Seeing Xiao Jing's fierce reaction, Zhu Houzhao was very satisfied. After just asking about the recent situation of the vassal king, Xiao Jing thought he was going to cut off the vassal kings. It seems that in everyone's eyes, the vassal kings are the targets of the emperor's strict defense. Tomorrow's court meeting can easily deceive all the court officials!

There were many vassal kings in the Ming Dynasty. They were not the founding princes of Zhu Yuanzhang. Later, every emperor ascended the throne, and his brothers were also named princes. When they became adults, they had to go to the fiefdom to get into the vassal.

Just like Emperor Jiajing's father, the younger brother of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming Dynasty, Zhu Houzhao's cousin, was named King Xing and his fief was in Luzhou, Guang'an. This King Xing was the title of prince, and later this title was inherited by Jiajing.

When Zhengde passed away, he had no son and had no heirs in the throne. According to the rules of brothers and brothers, Zhengde's father, Emperor Hongzhi, was the third son of Emperor Xianzong of Ming, and King Xing was the fourth son of Emperor Xianzong of Ming, and the eldest and second sons of the higher-ups died when they were young, so they didn't have to worry about it.

Therefore, according to the bloodline ranking, King Xing was the first heir to the Ming Dynasty in terms of legal principles, but King Xing had already died, so the position of emperor was inherited by King Xing's only son, Zhu Houzhao's cousin Zhu Houcong. This is why Jiajing was able to become the emperor.

The eldest son and grandson of each prince can inherit the title of the prince infinitely, and the rest of the sons can obtain the prince's title.

The eldest son of the prince and the eldest grandson of the prince can inherit the title of the prince infinitely, and the other sons can all obtain the title of General of the State.

...

By analogy, the number of royal relatives in the late Ming Dynasty exceeded 300,000, and even more than one million. These royal families did not work for production, but the court had to provide salary for support every year, which became the heaviest burden of the Ming Dynasty's finances. At the same time, because these vassal kings were nobles, they annexed a large amount of land and did not have to pay taxes, resulting in a large amount of land not being taxed, which was also one of the root causes of the decrease in finances in the late Ming Dynasty.

What's worse is that there is no father in the world who doesn't love his son. The prince went to the local area to go to the vassal state. The court sent the Ministry of Works to build a palace. At the same time, the emperor also ordered the local area to give these vassal states a compensation of at least hundreds of thousands to two million acres of land.

What's even more terrible is that these lands were not produced by the emperor, but were subject to the local officials' responsibility to raise them.

The amount of land is fixed, and the land of the gentry in the local area cannot be moved, so they can only squeeze out a few acres of land that are pitiful to the poor people. The vassal kings are in the vassal state, and there may be more than 100,000 people in the local area who will face the desperate situation of destruction of their families.

These unarmed people have no choice but to accept the plunder of the ruling class.

Get up and rebel? There is no mud leg in the land. It is nothing more than cutting a few bamboo poles as weapons and killing a few landlords. The gentry class has mastered most of the means of production in this era and can easily organize a powerful army equipped with iron armor and steel knives to crush the uprising troops into powder.

Historical books describe the vassal kings and nobles of the Ming Dynasty as the country's borers, and that's how it comes about.

Of course, not every prince’s title can be passed on unlimitedly, because some princes die before they have a son, which is considered a heir. Or those who commit the crime of the anger of heaven and people are deprived of the title will be considered abolished.

The princes in the early Ming Dynasty had relatively large fiefs, especially the princes conferred by Zhu Yuanzhang. They all had military power and helped the emperor guard the local area, and their sphere of influence could radiate to many prefectures.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, after several restrictions on the vassals, the new prince could only be granted a small town, and acted as a mighty person in this circle designated by the court. As long as they did not rebel, no one would care about what they did. Moreover, their descendants would be restricted to this area. Once they qualify, they would be deprived of their titles and imprisoned in Fengyang Prison.

Before Zhengde, although the ban was severe, it was still a little free. It was okay to go out of the city to hunt, oppress the people, or even go to Beijing to see the emperor.

However, after the rebellion of King Anhua and the rebellion of King Ning during the Zhengde period, and Emperor Jiajing was the emperor who was taken over by the prince, he became more vigilant against the vassal kings, and the civil servant group was fueling the fire. The emperor's control over the vassal kings became increasingly strict, and since then the vassal kings have truly become pigs raised in captivity and are restricted to an outrageous level.

"There are thirty princes, so many are enough, but there is no need to come all of them! Do you have any recommendations for Da Pang?" Zhu Houzhao asked carefully.

"Your Majesty, what do you want me to recommend?" Xiao Jing didn't understand what Zhu Houzhao meant?

"I want some powerful vassal kings to come to the capital and arrange some things for them!" Zhu Houzhao said dismissively.

"The emperor wants to lead a strong vassal into the capital and then give him official positions to fight against the six cabinet ministries!"

Xiao Jing was an old politician who had been immersed in the officialdom for decades and immediately guessed Zhu Houzhao's thoughts. He was a little emperor with weak power, weak officials, and strong officials, and indeed could not fight against a powerful civil servant group. If the vassal kings were introduced into the capital, he thought that strong support would indeed put strong pressure on the six cabinet ministries.

