Seeing that the court meeting was about to end, whether it was the Donglin Party or the cabinet, several scholars and scholars, the tense heart finally relaxed a little. What is being discussed at today's court meeting can only be compared to the court meeting when Zhang Jiangling's ruling cabinet was carrying out economic reforms.

This kind of tense and exciting court meeting is really a little unacceptable for the slow pace of life of the Ming civil officials. This kind of ups and downs made these officials just want to end today's court meeting as soon as possible and go back to calm down.

However, seeing that the courtiers had finished reporting everything that should be reported, and after the court meeting began to quiet down, Zhu Youzhen suddenly made a voice again.

He turned to Huang Liji and asked, "Mr. Huang, how did the cabinet discuss the matter of increasing commercial taxes that I proposed before?" ”

Huang Liji immediately replied: "Your Majesty, the ministers think that it is indeed not feasible to increase the commercial tax. Merchants travel thousands of miles, the wind and sun on the road, and the goods are trafficked, just to make some hard-earned money. Seven customs have been set up in the world, and it is extremely inconvenient for merchants to come and go. Now that His Majesty is trying to raise taxes on merchants, the ministers are afraid that the merchants will be dissatisfied and cut off the north-south trade routes, and if there are no merchants in Jiubian, the capital, and Liaodong to sell goods, I am afraid that prices will soar and the people's resentment will boil, Your Majesty. ”

With Huang Liji taking the lead, almost all the officials of the Manchu Dynasty rose up and opposed it. However, Chongzhen did not back down, and he looked like he would never retreat from the dynasty if he did not finalize the matter of increasing commercial taxes today. And several other Donglin leaders are very happy that Huang Liji and Chongzhen will fight against Taiwan, although they don't know why Huang Liji is so resolute to fight against Chongzhen, but this can at least make a crack between Chongzhen and the cabinet.

Naturally, the Donglin Party would be happy to see this happen, and under the hints of several Donglin leaders, the opinions of the officials of the DPRK and China became more and more unified. And faintly thought that Huang Liji was the leader, as if he wanted to make Huang Liji and Chongzhen publicly break up because of this.

Seeing that the atmosphere in the court seemed to be getting more and more tense, Shi Fenglai, a member of the cabinet, suddenly came out and said: "The minister thinks that now the Ming Dynasty is in a critical autumn, and His Majesty has no choice but to raise taxes on merchants. And what Lord Shoufu said is indeed true, if the north-south trade route is cut off because of the tax increase, causing the prices of the capital, Jiubian, and Liaodong to soar, then the tax increase will become a bad government that hinders the Ming Dynasty, and this is probably not what Your Majesty wants..."

Chongzhen impatiently interrupted the long-winded Shi Fenglai and said, "To the point, Mr. Shi." Shi Fenglai immediately concluded: "The matter of increasing the commercial tax is itself the businessman's own business. The minister thought that it was better to follow the example of the Salt and Iron Conference of the Han Dynasty and convene the merchants of the world to discuss whether to increase the commercial tax and how much to increase the tax. If we are not merchants, how can we know if this merchant is willing to pay taxes? ”

Zhang Ruitu, a cabinet scholar, immediately came out and said, "The minister seconded the proposal. Huang Liji also stepped forward and said: "The minister thinks that this policy is very good, and the minister also seconded it." ”

With Huang Liji taking the lead, the officials who were still echoing the first assistant's opposition to the tax increase just now followed the first assistant to seconded the proposal according to inertia, and a few officials with more flexible brains did not second, but the general trend of the DPRK and China has gone.

Zhu Youzhen saw the officials kneeling below, and said with a pale face: "Since everyone thinks that there is only this way, then I will listen to you this time." However, I would like to remind you that you remember your own choices today, and I will carefully watch whether your words and deeds are consistent. ”

After Zhu Youzhen finished speaking, he didn't even wait for the net whip of the retreat from the court, he flicked his sleeves and left the royal gate angrily.

Sun Chengzong, Wen Zhenmeng, and Liu Zongzhou were confused about this ending, while Han Yi, Lu Chengyuan, and Qian Qianyi felt faintly bad. Increasing business taxes was originally a question raised by Chongzhen, but why is it now the responsibility of civil officials? Isn't it clear that civil officials have been opposing it all along?

The Donglin people left with more or less doubts, and Huang Liji, Shi Fenglai, and Zhang Ruitu looked at each other and smiled before heading towards Wenyuan Pavilion.

Soon after, the cabinet issued an edict to the world, announcing that each province would elect merchant representatives to Beijing to discuss commercial taxation.

The local gentry in the provinces were in an uproar for a while, but the nobles of the two capitals and the local royal palaces did not care about this. A merchant under the palace openly ridiculed: "A group of ordinary people, can they also do something big?" No matter what this group of people can discuss, as long as the Ming Dynasty is still surnamed Zhu, the sun will not come out of the west, can His Majesty still receive taxes from his relatives? ”

The nobles and vassal kings could ignore this so-called merchant tax conference, but the local gentry could not turn a blind eye, although this so-called merchant tax conference may not be of any use, but the gentry still wanted to mess up the meeting.

However, the local gentry who wanted to send their cronies to the meeting were soon stopped by the edict's stipulation of the amount of tax paid within three years. These local gentry colluded with officials and did not know what it meant to pay taxes for a long time.

Paying taxes in Daming can only mean that you are an ordinary businessman with no background. can be called a gentleman by the locality, and there has been at least one county magistrate within three generations of the family. With this background, ordinary tax collectors dare to come to collect taxes.

