100 million years old.

The emperor sent people to urge him four times, and Ma Zhou finally came.

Because he is a white-faced saint, Ma Zhou was also taken by the chamberlain to bathe and change clothes after entering the palace, and was given a white robe.

"The grass people think that Your Majesty should reward and punish strictly, advocate frugality, rest with the people, restrain the princes, and select good officials, so that the world will be peaceful and the country will be long."

After Luo Cheng saw Ma Zhou, he found that this bohemian and unruly genius was extraordinary, and Ma Zhou was also very calm in the face of the god of war who immediately defeated the country. When playing correctly, it is not in a hurry, it is very organized, and each one is indeed very insightful.

"In the past, when the emperor was in his prime, the country suffered a famine, but a horse of silk was worth a bucket of rice, and the world lived and worked in peace and contentment. The people knew that the emperor cared for and cared for them, so everyone was at peace and did not complain. In the early years of the great cause, there were bumper harvests year after year, but a silk horse was worth a few stone millet, and the people thought that the emperor did not care about them, and they all complained. ”

"Although the founding of this dynasty has not been a long time, but now the rice is only twenty or thirty yuan, but the silk is a thousand dollars, which can be worth more than five stone rice, plus the salt law tax, the price of salt is extremely high, and the people have already had some discussions. The minister thinks that this is mostly because many of the new things that the imperial court is doing nowadays are not the top priority at present, and many of them are inconsequential things at present. ”

"Since ancient times, the rise and fall of a country cannot be determined by the amount of savings it has, but only by whether the people's lives are bitter or happy. Take modern things to prove that when the Sui Dynasty, the two generations of the Son of Heaven were only more than 30 years, and they could accumulate a lot, the Luokou warehouse of the Sui Dynasty stored grain, at that time accumulated tens of millions of stones, but there were hundreds of people in the Central Plains who died of hunger, and finally the Luokou warehouse was taken by Li Mi, becoming the source of grain and grass for its anti-Sui secession, and the granaries and treasury in other places were also mostly owned by those who opposed the king, until now the Great Qin was established for several years, and many of the treasury of the Sui Dynasty have not been exhausted. ”

"The Great Sui took a large amount of grain and cloth from the hands of the common people, but it turned out to be used by Wang Shichong, Li Mi, Li Yuan, etc., and a large number of people were accumulated."

Luo Cheng asked, "Shouldn't the state levy taxes and store savings?" ”

"Your Majesty, storage is a normal affair of the state, but it cannot be that the country is rich and the people are poor, and the people should be allowed to have spare strength and then expropriated and stored, how can the people be forced to expropriate and the people will be forced to do so, and as a result, the people will starve, and the money and grain collected will eventually be used by thieves? This kind of storage is not beneficial, thrift allows the people to recuperate, this is what should be done, not the country is rich and the people are poor, but the wealth should be hidden from the people, and the country is stable. ”

"Since His Majesty ascended the throne, although he has also revised the tax law system, granted land to the people, and reduced the burden on the people, the court has done too much in recent years, and it is too urgent. The world is not peaceful, but the court uses troops all the time, without a moment to stop, the minister heard that the court in order to fight, the treasury has been exhausted, not to issue bonds, borrowing 50 million yuan, five years of borrowing interest will have to be millions of yuan, this is the next few years of the court income in advance overdraft, this is the Yin eat grain, in case there will be floods, droughts and locusts in the future, or what kind of epidemic and plague, or the enemy invades, lawless people take the opportunity to make trouble, there will be an unpredictable situation. ”

As a white body, the first time he could say such a thing in front of the saint, Luo Cheng felt that Ma Zhou had already shown the talent of the prime minister.

"Ma Zhou, what you said is very reasonable, all the princes in the court also have such knowledge, after the end of the Helong War this year, the court has to fully rest with the people, and now I also want to select talented people, Ma Zhou, how about I grant you to inspect the imperial history for the imperial history platform?"

The inspection of the imperial history is only under the eighth grade, the grade is low, and there is no qualification to enter and exit the main gate of the court, so it can only enter and exit through the side door, and it is not allowed to go to the palace unless it is a performance. However, they have the right to supervise both internal and external officials, and their authority is very wide, which can make all officials jealous.

