Chapter 677 776 Rejected

The next day, Wei Guangde saw the first memorial sent by the Ministry of Revenue in the cabinet duty room. It was a memorial about limiting the amount of land for five generations of honors and relatives.

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

When the cabinet secretary distributed the memorial, he naturally sent the memorial from the Ministry of Revenue directly to Wei Guangde's duty room.

It was consistent with what was said yesterday. The land for hereditary honors was limited to 200 hectares, and the land for relatives was limited to 100 hectares. The land of those who were abolished would be confiscated by the government. However, for those whose ancestors' tombs were still there, 5 hectares of land for those with 200 hectares of land would be retained, and 3 hectares of land for those with less than 100 hectares would be retained to provide for the cost of offering sacrifices.

For those whose granted land was not recorded in the book, they were ordered to review and submit their documents. Those who did not have their land would be confiscated by the government, and those who were treacherous and concealed their land would be confiscated.

Wei Guangde reviewed it and found it correct. He immediately voted "OK" and put it aside, preparing to send it to the palace later and present it to the emperor for review.

After that, Wei Guangde dealt with several more memorials, and soon a memorial from Xuanda appeared in front of him, and there was also a review from the Ministry of War.

Just last month, Xuanfu General Ma Fang personally led his subordinate Lieutenant General Liu Tan and more than a thousand people to attack the enemy cavalry 200 miles outside the Dushi border. They defeated them at Changshui Haizi, and before they returned to the border, the enemy chased them at Anzi Mountain. Ma Fang and others fought again and defeated them again. They captured and killed more than 80 people and seized more than 40 horses.

Xuanda Governor, Assistant Minister Chen Qixue and Xuanfu Governor Wang Lin reported the victory and requested rewards. The Ministry of War reviewed and proposed Fang 40 taels of silver, two li of silk, and one son of the title of a thousand households. Governor-General and Assistant Minister Chen Qixue 40 taels, two li. Governor Wang Lin 30 taels, one li. Each was promoted by one level, and Deputy Envoy of Military Preparation Fang Fengshi and Lieutenant General Liu Tan were each awarded 20 taels of silver.

Wei Guangde naturally approved the rewards proposed by the Ministry of War, which was also a convention.

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

At the level of cabinet ministers, being a lone minister as described in some TV dramas is actually not advisable, because there is no one under his command, and no one may work hard to complete the policies he formulates. He needs to build his own team in the six ministries.

And the first choice for him to win over is naturally the Shangshu and Shilang of each ministry.

When Chen Yiqin entered the cabinet, he was also very nervous and worried about being isolated. It was Wei Guangde who gave him advice. He not only found his fellow villager Zhao Zhenji to be a Shilang, but also pushed Wang Ting to the Censorate as the Left Censor-in-Chief, and initially established his own strength in the court.

Wei Guangde did not have as many concerns as Chen Yiqin. At least the Ministry of Works supported him, and there was also a group of officials from the original Yuji. However, he also had to consider winning over more officials to drive him.

After writing down a bill in favor of the proposal of the Ministry of War, Wei Guangde praised the Ministry of War for its solid defense work in the north this year, citing the reason that there was no alarm in autumn defense, and suggested that the Ministry of War, from Shangshu to Shilang, and the Langzhong of Zhifangsi, should be rewarded and commended.

If you try your best to show your goodwill, there will always be people who will come to visit you.

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

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

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

But now that he has entered the cabinet, of course he can't be so casual.

After sitting and handling memorials for a long time, Wei Guangde got up and went out.

Sitting for a long time to handle official business is definitely not good for your health. If you don't pay attention to exercise now, you will suffer when you get older.

With his hands behind his back, Wei Guangde just walked out of the duty room and saw the cabinet secretary coming with Lu Bu. After saluting, Wei Guangde pointed to the duty room behind him and said with a smile: "You will work here in the future."

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

The cabinet is no different from other government offices. There is a certain review procedure for people who come to work here.

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

The royal family must have a pair of eyes around them after all. Instead of looking for him by himself after changing places, it is better to put him under their noses from the beginning.

However, Wei Guangde did not expect that Lu Bu followed him into the cabinet and it took so much time to review it.

Perhaps, the Jinyiwei did not want the people in the cabinet to find out that they had done something, so they did not use some connections to stuff Lu Bu into the cabinet as soon as possible, but honestly followed the relevant procedures.

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

Because in principle, the cabinet ministers and the six ministers all have a lot of information that is unknown to the outside world, and the surveillance of them must be approved by the emperor.

Otherwise, it is very likely that the surveillance will become stealing secrets.

And if the emperor agrees, there will naturally be many considerations, and the decision cannot be made in a short time.

And the important ministers are extremely disgusted with the extra pair of eyes around them. Once they are discovered, they will often report to the emperor, and then the board will definitely be hit on the head of the Jinyiwei.

That's why they attach so much importance to it. Even if Wei Guangde is willing to leave the reed cloth, he will never dare to reveal his identity and can only wait for instructions from above.

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

In fact, after Wei Guangde arrived in the capital, the people around him have always been acquaintances, that is, people from Bengshanbao.

The original team of Wei Mansion was sent by Wei's father, just to prevent Wei Guangde from recruiting people who are not familiar with the four sixes in the capital and causing trouble for him.

The family members of these people are either in the capital or in Jiujiang. Under the nose of Mr. Wei, he is not afraid of selling them for 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 hesitating again and again, 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 with 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 married 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. However, Emperor Longqing suddenly set the tone so high. If he really wanted to do this, I'm afraid Shixun's side 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 one hundred hectares to one hundred and fifty 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.