Chapter 798: Not Loyal Enough

The interpreter provided help within his power, not because he was kind, but because the traditional thinking of the scholar-officials was at work, an obsession with the right to interpret the scriptures.

The literary context of the West was not controlled by the Ming scholar-officials, which made the scholar-officials somewhat confused.

After all, everywhere the Ming Dynasty's gaze reached, Chinese was used, and the right to interpret the scriptures was completely controlled by the scholar-officials.

The gentlemen of the Ministry of Rites did not expect these Westerners to be able to learn Chinese. The gentlemen of the Ministry of Rites just hoped that the Latin of the West could be more standardized, saving the trouble of translation.

This kind of spelling character, an unfamiliar phrase, can only be associated through the context. If you really can't think of it, you have to ask the Westerners to explain. If it can be standardized, it will be much better.

"Thank you very much. I have heard from Special Envoy Legazpi that the Ming Dynasty's research on Latin is very deep. Thank you for your sharing." Marion thanked the interpreter's help very sincerely.

She looked at the seaside and said blankly, "The prophet once said: ideas are more powerful than weapons. The opponents in the West can kill my body, but they cannot destroy my soul."

"Looking at it in the long term and one-sidedly, if I die on the battlefield, the contribution to the Great Brightness Sect will exceed all my past efforts."

"May wisdom always accompany everyone. May the world have no suffering and oppression. May you, me, and everyone have a bright future."

The interpreter did not answer anymore. He always felt that these fanatics were all a bit god-like.

Zhu Yijun received the memorial from the Ministry of Rites three days later. The Ministry of Rites described the conversation between the interpreter and Marion word for word. If it weren't for the Great Brightness Sect being a bit special, this little thing wouldn't have been placed in front of the Emperor.

Zhu Yijun simply extracted these conversations and said, "Using the fire of freedom to ignite the entire West?"

"The fire of freedom ignited by life will not be extinguished and will illuminate the path of later generations?"

"Ideas are more powerful than weapons?"

"Your Majesty, Marion is still in Songjiang Prefecture. Should we have someone kill her?" Feng Bao said with great worry, "If these Westerners understand, isn't this creating a strong enemy for the Ming Dynasty?"

"I don't know what you are worried about." Zhu Yijun looked at Feng Bao's appearance of wanting to kill the envoy and laughed loudly.

Feng Bao's worry was completely unnecessary, a bit like worrying about the sky falling.

Zhu Yijun said full of smiles, "Peaches cannot grow on pear trees. The thinking style of the Ming people and the thinking style of the Westerners are completely different. This is paid for by thousands of years of blood tax. From the three generations of law, from the communication between heaven and earth, the Central Plains has been trying every means to prevent people from being influenced by religion."

"After the Ming narrative is translated and spread to the West, it will naturally be distorted. If it puts on another shell of the Great Brightness Sect to alienate, it will look even stranger."

"Except for chaos, the Great Brightness Sect cannot bring any fundamental changes to the West. Even if the Great Brightness Sect achieves an incomparable victory, after a period of time, the Great Brightness Sect will only become a sinner. Westerners need to solve the problem of God first."

"Peaches grow on peach trees."

From mythology to legends, the Chinese have never been willing to give God absolute power that overrides humans. The starting point of mythology and legends is often people, not God, which is completely different from the West.

Besides those myths and legends, the earliest resistance can be traced back to Zhuanxu's cutting off the communication between heaven and earth.

And the West, from myths to legends, to realistic politics, the games of all classes are full of traces of God. This is not something that the Great Brightness Sect can eliminate in the short term.

Even if they know suffering, they will eventually return to the original narrative of God's grace because of experience.

"Your Majesty is wise." Feng Bao pondered for a long time before he felt that the Emperor seemed to make a lot of sense.

Theory of Contradictions, Theory of Public and Private, Theory of Production, Theory of Classes all grew out of the Ming Dynasty, just like market-for-technology, actually unable to exchange for technology at all.

The few books Marion took away seem to be copies of some Ming thoughts, but in fact, she just took away a few books.

Zhu Yijun was not optimistic about Marion. Antonio obtained recognition through war and became King, but he was still widely questioned.

Marion joined forces with the Dutch, and in the end, it only brought more deaths due to fierce contradictions and conflicts, and was widely opposed, eventually disappearing.

A more explicit statement is: the Great Brightness Sect, which is based on Ming culture and alienates the Ming narrative, has its core value system coming from the Ming Dynasty, not the culture native to the West.

