After Zhu Youzhen finished speaking, he looked at the seven cabinet ministers sitting in front of him.

At this time, the senior officials on both sides also looked at the seven cabinet ministers.

As a member of the Cabinet, he is in charge of the center of the empire, and he can even sit in front of His Majesty, so he naturally has to take responsibility.

What's more, Zhu Youzhen has already issued an order that the cabinet members can discuss politics today, and the rest of the ministers are only qualified to listen to politics.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen's so-called plea just now was actually only addressed to these seven cabinet members.

Fan Jingwen and the other seven cabinet members also understood in their hearts that although they had the right to discuss politics, they did not have the right to make decisions.

In the end, it is His Majesty who makes the decision.

Therefore, now that Zhu Youzhen said that they are allowed to speak their minds freely, they are not worried that they will bear the consequences of the chaos.

According to the previous system, the person who gave advice was generally the official of the science and Taoism.

But now Zhu Youzhen has specially changed the rules of the petty official system and big officials, that is, he wants the old people who seek the country to discuss countermeasures with him.

Because most of the admonitions made by the officials of the science and Taoism before he read it were the same, what kind of pro-virtuous ministers are far from villains, following the ancestral system, preaching filial piety and other Confucian theories, there is no practical value.

Fan Jingwen, a scholar of the Jianji Palace, that is, the first assistant of the cabinet, stood up first.

This cabinet chief assistant was temporarily promoted by Zhu Youzhen, and his ability is naturally not as good as Yang Sichang and others, but he is selfless.

Zhu Youzhen smiled slightly, as the first assistant of the cabinet, Zhu Youzhen felt very satisfied, at least it shows that Fan Jingwen dares to take responsibility.

Returning to the throne, Zhu Youzhen raised his hand slightly: "Fan Aiqing, but please speak up." ”

"Weichen obeyed the order, Qi Your Majesty, as far as Weichen knows, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other Shaanxi thieves began to be in turmoil since the second year of Chongzhen, Chongzhen once appeased Zhang Xianzhong in the thirteenth year, defeated Li Zicheng, and the trouble of thieves in the Ming Dynasty was slightly calmer;

But in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng made a comeback, attacked and opened the seal three times, and my Ming elite suffered countless losses, Zhang Xianzhong also surrendered and rebelled, and finally now the thief fell into Beijing. ”

"The minister thought about it carefully, and found that these two thieves who disturbed my Ming Dynasty were both Shaanxi refugees, and Shaanxi is a dry land in the north, and has always faced both the invasion of the northern Tartars and the harassment of the internal border army, so the people have been in distress for a long time;

Since the beginning of the Wanli period, the national government has levied three additional taxes on the acres of land, and Shaanxi and other northern countries have more acres of land but less output, so that the people pay more taxes and the people have less income, so the number of displaced people increases, and they also rebel. ”

"Compared with the south, there has never been a major upheaval, because all the princes in the court are southerners, the south has less acres of land but high output, so the tax is less and more, and the water conservancy is developed, there is no drought and natural disasters and man-made disasters of the Tatar soldiers and bandits, so the south is not chaotic, but the north is in chaos, and even led to the end like this, Shaanxi thief Li Zicheng trapped the Beijing division, Zhang Xianzhong occupied Bashu."

"The minister went all the way south, only to see thousands of villages withering in the north, the people were displaced, and even more so, there were children and daughters, and they were eaten by their children! Bandits are rampant! There are barely intact villages, but they are continued to be exploited by the government and looted excessively. And the thief said that the king came and did not pay the grain, which naturally made the people follow. ”

Therefore, in the eyes of the minister, now the Ming Dynasty is fighting for the hearts of the people and appeasing Li Shu!

In the past, Tang Taizong said that the king is the boat, the people are the water, and the water can carry the boat or overturn the boat; Today, the Ming Dynasty should exempt the northern tax for three or four years, and the southern tax will not be levied, so as not to lose the hearts of the people in the north and south.

At the same time, the displaced people were recruited and encouraged to open up the wilderness, so that they would not become thieves or thieves, and the chaos in the world would be solved. ”

Zhu Youzhen understood that Fan Jingwen paid more attention to people's livelihood.

And at this time, the second assistant of the cabinet, Gao Hongtu, a scholar of Wenhuadian University, also stood up:

"The country is poor and the people are lacking, and the world urgently needs to recuperate, as the first man said, but Weichen believes that His Majesty should not only be the heart of Li Shu, but also the heart of the officials and scholars."

