After Ma Mingyuan finished arranging, he came out and sat in a green sedan chair carried by sixteen people, and there were thirty-two chess * card officials standing in front of him, holding the open road chess * card, and in the front was the official holding two gongs, opening the way with the sound of gongs, reminding the people around him that the cabinet chief assistant traveled, and the idlers avoided it.

Ma Mingyuan's sedan chair went out of Mafu Street, which is the downtown area of Confucius Temple, and the people around him knelt down and saluted when they saw this battle. Zhu Hongsan is the highest etiquette for Shoufu, except for the crown prince, everyone else has to salute when they see Shoufu, salute with merit, and kowtow to the ground without merit.

However, Ma Mingyuan is even more powerful, he is the prince, the teacher of the prince and all the princes, even if the prince sees him, he has to get off the sedan chair and salute, so Ma Mingyuan does not have to avoid anyone in Nanjing except for the emperor's imperial chariot.

Confucius Temple here has always been a place of nostalgia for literati and ink writers, there are many meritorious and famous people, some people saw Ma Mingyuan once again played the signboard of the first assistant, and whispered while saluting: "What's the matter?" "Look at this posture, probably Ma Mingyuan will be the first assistant again!"

In this way, the news spread quickly, and some officials in the city immediately came to meet the new chief assistant with gifts after learning the news, and tried to make a familiar face in front of the leaders. But who knew that Ma Shoufu had changed his previous appearance, the door of the house was closed, no one called open, and no gifts were accepted, which made those officials who rushed to hold stinky feet very disappointed.

Ma Mingyuan and his entourage of hundreds of people walked mightily on the streets of Nancheng, and all the civilians who had no time to hide knelt and kowtowed. After entering the imperial city through Gongyuan Street, Ma Mingyuan got off the sedan chair in front of Hongwu Gate, sat on the shoulder chariot prepared for him alone, and came to the gate of Wenhua Palace.

Ma Mingyuan had just lowered his shoulders when he saw his eldest brother Ma Jiyuan walking out escorted by two brocade guards. It's not embarrassing to see the eldest brother Ma Mingyuan, after all, he is the brother of a fellow mother, and he is now like this for the sake of power.

Ma Ji saw Ma Mingyuan arriving from a distance, spat angrily, turned his head and left with Jinyiwei. Ma Mingyuan couldn't say anything when he saw that his eldest brother was like this, so he had to bow deeply from afar.

Emperor Zhu Hongsan and all the ministers in the main hall had been waiting for a long time, and Zhu Hongsan saw Ma Mingyuan come in and said with a smile: "Second brother is here!" ”

Ma Mingyuan stepped forward and bowed and said: "Your Majesty, the minister has received the order, and the minister will definitely bow and die for His Majesty in the future!" ”

"Good! I hope the second brother can come up with a plan that satisfies me! Second brother, now the Northern Expedition is imminent, but the financial gap between the DPRK and China is very large, what do you say? ”

Ma Mingyuan hasn't done anything in the past few years, and he's been studying how to make money. If there is no money to do, the easiest thing is to reopen the new policy and bring tax-paying taxis into the tax system, so that a large number of people will come in in less than two months. However, this immediately offended the Nanzhili and those Dashi clans, so Ma Mingyuan also thought of a few tricks to help the imperial court temporarily get rid of the financial dilemma.

"Your Majesty, it is very simple to ensure that the Northern Expedition starts as scheduled, it is nothing more than opening up sources and reducing expenditure! The minister has a copy, please the emperor to read it! After Ma Mingyuan finished speaking, he took out his fold, put it on the wat board, and presented it with both hands.

Li Chengen came down to take it and handed it to Zhu Hongsan. Zhu Hongsan took it over and watched it in detail, and Ma Mingyuan drafted a total of five:

The first is that this year's tax amount in Guangdong has been set, and now it is in October, so don't change it easily, first maintain the original one, and wait for next year to be adjusted in a unified manner.

The second is to suspend the infrastructure facilities of several new provinces, such as Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Yunnan, and Guizhou, and at the same time suspend the civil affairs measures such as the Nursery, Anjifang, Nursing Home, Futian Yuan, and Leaky Garden, which were popularized in Jiangsu, Anhui, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, and other provinces three years ago, so that four or five million silver dollars can be saved.

The third is that the provinces do not use white rice, but all the sweet potatoes and wheat transported from Guangdong, and at the same time, those displaced people do not have enough to eat and have nothing to do, and use these laborers who do not need money to repair the farmland, water conservancy and roads in various places.

The fourth is to moderately reduce the income of officials, which used to reach 1,200 silver yuan for a Qipinzhi county, but from now on, only half will be paid to each person per year, and the other half will be repaid with salt and sugar.

The fifth is to reopen the exchange of silver dollars, but this is not the radical version of the past, but a mild version improved by Ma Mingyuan. This time the silver exchange was open to everyone, and silver dollars with a face value of one tael could be exchanged for nine coins and five cents of silver. This is the foundation of Ma Mingyuan's five articles, in the past, the exchange of silver was in the hands of the Huguang faction, they exchanged the equivalent of one or two to one tael in the hands of the state for silver dollars, and the backhand used the price of one or two or three coins in the market to exchange silver. This is how the Huguang faction quickly completed the primitive accumulation with the help of monopoly.

And what is most criticized by the people of Nanzhili is this unequal silver exchange bill, which is also one of the main reasons why Ma Mingyuan was demoted back then. Now in order to quickly stabilize people's hearts, Ma Mingyuan has no choice but to share the greatest benefits in his hands with others.

