The world doesn't spin because of who it lacks, even the most influential people.

The news of the king of Qi's inauguration was like a cold north wind, and the capital announced the world with one notice after another.

For most of the people of the Ming Dynasty, they did not feel the impact of the departure of King Qi on them.

All the effects will not be felt until many years later, and the same is true of the case of the King of Qi.

Except for a group of ordinary people who had experienced the Zhang Juzheng period, everyone else just regarded the king of Qi as a tea dinner, and even within two months of his departure, there were many voices attacking him among the people.

"King Qi is mean and unkind, just relying on him to be the younger brother of Banzai, and taking away the merits of Banzai."

"That is, when he was there, natural disasters and man-made disasters every year, and now as soon as he leaves, the drought will subside immediately, and I think he is a ...... Scourge! ”

"There used to be so many people in my family, all because he was reluctant to distribute food, and all of them moved to the old port where birds don't, and I don't know how many people died along the way."

"It has to be to see Banzai and His Royal Highness the Prince, look at it, the days will get better and better in the future......"

There is never a shortage of fools in the world, and a group of hindsight always attacked him with the fact that Zhu Youzhen was engaged in a big migration during the post-mortem period, and completely denied his merits.

Although such voices always attract abuse from most of the people, they always spread around at an alarming speed.

The officials had not yet adapted to the departure of King Qi, but this group of fools was the first to adapt.

But even if you can't get used to it, there's enough time to wash it all down.

Time flies, and the New Year's Day Festival of the twenty-fourth year of the Apocalypse arrives as scheduled.

This was the first time in twenty-four years that the courtiers faced a great court meeting without the King of Qi.

In the past, even if the king of Qi went out to fight, or something could not come, the courtiers were always on pins and needles.

But today, the news of the arrival of the King of Qi in the western capital of Qi has come, and the distance between the two sides is tens of thousands of miles, and a sense of relaxation begins to permeate when the officials get up, and when they arrive outside the emperor's gate, the officials can't hide their smiles.

This phenomenon was not until the opening of the Huangji Gate and the Jinyi Wei Jing Whip came to an end.

Honglu Temple Qing struck the bell, sang into the class, hundreds of civil and military ministers entered the hall in turn, according to the step.

They were dressed in court robes and headed by a cabinet, which in turn was headed by the Three Kings.

Zhu Ciran, Zhu Ciyan, and Zhu Cijiong were dressed in crown clothes, holding jade gui, and looking at their noses and noses.

"Sing—"

"Long live Your Majesty... Banzai... Hooray......"

When Honglu Siqing's voice sounded again, hundreds of officials saluted one after another.

They did not kneel to the head, because Zhu Youxiao announced the abolition of this etiquette yesterday, which also announced that the Ming Dynasty no longer had the rule of kneeling.

While the ministers were waiting, Zhu Youxiao, who was dressed in a crown robe, walked out of the screen and sat on the chair that symbolized power.

"Flat!"

As his voice sounded, the ministers straightened their waists one after another, and at the same time saw his situation.

Compared with two months ago, Zhu Youxiao has lost a lot of weight.

"Something to play, nothing to retreat ......"

He didn't have much of the mood at the court meeting, because the real things could be decided by him and the cabinet and the three kings in the Qianqing Palace.

The officials also knew this, and Hong Chengchou, who was the elder of the pavilion, stepped forward when he saw this:

"Your Majesty, the first assistant of the minister's cabinet, Hong Chengchou, the drought has subsided this year, the people are Lai'an, and the six ministries have discussed with the cabinet that this year's summer tax and autumn tax can be collected."

"Hmm...... Aiqing drafts a charter and submits it to the celebrant supervisor. ”

Zhu Youxiao readily agreed to collect taxes, after all, if the agricultural tax is not collected, the finances of the Ming Dynasty will go bankrupt.

"The Minister's Decree ......"

Hong Chengchou knew that Zhu Youxiao would agree, so he retreated to his position after speaking.

After that, the hundred officials did not speak for a long time, and Honglu Siqing also struck the bell and sang when he saw this: "Retire ......"

"Hooray......

In the sound of long live, Zhu Youxiao took the lead in getting up and leaving, and the hundred officials also left the venue in turn.

Without the King of Qi, the Great Dynasty restored the rules of the Wanli period, which were mainly based on celebration, and everything was decided between the cabinet, the emperor, and the three kings.

On the fifteenth day of the first month, the news of the resumption of agricultural taxes spread all over the world, and the people were already prepared for this, after all, the period of King Qi was exempted from drought in that year, and the drought receded and the land was collected.

The Ming Dynasty was generally politically stable this year, and the officials had not yet come out of the shadow of the Qi Dynasty.

