Chapter 1031: Like Two Dogs Fighting Over a Bone in Their Master

Chen Zhun had, without realizing it, exposed his own class identity.

Because the articles he wrote for money were all clichés, lifeless and dull; let alone a young man like Zhu Yijun, even if they were given to the base scholars to read, the base scholars wouldn't even bother.

But among the seven articles he wrote concerning the poor and the toiling masses, all were filled with genuine emotion, containing sympathy and pity for the poor and the toiling, and full of accusations against exploitation. His Majesty the Emperor had even published one of them in the *Di Bao*.

"The Back Basket" was a tool for carrying children, and it was also the title of this article by Chen Zhun.

Late last autumn, on his way home, Chen Zhun saw an old woman. The woman was quite hunched, looking exceptionally aged, with a lame right foot, unable to walk steadily.

The autumn wind was biting, the west wind fierce; amidst gusts of cold wind, the old woman's clothes were insufficient to cover her body. The only padded jacket she had was worn by the child in the back basket. The child poked its head out of the basket, its large eyes looking around curiously.

In Songjiang Prefecture, which had completed its transformation into a commodity economy and was known as the "Cotton Capital," this old woman had only one dirty padded jacket, which was draped over the child.

The old woman held a paper bag printed with "Zhao's Pear Syrup Candy" in her hand, leaning on a cane, walking with difficulty in the cold wind.

The masters were all kind-hearted and couldn't bear to see this; some masters simply turned a blind eye, pretending they hadn't seen it. But Chen Zhun was clearly not that kind of master. He followed the old woman back to the shack she had built outside the city and asked about her situation.

The old woman looked to be fifty or sixty, but she was actually only thirty-six. She was from Huguang and had come to Songjiang Prefecture to work for a living. Her husband was very capable, responsible for escorting various goods at a security firm. The year before last, her husband and her eldest son died on the road while escorting goods.

The child sitting in the back basket was the old woman's third son.

Her husband died on the road while escorting goods. The case was solved slowly, and the security firm gave fifteen taels of silver, which was considered compensation for the lives of the father and son.

The old woman was naturally dissatisfied and went to the security firm to make a scene, only to be beaten by the people there. Her foot became lame at that time, and later, because of delayed treatment, she remained crippled.

The old woman had another son. Her second son took all fifteen taels of silver and, because of his wife's nagging, drove her and the third son out of the house.

She also had a daughter who had been married for many years. With nowhere else to turn, she sought refuge with her daughter, who took her in.

But the daughter was already married. In this day and age, a married daughter is like spilled water. Although the son-in-law never said anything harsh, his family was not wealthy either. Besides, she had a son; if she didn't have a son, it would be one thing to be supported by her daughter, but...

As time went on, the old woman had no choice but to leave with the third son.

The old woman made a living by weaving bamboo baskets. The baskets she wove in a day were only enough for food money; she couldn't afford anything else. She could only live in a shack, drink raw water, and eat thin porridge. Whatever copper coins she had, she gave them all to the third son in the back basket.

Unfilial piety is a serious crime. Chen Zhun naturally asked the old woman why she didn't go to the yamen to file a complaint. The old woman retorted, "Where is there a mother who would send her son to jail?"

Hearing this, Chen Zhun became even angrier.

The "Zhao's Pear Syrup Candy" in the old woman's hand was because the third son in the back basket kept crying and fussing for candy. The old woman had saved money for a long time before buying some to satisfy the third son's cravings. Originally, she had intended to use this money to buy a padded jacket.

Chen Zhun recorded all of this. Between the lines were accusations against the security firm, anger at such bone-scraping exploitation, dissatisfaction with the imperial court's slow handling of the case, and accusations against the unfilial second son.

Besides this, in the article, he also expressed his own resentment—resentment that he had studied the books of sages for so many years yet was powerless to change all of this. He couldn't even think of a way to solve these human miseries.

