The chrysanthemums in the courtyard withered, and winter had arrived in Fengdu.

Snow had fallen all over the ground overnight, and the whole city was covered in a layer of pure white. The snow was still falling outside, covering the city layer by layer. In the early morning, before dawn, the servants outside were waiting for their master to come out. The people in the house woke up, and the people inside seemed to be talking.

There was a sound of "Ya Ya-" and the door opened from the inside.

"Long live the master." "The old servant saw his long live master coming out and hurriedly opened the umbrella in his hand.

The group left quickly.

The person in the room woke up and sat on the head of the bed, half covered by the quilt. He tilted his head and looked at the flickering candles on the table, with no expression on his face. Hearing the footsteps leaving, Fang Ziye knew that Feng Lingxiao had returned to the palace to attend the morning court. After a year, Dafeng was slowly recovering after the disaster. In this year, the weather was good and the court exempted taxes for three years. The people did not have to pay heavy taxes to the court after growing crops. The people still had some surplus food, and they could barely survive this cold winter with this little food.

In the hundred years of Dayong, a large number of meritorious marquises and noble families appeared. They occupied a large amount of land. If you want to let the people really have enough food, you have to find a way to let the land return to the people. The land owned by the common people, which the common people worked hard to cultivate for a year, was paid as rent to the nobles, and the common people themselves had little food in their hands. The emperor wanted his country to develop further and prosper, so he had to find a way to take the land from the nobles and distribute it to the common people, so that the common people would have land to cultivate and food to eat. As for how to do this, How to take back these lands? The first thing is to find a way to abolish the hereditary system of meritorious marquises and take back the privileges granted to their ancestors by the court from these people, otherwise they will inherit them from generation to generation.

As for how to take back these privileges, it depends on how the emperor deals with the ministers in the court.

The current emperor is smart. Someone has mentioned this point to him, and he knows to follow this point and go forward. Continue on this path. However, this path is not easy to take. It touches on the interests of the deep-rooted aristocratic families in Dayong. How to slowly disintegrate the privileges in their hands without making any noise requires great patience. It

snowed in the north. When the snow falls, bad places will suffer disasters. The people cannot wear clothes to cover their bodies and cannot eat enough. When the cold winter comes, many people do not even have houses to withstand the cold wind. Countless people died of hunger and freezing. An emperor should seek benefits for the people and think of ways to ensure that his people can have enough food to eat, wear warm clothes, and live a good life. The emperor thinks about this problem every day and works hard for it.

The people are the foundation of the country. Only when the people have a good life can the country become truly strong. The emperor understands this truth better than anyone else. He Sitting in a high position, he must understand the land better than anyone else in the world, and only then can he be a good emperor.

In the morning court, the emperor threw out a memorial, saying that many places in the north were affected by the snow disaster. Even though the emperor has thought of many ways to make money in the past year, the court is still spending more than it earns, and the treasury is empty. No matter what happens, the court can't even take out the money for disaster relief.

The people have suffered from the disaster, so the court must naturally provide disaster relief, but the treasury is empty, and the court is powerless, right?

What, the court has no money either? ! The people may not believe it if it is told to others, but the emperor himself knows that there is not even a penny in the treasury. Then the people can just leave it alone and let the people starve to death or freeze to death, right? The emperor sitting on the top had a smile on his face, and the ministers below bowed their heads and said nothing.

"Li Shangmin." The emperor called the Minister

of Revenue to come out. "I am here." Li Shangmin was a person who supported the King of Wings when the emperor was King of Wings. Now he is the Minister of Revenue, in charge of the civil and financial affairs of the court. Seeing him come out, the emperor smiled coldly and said, "Minister Li, please take out the receipts of those in the court who borrowed money from the Ministry of Revenue." Li Shangmin really asked people to move several boxes up and put them in the hall. They were very conspicuous, and some ministers in the court were eyelids twitching. Could it be what they thought in their hearts?

The emperor replaced all the people in the Ministry of Revenue with his own people. As an emperor, he naturally wanted to keep the money of a country firmly in his own hands. He, the emperor, was the one who could really speak. The emperors in the past never cared about the affairs of the Ministry of Revenue. Some things were known to everyone, and the emperor would not fail to give face to his ministers.

But now it is the King of Yi who is the emperor. Who is the King of Yi? He was a teenager who went to the battlefield to fight the Zinu. He led his soldiers to drive out the invading Zinu, took back the Zhenmen Pass, and took back the grassland outside the pass. The emperor, who holds the military power, dares to play tricks in the hands of the emperor? That is tantamount to seeking death.

