Yu Zhong stayed in Anqing for half a month, and after visiting Luo Xin, he had to leave for Sichuan because there was not much time left to take office.

And his departure and arrival can be regarded as officially unveiling the curtain of Kangxi's 42nd year.

In Beijing, the eldest brother Yinchu and the eighth elder brother Yinyu and a group of people cleaned up the deficit of the national treasury. Although their strength is not weak, however, the party members above the crown prince Yinren are hindered from time to time, and hundreds of civil and military officials below are resisting, so it is conceivable that their actions are not smooth. Even if they could use the two attendants sent by the prince, Zhu Tianbao and Chen Jiayou, to fend off attacks from all sides from time to time, the speed of clearing the deficit was still slow. However, that doesn't mean they can't do anything about it. There is a good saying: risk always comes with opportunity! Maybe this sentence is not very suitable here, but after a period of "selfless" performances, Yinchu and Yinzhen began to get off the donkey with the "persuasion" of hundreds of officials, and wantonly used the power in their hands to start making profits for themselves. At this juncture, their most common trick is to "sell favors", suspend debt collection, and even secretly allow many officials to continue to owe money. This manifests itself in the fact that they are still busy in and out of the whole picture, busy in and out of the busy, but in many individual points, they begin to treat them separately. As a result of this, the power of the Ago Party has expanded tremendously in a short period of time. Especially under the shrewd and slick methods of the eighth elder brother Yinxi, many officials of the Qing court have joined his command. The "Eight Masters Party" began to emerge, and for a while, the eldest brother and his gang, which had been developed for decades, were on an equal footing, and the name of the "Eight Sage Kings" also began to emerge in the court. Of course, this kind of tactic cannot be concealed. The princes' party and many officials who have been suppressed by the Ago party have also begun to rebound aggressively. However, due to the lack of organization, this wave of rebound did not cause any harm to the two elder brothers who presided over the clean-up of the deficit at the beginning, on the contrary, because they did not dare to directly "fire" at the two elder brothers, the rebound storm involved many irrelevant officials. As a result, the strife in the court gradually became louder. However, just when many people thought that things were going to get bigger and bigger, taking advantage of this trend, the eldest brother and brother Yinchu took the lead in showing that he was "incapable and difficult to take on heavy responsibilities", and directly crossed the prince to ask Kangxi for his resignation, and as soon as he withdrew like this, the eighth elder brother Yinzhen and others, who were full of joy because of the surge in power, also saw the signs, in order to avoid it in time, so as not to let themselves be affected by this trend, so that the forces that had been developed with great difficulty suffered senseless losses. He also hurriedly wrote a letter to Kangxi and resigned from the matter of cleaning up the deficit. At this point, the much-noisy clean-up of the deficit in the public treasury had to come to an end because of the vacancy of the principal. From the beginning of clearing the deficit to withdrawing on their own, the eldest brother and the eighth elder brother only recovered more than 10 million taels of silver for the treasury, which was only a quarter of the total deficit.

However, quitting doesn't mean it's over. After this incident, the discerning person has already seen Kangxi's dissatisfaction with the three elder brothers. Especially the crown prince, because he has repeatedly done stupid things, he is always unable to grasp the direction of things, and his selfishness is too heavy, and his status is already in danger. And the eldest brother Yinchu, whose image of being shrewd and capable has always begun to fade out of the court. Especially by the eighth elder brother Yinxi, he has endured more rumors in that rebound trend, and the number of enemies in the court has also increased significantly, although the strength is still not small, but it has not been able to achieve any big development, it can only be regarded as business as before. And the biggest beneficiary of the whole incident is the eighth elder brother, Yinxi, who was regarded as the follower of the eldest brother by the ministers at the beginning. This person is clever, tactful, and climbs to the top with steps, and his strength can almost be called "achieved overnight". Especially in the whole incident, he behaved decently, although he was constantly attracting officials at all levels, but because of the big tree of the big brother supporting it, coupled with the timely retraction of his hand, although he also left some handles, which Kangxi disliked, but compared to the boss and the prince, he is still only the most inconspicuous of the three. Although he also had a disagreement with the eldest brother and his gang because of this, and he was no longer as close as before, the most important thing was that he got the most practical benefits...... The goodwill of a large number of officials and all kinds of overt and covert support. After all, how can someone else's power be better than your own? No matter how good you are at being a follower, you are not as comfortable as being the boss yourself, right?

