Ren Li, a student from Jiangpu County, believed that he was a gentry and did not have any fear of Yan Song. After scolding Yan Song and being romantic enough in the Qinhuai River in Nanjing, he brought a batch of spices obtained through smuggling to sell them to Suzhou.

When Ren Li sat in a four-wheel drive carriage with a large number of goods and the beauty he bought in the Qinhuai River, the police officer guarding the gate of the Jiangnan State Taxation Bureau came to Ren Li: "Get the tooth sign! What goods are loaded on the car!"

The student Ren Li had long been dissatisfied with Yan Song's establishment of checkpoints on the cement road from Nanzhili to Suzhou to collect lijin. He also saw that the police officer of the State Taxation Bureau was just an ordinary military officer, and the word "suspected" on his chest made him feel that it was no different from the yamen runners in the public hall.

But such a lowly military officer dared to be so arrogant in front of a noble student, Ren Li became angry and jumped out of the carriage and kicked the police officer directly:

"A bastard! Ren is a scholar, a son of Confucius and Mencius, and is even a student of the government's school! You are just a small military officer, and your future will be just a gatekeeper. What qualifications do you have to dare to block my way!"

Ren Li shook his head as he said that wearing a square scarf means he is superior to others. Even if these lowly martial artists in front of him should kneel down and talk to him. Just like when his father was the seventh-rank censor, the thousand-rank military officers of the fifth-rank would kneel down to his father and reply to his father, so he couldn't help but complain in his heart: "You are blind, haven't you seen the scarf above this young master's head?"

"Although he is a small military officer, he is the seventh-rank chief rank official and the imperial official of the Ming Dynasty. You are just a scholar, less than eight times taller and far more ambition than buying prostitutes. Who gives you the courage to beat my civil servants!

Ordinary people fear officials as if they were tigers and wolves. It was very strange for you to wait for the students. When they saw officials, they dared to commit crimes! The person came, as the rules, beat the imperial officials and blamed him for sixty. Take him down!"

Yan Song happened to pass by here and happened to see this scene. He was too lazy to ask who the student was, and he only acted on the law.

"Slow down!"

When Ren Li saw Yan Song wearing a scarlet civil servant robe, he shouted first, and then he bowed directly: "Student Ren Li has met this adult, but the student is a scholar, and the adult is also a civil servant. Since this is the case, why should the adult support a martial artist? Do you intend to let Shilin say that you value martial arts and over literature?"

"I only know that you broke the rules and beat the imperial official, but he didn't beat you!"

Yan Song didn't expect that this person was scolding Ren Li behind his back. After saying that, he ordered the people around him: "I'll beat him to death later!"

The police officer next to Yan Song was a member of the Jinyiwei system before, so he naturally knew how to fight to the death, so he nodded: "Don't worry, sir!"

At this time, two policemen came over and caught the Ren Li.

Ren Li began to become a little scared at this time, and said with a stern look on his face: "This adult, the student's father is the imperial censor. If you beat the student, aren't you afraid that your father will seek revenge on you?"

"I have always been upright and not afraid of the powerful. Don't say that Ling Zun is his father. Even Ling Zun is the chief, I must follow the rules. However, you can tell me who your father is. I just happened to be a member of Ling Zun's crime of educating his children!"

After Yan Song said that, a butler of Ren Li hurriedly came over: "This master offended! Our young master is not familiar with the world and offended you. Please forgive me and make peace. This is a bill of exchange for the Royal Bank of China. Do you think you can spare our young master and beat him?"

"In the fifth year of Zhengde, the Three Ministers proposed by His Majesty, and the Anti-Corruption Laws personally approved by His Majesty clearly states that those who bribe their superiors with a value of more than 500 taels will be slaughtered for five years! Take this old housekeeper down! Confiscate his bribes!"

So Yan Song got five hundred taels for nothing and arrested the Ren family's housekeeper to be a free labor force.

Ren Li was furious when he saw this, but he could not refute it. He only gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, what a righteous master Qingtian!"

The Ren family housekeeper had already knelt down at this time and only kowtowed, begging for mercy, "Master, please spare your life! The young man had no intention of bribing the master, but the young man just compensated the money our young master beat Mr. Shouguan just now!"

"Since that's the case, according to the compensation regulations, you should also compensate 1,000 taels. A seventh-rank civil and military official was beaten by the people. According to the law, if the common people want to be exempted from crime, they must compensate 1,000 taels of silver, and pay another 500 taels!"

After Yan Song said this, Ren Ren only paid another five hundred taels.