It will bring too many disasters due to conflicts between value systems, eventually perish, and become a sinner.

Shen Shixing described it very clearly in the memorial about Zhou being an old state but its mandate being renewed. The new and old value systems are advancing in cycles, while the Great Brightness Sect's core value system abandons the narrative of God and is incompatible and incompatible with the value system of the West.

"Former Zhejiang Governor Wu Shanyan is already dead, right? Hangzhou Prefect Yan Shixuan supported the Lu Muying mutiny. Why is there another memorial about him?" Zhu Yijun picked up the memorial and asked with a strange expression.

Feng Bao shook his head repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty, your subject doesn't know what to say. Your Majesty, just take a look."

Zhu Yijun finished reading the memorial in his hand seriously. The memorial was written by Hangzhou Prefect Yan Shixuan.

The Zhejiang Governor was managed by Shen Shixing. When Shen Shixing was in Songjiang Prefecture, Yan Shixuan basically handled all the affairs of Zhejiang. In the process of investigating old cases, he discovered a complaint about the old events of the 10th year of Wanli.

In the 10th year of Wanli, the Ningbo Ocean-going Merchant Fleet wanted to go to the Yanxing Building trading house,

as a large ticket, to sell a batch of tickets to raise funds for building ships, etc., but in the end, it failed to pass the meeting. All the processes were completed, but it was vetoed by Wang Qian.

Wang Qian keenly felt that something was wrong. There was something here, and it was a big deal.

But Wang Qian was in the Northern Yamen, and he couldn't reach Zhejiang. He sent an official letter to Ningbo, Zhejiang, inquiring about the problems of the ocean-going merchant fleet, and requested the merchant general, general manager, office manager, acting manager, and other management personnel of all levels of the merchant fleet to enter the capital to accept inquiries.

The Ningbo Ocean-going Merchant Fleet answered the trading house's inquiry, but the management personnel of all levels did not enter the capital to answer questions. In the end, the Ningbo Shipping Department Ocean-going Merchant Fleet never obtained the status of a large ticket to sell their tickets and raise enough silver.

Since the case was shelved in the 10th year of Wanli, the imperial court was scolded countless times. The Zhejiang people did not understand why, among the five major shipping departments and five ocean-going merchant fleets, only the Ningbo Ocean-going Merchant Fleet could not pass the meeting. This was a differential treatment! It was the imperial court's intentional difficulty because it didn't like Zhejiang!

Before Zhu Yijun's southern tour, this hatred for the imperial court had been shaped into hostility by people with hearts, viewing the imperial court as an enemy, until the Emperor ordered the return of farmland in the 13th year of Wanli, and the Zhejiang people finally clearly knew that His Majesty had them in his heart!

In the whole world, only the prefecture and county where the five major shipping departments were located started returning farmland, and later Zhejiang was added. And those punishments would also be canceled after returning farmland. It was just that taking the imperial examination with the Koreans was indeed a bit uncomfortable.

Since His Majesty had Zhejiang in his heart, then who shaped this hostile emotion and atmosphere?

It wasn't until the 15th year of Wanli that Hangzhou Prefect Yan Shixuan finally thoroughly investigated the old case accumulated in the 10th year of Wanli.

The Ningbo Ocean-going Merchant Fleet had several very serious crimes.

False operation: The Ningbo Ocean-going Merchant Fleet was the only one among the five major merchant fleets of the Ming Dynasty that did not make money by maritime trade. The main business of this merchant fleet was to lend green rice money, which was high-interest loans borrowed by the common people when they were really hungry and had nothing to eat.

Zhu Yijun remembered that he had ordered the return of farmland at that time, and those who occupied more than 100 qing of land had to return the excess to the imperial court. Everyone in the Zhejiang area celebrated, and even set off countless firecrackers.

Because the Emperor became their debt resolver. After this, the high-interest loans that rolled over didn't have to be repaid, because

Tax evasion: Investigations by the Songjiang Prefecture Tax Audit Office revealed that during fourteen years of operation, the Ningbo Ocean Trading Firm evaded a total of 1.4 million silver in taxes. Furthermore, they bribed the relevant tax-audit company commanders and guards of the Ningbo Tax Audit Office, with the criminal circumstances being extremely egregious.

