The Prosperous Era of Longwan

The next day, Wei Guangde saw the first memorandum sent by the Ministry of Household Affairs in the cabinet duty room, which was a memorandum about limiting the amount of land owned by the fifth generation of Xunqi.

After the cabinet meeting adjourned yesterday, Ma Sen returned to the Ministry of Revenue and arranged for someone to revise the memorial overnight and deliver it to the cabinet early this morning.

When the secretary of the cabinet distributed the memorial, he naturally sent the memorial from the Ministry of Household Affairs directly to Wei Guangde's office.

Consistent with what was said yesterday, the Shixuns were limited to 200 hectares of Zhuang farmland and 100 hectares of Qiwan farmland. Those whose Zhuang farmland was abolished were brought into the official position. However, for those whose ancestors’ tombs were still there, five hectares of land would be reserved for those with 200 hectares of land, and five hectares for those with less than 100 hectares. Three hectares were left to finance the sacrifice.

Those who were granted land but did not record it in the records were ordered to review the records. Those who did not have the land were appointed to the official position, and those who were traitors and hid their crops were all seized.

Wei Guangde verified that everything was correct, and immediately voted "yes" and put it aside, preparing to send it to the palace later to present it to the emperor.

After that, Wei Guangde processed several more memorials, and soon a Xuanda memorial appeared in front of him, with the Ministry of War reviewing it.

Just last month, Ma Fang, the chief military officer of the Xuanfu, led his general Liu Tan and more than a thousand people to attack the captive cavalry 200 miles away from Dushibian. They were defeated in Haizi, Changshui. They returned to the border before they arrived, and the captives After chasing them to Anzi Mountain, Ma Fang and others fought again and were defeated. They captured and killed more than 80 people and captured more than 40 horses.

The Governor of Xuanda, his minister Chen Qixue, and the governor of Xuanfu Wang Lin reported the good news for commendation. The Ministry of War reviewed and proposed forty taels of silver, two pieces of silk, and one son to cover a thousand households. Chen Qixue, the Viceroy's Assistant Minister, has forty taels, two exterior and interior. The governor Wang Lin paid thirty taels, one for the outside and the other for the inside. Each was promoted to one level of salary, and the deputy military envoy Fang Fang met the time, and Liu Tan, the general general, received twenty taels of silver each.

Wei Guangde naturally approved the commendation proposed by the Ministry of War, which was also customary.

However, he had not been a cabinet minister for a long time, and Wei Guangde had more to consider. He also had to win over key departments such as the Ministry of War and the Six Ministries.

When you reach the level of a cabinet minister, being a lone minister as mentioned in some movies and TV dramas is actually not advisable, because there is no one under you, and no one may try their best to implement the policies formulated. You need to build your own team in the six departments.

As for the people he wanted to win over, his first choice was naturally the ministers and ministers of various ministries.

Think about it, when Chen Yiqin entered the cabinet, he was also frightened and worried about being isolated. It was Wei Guangde who gave him advice. Not only did he find fellow countryman Zhao Zhenji to be the minister, but he also promoted Wang Ting to the Imperial Procuratorate to serve as the censor of Zuodu. Initially, he was in the court Build up your own strength.

Wei Guangde didn't have as many concerns as Chen Yiqin. At least the Ministry of Industry supported him, as well as a group of officials from Yuan Yuzhuan. However, he also had to consider recruiting more officials to work for him.

After writing a vote in favor of the Ministry of War's proposal, Wei Guangde finally cited the lack of police for autumn defense as an excuse to praise the Ministry of War for its solid defense work in the North this year. He suggested that everyone from the Minister of War to the Vice Minister, the Minister of Health, and the Ministry of War should be commended and commended. .

If you have dates but not dates, hit the pole first to show your goodwill, and there will always be people who like you and come to your house to see you.

After reading several memorials, Wei Guangde couldn't sit still.

When he was in the Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Rites, he didn't have to deal with so many documents.

Even when he was editing "Yongle Dadian", he only read a few books every day, and he didn't necessarily sit in the room to read it all the time. Sometimes when the weather was nice, he would move the tables and chairs to the courtyard.

But now that he is in the cabinet, of course he can no longer be so casual.

After sitting and processing the memorial for a long time, Wei Guangde got up and went out.

Sitting for long periods of time doing official duties is definitely not good for your health. If you don't pay attention to exercise now, you will suffer from it later as you get older.

With his hands behind his back, Wei Guangde had just left the door of the duty room when he saw the cabinet secretary coming with a reed. After saluting, Wei Guangde pointed to the duty room behind him and said with a smile: "You can do your errands here from now on."

"Yes, sir, I will definitely do my best to help you."

The Cabinet is no different from other yamen in that it has certain review procedures for those who work here.

The main reason why Wei Guangde kept Lu Bu with him was because he knew that he had another identity besides being a scribe.

After all, the royal family wanted to put a pair of eyes beside him. Instead of having to look for him after changing places, it would be better to put him under his nose from the beginning.

But Wei Guangde didn't expect that Lu Bu would follow him into the cabinet, and the review would take so much time.

