If these words came out of anyone's mouth, Wu Zheng couldn't help but sneer at him.

But for the old man in front of him, Wu Zhengxin.

It is naturally not a problem to spend a million taels to buy a family's life, raise a hundred cooks, and make a few silver snacks in this area.

Wu Zheng sighed and said, "This thing is delicious, melts in the mouth, sweet but not greasy." ”

"If Uncle likes it, the old man will give Uncle a cook, so that he can do some for Uncle from time to time?"

"Huh? …… No, no, since you can buy it in the market, why do you need to have a cook, when I want to eat, send someone to buy it. "Wu Zheng is telling the truth, why do you want to eat eggs and raise a hen?

But as soon as Wu Zheng's words fell, Mo Zhinian couldn't help but laugh.

"Blame me, blame me." Mo Zhinian patted his mouth lightly and said, "It's strange that the old man didn't make it clear, the uncle doesn't know, there is still a difference between this bone-in abalone snail and what it sells in the market." ”

"Oh...... What's the difference? ”

"Milk, must be colostrum, when taken out, must be cooked in a pillar of incense, less than one moment the taste is not strong enough, one moment later is the skin, accompanied by fragrant wood stew, boiling, filtering, drilling, washing, printing and other more than a dozen processes, more than a dozen processes such as cooking."

Wu Zheng was in a fog when he heard it, so he summed up a few words, "How much does it cost?" ”

Mo Zhinian asked Wu Zheng stunned, crying and laughing, how did he know how much it cost?

Fortunately, Wu Zheng didn't want to get to the bottom of it, so he smiled awkwardly, and it was really not a taste in his heart.

In the house of Zhang Guowei, the secretary of the military department, several important ministers of the imperial court are gathered together, and the wine is the old three that cannot be shaken, adding up to only 100 texts, okay, a rich family in Hangzhou City, a cup of dessert actually counts two lines of silver, this is only the price of the market, this world, what's wrong?

This kind of mood is staggered, and Wu Zheng is already like chewing wax for the dozens of new dishes in the follow-up.

Watching the maids shuttling through the hall like butterflies, Wu Zheng's mind was no longer on the dishes.

Mo is obsessed with being old and sophisticated, and he has already noticed the deterioration of Wu Zheng's mood.

It's just that he doesn't know what the problem is, since Wu Zheng entered the mansion, he has served wholeheartedly, and there is no trace of carelessness.

But Mo Zhinian knew that he couldn't ask, so he didn't talk nonsense, and quietly accompanied Wu Zheng to finish eating.

Then he led Wu Zheng to the hall on the right.

After serving a cup of tea before Ming and a few seasonal fruits, Mo Zhinian finally got to the point.

"The old man invited his uncle here today because he had something to advise."

Wu Zheng smelled the wisps of tea fragrance, and his mood calmed down a lot.

"Say it."

"It's ......." Mo obsessively pondered, "I really don't know where to start at this time, so that the uncle laughs." ”

Wu Zheng was a little curious, this old man is a human spirit, please come to him for something, he didn't even think about how to speak?

"It's okay, just say whatever comes to mind."

Mo Zhinian cleared his throat and said, "Then the old decay is presumptuous." Dare to ask uncle, what is the reason for the demise of our dynasty in your heart? ”

Wu Zheng squirted out the tea in his mouth with a "poof", almost spraying Mo Zhizhi.

This old man, is it right to ask in front of the palace?

After all, he is a veritable Lin'anbo, and in this one-third of an acre, he can be regarded as a person who is in charge of life and death.

This old man is coldly taking the school entrance examination, and he is indeed presumptuous enough!

Mo Zhizhi hurriedly ordered the maid to send a sweat towel, and then pleaded guiltily: "Old decay and nonsense, I hope the uncle is not to blame." ”

Wu Zheng didn't blame him, but he was a little caught off guard.

"It's okay. It's just that if you want to talk about the exact reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, the official doesn't know it in his heart, but in the opinion of the official, it is nothing more than the discord between the monarch and the minister, the government decree is not compatible, and the royal family and the wealthy family in various places oppress the people too much, so that the rebellions in various places continue, the court is exhausted, causing financial collapse, coupled with natural and man-made disasters, Jianyu happened to take the opportunity to go south and picked up a big bargain. ”

Wu Zheng chatted a few sentences, basically summarized the reasons for the fall of the Ming Dynasty, and thought that even if there were omissions, it was not the point.

But Mo Zhinian said: "What the uncle said, although there is nothing wrong, but the old man thinks that the most important thing is actually one word. ”

Wu Zheng raised his eyebrows and said, "Oh? ”

"That word, that's money."

Wu Zheng scolded secretly, grass!

But from this time, what Mo Zhi began to say made Wu Zheng begin to concentrate.

"Uncle is right, the direct cause of the demise of our dynasty is the financial crisis. The financial difficulties of the imperial court led to disasters and famines, and there was no money to provide relief; There was a war, and there was no money to pay the salaries. There is no money to help the victims, and the hungry people are in turmoil; The lack of money to pay the army led to a rebellion among the hungry soldiers, and the combination of the hungry people and the hungry soldiers led to a large-scale civil rebellion. The lack of combat power of the army made it impossible for the state to eliminate foreign invasions or to suppress internal rebellions. The financial crisis leads to a military crisis, and the military crisis leads to an even greater financial crisis. And the hundreds of thousands of prisoners are actually just scabies. ”

Wu Zheng began to concentrate, no matter what the old man's intentions were, but based on these words alone, Wu Zheng knew that this old man still had some insight.

"Of course, the apparent reason is so, but the old man thinks that there is a deeper reason behind it. Why did the imperial court have financial difficulties? Could it be that with such a vast territory and a population of nearly 20,000,000, the tax revenues are not enough to cope with some unexpected disasters and large-scale wars? You must know that throughout history, many countries much smaller than our dynasty have been able to carry out larger-scale military operations for many years. Needless to say, as far away as the Warring States Period, Zhao State, Qin State, many wars have used hundreds of thousands of troops, and later such as the Later Han Three Kingdoms, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, etc., can give many examples, such as Jianyu, from Jin to Qing, twenty years of war, did not drag them down to this point. On the other hand, in our dynasty, there is no need to talk about the number of troops on the roster, and the actual use of 100,000 troops for a war is already close to the limit, and if it exceeds 200,000, the imperial court's finances will no longer be able to maintain. Such a large country, with 100,000 mu of cultivated land and a population of nearly 20,000, is so small that it cannot even recruit 200,000 elite soldiers to sustain the war for more than a year. ”

"At the beginning of the founding of the country, the imperial court built cities on a large scale, launched several large-scale Northern Expeditions, and provided relief to the victims during the famine, without encountering financial collapse. Throughout the three hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, compared with the beginning of the founding of the country, the development of agriculture and commerce at this time has been incomparable, whether it is the yield of land per mu and the prosperity of commerce and trade, it is far more than the beginning of the founding of the country. Could it be that agriculture and commerce have prospered, but they have not been able to collect taxes? ”