The Prosperous Era of Longwan

There were many people in the hall at this time, so it was naturally impossible for Wei Guangde to keep exposing his face in front of the Yan family and his son. That would make people hate him.

After a few words of conversation, Wei Guangde retreated voluntarily. The task of revealing his face to impress the Chief Assistant was completed. Wei Guangde felt that the effect was better than expected. He really didn't know whether he should thank Yan Shifan Yan Longyang.

Wei Guangde not only exposed his face in front of the Yan family and his son, but also looked for opportunities to visit other officials in Beijing before the banquet started.

But what Wei Guangde didn't know was that after all the students had finished the ceremony, Yan Shifan whispered in his father Yan Song's ear: "I'm afraid it's that kid who's been heard from in the palace. Father, do you think we will be tested this time?" "

"Don't interfere."

Yan Song looked at everyone in the hall with a kind face, without any intention of being slow, but he whispered to Yan Shifan: "The person may be choosing someone now. No matter what the final result is, we can't worry about it before. You are not allowed to interfere in this matter."

"But the palace said that Chen Hong mentioned the names of several boys many times when he came back. I checked and found that they are all relatives of this guy. Some of them may have fallen into his eyes, and I am afraid they will become famous. "

Regarding his son's words, Yan Song just looked at him with slightly cloudy eyes and said, "It's not the time. He's too young. Even if he wants to be promoted, it's not now. That's it. Stop talking about it. When he passes the examination, we can give it to him." It’s just a convenience, if you know how to try, you won’t be able to pass.”

Immediately, Yan Song just shook his head and said no more words.

Wei Guangde followed the Jiujiang government officials to visit the officials in Beijing one by one. Let's not say whether there will be an examiner among them for next year's exam. The emperor has not yet decided on the candidate. It may be useful to get close to each other through many tricks.

If the emperor decides on the candidate, they will not dare to join in these tricks.

"Students like Mr. Jiushan's poems very much after reading them in Jiangxi. It is a great honor to meet him here today."

At this moment, following other officials, Wei Guangde had arrived in front of Zhanshi Yintai, the young master of Zhanshi Mansion, and bowed to Zhanshi.

Not to mention Wei Guangde, almost all the officials in Beijing knew the detailed information of Jiangxi officials in Beijing. This Yin Taiyin Zhanshi was a very talented person and wrote many poems. Although he was not well-known in later generations. , but in this era, he is still very famous in front of Jiangxi people.

This man was also born in the Hanlin Academy. He was a Jinshi in the 14th year of Jiajing.

Until now, Wei Guangde and Wei Guangde have not found a good teacher to help and guide themselves.

When traveling in Jiangxi, I couldn't find a suitable one, perhaps because the conditions set by Wei Guangde were a bit high.

In Wei Guangde's view, to be your own teacher, you must not only be knowledgeable and famous, but also have a certain influence in the court. Otherwise, the help to you will only be limited to the people, and the help will be limited.

To have influence in the court, you must first be an official, or at least become an official. Being an official is still a bit short. After all, there is an old saying in China, "The tea is cold when you leave."

Therefore, if Wei Guangde couldn't find a suitable teacher to lead the way, he could only wait until he passed the provincial examination and was in the capital to choose slowly.

Originally, Yan Song was the best target, but unfortunately, this person got angry in the end because of his son. He will definitely not end well, and he will not be able to follow him.

Then other officials, especially officials like Yin Tai who came from the Hanlin Academy, are naturally the best targets to fawn over. They want knowledge and status, they are the prime minister, and their future is bright.

In fact, if it were placed in the previous dynasty, Zhan Shifu would have been a good job, tutoring the prince in studying, and serving as ministers in the residence. After the prince succeeds to the throne, most of these people will rise with the tide.

But now, it is a bit useless. Emperor Jiajing lost two prince sons in succession.

Yes, Jiajing's eldest son and second son both died and were buried with the prince ceremony, which means they died in infancy after they were designated as princes.

The motto "Two dragons never meet" is now firmly believed by Emperor Jiajing. He is the real dragon, and the prince is the little dragon, so he cannot see it.

Although everyone is secretive about this, they all know the truth behind it.

Emperor Jiajing has given up his plan to make him a prince. He doesn't want to have another son die.

Under such a background, Zhan Shifu naturally became a yamen with nothing to do. As for the education of other princes, it was naturally not Zhan Shifu's turn to take care of it. Emperor Jiajing directly selected a bachelor's degree from the Hanlin Academy to give lectures in the prince's palace. .

After everyone had finished the ceremony, Yin Tai just encouraged everyone to study hard and prepare well for the competition.

Wei Guangde had no excuse to stay with him, so he could only follow the crowd to visit other officials.

Shao Zhanshi, a fourth-grade official, is not too small, and he also plays a pivotal role in the court.

