In the blink of an eye, it was the thirteenth year of the Apocalypse. Before he knew it, Zhu Youxiao discovered that he had been emperor for six years.

In just six years, the Ming Dynasty had completely changed from a declining feudal dynasty with various social contradictions rapidly intensifying and about to demise to a trust empire with highly developed productivity, increased social wealth, and greatly enhanced national defense strength.

Zhu Youxiao was very pleased with this. Although he had not been devoted to his courage in the past six years, he had indeed not been able to devote his time and energy to state affairs, and he had not been a foolish emperor for a long time.

But it is worth it to make the Ming Empire look like today.

Zhu Youjian, who was escorted back from the northwest, did not execute him. After all, Zhu Youjian did pass his own various tests, which also shows that Zhu Youjian may be black-hearted and ruthless, but he is indeed a person who has a country in his heart and is deeply aware of justice.

This may be the reason why Emperor Chongzhen, although there were many mistakes during his reign, finally chose to hang himself.

Although in fact, Zhu Youxiao was just a modern person and could not be considered brothers with Zhu Youjian, when he thought that Zhu Youjian was also a tragic historical figure, he felt a little pitiful. This was also one of the reasons why Zhu Youjian did not execute Zhu Youjian at the beginning. At that time, it was not only considering whether he would be completely unfaithful to kill Zhu Youjian, but also not to have sympathy for this future Emperor Chongzhen.

Now that Zhu Youjian has no idea of ​​becoming an emperor and has become much more honest, Zhu Youxiao does not need to leave himself a stigma of killing his brother.

What's more, he now has absolutely mastered the military and financial power of the whole country, and the entire social class has also changed. Even if Zhu Youjian wants to rebel, he has no possibility of rebellion.

However, in order to declare his imperial majesty and to show other vassal kings to be honest, he still deprived Zhu Youjian of all his positions and still detained him in the Western Garden, allowing him to live an unemployed life with the Zhou family.

However, in the months since Zhu Youjian was escorted to Beijing to be dismissed on the grounds that improper command caused huge losses to the Western Expedition and detained in Xiyuan, Zhu Youxiao had never met Zhu Youjian.

Until this time, after the Spring Festival in the 13th year of the Tianqi period, Zhu Youxiao and Queen Zhang Yan set up a family banquet with the palace to entertain Zhu Youjian and his wife Zhou.

Zhou was very happy. Instead of letting Zhu You be found out of the battle and suffered all the hardships, it would be better to be detained by the emperor's brother in the West Garden. Although he could not go out, he had a peaceful life.

Zhu Youjian was obviously much more honest than before. As soon as he saw Zhu Youjian, he came to salute: "I have met Your Majesty!" He called out "Your Majesty" instead of "Emperor Brother", and he was obviously much more respectful, but Zhu Youjian also felt that Zhu Youjian was already farther away from him.

However, you can also feel that his years of military career have made His impulsive and irritable King Xin become much more calm and cautious, at least in front of him, he finally has a sense of awe.

"As long as you are afraid of me, I don't expect you to be grateful to me," Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but think of this, and then let Zhu Youjian sit down and said, "Since you have returned to the capital and no longer march and fight, you have to think about the future, and don't think about living like this. I, the Ming Dynasty, never raises idle people. Now the Ministry of War is preparing to run a newspaper that publishes military preparations. You should be an editor with the title of chief official of the Ministry of War. Although this is just a job of holding a pen, the knowledge inside is not small, and the most tempered patience, are you willing to do it?"

Zhu Youjian did not dare to disobey Zhu Youxiao's wishes, not to mention that he is now idle and is very happy that he can have something to do, and hurriedly thanked Zhu Youxiao for his orders.

Zhu Youxiao was also happy to be enthusiastic. In a short period of time, he did not intend to let Zhu Youjian participate in the military war. After all, Zhu Youjian has made many contributions in participating in the recovery of Liaodong, the destruction of the Korchin tribe and the Khalkha tribe, and the Western Expedition. He has also gained some prestige in the military system. Therefore, from the perspective of the emperor's selfishness, he intends to hide Zhu Youjian for the time being.

