Chapter 525: The Court Makes a Decision

Here in Huazhou, Jiang Feng changed the title of governor to king, and when he was busy, the news of the mutiny in Beijing was still passing on the road, and in the Forbidden City, Lu Bing still told the emperor about the current situation, or to put it more accurately, the danger.

From the shock and fear at the beginning to Mu Ran later, Emperor Jiajing had already adapted to such a statement, his mood gradually calmed down, and he began to analyze everything Lu Bing said quite rationally.

At present, Lu Bing judged from the experience of businessmen, the documents of the six ministries, the notices of the border towns, and the words of officials at all levels in the past few years that there was a force outside the Great Wall, and it was very likely that it was formed by the combination of the reclamation manor dominated by the displaced people outside the Guan. There is also the so-called Huazhou on the sea, with a large number of ships and Ding Zhuang, which is a greater threat than the Japanese in those days.

He vaguely guessed that the forces outside the Guanxi and Huazhou might have such and such a connection, but Lu Bing's judgment still could not come to the correct conclusion, in his thoughts, there are mountains between Guanwai and North Korea, how can there be an effective connection, in this era, it is extremely difficult to control the disconnected land, Lu Bing does not think that a group of grass bandits overseas can have such ability.

After he finished his statement, whether it was Emperor Jiajing, or Zhou Lin and Rui Xiaosan, who had been observing, they all felt that the threat of the displaced people outside the Guanguan was the greatest, the rebellion of the six towns in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the Hebei Domain in the Tang Dynasty were the source of the trouble, and the northern land has been a strong folk since ancient times, and got the horse farm of the Mongols, I am afraid that there is a barbarian tribe after the Tatars, and these people also know how to farm, not those nomadic tribes like duckweed, which is very much the meaning of Goguryeo in the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the Jurchendi of the Bohai Kingdom in the Song Dynasty. It is not unreasonable for the emperors of the Sui and Tang dynasties to use troops to attack even at the risk of losing the country.

Huazhou at sea is considered to be a disease of scabies, and at best it is just a plague for pirates on the southeast coast, and there will be no real threat.

Since the territorial frontier of the Han nation was advanced to the seashore, from the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the present of the Ming Dynasty, or in another parallel time and space, until the end of the Qing Dynasty, China's coastline has not been threatened, of course, by the time of the Opium War, when the whites threatened with gunboats, it was already too late. It is precisely because of such safety and experience since ancient times that no one in the decision-makers of the Ming Dynasty attaches importance to the sea.

"Since it is a hidden disaster outside the gate, then immediately let the military department come up with the charter, there are nearly 240,000 officers and soldiers in Jizhen and Liao Town, and I am afraid that those displaced people outside the gate will not succeed!"

After Emperor Jiajing listened to Lu Bing's words, he opened his mouth to say the charter, and before he could wait for the surrounding courtiers to put forward their opinions, he himself stopped talking in embarrassment, Lu Bing had already made it clear in the introduction of the past few days, and now in the border towns of the guards, most of the officers are soldiers and military households working as slaves, and even renting Ding Zhuang to merchants to work, so as to make money.

This kind of training and soldiers, naturally don't talk about any combat effectiveness, although the three towns of Shaanxi and the soldiers of Yunnan and Guizhou are combined, they can also be a huge threat in the Yili Bari Department in the Western Regions, and the three towns of Shaanxi will not draw too many men and horses, the threat of Siam and Burma in the direction of Yunnan and Guizhou and the chaos of the Tusi are also threats that cannot be ignored, and they cannot be deployed, not to mention the rest of the places, and the soldiers over there are not as good as the peasants.

The rectification of the various border towns is obviously an urgent matter, but whether it is the rectification of training or the fighting, there will be one problem involved - money.

The money and property risks mentioned earlier have been clearly explained, the treasury is so empty, even the millions of silver taels obtained from the raid are used in this situation of waste to be rebuilt, it is a drop in the bucket, and it cannot be delayed until the tax revenue comes up in the second year.

Since there is no money, how can we talk about training troops and fighting wars, let's first worry about the salaries and salaries of civil and military officials! Several people around the emperor's distress understood, Lu Bing didn't say anything more, he had already explained all the situation roughly, and gave Jiajing a clear analysis of the current situation, and the rest, how to solve it, how to deal with it, that is, the problem of the emperor and the celebrant and the six cabinets that came up recently.

And to be honest, Lu Bing himself doesn't have any tricks to solve the current situation, this time there are not only Lu Bing, Rui Xiaosan and Zhou Lin in the inner study, but also several new scholars, and the current cabinet scholars do not have enough qualifications to serve as scholars.

