After opening the curtain on the throne, Zhu Youxiao looked straight at the ministers standing below and continued:
"There are some officials in this hall. I don't know if they are talkative or too curious!"
"During his tenure, he did not think about taking care of the king's worries or benefiting the people, but he pretended to be unfounded and worried about the world. He was extremely interested in things that had nothing to do with state affairs."
"After getting off duty and leaving the palace gate, the eight-carriage sedan chair walked struttingly in the middle of the street, and the servants showed off their power to the common people. It was so majestic!"
"The capital is like your own courtyard. I wish I could drag a hundred loud-mouthed men behind me to promote it loudly, without paying any attention to the impact or image."
"On weekdays, he is always talking nonsense. If he doesn't agree with what he says, it's His Majesty's fault. He chews the root of his tongue!"
"If you don't take a basin of water to look after yourself, you are nothing. If you criticize your father in private, who gave you the qualifications and power?"
"I would like to remind you that curiosity killed the cat. First, sort out the things you have to do and take care of. If you want to mind your own business, check how much you weigh!"
"If something really happens, you can draft a memorial and submit it to me to advise me. If that doesn't work, you can speak directly in front of me!"
"I will set a rule for you in this great court meeting. If anyone talks about the emperor behind his back again in the future, he will be severely punished. No matter what great scholar you are, whether you are a prince or a noble, I will never be lenient!"
When Zhu Youxiao said the last sentence, he rapped the imperial case heavily with his knuckles. Coupled with his rather majestic expression and tone, it was full of oppression.
Although the officials could not see the emperor's face, they could tell from the emperor's firm tone that they had no room or opportunity to refute!
"Now that you have passed the imperial examination and entered the official career, you should do your job well and don't think about what you have and what you don't have all day long!"
"I hope that in the future, I will not hear anyone complaining and criticizing my national affairs and the six cabinet ministries in the factory guard's reports."
"If you want to stand out, you'd better first see if your net worth is innocent enough and can withstand investigation!"
"Don't act like you have no talent all day long. Who are you pretending to show? I'm not blind or deaf!"
"As the saying goes, gold will shine. If you are really talented, do something beautiful and show it to me. Then you will be missing out on the high-ranking officials and generous salaries, right?"
"What I want is not an incompetent mediocre person who only talks about morality, benevolence and righteousness all day long, and talks about the Four Books and Five Classics."
"I don't know when the evil trend of forming cliques and seeking personal gains emerged. There is no courtesy for being a subject!" pace]
"What does the emperor want to do? Are you able to criticize him? Did the sages and saints teach you these disasters?"
Zhu Youxiao's words were quite serious. He was basically pointing at them and scolding them. It was so unpleasant!
How could the civil servants bear such contempt and insult from the emperor? One by one, they stood up indignantly to argue with the emperor, hoping to win back the victory.
Although their words were sharp, Zhu Youxiao was not a vegetarian. As long as someone came to argue and refute, he would retaliate to the end and vent the evil anger that had been accumulated in his heart for a long time.
These people consider themselves to be human masters and are already otherworldly, so they are still very conservative in their words, and the person opposite is a tyrant who kills without blinking an eye.
They had reservations, but Zhu Youxiao was not polite at all, and he almost didn't say the curse words that he would later say.
But despite this, these civil servants who had read poetry and books were still very angry.
"It is simply an insult to politeness and elegance. How can my majestic emperor behave like a scoundrel and rogue, speaking foul words? I am really unworthy of a saint!"
As soon as he mentioned saints, Zhu Youxiao's anger soared. There are no saints or sages here.
The official who was crying in the hall was immediately dragged out by the guards to enjoy the punishment of the imperial staff that they had always dreamed of.
Yang Huan was a ruthless man. Without getting the exact order, he killed this man alive outside the palace.
When he entered the main hall to report that the man had been killed, some officials who wanted to continue to argue felt cold in their backs, and immediately withdrew and said nothing.
After Zhu Youxiao finished speaking out his backlog, he finally returned to the topic.
"The Minister of the Ministry of Revenue gave me a memorial, which is about the budgets required by various ministries and local yamen for the second year of Tianqi!"
"I did some statistics and found that it is much more than the tax revenue of the national treasury. What, do you want to be robbers or horse bandits?"
An official from the Hanlin Academy stepped forward and responded to the emperor:
"Your Majesty, the funds requested by the officials are completely based on the actual situation. There are no omissions or false reports. Every detail can be verified!"
"I didn't say you were making false reports, it's just that what you reported is completely inconsistent with the national conditions. The taxes collected by the Ministry of Revenue this year must not be able to hide from your curiosity, right?"
"Since we already know that we are in financial difficulty and cannot make ends meet, yet we still report so much. Isn't it because we are deliberately looking for trouble?"
A censor who was transferred back to Beijing from Shandong immediately refuted and only said:
"Your Majesty said that I don't understand what it means to deliberately seek trouble. Your Majesty may have only looked at the number and not the reason for calling. Your Majesty will know after reading it!"
"Wait, my lord...!"
Zhu Youxiao immediately interrupted:
"I've seen it a long time ago. Many of the funds requested are simply unnecessary!"
"For example, the governor of Shandong requested that an additional 500,000 shi of grain and 200,000 taels of silver be allocated for disaster relief. Do you think it is reasonable?"
"The Shaanxi Provincial Censor reported to the Ministry of Revenue to allocate 500,000 taels of silver to regulate the Yellow River and repair and dredge the river. Isn't this an act of overstepping one's authority?"
"The governor of Shanxi and the governor of Shaanxi have not yet asked for the memorial, but he, a small inspector, was able to directly cross the two provincial government offices and present the memorial to me. Who specifically approved it?"
"And the Yamen officials responsible for water transportation also jointly petitioned the Ministry of Household Affairs to allocate grain, rice and money. The reason is also to clear the river!"
"Why do I remember that we just dredged the canal two years ago, which cost hundreds of thousands of taels, and countless people worked as slaves? Why can't we guarantee it for three consecutive years?"
"How did you do this project? Now you still have the nerve to come to the Ministry of Finance and me to ask for money to repair it?"
"You emptied the national treasury of money and food!"
"When something happens, you can only write a memorial and ask the court for money or food. What else do I want you to do? Who can't do this?"
"I will go to the fields and find any common people who are farming!"
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