December 23, 14th year of the Ming Dynasty Shenwu, today is the Little New Year, and it is also the traditional Chinese folk festival of the Kitchen God. Today, it will enter the most important Spring Festival of the year for Chinese people.

As the lord of the Ming Dynasty's Zhongxing Emperor, Zhu Hongsan, of course, was much more enlightened than his slim ancestors. Zhu Yuanzhang was probably abused by officials when he was a child, so he wanted to die of these officials. Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that except for New Year's Eve and his own birthday holidays, he had to go to work at all times every year. However, officials were also human beings and needed to rest and go home to accompany his wife and children. Therefore, after Zhu Yuanzhang died, the rest time was immediately changed to ten days of each year. During the Wanli period, it was changed to three days of repairs per month, and at the same time, it was a half-month holiday during the Spring Festival.

As a famous lazy person, Zhu Hongsan naturally did not want to be as tired as his ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang. After becoming emperor in Guangdong, he changed the three days of Xiumu every month to four days. The emperor's birthday was three days off every year. In addition to these, there were several major festivals such as Double Ninth Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival. As the most important festival of the year, the Spring Festival, Zhu Hongsan generously started from the Chinese New Year and did not officially go to work until the 16th day of the first lunar month.

Because of the emperor's policy, the entire Beijing city has officially entered the Spring Festival since the New Year. All the yamen have already had holidays. Except for some key departments, there are people on duty, everyone goes home to prepare for the New Year.

The whole city of Beijing was shrouded in a joyful atmosphere, but in Toutiao Hutong in Dongcheng, Beijing, a group of people were walking dejectedly on horseback. The leader was a tall and tall young man, who was in his twenties, wearing a black mink coat with a dark blue cotton robe, and riding a tall horse.

Behind this young man was ten guards who were also tall and tall. These people looked like martial artists, and they all had murderous auras. Beijingers have all seen the world, but when they saw this group of people, they were not easy to mess with. When they saw them riding horses, they hurried to avoid them from afar. The young man in the lead was Zhu Jiang, the second prince of the current emperor, and the ten people following him were all guards of his royal palace.

People living in Dongcheng, Beijing are all honored by Huguang. Today, Zhu Jiang came here to go to his third uncle Ma Rufeng's house for a banquet.

Although Ma Rufeng did not get any position in the title of title, he was the commander of the garrison in the capital, in charge of the security of the nine gates of the capital, with 50,000 soldiers in his hand, and he had very heavy power. Naturally, the mansion was pretty good.

Zhu Jiang was also a regular visitor. When he arrived at Ma Rufeng's house, he did not wait for the notice. He handed the horse over to his family guarding the door, raised his legs and walked in directly.

The doorman at the door saw the King of Qin coming and quickly knelt down and saluted. Zhu Jiang was in a bad mood and asked, "Get up and take your master to see your master!"

The concierge quickly nodded and said, "Your Highness, my master is waiting in the second hall!"

"Today, your master said he would treat you, who have you invited?"

The doorman accompanied Xiaojing to lead the way in front and said, "I don't know who the villain invited, but Mr. Jiang has already come and is chatting with the master inside!"

Jiang Pengju came, it seemed that this was just a small gathering. Zhu Jiang also knew that his identity was special. It was a great news that he had made friends with the prince. Fortunately, Ma Rufeng was his uncle. It would be illegal to come to visit his uncle's house during the Chinese New Year!

Thinking of this, Zhu Jiang cursed in his heart: "The prince must be behind my back that I don't know what happened. I'm the same as me anyway!"

Zhu Jiang followed the gatehouse to the second hall of the backyard of Ma Mansion. Zhu Jiang walked in with the curtains. There were two people sitting in the room. Ma Rufeng was in the center, and Jiang Blind Jiang Pengju was the lower head.

When the two saw Zhu Jiang coming in, they stood up to salute. Although Ma Rufeng was Zhu Jiang's uncle and Jiang Pengju was the teacher in Zhu Jiang's army, Zhu Jiang's identity was there, after all, he was the prince of the country.

Zhu Jiang smiled and said, "Uncle and Brother Jiang are not too polite anymore. You and I are both our own family members. Why are you and such an outlier doing this?"

Zhu Jiang looked at the house where there was no one else and asked, "I don't know what good news today, so I asked my nephew to come and have a new concubine?"

Ma Rufeng's wife is a concubine of Ma Jiyuan of the same year. She is very stingy and keeps Ma Rufeng dead. Where can I take a concubine? Ma Rufeng waved his hand and said, "Don't joke, King Qin, it's really easy to kill someone when he is sent to the backyard!"

Jiang Pengju smiled from the side and said, "Haha, I didn't expect Brother Ma to be afraid of his wife!"

Zhu Jiang felt relieved a lot when he heard the two of them laughing and asked with a smile: "Uncle, we are the only ones today? Didn't we come to me?"

The uncle in Zhu Jiang's mouth was Ma Shaoguang, and he was also the think tank of the Qin King Group. Jiang Pengju waved his hand and said, "Don't let him come. I'll have a headache when he comes. How about I still have the mood to drink?"