Bribery and rent-seeking: In addition to bribing the Ningbo Tax Audit Office, they also bribed the Ningbo Prefect, the Hangzhou Prefect, the Hangzhou Provincial Governor Wu Shanyan, and others, with total bribes exceeding 3.2 million silver.

Moreover, Wu Shanyan promised to hand over the construction of the Zhedong Canal to the brother-in-law of the trading firm's general manager.

"Wu Shanyan actually holds 200,000 in personal shares of the Ocean Trading Firm? And he bought them at the price of one wen per share?" When Zhu Yijun saw this line, he wished he could immediately use a resurrection spell to bring Wu Shanyan back to life, throw him into a shredder to be pulverized again, and then mix him into pig feed!

The corners of Zhu Yijun's mouth twitched, and he said sternly, "What kind of nonsense is this! Do they treat the state affairs of the Great Ming as a child's game? When the Yanxing Tower Exchange was first established, it was so that everyone could be a shipowner. Even that Li Yashi bought some shipping certificates and has already broken even, and even made a profit!"

What they wanted to do goes without saying.

It was fortunate that Wang Qian vetoed it; otherwise, once the Ningbo Ocean Trading Firm successfully obtained the *Permit for Trading Negotiable Securities* from the Yanxing Tower Exchange, Wu Shanyan could have immediately dumped the 200,000 shares in his hands at a price of five silver per share.

Once the market had a trend of chasing the rise, Wu Shanyan would have profited even more!

"Your Majesty, there is more below." Feng Bao carefully reminded His Majesty that this ledger was very, very large, and Wu Shanyan was only the tip of the iceberg.

Many powerful and wealthy families in Zhejiang joined in the grand event, including many shipowners of the Ocean Trading Firm. Most of them bought personal shares at one to three silver each, waiting to drive up the price and sell after the meeting. They had even prepared the silver for driving up the price.

In addition to the powerful and wealthy, there were local gentry and bureaucrats of all levels. The long list of names, all having bought personal shares at low prices waiting to cash out, was truly shocking!

Wang Qian deserves to die! With his own strength, he stubbornly blocked them for five years and did not let these people succeed; otherwise, the Great Ming Yanxing Tower Exchange would have become a complete joke.

Zhu Yijun said with a grave expression, "In the next chapter, go to the Censorate and ask Chief Censor Hai to investigate whether the other four ocean trading firms have engaged in such behavior."

"Your Majesty, they have already been investigated. It is precisely because they have been investigated that I dared to report it to Your Majesty. Chief Censor Hai's memorial is here." Feng Bao found Hence Hai Rui's memorial and spread it out before His Majesty.

It is normal for there to be problems; it is also normal if everyone has problems. It mainly depends on the scale and depth of the problems.

If they are all on the same scale, then it is very dangerous. It means that the emerging bourgeoisie has already degenerated before obtaining political standing. This represents the complete failure of opening the seas in the Great Ming's dual land and sea reform.

Feng Bao whispered, "The four major ocean trading firms all have some problems to a greater or lesser extent, but only Ningbo has made such a mess as the Ningbo Ocean Trading Firm."

Among the officials, merchants, powerful families, and gentry in this world, how could there be any that are so clean? The plain-clothed censors organized by Hence Hai Rui still only number fourteen to this day.

As long as you investigate, there are problems everywhere. Hence Hai Rui put in the effort to turn the four major ocean trading firms inside out and investigate them thoroughly.

Even the former Songjiang Provincial Governor and current Minister of Works Wang Daokun was investigated. Finally, a total was obtained: the various forms of bribery, corruption, and power

rent-seeking by the four major ocean trading firms amounted to a total scale of 2.43 million silver.

It is a lot, very much, but considering the four ocean trading firms and looking back ten years, this number is really very small.

Wu Shanyan had been in office for less than three years and had already created a massive figure of 3.2 million silver.

The opinion given by Hence Hai Rui was also to return the illicit money within a time limit. This is already the most minimal punitive measure Hence Hai Rui has used to fight corruption.

In terms of the trade throughput of the major ocean trading firms, this bit of corruption is really not worth mentioning.

"Did no one lobby Wang Qian? I don't believe it." Zhu Yijun put the two memorials together and said with a furrowed brow, "Wang Qian actually withstood the corruption and lobbying?"

"He has money." Feng Bao was concise.

Zhu Yijun was stunned. Wang Qian is a subject, so when Zhu Yijun thinks about problems, he often ignores his status as the second wealthiest young master in the capital.

