"Ye Xianggao was appointed as a scholar of the Middle Pole Temple, entered the cabinet as the first assistant, and rewarded and gave 100 coins......"

"Hooray......

Under the Chengtian Gate, accompanied by the reading of the edict of the eunuch, an old minister over sixty years old slowly made a gesture and sang a thank-you salute.

Immediately afterwards, a hundred pieces of gold were rewarded, and the old minister took the money and handed it to a servant behind him.

At this time, the eunuch also smiled and said, "Elder Ye Ge, long live waiting for you in the Wenhua Palace." ”

"Thank you......" The old minister slowly gestured again, and when he arrived here, it was not difficult to guess his identity.

This person is Ye Xianggao, who is known as the lone minister of the late Ming Dynasty, and now he is entering the cabinet again, just to stabilize the crumbling Ming Dynasty.

Under the reminder of the eunuch, Ye Xianggao wore the bullfighting suit given by the emperor and walked towards the Wenhua Hall that he was once very familiar with.

Passing through the Zuoshun Gate, he looked at the Wenhua Hall in the distance and the East Palace beyond, and he didn't know what he was thinking, but after a few seconds, he walked towards the Wenhua Palace.

When he crossed the Golden Dragon Bridge and came to the gate of the Wenhua Palace, there were already dozens of officials from the cabinet, six ministries, and six departments waiting for him here.

"Ye Ge Old ......"

Everyone was fighting, but Ye Xianggao didn't feel happy, but felt that the burden on his shoulders was a little heavier.

He can clearly see that the current situation in the DPRK is very different, the Qingliu who have been suppressed are high-spirited, and the officials of the five parties of Qichu, Zhejiang, Xuankun and Kunming, who were once arrogant, are honest.

The situation has changed......

Ye Xianggao sighed in his heart, and then returned the salute, not favoring the parties, but after making a gesture, he walked into the main hall behind the Wenhua Palace.

Here he met a familiar eunuch.

"Elder Ye Ge, are you here? Then let's go and tell a long live......"

Wei Zhongxian's face was full of smiles, and it seemed that there was some change from when Ye Xianggao left, but Ye Xianggao couldn't say what had changed.

"Ye Ge Lao, long live the ......"

After a while, Wei Zhongxian turned back and continued to compliment Ye Xianggao with a smile on his face.

Ye Xianggao bowed slightly, then bowed back, and then walked into the main hall, and under the leadership of Wei Zhongxian, he went to the side hall of the main hall, and saw Zhu Youxiao, who was sitting in the hall to deal with the music.

"Invincible Begins with Sacrificing to the Ancestors"

"Like ...... It's so much like ......."

Looking at Zhu Youxiao in front of him, Ye Xianggao was a little dazed for a while.

He seemed to see the young Wanli Emperor he saw when he was the left concubine, whether it was in terms of body shape or face shape, the two of them were very similar......

"Elder Ye Ge, please take a seat."

Zhu Youxiao closed the recital and woke up Ye Xianggao, who was still stunned.

Ye Xianggao heard this, saluted in return, and then sat on the chair brought by the eunuchs, sat in it, and lowered his head.

"Elder Ye Ge, this time I invite you to return to the court and re-enter the cabinet, for the sake of the court and me, so if you have anything to say, you can say it with peace of mind, and everything I can do will be agreed."

Zhu Youxiao's attitude was very serious, just because he had heard too much about Ye Xianggao from Emperor Wanli, and he also knew that Ye Xianggao was the most suitable cabinet chief assistant for him at present.

Ye Xianggao was also very grateful to Corporal Lixian of Zhu Youxiao, so he opened his mouth and said:

"The minister once served the emperor for eight years, and at that time, the cabinet and the emperor needed to draft the chapters drafted by the minister, even if the emperor wanted to implement the new law, he had to send an envoy to announce it to the minister."

"If there is anything that is not agreed upon, the ministers will try their best to fight for it, and Emperor Xian will most likely obey and will not forcibly draft any will."

"Long live your humble heart, humility and courtesy, and trust your ministers, but it is inevitable that rumors will give rise to difficult arguments, so you should be cautious about the edict, and all matters must be ordered to be drafted and reported."

"It's nature!" Hearing Ye Xianggao's words, Zhu Youxiao nodded happily, after all, for him, compared to Sun Ruyou and Fang Congzhe's forced palace, Liu Yixiu's political opinions, Ye Xianggao's thoughts were not too much at all.

