Seeing that the emperor waved his hand to let him go back, Wei Zhongxian breathed a sigh of relief and left as if he had been amnestied.

After Wei Zhongxian left, Zhu Youxiao slowly drank tea. Originally, this weather was the most suitable for eating some roasted sweet potatoes to warm your hands.

After these days, Zhu Youxiao found that in fact, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was still very relaxed.

The recitals from all over the country must first be sent to the cabinet, and the cabinet scholars will write down their opinions on how to deal with them, and then they will be handed to the emperor, who will decide on the final handling method.

If the emperor felt that the method proposed by the cabinet was not good, he could send it directly back to the cabinet without approving it, and the cabinet scholars would draw up the method again. Sometimes the emperor was too lazy to do the red criticism, so he handed over the red approval to the eunuch Bingbi, the celebrant beside him.

Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian, who had no difference in prestige for a while, were both Bingbi eunuchs who were trusted by the emperor, and because the emperor was lazy, these people had the opportunity to usurp power.

Zhu Youxiao froze, looked at the pile of music in front of him, and a meaningful smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

It is estimated that Wei Zhongxian's trip back and forth, many officials will suffer. If he can purge some officials who are unfavorable to him, he can just promote some practical people. In this era, there are really not a lot of talents, but they can't do their best.

Zhu Youxiao bowed slightly, and began to think about which petty officials to promote. Although Zhu Youxiao did not know the talent and loyalty of most of the civil and military generals, most of the historical celebrities still knew.

Just thinking about it, he realized one thing, that is, after promoting talents, what should he do? In addition, money is needed to do practical work. Whether in the past life or in this life, money is omnipotent, and crossing is not omnipotent!

But now in the treasury, it is estimated that there is not much money. As for the question of how much money he has, he really doesn't know, so he can only ask his big housekeeper Wang An.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao was stunned, put down the teacup and shouted out the door: "Go and call Wang An to come to see me." ”

Wang An is not busy these days, but he has a lot of trivial things to deal with. Before the bench was heated by the buttocks, it was summoned to the Qianqing Palace by the emperor again.

"Wang An, how much treasury money do I have?" While asking, Zhu Youxiao said in his heart: Don't tell my country about the deficit in the treasury.

Wang An was slightly stunned, he happened to know this question, when the Emperor of the Apocalypse ascended the throne, as the chief administrator, he was ordered to check the silver in the inner treasury.

He sighed and replied slowly: "Back to the emperor, there are still 17 million taels of silver and 30,000 taels of gold in the inner treasury. "Needless to say, the treasury is definitely out of money.

Hearing this number, Zhu Youxiao was first overjoyed, so much gold was placed in the future generations, and he could eat and drink without worry for a lifetime, and he could drive a villa in a sports car and live.

After he was happy, he suddenly realized that he was now the lord of a country, and he was afraid that if the money was rewarded to the ministers with great merit a few times, he would have to drink the northwest wind.

It can be seen that the Emperor of the Apocalypse is a poor bastard! Zhu Youxiao wailed in his heart. You must know that in the thirty-sixth year of Qianlong, the annual treasury income was 37 million taels of silver, which was only one year's income!

"How much does Daming earn a year?" Zhu Youxiao asked with a hint of hope.

"Back to the emperor, the annual income is about 5.21 million taels of silver."

Hearing Wang An's words, Zhu Youxiao was stunned, so little? You must know that the trade and capital of the Ming Dynasty at this time were much stronger than those of the Qing Dynasty, but the annual income was so much different......

The only reason is that many people don't pay taxes. Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao's heart was dripping blood, and he seemed to see a lot of real money flying away like this, so he silently made a note in his heart for these people.

These people who are trying to evade taxes by all means, who is not a thousand acres of fertile land and countless sales? Most of these people say one thing and do another, full of benevolence and morality, but they are usually in the fish and meat country.

They annexed land, smuggled goods, and carried out maritime trade, so it can be said that every family was rich, but they always wanted not to pay taxes, so the Donglin Party advocated "heavy" agriculture and suppressed business, and hid wealth from the people.

Emperor Taichang's understanding of heavy agriculture and suppression of commerce is wrong, and heavy agriculture and suppression of business does not mean heavy agricultural tax, but less or even no tax. But the Donglin Party tampered with this theory, according to them, agriculture was the main source of state taxation and had to be levied heavily, while merchants had a low status and had to be taxed less.

It was a group of people who, for many years, tampered with the tax books to evade large amounts of taxes, and always advocated taxing the peasants. These people not only evade taxes, but also become more unscrupulous because of their huge power, doing almost anything.

In the court, there are very few people who really want to do practical things for the people. Most of the officials attacked others in the court, crowded out weak officials in the local area, and acted in concert with their conscience.

As the imperial court continued to urge the local governments to complete the quotas, the heavier and heavier burden was passed on to the peasants, who had no wealth or power to protect themselves from extortion, and finally had to face two last resorts:

sold land to powerful gentry at pitifully low prices, rented their own land as tenants, and exchanged high rents for protection; Or abandon the land and flee, hoping that things will be better somewhere else. No matter what they chose, the land was either barren or fell into the hands of the gentry. The government's quota is still pressed on the remaining peasants, and this vicious circle is intensifying.

The burden of taxation became unbearable, not because of the high taxes, but because many of them had to be paid in silver, which was very difficult for the peasants to obtain.

Many people had no land or could not tolerate the exploitation of the big landlords and became homeless, which is why so many people followed Xu Hongru's White Lotus uprising.

There is also the fact that the earth is in the Xiaoice period in this era, and natural disasters are continuous. The severe drought in Shaanxi has deprived countless people of the land they rely on for survival, and the officials have forced the people to rebel, so there are Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Li Zicheng and so on.

The peasant uprising in Shaanxi became the last straw that crushed the Ming Dynasty.

It can be said that in addition to the death of the Ming Dynasty due to external pressure, most of it was the fault of these tax evasion gentry. If these people are not eliminated, there is little hope for the Ming Dynasty.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but rub his temples.

Who said it was easy to be an emperor? It's hard to be a good man!

If we want to clarify the rule of officials, then the first step is to use a strong hand to defeat the bureaucracy, and the second step is to reform the rule of officials and eliminate redundant personnel.

However, there needs to be a premise, and that is to hold the military power yourself. If there are no soldiers to fight with, it will be impossible to clarify the rule of officials and reform the official system with an iron-fisted policy.

At present, the Ming Dynasty is a civilian control of the military, and it is not easy for Zhu Youxiao to take back the military power and support his own team? !

In this case, there is no hurry for the time being. First use Wei Zhongxian to disgust some trouble-making officials in the DPRK and China, and then copy a house or something, and it is still good to fill the treasury.

After all, it's easy to get things done when you have money, isn't it?