Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 28 I am very interested in your son Wang Shouren
Although Zhu Houzhao's Royal Exposition had ended, the shock it brought to the civil service group had not ended.

The political enemies of Han Wen, the Minister of Revenue, have begun to instruct the censors to take advantage of this incident to attack Han Wen and others, criticizing them for their poor governance of the country.

The matter was finally ended with the Minister of Revenue Han Wen's voluntary resignation, and the cabinet's draft opinion was to agree to the resignation. There was nothing that could be done about it. The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was forced to sell goods on the street, and the Minister of Revenue Han Wen could only take the blame for being a mean emperor and father.

Zhu Houzhao never expected that he only opened a royal exposition to make some money for himself and promote Ming Dynasty's commercial trade, but it led to the retirement of a Minister of Revenue. Zhu Houzhao felt quite guilty about this and rewarded Han Wen with 500 taels of silver for his return home.

Zhu Houzhao was now wealthy. He had earned more than 300,000 taels of silver from just one royal exposition. Moreover, the treasury was now back in his hands. Therefore, rewarding the ministers with 500 taels of silver was nothing. He originally wanted to reward them with 1,000 taels, but was reluctant to do so. He thought that these ministers and assistant ministers were not poor anyway, so he only took out 500 taels.

Even if it was only five hundred taels, it was a reward from the emperor. The Minister of Revenue Han Wen accepted it with tears of gratitude and returned to his hometown in Shanxi helplessly.

The Minister of Revenue Han Wen has left, so the remaining position of Minister of Revenue naturally needs to be re-elected.

Zhu Houzhao found that his plan to control the government seemed to be disrupted. He had originally wanted to overthrow the eunuch Zhang Zhao, who was in charge of the Imperial Stables, first. However, after the Minister of War Liu Daxia was killed in his own explosion, it was the Minister of Revenue Han Wen who resigned first.

In this way, the power of the cabinet chief Liu Jian and others would be weakened, and the emperor himself could choose the Minister of Revenue again.

Now that Zhu Houzhao has taken back the treasury, the Ministry of Revenue is only responsible for the national treasury, namely land tax and head tax. However, Zhu Houzhao does not want to reform these taxes yet, nor does he care too much about who will be the Minister of Revenue. But if it is not someone like Liu Jian, the chief minister of the cabinet, it will naturally be more beneficial to him. After all, in this case, the power of the cabinet will be restricted, and his own imperial power will be greater.

The Minister of Personnel Ma Wensheng selected a few more people, but the two who were finally selected and needed to be decided by Emperor Zhu Houzhao were still not Ma Wensheng's people. This is enough to show that cabinet ministers such as Liu Jian still have great power in the court.

Zhu Houzhao chose Wang Hua, the right vice-minister of the Ministry of Rites, as the Minister of Revenue. The main reason was that there were two newly elected candidates for the position, one was Guo Yue, the Minister of Revenue in Nanjing, and the other was Wang Hua. Zhu Houzhao was only familiar with Wang Hua and knew that Wang Hua was a person who did not form cliques and was not very good at being an official, so he naturally chose Wang Hua.

In addition, Zhu Houzhao felt that Wang Yangming was so unorthodox, but Wang Hua did not beat him to death, which shows that Wang Hua was a person who was relatively tolerant of rebellious personalities. Zhu Houzhao believed that he would do many unorthodox things in the future, and Wang Hua was undoubtedly a minister who was very suitable to get along with a rebellious king.

As usual, Zhu Houzhao met with the new Minister of Revenue, Wang Hua.

Because people like Wang Hua, who were top scholars in the imperial examination, had a relatively high status in the literary world, some theories could easily cause a big stir if directly presented to Wang Hua. Even Liu Jin did not have any relationship with him, so Zhu Houzhao did not let Liu Jin and others develop Wang Hua into a member of the Loyal Emperor Society.

When meeting the new Minister of Revenue, Wang Hua, Zhu Houzhao only talked about government affairs and not party affairs: "The Ministry of Revenue is not as idle as the Hanlin Academy, nor is it governed by only scholars like the Ministry of Rites. The Ministry of Revenue is related to the livelihood of the common people and the safety of the Ming Dynasty. It should not be neglected. Show some spirit of doing practical things. This is the "Outline of Governing the Country" drafted by me. Take it back and read it."

