In the main study room of the Rixin Building in Shangshu Gao's Mansion, Liu Xin looked at Gao Pragmatic, who had just come in, and said half inquiringly and half teasingly: "Your Excellency, you seem to be under a lot of work pressure, why do you have such a face?" Did you return home seriously and with a deep frown on your face?"
Gao pragmatic didn't reply immediately. He walked to his desk, picked up a cup of cold tea that the maids had been brewing for a long time as usual, and drank it down in one gulp. Then he sat down on the Taishi chair, leaned back, leaned his head on the pillow, and sighed.
"Zhuozhou was plagued by an insect infestation, and almost no grains were harvested from the fields. Although the rescue was relatively timely due to its proximity to the capital, dozens of villagers left their homes and came to the capital in droves to beg."
"Oh, what next?" Liu Xin raised her eyebrows slightly: "Someone stopped them from entering the city?"
"That's not true. Although it is true that according to regulations, large numbers of refugees cannot be allowed to enter the capital at will, my third uncle had such a thing happen at that time. He approved the release of refugees into the city, so later this rule almost became changed."
Gao pragmatic sighed and said: "But this is not a matter of my household department. When the refugees enter the city, the ones who are nervous are the Jinyi Guards and the Jingjun (eunuch soldiers) in the imperial city, and the Han generals in the capital camp and other garrison forces."
"Then why are you looking so sad?" Liu Xin was a little confused: "Did something go wrong and they came to you to ask for help?"
"No, there are more people in the palace guards and purification troops than there are refugees. The trouble lies in the fact that the Ministry of Works used to handle the resettlement of these refugees, including relief and porridge.
Unexpectedly, none of the eight porridge factories in Beijing under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry were offering porridge this time. There was a dark crowd of beggars sitting in front of the porridge factories, including men and women, old and young, all skinny and skinny. Some of them have not had a bite of food for three days and will soon starve to death on the streets. "
Liu Xin finally frowned this time and said dissatisfiedly: "Although Shi Xing, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, has taken over Yang Zhao not too long ago, can he not be unable to handle even this small matter?"
"It's not that he can't do it. I think he probably did it on purpose to cause me a little trouble." Gao Pragmatic snorted softly: "You must want to ask the reason. The reason is very simple: the Ministry of Industry now only has money within the budget. It was allocated in advance by the Ministry of Household Affairs. For this kind of extra-budgetary relief, he can deny that the responsibility lies with him and blame it on me - because now all the money and power in the world are in my hands, and if I don't take out the money, he can Said he couldn’t do anything.”
"Then you can just take the money?" Liu Xin spread his hands and asked: "You can tell last time that Shi Xing is not a student of yours. It is almost reasonable for him to cause trouble for you, but like this For this kind of thing, wouldn’t it be better if your Ministry of Revenue directly paid you?”
"That's right, just give the money." Gao Pragmatic nodded, but said: "But you have to know that any unit... I mean the yamen, there are procedures for doing things. Direct matters like the household department This is especially true for yamen that deal with money. The Ministry of Accounts did not say that they would not give money, but even normally the process is not that simple.
First of all, how much money should be given? At least there must be an estimate, right? If you want to estimate, at least you need to know the number of refugees entering the city, right? Then, do we also need to estimate how long these refugees will need to stay in the city?
But how to predict this? If they are indifferent as before, no one can predict how long they will stay, but because the court previously divided the disaster relief into two parts at my suggestion, one is relief and the other is disaster relief. Placement, so that there is a direction that can be basically estimated.
This direction is that the Ministry of Household Affairs is responsible for providing money for relief, and the Ministry of Works is responsible for resettlement. Let's not talk about the Ministry of Household Affairs for the moment, let's talk about the resettlement of the Ministry of Works: they must first build temporary shanties for the refugees near the soup kitchen, and then find ways to carry out "relief with work" as soon as possible, that is, arrange temporary accommodation Work.
This work-for-relief program also needs to be considered based on gender, age and even type of work. It's definitely easier to handle the young men, but the placement of women is a little more troublesome. It's okay to put them in a centralized place to make maids, starch clothes, etc., but other things have their own troubles. Usually, you can only contact the palace to see if the palace needs it... …
As for the old and the weak, it’s even more complicated. The elderly depend on their age and physical condition. Even if they are not very old, their bodies do not look weak. However, considering our tradition of respecting the elderly, we can only arrange the easiest jobs for them. Even if these jobs are It is also difficult to find them among the many projects controlled by the Ministry of Industry. Most of them can only be arranged to keep vigil at warehouses or construction sites.
