Chapter 322 Double-Edged Sword

The next day, it's chenshi in the morning.

Zhao Jun wrote a reply to Du Qi, the transfer envoy of the two Zhejiang roads.

The content of the letter is actually not much. Apart from some instructions and instructions, there are only a few simple words at the end - courtesy first, then attack.

"Give this official receipt to Du Qi."

After writing the letter, Zhao Jun read it over, then summoned the officials on duty at the Constitutional Yuan and ordered: "Let's go to the Zouyuan quickly."

"yes."

The official took the letter away.

Yan Shu, who was standing next to him, raised his head and said, "Han Long, the last transfer envoy Wang Yonggang died of illness, and Du Qi just took over, so I gave him such a difficult task, is that okay?"

He watched Zhao Jun write a letter from the side and could see the content clearly.

Originally, official documents received from the Constitutional Yuan had to be approved by other prime ministers. Matters at the ministerial level and above must be reviewed and signed by at least five prime ministers. At the state level, two prime ministers are required to discuss. Only at the county level, the prime minister can make independent decisions.

This is also to prevent the prime minister from abusing his power and arbitrarily transferring various departments, thereby triggering changes in the nature of the country.

But Zhao Jun is an exception. He can directly issue execution orders as a magistrate without going through other prime ministers. From the road and ministry level to the state level and even the county and town level, many important official documents must have his signature.

Therefore, sometimes Zhao Junqiangang is often the one who makes the final decision, making direct personal decisions on some important matters, which is even more extreme than Lu Yijian's before.

But there is nothing the old men can do against him.

After all, it is a royal charter.

Don't you see that Zhao Zhen is being used as a decoration in Chongzheng Hall every day by Zhao Jun on the grounds that "you are an emperor and only know how to govern the country with a hammer"?

Therefore, in the face of Zhao Jun's arrogance, King Lu Yijian and others had to tolerate it.

However, Yan Shu and Zhao Jun had a good relationship and were close to each other, so Yan Shu often peeked in when Zhao Jun was writing political orders.

It's not for snitching or anything like that, but just out of curiosity.

Anyway, Zhao Jun has been familiar with government affairs for so many years, and he has never made any mistakes in the major reforms he led, so everyone is used to it.

Even if you should be curious, you should be curious to see what arrangements Zhao Jun has made and what his intentions are.

Zhao Jun was also used to Yan Shu peeking, and said with a smile: "This task is difficult to say, whether it is difficult or not, it depends on one's courage. If Du Qi doesn't have that courage, what do I want him to do? The two Zhejiang roads should also be Changed."

"I'm afraid that if this matter is not handled well, it will cause a national incident and it will be troublesome."

Yan Shu shook his head.

Several prime ministers who were working around them raised their heads, and Lu Yijian asked: "Why, it's not enough to deal with the landlords in Zhejiang and Zhejiang, and you want to cause trouble all over the country?"

"That's not the case. I'm not so crazy that I want to kill all the landowners in the country."

Zhao Jun shook his head: "This matter still depends on Du Qi's ability. If it is delayed for too long, it will trigger nationwide riots."

National riots?

Everyone suddenly stopped holding the brushes in their hands and stopped reviewing their papers.

It was an official document on the road between Zhejiang and Zhejiang. They originally wanted to suppress it directly, but Zhao Jun wanted to let them go.

They also thought that Zhao Jun wanted to scare the monkeys and set an example for some landowners on Liangzhe Road.

Unexpectedly, Zhao Jun seemed to be playing a big game of chess.

Everyone couldn't sit still.

Wang Zeng said quickly: "Please explain the matter clearly first."

"Don't be surprised."

Zhao Jun rolled his eyes, why are these people always staring at him?

Lu Yijian glanced at him and said, "There is a nationwide riot. You don't know how big this thing is?"

"Yeah, if you can press it earlier, why let it go?"

Wang Zeng echoed.

The two old men often fought among themselves in the past, but since Zhao Jun's family became the dominant family, apart from occasionally fighting each other, they rarely had political disagreements.

After all, compared with many of Zhao Jun's policies, the policies they proposed are considered conservative and not worth mentioning.