On the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, we had a banquet at the Jiangxi Guild Hall. On New Year's Eve, all the students who were preparing for the exam in Beijing gathered together at the Jiujiang Guild Hall for the New Year's Eve dinner.

"I don't know how many people are still on the way to Beijing at this time."

The weather is already extremely cold now. It snowed heavily during the day and stopped when it got dark.

"It's just because of the cold weather that we went to Beijing in November, in time to arrive in the capital a year ago."

Lao Kan picked up a chopstick and put the dish in his mouth and said, "If we really take a boat to Beijing, we won't be able to walk to Shandong. We'd better get off the boat and find a car."

"I don't know what's going on with this weather. There's a severe drought in the south, and it's also in the north. It didn't rain until September in the north this year. I'm sure you saw it when you came here."

"That's right, sports cars can be used in the fields."

"It's also cold. The Yangtze River is pretty good. It's impossible for a big river to freeze. I heard that several rivers in Suzhou froze last year."

"The harvest in Jiangxi this year is not good either, so we have to rely on Huguang to make do."

"If the weather stays like this, I don't know what the price of rice will be like in the next few years. I heard that several warehouses in the capital will be empty."

"It's impossible. We have to guarantee the grain supply no matter what. Otherwise, what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of border troops in the north."

Soon, everyone started talking about it because of the weather.

Food is the most important thing for the people. They eat vegetables and drink wine at the dining table, and there are many charcoal pots lit in the house to keep them warm.

But what happens when you go out? Drops of water turn into ice.

"In Shanshan and Shaanxi, there was another earthquake in the middle of the month. It seems to be something serious in the past few years."

"Where did you hear that?"

"Just yesterday, I heard from the people in the Ministry of Household Affairs that the memorial came up, but the court has no money to provide relief. The cabinet and the Sixth Ministry are still talking about this matter, trying to figure out where to get the money."

"Do you have an explanation?"

"It is said that they plan to use the money used to repair the Juyongguan city wall and deduct half of it to send to Shanxi and Shaanxi for emergency response."

Beijing was the center of the Ming Empire, and naturally all kinds of news spread the fastest. In this era, if a place suffered a disaster, only the government post could deliver the news here within half a month.

When Wei Guangde was in Nanchang City, he heard from the students in Ji'an that the imperial court was short of money, and it was all about borrowing money here and there to maintain the situation.

After sitting here for a while, I heard similar news that corroborated what I had heard before. It seemed that the Ming Dynasty was really a bad family.

Having lived in the local area for a long time, Wei Guangde once visited Jiangxi again and knew a lot about the following things.

In fact, the taxes and servitude in the Ming Dynasty were really not light. There is a saying in later generations that the taxes in the Ming Dynasty were low, but this is actually wrong.

In fact, from what Wei Guangde learned, the official tax in the Ming Dynasty was very low. The official tax was the tax collected by the central government. This part was indeed very low, which could be said to be ridiculously low.

But the taxes that ordinary people have to pay are very high, and they are miscellaneous taxes.

It is a bit like the difference between national tax and local tax in later generations, except that in terms of tax distribution, local tax accounts for a very high proportion, while national tax is very, very small, a bit like before the tax reform in later generations.

After three years of clearing the magistrate's office, he received one hundred thousand snowflakes and silver.

This is not said in vain. It does not mean how to make money at the local level, such as fundraising projects, selling government examination quotas, etc. As for miscellaneous taxes, they basically go to the hands of officials. As long as the people below Feed a little, then make the account even, and the rest is yours.

As for the natural disaster mentioned earlier, Wei Guangde had already paid attention to it. He had passed the provincial examination before, so there was nothing he could do about it.

In the event of a large-scale drought, future generations will have no good solution except ensuring water for humans and animals.

As for the South-to-North Water Diversion, come on, don't even think about the current financial predicament of the Ming Dynasty, and many technical problems cannot be solved.

"I heard someone say last time that the weather has been like this in the past few decades. There are droughts and floods in the summer, and it is extremely cold in the winter. There is no record of this in historical records."

"What's the meaning?"

"Some people from other provinces say it was caused by the traitors in the imperial court, but these situations have already existed decades ago. This was the case in the Hongzhi and Zhengde dynasties. What does it have to do with Mr. Yan Ge?"

"That's an excuse for political struggle, just listen to it."

Wei Guangde listened to these words and felt that they really did not waste their time in Beijing. They were really well informed about this information.

For example, when the candidates were talking about this, he, Lao Kan, and Shen Liangdong could only sit aside and listen to them.

There is no way to solve the natural disaster.

Regarding finance, Wei Guangde admitted that he had no way to solve it.

Doing this is a way to survive by offending others. Historically, it seems that Zhang Juzheng was the one who did this, but he didn't end up doing well in the end.

It was said that the emperor wanted to liquidate it, but in fact many officials below hated Zhang Juzheng deeply, so they added insult to injury and made up many things to anger the emperor.