And when the three elder brothers were in Beijing with hundreds of civil and military officials, they were making trouble. Far away in Anhui, the fourth elder brother Yinzhen also encountered a lot of trouble, and the cause of these troubles was because this elder brother did not believe that Anhui had no deficit. Because he had prejudices at the beginning, and because Yinzhen failed to find out the shortcomings when he was checking the Anhui domain, he was impatient and mistakenly thought that the officials in Anhui were deceiving him, so in order to force these people to "admit their mistakes", he used some so-called "thunderbolt methods". As a result, these tactics led to his isolation in Anhui. Although Yinzhen has always regarded himself as a "lonely minister", the isolation of Anhui officials is too obvious and direct, which stimulates the anger in his heart. Especially when Yinzhen found that although Anhui's tax level was not lower than that of other provinces, the tax checkpoints that could be collected were far less than those of other provinces, this kind of anger immediately broke out. Because, Yinzhen thinks that too few checkpoints must represent less tax, but how can a small amount of tax support the entire Anhui Province has not asked the court for a penny of grain for several years? Moreover, Anhui's fire consumption is also extremely low among more than a dozen provinces! There are few commercial taxes, less agricultural taxes, and less taxes, but we have never seen the Anhui officials say a word "difficult" to the outside world, so there must be a huge "greasy" in this. Although Lu Longqi, who succeeded Ma De, explained to him many times, it did not convince him that this would lead to high taxes. Moreover, Yinzhen also thinks that he has caught a huge trick, that is, during Ma De's administration in Anhui, he not only cleaned up the river many times, but also repaired the official road on a large scale, these are all money-eating projects, even if Anhui has a high tax, how high can this money be, and can it support such expenses without causing a deficit? In this way, from the prejudice at the beginning, to the many disagreements later, and then to almost complete disbelief, Yinzhen before finally confirming that Anhui is indeed not a deficit, the officials in Anhui are not lightly offended, or Lu Longqi and Yang Ming, the Anhui grain road who was entrusted by Ma De with the important task of monitoring market trends, from time to time to say some good things, he may not be able to persist to the end. However, by the time he finally came to the end, things had gone wrong. The fourth elder brother is not a person who is good at apologizing! Therefore, this "grudge" between him and Anhui officials is settled, and he still belongs to the losing side.

However, although Yinzhen made a lot of trouble in Anhui, far away in Nanjing, Ma De's trial of silver coin circulation was initially successful. Since it was the first silver dollar, Mader personally supervised almost every step of the process from production to experimental circulation. However, the final result surprised him a little and made him feel a little dissatisfied. The first batch of silver dollars cast in silver alloys, because of their exquisite workmanship, exquisite patterns, beautiful writing, rich contents, brilliant silver light, and their pleasant appearance, were immediately searched for at a price exceeding 10% of the face value of silver dollars as soon as they entered the market. However, the first batch of silver dollars was almost permanently hidden. I don't know who realized the huge collection value of this first batch of silver dollars, but they didn't use any of them, and they all stayed at home and hid them. Although this result was both surprising and gratifying, it also caused Mader to lead people to continue to speed up the minting of silver dollars. From 100,000 taels in the first batch, it quickly increased to 1 million taels, 2 million taels, and then to 3 million taels...... And the final income of minting silver dollars is that the treasury of Jiangsu Domain's treasury has risen by two percent! However, even knowing that the silver dollar was mixed with silver in exchange for equivalent silver, because "the market is used and the merchants say it is convenient", this trend of using the silver dollar has only not stopped.