Perhaps Jin Yiwei didn't want the people in the cabinet to discover their handiwork, so they didn't use some connections to stuff Lu Bu into the cabinet as soon as possible, but followed the relevant procedures honestly.

In fact, Jinyiwei has always monitored important officials in the court, and it is very confidential.

Because in principle, the cabinet ministers and the six ministers have a lot of information that is not known to the outside world, and their surveillance must obtain the emperor's consent.

Otherwise, surveillance is very likely to turn into theft.

When the emperor agrees, there will naturally be many considerations, and the decision cannot be made overnight.

The important ministers were also extremely disgusted by the extra pair of eyes around them. Once they were discovered, they would often complain to the emperor, and the blame would definitely hit the Jin Yiwei's head.

That's why they took it so seriously. Even if Wei Guangde was willing to keep Lu Bu, he would never dare to reveal his identity and could only wait for instructions from above.

Now that he is here, it may also explain a lot of things.

In fact, since Wei Guangde arrived in the capital, the people around him have always been mainly acquaintances, that is, people from Bengshan Fort.

The original team of Wei Mansion were all sent by Wei's father, because they were afraid that Wei Guangde would recruit unworthy people in the capital and cause him trouble.

The families of these people are either in the capital or in Jiujiang. Under the nose of Mr. Wei, he is not afraid of their sellers seeking glory. One day he can deal with them at will.

However, after marrying Xu Jianglan, there were also many people from Nanjing who came to marry him. Wei Guangde had no good way to deal with such servants from the Duke's mansion.

He was sure that there were spies from Jinyiwei inside, but with Xu Jianglan's connections, he couldn't drive these people out of the house.

The current Wei Mansion was actually more or less infiltrated by spies, and there was not much he could do.

Fortunately, when I make money, I still follow the rules, and there is no illegal means such as robbery, so I am not afraid.

Yes, Wei Guangde's money-making methods, if left to later generations, would definitely involve power-money transactions, which would be illegal, but in the Ming Dynasty, this was within the rules.

Of course, the day he offends the emperor, legality will become illegal. Otherwise, the emperor always talks about the Constitution, and whatever he says is what he says.

He asked the clerk to take Lu Bu to his room to get familiar with it. He wandered over to Chen Yiqin and saw that he was still working at the desk, so he gave him a few words of advice, asking him to pay more attention to his health. It would be best to imitate him when dealing with official duties. I walked around, stretched my muscles and bones, and also talked about some of the memorials I dealt with today.

This can be regarded as communicating information secretly. The memorial has not yet been sent out. If Chen Yiqin is involved, some things may still have time to be changed.

Chen Yiqin stayed here for a while, then he wandered over to Yin Shizhen and talked for a while.

As for Li Chunfang and Zhang Juzheng, he just went over every now and then to sit and chat.

Now the Ming Dynasty's cabinet is basically under their control. As long as they don't break up with Li Chunfang and use the privileges of the chief minister, they usually have the most say in cabinet discussions.

Near noon, the memorials that had been processed in the morning were taken away by the chamberlain and sent to the Supervisor of Rites for sorting. They would be delivered to Emperor Longqing as soon as the afternoon.

Although there are a large number of memorials sent from the Department of General Affairs and the Supervisor of Rites every day, there are actually only a few things, and many of them are repeated repeatedly in various places. For example, if a certain place is hit by a disaster, it requires tax reduction or exemption, or a province needs to withhold part of it to suppress rebellion. Taxes, etc.

There are precedents. In fact, after reading it, just follow the usual rules and make a decision.

Why did Emperor Chengzu Zhu Di create a cabinet? It was actually to deal with this kind of memorial.

Correspondingly, if Wei Guangde were in charge of the cabinet, he would want to delegate the task of handling such memorials to the Central Secretary and let them vote for them. Anyway, they would copy the past practices and there would be no mistakes.

Unfortunately, he is not.

During this period of time in the cabinet, most of the documents he dealt with were repetitive like this, which made him very annoyed.

In the afternoon, Emperor Longqing saw Wei Guangde's report on the Ministry of Household's memorandum on limiting the amount of Xunqizhuangtian.

Because the people involved were not ordinary people, it was also regarded as the focus of the day in the ceremonial department and placed at the top of all memorials.

Emperor Longqing frowned slightly after reading the memorial and the cabinet draft, not because he had any objection to the attitude of the Ministry of Revenue and the cabinet, but because he had more on his mind.

Well, to put it simply, it was his uncle's house and several other relatives who moved around when he was King Yu.

In fact, the memorials of the Ministry of Revenue have detailed descriptions of the land granted to Shixun and Qi Wan. For example, among the Shixuns, the one with the most land belongs to the Duke of Chengguo, with more than 1,300 hectares of land. The residences of Duke Dingguo and Duke Ying also have more than 500 hectares of land. An area of ​​​​area, and other great masters also have hundreds of hectares.

But Qi Wan was different. The Prince Consort Li He and the Prince Taibao Li He were granted more than 2,800 hectares of land, and Xu Congcheng was granted more than 1,500 hectares of land.