The moment Chen Zhun thought about how incompetent he was, he became even angrier!

The Great Ming had indeed undergone tremendous changes during the Wanli Reform, but it could not yet be called "great."

"A fool who wallows in self-pity. In fact, as a scholar and a teacher at the Great Academy, his willingness to look, to pay attention to the poor and toiling masses, and to write about them is, in itself, changing this wretched world." Zhu Yijun put down all the files and began to handle state affairs; he still had to continue his grind.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard verified these seven articles and confirmed the aftermath of the events. The problem of the old woman in "The Back Basket" had already been solved.

After Chen Zhun finished writing this article last autumn, the yamen runners of Songjiang Prefecture found the old woman's second son. After a round of "friendly communication" and "great memory recovery techniques," the second son remembered his mother's kindness to him and indicated that he would take his mother back.

The yamen runners gave another warning: if any abuse was discovered, the imperial court would file a public prosecution. Unfilial piety is one of the ten heinous crimes.

As for the security firm, they had failed to pay compensation according to the agreement after someone died, and when the surviving family members came to the door, they beat them again, causing injury. The security firm got involved in a public prosecution lawsuit, quickly paid the compensation according to the agreement, and paid thirty silver for medical expenses to compensate for that brutal beating.

The seven articles Chen Zhun wrote all had different follow-up treatments. The problems published in the local tabloids of Songjiang Prefecture were more or less solved. Of course, due to the rigidity of the imperial court, the speed of solving these problems was not that fast.

Gao Qiyu kept telling His Majesty the Emperor that the law is not fairness, and justice delayed is never justice.

For the owners and managers of the security firm, this total compensation of 100 silver was nothing, but for the woman, it was a real, world-shattering event.

Just as in the early years of Wanli, when His Majesty asked the teacher during the lecture, "If punching someone only costs two *qian* of broken silver, or even requires no payment at all, and requires no price to be paid for it, then in the eyes of these powerful and wealthy people, what exactly is a person?" The final result was that a person is an object.

People are being alienated. This phenomenon became faster after Songjiang Prefecture completed its transformation into a commodity economy. The commodity economy accelerated this alienation.

Shen Shixing's line of thinking was correct: starting from people's clothing, food, housing, and transportation, only after people have basic survival guarantees can they choose according to their own hearts and resist various kinds of alienation.

Chen Zhun's seven articles all expressed one meaning to a greater or lesser extent: fate is exceptionally unfair and cruel to some people, but as long as they can survive, most Great Ming people still persist in their kindness.

On the last day of the sixth month, the Great Ming Emperor met with all the Western envoys. Because the scale of this group of envoys was huge and the affairs were very complex, the meeting lasted for a full three hours.

The Portuguese envoy, Paulino, made a very strange request, hoping that the Emperor would bestow a name upon Lisbon, bestowing the name "City of Light."

The defeat of the Falanxi Grand Patriarch Ma Liang was a foregone conclusion. The Great City of Light would cease to exist and become its original name, Le Havre.

The Great Light Sect needed a new holy city. Portugal hoped to win the qualification for the holy city and use it as a base to spread the religion widely.

As the capital of Portugal, Lisbon was more suitable as a holy city than Le Havre, both in terms of scale and city defense.

This point conflicted with the request of the Falanxi special envoy, Leon.

Leon came representing the new Falanxi King, Henry IV. In his view, the existence of the Great City of Light hindered the friendship between the Great Ming and Falanxi, just like a fishbone stuck in the throat.

His Highness Henry IV hoped that the pacification of the rebels in the Great City of Light would not affect the friendship with the Great Ming, and hoped that the goods of the Great Ming global trade fleet would still be collected and distributed in Le Havre.

Henry IV did not know where he learned of Portugal's request, so he tripped Portugal up.

Portugal had once bribed local officials in Liangguang and stolen the Great Ming's precious land of Haojing. This occupation lasted for decades, and it was only Yin Zhengmao who expelled them.

