Xia Yan is a relatively upright official, and he is diligent in his work, and has some real skills, so Jiajing admires him at the beginning.

However, he has a bad habit, that is, he likes to play tricks. The older the official, the more he likes to play tricks, and he has a great desire for power. His desire for the position of chief minister in the cabinet is a bit crazy.

Originally, he should have stood on the side of the people's side of the eunuchs in the palace, because the eunuchs occupied the land of the people and did not bring a slight income to the court. The original land in the imperial village was quite large, and these eunuchs were greedy for more than 90% of the profits. Of course, the land they occupied themselves was even more unlikely to pay any profit to the court. On the contrary, doing so would arouse public anger.

During the Zhengde Dynasty, because the eunuchs occupied too much land in the name of the imperial village, they caused trouble in the northern Zhili peasants, which made the entire capital uneasy.

The reason why Jiajing asked Xia Yan to clean up the imperial village was to clean up the old forces of the Zhengde Dynasty and also to ensure the peace of the capital.

Xia Yan naturally understood this principle, but when it came to power, he became confused.

If this place was occupied by the eunuchs under Huang Jin, he would even support Liu Shuxiang to handle it impartially. However, this place was occupied by the eunuchs under Chen Hong, because he had to rely on Chen Hong to win the favor of Jiajing.

Chen Hong is indeed not a good person. Not only is he greedy but also extremely cruel. If anyone offends him, he will kill him and make no sense at all.

Xia Yan is quite clear about this, and he is also disgusted with this. After all, he thinks he is still reasonable.

However, he had no choice. Huang Jin and Chen Hong were the most powerful people in the palace at this moment, and Huang Jin was Jiajing's companion. Treating Jiajing was like treating relatives. It was impossible for him to find Huang Jin to fool Jiajing. Only Chen Hong was willing to help him speak nice things in front of Jiajing.

He wanted to climb to the position of chief minister of the cabinet, but no one in the palace would definitely not work, especially at this time, because he misbehaved with the two treacherous villains Liu Boyue and Chen Da, and accidentally burned several important memorials, Jiajing had already had some objections to him. If Chen Hong had not spoken to him with good things, he would have probably completely lost Jiajing's favor. Therefore, when Chen Hong asked him to help deal with Liu Shuxiang, he agreed without hesitation.

He originally thought that Liu Shuxiang should be able to recognize the eyes, so he sent someone to warn him that this guy should know the importance of it.

Unexpectedly, Liu Shuxiang not only did not know the appearance, but instead went to visit the new top scorer Yang Cong in person.

This means to defect to the Yangming lineage and go against him.

It’s a big deal, do you think that if the Yangming lineage protects me, I can’t deal with you, or what’s wrong?

When Xia Yan received the news, he became angry immediately. The next day, he ordered his subordinates and the clerk to report a crazily to impeach Liu Shuxiang, the prefect of Shuntian!

Of course, it was not Liu Shuxiang who ordered people to impeach the land that originally belonged to the Xu family to the second brothers Xu Da and Xu. He also sentenced this place in the beginning. If he wanted to impeach this, wouldn't he slap himself in the face?

He ordered people to impeach Liu Shuxiang for accepting bribes and abolished the assisting silver for the descendants of wealthy businessmen who moved to Beijing during the Yongle Dynasty.

This incident is indeed true. Liu Shuxiang did accept bribes from others and canceled the assisted servants who were descendants of wealthy businessmen from Yongle Dynasty who moved to Beijing.

However, Liu Shuxiang did not do anything wrong in this matter.

During the Yongle Dynasty, the capital was moved from southern Zhili to northern Zhili. Not only were the major yamen of the court moved here, but many wealthy businessmen in Jinling were also forced to move here.

There was no way. Shuntian Prefecture was almost a border town at that time. Although there was an old capital of the Northern Yuan Dynasty, after several wars, the merchants here were either snatched away or ran away. The old capital of the Northern Yuan Dynasty was depressed and sparsely populated. As the Ming Dynasty, the capital of the Ming Dynasty could not be so desolate. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty Emperor Chengzu ordered thousands of wealthy merchants to move to Beizhili.

This was originally a good thing, because although the old capital of the Northern Yuan Dynasty was in a bleak industry, the scale of the city was there. After expansion, it would be no problem to move in millions of people. Moreover, as the capital of the Ming Dynasty, the court would definitely move people inside and it would soon be full. This is a potential huge market. In order to allow them to take root in the new capital as soon as possible, the Ming Chengzu also provided them with corresponding shops for free.

However, there is one thing that is bad. They have to pay the assisted service bank because the new capital was under construction at that time, and money was needed everywhere and the court could not afford it. They obtained the shop for free and had huge business opportunities, which was equivalent to a huge benefit in vain, and it was also worthwhile to pay some assisted service bank.

The originally decided assisted silver was 100 taels per year for each wealthy businessman until the new capital was built.

One hundred taels a year are naturally a huge expense for ordinary merchants, but it is not a big burden for wealthy businessmen. As long as the business is good, it is not a problem for them to earn a few hundred taels a year. Moreover, they don’t have to worry about business when they open a store in Xinjing City. At the beginning, they paid the assisted silver.

However, later on, there were more and more vendors in the capital, and their business became increasingly difficult to do, and one hundred taels a year became a huge burden.

After decades of this, the capital was built and many merchants were a little overwhelmed. However, the court did not cancel the assisted service bank.

Because this is a huge income, hundreds of thousands of taels a year. The new capital has been built, so there is no need to spend this money. How great is the extra income of the hundreds of thousands of taels a year for each major yamen.

They were so happy, but the wealthy businessmen could not afford it. There were more and more merchants in Beijing and the competition was getting bigger and bigger, but they still had to bear 100 or twelve years of assisted service silver. The cost was obviously higher than that of later merchants. How could they compete?

Many descendants of wealthy businessmen went bankrupt because of this, but they had to pay the assisting bank. In the past hundred years, they had no choice but to run away. In the past hundred years, more than 90% of the thousands of wealthy businessmen who had moved to Northern Zhili had run away, and only hundreds of them were still struggling to persevere.

After Liu Shuxiang took office, these wealthy descendants heard that he was a good official who collected money and did business, so they joined forces to raise some money and gave it to Liu Shuxiang, asking him to cancel the deadly assisted silver.

This matter was originally under the jurisdiction of Shuntian Prefecture. After Liu Shuxiang ordered people to investigate, it was really difficult for these wealthy business descendants. Except for dozens of businesses that had started, other businesses could not afford such high miscellaneous responsibilities. If there were a few years, I am afraid that these so-called "rich businessmen" would have to run away dozens of them.

He also found out that the whereabouts of these assistants were almost done. Basically, the major yamen in the capital had been divided, and they did not enter the treasury at all. In other words, the silver was not originally collected for the court, and after the merchants had almost gone, there was only a few thousand taels left, and there was nothing to divide in the major yamen.

Therefore, he went against the opposition and canceled the assisted service silver that should have been cancelled when it was built in the capital.

This was originally not a normal income, and it was not easy for major yamen to sue him because of this. He also explained to major yamen that if this continues, it will sooner or later force all the descendants of the rich businessmen to run away, and they will not be able to get any benefits. At that time, a yamen can be divided into several hundred taels or even dozens of taels, what's the use?

Therefore, this incident did not cause much trouble, and everyone agreed. Unexpectedly, Xia Yan's party was revealed again.
Chapter completed!