"In addition, the minister heard that Banzai listened to the advice of the Fifth Highness more on side affairs, and the minister said bluntly......" Ye Xianggao opened his mouth, which immediately made Zhu Youxiao chuckle in his heart.

"The Fifth Highness's idea is good, but the use of Mengyao medicine for a long time will only put the imperial court into another situation."

Ye Xianggao opened his mouth and said his thoughts, and after Zhu Youxiao heard it, he was only silent for a few seconds, and then said:

"My brother will definitely not harm me, at the moment there are more than 200,000 brave soldiers and horses in the court, if it weren't for the fact that the court couldn't come up with so much money and food, I would have issued an order to level the Jianju!"

"The minister didn't mean that......" Ye Xianggao tested the emperor's trust in Zhu Youzhen with a few words, and then reversed the tone and said:

"What His Highness Fifth Highness has done is indeed a good thing in the eyes of the minister......

Expressing his position, Ye Xianggao immediately said:

"The minister has calculated, even if the north and south fields of the Imperial Horse Prison are together, it will only earn more than five million taels per year, and at present, the twelve battalions of the sixteenth guard army in the north are nearly 110,000 soldiers and horses."

"With so many soldiers and horses, the military salaries required are according to the salaries given by the Fifth Highness, and the north and south fields of the Imperial Horse Prison are difficult to bear."

Before Ye Xianggao finished speaking, Zhu Youxiao said:

"Don't worry about this, my brother will solve it, but if it doesn't work, the internal money will also allocate silver, and now the soldiers and horses in Jizhen have been abolished, and Liaozhen has also gone to the vacancy, and the situation is very good."

"Don't hide it from Ye Ge Lao, I am already preparing to transfer the soldiers and horses of the three towns in Shanxi in May to go to aid Liao."

"With the soldiers and horses of these three towns, plus the main soldiers and guest troops of Liaozhen, plus the Six Guards who are about to cross the sea, the old slave can only retreat to the mountains."

Zhu Youxiao is full of confidence in his heart, which comes from his trust in Zhu Youzhen.

However, from his words, Ye Xianggao also knew one thing.

That is the current emperor, different from the previous emperors, and the most different point is that there is a prince who is training soldiers and horses outside.

Although this prince has not yet been crowned king, the military talent he shows is enough to make people look sideways.

Ye Xianggao learned about the Sixteenth Guard Army and the Twelfth Battalion from the letters of Sun Ruyou, Fang Congzhe, Liu Yixiao and others.

And when he arrived in Tianjin, he had already secretly gone to the Sixth Guards Army and the Dagu Camp to see, I have to say, although the training time is very short, the soldiers of this army are very strong, and the only deficiency is that it has not been tested in actual combat.

With such hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses, and it is not empty, it can be said that the central strength of the Ming Dynasty has reached a peak since the Zhengde period.

Such a situation is very good, with these soldiers and horses, it can completely guarantee the consolidation of imperial power, and as long as the imperial power is consolidated and the central force is strong, then the local government will not dare to disobey the yang and the yin.

Why did places like Jiangnan and Huguang not dare to be so yang and yin in Hongwu and Yongle during these years? It's not that the emperor really has the power to pinch them.

Therefore, for Ye Xianggao, it can be said that it is much easier for him to serve as the first assistant of the cabinet this time than he served as the first assistant of the cabinet under Wanli before.

If the power of the imperial power is increased and can compete with the civil officials, then it means that as long as there is an obedient cabinet and six ministries, the emperor's orders can basically be issued to the localities.

Whether the local government does it or not is one thing, and whether the order can be conveyed to the local area is another.

Therefore, Ye Xianggao roughly understood Zhu Youxiao's intention to call himself into the cabinet.

To put it bluntly, he wants to become a microphone between the imperial power and the civil officials.

But this kind of microphone is different from the Wanli period, during the Wanli period, the Zhejiang Party was the dominant party, and even if Ye Xianggao wanted to help Wanli, he was powerless.

But now it is different, the current civil officials are divided, and the originally powerful Zhejiang Party has become weak, and only by uniting the four parties of Qi, Chu, Xuankun can they confront Donglin.

As a result, the situation has become that the imperial power and the civil service are equal in strength, but the civil official is ostensibly divided into two parts, but in fact there are many idle pieces.

In this way, in some things, Ye Xianggao has a lot of operational spatiality.

Thinking of this, he dared to ask Zhu Youxiao: "Long live the next thing you just want to transfer the soldiers and horses of the three towns to aid Liao?" ”

He wanted to ask Zhu Youxiao where his next move would be, but Zhu Youxiao categorically couldn't tell Ye Xianggao directly that he was going to solve the matter of the three towns in Shanxi with his younger brother next, so he could only say:

"Is it feasible to allocate the land endowment to miscellaneous items?"