Although the people have come out of the 17 years of natural and man-made disasters, because of the natural and man-made disasters of the past 17 years, every family has lived a particularly frugal life.

As for Emperor Zhu Youxiao, he often summoned the three county kings of the Qi palace to reward the local offering of gold and silver, precious stones and jade.

The overall affairs of the Ming Dynasty are still in the hands of the East Palace, but every time Zhu Ciran finishes handling government affairs, he needs to hand over the song to the celebrant and transfer it to the emperor Zhu Youxiao for inspection.

The order of the Ming Dynasty did not change in this year, but the whole country celebrated because of the king of Qi.

On the sixth day of the fourth month, Qi signed a trade treaty with Tang, Kyrgyzstan and Huai, which read:

"As far as it can, the State of Qi provides economic support for a certain amount of grain in the Three Kingdoms every year, and with the approval of the imperial court, supports the handicraft industries of the Three Kingdoms."

This treaty came into effect on the first day of the first month of the 25th year of the Apocalypse, and it was also backed up on the day it was signed, and at the same time it was sent to the capital to be supervised by Zhu Ciran, Zhu Cijiong, and Zhu Cijiong, who came from the Zongren Mansion.

On June 15, the treaty was endorsed by the Daming Sect.

On July 12, Zhu Youzhen, the king of Qi, issued an order to encircle and suppress the cannibal tribe entrenched in Zhulin Mansion with 9,000 troops led by Sun Yingyuan.

On July 26, the Battle of Marston Moor broke out.

On the second day of August, General Cromwell led his troops to break the left flank of Prince Rupert's army and stormed the center of Wang's army.

Because Wang's army was equipped with enough flintlock muskets, Cromwell was repulsed by the Chinese army, and each side retreated, with more than 2,000 casualties each.

During the same period, Spanish troops supported the Holy Roman Empire, repelling the Swedish army led by Gustav II.

Due to the frequent fighting, the Protestant League Army and the Catholic Alliance Army tacitly stopped the fighting and rested to prepare for the next stage of the competition.

On the ninth day of August, King Felipe IV of Spain wrote a handwritten letter to Zhu Youzhen, the king of Qi, hoping that Qi would increase the volume of trade in the treaty, so that Spain could continue to stabilize domestic prices and increase the confidence of the people in the war.

On September 17, the volume of trade with Spain increased by 30% on the basis of the original one.

On October 15, the Ministry of Household Affairs of the Ming Dynasty submitted a note announcing this year's financial situation.

In the new year, without the impact of the disaster, the Ming Dynasty collected more than 5,620,000 taels of agricultural taxes, and more than 43,000,000 taels of state-owned monopoly taxes such as commercial taxes, salt taxes, and mining taxes.

In the twenty-fourth year of the Apocalypse, the tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty was 100,624,000 taels, the expenditure was more than 84 million taels, and the net income of Taicang was 15,950,000 taels, which was the first net income of the Ming Dynasty in the past ten years.

In the same year, the top five countries in the world in terms of finance were:

The Mughal Empire, with a treasury of about 16 million taels.

The Spanish Empire, with a treasury of about fifteen million taels.

Qi State, the treasury is about 13 million taels.

The Ottoman Empire, with a treasury of about 13 million taels.

France, with a budget of about 12 million taels......

"Counting the Mining Division, the Financial Department has 26 million deposits."

On the sixth day of the winter month, on the snowy days in the capital, Zhu Ciran, who looked more mature than at the beginning of the year, held the music and sat Li Changgeng, the head of the household.

"Back to Your Highness, it is true."

Li Changgeng responded, and Zhu Ciran also took the opportunity to speak:

"Counting the time, it is time to repay part of the national debt."

"Allocate 20 million taels to repay part of the national debt, and allocate another 6 million taels to purchase grain from the four provinces of Luchuan, Jiugang, and Northeast China.

Zhu Ciran said that due to the favorable wind and rain this year, the four northeastern provinces and the old port of Luchuan and other places have ushered in a bumper harvest, so the imperial court must make arrangements so that the grain of the peasants in the six provinces will not rot at home.

"The minister also plans to do the same, but the five armies are all in the governor's mansion, and recently the Nanyu and Lu Mi countries have their own plans to send troops to Hezhong, Mongolia, please transfer two million taels of military expenses."

Li Changgeng said the situation he was facing, which made Zhu Ciran frown:

"It costs two million taels to beat a Mughal?"

"The recital of the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies is indeed written like this, and the specific ministers do not know." Li Changgeng replied.

"Pass Li Dingguo into the palace." Zhu Ciran turned his head and greeted Li Yongzhen.

