Zhao Zhen was about to ask him how the tea law reform was going, so he called him in.
Soon Li Shen came in and said to Zhao Zhen: "The official family."
"Prime Minister Li, what's wrong?"
Zhao Zhen asked: "Is the new law and restructuring going smoothly?"
Li Zhen's face was slightly pale, and he coughed twice and said: "Thanks to your Majesty's great blessing, in the past few days, we have reached cooperation with many big tea merchants. From now on, they will more than double the grain and grass they transport to the border every year. This will greatly Increase border grain storage.”
"oh?"
Zhao Zhen was very happy and said: "That's great."
"but......"
Li Shen looked hesitant.
Zhao Zhen wondered: "But what?"
"However, it is still far from expectations, and may even delay grain shipments."
"Why?"
"Because some traders not only colluded with officials at the border and embezzled coins and tea given by the court, but also planned to unite to resist the implementation of the new law."
Li Zhen said: "Do the officials still remember the Qian Law implemented in the Tiansheng Year, and how the merchants resisted it?"
Zhao Zhen frowned.
At that time, Liu E was still in power. Seeing that the Qian Law seriously harmed the interests of those merchants and officials who relied on the imperial court, they boycotted and stopped transporting grain to the border the next year.
As a result, the border troops were short of food. In panic, the imperial court quickly demoted Li Zhen and abolished the money-seeking law, thus quelling the resistance of those people.
The other party seems to be planning to do this again now.
"What does Mr. Li think should be done?"
Zhao Zhen asked.
Li Zhen said: "Kill one to serve as a warning to others, never be merciful."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Zhen hesitated.
He is indeed a soft-hearted person, and he has never ordered anyone to be killed since Renzong was there.
The most important thing is that he was assassinated in the palace in the eighth year of Qingli. After the assassin was silenced, there was no order to trace the murderer. It was outrageous to just let it go.
If Zhu Yuanzhang encountered this kind of thing, regardless of whether Shen was involved or not, he wouldn't have killed dozens of families and killed tens of thousands of people to add to the fun?
Now that he was asked to order severe punishment for those illegal traders, he became hesitant.
After a while, Zhao Zhen said: "Of course we need to be punished, but we still have to follow the law... This is not a matter of murder and capital punishment. They will be sentenced to whatever law they break. It must not be too severe. Try to Just be gentle."
"yes."
Li Zhen responded helplessly, and then said: "There is one more thing."
"What's the matter?"
"The tea merchants we are currently dealing with are just tea merchants with no background. There are also many merchants who are backed by officials who are in the court or have served in official positions. Many of them have embezzled the imperial treasury, and it is inconvenient for me to deal with them one by one."
"That's it."
Zhao Zhen thought for a while and said, "Let the Imperial City Secretary make a list first, and we'll talk about it later."
"yes."
Li Zhen agreed.
Zhao Zhen was actually quite helpless about this matter.
The Song Dynasty only did not restrict officials from doing business, but it did not restrict officials’ relatives from doing business.
Therefore, the business style of officials in the Song Dynasty was extremely popular. Tax evasion and tax evasion were just routine operations. There were also those who used their status as officials to do evil and bully the market.
For example, Sun Mian, when he was the magistrate of Hangzhou, let his subordinates do business blatantly and made a lot of money.
But Zhao Zhen is not easy to deal with. Firstly, he does follow the ancestral system of treating scholar-bureaucrats well. Secondly, he is too soft-hearted to do that. Thirdly, and most importantly, he really cracks down on officials doing business. This benefit is comparable to cracking down on redundant officials and redundant soldiers. Even though they were beaten, he didn't have the courage to make up his mind to reform.
Therefore, he could only put it aside and wait until Zhao Jun's eyes recovered to see what he could do.
The main reason is that Zhao Zhen is no longer very worried about border issues.
Now that the national treasury has a surplus, Zhao Zhen plans to promote it nationwide next year and absorb a large amount of coins if the pilot program goes smoothly.
When the price of grain is low, we will store grain and grass and transport them to the border.
Although Zhao Jun only said that Li Yuanhao would provoke war on the northwest border in the next year, he did not mention the subsequent events that caused the price of food to skyrocket throughout the Song Dynasty and the people to suffer unspeakably due to the war.