It's time for the business tax......

Zhu Youxiao said a word, Ye Xianggao was stunned in his heart, and then he was silent, measured the operation space of the apportionment in his heart, and said after a while:

"If the apportionment is small, it may be successful."

"How much? How much less? Zhu Youxiao frowned and asked, while Ye Xianggao was silent for a few seconds before speaking:

"More is one percent, less is half percent."

"Can't more?" Zhu Youxiao continued to ask, while Ye Xianggao shook his head.

The two of them seemed to be guessing riddles, but they were actually discussing the possibility of reducing Tian Fu and increasing miscellaneous income.

But Ye Xianggao also gave an answer, the amount of Tian Fu is too large, and more than 20 million stone fields are given regular grain in the Ming Dynasty every year, and after folding, it ranges from 7 million to 8.5 million taels.

The average share of one achievement is 7,800,000 taels, and the half achievement is 3,400,000 taels.

This amount is very small, even later generations can see that with the population and mobile silver of the Ming Dynasty, such a small amount of silver taels can not be reduced at all, and it cannot increase the taxes of the imperial court.

Therefore, Zhu Youxiao was silent for a few seconds before he spoke:

"If Liaoxiang's additional distribution is evenly shared, how much miscellaneous can be shared?"

"Last year, Liao Xiang was more than 5.2 million taels, all of which were sent from Tian Fu, and in the humble opinion of the ministers, I am afraid that they can only be evenly divided into about 2......0 percent," Ye Xianggao responded.

Twenty percent, that is, about 1,400,000 taels, this is still the biggest concession made by the local gentry in the case of the 16th Guards and 12 battalions of the Northern Zhili.

The reason why there are so many concessions is because most of the gentry have many acres of land, so as long as some field taxes are exempted and miscellaneous items are collected, there is no need to increase the field endowment.

Although this practice will pay hundreds of thousands of taels of additional tax silver in disguise, the emperor has already opened his mouth, and it is not okay for them not to cut the meat.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao also spoke:

"Since that's the case, let's share it evenly, and leave everything to Elder Ye Ge."

"This is a matter within the minister's duty......" Hearing Zhu Youxiao say this, Ye Xianggao breathed a long sigh of relief.

He was most afraid that the emperor would think that with an army of more than 100,000 people, he could ignore the power of the gentry, and then start wielding a butcher's knife to collect taxes.

If you do that, within three months, the whole world will be reversed, the grain will be cut off, and the hungry people will be everywhere in Shuntianfu.

However, this also shows that the emperor is very calm in government affairs, which makes Ye Xianggao a little relieved.

"If the Taifu Temple is transferred to the Imperial Horse Supervisor for merger and management, what does Elder Ye Ge think?"

Suddenly, as soon as Zhu Youxiao spoke, Ye Xianggao's heart immediately tightened.

"Hooray, I'm afraid this won't be possible......"

Taifu Temple, which is a yamen with financial management functions and financial resources, as the Ming Dynasty responsible for the horse administration and animal husbandry institutions, Taifu Temple holds a large number of financial resources such as horse households, pastures and horses.

Horse households refer to horse households, these households were officially organized by the Ming Dynasty government to share the mandatory task of raising horses, the so-called organization is to indicate that the government will organize several families together in accordance with the regulations to raise a horse or raise a horse according to the number of fields.

Those who are assigned according to their households are exempted from other forced labor, and those who are assigned according to their fields are exempted from taxes and grain in their fields, thus realizing the material basis for raising horses and forced labor in the interior through the exemption of grain and labor.

According to the records of Taifu Temple, during the Hongzhi period, Taifu Temple had more than 680,000 horse breeders and more than 16 million acres of land.

This was the case a hundred years ago, and now there may be a lot more fields in Taifu Temple, and this is just the fields, and there are also pastures.

The pasture of Taifu Temple is generally provided by the imperial court to the grassland of horse breeders in various places, and the pasture land of Taifu Temple is as much as more than 4 million mu.

With such a large number of fields and pastures, Taifu Temple will naturally not be poor.

Since the second year of Chenghua began to have a stable silver income, the Taifu Temple in the fourth year of Chenghua built a special Changying Treasury for the silver of the Taifu Temple.

At first, Changyingku's silver income was not much, only more than 30,000 taels per year, but in the Zhengde period it increased to 180,000 taels, and in the Jiajing period it increased to more than 700,000 taels.

