Zhu Qizhen said: "What do you mean, sir?"

Cao Nai said: "Your Majesty, as a first-class minister, my salary is only eight hundred dan. But the vassal king has more than 10,000 dan per year. There are only a dozen ministers like me in the world, but the vassal kings are multiplying day by day.

Your Majesty has said this before."

"I was struck by thunder at that time, and my memory is still fresh today. Now that the imperial court has difficulty in spending money, it is natural to rectify it. I think that the three generations of a gentleman will be killed. However, any descendant of the third generation can be invited to leave the vassal and make a living for himself. If he has outstanding talents,

, and can also be recorded in the clan registry, so that the emperor can be assisted at the top and the rebellious ministers can be reprimanded at the bottom."

"From now on, the imperial court only distributes salaries to the vassal kings. The princes below are ordered to support themselves."

What Cao Nai said was actually Zhu Qizhen's original idea.

It's just that the authority of Zhu Qizhen at the time and Zhu Qizhen now are different.

At the beginning, Zhu Qizhen, after all his hard words, only allowed the northwest vassal king to receive his salary in Nanjing. He was just crazy about subtracting the northwest vassal king in disguise.

But now Cao Nai's regulations limit the salary of the vassal king to about 300,000 dan.

After all, the total number of Ming vassal kings was only over twenty.

Moreover, if only the salaries of the vassal kings were distributed, the shogunate vassal salaries would be reduced to an extremely low level. After all, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were only more than fifty vassal kings.

There are more than fifty princes, but they consume nearly ten million yuan in salary. If there are more than fifty princes, they only consume more than five hundred thousand dan of food, the court can actually afford it.

There are not too many low-level clans in this era.

Cao Nai gave them a way out and let them make a living on their own. In fact, Zhu Qizhen was already doing it.

In the main hall, several groups of people have come under the command of King Xiang, and many of them have led troops to fight. Of course, there are also some who have been damaged. However, these people sent over are not valued too much in this vassal.

Otherwise, it will not be sent out.

Zhu Qizhen only needs to find a few role models among these people.

Naturally, many lower-level clan members will quit their studies to study.

Zhu Qizhen also knew the other meaning of what Cao Nai said.

Yes, there were almost no ministers with the same surname in the Ming Dynasty.

Looking at the Han, Tang, Song, Yuan and Qing Dynasties, there were not a large number of ministers with the same surname in that dynasty. Especially in the Southern Song Dynasty, many ministers with the same surname played a key role in the succession of the emperor.

Clan was very important in ancient times.

If the Zhu family wants to be stable in the world, it would be better to have more ministers with the same surname. Of course, it is not good if the blood relationship is too close. Distant clan members cannot threaten the inheritance rights, and they have the same surname, so they will receive benefits from the court.

At critical moments, loyalty is highest.

In Zhu Qizhen's opinion, in many cases, these clan ministers are much more useful than the vassal kings who are raised like pigs.

They may be able to replace internal officials and become an extension of the monarch's authority.

Zhu Qizhen thought a lot for a while, but he came back to his senses in the blink of an eye and asked: "Sir, why are the vassal kings everywhere unstable?"

Cao Nai said: "Your Majesty, it is natural to lift it up high and put it down gently. What I am responsible for is just to lift it up high. How to put it down gently depends on your Majesty's thoughts."

"However, I have already given the order. The imperial court is very tight on expenses. It is no longer possible to announce the royal family's salary for this year or next year."

Zhu Qizhen said in his heart: "Cao Nai wants to take the blame to himself and the credit to me." When he thought of this, he was a little moved and said, "I understand what you mean, sir."

"It's just that this matter is too big. Let me think about it more."

Cao Nai said: "I understand. I will retire."

Cao Nai slowly withdrew and stood at the door of Qianqing. He raised his head slightly and looked at the sun, but closed his eyes. The sun was not allowed to be looked directly at. Even if he closed his eyes, the sunlight could still penetrate. It shines through his eyelids.

For a moment, the eyes were as brilliant as gold.

Cao Nai thought to himself: "I hope everything goes well."

What Cao Nai has been doing is to promote the reforms that Zhu Qizhen has started or has not started, and to avoid a war with the imperial court and Wasi.

Without him, Cao Nai knew too well how much harm the war had done to the people in the north.

