"Are you not afraid of causing rebound or public anger?"

Long Tiande said in a deep voice.

Long Huaiyu smiled and said, "A person like this will be either the emperor of the ages or a tyrant who will be destroyed by the country."

Long Huaiyu bowed to Long Tiande and said, "So, father, we should go on this trip."

"He killed someone and sent him another word, the implication was that he didn't plan to take the second path at the moment, and at least he had room for compromise. So what's the harm in giving him this face when we go to the capital and the East Palace? The benefits are what we really want to take."

Long Tiande frowned and said, "But if he goes, wouldn't he admit defeat and he will slaughter it at will?"

Long Huaiyu said proudly: "Please rest assured that if you have a child here, even if he respects him as the prince, don't even think about controlling us at will."

"Since I have understood his mind, he will not be able to gain the upper hand everywhere, and the child has his own way to deal with him."

Long Tiande smiled happily and said, "Okay, since you have such confidence, then when will you and my father and son go to the East Palace together?"

"immediately!"

...

"Your Highness, the treasury is empty again."

Looking at Xu Changqing, who was standing in Xizheng Hall with his hands spreading out and looking frowning, Li Chen felt that his temple was hurting a lot.

He closed his eyes slightly and waved his hand to signal Wan Jiaojiao to rub his swollen temples. Li Chen said, "Xu Changqing, your Ministry of Revenue is a bottomless pit. The tens of millions of taels of silver that I raided from the house a few months ago can also be filled in. It's only been a long time now, and you told me that I have no money again?"

Xu Changqing said with a sad face: "Your Highness, you know that the court now needs money everywhere. The minister is already careful and is cutting off some unnecessary expenses again and again, but it is still difficult to do so."

"Not to mention anything else, the disaster relief funds from various places alone have been spent on most of the deposits in the past two months. With the natural disasters, taxes in various places cannot be collected at all. Moreover, the emperor issued an order last year that taxes and labor service in all provinces affected by disasters will be reduced by 50% to reduce the suffering and burdens of the victims for three years. This is only the second year, so there is naturally no tax."

"On the one hand, there is no account, and on the other hand, there is a huge amount of expenditure. Now it is difficult for the court to pay salaries to officials until the end of the year."

Xu Changqing secretly glanced at Li Chen's face and said boldly: "The New Year is approaching. According to ordinary practice, the New Year gifts will be distributed to the officials on the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month. After a rough calculation, the account of the matter was about 700,000 to 800,000 taels... "

"What kind of New Year gift costs so much money!"

Li Chen opened his eyes and said angrily: "Seventy or eight hundred thousand taels, how much is enough to do?"

Xu Changqing hurriedly explained: "Your Highness, the total number seems to be large, but there are more officials. If it is divided into each official, there are not many. In previous years, no matter how difficult the court was, at most, it would be slightly reduced in the New Year ceremony, but there are still some, but it has not been distributed since last year. Many officials themselves are not easy. The court owed a lot of salaries and has not been distributed yet. The end of the year is approaching, so will officials never let them borrow money to celebrate the New Year?"

Li Chen groaned. Although he was extremely unhappy, he also knew that what Xu Changqing said was the truth.

The corruption of an official is endless and endless. Li Chen never expected to create a court where everyone is honest and every official is unrealistic.

However, to eliminate large-scale corruption and bottomless corruption, there is still hope through institutional and supervision transformation.

But fundamentally, it is necessary to solve the survival problems of officials themselves.

Seeing that the family can’t get out of the way, can you still expect the officials to be honest?
Chapter completed!