And the existence of the Great City of Light was to Falanxi what Haojing was to the Great Ming. This analogy not only declared the legitimacy of the Falanxi King's pacification of the rebellion but also put some eye drops on Portugal, alienating the relationship between the Great Ming and Portugal.

If the Great Ming Emperor was willing to maintain the friendship with Falanxi, then His Highness Henry IV would naturally express his friendship, would issue a Le Havre amnesty order, allow the Great Light Sect to spread moderately in Falanxi, and would retain the name of the Great City of Light and the statue of the embodiment of wisdom in the city.

This statue was of the same specification as the statues of the Emperor in the Governor's Offices of Luzon, Jiugang, and Jinchi, and Jinshan City. They were all of His Majesty the Emperor. The only slight difference was that the statue in the Great City of Light held a sword in its left hand and an extra book in its right hand.

Regarding the ownership of the holy city of the Great Light Sect after the fall of the Great City of Light, Falanxi and Portugal launched a struggle.

It seemed that what they were fighting for was ethereal, but in fact, the focus of the game behind it was still the power to collect and distribute Great Ming goods. Whoever the name of the holy city fell to represented obtaining the power to distribute Great Ming goods.

The Great Ming global fleet could not stay in the West for a long time to collect and distribute goods itself, so it needed an agent.

And the envoy of the Holy Roman Empire joked: "It's like two dogs fighting over a bone in their master's hand."

The Ministry of Rites discussed it, and the final opinion given was that it didn't matter who it was given to; the key was that the power to give it had to be in the hands of the Great Ming.

The officials of the Ministry of Rites were just like this. They attached great importance to rites and laws and had a paranoid obsession with controlling rites and laws, such as the Ministry of Rites officials' improvement of Latin, supplementing letters, and correcting logic before popularizing it.

Zhu Yijun gave the naming of the City of Light to Portugal's Lisbon and added a title of Grand Patriarch to Antonio, who was wearing the five-chapter sacrificial robe.

This was also a suggestion from the Ministry of Rites. The Ministry of Rites believed that Antonio's throne was still not very stable judging from the several conflicts in the past. The Portuguese nobles only had to pinch their noses and recognize it, but they did not identify with Antonio.

When the Great Phalanx of Felipe invaded Portugal, these nobles did not help Antonio.

Lisbon becoming the holy city and Antonio becoming the Grand Patriarch could increase his authority and gain wider recognition and support.

The interesting part was that the term of the holy city was only five years. This was written very clearly on the imperial edict. After five years, it would need to be re-issued.

As long as the Great Ming still had a commodity advantage, and as long as all parts of the world still needed Great Ming goods, then this naming of the holy city would have meaning, and people would fight for it.

Similarly, the Great Ming Emperor also told the Falanxi envoy Leon that the Great Ming global fleet would not stop in Le Havre to distribute goods starting next year. If there was a need, they could go to Lisbon to buy them themselves.

The reason given by the Great Ming was: the terrible English had created too many pirates on the seas of the West. For the safety of the Great Ming global fleet, reducing the time spent stopping in the West and only stopping in Lisbon, no longer going north to Falanxi, was a wiser choice for the Great Ming.

This reason was so sufficient that when Leon left, he could only curse the damn British.

The Netherlands special envoy Houtman had an audience with His Majesty the Emperor, hoping that the Great Ming Emperor would allow Dutch merchant ships to pass through the Strait of Ma Liujia to the Country of a Qiandao to do spice business.

The Country of a Qiandao was the Yuanxu Archipelago in the words of the Great Ming, which was the Red Army Mountain Port where Yin Zongxin was stationed.

The Great Ming Emperor told Houtman that the spice business could be done, but spices could only be bought in the city of Ma Liujia. The Dutch fleet could not pass through the waters of Ma Liujia.

