Minister of Personnel Qiu Yu began to introduce the situation of the two people.

"Du Yinxi is currently serving as the military governor of Wuhan and Huangzhou, and is supervising military affairs in Changsha. He can directly replace He Tengjiao."

"Wen Anzhi is from Yiling, Huguang. He was stripped of his official title and returned to his hometown due to false accusations. A few days ago, the cabinet discussed summoning him to Beijing to discuss his reinstatement as an official."

Chongzhen raised his head and thought for a while: "Immediately restore Wen An's official status, promote him to the position of Governor of Huguang, and make him the Prime Minister of government affairs."

"Promote Du Yinxi to be the general of Huguang, and wait for Yuan Jixian's orders."

"I obey your order." Qiu Yu received the order and stepped back.

After everyone left, the Qianqing Palace returned to silence.

Chongzhen began to think about the current situation.

With the Jiannu and Mongols in the north eyeing us covetously, the situation remains as tense as before.

The situation in the south, on the contrary, became clearer.

In particular, Qin Liangyu's departure from Sichuan and entry into Chu broke the military balance in the Huguang region.

With the arrival of Qin Liangyu, the Ming army was able to split into two routes.

Yuan Jixian and Du Yinxi were responsible for pursuing Zhang Xianzhong.

Qin Liangyu was responsible for driving Li Zicheng out of Huguang, and then gradually recovering Henan.

After making up his mind, Chongzhen asked someone to notify the Ministry of War to draft an order.

After dealing with these problems, Chongzhen began to think about how to make money.

This way of making money is not about selling things, but about how to collect taxes.

Although exempting the people from taxes for two consecutive years reduced their burden, it also exposed the financial problems of the Ming Emperor Chongzhen.

Even if you have mountains of gold and silver, it cannot stop you from eating up all the money.

Even if you have 100 million silver, it will be spent in just a few years if there is no income.

In other words, he needed to balance revenue and expenditure by next year, which was the 19th year of Chongzhen.

If nothing unexpected happened, the Ming Dynasty would spend 20 million taels of silver a year.

The income must also reach this figure.

The largest source of treasury revenue was land tax, followed by silver and miscellaneous taxes.

He had previously asked the Ministry of Revenue to calculate that after the abolition of the three taxes, the land tax revenue would be around 13 million taels.

The Dingyin tax was 1.5 million taels, and the miscellaneous taxes were 1 million taels.

The shortfall is 4.5 million taels of silver.

How can we make up the deficit of 4.5 million taels?

The first thing Chongzhen thought of was open source.

There are three main sources of income: confiscation of property, taxes, trade and printing money.

There is no need to say much about the confiscation of property. All the corrupt officials and gentry who brought trouble to the village had their property confiscated.

The taxes are salt tax and customs duty.

Salt tax was the first to be affected.

In the 45th year of Wanli's reign, the Ming Dynasty began to implement the Salt Monopoly System.

In the first year of the Tianqi reign, the salt tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty was 2.5 million taels.

By the 16th year of Chongzhen, the salt tax revenue was less than one million taels.

Where did the money go?

They didn't disappear, they were moved.

The money that should have been sent to the national treasury was divided up between salt merchants and officials.

As for tariffs, let alone the annual income, it is only tens of thousands of taels...

You should know that the total amount of goods imported and exported by the Ming Dynasty each year reached nearly 10 million taels.

Even if only one percent tax is levied, the customs revenue should be 100,000 taels!

Unfortunately, the money was transferred.

Time passed slowly as Chongzhen was thinking, and soon Li Ruolian came.

"Your Majesty, the matter of the food money has been investigated."

Li Ruolian handed over a stack of papers, which were covered with densely written words.

Chongzhen took a quick look and saw some statements with signatures and fingerprints at the end.

Li Ruo Lian continued, "I sent the Royal Guards to investigate the student Jiang Gui's hometown. It took a month and the investigation is now complete."

"Jiang Gui's family is indeed poor, but..."

"But what?"

"But he spends money lavishly. What he eats, wears and uses is no worse than the Jinyiwei of the Zhenfu Division! Especially the things he uses, I can't bear to buy them."

"Isn't that right? The Imperial Household Department only gives him one or two taels of silver for food every month, which is not enough to cover his expenses!"

"The food money is only a part of his income. The vast majority of his income comes from charity from others. And he is good at gaining sympathy, so he has a lot of extra income every month."

"So, the Imperial College's chief academic officer, Hou Yongfeng, was falsely accused?"

Li Ruo Lian smiled bitterly: "I think so, but it's not. Because his family is indeed poor, and the three mud houses are about to collapse, but... he is not poor!"

Chongzhen sighed heavily: "How do you think this matter should be handled?"

"This...I don't know." Li Ruolian spoke cautiously.

This matter has become a big deal, and if it is not handled properly it will cause a lot of unnecessary trouble.

"Give a message to Hou Yongfeng, the Imperial College's chief academic officer, and let him handle the matter on his own. No matter what the result is, I don't want to see this student in the court, understand?"

"I understand."

"Wait," seeing Li Ruolian was about to leave, Chongzhen stopped him.

"Your Majesty, please give your instructions."

"How were the summer and autumn grain harvests in Shaanxi and Shanxi last year?"

Li Ruolian was stunned, not knowing why Chongzhen asked this question.

Embarrassingly, he didn't know the answer.

"Immediately arrange for someone to investigate and try to be as accurate as possible."

"I will arrange it right away."

After Li Ruolian left, Chongzhen continued to think about the previous problems.

He wrote down on paper everything about salt inspections, customs duties, ocean trade and money printing.

He didn't write the specific details because he didn't know how to write them.

He simply wrote down some ideas and handed them over to the cabinet to discuss the details.

Once you are sure that there are no problems with the details, then arrange someone to carry it out.

With the help of the cabinet, we can avoid many detours.

"Your Majesty, the Minister of Revenue requests to see you." Wang Chengen's voice sounded in his ears.

"Let him in."

Fang Yuegong, the Minister of Revenue, stepped into the hall and raised the box in his hand high above his head: "Your Majesty, this is the new copper coin minted by the Ministry of Revenue. Please take a look."

Chongzhen took the box, opened it, picked up a copper coin and looked at it carefully.

Chongzhen Tongbao!

Before the Ming Dynasty, copper coins of many dynasties were called "yuanbao".

In the Ming Dynasty, it was unified into Tongbao.

The reason is very simple, it is to avoid the word "Yuan" in Zhu Yuanzhang's name.

Fang Yuegong introduced: "Your Majesty, our dynasty uses copper to cast coins. Every hundred catties of copper can cast 16,000 copper coins, which is equivalent to 20 taels, 5 coins and 4 cents of silver. The cost price of every hundred catties of copper is 10 taels of silver, and the profit is very considerable!"

"How many copper coins can I get for one tael of silver?"

"Your Majesty, officially, one tael of silver can be exchanged for one string of copper coins, and one string of copper coins is 770 coins."

Before the Song Dynasty, one string of copper coins was equivalent to one thousand coins. During the Song Dynasty, one string of coins was equal to one tael of silver, but one string of coins was no longer one thousand copper coins, but 770 copper coins, or 770 coins.

"What's the reality?" Chongzhen asked.

"Actually, one tael of silver can be exchanged for about 1,500 wen."