interests.

Zhu Youzhen's clan innovation in Shanxi and Beizhili is equivalent to digging meat for a big clan like him.

The following are the generals of Fengguo and the county lords......

These eight short words will make nearly 10,000 of Zhou Fan's children leave.

Maybe those clan children will applaud happily when they get the news, but for the prince and the county king, this is very vicious.

To put it bluntly, like the many children of the flag who were thrown away in the cold wind outside the pass after the Manchu Qing Dynasty seized the world, the children of the Ming Sect were also very hard.

For example, the Zhou Domain, with tens of thousands of children of the clan, can completely allow them to cultivate the fields of the Zhou Domain, and it can be said that they regard them as their own tenants.

Therefore, among the many vassal kings, it is a fact that the children of the Zhou clan lived the most depressed.

For the king of Zhou and the king of Zhou Fan, most of these people are relatives who have come out of Wufu, and they still need Zhou Fan to support them, so it is also appropriate to contribute some labor.

In the eyes of many children of the clan, if they can't pass the imperial examination of the clan, they can't do business, they can't work, and they don't have their own farmland, so they can only live and endure the exploitation of themselves by the prince's three suits.

If you can't stand it, you won't even be able to go to the almshouse, and you can only starve to death on the streets.

So, they don't have a choice, as long as they can survive.

If the Ming Dynasty did not reform the clan system, then they would be squeezed by the vassal king until the dynasty fell, and they would have to be buried for the dynasty.

But now it's different, Zhu Youzhen gave the world a hope.

You must know that even if it is 20 acres of land, judging from the current prices, a place like Henan will need at least 15 taels of silver to buy 1 acre.

In other words, as long as they obediently do nothing, and wait for Zhu Youzhen to come to the field, they can harvest 20 acres of land worth 300 taels of silver for nothing.

This is still the lowest level of Fengguo lieutenants, and the other Zhenguo and auxiliary lieutenants can benefit more.

It's like a beggar who is still beaten and scolded at home today, and who doesn't work and has no food, only to get the same surprise as the twenty local houses the next day.

Three hundred taels of silver, this is the silver that ordinary people in Henan can only earn for 54 years without eating or drinking.

Such a value is enough to make the children of the clan below crazy, and this is also the case.

Although the time has not been long, the news has spread from Shanxi and Beizhili to Shandong, Henan, northern Huguang, and Shaanxi.

The first reaction of the children of the clan to this news was "Impossible!" ”

They have not received the land for decades, and they do not believe that the imperial court will give them land, even if the land needs to pay 30% of the rent and cannot be bought and sold.

You must know that this is not 20 acres per household, but 20 acres per person.

At present, it is not surprising that there are seven or eight people in an ordinary family, and if the news is followed, it is the lowest lieutenant Fengguo, and a family can also have one hundred and fifty or sixty acres of land.

What is this concept, this is the wealth that an ordinary family can accumulate after hundreds of years of hard work, or even two hundred years.

Therefore, nearly 30,000 of the sixteen sects north of the Yangtze River could not believe it.

But with the passage of time, when the news spread for a long time, someone finally couldn't help it and wrote a letter to the children of the clan in Shanxi and Beizhili, and the content of the reply was even more exciting.

It's gone! It's really a hit!

The children of the clan who heard the news went crazy, and although they did not dare to openly support King Qi's innovation, all they talked about privately was when King Qi would reform to the south.

Such a change naturally cannot escape the ears and eyes of the vassal kings everywhere.

However, for most of the feudal kings, their clan had no more than a thousand children, and as few as a few dozen, so they didn't feel that innovation had harmed their interests at all.

For example, in a small domain like King Su, there are no 20 people in the entire domain, and there are no 3,000 acres of farmland, and the imperial court does not pay money, so it uses 3,000 acres of acres in the northwest to produce more than 20 people, that is, it is relatively wealthy.

But if they support the reform of the clan system, then according to the new law, although the Su clan lost more than 2,000 acres of farmland, it received a salary of tens of thousands of taels of silver per year.

A small feudal clan like Su Fan couldn't resist the conditions offered by Zhu Youzhen's reform at all, and even many people couldn't help but take the initiative to support the reform.

It was in this situation that the vassal king, who had more children in the clan, became the feudal king who suffered the most.

But the embarrassing situation is that as soon as Zhu Youzhen made a move, he cleaned up the four kings of Shanxi, North Zhili, and northern Henan.

In this way, the vassal kings with more than 1,000 children of the clan are left with only the three factions of Zhou, Min, and Chu.

Zhu Suqin's anger was also angry because of his teammates' incompetence.

