Zhu Yijun took the books that Zhang Jing presented to him. Although they were called books, they were actually two booklets. They looked a bit worn out, but Zhu Yijun still carefully put them away before saying, "We will definitely study them carefully."
Hearing Zhu Yijun's words, Hai Rui smiled and said, "Then this subject will quietly wait for Your Majesty's good news."
After sending off Hai Rui, Zhu Yijun picked up Hai Rui's book. The first book that Zhu Yijun picked up was Hai Rui's "The Constitutional Treaty of Supervising the Governor".
In the opening, Hai Rui wrote down his original intentions for writing this book.
Zhu Yijun was entranced. After reading, Zhu Yijun picked up his brush and added a sentence to the blank space in Hai Rui's book.
"The officials do not fear my strictness, but fear my honesty. The people do not believe in my ability, but obey my righteousness.
Honesty means that the officials do not dare to be negligent. Righteousness means that the people do not dare to bully.
Righteousness gives birth to righteousness gives birth to authority. "
This sentence was enough to sum up Hai Rui's original intentions, and it also allowed Zhu Yijun to understand Hai Rui even more.
The content of this book, rather than saying it was content, was more like a rule. As Zhu Yijun read and read, he smiled.
In this era, it was no wonder that Hai Rui was ostracized by the officials when he took out this rule.
The "Constitutional Treaty of Supervising the Governor" stipulated that when the governor went on an inspection tour, the prefectures, prefectures, and counties were not allowed to come out of the city to welcome him, nor were they allowed to host banquets.
Considering that the officials of the Imperial Court might still need to maintain some semblance of dignity, he allowed them to have chicken, fish, and pork for their meals, but they were not allowed to provide goose or rice wine. Furthermore, they were not allowed to exceed the food standards.
This standard was: In a place where the prices were high, three copper coins of fine silver, and in a place where the prices were low, two copper coins of fine silver. Even the expenses for candles, firewood, and the like were included.
In the eyes of the current officials, this kind of rule was really unacceptable, but in Zhu Yijun's eyes, it was really comfortable no matter how he looked at it.
Hai Rui wasn't that rigid, did they say there would be meat?
In the future, the government would severely crack down on the issue of officials eating and drinking at public expense. For Hai Rui to have such foresight, it was truly extraordinary.
The key was that he really did it. Although he didn't carry it out thoroughly, it was a good attempt and was worthy of praise.
Later on, Hai Rui wrote about a whip technique. In fact, when he was the county magistrate, Hai Rui had begun to promote a whip technique.
In one of Hai Rui's whip techniques, there was already an embryonic form of spreading a man into a field.
Hai Rui changed the previous tax and corvee system, which was based on land, household, and population, to the collection of money and silver according to land and population.
In the past, taxpayers would take turns collecting and distributing the transportation, but the government would collect and distribute the transportation themselves.
Just the transportation issue alone had reduced a lot of the burden on the people.
However, this would definitely increase the burden on the lower officials. This was probably the reason why they opposed Hai Rui.
At the same time, he combined the land tax, corvee, and other miscellaneous taxes into one article, which would be calculated and collected according to the land. The original method of collecting the labor from the household would be changed to apportioning everything to the land.
This article already had the meaning of spreading a man into a field. If he added another article, the officials and gentry would pay taxes as one, then it could really be implemented.
The more Zhu Yijun read, the more excited he became. Perhaps in this era, no one could understand Hai Rui, or perhaps no one was willing to understand Hai Rui.
Everyone thought that Hai Rui was different, that Hai Rui didn't fit in with the crowd, but no one was willing to understand Hai Rui's true thoughts.
Compared to Zhang Juzheng, Hai Rui proposed to clean up the officials and even use harsh punishments to wipe out corruption. Although it was more difficult, the effect would be better.
"Your Imperial Majesty, the Marquis of Xining is outside requesting an audience!"
Although Zhang Jing didn't want to disturb Zhu Yijun, he still braced himself and reported.
