Ma Mingyuan's home is in Nancheng, not too far from Miyagi, out of Xufu Street into Gongyuan Street, and then through Tongjimen Street into Dongcheng, which is where Miyagi and the Imperial City are located.

Entering the thousand-step corridor from Hongwu Gate, this is the location of the state office, this road Ma Mingyuan has been very familiar with in the past two months.

Today is the thirtieth year of the Chinese New Year's Eve, and the central organs have begun to repair, except for the personnel who remain on duty on daily duty, all the yamen are empty. Both sides of the thousand-step corridor are full of palace guards in formal clothes, although it is a holiday, but the palace defense can not be relaxed at all.

After entering the thousand-step corridor, you will arrive at Chengtianmen after passing through the outer Wulong Bridge, which is the imperial city, Ma Mingyuan got off the sedan chair here, and then walked into the Dongbian Gate. The guards on duty checked Ma Mingyuan's waist card and let him into the city.

As soon as he entered the imperial city, a eunuch at the gate stepped forward to stop Ma Mingyuan and said, "This is Ma Ge Lao?" ”

Ma Mingyuan saw that it was a young eunuch, he didn't recognize it, nodded and said, "It's Ma, this father-in-law is... ”

The eunuch hurriedly bowed down and said, "The villain is Li Gan, the eunuch of the department, and the emperor's lieutenant is here to greet Ma Ge Lao!" After speaking, Li Gan pointed to the shoulder chariot raised by the two people on the side and said: "Ma Ge Lao, this is the shoulder chariot given by the emperor, and Ma Ge Lao can take the shoulder chariot when he walks in the palace in the future!" ”

Hearing Li Gan say this, Ma Mingyuan was very comfortable in his heart, although he was in the prime of life this year and didn't care about taking those steps, but his identity was his identity, and Chen Zizhuang should have all of them before.

Ma Mingyuan looked at his shoulder, and was about to speak, but he didn't know Li Gan's thoughts, and hurriedly said: "Ma Ge Lao, this is just made by the division supervisor, and no one has used it yet, please take a seat!" ”

Seeing that Li Gan arranged it carefully, Ma Mingyuan was very satisfied, and he didn't want to sit on what Chen Zizhuang had used.

To be honest, this kind of shoulder chariot is very uncomfortable to sit on, Ma Mingyuan is tall, almost one meter eight, sitting on it and swaying straight, plus it is December, and there is no mattress on the shoulder chariot, it is completely a wooden bench, and it is not comfortable to sit on it. But Ma Mingyuan still couldn't suppress the excitement in his heart, shoulders, this is a symbol of status, in the imperial city, except for the emperor and himself, there is no second person who can use people to travel, not even the crown prince and several princes.

Entering the Chengtian Gate is to enter the imperial city, but it is still far away from the palace city, five or six hundred meters, and in addition to the distance to the Wenhua Palace, it is really enough to walk for a while without sitting on the shoulder. The shoulder chariot is a symbol of status, after sitting on the shoulder chariot, no one is stopped to check the waist card, and directly enter from the left door on the side of the noon gate.

Before coming to the Wenhua Palace, Ma Mingyuan bowed his shoulders and waited for the little eunuch to be summoned. The emperor has nothing to do today, and the military aircraft department has already sealed the pen, so there is nothing to review, so the news of summoning Ma Mingyuan to meet him quickly spread to the door.

Ma Mingyuan tidied up his clothes and followed the little eunuch into the main hall.

Today, there is only Zhu Hongsan in the main hall, Zhu Hongyi and Li Chengen, who were always by Zhu Hongsan's side, are not around, and there are only four little eunuchs standing in the four corners of the main hall.

After Ma Mingyuan entered the house, he first saluted like a ceremony, and then Zhu Hongsan asked, "Mr. Ma has received the holy decree?" ”

"Yes, Your Majesty! The minister received the holy decree in the morning and rushed to the palace to thank him! ”

Zhu Hongsan laughed: "Haha, second brother, do you remember that I promised you to be the first assistant twenty years ago?" The second brother finally got what he wanted this time! "Zhu Hongsan knocked Ma Mingyuan with his words, you know all the tricks you used to frame Chen Zizhuang!

Ma Mingyuan bowed down and said: "Your Majesty, it was forced by the situation in the past, but now the minister is in the prime of life, and he can still do his best for His Majesty and die for himself!" "They are all smart people, Ma Mingyuan heard the meaning of Zhu Hong's three words, so what he meant in his words was that I knew that you had no choice but to arrange Chen Zizhuang to be the first assistant, and we were weak in Guangdong back then, and there was no way if we didn't rely on the Guangdong faction. But now it's different, we have greatly increased our strength, and I am in the prime of life this year, and I still want to be Zhuge Liang and Zhang Juzheng.

Zhu Hongsan didn't care about him when he saw Ma Mingyuan say this, and now as Ma Mingyuan said, Zhu Hongsan's group has developed into a behemoth, and there is no need to rely on any local forces at all, plus now that he has left Guangdong, the role of the Guangdong faction has been reduced to negligible, and Zhu Hongsan's root is those Huguang Xungui, so Ma Mingyuan's framing of Chen Zizhuang is also a cleanup of Huguang Xungui's Guangdong faction to some extent, and Zhu Hongsan, as the emperor, is also happy to see the Guangdong faction being squeezed out of the center of power. Therefore, Zhu Hongsan turned a blind eye after knowing Ma Mingyuan's small methods, and let Ma Mingyuan hit Chen Zizhuang.

