"Oh? What's the best policy? Chongzhen stared at Li Banghua and asked.

"The minister thought that His Majesty should stick to the capital and send the prince to Nanjing to supervise the country. If the Beijing division is broken, Your Majesty will be martyred, and the Ming Dynasty will still have half of the country! ”

it!

Everyone in the hall cursed in their hearts at the same time.

Wu Mengming swallowed his saliva, except for him, no one dared to say such rebellious words in front of the emperor.

Li Banghua's mouth is really stinky and hard!

"Bold!" Without Chongzhen to speak, Wang Chengen next to him immediately stood up. He pointed to Li Banghua's head and said angrily: "Bold Li Banghua, he dares to slander today's saints, and he should be beheaded according to the law." ”

Li Banghua was not afraid and continued: "Jingshi is the foundation of our dynasty and cannot be abandoned. Moreover, Wu Sangui is on his way to Beijing, if His Majesty abandons the city at this time, the last elite of the Ming Dynasty will be handed over. ”

"On the other hand, the thieves, the tyrannical bandits, will not last long, and the Jiannu in Liaodong is the henchman of the Ming Dynasty. With the Jingshi here, Jiannu did not dare to drive straight in. If the Beijing division changes hands, Jiannu will use this as a basis to wave his army south, and the Ming Dynasty will be in danger. ”

Chongzhen raised his eyebrows, and couldn't help but look at Li Banghua with admiration.

He said it very well, and analyzed the current situation of the various forces and the future situation clearly.

It's exactly like history!

This Zuodu Yushi is a talent.

"Then Li Yushi will talk about the reason why the thieves will not be able to last long." Chongzhen continued to test.

"Yes." Li Banghua was very happy to see that Chongzhen was not only not angry, but immediately put his heart back into his stomach.

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and continued: "Taxation is the foundation of the imperial court. ”

"The source of taxes for the imperial court is nothing more than field taxes, regular service and miscellaneous taxes. The thieves claimed to be exempt from land tax, so the only taxes that could be levied were Lijia regular service and miscellaneous taxes, and the commercial tax was the largest among the miscellaneous taxes. ”

"The source of the merchant tax is the merchants, and the thieves have been exploiting and killing the merchant squires along the way."

"Thieves without taxes can only keep robbing, and when one day they can't grab money and food, they will disperse themselves."

Li Banghua's point of view, Chongzhen agrees very much. Not only him, but historians agree. In that feudal era when agriculture was the foundation, the policy of free grain was destined to fail.

According to statistics, seventy or eighty percent of the tax revenue in the Ming Dynasty came from the field endowment.

Exempting this part is tantamount to digging one's own grave.

Chongzhen was very satisfied with Li Banghua's performance, he stood up and waved his hand to let Wu Mengming, Wang Zhixin and Li Ruolian leave.

After they walked out of the palace gate, Chongzhen came to Li Banghua and said: "Li Yushi really knows people, I plan to let you enter the cabinet as the first assistant, how about it?" ”

The emperor wants me to be the first assistant? Li Banghua shouted in his heart.

Chongzhen was the emperor for seventeen years and changed nineteen first assistants.

At worst, he will be dismissed from his post and beheaded.

The power seems to be very large, but the risk is also very high, and sometimes you have to take the blame for the emperor.

Now civil officials, no one is willing to fight for the position of the first assistant of the cabinet of this hot potato!

But.

The more times like this, the more you have to rise to the challenge!

After thinking quickly, Li Banghua felt that this was an opportunity.

hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, the cabinet has a huge affair and many rules, but it has always been the first to enter the cabinet and then be promoted to the first assistant, and it is a bit unruly for the minister to directly serve as the first assistant. ”

Chongzhen smiled faintly: "My words are the rules." ”

Seeing this, Li Banghua no longer hesitated, knelt down and thanked: "Minister Li Banghua, thank Your Majesty Longen." ”

"Don't thank you so early, I haven't finished my words yet, Li Banghua, are you afraid of death?"