"What I mean is very simple. The court is not unreasonable, so I give them a space for negotiation and let Du Qi take control of it. If it takes too long, the court will eventually come forward and arrest people and confiscate their homes without causing trouble. There will be turmoil across the country.”

Zhao Jun said something casually and tried to deal with it.

But Lu Yijian refused and said: "What exactly is the negotiation space? You must explain this clearly at the meeting."

"Fine."

Zhao Jun scratched his head. In fact, he originally planned to talk about this matter at the end of the year, but now that it happened, it was just a foreshadowing. He stood up and said: "Then we will have an impromptu meeting."

Everyone stood up immediately. At this time, there were only six prime ministers on duty in the Constitutional Yuan, and the rest were either on inspection tours or going out to work.

With Sheng Du's death from illness, there are now eleven prime ministers left in the Constitutional Yuan. Those currently present include Zhao Jun, Yan Shu, Lu Yijian, Wang Zeng, Zhang Shixun, and Li Di.

Song Shou, Cai Qi, Fan Zhongyan, Jiang Tang, and Jia Changchao need to go to various departments to supervise every morning to demonstrate the importance of the Constitutional Yuan in the implementation of the supervision of the examination law.

In this way, the Constitutional Yuan supervises the ministries of the central government, and under the supervision of the prime ministers, each ministry has to supervise the various departments below. Only through such layer-by-layer transmission can the examination method that has been maintained for several years be continuously implemented.

As for why it has always been the five of them.

Who keeps them young?

Zhao Jun, who is always on duty, needs to take care of important matters. The rest are basically in their sixties or seventies, and their health is not very good. In the past two years, they have suffered a lot of illnesses.

Unlike Fan Zhongyan and others, who are still in their 50s and 60s, they are still in the prime of life. If they don't go, who will?

Therefore, it is indeed impossible to gather the entire Constitutional Yuan meeting at the moment.

However, there were all highly respected masters present. Except for Yan Shu, they were all former prime ministers of the Pingzhang Army.

Song Shou, Cai Qi and others were at most deputy prime ministers who participated in political affairs, so they were still able to determine major events.

Everyone entered the conference room and took their seats.

As soon as he sat down, Wang Zeng said, "Tell me what's going on."

"I plan to let Du Qiruan handle it."

Zhao Jun said.

"Soft handling?"

"Um."

"What's the solution?"

"Negotiation, no matter how many landlords they call out or how things get worse, negotiation will be the main thing first."

"What's the specific content?"

"It's very simple. As long as they agree to the new policies issued by the court and pay their bills honestly, everything will be fine."

"What if you don't agree?"

"Continue to negotiate."

"Still don't agree?"

"Intensify negotiation efforts."

"Then things are getting worse."

"Then let's go under the knife."

"Isn't this the result you want? Just take action earlier. Why do you have to keep stalling?"

Everyone didn't understand what Zhao Jun meant.

In fact, Zhao Jun has killed many people over the years.

In the crackdown on gangsters and evil forces, many evil forces have been killed.

The army was investigated and many of Men Xungui were killed.

The people who were killed the least were officials.

At least a thousand people were killed and thousands more were exiled.

In addition to the subordinates who took advantage of the stolen goods, the total adds up to six to seven or eighty thousand, if not one hundred thousand.

So now that Zhao Jun started to attack the ground again, everyone was not surprised.

No one cares about the life or death of the landlords.

Because the landlord class in the Song Dynasty was different from that in the Ming Dynasty.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, both the imperial examination and the imperial examination were exempted from tax, which led to many people putting their fields in their names. This process was called "donating."

So the officials of the Ming and Qing Dynasties should all be landlords. If the court wanted to collect taxes from the landlords, how could the officials of the Ming and Qing Dynasties not object?

It was different in the Song Dynasty. Officials also had to pay taxes, which fundamentally solved this problem.

Therefore, there is actually not much resistance from the Constitutional Yuan on this matter.

After all, that's what they've done before.

It’s just that everyone didn’t understand it.

Since we want to attack the landlords, why don't we just send troops when they make trouble?

Do we have to negotiate with them first?

