Chapter 164 163 Helpless

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 boy who is the one who has been rumored 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, so it may be useful to get close to him 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 didn'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 because he no longer wants to lose his son.

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, you can drive a car in the fields."

"It's cold, the Yangtze River is still good, it's a big river, it's impossible to freeze, I heard that several rivers in Suzhou were frozen last year."

"The harvest in Jiangxi this year is not good, it's all thanks to Huguang."

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

"Impossible, the grain supply must be guaranteed, otherwise what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of border troops in the north."

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

Food is the first necessity of the people. They eat and drink at the table, and there are many charcoal basins in the house to keep warm.

But what about going out? Water turns to ice.

"There was another earthquake in Shanxi and Shaanxi in the middle of the month. It seems that it has been very serious in recent years."

"Where did you hear it?"

"Just yesterday, I heard from the Ministry of Revenue that the memorial was submitted, but the court had no money for relief. The cabinet and the six ministries are still arguing about this matter. Where can they get the money?"

"Any explanation?"

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

Beijing is the center of the Ming Empire, and naturally all kinds of news are spread most quickly. In this era, when a place is hit by a disaster, only the government's post station can deliver the news here within half a month.

When Wei Guangde was in Nanchang City before, he heard from the students in Ji'an that the court was short of money and was completely borrowing money from everywhere to maintain the situation.

After sitting here for a while, I heard similar news to confirm what I heard before. It seems that it is really not easy to be a family in the Ming Dynasty.

Having lived in the local area for a long time, Wei Guangde once traveled around Jiangxi, and he knew a lot about the things going on there.

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

In fact, according to what Wei Guangde knew, the official tax in the Ming Dynasty was very low. The official tax was the tax silver collected by the central government. This part was indeed very low, and it could be said to be ridiculously low.

But the taxes that the common people had to pay were very high, which were miscellaneous taxes.

It was a bit like the difference between national taxes and local taxes in later generations, but in terms of tax distribution, the proportion of local taxes was extremely high, while national taxes were very, very small, which was a bit like the situation before the tax reform in later generations.

Three years as a clean prefecture, 100,000 silver coins.

This is not said in vain. It is not about how to make money in the local area, such as fundraising for projects, selling quotas for the prefectural examination, etc., just this miscellaneous tax, basically collected and handed over to the officials, as long as they fed the people below a little, and then settled the account, the rest was theirs.

As for the natural disasters mentioned earlier, Wei Guangde had already noticed them. He had taken the provincial examination before. What can he do?

When encountering large-scale droughts, there is no good way to solve them in the future. We can only ensure water for people and livestock.

As for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, forget it. With the current financial difficulties of the Ming Dynasty, don't even think about it, and many technical problems cannot be solved.

"Last time I heard someone say that the weather has been like this for decades. In summer, it is dry and flooded, and in winter, it is very cold. There is no record of it in previous historical materials."

"What do you mean?"

"Some people from other provinces say that it is caused by the treacherous people in the court, but these situations have existed for decades. It was like this during the Hongzhi and Zhengde dynasties. What does it have to do with Lord Yan?"

"That is 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 in inquiring about these news.

For example, when the candidates said these things, he, Lao Kan, and Shen Liangdong could only sit aside and listen to them.

There is no way to solve natural disasters.

As for finance, Wei Guangde himself believes that he cannot solve it either.

Doing this is a way to offend people. It seems that Zhang Juzheng did this in history, but he did not end up well in the end.

It is said that the emperor wants to settle accounts, but in fact, many officials below hate Zhang Juzheng to the core, so they add insult to injury and make up many things to anger the emperor.

So it was not done in the Ming Dynasty, and it seems that it was done by Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty. Wei Guangde saw this plot when he was watching a TV series.

He still remembers what was said on TV, "spreading the tax into the land" and "gentry and officials pay taxes together", which are probably these two reforms that made a lot of money for the Qing Dynasty's finances.

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

Spreading the tax into the land means spreading the tax on the land, and the landless people don't have to pay taxes, and only the landlords are taxed.

He felt that the gentry was a bit unethical because it harmed his interests. Now he is a juren and doesn't have to serve and pay taxes.

As for the first point, Wei Guangde thought he could bring it up at the right time. Although it might offend the landlords, if he could get something in return, he would offend them and use the truth to convince them.

For the second point, Wei Guangde would never say it, because the loss would be too great.

In addition, it seems that there is a fire consumption return to the public, which offends the local officials and cannot be done.

Fire consumption is actually the additional levy of some auxiliary expenses after the collection of regular taxes, which is also a part of miscellaneous taxes. In the past, these things were directly pocketed by local officials and were a kind of gray income.

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

Thanks to the fact that the Internet was very rudimentary at that time, Wei Guangde was still watching TV and videos, and didn't use the Internet much, so he still remembered some things. If it was broadcast a few years later, Wei Guangde might 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 a word in his impression, which was that the weather was very cold now.

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

Others saw it and thought Wei Guangde was drunk, and asked him if he wanted Zhang Ji to take him back to the 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 that the end of the Ming Dynasty was a small ice age, and there was a word called "the small ice age 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 ice age climate that only appeared in the late Ming Dynasty, but it had already started at this time, or 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, and a large number of bandits were caused.

Well, if there was no such bad weather, there would naturally be no disaster relief, and there would be no riots and financial collapse.

What is the best way to deal with drought?

Call the wind and rain.

Wei Guangde's first reaction was this.

I understand Emperor Jiajing's career as a Taoist priest. It is not only his desire for immortality and eternal power, but perhaps there is something else mixed in.

What does the novel say?

Wei Guangde searched his memory. He had read a lot of online novels before, but unfortunately he liked to read urban cool novels more. He read very little history, and mostly only read the first part, because many historical novels are not cool enough.

Those that are cool enough are not historical novels. Most of them use modern jokes to mix in and use jokes to make people laugh.

Wei Guangde thought for a long time and found that it seemed to be going out to rob food. It seems that the impact from the southern Southeast Asia is relatively small, and the grain yield is high. Then it seems to occupy the territory and immigrate there.

Logically, it works.

Occupying the territory and immigrating can stabilize the rule.

Wei Guangde began to think about what he should do if he was the prime minister.

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

What did he learn?

If he asked someone to take the soldiers out, he would be scolded to death by the scholars in the court.

There is also the ancient communication. The current Ming Empire has actually reached the maximum scope of rule. This scope is actually the accuracy of maintaining communication between two places with existing technology.

If the distance is far, it is impossible to hook at all. It is easy to fight out and grab the territory, and then the other party will be independent.

Besides, it is hard to say whether the Ming army can defeat the European pirates if it goes out now.

Wei Guangde put himself in Yan Song's position and found that he seemed to have something from the future, but he still couldn't do anything.

You said to encourage business?

Okay, encourage.

You said to collect business taxes?

I'm afraid he will be hanged directly.

From Zhang Hongfu, Wei Guangde didn't know what the current business was.

In later generations, farmers did not pay taxes, but the state gave them money every year to farm.

That was because the commercial taxes were enough for the state.

But if you come to the Ming Dynasty to collect taxes, you will see whether you can survive.

The simplest way is to change the dynasty, overturn the original pots and pans, and build a new one.

However, in this world, rebellion has no future.

In fact, for now, Wei Guangde can't see any reason to support rebellion. From gentry to farmers, no one wants to do this.

Unconsciously, Wei Guangde is really drunk.