I was a concubine in Legend of Zhen Huan

Chapter 131 Fu Cha Yi Xin (36)

Fat Orange is gone, and the last huge mountain pressing on his head is finally gone.

The new emperor Hongxian is her biological son in two lives. Not only does the mother and son have a very harmonious relationship, but her eldest son always lets her do whatever she wants without worrying about it.

Hongxian is very experienced in government affairs. Even if he doesn't know how to do it, he can copy Hongchang's homework in his previous life and make the previous dynasty develop steadily and positively. While Hongxian was making trouble in the previous dynasty, Yixin was carrying out reforms in the harem.

Originally, the Empress Dowager and the concubines were to move to the Ningshou Palace, but Hongxian was filial, and since he had no concubines left in the harem anyway, he decided to let the concubines of the previous emperor live in their original place.

The first imperial decree issued by Yi Xin was that women's feet would no longer be bound. Women with bound feet could not participate in the imperial elections, and those who could be saved would have their feet unbound. In case the people pretended to obey but did not follow the decree, Yi Xin also asked Hong Xian to add another imperial decree, that if a family had a woman with bound feet, once it was found, no man in the nine clans would be allowed to serve as an official in the court, not even as a minor official.

Of course, simply using power to exert pressure would not work. The imperial court would also subsidize women who had their feet bound. Not only would the expenses of their feet being bound be borne by the imperial court, but after their feet were completely bound, the imperial court would give them a subsidy of one or two taels of silver.

Not only that, Yi Xin herself had used public opinion to punish Zhen Huan several times, so she naturally knew the power of public opinion. She also asked someone to write a play about the harm of foot binding and the various advantages of women with bound feet being inferior to women with natural feet. After writing the play, she asked storytellers to spread these stories in every teahouse.

Well, although there are many exaggerated elements in the opera, drastic measures must be taken to deal with bad habits. This set of combined punches may have an impact on other places, but in Beijing, natural feet are now considered beautiful and foot binding is considered shameful. Yi Xin saw that this was effective, so she asked people to promote it in other parts of the country.

While banning foot binding, Yi Xin was also working on releasing a group of palace maids. Not only did she change the age limit for leaving the palace to 20, she was also considering releasing some of those under 20.

Yi Xin drove out all the concubines in the palace who had sons and asked them to live with their sons. As for others, like Yue Lu, after hearing about Nian Shilan's legendary experience, she also yearned to become a female general herself, so Yi Xin let her leave the palace with a wave of her hand.

Anyway, Yaoyang spends most of her time studying and comes to her place more often. It doesn’t really have much impact on her that her adoptive mother Yue Lu leaves the palace.

There were also people like Guaerjia Wenyuan, Zhen Taipin, and Kang Taiguiren, who were all still young and didn't need to wait for Da Pangju for half their lives. Now that Pangju was gone, he and Hongxian could make the decision. They asked them if they wanted to marry again. After getting their slightly surprised replies, more than half of the concubines in the palace were gone in an instant.

Now, apart from those who have daughters, there is only Xia Dongchun who insists on staying with her. Yi Xin thought that after these concubines followed their daughters to set up their own residences, there would be no more than ten masters in the palace, so there was really no need to keep so many palace maids wasting their time in the Forbidden City. She simply let three quarters of the palace maids leave the palace at once.

What? You're asking about the palace banquets during the New Year and other festivals? Aren't there still some palace maids who haven't been released from the palace? Besides, there are still so many eunuchs in the palace.

What will happen to these eunuchs when they die of old age?

Yi Xin was gone by then. After her death, who would care about the flood? Let future generations worry about this problem!

Of course, Yi Xin did not fail to consider their future livelihood before letting these palace maids leave the palace.

Those who are willing to go home and reunite with their families can be allowed to do so; those who have been invited back home by other families because of their previous work experience, Yixin does not need to worry about their livelihood; and those who want to marry a man of their dreams while they are still young, they can contribute to the country's population growth, and Yixin is happy to support them from the bottom of her heart.

There were only those whose parents were old, who were not on good terms with their families, and who had no means of living after leaving the palace. Yi Xin released them out of kindness, and would not watch them die. She opened several orphanages, allowing these girls who had no livelihood to take care of the elderly and widows; in addition, the previous work of unbinding the feet of women also required the assistance of many women; and there was the Jenny loom that she had seen in history books before, so Yi Xin opened a textile factory, hoping that they could study it there...

After a large number of people were released, the palace suddenly became much quieter. On the night when the court maids of marriageable age were released, when Xiao Hongxiao came to pay his respects to Yi Xin, he said that he almost thought the palace had been raided and it was quiet everywhere. The childish talk of the child made Yi Xin and the concubines around her laugh.

Things had to be done step by step. While Hongxian took three years to recuperate, she used three years to ensure that no one in the Qing Dynasty would dare to force women to bind their feet.

However, Yi Xin wanted to vigorously develop the status of women, but doing just this was not enough. During these three years, Yi Xin also opened up the imperial examinations for women. Although they could not be allowed to serve as officials in the court for the time being, they could first serve as female officials and gradually break the shackles on women. This could not be rushed.

Since the first year of Yongzhao, the court officials and the people have discovered that the court seems to be making big moves. The new emperor and his mother are really capable of making trouble. Today they issue this decree, and tomorrow they issue an order to start that research.

There were pedantic ministers who wanted to advise the emperor not to always think like this and cause one thing after another. However, under the efforts of the new emperor and his son, the Qing Dynasty became better day by day, and the living conditions of the people were greatly improved. These good changes could not deceive anyone.

Hong Xian would ask the Minister of Revenue to report to everyone from time to time how rich the national treasury was now, in order to suppress all opposing voices.

The mourning period for the late emperor was finally over. Hong Xian saw that there was sufficient food and grass, and the firearms newly developed by Dai Zi were far ahead of the times. So what was there to wait for?

Go to war!

The first people that Hong Xian wanted to deal with were the obedient Mongolian tribes.

No matter what the previous policies were, starting from the reign of Yongzhao, there would be no example of a princess being forced to marry far away unless she herself was willing!

"Sending my concubine to protect the country, where in the world is the need for a general?" will become a thing of the past forever!

The emperor finally stopped harassing his ministers, but now he has to go to war again.

After hearing this, the ministers didn't know how to react.