If this drags on, if word spreads from ten to ten, and all the landowners in Zhejiang hear that the imperial court has suddenly become so easy to talk to, will it not be a big change?

The most important thing is that Zhejiang, as the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and an important canal hub, the news will soon spread to the whole country.

If we can't suppress it immediately and kill the chicken to scare the monkeys, if we continue like this, it is really possible to cause nationwide riots.

So no one understood it either.

Since Zhao Jun wants to let things develop first, he can just let it go. The government will just ignore it and wait until the other party gathers to a certain extent before taking action.

Why bother to explain, discuss and negotiate with these landowners in person?

Where is the majesty of such a court?

"You don't understand."

Zhao Jun shook his head: "I'm not trying to kill all the landowners across the country, but I'd better hope for good guidance. Killing is actually a last resort and the last resort."

"Why did I kill so many gangsters in the first place? That's because in troubled times, we need to use heavy laws, and we must crack down hard to maintain public order."

He spread his hands and looked at everyone and continued: "Killing corrupt officials is also to establish the determination and image of the court to rectify the administration of officials among the people, and at the same time to allow the examination law to be implemented smoothly. I didn't say that from the beginning Do you want to have a good discussion with them? If they don’t follow the path, then who can blame them?”

When everyone heard it, it seemed to make sense.

He had given the generals and nobles a chance before, but they insisted on having their own way, so no wonder the court took action.

But Lu Yijian was still confused: "Didn't you always want to solve the land annexation issue before? Why don't you want to kill all the landlords now?"

“Because it does require a certain amount of capital push.”

Zhao Jun said calmly: "The size of the Song Dynasty is not limited. We are currently the most populous country in the world. We seem to be the richest country, but we are also the poorest. If we want to truly develop, we must rely on the imperial court alone." not enough."

"The poorest country again? Why?"

Everyone was puzzled.

"Although the Song Dynasty was rich, wealth did not exist among the people. In recent years, the people have only been struggling from the edge of life and death back to the poverty line. They are hungry but have little money."

Zhao Jun said: "The real wealth in the Song Dynasty was the big businessmen, big landowners, and big officials, and it had nothing to do with the common people. However, big businessmen were often tied to big officials. Many officials' families were wealthy businessmen, as you here should all know. ”

Everyone's eyes are watching, their noses are watching, and their hearts are watching.

"Capital is all chasing profits. The imperial steel plants, cement plants, and textile factories are booming. Businessmen with a sharp eye can see at a glance their existence value in the next few decades. There are already many people who want to participate."

Zhao Jun continued: "But landlords have a conservative nature. Many landlords don't care at all that businessmen make more money. They have only one idea in their minds - to make money by exploiting farmers. After making money, they continue to buy land and continue to exploit farmers, in an endless cycle. , let yourself have countless lands in your name.”

"Because in their view, doing business involves great risks. And land is a sure-profit business, so the big landowners must be resistant to the industrial revolution and are unwilling to participate and do not want to use their land for this purpose. , they prefer to bury their money in the ground.”

Zhao Jun said in a deep voice: "If this continues, it will definitely be detrimental to the development of the country and the economy. We must get back the money in the pockets of the landlords and the land in their hands. The simplest way is to significantly reduce the price of food. , directly impacting the fundamental interests of landlords, causing the land owned by landlords to not only continue to depreciate, but also suffer losses. "

"But doing so will also harm the interests of the farmers and the court. So it is better not to do it unless it is a last resort. What about other methods? After industrialization, productivity has increased again, and maritime trade can completely transport grain and grass back from Cochin. Agriculture is bound to decline."

"But this will also create a paradox, that is, if agriculture is not first used to subsidize industry, industry cannot develop. If industry cannot develop, then industry cannot be used to subsidize agriculture. Therefore, before industrialization is implemented, the interests of landlords cannot be shaken. ”

"What the imperial court hopes most is to use emotion and reason to convince the landlords to use their money to invest in projects that are beneficial to national construction and promote industrial development. Otherwise, even if they use the knife to If you kill them with guns and nationalize their property, there will still be a lot less capital.”

