I definitely had to meet the saint, after all, I was returning to Beijing under the guise of reporting on my work.
According to the system, there is only one target for the governor's report, which is the emperor himself. Of course, sometimes the emperor does not necessarily want to hear a governor communicate with him directly. In this case, the cabinet will be entrusted to accept the governor's report on behalf of the emperor. Usually it will be
The first assistant came forward, but that was an exception after all - but this kind of exception in history almost became the rule during the so-called "Wanli Slut" period, and that is another matter.
The current governor's work report is basically received by the emperor in person, so Gao Pragmatic must have an interview with the emperor. However, Zhu Yijun was so anxious that he sent the governor directly when he just returned to Beijing and didn't even sit at home for a while.
The factory admiral took him into the palace, which was quite surprising.
This means... something is urgent.
Soon, a joint escort composed of Dongchang Fanzi and Jinyiwei surrounded Chen Ju and Gao Jingshi's two green sedans and drove to the palace. Gao Jingshi's team of Fu Biao temporarily "stepped down" and was allowed to
Go back to the palace to rest first, and after having a meal, go outside the palace to wait for Gao pragmatically to return home.
After entering the palace gate, Gao Jingshi and Chen Ju got off the sedan in accordance with the rules - neither of them had any privileges such as "horse riding in the Forbidden City" or "riding in the Forbidden City as a public servant", so they could only walk after entering the palace.
However, this also made it easier for the two of them to communicate about the recent situation and today's meeting.
Putting aside the recent situation, the two of them talked about meeting the Holy Spirit today. As they walked, Chen Ju muttered: "Speaking of which, what exactly is the emperor going to say to you Qiuzhen today? Our family is really
I don’t know for sure, but we thought about it when we left the palace. I think the most likely ones are the Kingdom of King Lu and the War in Yunnan. But which one it is, or whether both are included, I can’t say for sure.
."
Gao pragmatically nodded silently, but only frowned slightly in thought, but did not speak.
When Chen Ju saw him, he was afraid that he would be unprepared, so he reminded him again: "Qiu Zhen, our family has always known your ability. Although there are many capable people and strangers in this world, when you say that others have experienced the world, it is just polite words. Only
For you, our family really thinks you have such ability."
Gao pragmatic knew that what he said was definitely not without purpose, and he definitely didn't finish it, so he just smiled bitterly and said: "Don't make fun of Wanhua, I'm not that powerful."
"Why are you joking? What we say is truer than gold." Chen Ju said, but his face turned worried and sighed: "But the situation is different today. Our family is afraid that the emperor will really mess with the Kingdom of King Lu and Yunnan
The two major troubles of the war were placed in front of you, and you agreed without saying a word... You don't know that these two things are very troublesome now, and if you get involved in them, the trouble may be even greater."
Gao Pingshi was really surprised now and asked: "Why is this said? I would like Wanhua to give me some advice."
"How can we talk about any advice? We know exactly how many pounds our family has. When talking about these two things, I'm just afraid that I don't know the truth and don't know the basis." Chen Ju paused for a moment and asked: "Well, this
Both things are quite complicated, which one should we talk about first?"
Gao Pragmatic's eyes flashed and he said: "Then let's talk about the Kingdom of King Lu first."
"Well, okay, let's talk about this first." Chen Ju scratched his head and said: "This matter about the Kingdom of King Lu is related to the reputation of the emperor, and also to the Cining Palace... I know all these truth-seekers.
, we won’t mention it anymore.”
Gao Pragmatic nodded simply.
Chen Ju continued: "The trouble mainly comes from money. You know the truth. A few years ago, at King Lu's wedding, the engagement gift from the prince was only fifty taels of gold and ten taels of pearls. How much money did it cost?
Three thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine taels, eight thousand seven hundred green rubies, more than eighty-five thousand pearls of various kinds, and more than twenty-four thousand eight hundred coral pearls...