Needless to say, Min Fan is not welcomed at all, and it is close to Guizhou, if you dare to have any opinions, you will be cleaned up immediately.

Although the Chu clan occupies a luxurious place, there is a black history of "pseudo-Chu king eucalyptus", if Zhu Youzhen's guy wants to splash black water, Chu Fan may be cut down.

In this way, the great domain is left with only his Zhou Palace, which can be described as isolated.

If only Zhou Fan was in the same vein, then the emperor would not care at all, and would even reprimand Zhou Fan.

Zhu Suqin didn't want to take this risk, so no matter how angry he was, he still didn't dare to tear his face.

Because......

His good imperial nephew really has soldiers and horses......

Thinking of this, Zhu Suqin's beard trembled, but he was helpless.

However, the county king next to him spoke: "Dad, there is nothing to be soft, and it is not only us who are worried about innovation at the moment, it should be the one in Luoyang, and many princes in the world, more than 300 county kings." ”

The king of the county who opened his mouth was Zhu Gongfang, who scattered gold and silver in the face of Li Zicheng's siege in the future, and defended the Kaifeng city for the Ming Dynasty.

Standing next to him was his eldest son, Zhu Shaoyang.

I have to say that Zhu Gongzhen's words are very ear-catching, because Zhu Youzhen's change is carried out on the interests of many princes and county kings.

The kings of the world, there are records of more than 50 million acres of farmland.

Although Zhuang Tian paid the tax and paid a fixed amount of money from the tax, so the proportion was not large, the annual quota was 1.57 million taels, but there were other tenants who took the initiative to hang the land in the name of the vassal king to avoid paying taxes.

For example, Zhou Fan occupied one-third of the land in Kaifeng Prefecture, and even if he only took one percent, he had an annual income of four or five hundred thousand taels of silver.

The income of four or five hundred thousand taels, plus the fixed amount of money, is about 600,000 taels.

600,000 taels of silver, in fact, only Zhu Suqin himself, his uncles, nephews, descendants and hundreds of other people can get it.

In other words, even if it is divided equally, each person will have an income of six thousand taels of silver.

Now suddenly someone said that they would give them a fixed amount of two hundred taels to three thousand taels, and that it would be hereditary and decreasing, and then they would be told to hand over their farmland and people's land, which was no different from killing them.

Therefore, it is actually the princes and princes who have a lot of land that can really be united.

A small clan with dozens of people like Su Fan is a minority after all, and the normal clan clan has hundreds of people.

There are soldiers and horses, and they are young, and they are willing to give up......

For Zhu Suqin, having such an imperial nephew as an opponent really made him not know where to start, so under Zhu Gongqiao's reminder, he could only keep his mouth shut.

However, just because he kept his mouth shut doesn't mean that no one has other thoughts.

Almost only a few hours later, the Fuwang Mansion in Luoyang received a letter from the capital.

Compared with the Zhou Domain, which was very large, the Fu Wangfu Mansion was very deserted.

It's just a new domain that has just been in the domain for nine years, but the regulations of the Fu Wangfu Mansion are comparable to the Zhou Wangfu, and from the perspective of the palace, it can be said that all the servants are maidservants.

In the study of the palace, a man in regular clothes held a letter and frowned.

Next to him, a twenty-eight-nine-year-old woman in palace clothes waited.

In the courtyard outside the study, three young people, one big and two young, were having a snowball fight, looking extremely harmonious.

It's just that after reading the letter, the woman in the palace dress frowned slightly, and said to the person in front of her: "Your Highness......"

"Don't panic, my two nephews want to make a fuss, so let them make a fuss." The man suddenly looked up into the courtyard, and his identity was clear.

He is the Fu King who caused the dispute over the country, led to the outbreak of contradictions between Emperor Wanli and Wenchen, and indirectly led to the gradual deterioration of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Changxun......

The three teenagers running in the courtyard are his three county kings.

As for the woman next to him, it is the current Fu princess Yao.

In addition to Yao, he also has dozens of pet concubines who have no name.

I have to say that in this kind of mess at the end of the Ming Dynasty, compared with the tired and tiring Zhu Changluo father and son, Zhu Changxun can be said to be very nourishing.

The "Fulu Banquet" handed down by later generations is half-true and half-false, but Li Zicheng is not as perverted as he likes to eat human flesh.

It's just that after humiliating Zhu Changxun, he executed him, and by the way, he also allowed the eunuchs of the palace to collect Zhu Changxun's body and bury him in the mausoleum that had not yet been repaired.

It can be said that Li Zicheng is more moral to the old Zhu family, at least compared with the Qing army who avenge the Ming Dynasty, he can be called a moral model.

However, it is estimated that the current Fu Wang would never have imagined that he would be executed by a sheep herding child.

