Not long after Zhu Daolin returned to the study room on the second floor of the Heshan villa, he suddenly found that the temperature had been very different, and after thinking about it, he immediately understood: the Ming Dynasty was in the fateful Xiaoice River period at this time, and Jinling at this time was already after the spring equinox, and in a few days it would be the Qingming Festival where you could wear single clothes and wander the streets.

Before coming back, Zhu Daolin wanted to parachute directly to the town 100 kilometers west of Guiyang, where his old comrade-in-arms Duan Deming was, but he had never been to that place, and this time he specially retrieved a set of twelve pieces of precious secret color porcelain and two Warring States bronze tripods for Song Shaojun's uncle, plus he needed to purchase a lot of goods in the Yangtze River Delta region, which is rich in commodities and developed logistics, including hundreds of tons of copper, 5,000 pieces of jacquard silk, 2,000 sets of European-style bone china tableware and tea sets, etc. Therefore, Zhu Daolin finally decided to return to Heshan Villa, strive to deal with all the affairs at hand within ten days, and then go to Duan Deming to have a look on the spot.

Zhu Daolin finished sorting out the list of goods that needed to be purchased this time, the sky was already bright, he packed up all the bank cards and the separate purchase list, tied up his long shawl hair at will, changed into spring and autumn casual clothes, and began to call relevant customers one by one, and it was already close to 11:20 at noon when he drove out.

Zhu Daolin drove halfway to the printing company, and suddenly remembered Wu Jingxian, his father-in-law, for no reason, and wondered if he had successfully arrived in the capital? After thinking for a moment, he smiled self-deprecatingly, pressed everything in the other time and space in his heart, and concentrated on everything in front of him.

Almost at the same moment, Wu Jingxian, whom Zhu Daolin remembered, was kneeling at the gate of the Heart Cultivation Hall together with his old brother Cao Huachun, who served as the governor of Dongchang.

The eunuch Wang Chengen, the eunuch of the celebrant Bingbi, soon brought an edict from Emperor Chongzhen, announcing that he could be seen.

After announcing the oracle with his head held high, Wang Chengen immediately stepped forward to help his master Cao Huachun and his uncle Wu Jingxian, who had been absent for several years, and reported in a low voice:

"Long live the Lord has just come back from dispersion. At the court meeting, Zhou Yanru and several ministers were half angry, the traitor Kong Youde occupied Dengzhou, and eroded Jiaodong for several months, but the civil and military generals who commanded 100,000 troops to quell the rebellion were repeatedly defeated, and hundreds of thousands of mobs in the northwest entered Shanxi at this critical time, but the courtiers were passing the buck to each other. The infighting is not stopped, and the household department can't take out a tael of silver, long live the master! ”

"Last night, Long Live Lord was still looking forward to the early arrival of your old man, Uncle Shi, and sent the million copper coins and 168,000 catties of copper to the inner treasury as soon as possible."

Wu Jingxian didn't dare to rely on the old man in front of his nephew Wang Chengen, who was in his early thirties, and immediately bowed down to thank him when he heard the words: "After receiving your secret letter yesterday evening, our family saw that the waterway was difficult, so we immediately ordered our subordinates to unload the boat, turn to the land and rush back to the capital overnight, and finally send all the copper coins and copper materials to the inner treasury at dawn. If it weren't for you, Master Cao, to help you all the way. I'm afraid I won't be able to get there yet. ”

Cao Huachun, the old man of the Xinwang Mansion with a very high seniority, smiled slightly, and said, "Go in quickly, you can't let the long-lived Lord wait", Wu Jingxian immediately sent the small wooden box he brought to Wang Chengen, followed behind Wang Chengen with Cao Huachun, bent down and bowed his head, and walked all the way to the door of the imperial study to knock.