The reason given was: to ensure the production of spices, it was necessary to maintain the trade environment in Nanyang. Strictly preventing foreign ships from entering was to prevent sea pirates from mixing in and creating chaos in Nanyang.

The Strait of Ma Liujia was not wide, and the water was not deep. The Great Ming maritime defense inspectors could still guarantee that before the city of Ma Liujia was captured, no large-scale Dutch or English people would enter Nanyang, ensuring the Great Ming's maritime rights and the safety of the Great Ming's maritime territory.

Houtman repeatedly stated that the activities of the Dutch in Nanyang would definitely comply with the laws of the Great Ming.

But the Great Ming Emperor stated that the Dutch would not violate them, but the English on the ships definitely would.

This was also a fact that Houtman could not refute. There were too many English people in the Dutch fleet. Originally, the two countries were very close, and the first King of the Netherlands was an Englishman. When Houtman left, he was also cursing the English.

The terrible English made Houtman unable to refute the reason given by the Emperor, even though everyone knew that this reason was just an excuse. In essence, the Great Ming regarded Nanyang as its back garden and did not allow anyone to break in.

Just as the Ministry of Rites said, Nanyang was the most important interest of the Great Ming in the Wanli Opening of the Seas, and all maritime policies would be carried out around Nanyang.

The envoys of the Hanseatic League, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ross State had audiences in turn, all of which were old requests from the past.

The Hanseatic League hoped to allow the Great Ming to continue to approve and authorize them to go to Lisbon to purchase goods, otherwise the Portuguese really would not give them any goods, or would demand more taxes.

The envoy of the Holy Roman Empire came to watch the fun as always, without too many requests, just informing the Great Ming Emperor of some changes in the Holy Roman Empire.

And the Ross State still wanted the Great Ming to withdraw from the east of the Ural Mountains. The adventure team led by the Marquis of Duntai had caused too much trouble for the Ross State's eastward expansion, especially the furs, which were all bought by the Great Ming.

Zhu Yijun had finished seeing the Western envoys for an hour. He drank some water, rested for a quarter of an hour, and began to see the envoys of the various Governor's Offices. The envoys of the Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Brazil Governor's Offices had audiences in turn.

The envoys of the three Governor's Offices of Mexico, Chile, and Peru expressed their gratitude. The General Manager of the Pan-Pacific Trade Alliance, Yan Shixuan, and the Deputy Manager, Yao Guangming, were really very fair. In the process of mediating trade disputes in the Pacific, they were impartial and judged by facts, bringing peace to the East Pacific.

Through the mediation of the Great Ming, the three Governor's Offices discovered that, in fact, many of the looting and conflicts in the past were completely unnecessary, and some things were simply misunderstandings. It was just that there was no such place in the past to let each other communicate (argue).

There were two envoys from the Brazil Governor's Office, one Portuguese and one Spanish. These two envoys argued in the Gongchen Hall over who was the envoy of the Brazil Governor's Office.

The Emperor watched the fun for a while. The Latin of these two envoys was a bit non-standard and mixed with dialects, which made Zhu Yijun only understand eighty percent of it.

The seat of the Portuguese Governor was in Salvador, and the seat of the Spanish Governor's Office was in Rio de Janeiro.

The Portuguese felt that the Spanish had snatched the place they had developed and that the Governor's Office established was illegal, while the Spanish argued loudly that it was simply sold to Spain by the Portuguese!

The demands of the two were completely consistent: they hoped to be allowed to join the Pan-Pacific Trade Alliance.

As for how to pass through the Strait of Magellan, there was no need for the Great Ming Emperor to be distracted. They had their own ways. In the words of the two envoys, the Strait of Magellan was like a prostitute's waistband; if you had money, you could get in.

Although this analogy was slightly vulgar and received a severe warning from the Minister of Rites, Gao Qiyu, the words were indeed the truth.

