At this time, Ren smiled heartily and stretched out his hand to Gao Yue, meaning to ask him for a steamed beard.

Gao Yue handed it over, Ren took two bites, and when he arrived at the filling, he frowned and said, "It's so light." ”

Hey, auntie, I think it's light and just the right taste, isn't it that the people of your Cui family, including Ah Ni, are all salt tigers?

At this time, the new chef An Lao Hu'er, who was serving beside him, explained: "Madam, recently, everyone in Chang'an City has been eating lightly - salt is expensive......

When Gao Yue heard this, he instinctively smelled the breath of the change in the situation.

Salt, like rice grain, is the foundation of the survival of the people in the world, and the ups and downs of its price often represent great changes in the current situation.

Emperor Li Shih's use of troops in several directions, coupled with the original edict to implement the three-fold policy of "eating grain out of bounds", military spending swelled at an astonishing rate, although the implementation of the two-tax law increased the treasury revenue, but it could not help but be consumed.

So after Yang Yan's death, Zhao Zan and Du You of the Judu Branch, as well as Dr. Taichang Wei Dubin, and Chen Jing and Pei Yanling, scholars of Jixian Academy, jointly wrote to Prime Minister Lu Qi, saying that there were only a few months left in the treasury for military expenses, and requested that in addition to the "Changping money", "Yan Yan money" and "cabinet payment money" and "corn and wheat market money" should be levied.

At this time, the emperor was holding the news of the complete victory of Heshuo, Shannan Dongdao and Ziqing, and Lu Qi did not dare to say to him, "Sorry Your Majesty, the money is almost spent", so he agreed to the request of these people, and ordered the Jingzhao Mansion and the southeastern transfer envoys to take charge of this matter.

Among them, Jingzhao Mansion went to get the "cabinet money" and "corn and wheat money", while the southeast transit envoys and assassins were responsible for adding "salt money".

The former is similar to a robber - the so-called cabinet is a cabinet and a quality shop, and the people can deposit money into it (but it should be called cabinet money, that is, rent, which is completely opposite to taking interest now), and they can also send things to pawn, and when they are redeemed, in addition to returning the mother's money, they must also pay the money to the treasure shop. Therefore, the cabinets in various parts of Chang'an City are actually equivalent to where money is stored and interested; As for the corn and wheat to be better understood, in order to prepare for the famine year, the people of Chang'an will dig out cellars in each house to store grain - and now Jingzhao Mansion has sent people to directly seal the merchants' cabinets and residents' cellars in the name of the Du Zhisi, and then "borrow" a quarter of them after statistics, called "borrowing merchants" and "borrowing rice".

As for the salt money, when Liu Yan was in charge of the salt administration, he set up patrol courts and salt farms to control salt production in various parts of the southeast, and then sold them to salt merchants in the salt farms, selling each bucket of salt for 110 wen, 100 wen is the government's salt profit, and 10 wen is the "salt capital" of salt production; For the salt merchant, he bought a bucket of salt from the field, and the purchase cost was 110 yuan, plus his sales cost, so each bucket of salt was sold for about 300 yuan, so he could get a profit of 100 yuan.

But now that the imperial court is in urgent need of military spending, it began to increase the price, and Li Shi's instructions to Zhao Zan, Du You, Chen Shaoyou, Han Yun and others were to add 100 wen to the price of each bucket of salt to replenish the military expenses!

In this way, when it came to the salt merchants, each bucket of salt could not be sold for only 300 wen as before, but was increased to 600 wen or 900 wen, and even many big salt merchants began to hoard Juqi and raise the price of salt.

All this was the bad consequence of Yang Yan's previous change of Liu Yan's salt administration: the local inspection courts were abolished, and the imperial court lost its effective control over the salt works and salt merchants!

Chang'an, the capital city with political functions, does not produce salt itself, so the people took the lead in tasting the "expensive" Hedong Pond salt, and the robbery of the cabinets and grain cellars made it even worse.

"Fortunately, Gao Lang took a step ahead and spent or moved away all the money hidden in the mansion, otherwise the loss would have been great." After listening to An Lao Hu'er's explanation, Ren suddenly realized.

The money spent was given to Lu Qi to his uncle and father-in-law Cui Kuan, who was very shrewd, and he was afraid of repeating Yang Yan's mistakes, so he did not hoard the money at home, but scattered it to various states and counties to ask for land and ask for help—in addition, Cui Kuan no longer held the official position of Shu capital Yin, nor did he return to Beijing—the imperial court urgently appointed Cao Wanggao as the new Jingnan Jiedu envoy, responsible for Liang Chongyi's southern front, and Cui Kuan, under Lu Qi's operation, filled the vacancy of Cao Wanggao's Hunan observer envoy. After Zhang Yansheng of Shu successfully took Cui Kuan, he finally unified the power of the Jiedu envoy and the Shu capital Yin, and then began to plan to seize the Xishan army.

Now Cui Kuan's family is leaving the capital of Shu, going down the Yangtze River to Tanzhou, the seat of the Hunan Observation Envoy.

On the way, Yunhe's body was unwell in the boat, and he wrote a letter to complain to his brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

And now, Gao Yue is also leaving the capital.

But before he left Beijing, he also played to the court, what for?

begged the general of Jinwu Hun Xuan to lend him two people, namely Guo Xiaofeng, the Marquis of Yu, and Gao Gu, Gao Yue said that these two had been in the border for a long time (in fact, Guo Xiaofeng had been going to fight for a year, and it would be a blessing for him to come), and he was familiar with the rules of building the city, so please let the ministers take the two to Fengtian Yingcheng, which can be beneficial.

Hun Ying is a loyal person, when the emperor asked him for his opinion, he said that it is okay, anyway, these two people and I are idle in the capital, so it is better to follow Gao Wailang to Fengtian City.

So the imperial court added the rank of Guo Xiaofeng and Gao Gu Zhiguo's lieutenants, and ordered them to follow Gao Yue to camp and repair Fengtian City.

He also sent 2,000 Shence forbidden troops for the construction of the city, and the commander was also Gao Yue's relative-Gao Chongwen, the general of the Shence army.

But Gao Yue was not satisfied, so he gave a note to His Majesty the Emperor, he calculated an account for Li Shi, saying that the minister used to build five forts and a city in Jingzhou, all of which were rammed earth structures, and every rainy day, a large number of straw mats must be laid at the head of the city to prevent the rain from damaging and collapsing, even so, but there are collapses after the rain, and they can only be repaired with manpower and material resources (even the Baili City with Sanhe soil is no exception); In addition, in winter, frost and snow will be damaged, and the soldiers must dig the ice by hand, so the annual cost of maintenance is a large expense.

Therefore, the ministers asked to cover the rammed earth walls of the old city of Mukden with bricks, although the cost would increase on the surface, but it could be done once and for all, and it was saved from laying straw mats on it.

Not only that, Gao Yue also asked for a matter, he said that the god who built the city rammed the earth, but did not practice burning bricks, His Majesty's general prison has no less than 5,000 craftsmen, all of whom are good craftsmen from various states and counties, and the palace city, Zhongshu Menxia, Da Nei, Xingqing Palace, the forbidden army buildings, platforms, pavilions, pavilions, houses, and stables belong to the interior, and the temples, suburbs, city gates, bridges, nine temples and three prisons in the four provinces and the palaces, and the tombs of the first emperor belong to the outside - please select 100 experienced people from the outside craftsmen, through smelting, pottery, brick burning, and construction, Azusa craftsmen (carpenters), gathered in Fengtian City, teaching soldiers to cultivate.