This incident made the outer court very unhappy at that time. Guo Yuanfu went to the court to remonstrate, but the foreign court spokesman said that his words were not harsh enough. Then a lot of people went to the court, and there were more than ten people who were angry just by his words.
." [Note: The above data comes from "Records of Shenzong."]
Gao Pingshi was still in the capital when this happened, so he was naturally aware of it, but he didn't interrupt at that time, and now he naturally didn't want to say anything more, so he just nodded.
Chen Ju then continued: "Actually, this amount of money is not very large, because the jewelry and other items are not entirely from purchasing. Some of them are from the imperial tribute of Zhuchi, which are taken out of the internal funds and are really spent by the household."
The money is only more than 100,000 taels. But how can I put it... For the Ministry of Revenue, this is indeed an additional expense. It is certain that the Ministry of Revenue will not be happy."
"But then there was trouble again when we built Prince Lu's Mansion." Chen Ju said distressedly: "The emperor approved the land of thousands of hectares of Prince Lu's Mansion, and used the Huaihe River transportation to transport a thousand salts (not a thousand taels) to hire workers. This is another problem.
There was trouble because the outer court reported that Weihui City was only six miles in radius, and the palace was even larger than Weihui City. Building the palace in this way was equivalent to building two or even three more Weihui cities, even if there were a thousand salt
"The cost of hiring labor is not enough, not to mention there are countless building materials, and I don't know where they came from."
Gao pragmatic interjected this time: "I have been to Weihuicheng before, and it is indeed not that big."
"That's not the key." Chen Ju smiled bitterly and said: "Your Majesty Yu refused to give in and continued to ask the subordinates to conduct an inspection and estimate according to the scale mentioned before. The result was that the construction of Prince Lu's Mansion would cost 600,000 taels. At this time, the Ministry of Household Affairs
He also disagreed, saying that even according to the Jiajing period, two hundred thousand taels was considered a great gift from heaven, and wouldn't these six hundred thousand taels be extremely extravagant?"
Gao Pragmatic coughed lightly and said nothing. To be honest, the cost of a Chinese-style palace is indeed expensive. You must know that his white jade building is almost entirely made of white marble. Its scale is a replica of the Fontainebleau Palace in France, but its construction cost is only 20,000 yuan.
Two more.
In fact, the cost of building the palace is high, mainly due to the high-end giant wood used, which came all the way from the southwest border. The price of wood and freight are very high - high-quality wood is so expensive, look at how many ships Jinghua Shipbuilding can make.
Ten thousand taels, hundreds of thousands taels, you know.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! But having said that, the cost of building the palace is 600,000 taels... It is really amazing. It is estimated that the scale of this palace is so large that it may be more expensive than several expansions.
The entire Jianxinzhai is quite big - you must know that Jianxinzhai now has several departments of the Jinghua Craftsman School, and can also accommodate about 10,000 servants to be stationed and trained (just because of the scale, it has never really allowed so many people).
Gao Pingshi didn't speak at all this time, and could only say: "Six hundred thousand taels... is indeed a large amount."
Chen Ju coughed slightly, looked around, waved his hand to keep his followers away, and then whispered: "To be honest, I tell you, this is not... I don't know who gave King Lu the idea. Later,
King Lu also petitioned King Jing for the farmland, housing, salt shop, salt tax, lake water rent, mining tax, etc. Naturally, the outer court disagreed, but the emperor agreed again, and the reason was still "the deputy minister's friendship"
We share the same spirit'."
King Jing is Zhu Zaizhen, the fourth son of Jiajing. He is the same age as Zhu Zaihe, only one month younger - he is the master who competed with Long Qing to have a son to compete for the throne. This old man was conferred the title of Emperor of Jiajing in the 18th year of Jiajing.
King Jing died in the De'an Palace on the 9th day of the first month of the 44th year of the Jiajing reign. His title was revoked because he had no children, and he was given the posthumous title of King Jinggong.