At present, even though he has felt the danger from the two brothers Zhu Youzhen and Zhu Youxiao, he is still sure that the two of them dare not bully him too much.

To put it bluntly, civil officials need to maintain the ancestral system, use the ancestral system to suppress the emperor and seize power.

Then once the emperor does something that violates their standards, he will be besieged by civil officials.

In history, Tianqi and Chongzhen did not choose to take revenge on Li Xuanzhi and Zheng Guifei because of this result.

However, the current situation is different.

Although the imperial power is still not as great as that of civil officials for the time being, it is in a delicate situation.

Zhu Changxun didn't notice this situation, no wonder he would die in the hands of Li Zicheng later.

"I look at the letter from the concubine, and it seems that the king of Qi and Banzai are very jealous......"

Yao reminded his prince, but Zhu Changxun said with displeasure:

"Two and a half boys, how can you clean me up? If you want to clean me up, clean up those rotten people first! ”

Although Zhu Changxun has a bad political vision, he also knows that such a thing as cleaning up the vassal king still requires the consent of the ministers.

This is still an ordinary vassal king, if it is a vassal king like Zhu Changxun who has not made three suits, it is easy to be impeached by Wenchen in the name of "mean clansmen".

This situation is very funny.

The Wenchen forces, who had been enemies of Zhu Changxun for more than ten years, have now become his protective umbrella......

"Your Highness!"

Not long after Zhu Changxun's words fell, he heard footsteps and the voice of the chief of the palace.

After a few seconds, Changshi walked into the study and said to Zhu Changxun:

"Your Highness, someone from the capital sent a letter, but it's ......"

As he spoke, Changshi handed over the letter with both hands, and Zhu Changxun also took it suspiciously.

This doubt was solved when he opened the letter and saw its contents.

This is a handwritten letter sent by Zhu Guozuo, one of the cabinet ministers and the leader of the Zhejiang Party.

The content of this handbook is also very simple, that is, it analyzes the current situation, says the harm of the reform of the clan system to the vassal kings, and adds a reminder at the end that the vassal kings need to solve it themselves.

"Rotten ......"

Zhu Changxun looked at the worthless handwriting, directly clutched it into a ball, and threw it into the furnace next to him.

"This budding bird, whoever loves to be whoever."

Zhu Changxun is just greedy for power, but he is not a fool.

He has been targeted by Wenchen's forces for more than ten years, can he still see that this is Zhu Guozuo's trick to find someone to be the leader?

I'm afraid that this guy not only sent the letter to himself, but also other vassal kings received this letter.

Since everyone has received the letter, it means that Zhu Guozuo does not want to support him.

One thing to say, if he really supports Zhu Changxun, Zhu Changxun may still be able to fight with those two eldest nephews.

But since Zhu Guozuo wants to bet multiple times and doesn't dare to be a bird, then don't blame Zhu Changxun for turning into an ostrich and not asking about the world.

He was going to see the attitude of the other vassal kings and follow the trend, otherwise he would be caught by those two eldest nephews, and he might not know what he would be humiliated into.

As for his thoughts, when he replied to Concubine Zheng Guifei, he was copied by Cui Wensheng and finally handed over to the Jinyi Wei Supervision Department.

On the 25th, in the Palace of the Forbidden City, as night fell, the Supervision Department handed over King Fu's reply to Zhu Youxiao's hands.

Zhu Youxiao looked at the transcribed handwriting in the candlelight, his face expressionless.

But it was this appearance that made Wei Zhongxian beside him feel worried.

Zhu Youzhen wants to move the clans in Shanxi, although Wei Zhongxian doesn't know it very well, he probably knows.

But he didn't expect that with the acquiescence of the emperor, his own King of Qi would dare to play so big.

At once, two of the four major feudal clans were rectified, and judging from the local reaction, the effect seems to be good.

However, this move attracted nearly 300 princes and county kings of the Ming Dynasty.

Wei Zhongxian glanced at the mountain of swords, swallowed his saliva, and didn't dare to imagine how much pressure the emperor had to face.

"My Iceberg Beauty Wife"

It's just that without waiting for him to think about it, Zhu Youxiao said:

"How many of these notes agree with the innovation? How many are opposed? ”

As soon as Zhu Youxiao spoke, Wei Zhongxian immediately lowered his body and responded:

"Of the three hundred and seven princes and princes of the county, there are a total of two hundred and sixty-five princes, of which seventy-two are in favor of innovation, one hundred and eighty-four are vaguely opposed, and nine princes are the normal greetings to Banzai."

After he finished speaking, Zhu Youxiao did not respond, but crumpled the letter in his hand and threw it into the honeycomb coal stove next to him.

