The emperor's words have been exported, at least there is no reason to take it back in this golden palace, and it is impossible for Yang Yiqing to argue with reason at this time, not to mention that he may not be reasonable, but it is impossible to let the household department simply take the silver like this, and it is not too late to discuss it after the court meeting is over.

Unlike Yang Yiqing's depressed stomach, the happiest person in the Golden Palace at this time was Zhai Luan.

It is true that he is an auxiliary minister of the cabinet, but his status is not high, and he is an insignificant existence, and his main responsibility is to serve as the secretary of the Ministry of Works.

However, there were so many major projects in the Jiajing Dynasty, but the Ministry of Industry didn't even drink the soup, and as the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, Zhai Luan's pressure can be seen.

Now it's okay, the Son of Heaven directly built a city on the grassland, and handed over ten such super projects to the Ministry of Industry, and I dare not say that the Ministry of Industry will have nothing to do in three years!

In this way, he, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, can be regarded as giving a satisfactory explanation to his subordinates.

As for how to build a city on the grassland, what difficulties there will be, and how to recruit craftsmen under the premise of not using forced labor, these messy things are not his turn to worry about as the secretary of the Ministry of Industry.

Building cities, opening to traffic, trade, circulating officials, deterring, and weakening the power of the grassland tribes are a series of means used by Zhu Houwei to deal with the grassland.

As long as these things are done exactly according to his plan, Zhu Houwei doesn't believe that the grassland can still make any big waves.

The matter of the grassland is taken to the top of the dynasty, it is nothing more than to give the Manchu officials a breath, and if you really want to talk about it, you have to go to the imperial study, negotiate with several important ministers, and then implement it by them, this is the status quo of today's Ming politics.

After the end of the Great Dynasty, more than ninety percent of the officials left the Golden Palace, each returned to the Yamen office, and in addition to the six auxiliary ministers of the cabinet who stayed to continue to harass the emperor, there were also Xie Qian, the secretary of the Ministry of Officials, and Wang Qiong, the secretary of the Ministry of War, a total of eight.

Wang Qiong was really disheartened, and he had lost face at the court meeting, so he didn't plan to continue to do this unfortunate military secretary, so he stayed and planned to take off his hat.

As for Xie Qian, he is now sixty-five, and he has entered the official career since Chenghua was the top student in high school for eleven years, and he has gone through Chenghua, Hongzhi, Zhengde, and Jiajing in this life, and belongs to the pure elders of the Four Dynasties.

During the Zhengde period, the eunuch Liu Jin was favored, and Xie Qian, Liu Jian, and Li Dongyang, who were known as the three virtuous ministers, wanted to put Liu Jin to death, but in the end, under the absolute will of the Son of Heaven, they ended dismally, leaving Li Dongyang alone in the officialdom and Liu Jin to reluctantly deal with him.

In August of the first year of Jiajing, Zhu Houwei personally issued an edict ordering him to return to the court, Xie Qian had no choice but to pack up and return to the capital.

According to Xie Qian's qualifications, even if he was allowed to join the cabinet to replace Yang Tinghe as the first assistant, it would be more than enough, but the cabinet at that time was already overcrowded, and Yang Tinghe was also favored by Emperor Jiajing, so Zhu Houwei appointed Xie Qian as the official of the ministry, as for Tingtui, that was a formality.

Xie Qian also knew that Emperor Jiajing was completely different from the first three emperors he had served, this was an extremely assertive, ambitious, and unswervingly moving forward for his own ideas.

You can have your own thoughts, you can have your own governance program, but you can't go against the emperor's ideas, otherwise it will be wrong, and what is right is also wrong.

The officials control the promotion, dismissal, merit examination, Jingcha, etc., these are the duties of the officials, and they are also what Xie Qian should do.

Emperor Jiajing hates corruption and corruption, it belongs to the big greed must be punished, and the small greed depends on the situation, the emperor controls the black materials of I don't know how many officials, and he can use fair and honest reasons to depose officials anytime and anywhere.

One of the functions of Jingcha is to verify the corruption of officials, and the emperor can kill officials in the name of corruption at any time, but the officials know nothing?

That would be a dereliction of duty!

Therefore, when Xie Qian became the secretary of the ministry, he intensified the scrutiny of corruption, and in less than a year, more than 100 officials were dismissed because of a large amount of corruption!

The government and the opposition can be said to have complained a lot during this time, not to mention that everyone is in danger, but at least they are also dissatisfied with Xie Qian's way of governing the government.

Xie Qian will also come to the imperial study, which does make Zhu Houwei a little strange, is it for the purpose of sending officials to the grassland?

This is a bit of a rush.

The eight important ministers were given seats when they saw the ceremony, and Zhu Houwei smiled lightly: "You Aiqing want to talk to me about the grassland this time?"

As soon as Wang Qiong was about to speak, he heard Yang Yiqing speak: "Your Majesty wants to build ten cities in the grassland, and the ministers don't want to ask, they just want to ask Your Majesty, the silver for building the city ......."

"Is there a shortage of money in the household?" Zhu Houwei asked rhetorically.

"This ......" Yang Yiqing said with a suffocation: "The household finances are now more abundant than ever, but the cost of building the city is huge, and it is difficult for the household to bear the ...... alone."

The meaning in the words is very simple, you can build a city, but you have to pay for this silver, the emperor, and you have to pay at least half of it.

Who let the emperor you have silver pinch.

"Zhai Aiqing."

"The minister is here."

"Zhai Aiqing is also the leader of the Ministry of Industry, since the Ministry of Industry is responsible for building the city, can Zhai Aiqing consider how much silver is needed to build a new city?"

Zhai Luan thought for a while and said: "The city is big and small, the city walls are high and short, if you build a city like Huzhou in the Central Plains, and build the city wall with the aperture, the silver cost will not exceed 500,000 taels, but if you build a male city like Liangjing, it will take at least one million taels or more, and this is still the case of conscription."

However, the grassland is not the Central Plains, and if you want to build a city on the grassland, first of all, manpower, and then the transportation of city building materials, etc., it is estimated that it will have to be at least doubled or doubled.

If Your Majesty wants to build ten heroic cities in the grassland, according to the old minister's estimate, at least 100,000 people will have to be hired, which will last at least three or five years, and the silver cost of the ten cities will not be less than fifteen million taels! ”

"Fifteen million taels ......" Zhu Houwei said with a smile: "Even if 20 million taels is good, now the household department has more than 10 million taels of silver left every year, according to the time of building the city in three years, it will cost the household department 6 million taels a year, is it very difficult?"

Yang Yiqing shook his head and said: "The household department has a surplus, but there are too many places in the world to use silver, drought, locust plague, Yellow River flood, etc., once you encounter the household department, you have to take silver, Your Majesty, although the household department is more comfortable, but you can't eat grain, you have to take precautions."

Zhu Houwei's most annoying thing is dealing with the household, no matter who does the position of the household, it will become very calculating and annoying......

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