Li Banghua was stunned, thought for a while, and said seriously: "If Your Majesty lets the minister die, the minister is not afraid of death." ”

"Why?"

"In this life, there are not many plans. or a very good minister, or a thousand dollars in his waist, or a name in the history books. ”

"Today, Your Majesty has appointed the minister as the first assistant, and the wish of the supreme minister has been fulfilled; The person who can be killed by His Majesty will definitely be famous in the history books. The minister does not care whether it is a good name or a bad reputation, only mediocre people will be forgotten by history. ”

Li Banghua's words entered Chongzhen's heart, and he stood in place, quietly looking at this old minister.

At this time, he had only one thought: Li Banghua was the person Lao Tzu was looking for.

But.

Before that, there is one more thing to confirm.

Chongzhen turned around, and his voice was solemn: "I need a powerful minister, a powerful minister who can suppress the court." ”

"I will give him great power, one person under ten thousand people. Courtiers, eunuchs, nobles, clan relatives, he can kill whoever he wants, I don't care. As long as I can get money, I won't care if I don't get too much greed. ”

"If I live for one day, I will be able to protect him for one day of glory and wealth."

"But!"

"If I die, that person's fate may be even worse than Yan Song's!"

"He may be famous in history, or he may be infamous for thousands of years, or he may have a mixed reputation."

"Can you handle it?"

Wang Chengen looked at Chongzhen in disbelief, feeling that the figure of the emperor in front of him was very unfamiliar.

Is the emperor going to delegate power?

What he hated most since he ascended the throne was the ministers.

And.

At a time of internal and external troubles, will decentralization at this time exacerbate the risks of the Ming Dynasty?

Li Banghua raised his head, his old cheeks were full of wrinkles, but his eyes were bright.

He stood up seriously and knelt down and kowtowed again: "Please rest assured, Your Majesty, the minister doesn't want to be Yan Song, he just wants to be Zhang Jiangling (Zhang Juzheng)." ”

"Good! Li Yushi retreated for the time being, and I was going to have a court. ”

"Yes!" Li Banghua withdrew from the side hall.

When Li Banghua walked out of the hall, Chongzhen withdrew his expectant gaze from him.

He did this for two reasons.

First of all, Chongzhen has killed too many people since he ascended the throne, there are eighteen officials above the second rank, and there are more than 100 people below the second rank.

Not to mention the cabinet, which lasted 17 years and changed 19 first assistants (two of whom were reinstated twice).

There are powerful ministers and traitors, and there are also pillars of the state; There are corrupt people, and there are also self-denying people.

It is often the new Shousuke who has not yet established himself and is replaced.

As a result, the government decree could not leave the capital (it was useless to go out of the capital, and the party loyalty had been transferred from the court to the state capital), and the country was becoming more and more chaotic.

Those who were lucky were dismissed, and those who were unlucky were put to death.

Does that make sense?

It doesn't make sense!

So everyone in the officialdom is in danger.

In the later period of Chongzhen, the Donglin Party had lost its real power, and the party struggle in the court entered a stable stage.

Where did the contradiction go? It doesn't go away, it just shifts.

Part of it was transferred to the state capital, and the other part became a contradiction between the monarch and the minister.

Whatever Chongzhen wants to do, they will oppose.

Only in this way can the value be realized.

The purpose of reusing Li Banghua is to restart the party struggle in the court and transfer the contradictions between the monarch and the ministers into partisan contradictions.

He wants to borrow Li Banghua's hand, make money, and kill people!

Where does the money come from?

In the short term, it depends on raiding the house, and in the long term, it depends on taxes.

Kill whom?

Civilians who are infighting, corrupt courtiers, nobles who are rich and rival the country, and businessmen who defect to the enemy and betray the country!

Chongzhen sorted out his emotions and ordered: "Wang Chengen, convene hundreds of officials to discuss politics." ”