"That is also true; he is now richer than I am." Zhu Yijun sighed and said. The inner treasury is empty, and it is no longer as wealthy as it was when it had accumulated 35 million silver.

If Zhu Yijun were to compete in wealth with Wang Qian, he might not even be able to win.

This is actually very dangerous. If you are richer than the Emperor, isn't that telling the Emperor that you are very fat and can be killed for the New Year? But Wang Qian is very safe; the silver in Wang Qian's home was not obtained through corruption.

Feng Bao smiled and said, "If Vice Minister Wang and Censor Wang were willing to donate, Your Majesty would not be willing to accept it, right?"

The total investment scale for opening the seas has already exceeded 70 million silver, and the Shanxi merchants led by Wang Chonggu have invested a total of over 17.12 million silver. Wang Chonggu has submitted memorials several times requesting to reduce dividends; taking silver from the Emperor's hands is really too hot to handle.

The Emperor does not agree.

This is what Feng Bao meant by saying they are willing to donate, but the Emperor is not willing to accept.

"If I were to take it, I would lose credibility with people." Zhu Yijun shook his head. Being poor is because of high investment. If he were to reduce investment—opening the seas, building roads, mining, and education—and reduce investment across the board, he could save up 30 million silver again within three years.

There is just no need for that.

"Your Majesty, there is more below." Feng Bao reminded His Majesty that the evil deeds done by Wu Shanyan and his gang of great philanthropists are not just these.

Zhu Yijun finished reading the entire memorial and fell into some confusion, blankly saying, "This Yan Shixuan is lying to me, right! Is this treating prisons as a business?"

Prisons and business—these two phrases combined together left the Emperor a bit confused, and his cognition encountered a huge challenge.

It is probably prison commercialization.

Yan Shixuan found out that the Ningbo Ocean Trading Firm owns thirteen prisons in Zhejiang. Anyone who cannot pay back their debts is caught by yamen runners and thrown into these prisons to engage in hard labor to pay off debts. The term of imprisonment is the number of years to pay off the debt.

The most outrageous thing is that when the prison term ends, they still owe a mountain of debt. That's right, food, clothing, and the depreciation and damage of production tools are all debts. Sitting in prison also

requires owing debt. When they come out, they continue to pay off the debt, and if they cannot pay, they continue to sit in prison.

It is truly falling into an eternal cycle, working until the day they die.

Yan Shixuan's memorial was so outrageous that Zhu Yijun felt Yan Shixuan was deceiving the Emperor.

"Isn't this forced by Your Majesty?" Feng Bao hurriedly said, "Your Majesty abolished the lowly slave status. These powerful and wealthy families and local gentry need servants, so they can only make people owe debt."

"The Northern Secret Service is holding some criminals. If Your Majesty thinks Yan Shixuan is talking nonsense, the human evidence, material evidence, and written evidence are all here."

"Your Majesty, to tell the truth, I also don't quite believe it."

"Prepare the carriage for the Northern Secret Service. I want to see it with my own eyes!" Zhu Yijun did not stop for a moment, stood up directly, got on his small train, and headed straight for the Northern Secret Service yamen.

His Majesty rushed in vigorously. After Zhao Mengyou learned the news, he led the guards to welcome the imperial carriage. He knew that after Yan Shixuan's memorial was presented to the Emperor, His Majesty would definitely come.

Zhao Mengyou understands His Majesty. His Majesty likes to watch the excitement, His Majesty does not trust his subjects, and His Majesty always wants to personally inquire about outrageous cases to prevent himself from being kept in the dark.

An hour later, Zhu Yijun blankly looked at the files in front of him and said, "Yan Shixuan was still very conservative and did not directly state these evils in the memorial, for fear of dirtying my eyes."

"This is not a prison at all; it is clearly a devil's den."

"I was still wondering before why there are so many people from Zhejiang going out to sea. Fujian is poor, and Guangdong has only become rich in recent years. I never expected that there would be so many people in Zhejiang abandoning their homes and businesses to head to the Han townships. This is something I never expected."

The crimes in these commercialized prisons are simply too numerous to record. Cruel abuse and murder happen frequently. Death is as common as eating and drinking. Being locked in these places, death is really a relief.

Zhu Yijun considered himself to be very cold, but seeing the numerous crimes, he was also somewhat angry. A perfectly good Zhejiang was almost turned into a living hell by these bastards.

This is a typical manifestation of the collapse of the core value system, the destruction of moral narrative, and the complete transformation toward an interest-based narrative.

