"The proprietor, now that he has shown his minions, I am afraid that it is a little inappropriate to use self-defiling tactics again!"

A middle-aged man, dressed in a silver-white long Confucian shirt and a silver jade crown, with a thin face and eyes like a deep pool, was sitting cross-legged at the moment, leaning over slightly, and said to the person sitting on the main seat.

"That's right! The proprietor is now suddenly on the throne, and there are not a few people who are waiting to find the proprietor's bad luck, and then receiving gifts with such fanfare, it really hinders the proprietor's reputation!"

The person sitting opposite him, with a tall posture and a handsome demeanor, dressed in a moon-white monk's robe, with nine ring marks on his bare head, was actually a young monk.

The man on the main seat heard the persuasion of the two strategists under the seat, so he stopped the brush in his hand and raised his head, it was Xu Fan, the new prime minister of the Tang Dynasty.

Xu Fan was still wearing a navy blue cloth shirt, and his expression was a little haggard compared to when he was in Yuzhang. He glanced at the two people under the seat and said, "Do you think I received the gift to paralyze Li Linfu?"

The two of them sat down and looked at each other suspiciously: "Isn't it?"

Xu Fan shook his head slightly, took a document from the case, frowned, and motioned to the two: "This is the account book sent by the household department, take a look!"

The young monk got up, took it, flipped through it, and after a few pages, his face was full of shock: "This ...... This...... How is this possible? How can there be so little copper money in the treasury?"

When the middle-aged Confucian saw this, he also quickly stood up, stepped forward quickly, took the account book from the monk's hand, looked at it quickly, and after a while, he was also shocked and said: "How can there only be three million stones left in Taicang's grain, isn't this only enough for a few months!"

"Proprietor, what the hell is going on?" After the two of them hastily read the account book, they hurriedly asked Xu Fan.

Xu Fan sighed and said: "This year's spring tax in the south has not been collected!"

"Why?" asked the middle-aged Confucian scholar.

"But the magistrate is prevaricating, the proprietor, you have just ascended to the throne, and your majesty must not blindly treat him with leniency, and you must not be merciful when you should practice the way of thunder!" said the young monk eagerly.

"Ming Xuan!" When the middle-aged Confucian saw it, he hurriedly glanced at the young monk.

The young monk understood, and hurriedly bowed to Xu Fan: "The proprietor forgives the sin, Ming Xuan is rude!"

Xu Fan waved his hand slightly and said: "It's okay, since you are a staff member and a strategist, it is your duty to share worries for the Lord, if Xu Fan has no room for people, he will not invite the two of you here!"

"The proprietor has the strength of a prime minister!" the two laughed and patted their ass.

Xu Fan smiled, and then replied: "The spring tax in the south is not because the local officials are unwilling, but because they are powerless!"

"Why?" the two of them still wondered.

Xu Fan sighed and said: "Since the beginning of the first month, the cultivated land in the south has been abandoned on a large scale! In the spring planting season, the peasants are busy with other things, so how can they still have the mind to farm!"

"What? Why is that?" said the middle-aged Confucian in surprise.

"I know about it!" replied the young monk.

The middle-aged Confucian immediately looked at each other.

The young monk knew that the middle-aged Confucian scholar was devoted to his studies, and he was afraid that he did not know much about these merchants, so he replied: "Presumably, they were all troubled by the affairs of the city! In the months since the beginning of the first lunar month, all parts of the south have been busy speculating on land, and the price of cultivated land has skyrocketed dozens of times overnight, and many peasants have made millions of dollars overnight.

"What?" The middle-aged Confucian did not know much about the popularity in the south in the first half of the year, and when he heard it suddenly, he was surprised, and hurriedly looked at Xu Fan, with an inquiring look.

Xu Fan nodded slightly, and said: "The general situation is as Ming Xuan said, almost all of the southern provinces have the preset points of the city, and under the influence of these big cities, land sales have gradually risen in various places, and the situation of cultivated land abandonment has been very common in several southern provinces!"

At the beginning, when the seven clans and five surnames were figuring out the new branch of the city, it was to alleviate the resistance of the Tongguò court, and in line with the principle of equal interests, they found a coastal and riverside city in the south as a new outlet of the city. For this reason, the land trade, which was originally limited to Yangzhou, spread in the southern land, and the impact was naturally amazing!

"Oops! Spring planting didn't catch up, so what about autumn planting? If there is no autumn tax, then ...... ......" the young monk immediately asked, cold sweat already falling from his forehead.

Since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, a large number of Han people have moved south, accelerated the development of the south, greatly increased the amount of cultivated land, and continuously built farmland and water conservancy facilities, and the southern land has already begun to plant rice with large yields in a large area, and the areas south of the Yangtze River have achieved two crops a year, and even in Lingnan, Qiongzhou and other places, there are amazing three crops a year.

With the degradation of the land in the Guanzhong Plain and the North China Plain, the grain center of gravity of the Tang Dynasty began to gradually move south. For this reason, the tax system in the middle of the Tang Dynasty was gradually changed to the two-tax law with the destruction of the uniform land system, and the spring and autumn taxes were levied in one year, and most of them were settled in kind.

