Emperor Chongzhen listened to Xu Guangqi's words, especially the last sentence, and knew what he meant.

That means that among the children of these clans, the most inferior ones also have the lords of the lieutenants of Fengguo, the rich wealth of the imperial court, and the prohibitions set by the ancestors, what else can they do, of course, they can only be full of food all day long, and have nothing to do.

Emperor Chongzhen sighed and did not speak.

After Emperor Chongzhen let Xu Guangqi enter the cabinet as a scholar of the palace, he also kept him concurrently serving as the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, in addition to his proficiency in the calendar and the need to be responsible for compiling a new almanac, there is also an important point, that is, he is not an ordinary civil official.

Xu Guangqi has the same place as other Jinshi civil officials who are familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics, and there are also great differences, and this difference is exactly what Emperor Chongzhen values him.

Today, the reason why Emperor Chongzhen took this opportunity to ask Xu Yunzhen and Xu Guangqi about the clan is also because one of these two people is mediocre, and the other is different from other civil officials.

Emperor Chongzhen was thinking about what Xu Guangqi said, but at this time, Xu Yunzhen, the Duke of Dingguo, who was in charge of the Zongren Mansion Zongren Order, said:

"Your Majesty! What Xu Ge Lao said is the Juelu system set by the ancestors back then, but after more than 200 years, although the descendants of our Emperor Ming clan are flourishing and becoming more and more numerous, the actual situation of the children of the clan is not as good as the original Juelu system.

"It may be possible to do nothing, but to eat all day long is not to generalize! As far as the minister knows, the prince gave Lu Mi Wan Shi every year, although it was customized for the ancestors, but since the temple, it has not been able to pay the full amount. Among them, there are those who pay for the discount, and there are also those who offset the treasure banknotes, salt quotations and even cloth and silk.

"Among them, those who feudal Jiangnan are noble and rich, and they can eat and do nothing all day long, but those who feudal Jiangbei and even the border areas have accumulated arrears for several years, or even more than ten years.

"Although the ministers have not seen it in person, they have often heard that some of the children of the clan are not timely in paying Lu rice due to local transfer, and even owe Lu rice over the years, and there are even those who make a living by selling their ancestral business, and some who live by the help of their relatives!

"There are also children of the clan who are guilty of repatriation and abolished as concubines, from the early years of Yingzong to the month of Lu rice ten stones, to the temple to the temple to the month of Lu rice six stones, to the temple to two stones, and to the time of Wei Eunuch to the government from the beginning of the stone to nothing.

"Now the children of such clans, who have no source of income, and are limited by the ban, sink into the people, and run around begging for life, I don't know how many people there are?! are both descendants of Taizu, and their circumstances are very different, and it is embarrassing to think about it! ”

Speaking of this, Xu Yunzhen, the Duke of Dingguo, suddenly remembered that His Majesty the Emperor in front of him, since he ascended the throne, he had personally cleaned up the two relatives of King Fu and King De.

When Xu Yunzhen thought of this, he was shocked, and seemed to realize the true meaning of the emperor's previous words, and immediately knelt on the ground, and said in a trembling voice:

"Your Majesty! The ministers are hearsay, nonsense, and old and faint, and do not know what to do, please forgive your majesty! ”

Emperor Chongzhen saw that Dingguo Gong suddenly acted like this, and knew that he should be Fang Cai at that moment understood his intentions, but when he saw a first-class duke, he was frightened like this, and he also understood at the moment that the bad reputation he had saved was probably bad to a certain extent among the clan and the old nobles.

At the moment, he also shook his head slightly and smiled bitterly, and said to Xu Yunzhen, the Duke of Dingguo: "The Duke of Dingguo is quick to speak bluntly, what is the crime?!" I don't know the truth about the clans in the world, and what Qing and others said makes me refreshed! ”

Speaking of this, Emperor Chongzhen paused, and then said: "I think that at the beginning, the ancestors divided the children of the royal family as kings, which was the meaning of the winged emperor Ming Jiangshan, and the children of the clan were not allowed to engage in the business of the four people, but it was to think about how difficult the people's livelihood was!"

However, now, two hundred years have passed, and the original intention of the ancestors has completely backfired! The children of the clan forbade the business of the four people, originally to avoid the clan and the four people from competing for profits, but today they ordered the four people of the world to raise them without rest! The imperial court gives tens of millions of stones every year, and the children of the clan are especially waiting to be fed and not enough! The original intention of our ancestors to establish a country is definitely not the case! ”

When Xu Guangqi and Xu Yunzhen heard this, they all knew that Emperor Chongzhen was deliberately going to change the ancestral system, and this time he was going to make a move against the clan.

A figure like Xu Guangqi, of course, knew that the clan of the Ming Dynasty was a heavy burden for the imperial court, for the local government and the people.

Regarding the problem of too many clans and too much burden on the imperial court, Emperor Jiajing wanted to change it when he was in power, and Zhang Juzheng also wanted to change it when Emperor Wanli was in power, but there were ups and downs, and in the end, no one dared to propose substantive changes.

Why did the whole court want to change the clan system during the period of Emperor Jiajing and Emperor Wanli?