Emperor Chongzhen, who had been waiting for a long time, threw down the fold in his hand, strode to Wu Jingxian, who was prostrate on the ground with tears on his face, and carefully looked at the dust and dirt that could not be removed from his robe and the only clean yellowed cloth socks on his feet. couldn't help but sigh faintly, and personally helped up the old man of Xinwangfu, who was still loyal after making a mistake and being demoted. Looking at Wu Jingxian's lips and gray hair that were blown by the cold wind, he said kindly:

"Thank you for your hard work, if it weren't for the things you escorted that I urgently need, I wouldn't have urged you to be so urgent, and now only a few of you can share some worries for me."

"Damn it! It's still too late for the minions......" Wu Jingxian knelt down again, his shoulders shrugged with excitement. couldn't speak, so that Wang Chengen and Cao Huachun on the side couldn't stop crying.

Emperor Chongzhen's eyes were also red, and he bent down again to pull Wu Jingxian up: "Don't kneel, stand and talk, the news has been reported from the inner library." Millions of copper coins and 168,000 catties of copper are counted correctly, as well as three large mirrors that have never been seen before and a large Western pendulum clock that is taller than a person, I feel comforted and guilty, I don't know where to find silver for you to fill in this account, alas! ”

"Okay, let's not talk about this, Wu Jingxian, you tell me, Lao Cao and Wang Chengen, you also tell me, what is the Nanjing civil unrest going on? Why did the first assistant Zhou Yanru and so many Wenchen unanimously impeach Wei Guogong and others and the Taoist priest surnamed Zhu of the Maoshan Sect for gathering people to make trouble and disturb the society? Why did Wen Tiren's faction and many military generals stand up one after another, accusing the officials of the Sixth Ministry of Nanjing and Ying Tianfu of abusing their power and arousing public resentment? What the hell is going on in Nanjing? ”

Wu Jingxian truthfully reported the cause and effect of the incident, and finally said extremely helplessly: "Now the entire southeast is just like what Wei Zhongxian said before his death, and it has long been under the control of the powerful families in various places......"

"After the Donglin Party members supported by the family came to power, they occupied nearly half of the official positions in Nanjing's six ministries and various prefectures and counties in less than three years, and they often said that they were sympathetic to the people's feelings, and that their silence was benevolence, righteousness and morality.

"However, when the imperial court needed to use soldiers and silver, in order to clear up their incompetence, they did not hesitate to move out of the various taxes that were scolded by themselves before and were worthless, so that the Lord of Long Live issued an edict to the world to distribute all taxes to the common people who had nothing, but they did not have to hand over a penny."

"The people of the Ming Dynasty who don't know the details think that the Lord is short of money, so even if the people of the Ming Dynasty are resentful, they will not be counted on the heads of the Donglin Party and those wealthy families."

Emperor Chongzhen's face was full of astonishment, although he had received such secret recitals before, he had never been as detailed and serious as Wu Jingxian said.

Cao Huachun and Wang Chengen were equally surprised, worried about Wu Jingxian, and at the same time wanted to know more about the real thing, so as to corroborate the information they had obtained from the Dongchang secret newspaper and other places.

Wu Jingxian had already prepared to give it a hard fight, so he continued to report without hesitation: "In fact, the Haoqiang of the Southeast family and the Donglin Party have long controlled more than eighty percent of the land in Zhejiang, Nanzhili, Jiangxi and other places, and these lands have been recorded by officials at all levels as meritorious scholars and civil officials in the government and the opposition. ”

"In the past hundred years, according to the ancestral system, these lands have never been paid a penny of taxes to the imperial court, resulting in the imperial court taxes not as good as a year, and the land taxes in various places have almost not been collected in the past three years. There is no commercial tax, even the Ningbo City Bo Division, which had to be reopened as a last resort the year before last, was also under the angry denunciation of the Donglin Party and the secret attack of the powerful family in the southeast, and the sea trade tax paid to the imperial court in the past two years was less than 100,000 taels of silver. ”

"Once someone is different from the southeast family's strong approach, hand over some more copper and silver to the imperial court. They attacked them en masse, suppressed them in every possible way, and did everything they could to keep the benefits they had enjoyed for two hundred years. ”

"It was because of this that Wei Guogong and Ziyangguan Xiaozhu Daochang offended the insatiable southeast family Haoqiang, so that the Donglin Party officials sent 500 officials from two counties and one government in Jinling to wreak havoc, resulting in more than 60 craftsmen and people being seriously injured, Ziyangguan was furious, and summoned all the craftsmen and nearby farmers to protest in the city, hoping to make the matter big enough to reach the heavens!"