This is an evil thing that the imperial court must strictly guard against and must never allow to happen.

"Your Majesty, the tax-audit company commander of the Ningbo Tax Audit Office and three tax-audit guards were bribed. How should this be handled? The Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicial Review cannot adjudicate the case." Zhao Mengyou spoke about the specific handling of this case.

The tax-audit guards belong to the Northern and Southern Secret Services and are the Emperor's claws and teeth. Their handling requires the Emperor's opinion.

The late summer wind was no longer scorching, and even a bit desolate. Some yellow leaves fell in the courtyard, dancing with the wind. Several people in the courtyard did not speak. Zhao Mengyou was waiting for His Majesty's decision, while the Emperor stood under a tree without moving. Although his expression was calm, it could be seen that the Great Ming Emperor was hesitating.

Zhao Mengyou took a deep breath and bowed his head, saying

"Your Majesty, they are disloyal. Thirty percent of the taxes collected by the Tax Audit Office remain in the locality. They had sufficient rewards, yet they betrayed Your Majesty's trust."

"Moreover, they indulged in the smuggling of opium. The Ningbo Ocean Trading Firm bribed them with heavy money, also to make the Tax Audit Office turn a blind eye to the huge amount of unexplained silver."

As the Commander of the Guards, Zhao Mengyou gave his own opinion. The Tax Audit Office is very special. The greatest requirement for this yamen is loyalty—loyalty to the people of the Great Ming, loyalty to the state, and loyalty to His Majesty.

These tax-audit guards of the Ningbo Tax Audit Office are disloyal.

"Behead them and show them to the public. If there is no severe punishment, I am afraid that more guards will become like this. If the guards all become like this, it would be better for me to close the Tax Audit Office." Zhu Yijun stood in the courtyard of the Northern Secret Service and was stunned for a long time before answering this question.

The selection of tax-audit guards is made from the distant marquis of the beacon towers and the coastal defense inspectors to the Northern and Southern Secret Services, and then further selected from the Northern and Southern Secret Services to be dispatched to the localities.

These elites of the Great Ming, who have braved the wind and rain, were once loyal and devoted, but have been alienated to this point because of silver. Zhu Yijun is very heartbroken.

"Reward the good and punish the wicked, encourage and prohibit. If we can only encourage but not prohibit, the state will also slide into the abyss." Zhu Yijun said with a grave expression, "Let those wealthy households who bribed the tax-audit guards be buried with them. Let their families be exiled to the Coconut Haicheng in Java to enrich the Han townships in Coconut Haicheng."

Zhu Yijun made the maximum punishment.

"I obey the decree." Zhao Mengyou received the decree. The Northern Secret Service itself is a military judicial department, and their duties include making judgments.

The Great Ming Emperor returned to the Tonghe Palace and continued to deal with the memorials in the court.

The Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Revenue, and the Court of Judicial Review jointly submitted a memorial that the compilation of the tax law has been initially completed. They requested the Emperor's vermilion approval to trial the tax law.

"For an annual income of less than twelve silver, all are exempt from reporting taxes; for an annual income of fifteen to twenty silver, those with two children are tax-exempt;" Zhu Yijun shook his head and said, "Look, the Ministry of Revenue is very opposed to this because this clause is too vague."

The reason why the Ministry of Rites opposes this clause is very simple: according to this standard, most farmers in the Great Ming would not need to pay land tax.

If land tax is not collected, it means that the imperial court has completely abandoned its governance below the county level, which is the true "imperial power does not go below the county." This will cause more chaos.

If the countryside outside the county city no longer pays land tax, it means that the imperial court will no longer look at them, and a power vacuum will appear. If a power vacuum appears, someone will replace the imperial court to govern, and the lowly slave status system of strong personal attachment will definitely make a comeback.

Feng Bao said with some schadenfreude, "Your Majesty is wise. For the sake of this tax law, the officials of the various ministries almost started fighting. The Ministry of Justice wanted to directly exempt those with less than twelve silver, so that there would not be so many tax resistance and tax collection cases to handle;"

"The Ministry of Rites partially opposed it, believing that land tax should still be collected,"

"fearing that the lowly slave status system would make a comeback;"

"The Ministry of Revenue is firmly opposed, because in this way, the number of people paying taxes would only be about 7.8 million. Your Majesty, there are only about that many people with an annual income of over twenty silver."