It is really because the rice paid by the imperial court to the children of the clan has exceeded the total amount of grain that Taicang can collect from all over the country every year by the time Emperor Jiajing is in power.

At that time, the imperial court still had many important things to do, one of the major events of the Jiajing Dynasty was to resist the Japanese on the southeast coast, and the other was to recover the Hetao in the northwest region.

In the Wanli period, because the imperial court finances were not good, it gave up recovering the Hetao, but at the same time, there were the famous Wanli three major expeditions.

If money and grain are paid according to the standard set by Taizu and Chengzu for the children of the clan, then the ministers in the court don't have to do anything, even if the emperor wants to do something, he can't do it.

In the forty-first year of Jiajing, the political envoy of Shanxi Province wrote to Emperor Jiajing and reported a fact to Emperor Jiajing.

At that time, Shanxi's grain harvest was insufficient, and the grain stored in the granaries in various places totaled 1.52 million stones, but according to the custom, it was necessary to transfer and pay a total of 2.13 million stone of rice per year to the royal family of the fief in Shanxi, with a shortfall of 510,000 stones.

The political envoy of Shanxi did not dare to say that he would not pay, but asked Emperor Jiajing to issue an order to let the household department Taicang transport grain to make up for this gap.

At the same time, the political envoy of Shanxi also asked Emperor Jiajing to exempt Shanxi Province from the need to transfer and supply military rations to Xuanda and Xuanda.

This letter from the political envoy of Shanxi made Emperor Jiajing startled, and a province in Shanxi was already like this, and it can be imagined that the situation of the entire Ming Dynasty at that time.

However, at that time, Emperor Jiajing, who had already gone a little crazy in alchemy and cultivation, asked the cabinet ministers to solve this problem.

But no one can solve this problem except for the reduction of the clan salary, and sure enough, the clan income is reduced, and then it will be gone.

In the Wanli period, this problem became more and more serious, which is why Zhang Juzheng had to reform.

If there was no reform, the finances of the Ming Dynasty would have collapsed at that time.

However, Zhang Juzheng's reform still did not dare to attack the clan at that time, but started from clearing the tax fields of the world and increasing the financial revenue of the imperial court.

Although the financial revenue of the imperial court has increased, the amount of rice that the imperial court needs to transfer to the royal families in various places has not decreased, and it has become more and more as time goes by.

By the time Zhang Juzheng and Ding Wei stepped down and returned to their hometown in Hubei, the amount of rice that the imperial court needed to pay to the royal family of the world had once again reached its peak, exceeding the amount of rice actually collected by the imperial court that year, that is, Baiwu Shiwanshi.

At the same time, with the liquidation of Zhang Juzheng, Zhang Juzheng's new policy was also wiped out, and the income of the imperial court began to decrease year by year.

Under these circumstances, the imperial court at that time could not afford to pay in full.

The size of the royal family did not slow down slightly because of the decrease in the financial revenue of the imperial court, but on the contrary, it continued to expand.

With the end of Wanli, the Wanli Emperor made several of his sons princes, and the number of princes and princes of the Ming royal family, such as the prince and the prince of the county, as well as the number of clan knights, also reached the peak since the Ming Dynasty, that is, there were thirty-four princes and six hundred and twenty-four county kings.

The rest of the clans from the prince and the prince of the county, all the way to the general of Zhenguo, the general of the auxiliary state, the general of Fengguo, and then to the lieutenant of Zhenguo, the lieutenant of Fuguo, and the lieutenant of Fengguo, there are more than 160,000 men in the clan.

And that's not counting the titles of the women of the clan, such as the eldest princess, the eldest princess, the princess, the county lord, the county lord, the county lord, the county monarch, and almost the same number of concubines and clan honor guests.

If you add these women from the clan, and their spouses, concubines and honor guests, the population of the Huangming clan will at least exceed 400,000 by the time of the Chongzhen period.

Speaking of which, when Wei Zhongxian, a eunuch, was in power during the Apocalypse, it was not that he did not do any good things, for example, for the clan, even Zhang Juzheng did not dare to do it back then, but he dared to do it, not only buying and selling the Lu rice that the imperial court owed to the clan before the Emperor of the Apocalypse ascended the throne.

Moreover, in order to save the expenses of the imperial court, for the inheritance of the title by the children of the clan, Jiuqiansui also obstructed and set up obstacles in every way.

Among them, the prince and the prince of the county will be removed from the heir, and the side branch is not allowed to enter the succession, and the daughter of the clan will be removed after the death of the heir, and the Lumi will be cancelled.

After such a succession, it saved some expenses for the Apocalypse Dynasty.

It's just that in this way, the reputation of the nine-thousand-year-old is naturally stinking in the clan circle, and everyone can kill it.

Therefore, it is inevitable that Emperor Chongzhen chose to kill him after succeeding to the throne.

Killing him alone can not only collect the hearts of the people of the world, but also the hearts of the clans of the world, and also install his trusted ministers, why not do it?

But now, now this Emperor Chongzhen is finally going to embark on the road of offending the clan.

And looking at the performance of Xu Yunzhen, the Duke of Dingguo, his reputation in the clan circle at the moment, I am afraid that it will not be much better.