Most of the Western Party officials of Emperor Jianba are very young, the household department, the official department, and the military department are the most purged institutions, and most of the people are convicted and detained, so the Shangshu of the household department was actually promoted by a foreigner, and the official department and the military department were served by a few old Westerners who had returned home in the past, and these ministers were all in the study, listening to Lu Bing's explanation with Emperor Jiajing.

They knew that this was their chance to behave in front of the emperor, and everyone was racking their brains to think about it, hoping to be praised in Jiajing's heart.

After all, Hubu Shangshu was young, and he was promoted from a lower position, and the cultivation of the city government in his heart was a little worse, and seeing that everyone was silent, he pondered there for a while, and then said:

"Long live, your majesty has been inspecting the documents and account books of the past years in the household department these days, as well as the interrogation records of the criminal department for those rebellious ministers, and the businessmen in the north and south have bribed those rebellious ministers in recent years, often setting their own taxes very low, it is precisely because of this that the tax departments and yamen in various places are unable to pay the silver, and the ministers think that it is time to take over Your Majesty's divine power and clean up this tax system, which must be able to fill the treasury."

The secretary of the ministry is an old minister, and he is much more stable in doing things, and when he heard the advice of his colleagues, he groaned and objected:

"Your Majesty, now the hearts of the people are beginning to settle, and the merchants everywhere are no longer the ones they used to be, they are all abnormal, and they are quite powerful, this strategy of cleaning up taxes will definitely make the hearts of the merchants unstable, and I am afraid that it will cause a greater turmoil!"

Don't look at these people in the past, they were all called the Western Party, but now they are all in high positions, and naturally they are divided into factions, one of them puts forward more radical opinions, and the other is more serious, and the courtiers present have chosen the direction they support and debated.

Emperor Jiajing didn't take the pill at this time, but looking at the quarrel between these courtiers in the study, he couldn't help but smile bitterly, and thought in his heart that this was really the inferiority of the hundred officials, and it couldn't be changed.

Although the people in the room are either low-grade officials who have been promoted or old ministers who have not been in the officialdom for a long time, the precipitation of thousands of years of officialdom culture is something in the bones, although everyone is arguing there, they all look at the faces of the emperor and Lu Bing. They knew that Lu Bing and Zhou Lin, including Gonggong Rui, were the real cronies at this time, and when they didn't express their opinions, they didn't want to say anything to death.

So although the ministers in the study are arguing, their words are very measured, and they are to the extreme, Lu Bing has been locked up in the mansion for several years, and he has long honed his calm temperament, and he also knows the truth that if he talks too much, he will lose, so he is just quiet and silent there.

Rui Xiaosan has been on duty with Emperor Jiajing for so many years, and he was the chief supervisor of the internal supervision when the imperial power was out of power, and he was also used to it carefully, and he was silent there. On the contrary, Zhou Lin, the commander of the Jingwei, couldn't help it, after he arrived in the Beijing Division, although he was the commander of the Jingwei Division, he was in charge of the soldiers and horses of the Beijing Division.

But then it was immediately when the civil officials of the Eastern Party controlled the government, and the civil officials all knew that Zhou Lin was a close confidant of the emperor, and he was a military attache from a border town in Shaanxi, and he had a close relationship with the Western Party.

Listening to the rather depressing words of the civil officials, but they were just about whether to collect taxes or not, he became more and more bored when he heard it, and finally couldn't help but speak:

"Your Majesty, my lords, we are laymen in the matter of wealth, but we know a truth, this war and combat matter, whoever makes the first move must have the upper hand, although the outside of the gate and the outside of the plug are quiet, but who knows when the other party will move, don't move over there, we are still collecting taxes."

As soon as Zhou Lin spoke, the room fell silent, and these ministers listened to Zhou Lin on one side, and looked at the emperor with their eyes on the other.

Emperor Jiajing was also embarrassed in his heart, knowing that although officials from all over the country have now expressed their submission and submission, these false words do not mean anything, and what the old and dignified Shangshu said is also reasonable, and the sudden collection of taxes in the past, I am afraid that the situation that has just stabilized is really so turbulent.

However, Zhou Lin's words made him wake up suddenly, what is the turmoil of the merchants, when Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was Dingding, he also killed the rich merchants in the south of the Yangtze River, the emperors of the past dynasties were all businessmen were not polite, what is the turmoil, the threat from the north is not clear for a day, and this country is unstable, not to mention the force outside the gate, or a force that has been entangled with the Ming Dynasty for more than a hundred years, how can you not be careful.

The emperor finally spoke and made a judgment:

"This tax must be collected, increased, and chased!"