The merchants of the Great Ming were not solely the wealthy magnates; peddlers and hawkers were also vital supplements to the economy.
Otherwise, why would Liu Huaiwen constantly cry about an empty treasury, yet always have funds when Zhu Jinsong wanted to shake things up? Because the city guards of the Great Ming collected hygiene and business fees from these small vendors monthly, which were then remitted to the treasury.
So, the question arises.
The government no longer collected the old copper coins but instead took treasure notes and hard currency. This made the small vendors prefer treasure notes and hard currency, yet the treasure notes issued by the Great Ming treasury could not satisfy market demand.
Consequently, after much deliberation, the wealthy merchants and peddlers of the Great Ming reached a conclusion: the Ming court had no economic masters, only incompetent officials lining their pockets. The salaries the Ming Emperor paid them could as well have been fed to dogs.
Of course, criticism notwithstanding, no amount of scolding could stop people from going to the bank to exchange for treasure notes. Word had it that in a few years, a convenience fee would be charged for exchanges. The money saved by exchanging now was as good as money earned for free.
Aside from the treasure note issue, what the people of the Great Ming were most concerned about was the Ming Emperor finally selecting consorts and establishing an empress.
No one knew how this matter started.
It began with someone publishing an article in a privately run newspaper, claiming that the Ming Emperor Zhu Jinsong had been on the throne for five years, yet his harem had only one concubine. Moreover, this concubine was from the Solon tribe of Liaodong. Rounded off, this meant the Emperor was legally still a bachelor.
This simply wouldn't do. Emperor Xiaozong of the Great Ming had only Empress Zhang as his wife and only one son. Later, the throne was usurped, a matter that had been mocked by the people of the Great Ming for over a hundred years. Zhu Houzhao was also bashed relentlessly. It continued for another hundred years during my Qing Dynasty, becoming a disgrace for emperors. Now, was Emperor Zhu going to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors?
In short, Emperor Xiaozong was a good husband but definitely not a good emperor, because a good emperor not only needed literary and military achievements and impeccable private conduct but also had the duty to marry more wives and have more sons to solidify the foundation of the nation.
The current Holy Emperor was no different. His literary and military achievements were beyond reproach. In terms of private conduct, apart from his father's ashes not yet being buried, there were no other faults. The only issue was the vacant position of Empress and an unfurnished harem.
If it were just a civilian newspaper saying this, Zhu Jinsong would likely have treated it as a joke. After all, the Great Ming was not my Qing Dynasty, and there was no punishment for speaking one's mind. The common people often gossiped about the emperor, and no one was ever killed for it.
For instance, Emperor Zhu the Fourth had massacred ten generations of Fang Xiaoru's family, famously flayed three thousand palace maids alive, Zhengde favored women, and in the Jiajing era, every household was emptied. Which Ming emperor hadn't been gossiped about?
The problem was that the "Great Ming Newspaper" had, for the first time ever, reprinted that article.
And the "Great Ming Newspaper" was the official mouthpiece that covered the entire Great Ming. Every article published in it would be repeatedly analyzed. This meant that from local government to the populace, everyone basically knew that Zhu Jinsong was legally still a bachelor.
At this point, the people of the Great Ming lost their taste for gossip and instead began to worry about Zhu Jinsong.
Was Zhu Jinsong a good emperor? Of course, he was. Anyone who dared say otherwise could go to the fields and say it, and see if the old farmers working there wouldn't smash them with their hoes.
But such a good emperor had no wife or sons? What would become of the Great Ming's empire? What would become of the good life they had finally attained?
Damn it, they could let the emperor do whatever he wanted in other matters, but not this! Write a petition of a million names and criticize him fiercely!
Then, the high officials in court, holding the "Great Ming Newspaper" and the million-name petition, went to the temporary imperial palace. Zeng Cheng, the Grand Secretary of the Great Ming, took the lead in the accusation: "Your Majesty has been on the throne for five years. Now the Jurchens are confined to their territory, and the Han lands have been largely restored. The people's livelihood is stable. We humbly request Your Majesty to widely select beautiful women to fill the harem."
To these suggestions from the high officials, it would be pure nonsense to say Zhu Jinsong was not moved at all.
Consider the process of selecting imperial consorts in the Great Ming:
First, eunuchs were dispatched to scour the countryside for five thousand girls between thirteen and sixteen years of age. Furthermore, these five thousand girls had to be from families other than physicians, shamans, merchants, or artisans to be eligible for the selection.
This was because the prevailing view at the time was that those skilled in medicine might poison the emperor, those skilled in shamanism might curse the emperor, and daughters of merchants and artisans were considered too calculating and unsuitable for the harem.
After selecting five thousand beautiful girls, they were then screened day by day.
On the first day, the beautiful girls stood in order according to age, in groups of one hundred. Eunuchs would scrutinize them, picking and choosing. Those slightly taller, shorter, fatter, or thinner were excluded, with a thousand people eliminated first.
