Chen Zhiting took Long Yuanxi and Wu Chongyao to sit in Zhu Jinglun's study, this is the yamen of the governor of Guangzhou in the past, Zhu Jinglun's palace is set in the Liangguang Governor's Palace, but the mansion was blown up when the British and French troops attacked Guangzhou, and now someone is looking for someone to clean up the ruins, but it will take a while to live in it, so Zhu Jinglun, the emperor, looks a little shabby. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Chen Zhiting is a little restrained, although he is already very familiar with Zhu Jinglun, when Zhu Jinglun ran Xin'an, he followed Zhu Jinglun, but in the past, Chen Zhiting followed Zhu Jinglun as a squire, a lifter, and a subordinate, but now he is facing an emperor as a prime minister, this new identity, even if the weather has passed for half a year, he still can't be calm.

is not calm, because he always feels that he is not good enough, and he always feels that he is not qualified.

The speed at which he climbed was too fast, which was related to the fact that Zhu Jinglun's subordinates really had no talent reserves, so they had to constantly promote officials, emotionally Chen Zhiting was grateful to Zhu Jinglun, this is the grace of knowing the encounter, for a literati, the grace is greater than this, but because of this, he is even more uneasy, Zhu Jinglun restored the prime minister system, and let him be the prime minister, this is to entrust the country to him, but he feels that he is really not doing well.

Chen Zhiting lacks experience, he himself understands that his greatest experience in governing is when he followed Zhu Jinglun to run Xin'an, but at that time his position was county government, although Zhu Jinglun let go of his hand and let him take charge of county affairs, his experience was at best a county order,

Even if it was this county order, what he mainly played at the beginning was still a dragger.

Zhu Jinglun tried his best to balance the forces of foreigners, the Guangdong civil official clique and the local gentry, and only then did he establish some important foundations in Xin'an, such as building an arsenal and forming a large number of villagers. But at that time, Chen Zhiting did not pay much attention to these foundations, because at that time he did not expect Zhu Jinglun to become the emperor later, when Zhu Jinglun recruited foreigners to build an ordnance station, he was very dissatisfied, and dissuaded many times, when Zhu Jinglun built an exchange in Xin'an, when he built a port, he expressed his opposition with the concept of a squire.

Now it seems that those things are Zhu Jinglun's biggest capital, and the armory is the cover name of the arsenal, because of the armory, Zhu Jinglun's army has sophisticated foreign guns and cannons, and the exchange is Zhu Jinglun's money bag.

At this time, Chen Zhiting was in a different position than in the past, and he looked at problems from a different angle, and he traveled around the world, which made his thinking change imperceptibly, and this change was not formed at that time, but after returning to China, he continued to think about various affairs in Western countries and slowly changed.

Especially now that he is the prime minister, his mind is completely different from the scholars and scholars of the past, he just can't get used to looking at foreigners, he just doesn't want to see barbarians, hates houses and Wu, all things that are related to foreigners, he doesn't like it, even if he was an envoy in a foreigner's country at that time, he didn't open his eyes to those foreigners' complacent universities and museums.

But now that I think back slowly, many things of foreigners still make him very shocked, towering churches, roaring and running trains make him feel surprised, and what makes him most panicked is that a country like Prussia can actually do everyone have a book to read, no matter what kind of book they read, everyone is literate This is very scary, China is a country that respects teachers and values education, with the mentality of a reader, this kind of scene that allows everyone to have books to read is really exciting to him.

Therefore, the more time passes, the more Chen Zhiting does not blindly oppose foreigners, and accepts the reality that foreigners also have merit from the bottom of his heart. So now he not only does not object to doing business with foreigners, but even wishes that more foreigners would do business and then pay taxes.

Zhu Jinglun exempted the three provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi from paying taxes this year on the grounds of ascending the throne, which is a ten-million-level income, and if he does not collect this money from the peasants, he will have to make up for it from the merchants.

Therefore, Chen Zhiting is very supportive of businessmen to do business, but businessmen are limited in expanding their business, last year Guangdong's income from commercial taxes exceeded 10 million, and this year, with the addition of Fujian and Guangxi, it will definitely increase a lot, but it will definitely not exceed 20 million. And the overhead required is just too great.

He really didn't know that salt and rice were expensive, after he became the prime minister, he didn't feel the respect of being in a high position, but was disgraced by a financial budget from all over the country, and all places asked for money, and now it is different from the past, in the past, the local government of the Qing court was the local government that intercepted it first, and now it is a unified tax department to collect it and put it into the household department, and the local expenses must be applied for in accordance with a unified format.

Because of the wars over the years, there are a lot of government affairs in various places, and now the new dynasty is newly established, most of them are new officials taking office, or old officials are retaining, but everyone wants to make a difference in this new dynasty, so they are eager to show their abilities, obtain their own political capital, and bring a new atmosphere to the new dynasty.