Emperor Chongzhen's thin face, which didn't have much blood, was even more gloomy. He slowly walked back to his desk and sat down, staring blankly at the two stacks of pieces more than a foot high on the table, motionless.

Wang Chengen and Cao Huachun were so frightened that they hurriedly went up and handed over water and pleaded for guilt, and it took a while for Emperor Chongzhen to raise his head.

"Wu Jingxian, come closer, come over and tell me about what other actions Wei Guogong has done besides giving me a secret recital? What is the origin of the Maoshan Taoist priest surnamed Zhu? Chongzhen asked calmly.

Wu Jingxian hurriedly replied: "Before the slave leaves." Wei Guogong went to the dock to see him off, and his mood was quite low. There was no mention of how to deal with the problem of the Donglin Party, but the slave told the saint that if the Nanjing Military Department did not pay the military salaries of the guards of the naval division along the Yangtze River for more than a year, I am afraid that the last bit of strength of the Daming naval division would not be able to be saved. ”

"For decades, the Yangtze River Naval Division has not added a single warship, and now it goes up to Jiujiangwei and down to the Baoshan Thousand Households at the mouth of the Yangtze River. The total number of officers and men of all the sailors was less than 8,000, and the weapons were insufficient, and the morale was low, and many of the soldiers had to work as coolies at the docks to feed their families, and only 11 warships and troop transports of more than 400 stone were left. And they are all old ships left over from decades ago, and there are less than 200 other small warships. ”

"This time, the slave entrusted Wei Guogong to transfer the two sand boats to transport 180,000 catties of copper, or borrowed them from local merchants."

"How so? How did I fall into such a situation? If the mob from the northwest or Sichuan rushed to Huguang and went down the water, wouldn't half of the south of the Yangtze River be in danger? Chongzhen was so excited that he got up.

Wang Chengen hurriedly went up to explain: "Shengshang, since last year, Wei Guogong and some military generals in Jiangnan have had a lot of excerpts in this regard, and the Shengshang has every opportunity, and he has put all his energy on the Manchu Tartars in the north and the rebellion in the northwest, so most of these recitals have been transferred to the cabinet ministers and the military department, but there has been no response so far." ”

"The minions dared to guess that the Yangtze River Sailor had long been a dispensable thing in the eyes of the courtiers, and now that the situation is difficult and the treasury is empty, they can't take care of the Sailor who can't help in the south of the Yangtze River."

Although Wang Chengen's words were euphemistic, he still let Emperor Chongzhen hear a lot of things, but now the treasury is empty, internal and external disasters, and wars are everywhere, Emperor Chongzhen just wants to get angry and has no confidence, if he takes Wu Jingxian's statement to the court to discuss, maybe the entire court will be paralyzed in a blink of an eye, and even cause greater shocks and disasters.

Emperor Chongzhen finally calmed himself down again, and he didn't have the heart to listen to the report, and was just about to wave his hand to signal Wu Jingxian and Cao Huachun to retreat, but the shrewd Wang Chengen had already sent the exquisite small wooden box to Chongzhen's desk: "Shengshang, this is a gift brought by Gonggong Wu thousands of miles away to honor his mother, do you need to take a look at it first?" ”

Chongzhen immediately came to the spirit, he loved his gentle and virtuous queen the most, and always felt that after he became the emperor, not only failed to bring glory to his wife, but let his wife suffer with himself, in order to use all the silver to resist the invasion of the Manchu Tartars, Chongzhen has not added a new robe for three years, and even the **** has been patched, and his virtuous wife naturally has no new clothes.

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PS: The second chapter is sent!

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