He watched the honeycomb coal stove burn the paper to ashes until there was no light at all, and then he spoke:

"Isn't there any movement in the outer court?"

"There are some ......," Wei Zhongxian replied cautiously:

"The people below have probed for the news, long live you have dropped out of the dynasty in the past few days, and the ministers of all parties have been walking back and forth, and they seem to be moving around for His Royal Highness the King of Qi to dismiss the soldiers and horses of the three towns, and to rectify the guards and reform the clan."

"The specific news has not been detected, and the Nanzhen Fusi should be investigating, but after the Jinyiwei is renovated, the East Factory will ......"

"Alright." Zhu Youxiao suddenly spoke, and Wei Zhongxian was immediately so frightened that he immediately knelt on the ground.

The reason why he wanted to mention Dongchang and Jinyiwei was to vaguely remind the emperor that Dongchang was to control Jinyiwei, and now Jinyiwei seems to have no one to restrain him.

It's just that he didn't finish his words, and the emperor understood it carefully, so he knelt down without a trace of hesitation.

"What to do, what to say, think about it in the future......"

"Yes, yes, the slave must think about it in the future."

Zhu Youxiao's face turned on the other notes as usual, and Wei Zhongxian also nodded again and again.

"Go and pass on Li Ruolian and Cui Yingyuan to raise the heart hall."

Zhu Youxiao dealt with a few notes, and suddenly said to Wei Zhongxian.

"Slave and maid." Seeing this, Wei Zhongxian got up, and then retreated respectfully.

Half an hour later, footsteps sounded outside the Qianqing Palace, and the three figures walked into the Qianqing Palace and came to the door of the Heart Cultivation Palace.

"Long live the ministers, long live the holy bow to the ......"

Li Ruolian and Cui Yingyuan, who were announced, opened their mouths one after another and saluted.

"Come in."

Zhu Youxiao didn't raise his head, and Li Ruolian and the others also walked into the Heart Cultivation Hall under Wei Zhongxian's signal, bowing their heads and waiting for the emperor to speak.

When Wei Zhongxian walked to Zhu Youxiao's side, he put down the song and said to the two:

"Where's my brother?"

"Long live the return...... Cui Yingyuan had already received Zhu Youzhen's signal, and the emperor would answer whatever he asked, so he said:

"His Royal Highness King Qi is currently resting in the South Garden of Shuntian Mansion, and will go to Tianjin tomorrow to watch the launch of the fourteen sea ships in the Tianjin Dock."

"Huh?" Hearing this, Zhu Youxiao became interested and asked:

"Fourteen ships?"

"Long live Hui." Cui Yingyuan continued: "There are ten cargo ships with 1,000 materials, three ships with 2,000 materials, and one ship with 3,000 materials. ”

"However, even the craftsmen of the dockyard are not sure if it will be able to do it, especially the one with 3,000 materials."

"Well......" Hearing this, Principal Zhu You breathed a sigh of relief, and then turned to Wei Zhongxian and said:

"There are too many things during this time, I actually forgot about Tianjin, and I don't know how the craftsmanship of these shipwrights is, don't waste wood."

"If you're worried, you can actually see for yourself." Wei Zhongxian egged on the emperor, because he knew that the emperor wanted to leave the palace very much, and even wanted to go to the Tianjin dockyard to see the cargo ship launched.

However, his words made Zhu Youxiao frown and said: "Last time I went out of the palace, Yang Lian and they went to the palace for more than a month, if they leave the palace again this time, then ......."

"Long live, the last time I was alienated was because there was no one in Beijing, but this time it's different." Wei Zhongxian smiled and flattered, and then lowered his head and whispered something in Zhu Youxiao's ear, which made Zhu Youxiao's eyes light up.

"It works!" Zhu Youxiao didn't know what he had heard, and he was in a lot of spirits.

Cui Yingyuan and Li Ruolian were very curious, but they saw Zhu Youxiao suddenly look at them and said to them:

"Who are you?"

"Naturally, it is a person who lives long live, and it is a person who is a Ming person." Li Ruolian and Cui Yingyuan didn't dare to slack off, and responded subconsciously.

It's just that after their behavior was seen by Zhu Youxiao, the smile in his eyes became stronger and stronger.

"Good!" Zhu Youxiao coughed:

"Since you are my people, what do you think of the fact that I have asked you to do something now?" Zhu Youxiao used a very formal self-title.

"Long live the command!" Li Ruolian and Cui Yingyuan immediately knelt down, and Zhu Youxiao also said with a smile in his eyes:

"Okay, the two of you are not my humerus ministers, since this is the case, then you ......"