Now, the cultivated land in the south has been planted in the spring by mistake, and the spring tax revenue cannot be raised, and the central finances of the Tang Dynasty are suddenly stretched!

What's even more terrible is that the spring planting in the south is wrong, once it affects the autumn planting, I am afraid that this year's autumn tax will also be suspended, if even the autumn tax can not be collected, the Tang Dynasty will be equivalent to less than half of the tax this year, only relying on the small half of the tax in the north, how can it support the normal operation of this huge country?

When the middle-aged Confucian heard this, he was also frightened, looked at Xu Fan, and asked in a slightly hoarse voice, "Dong...... Proprietor, Autumn ...... Autumn Tax ......"

"I have urgently ordered the county guards to rush to plant rice, hoping that it will be in time to ......," Xu Fan said in a deep voice.

"Not enough! Far from enough! In addition to the south, it is also necessary to urgently order several grain-producing areas in the north to guard the grain in their hands, and now it seems that there will inevitably be a shortage of grain this year, and then the price of grain will certainly rise! Once those profiteers get the news, I am afraid that it will be another monstrous disaster like land speculation!" said the young monk urgently.

"Proprietor, who else knows this news now?" The middle-aged Confucian also quickly reacted.

"This is the account book that the household department just sent, and besides me, there is only the book of the household department and Ji Wen, the Langzhong!" Xu Fan replied.

"That's okay, Li Chen, the head of the household, is an old fritter, and he doesn't dare to make a big deal out of such a major matter without the instructions of Enxiang! As for this Ji Wen is just a cool official, he is a good hand at fiddling with the law, and I am afraid that he will not be so sensitive in this business matter! We still have time!" said the young monk happily.

"So the proprietor has begun to secretly buy grain these days?" The middle-aged Confucian and Xu Fan have been friends for many years, and they know a lot about it, and since they already know about such a major event, there is a new explanation for Xu Fan's behavior of accepting gifts in a big way.

Who knew that Xu Fan shook his head and said: "It hasn't started yet! A small part of the reason for receiving gifts before was to paralyze Li Linfu, but in fact, it was to advise the saint!"

Xu Fan actually had some expectations about the spring tax in the south, and his apprentice Xu Chen also said a thing or two about it, but he didn't pay much attention to the turmoil caused by Li Shizhi's case in Beijing. But I never thought that the current situation would be so miserable!

"Advise?" the young monk wondered.

"Alas, the proprietor is really painstaking!" the young monk did not understand, but the middle-aged Confucian scholar understood in an instant.

The young monk looked at the middle-aged Confucian scholar, and the other party immediately explained: "In recent years, the saint has become more and more lavish and extravagant, especially after the canonization of the concubine last year, he has been singing and dancing endlessly every day.

"A few months ago, didn't Sun Desheng, the great eunuch of the Inner Palace, transport three million pieces of silver from the south into the palace?

Sun Desheng's actions in Guangjitan that day made the people of Chang'an open their eyes!

Although the Wanbao Conference held by Wei Jian on the day of the completion of Guangjitan two years ago was also a sensation, after all, Wei Jian transported some precious treasures that day, and ordinary people at most saw the excitement, and it was really difficult to have a personal understanding of the value of those famous paintings, antiques, jade porcelain and other things.

But the boatload of silver sent by Sun Desheng really opened the eyes of the people!

The boatload of silver, under the reflection of light and water, emitted a dazzling white light, but it blinded the eyes of everyone in Chang'an City!

Needless to say, even those nobles and gentry, although there is more than enough money in their families, it is rare to see so much copper coin, most of which have been invested in various industries.

The north is not better than the south, especially the southeast, in recent years, the sea trade has prevailed, and the bulk transactions require large cash transactions, and the silver money is mostly in circulation, and the large households are still very easy to discount large amounts of silver as long as they want to. Although the big families in the north also have money, it is still very difficult to realize such a large amount of silver money for a while, after all, various industries are widely involved, and it is not something that can be realized by a single family if they want to.

For this reason, although these big families saw Sun Desheng's behavior, they were mostly disdainful, but they were still shocked in their hearts!

As for Emperor Xuanzong, he was even more happy when he saw it!

More than a dozen teams were sent out, and the rest of the people almost all lost everything, and then they relied on the identity of the people in the palace to force the big families around the country to buy back the original price of the land that was already worthless in their hands, and then they came back in exchange for some money, not to mention the small amount, and provoked the gentry from all over the country to find officials who were familiar with the court and China to write to impeach, and finally had to kill a few fierce eunuchs to calm the anger of the courtiers.

Compared with these fools, Sun Desheng can be described as extremely capable, and Emperor Xuanzong of Longyan Dayue then greatly rewarded Sun Desheng, taking this opportunity, Sun Desheng completely settled on the throne of the second eunuch of Da Nei, the first is Gao Lishi who shares the hardships with Emperor Xuanzong, which is incomparable!

The young monks had witnessed the pomp and circumstance of that day, how could the dozen or so boatloads of silver be used up so quickly? It had only been a few months! Did the emperor spend money so quickly?