The highest-level central-level financial meeting of the Ming Dynasty was officially opened on the 16th day of the first month of the 17th year of Wanli. Wanli didn't want to participate, but he had to participate, last winter, a sudden earthquake brought extremely huge losses to the Beijing Division, this financial meeting, in fact, is also discussing, this year's post-disaster reconstruction work in Beijing, and this year's Ming budget.

In fact, there were few people in the meeting, Shen Shixing, Wang Xijue, Xu Guo, Wang Jiaping, these are several scholars in the cabinet; The celebrant is Wang An, Li Lianxiong and several other eunuchs with a pen, and a palm seal eunuch; and the chiefs of the six ministries at all levels. From the very beginning, the meeting smelled of gunpowder.

Wanli did not attend the meeting, but just boringly wiped the 54 pistol in his hand behind the big screen, and then was ready to cover his ears at any time - for this group, the meeting was a quarrel and a ruffle; Quarreling is a meeting, there is no nutrition at all, don't want to discuss anything, and I have a stomach.

Sure enough, Chen Yuan, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, fired first: last year's earthquake, the buildings of the Beijing Division were hit by a huge blow, and several gates, including the Noon Gate, collapsed, and those that did not fall were also crumbling, which was really unusable. Therefore, in addition to rebuilding a few gates, the existing building had to be reinforced and repaired, which required silver; In order to ensure the normal operation of state institutions, it was necessary to build houses for many officials who had no houses to live in, which also required silver; Xishi is the commercial center of Jingshi, even if you don't pay attention to business, it is also the façade of Jingshi, and it is too ugly to damage my prestige, and protective restoration also needs silver; But the Ministry of Households just doesn't allocate funds!

On the grounds of financial overspending, the household department even demanded that the construction of the east and west markets be suspended first! Could it be that my Ming Jingshi only needs a palace, and does not need officials and people?! Is this still a Kyoshi?!

Li Yuanqi, the head of the household department, said slowly, it's not that my household department doesn't allocate funds, it's really that there is no money to be allocated! Last year's taxes were all added to 13 million taels of silver, and 1.5 million taels were spent on river restoration in Jiangsu, Shandong, and other provinces; The emperor's wolves spent 600,000 taels on daily training and military expenses and subsidies; The relief of the victims of the great drought in Henan was spent 2 million taels; The expenses of the inner court could not be saved in any way, and another 1,800,000 taels were spent; Nearly two million taels were spent on all kinds of military expenditures, and less than two million taels remained in the state treasury.

Who knew that the natural disasters alone would cause losses of more than seven million taels! It's not that we don't understand the reconstruction of the Beijing Division of your Ministry of Industry, but we really have no money to allocate it! Not only does your Ministry of Industry have no money, but even the Ministry of Officials can't even pay their money! The Ministry of Rites is a big money-spender, and there is no money left for any large-scale activities! It's not that my household doesn't give money, it's really gone, if you give it again, then you can only use the internal money! Where is the silver left in the poor treasury?

Wanli snickered a little when he heard this, the blessing of Tuo Zhu's knife, the six million taels of silver found in Wang Mingqing's house, there is still about half of it; In the silver vault of Dang Xin and Shi Jifang, three million taels of cash were found, as well as countless calligraphy, paintings, jade and other things, and the internal money was unprecedentedly abundant. But you must not give it to them, this bunch of garbage! The money is all in the homes of those local magistrates, in the hands of those earth emperors! They casually copied millions of silver, but my Ming treasury was empty like this. Now the household department is shouting that there is no silver, is there no or is it all in your own pockets?! These are my money!

Chen Yuan stood up angrily, pointed at Li Yuanqi's nose and scolded, I let you be greedy for all the treasury of the Ming Dynasty! Look at the Dang Xin sent out by you Li Yuanqi, he went to Ningxia for less than a year, and he became so rich, where did his silver come from?! You are desperately trying to prevent the emperor from sending tax supervisors and mine supervisors, but you have set up a name to collect taxes for various reasons, and the bandits in Shandong are so serious, at least half of them are forced out by you!

Li Yuanqi also slapped the table and shouted, you can eat indiscriminately, but you can't talk nonsense! Shandong is seriously troubled because it has been a fierce folk since ancient times! When the Tang Dynasty was in its heyday, Shandong also sounded horses from time to time, why didn't you say that it was forced out by Li Shimin, Taizong of the Tang Dynasty? ! Also, your Chen Yuan family is only fifteen people, but they own twenty-two mansions! is also scattered all over the country, even as far as Guangxi, the land of the Southern Barbarians, there are two sets of mansions for you, is it possible that you regard Daming as your own home and your own home as Daming, right? !

Chen Yuan's face suddenly turned red, and he pointed at Li Yuanqi with a trembling finger and said, those two houses are gifts from the local toast, do you Li Yuanqi dare to say that he didn't accept it?! And there's a gold mine!

