"The Emperor has arrived!"
Just when Anqing was immersed in enjoying the beautiful sunshine, Wang Yuedang walked in first and shouted loudly.
An Qing immediately stood up and turned around, seeing Zhu Biao striding into the yard.
"Happy brother, how come you have time to visit my little sister today?"
Han Du was playing the role of a strict father, supervising his three children, but when he saw Zhu Biao coming, he knew that he could no longer pretend to be a strict father today. Then he brought three people forward to pay homage, "I pay homage to the Emperor. I am late to greet you. Please forgive me for my sin."
Zhu Biao waved his hand, reached out and wiped the heads of Han Yingluo and Han Fuli, waved his hand and said: "Go and play, I have something to say to your father."
"Thank you, Your Majesty~" The three of them quickly bowed and ran away as if they had received an amnesty.
Han Du didn't have time to care about the three children. He only glanced at them and then looked away. He stretched out his hand toward Zhu Biao and said, "Your Majesty, please sit down. I wonder why Your Majesty is here today?"
Zhu Biao sat down and looked at Han Du with a smile, "You really don't know why I came here today? I heard that after you became the Duke of the country, you stayed in the house without even leaving the house. What's going on? ?”
Han Du smiled slightly, took the tea from An Qing and handed it to Zhu Biao, saying: "Your Majesty, please have some tea!"
Zhu Biao took it, still staring at Han Du, obviously waiting for Han Du's answer.
Han Du said: "I have just been granted the title of Duke. If I run around, it will be like showing off. Rather than being taken advantage of by someone who is interested, I would rather stay in the house and not go anywhere."
This...is barely an explanation, just to avoid suspicion. Zhu Biao frowned slightly, "But you can't not even attend the morning court, right?"
"Your Majesty, I am still taking a rest." Han Du reminded Zhu Biao that he was still on vacation.
You want me to attend your damn morning court during your vacation. What are you thinking?
When Zhu Biao saw that he had made up for his own losses, he couldn't help but said: "What about the Hubu? You are still the Minister of the Hubu. The Hubu is such a big business, you can't just let it go, right?"
"Isn't the household department very good? There are no big mistakes." Han Du didn't care.
Zhu Shou hesitated, then put down the tea cup and said: "The Ministry of Revenue is not only related to the world's wealth, but also related to the operation of the imperial court. You'd better take care of it yourself."
After that, Zhu Biao stood up and left without explaining.
Han Du watched Zhu Biao leave strangely, and for a moment he forgot to step forward to send Zhu Biao off.
Zhu Biao didn't pay attention to this. Instead, he saw Han Du lowering his head and thinking deeply, with a smile on his face.
Come and try it quickly. 】
The next day, Han Du came to Hubu.
"Call Wang Yuanji to me."
"Yes, sir." The clerk next to him immediately took orders to find Wang Yuanji.
"Wang Yuanji pays homage to your lord." As soon as Wang Yuanji entered the door, he quickly bowed and said, "Congratulations to your lord on being granted the title of Duke and becoming one of the Three Dukes of the Ming Dynasty."
Han Du waved his hand and sighed: "Okay, okay, no need to flatter you. Let me ask you, is there anything wrong with the household department?"
Wang Yuanji straightened up with a smile. Hearing Han Du's words, he couldn't help but look strange, and asked: "Why did the Lord say this? Everything in the household department is normal, and there is nothing wrong. If the Lord doesn't believe it, you can send Zhao Jade is here."
Han Du shook his head slightly and did not follow Wang Yuanji's words to confront Zhao Yu. If you can’t trust your own students, then who can you trust?
"Then why did the emperor find me yesterday and say some strange things to me?"
Afterwards, Han Du briefly told Wang Yuanji what Zhu Biao had said to him yesterday.
After hearing this, Wang Yuanji pondered for a moment, and then laughed: "It turns out that the emperor went to find the father-in-law."
"What's going on?" Han Du confirmed from Wang Yuanji's attitude that there was indeed something he didn't know about.
Wang Yuanji stepped forward and picked up the top document from a pile of official documents piled on the table in front of Han Du. After taking a look at it, he handed it to Han Du and said, "Master, please look at this. This is the money that the Ministry of War requested from the Ministry of Household Affairs to allocate this year."
Han Du glanced at Wang Yuanji doubtfully, opened the official document, and after just one glance, his eyes were as wide as bells.
"...Need 10 million guan of silver? What does the Ministry of War want to do? Replace their yamen with pure gold?"
Wang Yuanji picked up one official document after another and said with a wry smile: "It's not just the Ministry of War, this is 9 million guan from the Ministry of Industry, and this is 7 million guan from the Ministry of Personnel. Even the Ministry of Punishment and the Ministry of Rites spend the least every year. The other departments also asked for five million guan each."
Han Du took them from Wang Yuanji one after another and looked at them one by one. Then he suddenly threw all these official documents on the desk and said angrily: "What do they want to do? Are they going to empty the household department?"
Wang Yuanji said: "My lord, my target is not the household department. Even if the household department is emptied, we still won't be able to collect so much money."
Han Du raised his eyes and looked at Wang Yuanji.
