As the saying goes, people die for money, birds die for food, and since ancient times, the most difficult thing to obtain is the wealth in the hands of others.

Even if this is an ill-gotten gain, but since it is eaten in the hand and in the stomach, it is your own, and there is absolutely no reason to spit it out after eating, if you want me to vomit, that is to beat me, to open my knife, I will never allow it.

It was not easy to get out of this 100,000 taels of silver, and it was dug out of their stomachs by the three pavilion elders staring at their subordinates with resentful eyes.

The six ministries, the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Criminal Affairs have the lowest status, each paying 10,000 taels, and the Ministry of Rites is important except for the opening of the imperial examination, and the rest of the time is basically small and transparent, noble, and has no power, 20,000 taels.

The Ministry of Household is the great housekeeper of finance, and you have to pay 20,000 taels out of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and the Ministry of Officials is the lifeblood of everyone, and the officials of the Ministry of Heaven are in charge of everyone's official positions, but they can't manage the head of the cabinet.

In this way, the six were each taken out a sum of silver and made up 100,000 taels.

"The imperial court has no money to fight the war, so it will use our departmental funds? So what if you don't have the money to do anything? What the hell does Your Majesty think? How could there be such a stupid act?! ”

An official of the ministry was indignant.

"That's it! What does it matter to us if the court has no money? We honestly do things with our money, why should we pay for this money? It's not us who kill people! That's the money to build the Yellow River embankment! ”

A Ministry of Industry official also chimed in.

"If you don't have money to fight, you have to pay for it, so what does the emperor put so much silver in his pocket every year? It's the advantage of the mining tax again, Japan offers silver, and the emperor's pocket is the richest, why doesn't he pay it himself, but asks us to pay it? Is there such a truth in this world? ”

An official of the Criminal Department also stood up to express his opinion, but was immediately stared at by a stern gaze, shivered all over, and stopped talking.

Looking at him was Song Yingchang.

The only one in the Six Books of Shangshu who has no complaints.

The six bigwigs didn't speak, this is not a place for them to speak, and they don't have the need to speak, they have subordinates to help them say what they want to say, and they themselves have to maintain their demeanor in front of the elders, although they complain in their stomachs, they still don't say what they shouldn't say.

Of course, their income is abundant, oil and water are sufficient, and one or two thousand taels of silver is not a problem, but the people who do things at the bottom can rely on these funds to make money to subsidize their families, and there is no way who makes the salaries of Ming officials so low?

Everyone is an official, and his life is not as rich as that of a shopkeeper who runs a small restaurant, how can this be? So of course, we have to make some extra income, and the extra income is not much, as little as seven or eight thousand, and as much as thirty or forty thousand, and everyone will divide the funds and take them home for use.

Everyone's family is old and young, the old mother wants to support the child to raise, and there is a girl who wants money to be fed in the middle, and every year it costs tens of thousands of taels of silver, which is normal, and no one blames anyone.

What the? A few dozen taels of silver is enough for a family of three for a year?

That's mud legs!

We are noble scholars! Jinshi was born, how can he be compared with those mud-legged pariahs?

They eat rotten millet and pickled radish, and you let the Wenqu stars who come down these days eat these too? Is this what people eat? If you don't eat dragon liver and phoenix marrow, you can be regarded as giving face! If there is no meat, no fish, no oil and water at every meal, how can you eat it?

The child needs a wet nurse, right?

The old lady wants supplements, right?

The daughter-in-law of the ruined family and those flamboyant concubines want rouge gouache, right?

You need to pay some filial piety up and down during the New Year's holidays, right?

This is the basic skill of being an official! How can you live without tens of thousands of taels of silver? In this way, you still have to deduct our funds, so how can you live this day!

The family's field is not enough for 10,000 acres, the old house has not been expanded for eighty or ninety rooms, the ancestral tomb has not been repaired, and the silk and satin that the losers want have not been bought, how do you let us live?

Is this day still a human being?

The Wenqu stars in the room had sad faces one by one, as if asking for this 20,000 yuan of silver was like asking for their lives.

But...... This seems to be the department's service expenses, right?

It doesn't matter, if you don't have it, continue to ask the above, and if you don't give money, you won't do anything! What the? Before? The previous ones are all gone! Unbelief? Come on, come on, you see, you have to pay 300 taels for a trip, and 500 taels to buy some cloth and come back to make official clothes...... And so on and so forth.

"When there was a war before, the sailors were also the emperor's internal money, and the 300,000 taels of silver were thrown out as if they were not money, and the exchange was not only 300,000? He, Emperor Zhu, is rich in the world, why do we people want to squeeze silver out of our teeth and give it to him? It doesn't make sense!

He has so many mining taxes and so much Japanese silver, why can't he use it? Isn't this world a big tomorrow? This world is not the world of his Zhu family? His own world is not willing to spend money, and he still expects us to pay for him? Ridiculous! Is there such a truth in the world? ”

A gray-bearded old man stood up tremblingly and made a divine comment, which won a round of applause.

What else can Song Yingchang do? Smile? Sneer?

I can only laugh.

Listening to these people, Song Yingchang always has a kind of feeling as if he is not in the world but listening to the little ghosts in hell to hold a meeting, people say that the king of Hades is good to see the little ghosts are difficult, and now it is really the case, these little ghosts are careful one by one, the heart is small, the appetite is big, and asking him for a tael of silver is the same as asking for his life.

Buckle the silver from these people's hands, Ji Xin, you are going to be remembered......

Song Yingchang couldn't help but think of the young general who talked and laughed with him on the Korean battlefield, and now the status of the people is not the same, the dignified marquis, the town of Burma, the status is noble, and the civil officials can't be arrogant when they see it, and they must respect him.

However, this is all a superficial phenomenon, Yunnan Mu's family is from Taizu Yizi, there is a layer of relationship in it, he Xiao family does not have this relationship, there is one less guarantee, this time the troops ask for money, it can be regarded as offending the officials of the six ministries, although the big head is in the emperor's place, Xiao Ruxun's own life will not be easy.

However, these are not what Song Yingchang needs to worry about, what Song Yingchang is worried about is another matter.

At the beginning in North Korea, Xiao Ruxun told him more than once that the winter was getting colder and colder, and that it was coming earlier and earlier, and if his memory was not wrong, the first day of frost this year was five days earlier than the first day of frost three years ago.

Two years ago it was one day, a year ago it was three days, and this year it's five days.

Remembering Xiao Ruxun's serious posture when he talked about this incident, he still felt funny at the time, but now he feels cold all over his body.