Well, these two are the consorts of Emperor Longqing's sister. They married Princess Ning'an and Princess Jiashan. How do you want Emperor Longqing to criticize them?

Zhuang Tian was given to him by his employer, Emperor Jiajing, and he had to take it back when he came to him? Or a tax?

After much hesitation, Emperor Longqing still wrote in the memorial: The fifth generation honorary minister and the princess were sent to see him, and the prince-in-law had his own farm. The cabinet, together with the censor of the field, agreed on the rules of how many hectares should be left for hearing.

Such criticism was actually a rejection of the figures previously discussed by the cabinet in the cabinet meeting. It also meant that Wei Guangde had forgotten that in Emperor Longqing's heart, there was more or less a personal relationship between the Tian family, so how could he do things too absolutely? .

Well, when Wei Guangde saw that the consort's farmland was as high as thousands of hectares, it was impossible to say that he was not jealous.

How much land does his family have?

If these relatives married a princess or a daughter, they could easily get hundreds of thousands of hectares of land from the emperor. This business was done forcefully.

After Emperor Longqing finished writing the criticism, he hesitated for a moment.

He also knew from the words on the ticket that this memorial was written by Wei Guangde, so it was necessary to make his meaning clear to Wei Guangde, so that the next time he submitted the memorial, it would be consistent with his intentions.

"Chen Ju."

Emperor Longqing said.

"The slave is here."

Chen Ju hurriedly stood up from the side and stood in front of Emperor Longqing.

"Come here."

Emperor Longqing did not speak directly, but whispered.

Chen Ju had a strange look on his face for a moment, but he quickly recovered and approached Emperor Longqing.

Emperor Longqing's face did not change at all. He leaned over and whispered softly in Chen Ju's ear. Chen Ju soon opened his mouth slightly.

He had not read the memorial. He was not on duty today as the Chief of Ceremonies, but it was his turn to serve as the Imperial Attendant. Therefore, he was still a little confused about what Emperor Longqing said. When the emperor handed the memorial to Chen Ju, he glanced at it. Only with careful eyes did I understand what was going on.

"Take it and go directly to Shandai and let him deal with it again."

Emperor Longqing had already sat upright at this time and commanded Chen Ju majestically.

"According to the order."

After Chen Ju bowed and saluted, he quickly left Qianqing Palace with his memorial.

Soon, Chen Ju's figure appeared in the cabinet and Wei Guangde's duty room.

"Eunuch Chen, I wonder what you are doing for me?"

In the cabinet, when Wei Guangde and Chen Ju met, they acted businesslike.

"Mr. Wei Ge, there is a memorial here. Your Majesty asked me to send it to you."

While speaking, Chen Ju had already taken out the memorial from his sleeve and handed it to Wei Guangde.

Although he was suspicious, Wei Guangde still reached out and took it, recognizing it at a glance.

Looking at the sticker, two lines of small words appeared in front of his ticket. Wei Guangde knew at a glance that they were not written by the representative of the Supervisor of Ceremonies, but by the emperor himself.

"It is said that the fifth-generation honorable minister and the princess are here, and the prince-in-law has his own farm. The cabinet and the censor of the farmland have agreed on the rules of how many acres should be left for hearing."

After muttering it in a low voice, Wei Guangde's heart sank, knowing that this matter was not in line with the emperor's wishes, so it was rejected.

And the reason, he also saw, the village land of Xunqi seemed to be missing.

There is also a royal family that has a close blood relationship with Emperor Longqing, but it seems that they have not been taken into consideration.

Wei Guangde frowned and glanced at Chen Ju, his heart suddenly moved, "Do you have anything to say, Your Majesty?"

It was really difficult for him to guess Emperor Longqing's psychology, so he simply asked.

Chen Ju looked back and saw that the clerk had exited the room, and now they were the only two in the room. He then waved to Wei Guangde.

Wei Guangde was suspicious, but he still leaned over, and Chen Ju repeated Emperor Longqing's words in his ear.

After listening to what Chen Ju said, Wei Guangde frowned even deeper.

What's the matter, this emperor really doesn't know how expensive firewood and rice are.

He is the nominal head of the family, but he leaves everything to them.

Wei Guangde was a little speechless. He didn't just levy some taxes, nor did he say that he would bring his relatives' land into the official position. But Emperor Longqing suddenly set the tone so high. If he really wanted to do this, I'm afraid Shixun would be dissatisfied. .

"Your Majesty, there is no room for negotiation?"

Wei Guangde asked hesitantly.

"Your Majesty gave this order. He must have known that if it spread, some people might be dissatisfied. That's why he asked me to send you a message."

Chen Ju replied in a low voice.

Wei Guangde glanced at the emperor's criticism in the memorial. Fortunately, he highlighted the key points. If he directly rejected it and discussed it later, he wouldn't know how to tell other people about it.

To put it bluntly, the emperor should treat them differently.

In principle, there is no problem between Shixun and his wife. It’s just that the wife’s salary has been increased from 100 hectares to 150 hectares.

As long as he's lower than Sehun, it's okay to comfort him.

But the emperor's attitude towards certain families among his relatives was different, and this was the reason why Wei Guangde felt embarrassed.