Since he could compete with Long Qing, who was still King Yu, for the throne, the scale of the industry under his former name would naturally be huge. If King Lu wanted to ask for this property, the outer court would certainly think that King Lu was greedy.
Gao pragmatic sighed and asked: "Is there any more?"
"Yes, why not?" Chen Ju also sighed and said with a wry smile: "In King Lu's country, the Cisheng Queen Mother was afraid of hurting her son, so she didn't know how to tell the emperor. Anyway, the emperor later approved another two hundred thousand taels.
, saying that they are buying jewelry for King Lu to decorate the palace."
Gao Jingshi put his hand on his forehead: "That's equivalent to spending 800,000 taels to build the palace?"
Chen Ju rolled his eyes and said, "You are too polite. It's not 800,000, it's one million."
"Huh?" Gao pragmatically said, I'm not that bad at math, right? How did I get this million?
Chen Ju explained: "Originally, it was said that 600,000 taels would be used to build the palace, but later King Lu sent someone to look at it and reported that it was poorly decorated and uninhabitable, so 600,000 taels was not enough, so the emperor had to add another 200,000 taels.
Two taels in...that's one million taels."
Now even Gao Pragmatic could only roll his eyes.
Chen Ju said with a bitter look on his face: "The key is that the timing of this matter is unlucky. Last year and this year we fought all the wars in the Ming Dynasty, and we spent money before and after. But we can't save money for this war. The Ministry of Household Affairs is so poor.
All we have to do is catch all the rats in Taicang and sell them... But in this way, how can we fill the holes in Prince Lu's Mansion?"
Gao pragmatic pinched his eyebrows and thought to himself: I don't know how to fill it. Of these one million taels, the "holes" alone are estimated to be 400,000 taels, and the internal funds have been abolished because of the abolition of Huangzhuang. In addition, last year
It also subsidized some of the border troops' military merit rewards, but I guess they won't be able to get the money now.
Then Gao Pragmatic thought with some disgust: This boy Zhu Yili is indeed a bit greedy. King Jing has a lot of inheritance. Although King Jing's palace cannot get it, other properties have been "transferred" to his name.
, the value there is at least six to seven hundred thousand taels, maybe even more.
Besides, the palace built with 600,000 taels is actually "uninhabitable". You are really awesome.
Now Gao Jingshi knows Chen Ju's worries. He is afraid that if he bears the shortfall, Zhu Yijun may develop the mentality of "looking for Gao Jingshi if he doesn't find one" in the future.
In addition, the outer court may be dissatisfied with him because of this - although the outer court will consider the money itself, they are more worried about Zhu Yijun's attitude towards spending money. Whether they are arguing or making trouble, they basically hope that the emperor will not
Spend money indiscriminately.
Under such circumstances, if he stepped forward to fill this hole in a pragmatic manner, the foreign court might think that he had undermined the control of the entire civil servant group over the emperor and condoned the emperor's "misbehavior."
Gao pragmatic sighed and said: "I understand what Wanhua means... What's the trouble with Yunnan?"
"The first trouble with Yunnan is money." Chen Ju smiled bitterly and said: "The imperial court is really out of money. If Yunnan continues to fight, all the officials this year will have to pay back their tributes. A few days ago, the cabinet
The Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of War were convened to make a calculation: if Yunnan only defended a few dangerous points and forced back Burma without fighting any major battles, the cost would only be about 40,000 to 50,000 taels of silver;
But if Yunnan, while holding on to the dangerous position, also sends Liu Wei and Deng Zilong to take the initiative according to the ideas of the Yunnan Fuchen, even if they do not go deep into Myanmar, but just drive the Myanmar people out of the border, the money will be at least more than 100,000 taels;
If this battle is to be fought even bigger, for example, let Liu Wei and Deng Zilong go straight to Huanglong and plow the courtyard to sweep the holes - let's not talk about whether they can do it, just talk about this scale and this distance.
For a big war, the military pay would be more than 200,000 taels. To tell the truth, the 200,000 taels does not include the rewards after the victory... Do you think this battle in Yunnan can be fought?"