The emperor's meaning is also very clear. He wants to provide disaster relief and let the people affected by the disaster have food, clothes and houses. Since the Ministry of Revenue can't take out silver, then find a way to take silver from those who have silver. I, the emperor, have no silver in my hands. Isn't it time for you who borrowed silver from me to pay it back?

Over the years, officials in the court have borrowed at least hundreds of thousands of taels of silver from the Ministry of Revenue. Several cabinets of IOUs are now covered with dust. No emperor has ever asked his subjects to pay back the money before. Emperor Yongchang is the only one in history.

I don't even have money to save my people. What face do I need? Can people eat face?

Li Shangmin, you should keep these IOUs and don't read the receipts for now. "The emperor looked at his subjects with a smile on his face and said, "Who signed this IOU? I think you know it in your heart." The emperor saved face for his subjects here and reminded them that all the money your ancestors borrowed will be counted on you. "I will give you three days.

As for three days later...

In the past year since Xiang He ascended the throne, the emperor has cleared out many old forces in the court and supported a large number of his own people to serve him.

In the past, the court valued civil officials over military officials, but now the military officials in the court are valued and their status has been improved. Now there are many people in the court who are new and confront the old officials in the court.

Zhao Xianzhi returned to the court. As soon as he came back, his official position was promoted three levels. Naturally, there were many voices of opposition in the court. So what if Zhao Xianzhi was the top scholar in the previous emperor's time? He is still a brother? How could he take on such an important task?

Many young officials in the court were entrusted with important tasks as soon as they came to power, and the old officials in the court naturally opposed it.

Many old officials were proud of their status and felt that they had worked hard for the court all their lives and had great merits. They put on a high pedestal and pretended to be sick at home to protest silently. Little did they know that the emperor had disliked them for a long time. The emperor was also very angry. With an imperial decree, he took off the black gauze hats of many old ministers. Since you feel unwell every time you move, you should stay at home and take good care of yourself.

After the imperial decree, these old ministers couldn't even cry.

The emperor also instructed the imperial hospital, and the imperial doctors went to each mansion every day to check the pulse of these "sick" old ministers. All the precious medicines in the palace were sent to the mansions of these old ministers. Those who were just pretending to be sick were really sick because of anger. They lay on the bed gasping for breath, and did not dare to scold the emperor. They were afraid that when they knew that the emperor wanted them to pay back the money, their condition would worsen, and they might even die!

There is a decree to adjourn the court if there is nothing else...

"Adjourn the court!

Long live the emperor... The ministers who knelt on the ground below, those who had borrowed money from the Ministry of Revenue, wanted to cry but couldn't. It is natural to repay the money borrowed, isn't it? Moreover, they borrowed the money from their majesty, and their majesty asked them to pay it back, how dare they, the ministers, not pay it back?

The emperor was in a good mood and left the morning court. He ordered the palace servants to invite several ministers to the study to discuss matters.

The left and right prime ministers stood in the front. Prime Minister Qi had a calm face, while Prime Minister Liang's face was not very good. He had borrowed a lot of money from the Ministry of Revenue, so naturally there were many IOUs from him in the Ministry of Revenue.

Officials in the court, especially those with higher positions, are always short of silver. If they are short of silver, they go to the Ministry of Revenue to borrow it. Every time they go to the Ministry of Revenue to borrow money, they have to sign a promissory note. Over time, many people in the court have signed a lot of promissory notes, and Your Majesty has become their biggest creditor.

For a while, the ministers in the court ran around to pay off their debts, and the pawnshops in Fengdu City were busy. Many people took their valuable things at home to pawn them for money, otherwise if they couldn't pay back the money after three days, the Lord of the Palace would blame them for no joke.

Fang Ziye laughed when he knew about this.

It just so happened that he had opened several pawnshops. He asked people to inform the shopkeepers that if anyone took things to pawn, the price should be pushed down to the lowest. If they pawned things, they would have to pawn them forever and they could not redeem them in the future. Who doesn't need money these days? The money in his hand was prepared for that person, so it naturally belonged to that person. At this time, Fang Ziye was also helping the emperor to cheat those ministers.

When this storm is over, this batch of things collected will be valuable. Then he will sell them. I heard from Xiangnan that it would be a good idea to hold an auction. Then he will ask Xiangnan how this specific operation is. Fang Ziye thinks this method is very good.

After all this, he can make a lot of money again.

After the New Year, when the spring snow began to melt, the emperor fulfilled his original promise and asked Fang Ziye to take the two children on the carriage and leave Nanyang for Nanyang City. However, he sent two teams of people to follow them, one team was the guards who escorted them in public and the other team was the secret guards who followed them in secret.

Even so, the emperor was not necessarily reassured, but even if he was worried, he did not have the time to follow them in person at this time.