For the glorious history of the Ming Dynasty since Zhengde and the past century of magnificent history, the six years of Zhengde are not very special.

Compared with the historical events of the later period of the Yinma Rhine River and the Fengshan Rocky Mountain, the six-year history of Zhengde can only be described as ordinary, and it is even less exciting than the eradication of the three cabinet ministers in the early years of Zhengde.

But hundreds of years later, Professor Fang Chuan, the authoritative imperial history of the Imperial Central University of the Ming Empire, who is the first in the study of the history of the Ming Empire, claimed in his best-selling monograph "The Sixth Year of Zhengde" that the Sixth Year of Zhengde was the real symbol of the Ming Empire entering the era of sailing and the era of primitive capital accumulation!

Because this year, the official officially restored the entry and exit management agency and officially opened the country's doors, and it has never been closed since then.

"Although the empire has not opened its sea in this era and has destroyed the most powerful fleet in the world, under the influence of the great Zhengde Emperor, the rulers of the empire have opened their eyes to the whole world again. The Marquis of Shouning and Marquis of Jianchang who ordered the reconstruction of Zhijiang Shipyard are examples. These two playboy princes who were hated by civil servants never thought that their behavior would be recorded in history!"

Professor Fang Chuan wrote in his works.

When the cabinet was carrying out the matter of clearing the land of Zhangzhang, and when the border town was ordered to establish the Maritime Bureau for border trade, Zhu Houzhao himself did not expect that Zhang Heling, the Marquis of Shouning and Zhang Yanling, the Marquis of Jianchang, who were still studying at the Capital University, would submit a memorial to the court at this time, hoping that the court would rebuild the Zhijiang Shipyard, because the sea front could not be without powerful warships, and the Ming Dynasty was originally a maritime overlord, and the vast sea front could not be given to the barbarians of the West.

Of course, the real purpose of these two people is to verify whether the ground is a sphere.

Zhu Houzhao had already done his job and could not stand the heavy academic studies at the Capital University and asked the Empress Dowager to cry to let him be free. However, Zhu Houzhao did not expect that his two uncles did show a strong interest in geography and navigation, which made Zhu Houzhao breathe a sigh of relief.

Because he had to admit that his two uncles were indeed too much in doing evil and did a lot of bad things to seize land and bully the people. Sometimes he could not blame the civil servants for often impeaching these two people.

But because the empress dowager really favored her two younger brothers and the late Emperor Hongzhi, they added her two brothers-in-law to the marquis during her lifetime. Although she was the emperor, she was a junior. Sometimes she really couldn't just make up her mind to get rid of these two relatives who would cause trouble to the royal family.

Now that I'm fine, staying in the Capital University has given these two relatives the serious business they like. Zhu Houzhao doesn't have to worry about the two people coming out to continue to cause trouble at the Capital University and eventually forcing themselves to refuse their relatives.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao approved the request of these two foreign relatives to rebuild the shipyard without hesitation, and also personally issued an order to ask Zhang Heling to drop out of the Capital University to supervise the Zhijiang Shipyard, and allocate two million taels of silver from the Royal Taxation Bureau, that is, Zhu Houzhao's treasury to rebuild the sea ship.

In addition, Zhu Houzhao also appointed Zhang Heling to go to Guangdong naval dynasty to learn water wars in order to serve the empire's maritime and trade in the future.

The civil servants were all very surprised. They did not expect that His Majesty the Emperor would agree to the two relatives' behavior to rebuild the shipyard. In their opinion, the two relatives were trying to make money from the court. In addition, the civil servants also learned through recent research on the behavior of Zhang Heling and Zhang Yanling that the real thoughts of these two relatives were to verify an unrealistic conjecture, that is, to prove that the ground was spherical.

"Have you heard that Zhang Yanling, the Marquis of Jianchang, established the Ming Maritime Council, and kept trying to attract officials and gentry to invest money to make them accomplish a feat, saying that they wanted to prove that the ground was spherical, saying that they wanted to start from the Ming Dynasty and keep moving forward to see if they could finally return to the Ming Dynasty!"

"How could you not know that Zhang Yanling brought a group of people from the Capital University to set up this meeting, saying that he inherited the will of the Three Treasures and revitalized the Ming maritime affairs, but in fact he was just taking the opportunity to make money. The Taoist official of the Department had already submitted a memorial to impeach him, but His Majesty did not object. Even the cabinet was to pass, and even His Majesty now rewarded the maritime affairs meeting with 100,000 taels of silver, saying that the royal family would also contribute to the revitalization of the Ming maritime affairs! Isn't this obviously giving him silver to Marquis Jianchang!"

"Although it was the royal treasury, it was also a tax collected from merchants. The emperor was so squandering and giving it to his relatives would harm the people. Moreover, it was not a good act of revitalizing maritime affairs. When the Sanbao Dao went to the West seven times, he spent countless money and food, which made the country poor. Now Your Majesty's move undoubtedly imitated Taizong's move to the prosperous times of the country coming to court! Your Majesty is so happy that he is not a blessing for the country!"