"In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, if Your Majesty does not believe in Gao Hongtu Yang Sichang's slander, so that Lu Xiangsheng is buried in the hands of Jiannu, the rebellion of the Liukou may not recur again, naturally if Your Majesty is not eager to calm down and let Yuan Chonghuan kill Mao Dudu, maybe Jiannu will not easily enter the customs and plunder, and the world may still be able to rule;

It's a pity that His Majesty is not human, and he is in a hurry, and his grace is unpredictable, so that the people of the world do not know how to repay His Majesty, and His Majesty does not know how to believe in the world's scholars. ”

"Therefore, in the view of Wei Chen, Your Majesty is temporarily visiting Nanjing today, you should guard against your anxiety, do not kill the minister because of personal anger, do not listen to biased beliefs, and should reward and punish clearly, you should not only hope for hundreds of officials, nor should you only seek credit for yourself, when the monarch and ministers are harmonious, work together to tide over difficulties, Qian Qianyi's rebellion case, must not be handled, nor can it be wantonly expanded, so that hundreds of officials are frightened and have no intention of doing politics."

"Your Majesty is the Ming Jun of the world, work hard, the emperor will not live up to Your Majesty, as long as Your Majesty is eclectic and trusts the ministers, why worry about my father-in-law Han Shizhong!"

Gao Hongtu's remarks, although Zhu Youzhen felt that he was talking about himself.

However, Zhu Youzhen had to admit that he did have these problems before, and Gao Hongtu's meaning was to appease the hearts of the bureaucrats and gentry, which he naturally understood.

At this time, Li Banghua, a scholar of Wuyingdian University, also stood up:

"What the two elders said before, roughly speaking, one is to care for the hearts of the people, and the other is to appease the hearts of hundreds of officials, which are all important matters at the moment;

But what Weichen wants to ask the two elders is, since the people's taxes must be reduced or reduced, and the privileges of hundreds of officials must be maintained, then who should raise the millions of elite soldiers of my Ming Dynasty? ”

"Although Wu Sangui, Liu Zeqing, Liu Liangzuo and others are all traitors and thieves without a king and a country, the officers and soldiers under their command poison the people more than thieves, why is this the result, in the minister's view, it is not unrelated to the shortage of military salaries in the Ming Dynasty, officers and soldiers can only fight for food without salaries, and the court has no pay to allocate naturally can not control the officers and soldiers with military discipline, so that the soldiers mutiniate at every turn, and the officers and soldiers are bandits."

Therefore, Weichen believes that the top priority at the moment should be to clarify how to use the wealth of the world to support the country's soldiers, so that the officers and soldiers will not have the heart to fight to the death, and the people will not love the army;

If most of today's wealth is concentrated in the hands of the gentry, wealthy businessmen and magnates, Your Majesty may be able to appease his heart as the elder Gao Ge said, but these officials, gentry, wealthy businessmen and tycoons who occupy the benefits of the world should also have the obligation to pay taxes to raise millions of elite soldiers for the imperial court! ”

Li Banghua's questioning made the officials present not know how to answer, although they all knew this truth, but they were unwilling to face this question.

"At the beginning of the dynasty, the world was based on agriculture, so agricultural taxes were used to help the world. Nowadays, the government and business are integrated, and the land has been fully entered into the hands of the gentry, and the gentry do not pay taxes and taxes, so that the poorer and weaker Li Shu supports the richer and richer gentry.

The wealth of the Ming Dynasty is so uneven, how can it not make the people rebel against the officials, although the micro-ministers are also a member of the Lu beetle that eats the interests of the people, which is harmful to the imperial court, but in order to make the country rich and there are millions of elite soldiers to raise, the micro-ministers are willing to implore Your Majesty to ban the malpractice of the gentry who have not paid food over the years! In order to implement the policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business, heavy taxes should be imposed on the business and trade industry, so that the people's livelihood can recuperate. ”

As a member of the Eunuch Party, what he was most disgusted with was that the Donglin Party and the businessmen had a nest of snakes and rats, which made the people of the world miserable, so he took advantage of His Majesty to let them speak freely, and saw that Li Banghua, whom His Majesty trusted, opened his mouth first, so he also expressed his intention to redivide the interests between the gentry and the common people.