After the uplift switch, Changyingku's highest income was 780,000 taels, and although it fell back, its annual income remained between 400,000 and 600,000 taels.

These silver are all horse resources, and in principle, they are only allowed to be used to buy horses, so they are called "horse price silver".

This is only the tip of the iceberg, because with the implementation of the policy of conscription and depreciation of silver, the management of horse administration resources in Taifu Temple has also changed from the management of horse households, horses, pastures and other physical objects to the management of currency, including the conversion of horse administration resources, the expropriation of horse price silver, and so on.

The silver deposits in the Changying Treasury were as much as more than 10 million taels in the Jiajing and Longqing periods, and as the main source of state financial revenue, the annual income of the Tai Warehouse managed by the Ministry of Households was about 4 million taels, but the silver stored in the Tai Warehouse was only 2 or 3 million taels, which was too shabby compared with the Chang Ying Treasury.

Therefore, after Zhu Youzhen rectified the Imperial Horse Prison, Zhu Youxiao also knew that there was a cat in Taifu Temple.

Only the original Imperial Horse Prison, which covers an area of more than 3 million mu, can reach an annual income of 700,000 taels of silver after rectification, while the Taifu Temple, which occupies 20 million mu of fields and pastures, still only has 500,000 or 600,000 taels of silver every year?

This tax ...... is like a ghost in the lake, so Zhu Youxiao raised the idea of handing over the Taifu Temple to his younger brother for rectification.

However, Ye Xianggao's direct refusal was tantamount to a slap in the face for Zhu Youxiao.

Previously, he had been moving the guards, and those problems were related to the honors, and on the lords' side, the British princes and a group of small honors were on his side, so he was able to dismantle the guards of Suncheon and Yongpyeongfu.

But now it is a target for civil officials, and in the absence of a eucalyptus like Huaibei Da Hunger as a means of threat, it is impossible to directly hand over the Taifu Temple to the management of the Imperial Horse Supervisor.

How many cats there are in Taifu Temple, maybe even the officials in charge of him don't know.

They did not have so many people of their own, and in addition to the fact that a large number of local landlords and gentry encroached on the fields and pastures of the Imperial Horse Supervisor, the actual acres and pastures of the Imperial Horse Supervisor was a problem.

If the Taifu Temple is handed over to the emperor like this, for the civil officials, if the emperor wants to track it down, it is equivalent to sending their lives to the guillotine.

Even if Zhu Youxiao promised not to pursue it afterwards, it was impossible for Wenchen to believe him.

This is the basic problem that it is impossible for Taifu Temple to be transferred to the Imperial Horse Supervisor by Zhu Youxiao.

If this problem is not solved, the temple will be firmly controlled by civil officials.

Zhu Youxiao was silent for a few seconds, and then said after thinking:

"At least, the Taifu Temple will send the horse price silver to the East Palace, otherwise it will be difficult to make up the war horse with the imperial horse to supervise the north and south fields."

"This problem can be solved, and tomorrow he will be able to give an answer to Banzai and the one in the East Palace." Ye Xianggao still has the means.

For him, it is difficult to get the Taifu Temple to hand over power, but it is not difficult to get the Taifu Temple to supply the horse price silver.

The so-called horse price silver, that is, the silver two to buy horses, because the Taifu Temple horse farm is corrupt, so it has long been unable to raise war horses independently, and in the event of a war, it is to the silver two and call the nine sides to buy horses.

"In that case, then Elder Ge should go to the Wenhua Hall first to familiarize yourself,"

It was too exhausting to talk to Ye Xianggao, so after getting what he wanted, Zhu Youxiao asked Wei Zhongxian to send him off.

Wei Zhongxian stepped forward to make a bow, and Ye Xianggao also got up to salute in return, and then withdrew from the main hall and went to the Wenhua Hall to familiarize himself with government affairs.

It's just that after Wei Zhongxian sent him away, he turned back and said to Zhu Youxiao:

"Long live, why don't you just let the Fifth Highness send troops to take over the Taifu Temple?"

"It's not that simple...... Zhu Youxiao frowned slightly, and didn't explain to Wei Zhongxian, but he knew everything in his heart.

At present, the Seventh Guards Army is about to march to Liaodong, and in addition to the Beijing camp, there are only less than 80,000 people left in the Sixth Guards and the Twelfth Battalion.

Taifu Temple is a trivial matter, and Zhu Youxiao didn't think he could get his hands on it, but he just mentioned it casually.