The vassal kings like Zhu Youjian did not create too much military threats in the Ming Dynasty. They would at most bring heavy economic burdens to the central court. Now these vassal kings are locked in the capital and all have to engage in various industries to be self-sufficient. Although the salary given by the court is still quite generous, they can no longer do both land and have to pay taxes, and they cannot become a burden to the empire.

Therefore, Zhu Youxiao no longer worried about how big the trouble these vassal kings would cause to themselves.

Now for the Ming Dynasty, the biggest problem is no longer the financial pressure brought by the privileged vassal kings and gentry classes. The biggest problem is that with the development of industrial capital, a new capital class began to emerge. Now, because the Ming Dynasty adopted Thomas capitalism, that is, the state controlled capital, the officials who controlled the state machine began to transform into capitalists. They represented different capital forces behind them, and the officialdom was still in serious conflict.

The struggle between the chief assistant and the second assistant is still intensifying. Li Mingrui originally thought that he could successfully help His Majesty Zhu Youxiao get rid of Zhu Youjian and thus further establish his position in Zhu Youxiao's heart.

But what Li Mingrui did not expect was that his trip to the northwest actually saved Zhu Youjian from the bitter and cold land in the northwest. Although His Majesty did not mean to blame him, and all of this was arranged by His Majesty, Li Mingrui still felt very depressed. He thought that he had failed to succeed this time and showed his wisdom and talent in front of His Majesty Zhu Youxiao.

Qian Qianyi is different. When he saw Li Mingrui's face was unhappy with the miscalculation of the Xinwang Zhu Youxiao, he felt very happy, and he even deliberately came to ask why Li Mingrui was angry.

Zhu Youxiao also expressed helplessness about the open and secret struggles between the two cabinet ministers. He naturally hated the party struggle, otherwise Lu Xiangsheng, who had military power, would have stayed at the local area. Otherwise, he would not be sure if the party struggles in the court would become more intense once people with military power participate in the government.

In the Chongzhen Dynasty in history, the struggle between Lu Xiangsheng and Yang Sichang never stopped. Even Chongzhen was used to being used by these civil servants, which made these civil servants make a big fuss whenever there was a turmoil. In addition, Chongzhen's own personality flaws made many ministers innocently accused many ministers.

Now Zhu Youxiao does not want to be used by these civil servants, so he is not biased towards the struggle between Qian Qianyi and Li Mingrui. Of course, he will also beat him from time to time, at least the struggle between the two parties will not affect the normal operation and principles of the court.

Li Mingrui was a core member of the Royalist Party and a key figure who initially chose to stand on the side of Emperor Zhu Youxiao to challenge the ruling class of scholars and officials. Therefore, Zhu Youxiao also gave him many benefits in royal capital.

Not only did he get dividends from royal capital, but he also allowed them to invest in new products such as soaps, perfumes, masks, etc. that the court could not take into account, just like the Royal Weaving Bureau run by Mao family.

Therefore, the Li Mingrui family is also extremely rich now, and is even considered a big capitalist in nature. Especially after the opening of the Hai Trade Fair, the Royal Minsheng Company run by his Li family made a lot of money.

It can be said that Li Mingrui has now become Wu, the representative of the emerging capital family. Not only him, but also the son-in-law Gong Yonggu, Yang Tingchun, the Minister of Works, Huo Weihua, the Minister of Revenue, Guo Yunhou, and the military officers of the Imperial Guard system are all emerging vested interests after the reform of commercial tax and the opening of maritime trade.

They advocated that the Ming Dynasty continue to expand overseas trade and open up markets in some closed countries, especially Japan and other countries, to meet the maximization of their commercial interests. They even advocated using giant ships and cannons to regain overseas vassals that were originally owned by the Ming Dynasty but were now taken away by Western colonists.

Qian Qianyi was not able to enter the royalist camp from the beginning because his political philosophy was the same as Zhu Youxiao, and even his interests were not the same as that of the royalist party. The reason why he was able to become the chief assistant was because he was shameless and cruel to himself. He first used the Donglin Academy as a confession, and then won Zhu Youxiao's recognition and recognition by himself by slashing his descendants, and finally became the chief assistant by relying on his unconventional and shameless advantage.

But in essence, he was still a traditional gentry, representing the interests of the traditional gentry class. He opposed the payment of food in one's own and gentry. Therefore, although his integrity was not ashamed of the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River, because he was the highest-level official in the court of traditional gentry, he still became the leader of the new traditional gentry officials.

