The capital, Huangji Palace.

It is just a guess that the Jiannu will soon move south. Before the Jiannu arrive, everything must proceed step by step.

So at this moment, everyone gathered together to discuss state affairs.

"Your Majesty, Jin Zhijun, Yang Rucheng, Zhang Fengxiang and others not only colluded with the Jian Nu, but also colluded with the bandits. The evidence is irrefutable. After being tried by the three judicial officials, they are detained in the Tianlao Prison and await their punishment. This is their confession."

As the chief minister of the cabinet, Li Banghua stood at the front to report the situation to Chongzhen.

“How many officials are involved in this case?”

Li Banghua swallowed his saliva and sighed, "There are a total of 39 officials involved in this case, including 17 officials above the fifth rank and 22 officials below the fifth rank."

There was silence in the court.

These are just the masterminds!

If all those involved were arrested, there would be half fewer people in the court.

Why?

The Ming Dynasty's court is a muddy water. If you want to integrate into the court, you must first wade into the muddy water.

Those who have secret dealings with the Jiannu will not have the words "I want to deliver supplies to the Jiannu" carved on their faces. They will obtain various procedures in covert ways and pass through the border legally through legal procedures.

For example.

If you want to transport a cannon to the border, you must first find a buyer for it.

The next customer here must be the border guards.

The border wants it, the Ministry of War wants to give it, and then the Ministry of Revenue has to approve the silver, and the Ministry of Works has to manufacture it!

After the manufacturing is completed, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of War, or the Ministry of Revenue will send people to escort it to the border.

The procedures involved are complicated and tedious, and if you encounter someone who is serious about it, they will issue an official document to the border for confirmation.

If you want to speed up, you have to use connections.

The reviewers in the middle had no idea where the artillery would eventually go and thought it was being used by the Ming army to fight the Jiannu.

As expected, Li Banghua added: "There are another 208 people who were unaware of the situation. They all hold important positions in the six ministries and other government offices. Since they were unaware of the situation, I did not detain them."

Chongzhen pondered for a moment and asked, "Lord Li, how many people are there in the nine clans of these people?"

Li Banghua's face changed, and he glanced at the person behind him with the corner of his eye and asked in a trembling voice: "Your Majesty, are the people you are referring to the officials involved in the case, or everyone?"

"Officials involved!"

Li Banghua breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this answer. He took out another piece of paper he had prepared in advance, opened it and read: "There are 18,426 people."

When Chongzhen heard this number, he was stunned. He didn't expect there would be so many people.

Nearly 20,000 people...

If there were fewer people, he would kill them all without hesitation.

So what if he is a tyrant?

But these 20,000 people are indeed a bit too many, and killing them all would affect the current situation. Now is the time to use people, and excessive killing would affect the enthusiasm of officials.

These are secondary. What I am afraid of is that someone might confuse the public in private and describe these criminal acts as dereliction of duty.

There are sayings that the more you do, the more mistakes you make, the less you do, the fewer mistakes you make, and doing nothing is a good thing.

If that happens, Ming officials will respond to him with inaction or less action.

After thinking for a while, Chongzhen made a decision: "The main culprits Jin Zhijun, Yang Rucheng, and Zhang Fengxiang secretly colluded with the Jiannu. Their crimes are unforgivable and their entire clans must be exterminated! The other accomplices were not the main plotters, but they also participated in it. All three clans must be exterminated to set things right!"

"How?" Chongzhen asked back at last.

He did this for two reasons: one was to see the reactions of other people in the court, and the other was to save face for Li Banghua.

Everyone was very satisfied with the result.

Without Li Banghua taking the lead, they all knelt down to accept the order and express their gratitude.

"Everyone!" Chongzhen stood up and said, "The Ming officialdom is different now. Doing more does not necessarily mean you will make more mistakes! Not doing anything will not mean you will make more mistakes! As long as you think about the Ming and me, I will tolerate you no matter you are right or wrong."

"Long live the emperor!" The flattery of the crowd continued.

After dealing with those who collaborated with the enemy and betrayed the country, Li Banghua turned the topic to disaster relief.

This problem seems very serious, but it also seems not serious.

Because the areas with the most severe disasters have already fallen.

Shaanxi, Shanxi, most of Henan, parts of Sichuan and a small part of Huguang, these places that suffered severe disasters were either under the hands of Li Zicheng or Zhang Xianzhong.

Although there were disasters in other places, they were relatively minor, and the imperial court had exempted the entire country from land tax for one year, so the civil and military officials in the court did not attach much importance to disaster relief.

But Chongzhen didn't think so.

He wanted to take the opportunity to rectify the administration of officials and establish the Land Administration Department.

In fact, in the first year of Chongzhen, the Ming emperor rectified the administration of officials across the country.

What is the result?

Because many officials were dismissed, the land tax was not collected in time in the first year of Chongzhen, or even no one collected it. Only more than three million taels of silver were collected that year.

The following year, the national treasury was in a tight spot, and Chongzhen asked all departments to reduce spending, so Yuan Chonghuan's policy of cutting new recruits received his strong support.

Before the new soldiers were fully dismissed, the Jizhou mutiny occurred...

This may be the butterfly effect of the Ming Dynasty...

"Your Majesty, the summer grain is about to be harvested! Moreover, the court has exempted the whole country from land tax for one year. There is not much point in providing disaster relief at this time! Even if we provide disaster relief now, by the time personnel and supplies are transported there, the summer grain will have been harvested!" said Fang Yuegong, the Minister of Revenue.

"I second the motion!"

"I second the motion!" More than a dozen ministers came out and bowed, supporting Fang Yuegong.

Chongzhen smiled faintly and asked, "What do you think is the purpose of disaster relief?"

Purpose?

The civil and military officials looked at each other, and Shi Bangyao, the Left Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, bowed and said, "Save the lives of the people, calm the people's grievances, and win the hearts of the people."

"Well said!" Chongzhen was very satisfied with Shi Bangyao's answer. "Why did the bandits arise?"

"On the one hand, the disaster is raging, and on the other hand, there are problems with the administration."

"The Ming Dynasty has two important assessments for local officials: one is tax collection, and the other is local public security."

"Some officials are only responsible to their superiors and don't care about the lives of their subordinates."

“What were the officials in Shaanxi and Shanxi doing when the drought hit?”

"Disaster relief?"

“No, they’re collecting taxes.”

"The land tax plus the regular labor service plus the miscellaneous taxes were already high, and the three taxes added temporarily during the Liaodong war directly left the farmers with no way to make a living."

"That was not enough. If you didn't have money to pay the tax, you would be thrown into jail and tortured. Soon, the state jail was full of people who owed taxes. In order to survive, the people had no choice but to rise up in rebellion."

"This kind of behavior of only responding to superiors but not to subordinates is simply ridiculous. I want to change it."

"So I decided..." Just as Chongzhen was about to announce his decision, a young eunuch ran in from outside the palace door in a panic.

He came to Wang Chengen and handed him a secret letter.

Wang Chengen glanced at the envelope and hurriedly handed the secret letter to Chongzhen.

On the envelope were four large characters written by Li Ruolian himself: "Urgent News from Hejian."