And children are not easy to deal with. Although there are almost no strict laws against child labor in Ming Dynasty, what can you do with children? Most of them can only be kept. It’s even more troublesome for some half-grown children to place them. They are very good at eating, but they can’t do much..."
Liu Xin suddenly interjected: "That's not necessarily true. When my brother was thirteen years old, he had already served as a vanguard to break through the barbarian stronghold, killing the generals and seizing the flag."
"Uh..." Gao Pingshi couldn't help but choked, and coughed lightly: "Jiangmen Huzi, this situation is quite different. Although the world is big, how many Liu Wei are there?"
"That's not necessarily true. Ma Gui seems to have joined the army at the age of thirteen and went to the battlefield that year. There are also children of Ma Jiajun and Ma Jiajun... In short, there are quite a few of your direct descendants from Xuanda. Are they? They are all as powerful as my brother. I haven't seen them with my own eyes, so I can't say much, but at least when they were 'half grown ups', I'm afraid most of them have seen blood."
Gao Pangshi smiled bitterly and said: "I have already said that generals are two different things. When it comes to elite soldiers in the world, the Boy Scouts have always been one of them, because these half-grown boys don't even know what it means to be afraid of death. The bravery in them is , many experienced soldiers are incomparable, but the resettlement of refugees cannot be considered based on this..."
"Okay, okay, I just said it casually, you continue."
However, Gao Pragmatic forgot what he had just said, hesitated for a moment, and simply shook his head and said: "In short, clarifying these situations is equivalent to doing a census of refugees first, and after the census, we have to discuss arrangements, and finally the Ministry of Household Affairs can do it To allocate funds based on these circumstances – do you think it will take time?”
"It takes time, but the refugees can't wait hungry while you go through the process. Shouldn't we solve the food problem for them first?"
"Yes, that's the case, but originally the Ministry of Works should have advanced the payment first. After the Ministry of Household Affairs got the estimate, they would allocate funds, and then they would make up for the advanced money back to the ministry. But now Shi Xing is forcing They put off doing it and insisted that the Ministry of Works had no balance, saying that as long as the Ministry of Accounts does not pay for it for a day, the Ministry of Works will not be able to do anything about it."
"Shi Xing deserves to die!" Liu Xin raised her eyebrows: "I can understand the party struggle, but using so many lives as a bargaining chip for his party struggle, is this kind of person worthy of being an official?"
Gao pragmatism was calm, and he spread his hands and said: "There is no shortage of people like this in all dynasties. What can we do?"
Liu Xin was so angry that she slammed the table and said bitterly: "I really want to kill you with one knife." But of course she knew that this was impossible, so she had to sigh again and said with some annoyance: "Now I really feel that I am still in southern Xinjiang. When I was leading the troops, I felt more comfortable. I could clearly distinguish myself from the enemy. As long as I won the battle, I could do whatever I wanted. It wouldn't be like this...
I always feel like staying in the capital now is like being stuck in a big muddy pond, feeling dirty and uncomfortable but unable to break free. Speaking of which, I really don't understand how you can still be content in such an environment. "
Gao Pragmatic chuckled: "Perhaps I think it would be a very fulfilling thing to transform a rotten mud pond into a magnificent palace."
"Oh, you are really an idealist." Liu Xin curled her lips and was too lazy to say any more, but turned the conversation back: "Then what are you going to do now?"
"You gain wisdom from every experience, and take this as an opportunity to establish a... No, we can't set up more institutions. It should be said that we will make an additional temporary budget as a backup in the future. There is no need to worry about the name. Anyway, the purpose is A disaster response budget for these sudden social events, especially those near Gyeonggi.”
After a pause, Gao Pragmatic continued: "As for the present, I have specially approved a sum of money today for temporary disposal. This money will wait until the Ministry of Industry's estimated expenditure schedule comes up, and the Ministry of Household will allocate funds. Deduct today’s portion.”
Liu Xin thought about it and suddenly became surprised and asked: "Your method is appropriate, but it is not difficult. Could it be that Shi Xing couldn't guess that you would do this? I don't think he is so stupid. What about the problem?" Here it comes: Since you can just approve a statement and it can be solved, what is the purpose of him coming to offend you this time?"