Wang Hua was very surprised, because in the past it was the ministers who taught His Majesty how to govern the country. But now, he came to see His Majesty as usual to express his gratitude, but was taught by His Majesty how to manage government affairs and was even rewarded with an imperially bestowed "Outline of Governing the Country"!
But Wang Hua had no choice but to accept it. Although he did not quite believe that a 15-year-old emperor could write any insightful ideas on governing the country, the emperor had bestowed it on him, and as a subject, refusing would be disobeying the emperor's order.

"I will obey your order and read your Majesty's work carefully," Wang Hua accepted the Outline of Governing the Country. Zhu Houzhao nodded with satisfaction. He wanted to change the mode of governing the country by the monarch and his ministers in this way, that is, to change the mode of the civil ministers asking the emperor to be a wise monarch to the mode of the emperor asking the ministers to be a wise minister.

After finishing the business, Zhu Houzhao couldn't help but chat. After all, he was quite interested in Wang Hua's son Wang Yangming. If it weren't for Wang Yangming, he wouldn't know Wang Hua and wouldn't choose Wang Hua as the Minister of Revenue:

"My royal western garden, Taiye Lake, also has a beautiful bamboo forest. If you are interested, you can come here to pick bamboo. You can tell your son that he can come anytime when he has free time. I welcome you very much."

Wang Hua was a little surprised, wondering how His Majesty knew about his son's previous stupid behavior with Ge Zhu, and why he was interested in his son again.

Wang Hua was only in the outer court and didn't know the character of the new emperor Zhu Houzhao. He only knew from other officials that His Majesty was cynical, so he thought His Majesty had a habit like rabbit husband. He was also afraid that his son's chrysanthemum would be in danger, so he could only say awkwardly: "Your Majesty, my son has been married for a long time and has passed the age of thirty."

"I don't allow him to be a son-in-law of the emperor, so what does it matter whether he gets married or not?" Zhu Houzhao said.

Wang Hua was even more certain that Zhu Houzhao had some special hobbies. He thought to himself that he had never expected that His Majesty wanted to recruit a prince consort. Now it seemed that he was not going to recruit a prince consort. It seemed that he was really being treated as a rabbit. What should he do?
"Your Majesty, my son has thick skin and ugly appearance, and looks more like his mother," Wang Hua said hurriedly.

"Oh, it turns out Wang Yangming is an ugly guy!"

Zhu Houzhao was shocked, thinking that history did not seem to mention what Wang Yangming looked like, but he still smiled and said:

"It doesn't matter. I won't let him be the face of the court, such as a spokesperson. His appearance doesn't matter. I just like your son's temperament. Your son's ideal is to become a sage through the ages. My current ideal is to become the greatest emperor through the ages. We are all crazy! I like young people who are a little crazy!"

Wang Hua couldn't help but feel relieved, but then he was suddenly shocked. He didn't expect that his son Wang Yangming's shocking words back then were also known by His Majesty. What he didn't expect was that His Majesty didn't even mean to blame his son for it, and seemed to be as arrogant as his son was back then! What he said always made people feel wrong, what spokesperson, what ideals, and so on.

If Zhu Houzhao was not an emperor of high status, Wang Hua would have scolded Zhu Houzhao directly.

Wang Hua could beat and scold his own son Wang Yangming, but he did not have the courage to beat or scold Emperor Zhu Houzhao. He could only advise him: "Your Majesty, if you want to be an emperor through the ages, you should learn from Yao and Shun, cultivate your character, and understand morality and reason."

"Okay, stop talking about these big principles, just leave," Zhu Houzhao interrupted Wang Hua and asked him to leave.

Wang Hua could not help but shook his head, wondering why young people nowadays are like this, they love to talk big but do not pay attention to reality, they want to be great saints but are unwilling to listen to even a good word. His son is okay, at most he will bring disaster to his family, but Your Majesty is the ruler of a country, if this continues, he will not become the greatest emperor in history, but a tyrant instead.

(End of this chapter)