Zhu Yijun approved this request and reiterated the key points in the Pan-Pacific Trade Alliance charter: do not harass the Great Ming fleet, if there is anything, go to the Ryukyu General Manager's Southern Yamen to file a complaint first, do not fight at every turn, and maintain the maritime trade environment.

Increasing the power of the order side to counter the increasingly chaotic maritime environment was the main task of the Great Ming's Opening of the Seas.

Of course, if they really fought, the Great Ming could only mediate in the middle. It was so far away that sending troops was impossible.

The Angola Governor's Office, the Mozambique Governor's Office, and the Goa Governor's Office also sent envoys. Zhu Yijun just saw them and did not reach any consensus; it was just a friendly exchange. The focus of the Great Ming's Opening of the Seas was still on the Pacific, not the West or the Atlantic.

After the Ministry of Rites requested it, the Angola envoy directly showed his cards: he would not use the shell of the Kingdom of Kongo to deceive or sneak attack the Great Ming, this five-thousand-year-old old man.

The envoys of Siam, Cambodia, and other places had audiences in turn. They had no demands either, just hoping that the Great Ming's attacks in the Southwest could be restrained and not kill them all together.

The impact of the 280,000 Han troops attacking Bozhou was much greater than the imperial court had expected. Such a scale of conquest finally made the countries of the Indochina Peninsula much more sober and no longer spoke nonsense.

Zhu Yijun spent three hours seeing all the envoys. The Great Ming's diplomatic month officially ended. On the fourth day of the seventh month, the envoys of various countries who had purchased enough goods left the port with Great Ming goods.

The Great Ming Emperor held his gold abacus and calculated the accounts. The income was very considerable.

In just this one month, the silver flowing into the Great Ming exceeded 7.5 million taels. The silver flowing into the Great Ming every year was still slowly increasing, and it was expected to be around 16 million silver in the 21st year.

This brought it back to the question of whether the Hongwu Baochao would be over-issued. It was known that the Hongwu Baochao circulating overseas did not need to be exchanged, plus the increase in silver inflow, the gold Hongwu Baochao would not collapse in five years, and even the current issuance of 12 million *guan* was lower than the silver inflow.

The issuance of Hongwu Baochao was orderly and healthy. The Emperor needed to strictly guard against it to prevent the "meat-eaters," especially idiots, from having a flash of inspiration to profit from the Hongwu Baochao and destroy the Great Ming's Hongwu Baochao cause.

"If it weren't for this bit of silver, who would want to see these envoys who can't even speak Latin properly!" Zhu Yijun threw his gold abacus and leaned back in his chair, saying contentedly.

Zhu Yijun felt that there was nothing more beautiful than a miser watching silver flowing into the Great Ming continuously.

The gold abacus in his hand was a gift from Deng Zilong of the Jinchi Governor's Office. It was not pure gold, but the gold content was not low. Gold was too soft and had too good ductility. Pure gold was not easy to use, so it was a gold-silver alloy, decorated with kingfisher feathers, enamel, and jade, which was indeed very exquisite.

There were really not many emperors who calculated accounts themselves. Feng Bao had never seen it anyway. He put boiled water for His Majesty and said with a smile: "I don't know how a group of Westerners can speak Latin so poorly."

"Isn't it because Rome fell?" Zhu Yijun drank some water, cheered himself up, and began to grind with great interest again.

Songjiang Prefecture had another public opinion incident similar to "recommending the filial and incorrupt."

It was roughly that there was a poor man's child in the east of the city who could walk at three months, speak at six months, read at one year, ask questions at three years, and write poetry at six years. Because of his extremely high talent, he was adopted as a foster son by the Liu family of Huating and cultivated with great care.

This child prodigy had been "divine" for eighteen years, but he didn't pass the entrance exam for the Shanghai Great Academy.

The Liu family of Huating ran to the Songjiang Prefecture Southern Yamen to make a scene, saying, "Our child is so smart and clever, how could he not pass? We demand a re-examination," and so on. It caused quite a big mess and even alarmed the Emperor.

