After the good news from Hedong reached Chang'an, Li Longji calmed down a little and finally dismissed his plan to flee to Shuzhong.

But soon, another bigger problem was in front of him, that is, the Tang treasury had run out of money, but the amount of money that the new Hedong Jiedu envoy Guo Ziyi and Fan Yang Jiedu envoy Li Guangbi demanded from the imperial court was an astronomical amount, and even Ge Shuhan, who retreated to Tongguan, sent a messenger with a sad face to ask for money and silk to reward the soldiers.

Li Longji was even furious because of this, and scolded Ge Shuhan.

"Money, money, money, all come to me to ask me, when I have mountains of gold and silver, can't I?"

"Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi won the battle and asked me for a reward, Ge Shuhan, you dog slave obviously suffered a defeat, and most of the hundreds of thousands of elites on the right side of Heshuo were buried, and they actually have the face to ask for a reward? No, immediately send someone to tell Ge Shuhan that if he wants a reward, there is a jade seal, so it is better to exchange it for money and give a reward to his subordinates. ”

Just as Li Longji was scolding, a cold voice suddenly came from the air.

"What's the use of swearing? Can An Lushan and the hundreds of thousands of rebels under his command be scolded to death? ”

"No matter how hard you scold, An Lushan will not lose his hair, and the top priority is to solve the financial problem."

It was Lu Tianshi who spoke, and said: "As soon as the so-called war drums sound, there are 10,000 taels of gold, and fighting is the most expensive to fight, and the reason why An Lushan's rebels are so able to fight is because An Lushan has given enough money and food, especially the Hu cavalry such as Xi, Khitan and Murwei have received rewards that they can't even imagine." ”

"So, there's nothing wrong with Goshuhan."

"The reason why the elite soldiers of the three towns of Longyou Heshuo suffered defeat was not because they couldn't fight, but because they had been fighting with Tubo for more than ten years, and the soldiers were too tired, they were already aggrieved enough, if you don't give them a full reward at this time, and even have to deduct rations, believe it or not, tomorrow they will open the city gate and let the rebels pass through Tongguan? At that time, you, Li Longji, will not even have a chance to escape to Shuzhong. ”

After being reprimanded, Li Longji could only sing with his hands crossed.

A person is a heavenly master, he is just a son of heaven, and he can only suffer being scolded.

Lu Tianshi said: "Li Longji, have you never thought about solving the financial problem? ”

"Heavenly Master, how could I not have thought about this matter, I have actually been troubled by this matter since the Imperial Pole, but it is really difficult to solve this matter." Li Longji said bitterly.

What Li Longji said was the truth, and it was really difficult to solve the financial problem.

In fact, since the founding of the country, Datang has not had a good financial situation.

Tang Taizong's Zhenguan rule is known as governing the world, but in fact, the central government has always been tight.

It is said that the marriage between Princess Wencheng and Tubo is largely due to the fact that the Tang Dynasty is too poor and has no money to fight.

Otherwise, with those famous generals of the Taizong Dynasty, if the money and food can be given enough, Tubo can be destroyed in minutes.

After all, Tubo was still very weak at that time, and the legendary Tubo general Lun Qinling may not have been born yet.

Tang Gaozong Li Zhi's time was similar, when a catastrophe occurred in Guanzhong, the imperial court was even unable to provide disaster relief, and even Li Zhi himself could only take his concubine to Luoyang to eat.

Why did Li Zhi take the whole family to Luoyang to eat?

Because he couldn't even get the freight to transport the grain to Chang'an.

The period when Wu Zetian was emperor was the most financially prosperous period of the Tang Dynasty.

As for the reason, it is that Wu Zetian struck hard at the Guanlong nobles and the Shandong family, and seized a large amount of wealth and land from these powerful families.

It is a pity that Li Longji was unable to continue this situation after he ascended the throne.

Li Longji is also a generation of heroes, but his political skills are still worse than his grandmother, and until his death, he failed to prevent the merger of the new imperial examination group and the family Gaomen, and finally formed twenty-eight new top family Gaomen, which not only locked the promotion channel of the children of the Hanmen, but also completely locked the central finance of the Tang Dynasty.

A large amount of land was concentrated in the hands of the family and could not be taxed.

As a result, the central finances of the Tang Dynasty were drying up day by day and could not afford the military salaries recruited by the border towns, so Li Longji had no choice but to release the monster of the feudal town festival, and finally opened the gate of hell for the Tang Dynasty.