But at this time, Mader stopped large-scale minting activities. Although at this time, from Kangxi to the ordinary people, they were staring at the newly built mint, Gao Shiqi, Ma Qi, and Song Rou, Zhao Shenqiao and others were close to the water, and it was a major problem to alleviate the deficit of the imperial treasury with coinage, and in addition, based on the huge profits obtained from the manufacture of silver dollars, many governors also wrote to Kangxi, asking for the same coinage rights as Ma De, although the reasons for these people are varied, but the most one is exactly the same as Gao Shiqi and others. …… After all, no one dares to say that the provincial treasury they are in power is not in deficit like Ma De! Seeing that Ma De has "earned" so much in just a few months, how can these people not be upset? However, everyone's wishes were disappointed. Ignoring anyone's opinions, Mader forcibly stopped the production of silver dollars, which can almost be called "crazy", with an extremely tough attitude. The reason he gave Kangxi was also very simple, there was only one word: stability! …… Because of the large population and developed economy of the Qing Dynasty, the demand for currency was very large. However, there was only one currency in the Qing Dynasty, and that was the "Kangxi Tongbao" copper coin! However, as a large amount of copper was used to mint coins, there was a shortage of copper in the market, and the price of copper became higher and higher, gradually exceeding the market value represented by the same amount of copper coins. As a result of this phenomenon, many unscrupulous traders began to collect large quantities of copper coins and then melt them into bronze objects to sell for huge profits. The consequence of this practice was that it caused great damage to the monetary system of the Qing Dynasty. After discovering this situation, the Qing court carried out a certain crackdown, but the effect was not good, and in the end, it had to increase the tin content in the copper coins and replace the good ones with bad ones, so as to force those lawbreakers to abandon this action on their own. Ma De took this incident as an example and asked Kangxi to formulate a currency law to change the previous monetary protective laws and regulations that only had a few articles. In order to persuade Kangxi and those ministers, Ma De unceremoniously pointed out a variety of other methods in addition to melting coins and minting, using ingenious means to seek huge benefits with currency. However, although his words aroused the vigilance of Kangxi and others, the formulation of a new law did not become a topic of discussion for the Qing court, and in fact, even if Ma De's suggestion was adopted, it would definitely take a long time to formulate a currency law without any precedent.

In addition to the minting of silver dollars, the construction of the Shanghai Port planned by Ma De has also officially begun. Although there used to be a port in Shanghai, because there has been no large-scale investment, and there are Suzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing and other large ports along the river, Shanghai has not been able to become "Shanghai" in the real sense. However, all this is destined to change.

Li Fu and Tian Wenjing can be said to be two people with completely opposite personalities, but their opposite personalities may not be complementary. Li Fu is gentle and elegant, knowledgeable, and has excellent coordination skills, which is why Ma De chose him to be in charge of the construction of the entire Shanghai Port. The stall was small at first, but as the port expanded, all sorts of affairs were bound to follow. This kind of gradual change from small to large is the most effective way to train people. Since Li Fu will be able to become the governor of Zhili in the future, then his ability will not disappoint Ma De. But Tian Wenjing's character is not to rub sand in his eyes. Although Ma De knew that this veteran county man would ruin more than his reputation in the years to come, and most of the time he did bad things with good intentions, it was only when Yongzheng could support him indiscriminately. The current Tian Wenjing's status is still low, and he has no backstage, so he is not like in the future and will go headlong to the end when he recognizes everything and does not listen to people. Therefore, at this time, he should be more than enough to be a qualified supervisor, and he should not cause too much trouble to Li Fu, because while the personalities of these two people are hugely different, there is also a similarity, that is, integrity! Moreover, I believe that in this huge and complex project, the current Lord Bo should also change. Ma De's hope is that Tian Wenjing can learn to do things more reasonably while sticking to his original character, and he also hopes that the Li Tian combination can exert extraordinary strength.

And the things that Kangxi can say in the forty-second year are not just a few things.