"What's more, many landowners are heads of large clans. If they are all dealt with, the ethnic groups and tribes will face dispersion. The agricultural system may also cause huge turmoil, which is not a problem for the Song Dynasty court that needs to maintain the stability of the country. Good thing."

Now Zhao Jun is no longer the stupid young man who only knew how to criticize Song Dynasty.

Although the Song Dynasty did need to eliminate the serious problem of domestic land annexation in order to reduce the number of landlords as much as possible.

But this does not mean that all landlords must be eradicated.

There are many reasons.

First of all, the big landowners have a lot of property. Even if it harms their interests, the real estate plus the stored funds. Many big landowners with tens of thousands of acres of land under their names cannot be said to be as rich as the country, but they can also be called huge wealth. .

If the court guides them to invest money in industrial construction, it is obviously much better than killing them directly and killing the goose that lays the eggs.

Secondly, many landowners, especially those in the south, are often the head of a large clan, close relatives of officials, or the talkers of a large ethnic group.

Their power can often determine the life or death of a clan member. Although the clan is a mess, many things cannot be seen from one side. At least in terms of productivity, the clan is still cohesive. They often share agricultural tools and help each other to improve agricultural development.

If we break them all at once and turn all members of the group into farmers, then there will be a lot of difference in terms of cohesion and individual subjective initiative.

Moreover, ancient farmers often lacked production tools. After the dispersion, without the support of the clan, it was difficult for the lower-level farmers to borrow farm tools.

Our country had this problem in the early days of its founding, so after learning from the lesson, Zhao Jun did not completely deny the big clans, but slowly resolved them, gradually transitioned to the industrial age, and allowed them to die naturally.

In this way, the current situation can be maintained, and when productivity increases in the future, there will be no need to worry that the clan, a cancer that hinders social progress, will still exist.

Therefore, when it comes to resettling landlords, he has two main points.

One is to hope that the landlords will be obedient and give up profits. The court will allow them to continue to be big landlords, but the profits will be less than before.

Second, if they do not accept the reduction in profits, the imperial court will also help them carry out industrialization and support them in setting up steel plants, cement plants, spinning mills, and brick factories.

This two-pronged approach not only preserves the fundamentals of agriculture, but also stimulates industrial revitalization, killing two birds with one stone.

But if these two points are unacceptable.

Then no wonder he is.

I was given the opportunity in the future, and I can only blame the big landowners for not cherishing it.

"Then why did it take so long?"

Lu Yijian was puzzled.

“Because this matter itself needs to be done step by step, and we need to explain it to the landowners, and at the same time let them see the results.”

Zhao Jun said: "So the court's method is to delay it as long as possible. It will be delayed until next year. When the New Deal is issued, businessmen from all walks of life will pour into the big cake of industry. Let the landlords see that someone is robbing and see the profits of this piece. If they are rich, they will no longer hesitate. When national capital pours into industry, the process of the entire industrial system will be greatly accelerated.”

"No wonder you said before that delaying it would trigger nationwide riots. You plan to delay it for a year and a half."

Everyone suddenly woke up.

If you just want to take a long-term view to catch big fish, in fact, just add fuel to the flames, just a few months will be enough.

When the news spreads about the landowners on Liangzhe Road, it will be seen that the court did not take much action in response to their protests. It will easily trigger large-scale protests by many landowners on Liangzhe Road within a few months.

If the imperial court suddenly reacts with thunderous force, the imperial city department, the local army and the local yamen will take action together. Those who should be beheaded or exiled will be killed.

Once the operation is completed, it will be as fast as cutting leeks, killing the chickens to scare the monkeys and frightening the landowners all over the country.

But Zhao Jun obviously wanted to delay it longer, hoping to mobilize landowners across the country to get them out of the land, invest their wealth in industry, and accelerate the process of industrialization.

But this is also a tightrope walk. If the landlords don't agree and continue to make trouble, it will be a nationwide scale.

Although now there is no large-scale starvation due to the improvement of productivity, and the landlords and the people do not have much soil for rebellion, it is obviously not good for the country and stable development.

So this method is a double-edged sword. If it is done well, it can solve many problems. If it is done badly, many people will die across the country.

Whether it is a large-scale construction or a massacre, it will basically be this time.