Nanhai County and Shunde County said that their mulberry field polder dike needed to be maintained, and applied for a silver allocation of 100,000 taels, Yingde said that their city wall was broken and had to be repaired, Panyu County said that many houses in Guangzhou City were burned and needed to be rebuilt, and the Qiongzhou government also said that they had suffered a disaster this year, and there were people who needed relief.

The budget reported by various localities was as high as 30 million taels, and after ordering the household department to be strictly suitable, it still had to spend about 20 million taels, and the state treasury was not only empty, but also owed a deficit of 50 million taels, and this money was raised by the new method of issuing bonds, and although it was a new method, it still had to be repaid.

It has to be.

Because Chen Zhiting knows that the largest holder of this treasury bond is Guangfu Bank, and the largest shareholder of Guangfu Bank is Zhu Jinglun himself. Therefore, this money is owed to the emperor, and the money owed to the emperor cannot be repaid, not only because of the emperor's authority, but also because of Zhu Jinglun's attitude.

Because the Guangfu Bank was opened by Zhu Jinglun, although there were still shares of the four major merchants in it, Chen Zhiting still regarded this bank as the inner treasury of the Ming Dynasty and the emperor's private treasury. According to the old rules of the Qing Dynasty, although the inner treasury and the official treasury were separated, the whole world belonged to the emperor, so the division was not so fine.

So Chen Zhiting didn't have this idea, he hinted at Zhu Jinglun more than once, hoping to wipe out this debt, he felt that as long as the emperor didn't want this debt, he believed that businessmen like the Wu family and the Pan family didn't dare to ask the government to repay the money, then the huge debt would be wiped out.

Chen Zhiting doesn't understand and doesn't care about debt credit and national credit issues, but Zhu Jinglun cares very much, and he makes it very clear that there is a clear distinction between public and private, and the treasury must repay this money on time.

Although the interest on this debt is not high, far from the interest of more than one cent of the money bank, only three percent of the low interest, but the base is too huge, the interest alone will cost more than one million per year, plus the due principal, next year just the principal plus interest, Chen Zhiting will have to repay five million taels, which makes him find it.

Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty won a battle, and the Qing court lost tens of millions of taels of silver, although it was not a one-time arrival, but it was enough to repay the principal and interest of the debt in installments, but the income and expenditure of various places were still unbalanced, and if Chen Zhiting continued to borrow, the debt would only get bigger and bigger, when would this debt be a head.

In addition to the problem of money, there are a lot of things that annoy Chen Zhiting.

Zhu Jinglun let him be the prime minister, he was very relieved, so far, almost completely entrusted the government to him, there was no Ming and Qing dynasties of the three days, the emperor never directly instructed the ministers, all the official documents had to be summarized by him, he felt important, he would ask the emperor, there were few hard restrictions, such as the appropriation of more than one million taels, only the emperor needed to approve directly, in addition, the military department is currently under the direct command of the emperor, the military department is only responsible for Chen Zhiting in courtesy, and the important documents of the military department are directly sent to Zhongshu Province.

Zhu Jinglun used him so much, which made Chen Zhiting even more stressed, for fear that if he did the wrong thing, he would lose the grace of the king, he almost had to do everything himself, and it took him most of his time every day just to read the daily official documents sent from all over the world, if he was just tired, there were many things that made him at a loss, such as the note problem of the British governor he encountered today.

Robinson strongly demanded that the Ming army immediately withdraw from Macao, otherwise the Ming government would be responsible for all the consequences, the British had already fought Guangzhou twice, if he was in office, the British would be brought to Guangzhou for the third time, Chen Zhiting's official did not matter whether he did it or not, the key was that he felt too sorry for the emperor's kindness.

He didn't know how to decide on this matter, so he brought someone to find Zhu Jinglun, but at the same time, he felt that he still had no way to lead, and he felt guilty in his heart, so he didn't say a word, and sat very restrained to listen to Zhu Jinglun's instructions.

Zhu Jinglun saw Chen Zhiting's state, this is not a short time, since he took office, Chen Zhiting's state is not quite right, too, let an official who is accustomed to kneeling and kowtowing under the political system suddenly put himself in the position of prime minister, and anyone else will be at a loss.

Cao Zhenyong, a famous minister of the Qianlong, Jiaqing, and Daoguang dynasties, made it all the way to the prince, the prince, the master, and the prince, and the portrait entered the Ziguang Pavilion, but when others asked him how to be an official, he said a clear sentence in the late Qing Dynasty officialdom: kowtow more and talk less.

The political culture of the late Qing Dynasty had reached the level of submissiveness and prudence, and civil officials had long been accustomed to being irresponsible, and it was none of their business to report something, but Chen Zhiting was inevitably unaccustomed to suddenly asking them to be responsible.

Zhu Jinglun, who figured out the situation, did not put pressure on Chen Zhiting, but explained his intentions carefully in a soft voice, but some words, no matter how small the voice was, seemed deafening.

Because Chu Jinglun said: "I plan to take this opportunity to take back Macau, and then find an opportunity to take back Hong Kong Island." (To be continued.) )