The most important thing at the moment is to wait for the Six Guards Army to return from Liaodong after transferring the soldiers and horses of the three towns of Taiyuan, Datong, and Xuanfu, and then to rectify and dismantle the three towns.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao picked up the music and frowned after opening it.

[At noon on the day, Ningxia Hongguangbao was full of haze, falling ash pieces like melon seeds, and the sun would sink into red and yellow, like cooking smoke, covering the acres, and the sun would shoot like flames at night, and on the same day, Yansui Gushan City fell into 35 zhang into the ground, 2 zhang and 7 feet]

Looking at the notes sent by the inspection imperial history, Zhu Youxiao understood that this was the imperial historian who was secretly ridiculing the courtiers.

"Who handed this note? Remove him and send him home to farm! ”

Syllable......

Zhu Youxiao threw the song to the ground, Wei Zhongxian honestly lowered his head and picked it up when he heard this, and then ordered someone to deal with it.

However, when he walked out of the main worship hall, Wang An passed by him.

The two looked at each other deeply, and didn't say anything, just bowed slightly.

After missing it, Wang An entered the palace to pay respect, and then handed in his resignation again.

"Please long live the slave's mind and drop the slave to the south of the Imperial Horse Prison."

Wang An knelt deeply on the ground, which made Zhu Youxiao's brows that had just stretched out furrowed again:

"What? Is it because I'm mean to you that you can't stay in the capital anymore? ”

Zhu Youxiao used my self-title, which showed that he was very angry, but Wang An still bowed to the ground and did not say a word.

"Humph!"

Zhu Youxiao picked up the music and didn't respond, he lowered his head to deal with the song, but looked at Wang An who was kneeling on the ground from time to time, and he didn't like it.

Finally, a quarter of an hour later, Zhu Youxiao suddenly fell on Wang An's back with the music in his hand, and said angrily:

"Get out! The farther you go, the better! ”

"Long live Longen, please take care of the dragon body......"

After receiving a response, Wang An could only get up tremblingly, support himself with his legs that had been kneeling to the point of numbness, and then deeply shook himself and turned to leave.

Looking at Wang An's departing back, Zhu Youxiao only frowned slightly, without much emotion.

In the final analysis, Wang An still mainly serves his father, and his relationship with Zhu Youxiao is not deep, for him, leaving Wang An is to see his younger brother's face, and Wang An's affairs are doing well.

Now that Wang An is leaving, if he can't stay, he simply won't stay, the only question is who Wang An's position will be left to.

In Zhu Youxiao's heart, in fact, the best candidate for this position is Wang Chengen, so Zhu Youxiao saw his honest appearance when he was under his younger brother, and it was just right to be a eunuch with a master of ceremonies and a microphone.

But Zhu Youxiao couldn't pull his face to let his younger brother give people to him, and the imperial horse prison was really not enough, so he put it on hold.

Just as Zhu Youxiao was thinking, familiar footsteps sounded, and he looked up at the door, but saw Wei Zhongxian walking in.

Although he was a little worried about Wei Zhongxian's defection to Concubine Li Kang and not helping him, he was the emperor now, so Zhu Youxiao closed his mouth and said:

"Zhongxian, who do you think is better to sit in the position of the eunuch of the celebrant and the eunuch?"

"This ...... This...... The slave didn't dare to ......" Hearing Zhu Youxiao ask this, coupled with the appearance of Wang Anshu leaving just now, Wei Zhongxian immediately figured everything out.

He may not be politically adept, but he is definitely not a fool.

Wang An is gone, he was driven away, and now the inner court is his biggest!

Wei Zhongxian vented in his heart, but his face was terrified, and the whole person knelt down and said:

"The master of ceremonies is very fair, and the slaves and maids admire him so much that they dare not ......"

"I asked you to recommend a few people, not to ask you to say good things about Wang An here!" Zhu Youxiao raised his hand angrily and slapped the table, and Wei Zhongxian saw that Zhu Youxiao was angry, so he said:

"Li Chaoqin, Liu Ruoyu, Li Yongzhen, and Wang Tiqian are not bad......"

"Then let Li Chaoqin be the eunuch in charge of the seal, Liu Ruoyu as the eunuch of the admiral, Li Yongzhen as the eunuch in the hall, and Wang Tiqian as the eunuch of Bingbi." After Zhu Youxiao finished speaking, he closed the recital:

"You go and do this, step down."

"Slave Commands ......"

Wei Zhongxian slowly withdrew from the main worship hall, and then the hall was quiet again.