Ren Li was also released because of this, while Yan Song did not intend to let Ren Li go. He continued to point to the Ren family's convoy and asked, "What kind of goods are you transporting?"

"Reporting to the master, it's a spice." The people in the southern Zhili area were not prohibited from doing business, so the housekeeper who served as a ritual replied truthfully.

"Spices are luxury goods. They should be taxed three times the tax. The estimated price of so many cars of spices has long exceeded 100 taels, and they cannot be cleared without duty. Mr. Hu, who is guarding the pass, asks you to go to the document of the closing experience, and must be calculated accurately and not be charged too much, so that the merchants and the people have no profit to make, but they must not be charged less, so that the court has no silver money to raise the road. Do you understand?"

When Yan Song said that, General Hu, who was guarding the pass, stood up: "The official understands!" Then he brought the people guarding the pass to calculate and directly asked the old housekeeper for the account book.

At this time, Ren Li saw this and bowed angrily, "Sir! These are all for the people, and they are the strategies for scholars and others to make a living. I hope you will prefer our scholars and avoid the benefits you collect!"

"You sell spices to the people at a high price, causing them to lose their money, but only for the sake of luxury. You are harming the people's interests. How to match the people's interests? The heavy tax payment is to prevent our Ming people from engaging in this extravagant trend! We must pay! If they resist taxes, they will be taken away directly!"

With Yan Song's forced order, Ren Li had to admit defeat.

At this time, Yan Song saw a beauty sitting in the carriage again, and asked, "This beauty has a charming face and half-exposed clothes. She doesn't look like a good woman, who is she?"

"If the student bought a famous prostitute in the Qinhuai River, if the adults like it, the student can give it to the adults. If the adults ask the adults to allow the student not to pay this extravagant tax this time." Ren Li completely forgot the ban on bribery that Yan Song had said before, and he naively wanted to make a deal with Yan Song.

"I have already ordered the people to clean up the academic style. In order to clean up the academic style, students from various prefectures and counties in southern Zhili are not allowed to go to prostitutes everywhere to humiliate the literary style of the scholars. You are so proud of your rituals and dare to commit crimes against the wind. He has ruined his fame and taken away the scarf on his head!"

Yan Song suddenly pulled down his face and shouted loudly.

Ren Li didn't expect that the official in front of him suddenly wanted to take his square scarf and change his fame. He couldn't help but be shocked: "Sir, you are, who are you?"

"You should guess that my official is Yan Song, the governor of Zhili in Nan, and is also in charge of academic affairs. You poured my official dirty water under the pseudonym of "Xishan Guest" in the newspaper. I can't bear to block the Shilin's words and did not do anything to you, but you can't be fearless and lawless enough to travel around the world with prostitutes from the Qinhuai River! You are a living person, and you should devote yourself to learning, bury your head in the sea of ​​books, or study in the world, but you rely on your own fame and fortune, and you dare to take prostitutes home without saying anything! You are so bold!"

Yan Song said that, and took the square scarf of the ceremony from the people below, then rode his horse and ordered: "Immediately, the officials of the prefectures and counties and the school officials went to the governor's office to discuss matters. The official ordered them to clean up the academic style, but in Nanjing, there are still students who are romantic. What do they do?"

Ren Li was eliminated from fame and fame by Yan Song, which made all the gentry in Jiangnan even more angry with Yan Song, but they had no choice but to deal with Yan Song, because Yan Song is now doing a ruling of etiquette and pursuing literary style. These are all advocated by the civil servants and gentry themselves. Yan Song is just asking them to strictly abide by it, so no one dares to object explicitly.

The gentry in Jiangnan complained, but they could not openly oppose it, so they could only contact the civil officials in the capital to transfer Yan Song away, just like when Shanghai Rui served as governor Yingtian, he was promoted to Nanjing to be a free official shortly afterwards.

However, Zhu Houzhao did not intend to transfer Yan Song away.

Zhu Houzhao was relieved to have Yan Song in charge of Nanzhili. He believed that only cunning officials like Yan Song could be the governor of Nanzhili to fight against the gentry in Jiangnan.

No one expected that Yan Song would take advantage of the opportunity of the cabinet chief to carry out spiritual civilization construction in the central court to carry out activities to restore the etiquette system in Nanzhili, punishing all officials, gentry, and wealthy businessmen so hard that they dared to be extravagant and waste their time.

Officials from other provinces also began to follow the same rules and started to restore the etiquette system in the areas under their jurisdiction.