But these prime ministers of Zhao Zhen were not all idlers. King Lu Yijian and the others quickly analyzed that if Li Yuanhao really wanted to go to war as Zhao Jun said, then the imperial court would inevitably mobilize troops in the northwest and divert a large amount of grain and grass, causing fluctuations in grain prices. .
So they planned to make reserves in advance, take advantage of the current low food prices to secretly scan the goods, and reserve some old grains first. When Li Yuanhao really wants to go to war next year and the year after, releasing the old grains can at least stabilize food prices.
It's just that the national treasury had no money before, and the fiscal deficit squeezed more than 30 million yuan. There was really no way to save food, so even after analyzing these things, I was helpless.
But now that we have the sub-committee, we have money that can be diverted for the time being. We can get food first, so that there will be no shortage of food at the border and the people will not be short of food.
At that time, even if Li Shen stopped merchants from sending food to the border within a short period of time, there would not be any major mistakes.
After all, the state-owned tea business has not been abolished at present. It has just become a state-owned tea business sold to selected tea merchants. Those who have not been selected still have to transport grain to the border to exchange for tea imports. If they persist for a year or two, those tea merchants who have no tea imports will Look at them and they won't give in.
Soon Li Zhen reported the matter and left. Zhao Zhen was very happy to learn that the matter of handing over the affairs and meeting Qian Fa went smoothly, and handled some other government affairs. In the morning, Yan Shu came back.
Yan Shu asked the palace gate to meet His Majesty, and after receiving Zhao Zhen's permission, he quickly entered the palace. He had not been in the palace in the past few days, but he looked a little haggard.
"Mr. Yan, how is Mrs. Julu County?"
Zhao Zhen asked.
Yan Shu's first wife, Mrs. Li, died early, and his current wife is Xu Xian, the daughter of Meng Xuzhou, a foreign minister in the field, who was given the title of Lady of Julu County.
Historically, Meng did not accompany Yan Shu until the end, and eventually died of illness.
But now Yan Shu's face is slightly haggard, but he is in good spirits. He said with a smile: "Thanks to the official family's great fortune, my wife has turned the corner and is now recovering."
"Turn the danger around?"
When Zhao Zhen heard this sentence, he wanted to nod his head to express his congratulations to Yan Shu, but when he heard the next sentence, he couldn't believe it: "Mr. Yan, what did you say? In just a few days, Mrs. Julu County's health Have you recovered?"
You must know that Mrs. Meng suffered from lung fever. Modern bronchitis, pneumonia, and lung abscess are all types of lung fever. In ancient times, they were not completely terminal illnesses. They needed to be prescribed appropriate medicines, such as Qianjin Wei Jie Decoction, Coix Seeds and Aconite Baijiang Powder, and Rhubarb. Mudan decoction can treat it.
However, to treat this kind of disease, firstly, the symptoms need to be met, and secondly, the patient's body must be able to bear it. Otherwise, the traditional Chinese medicine will be slower to take effect, and the patient will have to return to the west. Therefore, lung fever was still a disease with a relatively high fatality rate in ancient times. Even if it could be cured, the body would be extremely weak and would not recover within a few days.
That's why Zhao Zhen was extremely shocked when he heard Yan Shu say that Mrs. Meng's body had completely recovered.
Yan Shu smiled and said: "Yes, I only took two pills of amoxicillin. The imperial doctor said that the properties of the medicine were not yet certain, and he didn't know whether it could treat the symptoms. He couldn't take too much. Seeing that my wife was terminally ill, I gave her a dose first. I didn’t expect to get better soon. I took another pill the day before yesterday and now I can get out of bed and walk around freely. It’s just that I ate less during this period and my body is a little weak.”
"This medicine is so miraculous."
Zhao Zhen was surprised, and then said: "Can the imperial doctor extract the medicinal properties from it?"
Yan Shu shook his head and said: "If it is medicine dregs, the imperial doctor will know the taste even if he smells it, but it is white powder inside, and he has no idea what it is. It must be the chemical compound Zhao Jun mentioned."
"That would be a shame."
Zhao Zhen was disappointed at first, and then said happily: "But there are still many miracle medicines from his future generations, which is a good thing."
Yan Shu said: "Yes, Your Majesty, if it can be preserved, we may be able to rely on these medicines to deduce new medicines in the future. The most urgent task now is to steal from Zhao Jun... Well, take some and give him All medicines are kept in part.”
"In that case, let's go see Zhao Jun."
Zhao Zhen said.