Seeing that these two people are getting more and more outrageous, the others hurriedly dissuade them, saying that they will discuss the matter, what are they doing with these old accounts? What's the point? The top priority now is to quickly discuss what to do this year, instead of revealing each other's secrets! It's better to settle the grievances, but not to settle them!

Shen Shixing saw that it was getting more and more chaotic, coughed and said, who has any opinions that can alleviate the financial situation this year?

This old fellow was born a fox, so he pretended not to hear anything, not to know anything, so that no one would be offended.

But he still offended a person who should not be offended the least - huddled behind the screen and gritted his teeth to wipe 54 Wanli. Listening to the shortcomings revealed by these two people, it was not that he didn't know in his heart, but that he had never heard of it at all! In other words, these two people actually hid from Jinyiwei! It can be seen how strong they are hiding below now! Fortunately, these civil officials just like silver, if they like the emperor's throne under my ass again...... Wanli didn't dare to think about it anymore.

Shen Shixing, such a cautious person, how could he let the emperor hear this later? This is because he doesn't know where Wanli is at this time. This time, Wanli played a trick on his heart, and originally told Shen Shixing that he was going to attend this meeting, but temporarily changed his mind and did not go. Shen Shixing is angry, the emperor's words are holy decrees, how can they be easily changed? But it was already close to the start of the meeting, and it was impossible to notify him, so he simply stopped waiting and started on his own.

But how did he know that the emperor was not present, but he didn't say that he wouldn't go to the audience! Especially hiding behind a screen, who would pay attention to this kind of place?

So this time Shen Shixing greatly miscalculated, and it also made Wanli hear things that he couldn't usually hear.

The meeting continued, and Chang Xudong, the secretary of the Ministry of War, put forward a surprising suggestion: Change rice to mulberry in Zhejiang. Because last year, the silk woven by the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau was sold to Western countries, and there were millions of taels of silver! The sales volume of silk sold by the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau last year has reached twice the tax of Jiangsu Province! It seems that silk is still very profitable! If the rice fields in the whole territory of Zhejiang can be changed to mulberry fields, then it may be possible to increase the weaving of a large amount of silk, and then export it to Western countries, which will greatly alleviate the plight of the national treasury!

As soon as this opinion came out, everyone was very interested, and exporting silk is a good thing! It can not only solve the financial situation of Daming, but also greatly increase the employed population in Zhejiang and reduce the social instability factors in Zhejiang.

At this moment, not only the high-ranking officials, but even the celebrant was very interested, after all, this creative thinking is not so easy to think of, and it turned out to be the head of the military department! A big man can think of such an idea, which makes the readers here feel very embarrassed - he has to steal the limelight, does he have any plans? Sure enough, Chang Xudong said with a smile, in order to ensure the safety of the Weaving Bureau, he thought that the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau should be relocated to Jiangnanwei, so that not only could it not be interfered with by the government, but also could ensure that it would not be invaded by the Japanese invaders!

As soon as he said this, it immediately exploded!

Shangshu of the Criminal Department was the first to attack, claiming that he had received information from the Jiangnan Governor's Office that this year, the Japanese invaded the border repeatedly, not only along the coast of Fujian, but also in Nanjing! As a result, the whole city was killed by the pirates and thousands of people were taken captive because they were not on guard! How can you move the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau to Jiangnanwei?

Then there is the official department Shangshu, he said that if the weaving bureau is moved to Jiangnanwei, then the staffing of the weaving bureau will be counted as Jiangnanwei or the inner court? You must know that the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau is a subordinate unit of the celebrant supervisor, which is directly under the inner court, and the members and endurance are all eunuchs! Without the special approval of the emperor's holy decree, how could eunuchs enter the army casually? What's more, the appointment of eunuchs at all levels in the inner court is not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Officials, which brings great inconvenience to administrative management......

Wanli's head was stunned by them, and he couldn't discuss anything if he went on like this, wasting time. However, the rice was changed to mulberry ...... This method seems to be indeed feasible, and all the production fields in Jiangsu and Zhejiang will be changed to mulberry fields, so that the output of silk will be guaranteed, and then the output of silk will increase; In this way, Jiangnan can supply more than one million taels of silver to the imperial court every year, or even more.

Although a million taels of silver is not much, it can do a lot of things and fill a lot of holes. Nowadays, there are too many holes in the ship of Daming, and the overhaul requires silver, so the holes can only be repaired, but to what extent it can be repaired, it depends on how much silver there is. So Wanli himself is inclined to this method. There are many craftsmen and looms in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty, as long as they can be organized, how much silk will be produced in a year? What kind of profit will it bring to Daming? The more Wanli thinks about it, the happier he becomes, but who is going to hand over this matter to?! Handed over to Zheng Maochang, the political envoy of Jiangsu? This person doesn't seem to be very reliable, and he and He Yucai have never dealt with each other, if it is really handed over to him, will there be trouble?