But just as the sun cannot be looked directly at, it is not easy to change Zhu Qizhen's mind.

Cao Nai didn't know whether his approach of trying to divert Zhu Qizhen's thoughts was right or wrong. He could only know it when Tu Qiong saw him.

Although Cao Nai's eyes were full of golden light, he lowered his head and opened his eyes, but all he saw was black, and he couldn't see clearly. It was like him now.

He couldn't see clearly what the way forward was.

He can only go on according to his own will.

Zhu Qizhen sent Cao Nai away.

He was thinking secretly in his heart, while weighing whether to attack the feudal king.

After much thought, he felt that the worst case scenario would never happen. In the past few years, Zhu Qizhen had gradually reduced the number of guards of each vassal king little by little.

There are not many other vassal kings he has to deal with. Most of the vassal kings had their three guards eliminated during the Yongle era. The only ones left were the King of Qin and the King of Chu.

Now the guards of the King of Qin have been transferred to Yan'an, and the guards of the King of Chu have also been transferred to Guizhou.

All the vassal kings no longer have formal bodyguards, and they only have a few hundred servants at most. If the founding kings had servants, Zhu Qizhen would also have to worry.

After all, most of the founding kings were capable of fighting. When Emperor Taizong raised his army, he only had a few hundred servants.

But now, just like on the march to war, Zhu Qizhen knew that he was not as good as Emperor Taizong, and how could the kings from all over the country compare with the previous kings?

Moreover, the vassal kings who were truly talented and capable, and who I thought could lead troops into battle, were probably all in Beijing. Although Prince Xiang's stay in Luchuan was not comfortable.

After King Xiang entered Luchuan, he had to fight one or two battles almost every year, fighting with this chieftain, fighting with that chieftain, and so on.

Although his life was not peaceful, Zhu Qizhen promised him nothing less. Now King Xiang also has several counties under his command, with 30,000 soldiers, independent government orders, and little control from the court.

The King of Han had the intention to go to a distant town before entering the capital to take over the clan order. In today's world, anyone who is not a fool knows how low the success rate of the feudal king's rebellion is.

Therefore, rebellion will not happen.

The worst outcome is not possible, Zhu Qizhen is still a little worried. After all, even the emperor cannot avoid the way of kissing. Zhu Qizhen already has a bad reputation as a counterpart to Chang Bo.

There are even rumors outside that Zhu Qizhen is not the biological son of the Empress Dowager Sun, and there are stories like a civet cat replacing the prince.

If you are cruel to the feudal king, your reputation will only get worse.

Zhu Qizhen originally didn't care about reputation, but in this era, reputation is a part of political assets, so Zhu Qizhen naturally has to think more about it.

"The way of kissing." Zhu Qizhen suddenly thought of something and thought to himself: "It's not necessarily right to be close to relatives, but it's also okay to be close to your younger brother."

If you want to refute others, you finally create a model, a model of a clan prince. Let people know that it is not that the emperor is not good to the feudal princes, but that they are too useless.

For example, King Xiang, the emperor was very kind to him.

"Prince Xiang can't do it." Zhu Qizhen immediately rejected Prince Xiang.

The reason is very simple. There are no eternal secrets in the world. The matter of King Xiang's golden book is no longer a secret today. Many people say that King Xiang was granted the title of Luchuan. In fact, it was Zhu Qizhen's revenge.

Zhu Qizhen also knew that these things could not be explained clearly, and the description became darker and darker.

Suddenly, a person appeared in Zhu Qizhen's mind, and that was Zhu Qizhen's younger brother, King Tao.

As his biological brother, Zhu Qizhen was naturally responsible for him and had the closest blood relationship. It was only natural that Zhu Qizhen would mold him into a role model.

But in the past few years, Zhu Qizhen has been relatively distant from him.

On the one hand, government affairs are busy.

Zhu Qizhen just felt that there was not enough time every day, and even the time to see his son was wrong, so naturally his younger brother had to be put aside.

Of course, there is another reason. That is that Zhu Qizhen actually has a knot in his heart, big or small.

That is, Zhu Qizhen's younger brother is Zhu Qiyu, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

Although Zhu Qizhen also knew that the reason why Zhu Qiyu came to power was because orthodox emperors in history committed suicide, as an emperor and a sensitive power creature, he would reject anyone who could threaten him.
Chapter completed!