The income of the Great Ming can be divided into eleven levels. The pricing here is relatively complex, and the *Wanli Accounting Record* had to be taken out to convert physical objects into copper coins and silver. Later, the Ministry of Revenue found the data too messy and reorganized it.

Finally, the imperial court used households as the unit to calculate the average annual income of the whole family and divided it into three levels.

They are poverty, subsistence, and wealth. Poverty is an annual income of less than five silver, subsistence is five to twelve silver, and wealth is twelve silver or more.

About 50% of the Great Ming people are in poverty, about 44% are at subsistence, and only about 6% of the people have spare money and are wealthy. According to this standard, only 7.8 million people need to pay taxes.

This is also the origin of the twelve-silver standard. 94% of the people do not pay taxes, which is in line with the Emperor's consistent tax collection policy: collect taxes from whoever has money; you can't squeeze much money out of poor ghosts anyway!

"What does the Tax Audit Office say?" Zhu Yijun asked for the Tax Audit Office's opinion.

Feng Bao whispered, "The Tax Audit Office is naturally willing. Taxing the poor and laborers is tiring and has no silver. In this way, after excluding the majority of the people, tax auditing becomes simple."

Zhu Yijun thought for a while and said, "Actually, it is easy to handle. Then retreat. Collect it all first, and then return it to those with an annual income of less than twelve silver. This is the best way."

Feng Bao said extremely nervously, "Your Majesty, the Master also proposed this. Then the Ministry of Personnel discussed it, and the Junior Minister Liang Menglong told the Master that it is a good idea, but there are not enough officials to execute it. In this process of coming and going, too many people would touch the silver, and I am afraid it would waste state funds."

Feng Bao was truly afraid, afraid that the Emperor would slap the table and do just that.

This method of distribution is the only reasonable way Zhang Juzheng could think of, but the Great Ming really cannot do it right now. Apart from causing waste of state funds, it is of no use.

Zhang Juzheng did not intend to promote it, and the Ministry of Personnel did not approve it. It is clear that the Great Ming's error-correction mechanism is still in effect.

The Grand Secretary is indeed authoritative, but His Majesty is diligent. This kind of typical wishful thinking of the well-fed can still be corrected.

"I know. To achieve tax refunds, state funds must be able to return the money directly to the hands of the people. Otherwise, it is all a waste of effort. I was just saying it." Zhu Yijun smiled and waved his hand, and Feng Bao's expression was a bit like facing a great enemy.

Sometimes, the harm caused by the wishful thinking of the well-fed is often more terrifying than incompetence. You might as well do nothing at all!

"Sigh, cross out this clause." Zhu Yijun very reluctantly crossed out this clause. He actually really wanted to pass it, but in the end, it was just a reflection in the mirror and the moon in the water. Unrealistic political decrees would only make the Great Ming worse.

Zhang Juzheng's floating note means: wait until the

Single Whip Law is implemented, then this tax law will have meaning. Before the Single Whip Law is executed, it cannot be done.

"Your Majesty, the Tax Audit Office actually does not audit taxes for those with an annual income of less than twelve silver. It is exhausting and there is no money." Feng Bao reminded His Majesty that the Great Ming is actually actively improving distribution. People with an annual income of less than twelve silver do not pay taxes, and the Tax Audit Office does not urge payment, as it is not even enough for the cost of labor.

Zhu Yijun gave vermilion approval to the memorial and nodded, saying, "I know. Both commanders have reported it many times, but after all, it is only an unwritten rule of the Tax Audit Office, not a written law. What I want to do is a written law."

There is no major controversy over the other details of the tax law, and the tax law has been revised for a long time.

"Your Majesty, the Grand Secretary plans to do one thing: skip a group of people." Feng Bao looked left and right before whispering, "All the jinshi from the 26th year of Jiajing to the 41st year of Jiajing will be skipped and will not be allowed to enter the Wenhua Hall or the Wenyuan Pavilion."

"The Master said that at that time, the state was turbulent and uneasy. These people, I am afraid, will not only fail to become His Majesty's help but will instead become obstacles to the Wanli Reform."

"The Master's reason is also simple: not loyal enough."

There is no memorial and no written text. It was communicated orally after Xu Jue and You Shouli communicated, and then presented to His Majesty to ask for His Majesty's opinion. This is a prior communication channel before major decisions.

If the Emperor agrees, there will still be no memorial and no written text, but in the assessment law, artificial restrictions will be placed on these people.