Some civil officials were talking about this matter in secret. In short, they were very disgusted with Zhu Houzhao's behavior of indulging in favor of relatives of foreigners. At the same time, they were reluctant to see Zhu Houzhao imitate Yongle's feat of voyage to the West again. Many of them were even worried that Zhu Houzhao would open the border and open the sea again.

For most civil servants who study Confucian Neo-Confucianism, opening the sea and opening the border are both acts of heavy business and harming farmers, and they are also acts that are not in line with the teachings of the sages. After all, the Ming Dynasty is already the center of the world and is a country with the benefits of the world. For other foreign countries, they should not earn their benefits or even plunder! Instead, they should show their favors and make them grateful to the celestial state.

After all, the empire is already so powerful and rich, there is no need to compete for interests with some barbarian countries. Moreover, these interests in trade with barbarians should be given to the people, and the court does not need to possess them. In the final analysis, it is not necessary to compete for profit with the people.

However, civil servants cannot do anything about Zhu Houzhao now. Zhu Houzhao is not a dynasty that is willing to make the Ming Dynasty a superficial glory, nor is he willing to be fooled by civil servants. Therefore, the entire civil servant gentry group can only be forced to accept Zhu Houzhao's transformation of the empire.

However, although these civil servants were reluctant, they responded very much on the surface. While secretly criticizing Zhang Heling's Daming Maritime Council for being inappropriate, they also tried their best to get their family members to join the Daming Maritime Council. Even after Zhu Houzhao gave silver to the Daming Maritime Council, they rushed to donate money to the Daming Maritime Council in order to please His Majesty the Emperor.

Not only that, after more and more civil servants realized that they could not fight against the emperor Zhu Houzhao, they began to learn to flatter Zhu Houzhao. Before Zhu Houzhao began to propose opening the sea, smart civil servants had already made suggestions to reset the sea through their keen sense of smell.

For example, Lin Tingxuan, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, suggested that the court open sea trade on the grounds that many terrestrial sluts in Guangdong and Guangxi make a living by sea, and to encourage the South China Sea countries to come to pay homage.

Although the memorial by Lin Tingxuan, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, made many court officials scold him, saying that he was just a slander who was trying to figure out the emperor's hearts for his personal achievements.

However, Zhu Houzhao was very supportive of Lin Tingxuan's proposal to open sea first, and allowed him to set up a Maritime Department in Guangdong and open a port to trade as a pilot site. At the same time, he specially added Lin Tingxuan's first prince's Shaobao and promoted him to the second rank.

Civil officials are now increasingly aware that His Majesty the Emperor does not like conservative officials, but becomes new officials, so naturally they have begun to make suggestions for reform.

In addition, the current examination method no longer mainly requires officials to be honest, but mainly examines the political achievements of officials, that is, what they have done. Therefore, officials have gradually shifted their main energy from managing their reputation to creating some new political achievements.

Zhu Houzhao can now receive a lot of memorials on reform and elimination of evil every day, but he has to admit that few of them really have practical significance for reform, but there are some that are indeed worth reforming, and Zhu Houzhao will also approve them.

Speaking of the method of taking the exam and the implementation of the self-study exam, the administration of officials in the Ming Dynasty has indeed improved a lot. Zhu Houzhao learned through the investigation of the West Factory that although the civil and military officials in the court still use money and find ways to make money from their own pockets, they have indeed begun to do some practical things.

Especially those who have only known to write a few articles and even spend money to obtain important positions in the court after becoming an official, have been much less likely to be able to obtain important positions in the court after only writing a few articles and even spend money to go through the relationship.

Because whether it is Zhu Houzhao's appointment, the six ministers and nine ministers of the cabinet, or the Ministry of Personnel will review the political achievements and resumes of each recommended candidate official in advance. His resume will be announced by the Huang Ming Pao during his tenure. He will clearly know what political achievements he has done, and will even be seen by scholars and people all over the world.

Fortunately, ordinary people don’t know how to read, and they won’t care much, but for poor people, if a big boss in the court makes his family’s children be promoted without much political achievements, they will dare to bring the lawsuit to the emperor.

Because of this, the examination not only guaranteed the tax income of the empire, but also greatly changed people's livelihood. In some places, the people-friendly officials no longer waved their fans and only brought a few gentry to chant the wind or write birthday poems for the old ministers in Beijing, but began to actively build river embankments and build bridges and seriously punish prisons.

As a result, the emperor Zhu Houzhao and the Secretary of the Cabinet received fewer praises, but no longer became arrogant, and even fewer examples of filial piety were reduced, which made the administration not as bad as before in history. Since the Zhengde and Jiajing, the superiors only paid money and the subordinates only paid money to make money. As an official, he only paid the money to make, but not the good or bad to do things.

It was also because the administration of the Ming Dynasty was gradually clearing and clearing, and the reform of the border trade system and the land of the Qing dynasty were successfully implemented. Most officials had to do their best to complete the orders of the central court in order to promote their positions.

Of course, whether it is the law of the examination, the border town switch after the examination, and the land of the clearance of the fields of the qian, they are all implemented by the emperor and the reformers using their power to compulsory power. For most gentry groups and even rulers such as nobles and vassal kings, they are unwilling to do this in their hearts.
Chapter completed!