The incident of "disturbing the people" in Taiwan reported by Dai Duo was quickly resolved after Nian Qianyao returned to the army. Many of the "leading" Diao people were arrested and incorporated into Nian Qianyao's army. Then, after the matter was resolved, Dai Duo immediately used various means to carry out a large-scale rectification of the entire Taiwan. One of the most striking aspects of his approach was to force the aborigines to "mix" with the new inhabitants! The ultimate purpose of this approach is naturally self-evident, and it has also gained support from the upper echelons of Fujian. However, although Nian Qianyao acted with him and had the excuse of making trouble, in order to calm down the public resentment aroused by his compulsion, and at the same time to solve the endless brawls, Dai Duo had to spend much more time in the future than he forced these people to move. During this period, because of Lan Li, a leader who does not have a good impression of Taiwan, was covered with it, he and Nian Qianyao were still safe. During this same period, the contradictions between the Japanese shogunate and the feudal domains became increasingly acute, and Nian Qianyao was afraid of missing the opportunity to make a fortune, so he finally raised troops again and headed for Ryukyu, where he kept an eye on various changes in Japan.

In addition to Taiwan, the northwest conspirator Alabutan also took advantage of the opportunity of flying in the south of the Yangtze River, Sabusu's new arrival, and the unknown situation, and suddenly sent soldiers and horses to invade a pasture in Khalkha Mongolia before the winter came, causing a panic in the various parts of Mobei Mongolia. However, due to the problem of the season, the Qing court's provocation against Alabutan could only be helpless. Kangxi only ordered Sabusu to pay attention to precautions, even if it was over. As for whether he would order troops to exterminate the rebellious Dzungar tribe again, no one asked much at all, because everyone understood that it was impossible for Kangxi to send troops to the northwest again until the situation of the treasury deficit was not alleviated.

And after these many things, in the forty-second year of Kangxi's reign, there were other more influential events. …… Following the personnel change two years ago, Kangxi once again replaced some officials in the imperial court. And all this happened after he ended his southern tour to Beijing.

Kangxi's return to Beijing was after the eldest elder brother Yinchu and the eighth elder brother Yinxu resigned from the affairs of cleaning up the deficit. However, after Kangxi returned to Beijing, he did not become as angry as people imagined, and everyone found out that they were wrong...... Kangxi didn't get angry because of the clean-up of the deficit, and he didn't even blame anyone for it. On the contrary, Kangxi also transferred Qi Shiwu, the governor of Shaanxi, who had always been inclined to the crown prince, to Beijing and succeeded Tong Guowei as the secretary of the military department; The governor of Shaanxi was replaced by Chen Xijia, the former head of the household department; Chen Xijia's position as a household servant was obtained by Shi Shilun, a waiter in the Criminal Department; In addition, Gao Shiqi dismissed the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, Zhang Tingyu dismissed the servant of the Ministry of Officials, and Ma Qi dismissed the head of the Internal Affairs Office, so far, almost all the actual positions of the four ministers of the study have been taken away! And the official positions they lost were obtained one after another by those who were obviously inclined to take a position, and among these people, those who were inclined to the crown prince were still in the majority! This is not the end, Kangxi also deposed Guo Xiu's imperial envoy to the left capital and reappointed him as a cabinet scholar with no clear powers. In addition to this, Kangxi also transferred many other officials.

And his actions once again confused almost everyone who cared about the court. What is the purpose of delegating the military power of the world to the prince who is in mourning? Why did you delinquish the power of the military and at the same time divide the power of the other ministries? Is he going to give way? But the prince's performance is really ...... Gradually, with Beijing as the source, another rumor appeared, that is, Kangxi's love for the prince has not changed, and the emperor is still determined to protect the prince.

However, these rumors could not hide from those who were wise. Because, Kangxi's actions made the battle between the elder brother party and *, which showed signs again, fall silent again. The members of the * did not know Kangxi's purpose, and although they were quite happy with the situation in front of them, due to their repeated mistakes before, they did not dare to act rashly now. As for the elder brother party, whether it is the boss or the eighth, they have suffered heavy losses in Kangxi's personnel transfer, and the number of ministers in charge of power has shrunk greatly. However, a temporary calm cannot overshadow the contradictions that have already been aroused......

"Everyone should be preparing for the last fight!"

Someone said!