On the second day, their ears, eyes, mouths, noses, hair, skin, necks, shoulders, and backs were meticulously examined for symmetry. Their voices were listened to for pleasantness, and another two thousand were eliminated.
On the third day, precise measurements were taken of the girls' physiques. Each girl was made to walk several paces to observe their grace and demeanor, and another thousand were eliminated.
The remaining thousand were designated as prospective palace maids and taken to a secret chamber by old palace maids. Their breasts were examined, their armpits smelled, and their skin was felt to check for smoothness and delicacy. After this, only three hundred remained—and crucially, it was checked whether they were virgins, as this could be a matter of life and death.
These three hundred lived in the palace for a month. Palace judges would carefully observe their character and speech, compiling evaluations of their personalities, their strengths and weaknesses, their intelligence, and their virtue. Afterward, only fifty were selected to remain as consorts.
Finally, the Empress Dowager or Imperial Concubine would personally summon the fifty. They would engage in pleasant conversation, testing their skills in calligraphy, arithmetic, poetry, and painting. Those selected would be veiled with silk curtains, and golden jade bangles would be tied to their wrists. Those not chosen would have their names and dates placed in their sleeves along with silver coins and sent back. From these, three would be selected as the most favored.
In other words, one selection event would shake the entire empire. From all eligible beautiful girls in the realm, five thousand were chosen, and then from those five thousand, the final three were decided. Even a slight imperfection meant no chance for the final competition.
It was like many online novels describing school beauties or goddesses. The emperor's harem consorts were chosen from countless school beauties and goddesses, and then from those five thousand, the best three were selected.
Outside of these three, if the emperor fancied someone else, it was a separate matter and did not affect the quota of the final three chosen beauties.
Therefore, as written by Zhang Xiaohua, the old rogue Liu Bang was so fond of steamed buns—just as someone who ate sea cucumber and abalone every day, upon tasting a piece of stinky tofu they had never seen before, might consider it a delicacy.
Corruption, indeed. The ancients tested emperors with this. Which emperor could withstand such a test?
It was estimated that any normal man would find it difficult to resist such temptation. In any case, Zhu Jinsong could not resist, because Zhu Jinsong was normal, as normal as could be.
But did the Great Ming currently have an Empress Dowager or Imperial Concubine to preside over the selection? Even if they took a step back and let the Empress preside, did the Great Ming have an Empress now? Did the Great Ming have eunuchs?
No, the Great Ming wasn't without eunuchs. The heads of the Eastern Depot were eunuchs. The problem was that the Great Ming eunuchs were currently serving Qianlong the Old Dog in the Forbidden City.
To put it bluntly, many people in the Great Ming court understood the selection process, but none were qualified to preside over it!
However, Zeng Cheng and the other high officials expressed indifference. "In the imperial family, there is no private matter. The matter of widely selecting imperial consorts, while it is Your Majesty's private affair, is also a public matter concerning the Great Ming's empire."
"As for disturbing the populace, that is even more absurd. 'Han Xiucai Marries a Beautiful Wife Amidst Chaos' is a fabrication by impoverished scholars, not to be taken seriously. It is known that the common people have long eagerly awaited Your Majesty to conduct a grand selection of imperial consorts. For ordinary people, this is also an opportunity to ascend to high status overnight. Who would miss it?"
Only then did Zhu Jinsong realize that his thoughts were based on later eras, and the people's thoughts now might be completely different from his own.
As long as the selecting emperor wasn't a seventy or eighty-year-old like Qianlong the Old Dog, the benefits of entering the palace as a consort were countless. Even positions as palace maids and eunuchs had people vying for them, let alone becoming an empress or consort.
As for not being able to return home to visit relatives, that was not a significant issue either. For ordinary marriages, unless it was a high-ranking family or the marriage was to a nearby place, visiting relatives was not easy.
Therefore, when Zhu Jinsong finally agreed to a grand selection of imperial consorts, the people of the Great Ming, who had already been full of gossip, became excited.
Especially those families with daughters of marriageable age, they were all incredibly thrilled.
However, before these people could rejoice for long, the news that followed was like a bolt from the blue, leaving the people of the Great Ming completely stunned.
Zhu Jinsong, the Emperor of the Great Ming, made regulations for the grand selection of imperial consorts, restricting them to women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, who were literate, unmarried or without engagement, and who had not bound their feet.
Let's put it this way: assuming the sixteen provinces currently occupied by the Great Ming had a population of two hundred million, with an equal gender ratio, there would be one hundred million women. Those between eighteen and twenty-five would account for a quarter of them, numbering no more than twenty-five million.
Among these twenty-five million women, even counting those who could write their own names as literate, there would probably not be more than a thousand. Among these thousand, many were unmarried or unengaged, as the Great Ming stipulated that women must marry after the age of eighteen. However, adding the condition of not having bound feet, it was likely that not even a few could be found throughout the Great Ming.
Then, the people began to resent my Qing Dynasty.