Chapter 362

But even though they were suppressed and ignored, the Buddhist sect's power and wealth still surprised those in the know.

According to the figures counted by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, there are at least hundreds of thousands of bald thieves in the world today who neither serve

nor pay taxes, eating their fill all day and having nothing to do.

And the so-called 'Buddhist fields' under their name that do not pay taxes are calculated in the millions of acres.

How could Zhang Jie, who has the heart to reform accumulated ills and make Huaxia great again, sit idly by?

Or rather, any emperor with a little ambition in his heart would be tempted by this incredibly fat pig,

which happens to have no great power of resistance.

The Great Xiangguo Temple, the nominal leader of the Buddhist sect in the world, was the first target Zhang Jie wanted to operate on.

With the hate-evil Lu Zhishen going to serve as the Law Enforcement Elder,

he would inevitably stir up waves in the filth-hiding Great Xiangguo Temple, finding sufficient reasons for subsequent actions.

Although Zhang Jie could also directly issue an edict, ordering the Embroidered Uniform Guard to give the Great Xiangguo Temple a one-stop destruction of Buddhism, including sealing the temple,

raiding the house, exile, beheading, and ordering them to return to secular life,

if you don't occupy the high ground of public opinion, then your enemies will naturally occupy it.

A mere Great Xiangguo Temple is not worth mentioning, but the tens of millions of believers under the Buddhist sect,

good men and women, even Zhang Jie has to consider their status,

and will not easily commit such cruel and extreme acts without any room for maneuver.

The world being in chaos and precarious is not quite the case, but killing until heads roll is not Zhang Jie's original intention.

"The Daoist scriptures say, governing a large country is like cooking a small fish; you cannot be hasty."

Zhang Jie secretly suppressed his eagerness to sweep away all fake monks in one go in his heart.

Before crossing over, he once saw such an interesting question on a forum:

Ming Chengzu Zhu Di and Sui Yangdi Yang Guang were both fighting foreign enemies for years; why did Zhu Di strengthen the Ming Dynasty,

and is considered one of the most accomplished emperors in Huaxia history,

while Yang Guang defeated the Sui Dynasty and was directly nailed to the pillar of shame in history, with the posture of leaving a bad name for ten thousand years?

Zhang Jie's thought was, why talk about fighting wars!

He just mentioned one thing they both did that was most similar: building a capital.

Guang Shen built the Eastern Capital Luoyang, which took a total of ten months.

Zhu Di built the Beijing Forbidden City, which was based on the reinforcement and

expansion of the Yuan Great Capital, but it took a total of fourteen years, fully ten times more than Guang Shen.

Now smart people can understand, right?

Compare it, Guang Zi's efficiency was truly high.

With Luoyang's area of about 47 square kilometers at that time, the project volume known as "extremely magnificent"

and "unmatched by previous capitals," even at the infrastructure speed of the 21st-century infrastructure maniac,

it would be difficult to complete it within ten months without bringing out several national-level engineering teams and engineering equipment.

And in ancient times when construction projects mainly relied on human labor, the premise of your high efficiency,

wasn't it treating people not as people, but as livestock and consumables?

According to the "Book of Sui," in order to build the Eastern Capital, just the male laborers serving every month amounted to as many as two million:

When the Yang Emperor ascended the throne, at that time the population increased, the treasury was overflowing, so he abolished the taxes of women and slaves.

Men became adults at twenty-two, and he began to build the Eastern Capital, with Minister Yang Su as the supervisor, with two million laborers every month.

The result was that large batches of laborers died, dying every month from exhaustion, being crushed,

falling to their deaths, and all kinds of other ways of dying, and the people who were dragged away,

east to Chenggao, north to Heyang, were everywhere, which can be called a human tragedy:

Every month, the dead laborers were carried, east to Chenggao, north to Heyang, and the carts looked at each other on the road.

Then look at Zhu Laosi building Beijing.

From the fourth year of Yongle, construction began, and it was completed in the eighteenth year of Yongle,

taking fourteen years slowly; Laosi was not in a hurry at all.

Anyone who saw this construction period would feel that it was arranged scientifically and reasonably,

and the amount of labor spread out every year was within an acceptable range.

Then, look at something else.

When he first started building Beijing, Zhu Laosi didn't say a word,

stating that all soldiers and civilians logging wood would be given five dou of rice and three ingots of paper money every month:

Renxu, the civil and military officials and Duke Qiu Fu and others requested to build the Beijing palace in preparation for inspection.

Then he sent Minister of Works Song Li to Sichuan, Vice Minister of Personnel Shi Kui to Huguang,

Vice Minister of Revenue Gu Pu to Jiangxi, Vice Censor-in-Chief Liu Guan to Zhejiang,

Assistant Censor-in-Chief Zhong Cheng to Shanxi, to supervise soldiers and civilians in logging, giving each person five dou of rice and three ingots of paper money per month.

Zhu Laosi: There are also brick and tile makers, as well as laborers conscripted to Beijing, I haven't forgotten you.

You will serve for half a year this time, but don't worry, each person will be given five dou of rice per month:

Ordered Marquis of Taining Chen Gui and Beijing Vice Minister of Justice Zhang Sigong to supervise soldiers and civilians in brick and tile making, giving each person five dou of rice per month.

Ordered the Ministry of Works to conscript all kinds of craftsmen from the world, and select soldiers from the guards in Beijing and Henan, Shandong,

Shaanxi, Shanxi, Central Capital, and Zhili,

and select laborers from Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and other provincial administrations, and Zhili Fengyang,

Huai'an, Yangzhou, Luzhou, Anqing, Xuzhou, and Hezhou,

expecting them to arrive in Beijing for service next May, rotating every half year, giving each person five dou of rice per month.

Zhu Laosi: By the way, this work cannot be done for nothing,

all corvee taxes and levies in the places where they were conscripted will be stopped:

In places where soldiers and civilians were conscripted, all corvee and silver levies, etc., were ordered to stop.

Guang Zi, in order to build the Eastern Capital, conscripted labor from all over the world, but didn't give any travel expenses, only urging the construction period,

and as a result, many people died on the road, as many as four or five out of ten:

The Eastern Capital labor was urgent, and fourteen or fifteen out of ten died of exhaustion.

After Laosi realized this, he immediately issued an edict that all workers coming from other places would be given five ingots of travel expenses:

Ordered soldiers and civilians from all over the world who were to build Beijing to go to work in shifts, and the local authorities would give each person five ingots of paper money as travel expenses.

After the workers arrived, Laosi didn't ignore them after giving them money and food,

but regularly gave them daily necessities such as clothes and shoes:

Xinchou, gave clothes and shoes to the soldiers and civilians building Beijing, one fat jacket and one pair of trousers for each craftsman, and one pair of leggings.

During the period when the workers were serving, if they were injured, under the rule of most emperors,

it would likely be a matter of letting them fend for themselves, at most giving them some herbs for comfort treatment.

But Zhu Laosi specifically ordered the Ministry of Works to build an Anle Camp to accommodate these wounded,

and transferred 350 people from the Taiyi Academy to treat the injuries of these craftsmen.

If anyone unfortunately died, he would specifically send people to collect the bones and send them home for burial.

This is very important in the eyes of the people who advocate falling leaves returning to their roots:

Ordered the Ministry of Works to build an Anle Camp to house the builders, and for those craftsmen who were ill,

ordered the Taiyi Academy to divide officials to lead 350 doctors to give medicine for treatment,

and still sent Censors and Embroidered Uniform Guard officials to patrol, and for those craftsmen who died, the authorities would put their bones in a box and send them back to their hometowns for burial.