Seeing this, Li Yongzhen returned the salute, and then went down to send someone to summon him.

Before Li Dingguo arrived, Zhu Ciran also said to Li Changgeng:

"Recently, I flipped through many notes during the period of Uncle Qi's imprisonment, and found that some of them could not be found, I asked Hong Ge Lao, Hong Ge Lao said that he was burned by Sun Ge Lao, but there is such a thing?"

The old Sun Ge in Zhu Ciran's mouth is naturally the former emperor Sun Chengzong, but Li Changgeng is not surprised by his question, but answers:

"King Qi once said during the period of the imperial court that some of the pieces that were not conducive to the rule of the imperial court would be destroyed after the execution, which was not only done by Sun Gelao, but also by Bi Ge Lao and Gu Ge Lao."

"Hmm......" Zhu Ciran didn't say much, but he knew it with an indifferent expression.

Seeing this, Li Changgeng didn't say much, but quietly waited for Li Dingguo, who was the governor of Shangzhi, to arrive.

A quarter of an hour passed in such silence, and after a short time they heard footsteps coming from outside the Chunhe Palace.

Li Yongzhen walked into the hall with Li Dingguo, who was handling government affairs in Wuying Palace, and as a salute, Li Dingguo said that he did not call it a thousand years old, because Zhu Ciran asked him to do it.

"Have you seen the Sulu Lost Kingdom and the Mughal recital on the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies?"

Zhu Ciran's tone was friendly to Li Dingguo, and Li Dingguo nodded when he heard this:

"I've seen it, the price of two million taels is a bit high, so Shangzhi has already sent people to the Northern Army and the Western Army to check."

"The answer given by the two armies was to replace part of the armor."

"Since the fourteenth year of the Apocalypse, due to the financial embarrassment of the imperial court, the armor of the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies has not been replaced, and it has always been mended for another three years."

"However, the current war is different from before, and I think it is better to use hydraulic paper cotton cuirass as the main armor."

Li Dingguo's words made Zhu Ciran nod in approval, and the paper cotton cuirass is, to put it bluntly, a steam hydraulic press to wrap five catties of paper tendons and three catties of cotton into a armor, and then use hard cloth to mount the bones and paint the armor.

The weight of such a cuirass is only eight catties, and if you want to add group armor and gauntlets, the overall weight can be controlled within eighteen catties.

This kind of armor was first used by Zhu Youzhen for the southern infantry, because of its light body, it can make people drift on the water for a quarter of an hour after falling into the water, so it is used by the navy.

Later, it was introduced into the army, and the paper armor of the army non-commissioned officers was the upper body and lower body (over the knee) as the main protective parts.

Because the armor is one inch thick and light, arrows and bird guns cannot penetrate beyond fifty paces, and long spears and short knives cannot easily break through defenses, so it is loved by the majority of the army.

The cost of paper armor was not expensive in the Ming Dynasty, which had entered industrialization, but due to insect damage, it was more laborious to maintain.

Normally, ancient and modern dynasties mainly changed their nails, but the Ming army relied on rifles with a range of 400 paces and did not care, coupled with financial embarrassment, so most of the armor of the Ming army was not replaced.

This time, the Governor's Office of the Five Armies wanted to replace the armor of the Northern Army and the Western Army, and it would cost 500,000 taels of silver, to say the least.

With the addition of gunpowder and baggage, and the recruitment of people, two million taels is not much.

However, fighting a defensive war was not what Li Dingguo wanted, so he said to Zhu Ciran:

"The King of Qi once said that if you defend for a long time, you will lose, and the best defense is to attack, so I think that when the army is sent to attack first, it is not to seek to capture the city, but to destroy its production, so that the enemy army has no stable supply location on the front line!"

What Li Dingguo said was one of the common methods used by the Central Plains Dynasty against nomads.

Every autumn, the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty had to go out of the city to burn the grassland north of the city for 100 miles, and if necessary, to burn 300 miles, the purpose of which was to increase the cost of the nomads' southern invasion.

The Mughals were different from ordinary nomads, but in the end, even if he became an agricultural country, the Ming would have the means to deal with him.

Burning food, destroying roads and bridges, and increasing the cost of the Mughals out of Khyber Pass.

For the Ming army, it only took more than 10,000 cavalry and horse infantry to destroy the supply villages hundreds of miles northwest of the Mughals.

With the power of their rifles, it would have been difficult for the Mughals to resist and stop this army.

In addition, the Mughal interior was already densely populated, and large tracts of arable land were recovered by the Ming army and there was a shortage of food, so every war was launched like a gamble.