"What's the purpose? You actually said it just now, just to offend me." Gao Pingshi spread his hands: "If you don't offend me a few times, how can the Xin School regard him as one of their own? Don't forget, he His native place is Dongming County, and he is from Beizhili (but this place later belonged to Shandong), not from Jiangnan - not even from Nambang."
Liu Xin suddenly realized it and let out a long "Oh", then thought about it and said: "I understand, Shi Xing really has some brains. He used this matter to confront you, the Xinxue School He will definitely feel that he can no longer look back, and as for you, he is actually not that angry - after all, it is just a 'little trouble' to deal with. In this way, he is a good boy in the heart school, but with you Bian Ye didn’t offend him too harshly...Humph, they are indeed politicians."
Gao pragmatically waved his hand, as if he was too lazy to continue the topic. Instead, he gently closed his eyes and leaned his head back, looking as if he was about to fall asleep.
But Liu Xin knew that he would never go to bed so early. In her eyes, Gao Pragmatism was similar to Gao Gong back then. He was also a bit of a workaholic and would almost never sleep until midnight. It happened that the Ming Dynasty "went to work" very early in the morning, and it was not yet dawn at the time he was accustomed to getting up, so this also allowed him to develop some unique habits, such as closing his eyes and meditating when he had a little free time. .
But Liu Xin didn't seem to want to let him rest for a while today. She coughed lightly and said, "I think you have heard too much bad news. How about I give you some good news?"
Sure enough, Gao Pangshi opened his eyes slightly and asked, "What's the good news?" But before Liu Xin could answer, he continued, "Wait a minute, let me guess first - did the expedition fleet take Manila?"
"Oh, Gao Situ's calculation is really clever. Manila has indeed been obtained." Liu Xin said with a smile, but then blinked and said, "But Gao Situ still made a slight miscalculation."
This sentence aroused Gao Pragmatic's interest, and there was some concern on his face. He asked: "What's wrong in the calculation? Our army has suffered heavy losses?" But he himself didn't seem to believe it, and frowned: " It shouldn't be... We have an absolute advantage in naval battles. Even if the Spaniards engage in a boarding battle, most of our ships have marine divisions on board, so there is no reason for serious losses.
Could it be that there were heavy losses in the land battle? But that shouldn't be the case. The Spaniards only had 2,000 soldiers and almost no cavalry. Could Gao Yimin still make a serious command error in this situation? In other words, our previous assessment of the Spanish army's combat effectiveness was seriously distorted. Are they really very capable of fighting? "
"None of them." Liu Xin raised an eyebrow: "The fact is that the naval battle was completely won, while the land battle was just a pretense, and the Philippine Governor-General sued for peace."
Gao Pragmatic said in astonishment: "Uh... is the news true?"
When Liu Xin saw this, she couldn't help but chuckle, stretched out her lush green fingers, and tapped Gao Jingjing in the distance: "I thought you really calculated it to 99% before every battle, and you were completely sure. There will be a war. Unexpectedly, you are not as confident as I thought."
Gao pragmatic glared at her: "What's the same thing? Fighting against the Mongols, fighting against the Jurchens, or even fighting against the Japanese in the future, all have historical results as a reference. Under my influence, the Ming Dynasty How much the army has improved, and by comparing it with the historical records, I can roughly get the opponent's combat effectiveness.
But how do you want me to compare with Spaniards? Comparing history, their opponents are either European armies or backward American tribes or tribal empires, and these opponents have no records of fighting the Ming Dynasty, so of course I can only rely on estimates. How accurate was this estimate? Who could guarantee it before the war? "
"You can rest assured now - well, at least you can rest assured." Liu Xin said seriously.
"What's the explanation for this?" Gao pragmatically asked.
Liu Xin found a stack of manuscripts from the side, handed them to Gao Pangshi, and said, "Here is the battle report. You should read it yourself faster."
Gao pragmatic immediately took it, read it, nodded after a while, and put down the battle report: "The naval battle was indeed a great victory, but although the main battle was fought by warships, it was the crushing method that forced the opponent's large treasure fleet to surrender. The strength advantage...oh, the fleet size advantage."
"So what?" Liu Xin raised her chin slightly and said: "In warship battles, we can obviously say that we have an advantage. As for the scale advantage... I think we can maintain this advantage even in the Indian Ocean. What’s more, it’s in the South China Sea. In other words, as long as you don’t think about an expedition to the Spanish mainland, this scale advantage will always be on our side.”
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