37

"No, let Zishan marry the merchant's son, I firmly disagree. Deng Zishan's mother was dissatisfied.

Deng Zishan, who was unprepared, also felt disgusted and complained after hearing about this, but it was just because of her father's bad face.

"What's wrong with a merchant's son?" Deng Zishan's father asked rhetorically.

"Although we are not royal relatives and nobles, but we are also considered to be official eunuchs with status and status, according to the right family, Zishan should also marry with an official eunuch family with a similar status to you, so as not to be looked down upon, otherwise, what will your colleagues think? People still think that our Zishan has some reason to be unsightly, so we have to commit ourselves to marrying the son of a merchant!"

"You're right, and it sounds like it makes a lot of sense. According to the door, if we Zishan want to get married, we should find it in the son-in-law office of my colleagues. But tell me, which of them is a good person? There are quite a few who are handsome, but how many of them have both moral character? All of them are like their old sons, either addicts, or hungry ghosts, and they are greedy and stingy. Haven't you heard of it: The governor's son, relying on his Lao Tzu's authority, smoked a lot, went to the kiln, robbed and robbed, and ruined how many women from good families? In the governor's office, he entangled a gang of ruffians and hooligans, opened a casino brothel, and broke up many families? The sons of other eunuchs in the yamen are either the sons of the anointed Liang who do not learn and have no skills, or they are idle young masters who have no ink on their chests, and they are looking for them to be Zishan's husband and son-in-law, unless I am confused and blind, out of sight and out of mind, otherwise, I will never send Zishan to the fire pit!"

"And what's so good about the son of the North Gate?" retorted the mother.

"The Beimen family is a big family in Lincang, the family is rich, and the wealth is rivaled by the country, so the prince of Beimen is a rich son, who have you heard that the prince of Beimen has the evil act of bullying the weak? When did he commit the scandal of bullying and domineering? But there are rumors that he is involved in flowers and grass, is shameless, and gambles and prostitutes? I have heard a lot of interesting anecdotes about his punishment of evil and promotion of good deeds: It is said that he was imprisoned because he beat the county government officials who bullied the villagers; He was censored because he had seriously injured the ruffians who had colluded with the magistrates; He also fought with foreign boxers and warriors ronin, no matter whether he won or lost, at least he had the courage to stand out on stage and fight for the face of his countrymen......"

After listening to her father's words, Deng Zishan no longer resisted the son of Beimen in her heart, although she didn't accept it very much.

"I heard that the son of the North Gate is not the same, he is a little disobedient and unfilial to his parents, arrogant and unruly, he has not obeyed discipline since he was a child, and he is even more laissez-faire when he becomes an adult, he has read a lot of books, and he does not do the business at home, he travels around, makes friends, and is even obsessed with martial arts, dancing swords and boxing all day long, and even went to Dongying Fusang Country to learn what art and what teacher, can he practice martial arts as a meal? Can he glorify his ancestors? Zishan wants to marry him, can he have a good life?"

"What's wrong with a rich kid like him who doesn't have to worry about food or clothing, who has the moral knowledge of cultivating his mind and cultivating his character, and who also has world-class martial arts? In this world, every time Zishan goes out to burn incense and worship Buddha, aren't you also worried that she will not be bullied by gangsters and wicked people? Zishan wants to be like her aunt Yanling, who has a kung fu skill, and a woman who does not let her eyebrows, or marry a martial arts master like the son of Beimen, do you still need to worry about her safety when she goes out?"

"But he also has to do something when he is young, right? Whether he is in business or politics, he will not be idle all his life, right?"

"What is wrong with not engaging in business and politics, and being indifferent to fame and fortune? A person who works hard to make a strong country and becomes a talented person has more than a thousand paths? Or study medicine to eliminate diseases and help the world and save people; or as a teacher, setting up a classroom to teach and educate people; or practice martial arts, punish evil, promote good, and uphold justice....... Why do you have to be in business or politics to be able to do something? What is the good thing about doing business? Either you are a traitor or a thief, you must not evade taxes, you will not be deceived or deceived, you will not be cheating, you will not be cheating, and you will not be shoddy...... How do you tell him to survive and get rich?"

"Why can't you survive and make a fortune in a serious business?" said Mrs. Deng.

"Madame should know the allusion of 'harsh government is fiercer than a tiger', right? Now the way of the world is not much different from when Confucius and his disciples passed by Mount Tai and met the old woman. What is harsh government? Harsh government means that it doesn't matter if you are ploughing the land, or doing business, or even prostituting women...... Even if your family is destitute, in addition to the taxes that the imperial court has increased year by year, you also have to bear all kinds of fees set up by local officials to increase public and private income. If you want to engage in business, and if you want to make your business bigger, you must pay a little bit of the monthly interest and annual red envelopes of the officials of the various yamen in your territory, otherwise people will send people to check the goods of your shop every day, and you can seal your façade by finding some flaws, so how can you do business? After the officialdom is over, in order not to be secretly troubled by people shooting behind the back, you have to pay protection money to the head of the underworld gang...... All these expenses, you can only add the cost of goods, increase the price accordingly, and finally the buyer will pay, that is, you and me and the public outside. Do you think that anyone who is virtuous and virtuous can do business?"

"What about politics?" Madame refused to admit defeat.

"As the saying goes: if you don't be an official, you can be an official. In other words, if we use > to grate the Qing Dynasty officialdom, from the local county orders, prefects, governors, and governors, to the central ministries of the capital, the princes, and the ministers, including the criminal department in charge of the prisons, the Dali Temple, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate responsible for impeachment and supervision of officials, how many of them are not >corrupt? After careful investigation and in-depth investigation, I dare not imagine how many officials will be arrested or exterminated because of corruption and violations; or exiled from prison; or be dismissed from office and never be hired. The entire government office of the Great Qing State will be empty nine times out of ten, and there will be no officials in office. ”

"Doesn't the emperor know? Doesn't he arrest and kill so many corrupt officials every year? Why can't he catch and kill them all?"