So it was not completed in the Ming Dynasty, but it seems to have been completed by Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty. Wei Guangde saw it when watching TV series, and there was such a plot.

He still remembered what was said on TV, "sharing the land between the peasants and the peasants" and "the gentry all paying the grain and serving as errands". It was probably these two reforms that brought a lot of money to the Qing Dynasty's finances.

I didn't quite understand what it meant before, but now Wei Guangde knows what it means when he hears these two words.

Sharing Ding into Mu means spreading the Ding tax to the fields. Dingkou who have no fields or land do not pay taxes and only collect taxes from the landlords.

As a gentry, he felt a little immoral because it harmed his interests. He was now a member of the imperial family and did not have to work as a servant to pay for food.

As for the first item, Wei Guangde felt that he could raise it at the right time. Although it would offend the landlords, if he could get something in return, then he would offend him and convince them with great principles.

The second point is that Wei Guangde would not speak out even if he was beaten to death, so the loss would be a bit big.

In addition, it seems that there is also a Huohu Gui Gong, which offends the local officials and cannot be done.

Huohua is actually an additional payment for some auxiliary expenses after the regular tax is collected, which is part of the miscellaneous taxes. In the past, these things were directly collected by local officials and were a type of gray income.

Well, in fact, Wei Guangde's poor knowledge of feudal social reform came from the TV series "Yongzheng Dynasty".

Thanks to the rudimentary Internet at that time, Wei Guangde was still watching TV and videos at that time and did not have much contact with the Internet, so he still remembered some things. If it had been broadcast a few years later, Wei Guangde was afraid that he would not remember these things.

However, in what they said just now, Wei Guangde always felt as if he had forgotten something. There seemed to be something in his mind that the weather was very cold now.

Wei Guangde had drank a few glasses of wine before, and now he was a little drunk, so he simply closed his eyes and thought about something.

Others looked at it and thought Wei Guangde was drunk, so they asked him if he wanted to ask Zhang Ji to send him back to his room to rest.

Wei Guangde just waved his hand to indicate that he was fine.

After squinting for a while, Wei Guangde remembered that he had seen before that the last year of the Ming Dynasty was the Little Ice Age, and there was a phrase called "the Little Glacier in the late Ming Dynasty."

Thinking of this, combined with the current climate, Wei Guangde knew in his heart that it was probably not the small glacier climate that only existed in the late Ming Dynasty, but had already started at this time. To be precise, it might have started decades ago.

Later generations said that the main reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty was financial collapse. Because there was no money for disaster relief, a large number of bandits broke out.

Well, if it weren't for this damn weather, there would be no need for disaster relief, and there would be no chaos and financial collapse.

What's the best response to a drought?

Call for the wind and rain.

Wei Guangde's first reaction was this.

I somewhat understand the Jiajing Emperor's Taoist career. He not only longed for immortality and eternal rights, but maybe there was something else involved.

What does it say in the novel?

Wei Guangde searched his memory. He had read a lot of online novels before, but unfortunately he preferred to read urban novels. He read very little about history, and mostly only read the previous one, because many historical novels were not interesting enough.

It's cool enough, but it's not considered a historical novel. Most of them use modern jokes to make people laugh.

Wei Guangde thought about it for a long time and found that it seemed that they were going out to grab food. From the south to Southeast Asia, it seemed to be less affected, with high food production, and then it was about occupying land, which seemed to be immigrating there.

Logically speaking, it works.

By occupying territory and immigrating, you can stabilize your rule.

Wei Guangde began to think about what he should do if he became the first assistant.

But soon, he discovered that it didn't seem to work.

What did you study?

I asked people to lead the soldiers out, fearing that they would be sprayed to death by the scholars in the court.

The same applies to ancient communications. The current Ming Empire has actually reached the maximum scope of its rule. This scope is actually about maintaining communication between the two places with existing technology.

If the distance is too far, it is impossible to hook them. It is easy to fight out and seize the territory, and then they become independent.

Besides, now that the Ming army is out, it’s hard to say whether they can defeat the European pirates.

Wei Guangde put himself in Yan Song's position and found that he seemed to have something for future generations, but he still couldn't use his fists.

You say encourage business?

OK, encouragement.

You mean collecting business tax?

Afraid of being hanged directly.

Zhang Hongfu and Wei Guangde still don't know what's going on in business now.

In later generations, farmers did not pay taxes, but the state paid money every year to let people farm the land.

That’s because commercial taxes are enough for the country to use.

But you come to the Ming Dynasty to collect taxes and see if you die.

The simplest way is to change dynasties, overthrow the original altars and build a new one.

However, in today's world, rebellion has no future.

In fact, for now, Wei Guangde could not see any reason to support the rebellion. No one from the gentry to the peasants thought about it.

Unknowingly, Wei Guangde was really drunk.