The current Ming Dynasty and Mughal have a bit of a feeling of the early Qing Dynasty and the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Every time Huang Taiji sent troops, he was weakening the Ming Dynasty, and every time the Ming Dynasty attacked, he was gambling.

As long as he loses a few times in a row, and then he doesn't need to make a move from the Ming Dynasty, the Mughal himself will die in the struggle of internal forces.

"According to you, how many men and horses to send and how much to increase military spending......"

Zhu Ciran still relies on Li Dingguo very much in the military, after all, this is what Zhu Youzhen has always explained to him.

"Four battalions of 12,000 cavalry, to support the war, up to 200,000 taels of military spending."

Li Dingguo opened his mouth firmly, and Zhu Ciran asked again: "Do you personally command the troops?" ”

"This is the internal affairs of the Northern Army and the Western Army, and I will have a bit of merit when I go." Li Dingguo shook his head and recommended:

"I recommend Zhu Fuju of the Northern Army and Ma Xianglin of the Western Army, and the two of them each lead two battalions of cavalry to set off from the Khyber Pass and the Zhou Guoshui Pass, which is enough to inflict heavy damage on the southern captives and let them recuperate for a while."

"Good ......" Zhu Ciran did not refute or put forward opinions, but directly agreed, and looked at Li Changgeng:

"Allocate 2.3 million taels to the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies, and the East Palace will order to enter the southern country to quell the rebellion."

"Yes......" Zhu Ciran still has the name of the prison country on his body, and it is impossible for Li Changgeng to refute it, so he naturally agreed.

However, this matter still has to be decided by the cabinet meeting, and finally the emperor Zhu Youxiao can be decided.

"The minister retired ......"

Seeing that Zhu Ciran had lost what he wanted to explain, Li Changgeng withdrew from Chunhe Palace with interest.

Li Dingguo also wanted to leave, but was stopped by Zhu Ciran's eyes.

After Li Changgeng left, Zhu Ciran frowned at Li Dingguo in front of Li Yongzhen and said:

"The cabinet has burned Uncle Qi's reply, do you know?"

"Yes!" Li Dingguo didn't think about it: "This is what His Royal Highness himself explained back then, and destroyed some of the policies that were not conducive to the rule of the dynasty in batches after implementation. ”

"Is there a standard?" Zhu Ciran still frowned and asked, which made Li Dingguo sense that something was wrong, but he still continued:

"Specifically, such as the arrest of labor campers, the use of labor camps for local construction, and the provocation of various countries, and ......"

Li Dingguo said a long list of standards, but none of them said what Zhu Ciran wanted to hear.

Seeing that Li Dingguo finished speaking, Zhu Ciran asked himself: "In other words, does this not include the disposition of the four major cases?" ”

"Naturally, it doesn't!" Li Dingguo frowned and explained without waiting for Zhu Ciran to finish:

"His Royal Highness personally said that the officials involved in the four major cases must be filed, and the content of the recital and the reply must be retained, and the officials involved are not allowed to be officials for three generations."

"Does my uncle have an exact order?" Zhu Ciran grasped the point.

"There should be, I was in Yanran at the time, and I should ask Wang Daban and Cao Daban specifically." Li Dingguo explained, but this explanation gave Zhu Ciran a headache.

Without him, Wang Chengen went to Qi with Zhu Youzhen, and Cao Huachun also crossed east by boat in April of this year.

They left, and as for the decree that Li Dingguo said, Zhu Ciran didn't see it, indicating that it had been destroyed.

"You mean, someone burned the recital and the reply of the four major cases?" Li Dingguo noticed that something was wrong, and Zhu Ciran's nod made him frown even more.

"I also found out after occasionally flipping through it, Hong Chengchou said that it was burned by Sun Chengzong or the previous cabinet, but I feel that it should not be Sun Chengzong and Bi Ziyan."

Zhu Ciran explained, and Li Dingguo also frowned after hearing this: "There is no need for Hong Chengchou to do something to burn His Highness for the sake of the people in the four major cases. ”

"Gu Bingqian is even more unlikely, during his tenure, there were only two of the four major cases, and he ......died of illness three years ago."

Li Dingguo was silent as he spoke, and Zhu Ciran also frowned, wondering who did this.

At this time, footsteps sounded outside the Chunhe Palace, and Sun Kewang walked into the hall in front of everyone:

"Your Highness......" Sun Kewang shook his head, which made Zhu Ciran clench his fists:

"It seems that I can't find it even if I want to......"

"What do you mean?" Li Dingguo was a little confused, but Zhu Ciran gritted his teeth and said:

"Sun Chengzong is dead......"

(End of chapter)