Zhu Yijun heard about it and asked what exactly was going on in Songjiang Prefecture.

This was not a child from a poor family; he was the Liu family's own son. It was a story of a child prodigy created on purpose. Too many people were watching the imperial examination, so the Liu family set their sights on the Shanghai Great Academy. "If I can't pass the provincial or metropolitan examination, it would be great to get into the Great Academy to gild myself."

The Songjiang Prefecture Southern Yamen didn't indulge them at all. They directly posted a notice announcing all the details and even posted the exam papers of the Liu family's son. He was not a child prodigy at all; he was just a complete piece of trash.

The Liu family wanted to use the method of "recommending the filial and incorrupt" to lift up their own child, but the result was that they stole a chicken but lost the rice. They were slapped hard by the Songjiang Prefecture Southern Yamen. Everyone in Songjiang Prefecture knew about this farce, which caused great negative public opinion for the Liu family.

There was no way around it. The Great Ming had suffered a great loss in this regard. At the beginning of the dynasty, there was a shortage of scholars, so they had to use the method of recommendation. Fang Xiaoru, Yang Shiqi, and others stole high positions, promoted literature and suppressed martial arts, and almost ruined the Great Ming.

Regarding things like "recommending the filial and incorrupt," the imperial court could not tolerate it at all and chose the most direct way.

"Recommending the filial and incorrupt" is addictive. Serving tea and water to parents is not filial enough, and yielding pears to younger brothers and sisters is not fraternal enough, so they lie on ice to catch carp, or jump off cliffs to save their mothers.

It goes around and around, and it's just that little bit of thing: fame and profit.

The Liu family used the child prodigy to lift up their child to gain some fame. The imperial court was too lazy to care. Whoever wants to be fooled can be fooled, but this kind of lifting up must absolutely not enter the imperial court's official selection mechanism, or it will cause a big mess.

The newly appointed Minister of Revenue, Hou Yuzhao, submitted a very strange memorial. The main content of this memorial was only one thing: the Great Ming's finance was too dependent on customs duties centered on Songjiang Prefecture.

This excessive dependence could not be seen for the time being. The more and wider the goods sold abroad, the greater the imperial court's finance. In the long run, the imperial court would definitely tilt more towards overseas development, because everyone could obtain a lot of oil and water from import and export trade.

In Hou Yuzhao's view, this kind of export-oriented economy was very, very unhealthy.

This point had already been very obvious. Before the establishment of the Pan-Pacific Trade Alliance, the Great Ming's cotton textile industry entered a bottleneck period. The cotton textile workshops in Songjiang Prefecture did not turn their attention to the vast market in the Great Ming's hinterland, but began low-price competition.

There were many reasons for this.

For example, transporting goods from Songjiang Prefecture to Chengdu Prefecture in Sichuan, there were too many wolves and tigers on the road. Every pass was difficult to pass, and every pass was scraped of a layer of skin.

For example, the Great Ming's shipbuilding industry was booming, and the export economy had developed for twenty years, etc., making the cost of sea transport far lower than the river transport cost in the hinterland.

For example, the Great Ming had established many Han towns and hundreds of thousands of plantations in Nanyang, possessing a huge market and stable routes, and the return of raw materials from the plantations was also a profit.

For example, the Great Ming imperial court managed strictly, but going to sea would be freer. The imperial court did not allow the driving up of rice, flour, grain, and oil prices, and even less allowed the carrying of contraband like opium, but overseas circulation was not within the Great Ming's control.

Once out at sea, the Great Ming imperial court could not control what business was done.

These reasons all seemed to be reasons, which could be summarized as: twenty years of opening the seas, the habits caused by the export-oriented economy. But Hou Yuzhao pointed out that the root cause was that there was no silver in the Great Ming's hinterland.