The cabinet chief Wang Hua himself did not expect that the spiritual civilization construction he advocated would be so practical. A movement to restore the etiquette system and purify social atmosphere gave his Ming Dynasty a million taels of income, and even the reserves of the Royal Bank increased a lot, so that he, the shareholder of the Royal Bank, had a considerable profit.

What made Wang Hua even more happy was that he first presided over the construction of spiritual civilization, and Zhu En, the Minister of Rites, proposed the theory of frugality and rectifying the style. Then, Yan Song and other local officials began to purify the style, which greatly benefited the court. At the same time, it indeed suppressed the extravagance of society. Zhu Houzhao added the title of "Taifu" to him, allowing him to become a first-rank official like Ma Wensheng and Jiao Fang.

Zhu En was also promoted. Zhu En became the Minister of Rites, but he was not happy.

At this time, his student Ren Jianshu was saying to him: "Mr. Yan Song exploited gentry in Jiangnan in the name of purging the atmosphere, which made the sects complain. If you don't find a way, the Zhu family will be deeply affected by it. Ren Li, the son of the Ren family, was eliminated by Yan Song on the grounds of illegally taking prostitutes!"

"What! This, this, I am still allowed to wait until he passed the Jinshi exam and recognize him. Yan Song actually stopped me from thinking about it first! Isn't this making it impossible for us father and son to recognize each other? I am writing a memorial!"

As Zhu En said that, he went to the study angrily and began to write the memorial.

"Your Majesty, although etiquette is the foundation of the court and the world should be frugal, if there is an extravagant style, the court can denounce and exhort it. However, now the officials of various provinces frequently disturb the people on the grounds of pursuing etiquette and law. At the least, fines can be imposed on the accumulation of wealth, and confiscating property or even detaining the crime. This is actually an act that is unwilling to the people!

Moreover, the world is prosperous and the people are prosperous and the country is rich. The silk and silk are as cheap as ramie, and rice, millet and soybean are piled up like mountains. The people in the prosperous era should use brocade as clothes, so the sages of the Saint Emperor's achievements in civil governance. At this time, they allow silk and silk to rot at home, and rice, millet and soybean to be molded in the warehouse. In order to follow the etiquette of the Taizu period, it is inappropriate and unkind, Your Majesty!"

Now, many imperial literati and reformist local civil servants have launched a local ritual campaign based on Zhu En's argument, so that the gentry complained and hated Zhu En for this, and even began to expose Zhu En's various behaviors of disobeying the ritual and extravagant.

Zhu En, the Minister of Rites, regretted the idea of ​​advocating frugality and obeying etiquette. In addition, the fact that he was eliminated from the rituals and fame was even more exciting, so he quickly submitted a memorial, hoping to remedy his reputation among the scholars and gentry. Naturally, he did not dare to directly say that Yan Song was wrong, after all, he also knew that Yan Song was simply in the heart of the emperor.

After seeing Zhu En's memorial, Zhu Houzhao summoned Zhu En and asked Zhu En:

"Zhu En, your memorial before said that the people in the world are still in poverty, and there are still hungry people who are unable to get enough to fill every day. In your hometown, every winter, people are frozen to death due to the severe cold. Therefore, you suggest that I should open up the thrift for you, stop purchasing from all over the place, and even stop the eunuchs in the world, and even do not expand the palace. Except for the purchasing and eunuchs in the custody of the eunuchs in the city, I have many of them followed you, and I still live in this narrow Qianqing Palace!"

"Since people's livelihood is so difficult, why do you now report that the world is prosperous, the people are prosperous, the country is rich, the silk and silk are as cheap as ramie, and rice, millet and sorbet are piled up like mountains. According to you, aren't there no hungry and cold people in the world?

Well, I believe you, so I ask you, since silk and satin are as cheap as ramie, what is the annual cotton cloth output in the Ming Dynasty, what is the silk output, and how much grain output can satisfy the food and clothing of the people in the world?"

Zhu Houzhao asked Zhu En coldly.

Zhu En didn't know what to answer for a moment. He didn't expect His Majesty to contact him with two memorials before and after, and he didn't expect that he just used the metaphor of Daming silk and satin to compare the Daming silk and grain production based on the current social phenomenon. However, His Majesty asked about the annual output of cotton silk and grain production in the Ming Dynasty.

"Report to Your Majesty, I am inappropriate in my words. I ask Your Majesty to punish you. But I say that there are hungry and cold people in the world, and that the current dynasty is also the heartfelt words! As for the grain output of cotton, silk, cloth, etc., this is the matter of the Ministry of Revenue. I belong to the Ministry of Rites, so I naturally dare not ask about it."

Zhu En, Minister of Rites, replied.
Chapter completed!