Although Qian Qianyi and other conservative officials who still tried their best to maintain the interests of the gentry class do not dare to directly oppose the new policy of His Majesty Zhu Youxiao, they often indirectly cause some trouble. The most direct manifestation is that they are fighting with Li Mingrui and others more and more fiercely.

Many times, although Qian Qianyi, the leader of the conservative school, is a shameless person who has been criticized and scolded, most of the officials belong to Hanlin Academy and Kedao, and these officials who regard themselves as clear-headed are more or less honest in moral integrity.

Although reformists such as Li Mingrui are eager to reform, they occupy most of the most profitable institutions in the Ming Dynasty at present. In this case, it is inevitable that every reformist official is honest and self-disciplined. Many times, these officials are doing practical things while gaining as much benefits as possible.

Therefore, when the two factions are fighting, especially when they are corruption-like crimes, many times, the conservatives become the justice side, while the reformists are exposed because of their unsuccessful hands and feet.

This forced Zhu Youxiao to stand on the side of the reformist faction in terms of his belief in governing the country, but sometimes he had to support the conservative faction from a rational perspective, especially from a justice perspective.

This seems uncommon. When Wang Anshi reformed, there were many officials who supported the reforms. This phenomenon also occurred in Zhang Juzheng's new policy. Even in the late Qing Westernization Movement in history, incidents like Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai also occurred. In the context of the incident, the Conservative Party represented by Weng Tonghe represented the justice side, and Zuo Zongtang and other Westernization factions were actually villains of this unjust case.

Therefore, this is why Zhu Youxiao no longer fully understood these conservative officials after he eradicated the Donglin Party. He even often selectively allowed some honest and self-conservative or obedient conservative officials to hold high positions and take on important positions. The purpose is to allow them to supervise reformist officials.

In particular, these conservative officials were allowed to serve as officials in the field of Kedao. In this way, although they had the power, they could not interfere in the direction of the government, but they did force reformist officials to restrain themselves.

This is also a kind of emperor's mind. What Zhu Youxiao needs to do is to maintain the balance between the two parties, so that the reformists can promote reform and development stably and effectively, and the conservative officials should play a good supervisory role, so that the entire Ming Dynasty's administration will not become rapidly corrupted due to the large accumulation of wealth.

Sometimes the degree of a capital country is not much better than that of a feudal country, so Zhu Youxiao had to pay attention to this point.

However, recently, something happened that Zhu Youxiao smelled bad signs, because the admiral of the East Factory, Liu Ruyu, submitted a letter to the study of the Zuodu Censor Cao Sicheng.

The content of this letter was written by the Zuodu Censor Cao Sicheng to the letter to the King of Kings and Zhu Youjian, but the content was just about asking about the rhythm of poetry. Despite this, this is still a relatively sensitive incident.

Because according to Zhu Youxiao's will, His Highness Xin Wang was prohibited from interacting with all officials. In addition to several officials of the Ministry of War, this undoubtedly aroused Zhu Youxiao's vigilance.

However, Zhu Youxiao did not rashly arrest the Zuodu Censor and went to the imperial prison to ask why he did not recognize the pros and cons, but wanted to interact with a declining vassal king who had been controlled, and was a vassal king with a sensitive identity. This was simply not what an official with a little IQ did, let alone colluding with the vassal king is a taboo for officials.

Zhu Youxiao’s intuition was that this incident should definitely be a conspiracy, and the most likely was the struggle between the reformists and the conservatives. Therefore, Zhu Youxiao decided to remain calm and explicitly ordered the Dongchang to think that this incident had never happened, but could investigate it secretly.

At the same time, Zhu Youxiao was also waiting for the faction to not expose the matter, would any officials from a certain sect be rushed to stand up and point Cao Sicheng? Many officials in the court were more cunning than foxes. Sometimes, even though Zhu Youxiao relied on the east factory, it was difficult to find out the real team of these officials. Many times, Zhu Youxiao could only distinguish them by indirectly striking.

Therefore, Zhu Youxiao didn't know that Cao Sicheng was getting close to Li Mingrui now, so he had to see who stood up first. As long as who stood up first and pointed at Cao Sicheng, he could judge that the faction could not help but want to cause trouble.
Chapter completed!