Currency revolves around goods, and goods always revolve around currency circulation. This was a fact that had long been discussed and no longer needed to be discussed.

To solve or alleviate this symptom, Hou Yuzhao prescribed three prescriptions.

The first prescription: continuously build fast roads and Dinghai school systems, and continuously transfer the abundant silver in coastal areas to the hinterland through the important tool of taxation, using the silver collected by the imperial court.

The second prescription: the importance and status of the Great Ming's gold Hongwu Baochao must be further improved. The specific method is to establish more Huitong post stations in the Great Ming, at least ensuring that every prefecture has a Huitong post station, so that the Great Ming, inside and out, fully recognizes the Hongwu Baochao.

This was building a perfect currency network for the Great Ming, the importance of which should be as important as official roads, post roads, and post stations.

In the memorial, Hou Yuzhao emphasized the importance of the second prescription. There was no currency in the hinterland, and goods would not flow to the hinterland, and the gold Hongwu Baochao became the key to breaking the situation.

The gold Hongwu Baochao should be elevated to a status as important as the Great Ming's northern border security and maritime security, that is, national security status.

The third prescription: increase support for local industries. The circulation of currency is essentially the circulation of goods. There are no goods in the hinterland that can be exchanged, so merchants naturally will not go there.

The hinterland must have goods to exchange with coastal areas, that is, it must have the ability to produce goods.

Specifically, the fifty-one northern official factories were completely insufficient. The three yamen should be allowed to prepare for the establishment of local official factories.

Appropriately delegating power to the local level had another purpose, which was to allow local yamen that were in pain and intended to reach out to the people's clothing, food, housing, and transportation to have more extensive economic sources, rather than fish and meat the people.

In the past, the imperial court's finance was in deficit, the imperial court fished and meat the local yamen, and the local yamen fished and meat the people.

After the Wanli Reform, the imperial court's finance was no longer in deficit, but the natural disasters were there, and the large reduction and exemption of farmland taxes made the local yamen's finance precarious.

At this time, it was very necessary to appropriately delegate power to the local three yamen to prepare for the establishment of local official factories.

"Has the teacher read this memorial?" Zhu Yijun actually saw Zhang Juzheng's floating note, which was rare. He rarely managed things anymore, but he was willing to spend energy reading the memorial and writing the floating note, which showed that in his heart, this memorial was very important.

"Before Hou Yuzhao wrote the memorial, he went to the door to ask the Grand Secretary for advice on the grounds that he was new to the position of Wang Wang Situ and was not familiar with the affairs, and could not bear the heavy responsibility. The Grand Secretary could not drive him out, so he helped him read it." Feng Bao explained the reason.

The floating note Zhang Juzheng gave was not for the memorial, but for Hou Yuzhao as a person. The content of the floating note was: "Minister Hou, managing the world, the Great Ming shines on all directions and ten thousand states."

In fact, the phenomena, problems, and reasons proposed by Hou Yuzhao had been discussed many times in many court meetings, but no one had come up with a general plan. The reasons for this were intricate and complicated; in fact, it was taboo.

What kind of talent is Zhang Juzheng? His strategic planning, is it your turn to talk nonsense?

In fact, the Ministers and Vice Ministers of the Six Ministries had some ideas in their hearts about how to solve these things, but Zhang Juzheng was still alive, and these words were really inconvenient to say.

When someone needed to stand up, Hou Yuzhao was willing to stand up and say these things, gave a specific plan, corrected some mistakes, supplemented some measures, and made the foundation of the Wanli Reform more solid.

This judgment by Zhang Juzheng meant affirming Hou Yuzhao's talent and character, and that he was qualified to join the sequence of Great Ming weightlifting champions, helping His Majesty carry the heaven, earth, sun, and moon, and carry the wishes of ten thousand people.

The country and the society are really heavy, really heavy. It is really tiring for the Emperor to carry it alone. ===== CHAPTER 1032 =====