If this matter is done well, it may be able to reshuffle the power of the court!

However, this strategy of driving away wolves at the front door and attracting tigers at the back door cannot be said to be a good idea, and it is very likely to be a bad idea.

The throne of the vassal state is large, and the threat to the emperor is obviously greater than that of the cabinet. If the operation is not careful, it is very likely to threaten the imperial power. Otherwise, it would be impossible for Hongzhi's father to turn a blind eye to this force during his reign, but instead tried his best to restrict it.

"But the ancestral system..."

"According to the ancestral system, the Taizu made these vassal kings have heavy troops!" Zhu Houzhao rushed forward without waiting for Xiao Jing to finish his words, and then continued: "There are no unchanging rules in the world. I need these royal uncles to help me do something. This is the matter within my royal family. How dare the cabinet have any objections?"

"These vassal kings are like tigers in the local area. It may not be beneficial to the emperor when they are brought to the capital. I still do not recommend that the emperor implement this plan." Xiao Jing still wanted to persuade Zhu Houzhao, after all, the fragile nerves of the cabinet did not expect to see the existence of a strong vassal king.

Moreover, Zhu Houzhao was young and was very likely to be unable to control these vassal kings, and might even cause trouble and lose the throne!

The local powerful vassals are not only the enemy of the emperor, but also the great trouble of the civil servant group. Because of their natural status, the nobles have absolute advantages in occupying fields, mining minerals and setting up shops. Single gentry is unable to fight against them, and can only join forces to barely fight against them.

"The tiger is so good! The more fierce I like it!" Zhu Houzhao narrowed her eyes and replied with a smile: "Dapa, your eyes are still too shallow. She only sees the disadvantages brought by the vassal kings, but she cannot see the pressure on the six ministries of the cabinet after they enter Beijing. When the vassal kings confront the cabinet, it is the time for me to control the court and develop strength!"

After Zhu Houzhao said this, Xiao Jing was speechless. Is your child's political level stronger than Emperor Hongzhi? What power can you develop?

Political struggle is not about playing house for children!

Don’t lose the Zhu family’s country!

In this era, Xiao Jing was a qualified politician, but his vision could not transcend this era anyway, so he could not imagine that Zhu Houzhao had never thought of snatching the pitiful leftovers from the civil service group.

In Zhu Houzhao's eyes, all this controlled by these conservative gentry groups in the Ming Dynasty was just a native chicken and a tile under the feudal dynasty.

In the past month, Zhu Houzhao counted the tax revenue, population, total land acres in the past 30 years, grain output, number of shops, silk cotton yarn, minerals, etc., and comprehensively calculated that by the time of Hongzhi's father's death, the GDP of the Ming Dynasty was about 62 billion US dollars.

Remove the wealth held by the emperor, nobles, and the vast majority of ordinary people.

The rest are all considered as the total assets of the civil servant group, which is converted into the GDP of later generations, which is only 30 billion US dollars. Even if the 800,000 troops in Jiubian Jun Town are considered as the power of the group, this basic base is still pitiful!

The purchasing power of silver and money in ancient times was obviously stronger than that of modern times, but even if the purchasing power of 30 billion was increased by a hundred times, it would only be 300 billion US dollars, which is only one-third of the market value of Apple Group.

Only the civil servant group will regard this little property as a treasure!

Zhu Houzhao doesn't like it at all!

Zhu Houzhao's real goal is to start a new business, by absorbing the gentry and nobles who are willing to get closer, and reorganizing a new force of landlords and capitalists headed by the emperor and mainly expanding to the outside world!

Zhu Houzhao believes that under his plan, this newly emerging political force can control more than 100 billion US dollars in the next ten years, which will create an absolute advantage for the civil servant group.

As for the modern army of all firearms, the strength is not large, and only one hundred thousand troops is enough to suppress the nine-sided military towns. What's more, Zhu Houzhao would definitely not be satisfied with the number of 100,000.

Zhu Houzhao wanted to start a new job, but obviously the cabinet would not watch the emperor grow stronger and would definitely stop him.

Conservative forces will never allow emerging forces to erode their interests.

This is why Zhu Houzhao thought of bringing powerful vassals into the capital. He did this to break the political power comparison in the capital, and let the six cabinet ministries and the vassal kings compete for power and profit, and dogs bite dogs.

With the restraint of the vassal king Xungui Group, the six departments of the cabinet must divide most of the power to deal with it, and Zhu Houzhao can do his own things leisurely. If the power of the two groups is unbalanced, Zhu Houzhao can also mediate in the center to balance the power of both, and avoid the situation of one's dominance.

So whether it is the strong vassal kings or the strong civil servant group, it doesn't matter to Zhu Houzhao. When he becomes truly strong, he will just be an ant that is killed by one step.

Even if a certain vassal king becomes stronger and then learns from Zhu Di and wants to go to Jingnan again, it will only become a test opponent of Zhu Houzhao's new army. The old army with swords and guns will definitely be defeated in the face of the new army with all firearms.
Chapter completed!