Chapter 237: The Great Edict has loopholes. Zhu and his son blame each other. The Great Tong Calendar borrows from the Shoushi Calendar.
Looking at the worried-looking Li Yun, Zhu Gang quickly thought of the secret spy organization "Huagu" hidden in the dark by Lao Zhu.

They and the Jinyiwei, one in the open and one in the secret, took orders directly from the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

According to the Hidden Dragon Guards, the core members of "Huagu" are mostly the wives of court officials.

This reminded Zhu Gang of the "Lady Diplomacy" that was popular during the Republic of China period, whose representative figure was Huang Huilan, the daughter of the Asian Sugar King.

Not only is she proficient in six languages ​​including English and French, but she is also elegant and graceful.

Huang Huilan's husband is even more well-known. He is Gu Weijun, who refused to sign at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

She tried her best to change Gu Weijun's packaging, paved the way for him with money, and worked hard to push her husband to the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China.

Huang Huilan even helped him become the Prime Minister of the Republic of China.

Zhu Gang told this story to his father Zhu Yuanzhang in the first place, just hoping that his father would pay more attention to Empress Ma's opinion.

After all, there is a saying in history: The reason why Empress Ma died of illness was partly because Zhu Yuanzhang refused to listen to her advice and carried out the "Hu Weiyong case"

After trying to persuade her in vain, Empress Ma finally chose to become terminally ill rather than take the medicine prescribed by the imperial physician.

As the third son of Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Gang naturally did not want to see his parents end up like this.

Even if the "Lan Yu case" would not happen again, the "Guo Huan case" and the "Son-in-law Ouyang Lun case" were also major cases in the early Ming Dynasty with very wide implications.

The main culprit in the "Son-in-law Ouyang Lun case" was Ouyang Lun, the husband of Princess Anqing, who was also one of the only two daughters of Empress Ma.

If she could live until the 30th year of Hongwu, she would definitely not want to see her daughter become a widow, and there would inevitably be another chaotic quarrel.

Zhu Gang never thought that he would tell his father the story of Huang Huilan.

It actually prompted the other party to come up with the idea of ​​using the women in the palace officials' homes to develop a secret intelligence organization.

What he found most difficult to understand was that the first large-scale action of "Huagu" after its establishment was to help Xu Miaoyun, the concubine of Prince Jin, improve her status.

Zhu Gang was extremely troubled and felt that he couldn't go on like this, otherwise he would have trouble living!

He decided to go to the palace to talk to Zhu Yuanzhang, at least to stop the meaningless internal friction of the "Huagu".

Who would have thought that Zhu Yuanzhang, who was sitting firmly on the Diaoyutai, looked so confident.

"You promised to help us train a group of elite breakthrough troops equipped with plate armor.

But now such a long time has passed and there is still no movement from Gongshuqi.

The "Imperial Edict" that you have taken out now is full of loopholes.

Otherwise, you can just go ahead and write the "Nine Laws of the Ming Dynasty"!"

Long before Zhu Gang traveled through time, he had heard a senior who studied history say, "The common people in ancient times were never human beings. In the eyes of some upper-class rulers, they were just talking 'animals'.

The only difference is that in times of peace they are just working animals, while in times of famine they are eating animals.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang now has no idea of ​​treating the people as "animals", but in his eyes, the civil and military officials are sometimes not as good as the "animals" working among the people!

The "Nine Laws of the Ming Dynasty" embodies the collective wisdom of China over decades.

Just like the "Yongle Encyclopedia" that Zhu Di later asked people to compile, it took at least five years to produce the final product, and this required the assistance of a typing and printing press.

Old Zhu obviously wanted to complete "Nine Laws of the Ming Dynasty" in just a few months.

Not to mention that there is a severe shortage of relevant officials now, even if there were enough people, it would be impossible to complete this arduous task!

"Father, the reason why I brought out the Imperial Edict was just to implement it as a transitional system. As for the loopholes that people could exploit, it was entirely due to your unauthorized deletions and modifications."

Faced with the "blame" thrown at him by Zhu Gang, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally could not sit idly by and wait for death.

He sighed and said, “When the Mongols first entered the Central Plains, their customs and language were different from those of the Han people.

In addition, they were illiterate, so they had to rely on clerks for everything.

Our Ming Dynasty was also in a state of disrepair. Even the Datong Calendar was based on the Shoushi Calendar of the Yuan Dynasty.

Besides, the imperial examinations have not been restarted yet, and the court lacks the corresponding talents. Many things still rely on those county officials. "

Upon hearing this, Zhu Gang exclaimed, "Wow!"
If he remembered correctly, the "Shushili" was the calendar implemented in the 18th year of Zhiyuan, and was named after the calendar bestowed by Kublai Khan.

Now Zhu Gang finally understood why the Datong Calendar had such a large error in weather predictions.

From the period of Kublai Khan to the 10th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, more than 100 years have passed.

You use the Yuan Dynasty calendar from a hundred years ago to predict the weather in the Ming Dynasty.

If the accuracy is high, then damn it!

No wonder there were constant natural disasters in the late Ming Dynasty in history. Chongzhen, the last emperor, was so busy that he neglected many things.

Zhu Gang used to think that it was caused by climate change during the Little Ice Age.

It now appears that corners had already been cut in legislation in the early days of the Ming Dynasty.

"Now I just want to know who this smart-aleck official is.
He is simply destroying the foundation of our Ming Dynasty. It is not too much to cut him into pieces!"

Zhu Yuanzhang patted his third son on the shoulder and said, "We both know this man, he is the late Earl of Chengyi Liu Ji.

You have already sentenced Liu Ji's eldest son to death, and his second son and his entire family were exiled to Lingnan. This matter can no longer be investigated."

After Zhu Gang was silent for a moment, his eyes turned and an idea suddenly came to his mind.

"Father, I believe that the reason that Master Liu made mistakes while formulating the Datong Calendar was because he was deceived by his subordinates!"

In order to support his point of view, Zhu Gang also recounted the incident in which Shen Shang, a clerk in Changshu County, Suzhou, and Xu Wenliang, a clerk in Kaihua County, Quzhou, publicly beat and kicked the county magistrate.

Zhu Yuanzhang heard this and said in a tone of "hateful for not being able to make good use of one's talents": "Local officials not only have the power of life and death, but are also often involved in complicated nepotism.

County clerks in charge of government offices generally did not have the courage to disobey their superiors, let alone beat them up in public at the office.

Although these two clerks all deserved death, but officials who allowed themselves to be insulted like this, are they all good-for-nothings?"

Zhu Gang did not refute immediately, but just wrote the name "Zhang Yi" on the paper with a pen.

"I have heard that Li Xiyan is a famous calligrapher and painter in Ming Dynasty.

Although I don’t know how good your painting skills are, I think you have indeed reached the level of being better than your teacher.”

Zhu Gang smiled and waved his hand, "Father, what I want to talk about is not these two words, but the person Zhang Yi, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue."

After coughing twice to hide his embarrassment, Zhu Yuanzhang said solemnly: "Zhang Yi was promoted to Zhongshu Sheren because of his good calligraphy.

Now my father has let him manage the money and grain, and there have been no problems so far. Could it be that this person is a deeply hidden corrupt official?"

(End of this chapter)