Lu Tianshi smiled and said, "Isn't the question of this year's Enke's policy theory exam the theory of taxation? ”

"Hey, I forgot about this, this year's Enke should be out of the ranks, right?" Li Longji's eyes lit up and said, "Among the tens of thousands of candidates, there may really be a few outstanding ones to solve the financial situation faced by Datang." ”

This time, because there was no restriction on Enko, the number of candidates who took the exam reached a staggering 100,000.

For this reason, the Ministry of Rites had to temporarily rent the entire Wuben Workshop, and all the premises were used as examination rooms.

Half a month after An Lushan's rebellion, the Enke exam was opened, and there were three exams in a row, a total of nine days, with one day of rest in the middle, and after the exam, the exam was to review the exam papers.

The entire examination process of Enke is basically similar to that of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

As the chief examiner, Wei Jiansu, the right minister, with the two ceremonial attendants Gao Shi and Cen Shen who are the deputy examiners, as well as dozens of ceremonial officials and hundreds of transcriptions from each department, have been busy in the business workshop, and they have not gone home for two whole months.

At that moment, Li Longji sent Gao Lishi to the Guozijian of Wubenfang.

Coincidentally, there was really a result, but it was a phased result.

Wei Jiansu, Gao Shi, and Cen Shen selected a total of 1,000 exam papers.

If nothing else, the vast majority of the 400 jinshi places will be generated from these 1,000 people, and then there will be a link to search the papers, but the possibility of being searched can be said to be very small.

After Li Longji heard the news, he immediately ordered Wei Jiansu, Gao Shi, and Cen Shen to go to Calyx Tower with this examination paper, and he wanted to personally participate in the next marking of the papers.

The sage wants to personally participate in the marking of the papers, and Wei Jiansu dare not obey.

Wei saw that Su Dang and Gao Cen came to Calyx Tower with exam papers.

After the meeting between the monarch and the minister, Li Longji waved his hand and said: "I just want to participate in the review of the policy theory, Wei Qing, you have screened out those examination papers that can effectively help Datang solve the problem of financial expenditure. ”

According to Li Longji's request, Wei Jiansu and the others selected twenty copies.

Li Longji is not young, he has already suffered from presbyopia, and he can no longer see the content of the exam papers clearly at night.

So he asked Gao Shi and Cen Shen to read aloud: "Candidate Bingjiu, the two tax laws, there were pipes in the past......"

"Candidate Ding 1998, salt law...... Candidate A 6, Business Tax Theory...... Candidate B19, Salt and Iron Theory ......"

Listening to Gao Shi and Cen Shen read aloud in turn, Li Longji became more and more happy, as if he had returned to the time when he was young and discussed state affairs with Zhang Jiuling and other ministers, and it turned out that the financial problems of the Tang Dynasty were not completely unsolvable.

This year's Enke candidates have proposed no less than 20 solutions.

There are those who propose to reform the salt law, those who propose the imposition of a commercial tax, and those who propose the implementation of a two-tax law.

Of course, there are more radical ones, demanding that the country's arable land be completely cleared and then taxed uniformly.

Li Longji was very fond of the commercial tax theory, so he asked Cen Shen to read it aloud again, and asked Lu Tianshi: "Lu Tianshi, what does the old man think of this commercial tax theory?" I don't know if I want to implement it? ”

"The collection of commercial tax is excellent, but once the commercial tax is levied, it will inevitably be smuggling, just like the salt monopoly will appear smuggling salt dealers, then there will be an armed smuggling group selling silk porcelain and even weapons, not only Chang'an, the entire Datang will greatly deteriorate the public security, the demand of Wuhou and bad people will surge, you have to think about it, can the collected commercial tax cover the surge in financial expenditure?"

In ancient times, when the commodity economy was not developed enough, the introduction of commercial taxes would do more harm than good.

Not only will the cost of maintaining public security and stability surge, but it will also cause the withering of all industries.

Li Longji's eyes were cold, and he said: "This matter is not difficult to handle, and a new yamen can be set up to supervise commercial taxation." ”

Lu Tianshi said: "In the early days, this newly established yamen was able to collect a considerable amount of commercial taxes for the imperial court because of the streamlining of the organization and the incorruptibility of the officials, but as time went by, this yamen will become bloated, and the officials will begin to become greedy. ”

"That will be a few decades away, at least for now, it can be open source for the imperial court."

Li Longji can't take care of it so much, so let's get through the difficulties in front of him first.