Wang Yuanji smiled and pointed toward the palace and said: "My target is Ouchi! I don't know who spread the news, saying that Ouchi's bank is now filled with gold and silver. As soon as this news spread, people were moved. That’s it.”
Han Du understood. No wonder Zhu Biao ran to him and said so many weird things to him yesterday. His feelings were that his pockets were being targeted by these civil servants! As a result, he couldn't solve it by himself and didn't want to pay for it, so he pulled himself out as a shield?
Is Zhu Biao rich? Of course there is money. Lao Zhu's frugality left Zhu Biao with a huge internal treasury. According to Han Du's estimate, the gold and silver alone would not be less than 70 million yuan. If all kinds of treasures were included, it would be more than 100 million yuan. Passed through.
But even if there is so much money, it cannot be spent like the Ministry of War! It costs tens of millions a year. Even if it is 100 million, how many years can it take?
What's more, it is obvious that Zhu Biao does not want to spend his own internal treasury.
Han Du lowered his head and pondered, then raised his eyes to Wang Yuanji and said, "Is there anything you can do?"
Wang Yuanji nodded with a smile and said: "The Ministry of Household Affairs has money allocated by various ministries over the years, so why not just allocate it according to the amount in previous years."
This is a way. The Ministry of Household Affairs has just completed a new tax system and taxes have been increased. If we allocate the amount according to previous years, there will definitely be a lot of surplus.
But Han Du also knew that for the court, having too much money balance was not a good thing.
Han Du pondered for a moment and shook his head slightly, "No, if we allocate the amount according to previous years, I'm afraid none of the ministries will be convinced. Moreover, they can also find various reasons to ask for more money, and then they will be noisy and bickering."
"Then what are you going to do?" Wang Yuanji asked in confusion.
If you want to spend more money, it will be even more difficult. Because each department has different importance and requires different amounts of money, there will be endless disputes over who has more and who has less.
Han Du thought for a moment and suddenly asked: "Does the Ministry of Revenue record the market prices of various goods?"
Wang Yuanji nodded quickly: "This is true. Before the new tax system, the taxes paid by all provinces and counties were in kind. Due to the discount, the Ministry of Household Affairs specially recorded the annual physical prices. However, only the main ones were recorded. The price of goods cannot be comprehensive.”
Han Du nodded slightly, "You don't need to cover everything, you just need to have the prices of the main goods. You ask the Ministry of Finance to sort out the prices of last year's goods and organize them into sections. I can help."
"yes."
Wang Yuanji was very fast, and he sorted out all the prices of various commodities requested by Han Du in just three days. Even if the Ministry of Accounts originally had records, this efficiency is very fast.
The Ministry of Revenue has been suppressing the official letters allocating money from various ministries, which naturally quickly aroused dissatisfaction from the other five ministries.
One morning, Qi Tai from the Ministry of War took the lead in attacking.
"Your Majesty, I want to impeach Han Du, the Minister of Household Affairs."
Zhu Biao glanced at Han Du, who was wearing a ducal robe and standing at the forefront of the nobles with an expressionless face. Then he said to Qi Tai: "What does Qi Aiqing want to impeach?"
Qi Tai straightened up, cupped his hands and said, "The Ministry of War has already sent the official document about the need for money this year to the Ministry of Household Affairs, but nothing happened. I wanted to impeach Han Du and deliberately suppressed it and did not allocate money to the Ministry of War."
"I second the proposal~"
"I second the proposal~"
"I second the proposal~"
...
As soon as Qi Tai finished speaking, the other four ministers all stood up.
Zhu Biao naturally knew that it was not Han Du who refused to pay, but these people wanted to attract the attention of his inner treasure.
So they didn't ask Han Du, and directly defended him: "The Duke of Zhen Guo has just returned from the war. I'm afraid it's too late to deal with household affairs. You can wait a little longer."
Zhu Biao wanted to use the "drag" technique, but how could Qitai miss such an opportunity?
"Your Majesty, I can wait, but the Ming Dynasty has added thirty new pastures this year. The construction of these pastures cannot wait! If there is no money, how can I build these pastures? Without pastures, how can the Ming Dynasty have war horses? If there are no war horses , then how can the Ming Dynasty train cavalry? It involves the country, the country, and the country. I cannot bear such an important task, so please ask the emperor to choose another talented person!"
"My talents are sparse and my knowledge is low. Please choose someone more capable..."
Qi Tai's words were instantly echoed by the other four ministers, and they all knelt down towards Zhu Biao.
Seeing these people threatening to resign, Zhu Biao's face turned dark. In order to take away the money from his inner treasury, these people simply lost their face.
As a last resort, Zhu Biao had to put his hope in Han Du.
Said: "Handu, why doesn't the Ministry of Household Affairs allocate this year's money to various ministries?"
Han Du spread his hands and said with a smile: "Back to the emperor, although the taxes last year increased a lot, the increased part was used to increase the salaries of officials, and this part of the money has been settled and cannot be changed. . There are only 12 million guans left, but the Ministry of War alone has to allocate 10 million guans, and the other ministries also have millions of guans. It is hard for a clever woman to make a meal without rice. There really is not so much money to allocate. Each ministry. If each ministry agrees to allocate the money according to the amount in previous years, then I can immediately allocate the money to each ministry."
