"Haha!" Minister of War Wang Jiayan sneered and said, "Lord Fan thinks that Korea is willing to surrender, so let the Koreans fight against the Jiannu?"

"Is it not possible?" Fan Jingwen asked back.

"Of course not!" Wang Jiayan said, "Why did Korea voluntarily surrender? It was because the Jiannu were on the decline and unable to fight against the Ming Dynasty. In order to avoid being liquidated by the Ming Dynasty after the pacification of Liao, Korea voluntarily surrendered. They are afraid of war, so it is almost impossible for them to take the initiative to deal with the Jiannu!"

"Besides," Wang Jiayan continued in a tone of disappointment, "Based on what I know about the Koreans, can they defeat the Jiannu?"

"This..." After Wang Jiayan's reminder, Fan Jingwen realized the seriousness of the problem.

The fighting capacity of the North Koreans can be described in one word: extremely weak.

Take the War to Resist Japanese Aggression and Aid Korea during the Wanli Period as an example.

It took the Japanese only one month to capture three major cities in Korea and disintegrate eight provinces.

It would be really difficult for them to deal with the Eight Banners soldiers who are good at field combat.

However, Fan Jingwen did not compromise, but continued the previous topic and said: "The Koreans are indeed no match for the Jiannu, but being unable to defeat them and not fighting them are two different things. As long as the Koreans remain hostile to the Jiannu, the Jiannu will not be able to recover in a short time."

Wang Jiayan smiled and said, "I know that Lord Fan wants to use the strategy of driving away the tiger and swallowing the wolf to consume the strength of the Jiannu, but the Koreans are really not good enough. They are not tigers, at most they can only be regarded as hunting dogs. So... sending troops to Korea is the best strategy."

Fan Jingwen shook his head helplessly: "Of course I know that sending troops to Korea is the best policy! But the problem is... the national treasury is empty. The military pay and food required to fight in Korea will cost at least a million. How can we fight in Korea if the national treasury has no money?"

“Alas!” Wang Jiayan sighed, “If you don’t remove the roots, you will end up causing trouble!”

Fan Jingwen sighed and said, "There's nothing we can do about it. We can only wait and see."

Seeing the two people singing the same tune, Chongzhen smiled and said, "Don't worry, the Ministry of Revenue will find a way."

Fan Jingwen and Wang Jiayan looked at each other again and became even more worried about the Minister of Revenue Xie Sanbin.

He was worried that he would not be able to raise enough money and would be dismissed and punished by Chongzhen.

Chongzhen looked out the window and asked, "Do you two have anything else to say? If not, please leave for now."

Fan Jingwen replied: "I have one more thing to ask."

"Excuse me, Mr. Fan."

"If the Ministry of Revenue can't do anything, what are your plans, Your Majesty?"

Chongzhen pretended to think for a while and said, "Wait! Wait until the court raises enough money before sending troops to Korea."

Fan Jingwen bowed deeply, then turned and left with Wang Jiayan.

They had not walked a few steps out of the Qianqing Palace when they met the Minister of Revenue Xie Sanbin.

The three of them looked at each other for a while, and Fan Jingwen was the first to speak: "What is this, Minister Xie?"

"Your Majesty has ordered me to come to the palace to discuss important matters."

Fan Jingwen suddenly grinned.

This action not only made Xie Sanbin confused, but even Wang Jiayan looked bewildered.

"Why is Lord Fan laughing?" Xie Sanbin and Wang Jiayan asked at the same time.

Fan Jingwen put away his smile and said, "It's nothing. I just remembered something from the past."

Xie Sanbin asked tentatively, "Since the elder is fine, then I will go to see His Majesty?"

"Wait a moment," Fan Jingwen said as he walked towards Xie Sanbin.

When he was less than half a step away from Xie Sanbin, Fan Jingwen stopped.

Just when Xie Sanbin thought that Fan Jingwen was going to tell him something in private, Fan Jingwen suddenly leaned on Xie Sanbin.

Wang Jiayan was startled, and quickly reached out to help him and asked, "Master, what's wrong with you?"

"I'm fine." Fan Jingwen's tone didn't sound like he was sick at all.

"Nothing?" Xie Sanbin's face suddenly changed: "You are leaning on me even though nothing happened. Are you trying to blackmail me? Are you blackmailing me?"

When Wang Jiayan heard that his son was blackmailing someone, he quickly withdrew his hands, with shock written all over his face.

He was so shocked that he was speechless.

The Prime Minister of the Cabinet was actually trying to blackmail someone. He didn't dare to say anything and could only hide nearby and watch the fun quietly.

"Thank you, Sanbin," Fan Jingwen asked while maintaining his posture, "Can you help me up?"

Although Xie Sanbin was a little panicked, he was the Minister of Finance of the Ming Dynasty after all.

He quickly gathered his thoughts and asked, "What on earth are you going to do?"

Fan Jingwen continued to ask: "I just want to ask if you can help me up."

Xie Sanbin looked around and found several guards and eunuchs cleaning the yard nearby.

With these people as witnesses, he has nothing to worry about.

Thinking of this, Xie Sanbin grabbed Fan Jingwen's shoulders and straightened his body and said, "Since Lord Fan wants me to help you, then I will do it."

"Haha!" Fan Jingwen smiled and patted Xie Sanbin on the shoulder, then turned and left.

"Leaving now?" Xie Sanbin was even more confused.

He turned to look at Wang Jiayan, trying to find the answer from the other's face.

Wang Jiayan knew nothing and seeing that Fan Jingwen had already walked far away, he hurriedly followed him.

Xie Sanbin walked into the Palace of Heavenly Purity with a head full of questions and bowed to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, I pay my respects to you."

"Minister Xie, please stand up!" Chongzhen walked down the stairs and reached the same height as Xie Sanbin.

Xie Sanbin clasped his hands together and said, "I wonder why Your Majesty has summoned me here?"

Chongzhen said calmly: "What else could it be? Of course it's about money."

It would have been fine if money wasn't mentioned, but when the word money was mentioned, Xie Sanbin's head started buzzing.

He has tried every way to make money.

Chongzhen did not allow the plunder to be carried out on the people, so he could only plunder on the merchants.

But businessmen are not pushovers.

They all have huge families behind them, and the relationships between these families in the court are complicated.

Take salt inspection as an example.

When the imperial court encountered difficulties, salt merchants from all over the country would cooperate with the salt inspectors to raise money for the court to solve the problem temporarily.

There is an old saying among the people: help in emergencies but not in poverty.

The same applies to these imperial courts.

It's okay once or twice, but if you raise money too many times, the merchants will not cooperate.

They will use their connections to block the way for salt patrols to raise money.

The money from salt inspections was an important source of subsidies for the deficit in the national treasury.

Once the salt patrol route was blocked, the method of plundering merchants no longer worked.

In order to raise money, Xie Sanbin could only target officials.

Tracking down corrupt officials can indeed make some money, but it will make many people think that he is attacking dissidents.

Especially those Donglin Party members who claim to be righteous and moral but secretly make money.

Xie Sanbin was also a member of the Donglin Party.

The Donglin Party has paid a lot of money to help Xie Sanbin secure his position as Minister of Revenue.

Now Xie Sanbin turned around and attacked his own people.

This caused great dissatisfaction within the Donglin Party.

In order to warn Xie Sanbin, the Donglin Party sent people to impeach Xie Sanbin.

At the same time, after being impeached more than a dozen times in succession, Xie Sanbin was forced to stop under pressure.

The current situation is...

The ideas of the common people, businessmen and officials cannot be taken advantage of.

Then who else can he target?