It was definitely necessary to meet the saint, after all, he was returning to Beijing under the guise of reporting on his 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 have to listen to a certain governor communicating with him directly. In this case, the cabinet will be entrusted to accept the governor's report on the emperor's behalf. Normally, the chief assistant will come forward, but that is an exception after all - but this kind of exception in history has almost become a rule during the so-called "Wanli Negligence" 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 urgent.
Soon, a joint escort composed of Dongchang Fanzi and Jinyiwei surrounded Chen Ju and Gao Pragmatic's two green nigiri sedans and drove to the palace. Gao Jingshi's team of Fu Biao temporarily "retired" and were allowed to go back to the palace to rest. After having a meal, they went outside the palace to wait for Gao Jingshi to return home.
After entering the palace gate, Gao Pragmatic 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 mused: "Speaking of which, what 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, and 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 it, 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 strange people in this world, when you talk about other people's experience, they are just polite words. Only For you, our family really thinks you have such ability."
Gao pragmatic knew that what he said was certainly not without purpose, and it was definitely not finished before he said it, so he just smiled bitterly and said: "Don't make fun of Wanhua, I am not that powerful."
"Why are you joking? What we say is truer than gold." Chen Ju said, but he looked 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, these two things are very troublesome now, and if you get involved, it may be even bigger."
Gao Pingshi was really surprised now and asked: "Why do you say this? 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 it comes to 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... All these truth-seekers know , we won’t mention it anymore.”
Gao pragmatically nodded simply.
Chen Ju continued: "The trouble is mainly caused by money. You know the truth. A few years ago, at King Lu's wedding, the prince's engagement gift was only fifty taels of gold and ten taels of pearls. How much gold 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. 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 came 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 Jingshi 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 large, because the jewelry and other items are not entirely from purchasing. Some of them are from the Zhuchi imperial tribute, 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 building Prince Lu's Mansion." Chen Ju said distressedly: "The emperor allocated thousands of hectares of land to Prince Lu's Mansion, and used the Huaihe River Transport to use a thousand salt yin (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 Yin, 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. It's really 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 his subordinates to conduct an inspection and estimate based on 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 But he disagreed, saying that even according to the Jiajing period, two hundred thousand taels was considered a great gift from heaven, and wouldn’t these 600,000 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 made of white marble. The scale is a replica of the Palace of Fontainebleau in France, but its construction cost is only more than 20,000 taels.
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. Just ten thousand taels or hundreds of thousands taels.
But having said that, the cost of building the palace is 600,000 taels... It is indeed too astonishing. It is estimated that the scale of the palace is larger than the entire Jianxinzhai that has been expanded several times - you must know that Jianxinzhai now has Jinghua Craftsman Academy has several departments, and it can accommodate about 10,000 servants to be stationed and trained at the same time (it’s just 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 followers to stay away, and then whispered: "To be honest, let me tell you, this is not... I don't know who gave King Lu the idea. Later, King Lu also petitioned for the land, housing, salt shop, salt tax, lake water rent, mineral tax, etc. left by King Jing. Naturally, the outer court disagreed, but the emperor agreed again, and the reason was still "my friendship." We share the same spirit'."
King Jing was Zhu Zaizhen, the fourth son of Jiajing. He was the same age as Zhu Zaihe, only one month younger - he was the one who competed with Long Qing to have a son to compete for the throne. This old man was granted the title of King Jing in the 18th year of Jiajing's reign. He died in the De'an Palace on the 9th of the first month of the 44th year of Jiajing's reign. The 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 more?"
"Yes, why not?" Chen Ju also sighed and said with a wry smile: "In the Kingdom of King Lu, the Empress Dowager Cisheng 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 Pinggong said sincerely, I'm not that bad at math, right? How did I get this million? Fei Lu Bar
Chen Ju explained: "It was originally 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 said 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 laid off a lot because of the abolition of Huangzhuang. In addition, last year They also subsidized some of the border troops' war merit rewards, but they probably won't be able to come up with 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 of it 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. No matter whether they are arguing or making trouble, they basically hope that the emperor will not Waste money.
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 or be owed." 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 locations 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 the scale and distance. In a big war, this military salary would exceed 200,000 taels. To be honest, this two hundred thousand taels does not include the reward 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 will have serious consequences and you simply 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 afford to keep Prince Lu in the capital for a while, whether it’s one or two years, or even three or five years. After all, we’ll die if we repair it. Although there were no people around, 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 household department is already empty, and the Ming Dynasty is not interested in borrowing money to fight the war, which means that the war has been declared a failure before it even starts. How the hell is this going to happen? According to Hu Bu's opinion, this battle can only be avoided, which is to say, just hold on to a few dangerous points and it will be over - maybe Hu Bu thinks that he can still find a way to scrape together 40,000 to 50,000 taels of silver?
But if this battle is not fought, he is very pragmatic and will not be reconciled.
He had already started thinking about the Ming-Myanmar War when he was still in office in Guangxi, but when the war really came, he couldn't afford it? This is really annoying...
The most troublesome thing is that now it seems that even Chen Ju, his die-hard ally, does 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." The reason is, 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: "Why is that? Once the incident with King Lu is over, won't the court be relieved?"
"I'm afraid I won't be able to calm down from this tone for a while." Gao Pragmatic said unceremoniously: "The West Huai East system is just a step away. Once the situation allows, Liaodong may launch a full-scale war against Tumen. By then, that battle will It’s impossible to attack all the towns 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. 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 primary target of the Ming Dynasty for two hundred years. No one can defeat Mongolia.
Let's put it this way, if we fight against other people, the Ministry of Revenue will probably push back. But if we fight against Mongolia, especially if it is a "final battle", then 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 doesn't understand the importance of Yunnan, he is after all a eunuch who has served the emperor for many years. His ability to observe people's behavior is a matter of special importance. How can 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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