These regulations for three consecutive years have made these gentlemen who want to temporarily cling to their feet and pay money for the number of deputies. And the local officials did not dare to do anything to select the unqualified businessmen elected by these gentry as representatives. Because it has been clearly stated in the edict, anyone who dares to falsify the identity of a businessman's representative will be dismissed from his post as an elected official and an audit official.

The merchants' tax conference was nothing more than a meeting to discuss taxes, and this kind of merchant representative, who seemed to have only trouble and no benefit, no official would risk losing his official hat and making a fraud for the gentry.

Therefore, among the 230 merchant representatives, less than 30 are the representatives of the gentry, and the other businessmen are really real merchant representatives.

While the gentry were arguing about the so-called meeting of merchants' representatives, something called a newspaper suddenly appeared in the world.

When the Daming Times, which was similar in form to Di Bao but more straightforward in content, appeared, people everywhere didn't care.

In particular, the scholars in Jiangnan were basically not interested in the articles in this newspaper, which were basically written in the vernacular. Most of the people in Jiangnan have solved the problem of food and clothing, so the inaugural words cannot resonate with them.

On the contrary, the popular education model mentioned in the newspaper made some Jiangnan gentry more appreciated. When the center of the Ming Dynasty had not officially issued the compulsory education order, some Jiangnan gentry had already requested that compulsory education be carried out in Zhejiang first.

In the north of the Ming Dynasty, although Shaanxi and Ningxia have not been affected this year, the people of the two places have not yet recovered from the continuous disasters, and they will pay attention to a so-called newspaper there, except for some limited gentry who have seen this Ming Times, but it is not widely circulated.

Henan, Shandong, and Shanxi are powerful and surround Gyeonggi. They hated the original Dongchang and Jinyiwei the most. After hearing that the Daming Times was reorganized from the East Factory, the officials of the three places simply did not print and distribute it to the county, and directly threw the Daming Times sent from the capital into the official pile.

And only in the capital and Beizhili areas, because of Chongzhen's personal attention, and in the counties of Beizhili and the capital area, a large number of storytellers were hired as newspaper readers, which barely made the name of the Ming Times.

After several articles in the Daming Times were revised by Liu Jingting, they were very close to colloquialism in Chongzhen's view. Although Wang Chengen and others felt that under Liu Jingting's revision, the original flowery article has now become a contemptuous article of a rural villager, which is really too unorthodox.

But with Zhu Youzhen's insistence, the Daming Times still released it according to Chongzhen's intentions.

On this day, I corrected a piece of music in the morning, after lunch. Zhu Youzhen looked at the dense folds piled on the bookcase and said: "The other folds are subject to the opinions of the various ministries and the cabinet, and I will no longer approve them." In the future, if the money and food are less than 10,000 taels, it will be decided by the head of the household department himself, and there is no need to play again. However, every other month, the household department has to make a list of income and expenditure. ”

Wang Chengen suddenly said with some reluctance: "Your Majesty, this household is screaming every day that the silver is insufficient, and I want Your Majesty to pay for it." Now that His Majesty no longer examines the reasons for the use of silver by the household department, he is afraid that some cunning officials will take action and let His Majesty's silver fall into the pockets of corrupt officials, which is not a great violation of His Majesty's original intention. ”

Zhu Youzhen naturally knew that this was Wang Chengen's careful thinking, and the personnel and financial rights were the focus of the contention between the inner court and the outer court. For these eunuchs who are celebrants, even if it is the whereabouts of one or two pieces of silver in the treasury, it should be approved by the inner court, so as to ensure that the inner court has the right to speak in court politics.

Zhu Youzhen also understood that the competition for the financial power of the outer court was not only for the interests of the inner court, but also to protect the exclusive status of the imperial power.

Zhu Youzhen did not think that this kind of restriction on the affairs of the household department was a good thing for the current Ming Dynasty, but on the contrary, it greatly reduced the administrative efficiency of the household department, and the civil officials themselves were unwilling to go to the household department to take up posts.

After the Confucian scholars of the Ming Dynasty finished reading the scriptures, they could also read some miscellaneous books such as nine chapters of arithmetic, which can be described as very rare. It is undoubtedly asking for trouble for a group of scholars who don't even have basic mathematical concepts to manage the complicated and complicated labyrinthine finances of the Ming Empire.

Therefore, the Ming household department is the one with the largest shortage of personnel among the six departments, and most of the affairs in this department are essentially done by officials. With the experience passed down from generation to generation in the family, these officials dealt with the most troublesome financial problems of the Ming Dynasty.

Although Wang Chengen said that he would control the whereabouts of every tael of silver in the treasury, Zhu Youzhen did not think that these ceremonial eunuchs could fight, and these officials who had inherited hundreds of years of experience in making household accounts.

Instead of watching these poor eunuchs with their eyes wide open and being toyed with by the officials of the household department, it is better to give these officials a chance to embezzle. In an unsupervised household department, coupled with Chongzhen's deliberate decentralization, those greedy officials will soon be revealed. Maybe every official can settle his own accounts, but when the officials of the entire household department are corrupt together, that huge gap must be irreparable.

For Zhu Youzhen, the transfer of wealth from the household department to the household of the official, or from the household to the household department, is just a process. A single case of embezzlement may be able to clean up the entire household department, and this transaction is not a loss. Therefore, Zhu Youzhen still resolutely rejected Wang Chengen's advice.