The imperial history platform of the Great Qin changed the three of the Sui system to one, but the imperial history platform was set up under the three courtyards of the Taiwan Courtyard, the palace courtyard, and the inspection court, which actually turned the Sui Dynasty's division, imperial history, and confessor into the three courtyards of the imperial history platform.

The emperor directly awarded Ma Zhou Zheng the eighth rank of the inspection of the imperial history, which seems to be of low grade, but this is a very important position.

Who knows, Ma Zhou directly refused.

"The minister does not want to be lucky, His Majesty intends to promote the imperial examination, and the minister thinks that he can participate in the imperial examination and win, and he is born on the right path."

"Hahaha, it's not wrong for you to be confident, or so, I will give you a silver talisman and a white robe, and you can be ordered to enter the palace to play right. I hope to see you when I take the Golden Palace exam next year. ”

Ma Zhou Shane.

After the waiter sent Ma Zhou out of the palace, Luo Cheng sat in the palace and pondered for a long time.

Even scholars like Ma Zhou knew that Da Qin had done a lot of things that were not very urgent now, and he could see that Da Qin was acting too eagerly, which had already led to some instability.

The frequent use of troops and the high price of salt are all places that the people are not very satisfied with.

There is also the fact that they think that the clan and the princes have too much power, and just now Ma Zhou even thought that there was no need to seal the princes at all, and there was no need to rush to expand the territory when the Central Plains was not stable.

Although in recent years, the imperial court has laid down many new territories, but even if many criminals, poor people, slaves, etc. from the Central Plains have been removed from these Xinjiang territories, it will take a long time to stabilize.

And now, the imperial court is precisely the time when it needs rest and rest the most.

The people hated war, and after the Sui Rebellion, they were even more eager to live a peaceful life for a few days sooner.

Foreign wars continued, and although they were always victorious, the expenses were also large, and even the casualties of horses, livestock and soldiers were also large.

Take the last Helong War, more than 20,000 casualties, more than 100,000 dead horses, pack horses, etc., the imperial court exhausted the treasury for this, and had to borrow 50 million yuan to deal with the aftermath.

In Kaihuangzhong, salt costs ten yuan per bucket, which is less than the price of rice.

When the Great Qin Dynasty was founded, the imperial court increased the price of each bucket of salt by 100 yuan, and at the same time, because of the implementation of the civil property official collection and merchant sales, the salt produced by the people was sold to the imperial court for a bucket of ten yuan, in addition to the cost of labor and other costs, the salt people also had a good income. When the imperial court received the salt, it directly increased the price by 100, and sold it to the merchant with a bucket of 101, and the merchant had to transport it and sell it, so the price of this salt had to be increased in the end, and in the hands of the people, it was already 120 or 30 or even higher.

Since then, the use of troops has been frequent, and the imperial court's reliance on salt tax has been higher, so the price of salt has continued to rise, from the beginning of the price increase of 100 per bucket, to the later increase of 200, and then to the current increase of 300.

When people buy salt, they often need 345 wen a bucket.

This is actually a disguised tax on salt, a disguised tax on people, but now the problem is that after the reform of the two taxes, the two taxes have been greatly reduced, and the imperial court tax has been reduced, all relying on the industrial and commercial market monopoly and other taxes, especially the salt tax, has become the first major source of income for the imperial court.

Even if the price of salt is reduced by one or two percent, there will be a financial gap on the side of the imperial court immediately.

However, the high price of salt led to the dissatisfaction of the people, and at the same time gave birth to a large group of desperate smuggler salt dealers, even if the court repeatedly declared that selling smuggling salt for one catty and one tael would be punished, and the punishment of the court was extremely heavy.

But the salt that is less than ten dollars will cost more than 300 yuan in the hands of the people, which is dozens of times the profit, and there are still a large number of people who take the risk of violating the ban.

In fact, many officials have suggested that after the salt tax is lowered and the profits from selling smuggled salt will decrease, there will naturally be fewer smuggling salt dealers.

But the imperial court was unable to lower the salt tax.

"Even a folk scholar like Ma Zhou can see the problem, but no one can solve it in the Manchu Dynasty!" Luo Cheng sighed.