Now that Zhu Hongsan heard that Ma Mingyuan was loyal, and Zhu Hongsan had nothing to lose by cleaning up the Guangdong party, he forgave Ma Mingyuan.

"Someone! Bring a chair to Ma Shousuke! "In front of the emperor, the minister has only one embroidered pier at most, and the chair is the exclusive seat of the first assistant. Ma Mingyuan just entered the room and saw that he had no seat, so he knew that Zhu Hongsan was still a little dissatisfied with himself, so he used Zhuge Liang and Zhang Juzheng to show his loyalty just now. Now that I see that the emperor has given me a seat and know that the emperor has forgiven me, I am relieved.

Zhu Hongsan looked at Ma Mingyuan sitting on the chair, and then said: "Mr. Ma, now you are the chief prime minister of the cabinet, in charge of hundreds of officials in the world, but there are many crises in front of you!" Mr. Ma, do you have any solution? ”

Ma Mingyuan knew that this was his first job interview after serving as the first assistant, which could be said to be a kind of test of the emperor's ability, and he must answer to satisfy the emperor.

But there is nothing to worry about, Ma Mingyuan is not the same as the previous 20 years, in the first 20 years he was still a new science and technology scholar who had just returned to his hometown, and now after more than 20 years of officialdom experience, plus Ma Mingyuan has also been a second assistant for seven or eight years, he still has some insights on how to govern the country and how to get rid of the crisis in front of him.

"Your Majesty, although the five provinces south of the Yangtze River are now occupied, on the surface it seems to be infinitely beautiful, but under this scenery, there are indeed three major crises! The first and most serious one is how to appease the scholar clique in Nanzhili and Zhejiang, these people follow His Royal Highness, and they can't be sent away with some land and idle official positions in the central government, so these people must be appeased. The second is the war in the Manchu Qing Dynasty in the north, although our army is now on the offensive, but it has reached the end of the crossbow, and the various arsenals in Guangdong are running at full capacity, basically they do not rest in three shifts, but this can not meet the consumption of the front line, so the military must stop first. The third and most difficult to solve is the problem of insufficient silver, there are only less than 200,000 silver dollars in the treasury at present, and next year's taxes will not be handed over to the central treasury until March. ”

Zhu Hongsan couldn't help but nod when he heard Ma Mingyuan finish speaking, what he said was to the point, especially the last military one, which was too correct. Although Zhu Hongsan didn't believe that the Manchu Qing Dynasty could have any impact on him, it was better to be careful! At that time, the division of forces between the north and the south was similar to that of now, there were millions of troops in the four towns of Jiangbei in Yangzhou, and Zuo Liangyu of Wuchang, Huguang, was known as a million, but the four towns of Jiangbei that were pinned on the hopes of the ministers did not fight much at all, and the Manchu Dynasty surrendered immediately, Zuo Liangyu finally started the Qing Dynasty's side, the military strength of the Hongguang Dynasty in the Southern Ming Dynasty was much stronger than the Southern Song Dynasty in history, and the strength of the Manchu Dynasty in the north was not as powerful as the Jin Dynasty at that time, but history cannot be compared. Under various circumstances, the Hongguang Dynasty only existed for a short year and was destroyed by the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, although Zhu Hongsan is basically suppressing the Manchu Qing Dynasty militarily to fight again, he must also be careful in everything, and he must not follow Zhu Yousong's old path back then.

It is precisely because Zhu Hongsan has this concern that he must stop military operations, develop with peace of mind for a few years, and then concentrate all his national strength to have a general decisive battle with the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

After listening to Ma Mingyuan, Zhu Hongsan asked: "Mr. Ma, since you have raised three kinds of problems, there should be a solution, let's hear it!" ”

Ma Mingyuan continued: "Your Majesty, the first one is simple, after Chen Zizhuang left, there was a vacant position in the cabinet, and Liu Dalin, who is also from Guangdong, is old and frail, and the minister estimates that he will be able to resign after the New Year, these are two positions, and they can be given to Zhejiang people, so that Zhejiang people can also fight for His Majesty's great cause with peace of mind!" The second can only stop the war in the north, but the minister suggested that several arsenals be built in Wuchang, Nanchang, Hangzhou and other places, which can relieve the pressure on Guangdong! In the end, this money and grain problem is the most critical, the grain is easy to handle, there are still a large number of sweet potatoes and sweet wheat in Guangdong, and the food shortage here in Nanzhili is to be transported, although it is not delicious but after all, it can be fed, as long as the people can eat enough, there will be no big chaos! In recent years, the minister has been in charge of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Taxation, and found that the sugar and salt sold by the trading houses to the north are settled in silver, but we are not allowed to circulate silver here in Guangdong, and those commercial houses want to transport the silver to the money village and exchange it for silver dollars, which is really troublesome. And the minister learned that in the south and north, our silver dollar because of the exquisite printing, a silver dollar can be exchanged for one or two or five dollars of silver, although the exchange of silver still has fire consumption, but this is also a huge profit! Such huge profits have been made by major trading houses before! ”

Zhu Hongsan listened carefully, but he didn't expect this Ma Mingyuan to have this brain, isn't this the exchange rate? Zhu Hongsan remembered that in later generations, people who played foreign exchange came with money, and as long as the exchange rate changed a little, they could make a lot of money.

Zhu Hongsan hurriedly asked, "Does Mr. Ma have any good suggestions?" ”

"Your Majesty, this kind of huge profits must be collected by the imperial court, and the minister is ready to order that all commercial houses in the country are only allowed to collect silver dollars when selling goods, and silver can only be transported into Nanzhili as goods!"