"How can the emperor not know? What can he do? From ancient times to the present, there has been a stubborn disease of corruption, and there is no one to treat it, and there is no cure for it. Not to mention, from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, have there been fewer corrupt officials and corrupt officials? Taking Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang as an example, the killing of corruption and anti-corruption is known for its iron-fisted cruelty, which has caused many corrupt officials to talk about the tiger's color. During his reign of 31 years, he launched six large-scale anti-corruption campaigns, killing as many as 150,000 corrupt officials by various methods, creating the most among emperors in all dynasties. What is the result? Corrupt officials are not like cutting leeks, but cutting stubble and giving birth to another stubble......"

"And why?"

"The root cause is the centralized system of this imperial monarchy. Under this system, we, the officials, who serve in the various government offices, each hold the supreme public power that is almost unsupervised. He used money to do bad things, such as eating, drinking, prostituting, gambling, smoking, sucking people's milk, raising a junior, taking a celebrity, and prostituting overnight*...... For example, as long as I am in the seat of the political envoy and within the scope of my authority, I have the same absolute power as the emperor. I have the power of life and death over my subordinates; If I am charged with a crime, I can put any ordinary person in prison and beheaded after the autumn; In the name of the imperial court, I can use the government servants to forcibly demolish the ancestral house where any powerless and powerless family has lived for generations, occupy his land and firewood, and raze his cemetery...... The mountain is high and the emperor is far away, and the imperial court has given me absolute power, and everything is up to me.

Whenever someone goes to the yamen under my control to do things, and cannot do them, he can do them if he spends money or asks for favors; According to the law, if he is not sensible and does not leave much money to buy the road, I am not happy, and I will not say that I will not do it, I will find excuses every day to have important official business to deal with, and delay him for a year and a half, and he will have no way to file a complaint. Whoever wants to pick quarrels and provoke trouble because he is dissatisfied and wants to fight for some so-called fairness and justice, I will immediately accuse him of plotting rebellion and using government officials to arrest people. If my official service is insufficient, the officers and soldiers under the governor's direct jurisdiction and the governor's direct jurisdiction can be used by me. Because on my territory, I represent the Qing court and the emperor, and if you are enemies with me, you are against the Qing court and the emperor, do you still have a way to live? ”

"Even you .......," Madame blurted out.

"I'm ashamed! I can't get stuck in the mud and not get dirty. As the saying goes: 'Three years of Qing Governor's Mansion, 100,000 snowflakes of silver.' Not greedy, not indiscriminate, 30,000 a year. ’

Compared with the governor's and governor's yamen, who have hundreds of thousands or nearly millions of silver taels in their accounts every year, my feudal yamen is considered incorruptible, but my subordinates and I still have tens of thousands of silver taels every year to fill our pockets. According to the words of my subordinates: I don't have to ask where the money comes from, those who see it have a share, and those who get rid of them are what I deserve. If I want to pretend to be high, I just can't get along with everyone, and I will fall into an embarrassing place: my subordinates will alienate me and reject me, wishing that I would be removed or get out of my job early; Not only will my superiors not praise me, but they may even despise and hate me, because I can't pay tribute to them. On the contrary, if I follow the trend, if something happens, someone below will come forward to bear it, lock him up for a few days, and come out to resume his job as before, and he will not affect me; There are people on it, big things are small, small things are small, and in the end nothing happens. All I can do is to always tell my subordinates and warn them: "Others take money to do things, you and I give convenience, each has its own plans, and everyone is happy." Try not to make a big mess for people to grab the handle, and never make a life lawsuit. My bottom line is: You can make money, but you can't hurt people. ”

"Are we short of money?" Madame was a little unrecognizable to the fact that her husband was not an incorruptible official.

"As a political envoy, I can receive more than 100 taels of silver, more than 100 taels of rice every year, plus 5,000-9,000 taels of incorruptible silver, which is more than enough if all of it is used for household expenses. But do I have little entertainment every year? Didn't most of the silver taels that my subordinates paid filial piety pay to me through my hands, and then transferred them to my superiors and the princes and ministers in the capital? Sometimes it is not enough, and I have to take it out of my silver, you know that, right?"

"Is it only a good salary to be cheap?"

"The so-called high salaries and honest maintenance are nothing but tricks played by privileged officials to deceive the grass people in order to justifiably take more money from the court and eat more 'imperial grain' from the imperial court. In all dynasties and dynasties, which official with privileges did not earn a high salary? How many honest officials were raised by high salaries? In a large country with a history of civilization of several thousand years, there are very few officials who can be called honest officials, and there are only a handful; And the big corrupt officials, all dynasties, abound, countless, endless, endless. Do you still want Zishan to marry someone like that?"

"This ...... This...... Let Zishan decide for herself!" Madame said for a moment.

"Okay, Zishan, you say: Are you willing to marry corrupt officials and profiteers, or are you willing to marry a chivalrous and righteous man like the son of Beimen?"

Deng Zishan, who was listening attentively to the conversation of her parents on the side, did not expect her father to suddenly have such a question, and she didn't know how to answer in a hurry, so she had to avoid being embarrassed: "Since ancient times, the marriage of children has been a major event, but I can do it? Isn't it all the words of the matchmaker and the orders of my parents? I think my father will never harm me, if my mother does not object, I will obey the order." ”

Because of this debate with her parents, Deng Zishan became inexplicably curious and interested in Beimen Yunfei.

.......