Zhu Hongsan was very happy after reading Ma Mingyuan's excerpts, or Ma Mingyuan had two brushes, and these five can basically ensure the use of his Northern Expedition.

"Good! What the second brother said is very meaningful! Li Chengen, read this excerpt! ”

When Li Chengen finished reading the excerpt, the ministers in the court discussed that these articles had little to do with them except for the salary reduction, and the last one was the biggest concession made by the Huguang faction. Those officials in Nanzhili and Zhejiang are mainly afraid that Ma Mingyuan will get his new deal when he comes to power, and what is the new deal? It is to cut off the life * root of the Shiren group, which naturally cannot be agreed, but now Ma Mingyuan's moderate reform is acceptable.

"No objection to the ministers!" The Donglin Party and the Zhedong faction were the first to stand up and agree, and the bigwigs of the Guangdong faction had not yet entered Beijing, and there was a group of middle-level officials left, who were not qualified to speak, but they had the most benefits today, so they had no opinions. The biggest loss is the Huguang faction, but Ma Mingyuan is the boss of the Huguang faction, and he has persuaded all the forces of the Huguang faction, so the Huguang faction is silent.

Zhu Hongsan nodded: "Okay, since the cabinet agrees, let's follow the implementation of this excerpt!" ”

Zhu Hongsan was also very happy after solving the most important thing, it was already noon, and all the ministers had stood for a long time, and the water and rice had not been entered, but the matter had not been resolved, and there were still a large number of official vacancies in the local area that had not been arranged.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's noon now, don't go home for dinner, I'll take care of the meal at noon today, and then we will discuss the matter of the shortage of local officials after eating!"

It was a great honor to eat with the emperor, and more than fifty ministers in the hall bowed down one after another to thank him.

For the noon working meal, Zhu Hongsan did not prepare any decent meals, which were the boxed lunches of later generations. However, the boxed lunches in the palace are completely different from the ten yuan per person on the street in later generations, and even the lacquered boxes containing the boxed lunches are worth a few taels of silver.

Today's lunch meal is two dishes and one soup, the dish is dried tofu with sharp peppers and mushu pork, and the standard lunch in later generations is the soup with tomatoes and egg soup served in a covered wooden bowl. These meals were not worth mentioning in later generations, but peppers and tomatoes were rare in the Ming Dynasty, and the ministers still ate them relatively well.

Zhu Hongsan did not return to the harem to eat by himself, but stayed in the main hall to eat with the ministers. Several cabinet elders have separate small tables, and other ministers don't have this treatment, and they directly have long tables and benches. Although the food and chairs were simple, the ministers were really tired enough to choke after standing all morning, and they were all very happy.

Zhu Hongsan saw forty or fifty people bowing their heads and eating violently, this kind of scene made him feel as if he had returned to the afterlife, the kind of roadside lunch stall. However, there is still a difference, these ministers are all people who are full of poetry and books, and they pay attention to food and do not say anything, even if they drink soup, they use their hands to cover their beards and drink them in one sip. And the kind of shouting "Boss, add me another meal!" in later generations!" "The scene is completely different.

After eating, Zhu Hongsan also gave these ministers a quarter of an hour to rest, so that they could go to the toilet or close their eyes to recuperate.

Ma Mingyuan saw Chen Zilong go out to the toilet, and hurriedly went out with him, he wanted to ask what happened to Chaozhong when he didn't come? Why does your eldest brother have such an attitude towards himself! According to Ma Mingyuan's estimate, the eldest brother is only exempted from office, and all the benefits should be retained, but just now he saw that the eldest brother Ma Jiyuan was escorted out of the hall by the Jinyi guard, and the official uniform and hat were taken off, which is not what a normal Zhishi should have.

Shoufu went to the toilet and naturally moved the crowd, and some sycophants with stinky feet hurriedly came up to accompany them.

"Motosuke, let's go with the adults!"

"Hehe, everyone, the old man is not old enough to be accompanied by someone to go out, so let's do this kind of thing by myself!" After Ma Mingyuan finished speaking, he pulled Chen Zilong, who had just gone out, to the door of Wenhua Palace.

Out of the door, Ma Mingyuan looked around, the nearest Han general was also more than a dozen steps away, and he shouldn't have heard what he said.

"Among the people, what happened in the main hall just now? Why did I see that my eldest brother was escorted away by Jinyi Guard? ”

Chen Zilong sighed and said, "Yuanfu, something has changed, it's different from last night's discussion!" Zhang Jiayu, the villain, has changed his hexagram, and I don't know why he hooked Xu Bengao's rebellion case with his eldest brother! ”

"Zhang Jiayu changed his hexagram? What does his impeachment memorable say? "Ma Mingyuan knows that things are not so simple, Xu Bengao's incident has nothing to do with Ma Jiyuan, and the emperor also knows that there must be other reasons for using this matter to clean up the eldest brother Ma Jiyuan.

"Yuanfu, Zhang Jiayu's little pony Tang Yuanji impeached the eldest brother for five counts, the others are far-fetched, the most powerful one says that the eldest brother scolded the emperor behind his back, saying that the things in Xinyang were the emperor's fault, and the eldest brother's family was not instructed by the emperor in Xinyang!"

Ma Mingyuan was taken aback after hearing Chen Zilong's retelling, this one is going to kill you. Ma Mingyuan has followed Emperor Zhu Hongsan for the longest time, he knows that this emperor pretends to be lenient and righteous on the surface, but he is the most cautious behind his back, no matter whether the eldest brother says those words or not, the emperor must investigate thoroughly.