Because Ma Shaoguang is a scholar, he naturally looks down on these soldiers. However, Ma Rufeng is his younger brother and Zhu Jiang is the prince. He can't say these two people, so he can only say that Jiang Pengju, whose status is not as good as his. Therefore, every time Jiang Pengju drinks, he feels a headache when he sees Ma Shaoguang.

Seeing Jiang Pengju like this, Zhu Jiang smiled and said, "So there are no outsiders? Then let's start the meal!"

"There is another person who didn't come. It was Jin Daoming, the prince of Nanchang. Today we are our own party, so I will take the initiative to find him too!" Jiang Pengju grinned from the side.

Zhu Jiang frowned when he heard that Jin Daoming was about to come. Zhu Jiang looked down on this soldier who escaped at the last minute. If Jin Daoming's wife hadn't blown the pillow to the emperor, Jin Daoming would have been beheaded according to Jin Daoming's charge. But Jiang Pengju didn't know what was going on, and he fell in love with this soft boy at first sight. Although Zhu Jiang was not satisfied, he had no choice but to give up. Jiang Pengju had already said this.

The three of them sat in the room and chatted. After a while, the doorman outside the door reported that the prince was here.

Jin Daoming has been doing nothing at home in recent years and has been raising a white-white ponytail. When he came into the house, he saw three people saluting him quickly, saying that he had been late.

Ma Rufeng saw that he had come and ordered his family to start the meal. These four people were all soldiers, so he naturally didn't like the romance of literati and the food was not so particular. Ma Rufeng directly prepared spicy hot pot.

Now spicy hot pot is popular in Beijing. After all, eating spicy hot pot and drinking high-spirited wine in this cold day is a life like a god.

However, spicy hot pot is divided into different levels. Now, because it is winter in Beijing and there are very few vegetables, the hot pot on the market is mainly meat. But who is Ma Rufeng? Not to mention that his family is rich, he is still powerful. In addition to normal beef and mutton rolls, the hot pot he prepared also has green leaves and green vegetables, which is worth the money in Beijing where the cold weather is cold.

However, one of the other three people here is the prince, the other is the prince, and the other is the count. This kind of dish seems to them to be ordinary.

The four of them sat down according to their identities and started to drink. As a soldier, Ma Rufeng naturally did not prepare the low-alcohol rice wine that literati liked to drink. They prepared the highly distilled white wine shipped from Guangdong. The four of them were all their own people, so they naturally didn't have to pay attention to anything when they spoke. As they spoke, they talked about current affairs.

Jiang Pengju sighed and said, "Everyone, my old comrade-in-arms came to the capital half a month ago. He stayed at my house for a few days. He heard that our brothers were not living a good life!"

All four of them were soldiers. When they heard that their former comrades were not doing well, they naturally cared about it, and they all started asking questions.

Jiang Pengju sighed and said, "My comrade-in-arms is pretty good. He broke his leg during the Northern Expedition. Thanks to the great kindness of His Majesty the Emperor, he gave him a position as the governor of the Jinyiwei. He also distributed 600 acres of land and lived a good life. However, now he heard that His Majesty the Emperor wants to promote military reform. All the land rewarded for military merits must be paid taxes. My comrade-in-arms pays nearly 200 silver dollars a year. It was pretty good to follow His Majesty like this. I heard that the company commanders and platoon leaders transferred their jobs even worse. The land they distributed was deducted by less than 30% of them, but the tax was indeed collected at 100%!"

The Ming Dynasty's garrison system was a major drawback in the late Ming Dynasty. In the past, Zhu Hongsan did not dare to touch this big cancer without occupying the whole country. However, now he has established a firm foothold, so he naturally has to cut off the cancer. Zhu Hongsan is preparing to distribute the land of those garrisons to local military households for free to farm, but he has to pay taxes in accordance with national laws. Of course, this policy cannot be targeted only those garrisons. The upstarts in the military under Zhu Hongsan have also become unlucky under this knife.

Zhu Jiang was born in the army and naturally did not like this policy of reducing the welfare of soldiers, but what could he do if he was a idle prince? So Zhu Jiang used to be angry at this policy but dared not speak out.

But Zhu Jiang drank some wine today, and there were no outsiders in the house today, and Zhu Jiang was deeply persecuted by the prince for the past year, and he felt very resentful. Now, when Jiang Pengju said this, he couldn't help but curse: "It's all the traitors of those literati, and the bastard of the prince, he is the traitor of those literati!"

The crown prince is the crown prince. Although Zhu Jiang is the crown prince's younger brother, he is also a minister. If this sentence is heard by outsiders, it would be a serious crime, but the house is full of his own people, so naturally no one will sue the first complaint.

When Jiang Pengju heard Zhu Jiang scolding the prince, he said to the side: "Yes, the literati standing behind the prince. It's okay for the emperor to be prosperous in spring and autumn, but what if the emperor has a prince at least, there is still a way for us to live in the army?"

Zhu Jiang was drunk at this time and cursed: "Damn, if I am the emperor, I will kill these stinky old masters!" Zhu Jiang said it nicely, but it is easy to say things and difficult to do. What can he do as an idle prince? Now the position of the prince is becoming more and more stable, and the Malaysian party is everywhere in the court. Zhu Jiang can only be happy and happy. When the prince ascended the throne, Zhu Jiang's best way out is to go to a city and become a prince who cannot leave the city and is drunk and dreaming.
Chapter completed!