He frowned slightly, the Marquis of Xining?
Zhu Yijun frowned and said with a cold smile, "Let him wait outside!"
"Yes, Imperial Majesty!" Zhang Jing replied and turned to walk outside.
Zhu Yijun's train of thought was interrupted and casually put down Hai Rui's booklet. At this moment, Zhu Yijun thought of Hai Rui's evaluation of Zhang Juzheng, "good at scheming for the country, bad at scheming for oneself."
Although Zhang Juzheng had suppressed Hai Rui for so many years, Hai Rui still gave such an evaluation. It could be seen that Hai Rui had a positive attitude towards some of Zhang Juzheng's matters.
Hai Rui approved of Zhang Juzheng's reforms, but he didn't approve of the way he used people. Hai Rui believed that the reforms needed to be carried out at the same time.
Zhang Juzheng believed that doing that wouldn't work, because you had to use officials to carry out the reforms. If you were too strict with them, the reforms wouldn't be able to proceed.
But in terms of the reforms and Daming the country and strengthening the people, they were in agreement.
It was just that the two of them had been demonized and were splashed with dirty water. Many people even used the excuse of suppressing Hai Rui to attack Zhang Juzheng.
In fact, the two of them only had political disagreements and had never spoken ill of each other. Compared to those who easily splashed dirty water and put all kinds of labels on each other, they were many times better.
Zhu Yijun reached out his hand and tapped on Hai Rui's memorial. The expression on his face slowly became solemn.
From a practical point of view, Zhang Juzheng's method was more feasible, but it didn't solve the root of the problem!
He reached out his hand and opened Hai Rui's "Constitutional Treaty of Supervising and Governing the Province". There was another thing that was emphasized in it, which was contracts.
On the issue of contracts, Hai Rui requested that disputes must be resolved based on written contracts.
If there were no contracts, the amount of loans that Hai Rui approved to be redeemed would only be one-twentieth of the total mortgage loan cases.
Later on, Hai Rui also emphasized that the common people were illiterate and couldn't sign contracts. Therefore, the officials of the imperial court should step in. Whenever the common people needed to sign a contract, the imperial court should step in and act as the middleman. When the contract was signed, the yamen should also keep a record.
From this article, Zhu Yijun saw a few points. He even wanted to applaud Hai Rui.
If such a contract was signed, then it would solve the problems of usury, selling children, and so on. Even land investment would be solved to a certain extent.
A contract that wasn't notarized by the yamen was invalid.
Not only would it establish order, but it could also make many things more standardized.
For example, the land lease contract between tenant farmers and landlords could be clearly written on the contract to prevent local tyrants from suppressing the common people.
However, Zhu Yijun also knew that once this policy was announced, local tyrants would probably curse Hai Rui's ancestors.
Zhu Yijun looked at it and heaved a sigh of relief. Sure enough, Hai Rui didn't let him down. This policy was very good.
Zhu Yijun still wanted to continue reading. He reached out and picked up the "Revolutionary Regulations" written by Hai Rui.
This booklet was written when he was the county magistrate. There were a lot of specific things written in it. It also emphasized on his judgment strategy of "rather than wronging an elder brother, he would rather wronging a younger brother; rather than wronging an uncle, he would rather wronging a nephew; rather than wronging a poor person, he would rather wronging a rich person; rather than wronging a stupid person, he would rather wronging a stubborn person."
This made Zhu Yijun shake his head. However, Zhu Yijun also knew that Hai Rui wasn't the only one who used this strategy.
In this era, this was called etiquette. Many people did this. Moreover, doing this at this time didn't seem so sinful.
This was just someone smearing Hai Rui's name, saying that a poor person cheated a rich person.
The person who said this must be a rich person. It had always been the rich bullying the poor, and the poor cheating the rich. How difficult was it?
This was just someone trying to provoke the rich to hate Hai Rui. Who were the rich? They were gentry!