This time, Gao Pragmatic really frowned.
As Chen Ju said before, the most important thing is not to save money on war. If you save money on this thing, big things will happen, ranging from a defeat at the front to a mutiny in the army. Either way, the consequences will be serious and you cannot afford it.
It’s nothing like repairing Prince Lu’s Mansion. We don’t have enough money this year. If we still insist on sticking to this standard, we can’t let Prince Lu stay in the capital for a while longer. It doesn’t matter if it’s one or two years, or even three or five years. If we get it together, we’ll die if we try to repair it.
Being unfaithful, Gao Pragmatic didn't think that Queen Mother Li would be able to take this opportunity to return to the stage.
But the key problem at the moment is that the Ministry of Revenue is already empty, and the Ming Dynasty is not interested in borrowing money to fight the war. That means that the war has been declared a failure before it even starts. How the hell is this going to work? According to the Ministry of Revenue,
Then this battle can only be avoided, which is to say, just hold on to a few dangerous points and it will be over - maybe the Ministry of Revenue thinks that with 40,000 to 50,000 taels of silver, you can still find a way to scrape it together?
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! But if this battle is not fought, he is very pragmatic and will not be reconciled.
He had already begun to consider the Ming-Myanmar War when he was still in office in Guangxi, but when it came time to actually start a war, he couldn't afford to fight it? This is really ridiculous...
The most troublesome thing is that now it seems that even his die-hard allies like Chen Ju do not support the Yunnan war.
Niang Xipi, can you please stop thinking of Yunnan as a frontier wilderness? It is the "core territory" of the Ming Dynasty?
Emperor Putin said it right, there is no negotiation on territorial issues, only war!
Chen Ju couldn't help but become nervous when he saw Gao Pragmatic being silent for a long time, and asked: "To be honest, you don't really support a big fight in Yunnan, do you? Our family knows that you are far-sighted. If you insist on fighting, there will definitely be something you have to fight."
Reason, but the problem is that we don’t have the money to fight right now... How about we delay it for a few years and wait until the treasury has a surplus in a few years before we fight? It’s not too late for a gentleman to take revenge in ten years!”
Gao pragmatic shook his head and said: "If we follow this idea, we will still have no money to fight in a few years."
"Oh?" Chen Ju was stunned for a moment: "Why is that? When the incident involving King Lu is over, won't the court feel relieved?"
"I'm afraid I won't be able to calm down from this tone for a while." Gao Pragmatic said unceremoniously: "We are just on the verge of making the West Huai east system. Once the situation permits, Liaodong may launch a full-scale war against Tumen. By then, that battle will
It’s impossible to attack one town in Liaodong, at least Ji Town will definitely have to be moved... How much do you think it will cost?"
Uh, is this...
Chen Ju thought: According to your style of fighting in the Monan War, at least 500,000 taels will definitely not be enough, and one million taels may be barely enough.
However, Chen Ju also knew that if the Ji Liao army took the initiative to attack Tumen, it might mean the final battle of the "West Huai East System". The significance of this is definitely not on the same level as other battles, because
After all, Mongolia has been the Ming Dynasty's primary goal for two hundred years. No one can defeat Mongolia.
Let’s put it this way, if we attack other people, the Ministry of Revenue will probably push back. But if we attack Mongolia, especially if it is a “final battle”, the Ministry of Revenue will temporarily suspend the salaries of all officials across the country, and they will grit their teeth and say
"beat"!
It's just...since the governor of Liaodong said that a big war might break out in Liaodong at any time, then if the war in Yunnan has to be delayed, I really don't know how long it will take.
Although Chen Ju really didn't understand the importance of Yunnan, he was after all a eunuch who had served the emperor for many years, and his ability to observe people's behavior was a matter of special importance. How could he not see Gao Pragmatic's concern for this battle?
Duke Chen couldn't help but feel distressed, scratched his head vigorously, and sighed: "Now we are in big trouble..."
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