After several days of debate in the court, Yin Chengyu finally made the final decision. The disaster victims had to be resettled, but the canal had to be diverted as it continued to burst year after year, and they could not just sit back and watch.

The money for river management was transferred from the emperor's treasury and would be returned after the national treasury was full.

As for the officials to be in charge of river management and disaster relief, Yin Chengyu appointed two officials from the Ministry of Works who were very experienced in river management, and also respectfully appointed Xie Pingchuan as an imperial envoy to perform the duties of supervision.

The night before Xie Yunchuan left Beijing, Yin Chengyu went out of the palace in plain clothes to see him off.

This time, Xie Pingchuan nominally supervised the river management and resettlement of disaster victims on behalf of the emperor, but in fact he secretly wanted to use the name of inspecting the canal to first find out the general situation of the fiefs of the princes in Shandong and other provincial governments. It would be best if he could find those who were not so obedient and use them as a breakthrough to reduce the princes' annual income and implement new policies.

Many things in this life have not happened. Xie Yanchuan's experience and qualifications are not as good as in his previous life. Yin Chengyu is worried that he is young and impulsive and does not care about his own safety. Not only does he go to Xie's house incognito to give him some instructions again, he also assigns the small team of elite Dongchang soldiers he brought with him to him for secret protection.

Xie Pingchuan had no idea of ​​his origins with the emperor in his previous life. When faced with Yin Chengyu's concern, he was both moved and excited. He felt like Boya and Ziqi, who had met each other too late. He wished he could kill all the vassal kings in his fiefdom immediately to repay the emperor's kindness.

Yin Chengyu was a little amused. He never thought that the once thoughtful Xie Shoufu would also have such a naive period.

On the contrary, Xue Shu, who was accompanying him, chuckled, as if he was used to it, and whispered to Yin Chengyu, "He is very deceptive now."

Yin Chengyu squinted at him and said, "Is that how you tricked him into thinking of you as his benefactor?"

Xue Shu smiled but said nothing.

Xie Pingchuan escorted the people to the door. Seeing the two whispering and looking at him from time to time, he thought that Yin Chengyu was still worried, so he repeatedly assured him: "Your Majesty, don't worry, I will not act impulsively."

Yin Chengyu hummed, looked at him with interest, then got on the carriage and returned to the palace.

After Xie Pingchuan rushed to Shandong, Yin Chengyu took out the memorial from the Fujian governor requesting to "open the maritime market and change private trade into public trade" and discussed it with the ministers at the court meeting.

Since the maritime ban, the Guangdong and Fujian governors and other coastal officials have submitted petitions every year to request the lifting of the maritime ban, but they have never been granted. Now that Yin Chengyu plans to increase revenue from coastal commercial taxes, he naturally puts the lifting of the maritime ban on the agenda.

Since the reign of Emperor Taizu, the Yan Dynasty had a policy of maritime ban. Later, as pirates became more rampant, the maritime ban policy became more and more severe. Except for tribute and trade, ordinary people were not allowed to have any commercial dealings with overseas countries. However, overseas trade was lucrative, and merchants along the coast often went out to sea to trade privately, which was repeatedly banned.

The world is bustling with people all seeking profit. If we can’t stop it, then don’t try to stop it.

Yin Chengyu had read the records before Taizu banned the sea. At that time, overseas trade along the coast was quite prosperous, and the annual transaction amount alone reached tens of millions of taels. If the court managed and regulated it, why would it worry about insufficient tax revenue?

As soon as the proposal to lift the maritime ban was made, it unsurprisingly received support from a large number of court officials.

Nowadays, most of the officials in the court are from the southern coastal areas, and behind these officials are the gentry from the coastal areas. Since the ban on sea trade, overseas trade has been hit hard, and the gentry from the coastal areas have lost the opportunity to make a lot of money, so they are naturally unwilling to accept it. The coastal officials are rejected every year, but they still petition to lift the ban on sea trade every year. It is not impossible that these gentry are pushing them behind the scenes.

However, Yin Chengyu lifted the maritime ban not to give the coastal gentry an opportunity to save their wealth, but to levy additional commercial taxes to increase revenue for the national treasury.

In the past, these officials often used many reasons such as "poor merchants are in trouble" and "the state should not compete with the people for profits" to prevent the increase of commercial taxes. Today, the commercial tax in Dayan is only one in thirty, and there are few tax items. As a result, the big merchants in various places are rich enough to rival the country, but the national treasury cannot spend money when encountering difficulties.

Therefore, when re-drafting the strategy for opening up the sea this time, Yin Chengyu specially selected several young officials who were from the Hanlin Academy and had just been promoted to discuss the issue with the old officials in the court.

After several debates, the policy to lift the maritime ban was officially announced on the tenth day of July. Several young officials who had previously argued for the policy were sent to coastal areas such as Guangdong and Fujian to oversee the construction of military expenditure offices, responsible for managing private overseas trade and the collection of commercial taxes.

Both "open source" and "cost reduction" have been arranged, and now we just have to wait and see the final results.

Yin Chengyu was in a very good mood, and when he had some free time that day, he asked Xue Shu to pick up Yin Chengqian from Renshou Palace, and also had someone bring General Tiger over. The two tigers, one big, one small and a cub, played in the garden for a long time.

Xue Shu was just watching from the side, but he didn't expect Yin Chengyu to be so cautious. He grabbed the tiger general's fur and climbed onto his back, wanting to ride the tiger. Although he was young, he had big ideas. After Yin Chengyu tried to dissuade him several times, he looked at Xue Shu with a righteous look and said, "You are his martial arts master. If he wants to learn to ride a tiger now, you can teach him."

After saying this, he waved his hands and went to drink tea.

The pair of eyes that looked towards Xue Shu were filled with a clear desire to watch a show.

Xue Shu had no choice but to teach Yin Chengqian how to ride a tiger with a stern face.

There was no saddle on the tiger's back, and Yin Chengqian was young, so it was impossible to teach him properly. Xue Shu, with a sullen face, lifted him up and put him on the tiger's back, protecting him while the tiger general took him for a trot twice before trying to call it a day.

But Yin Chengqian had already tasted the feeling of riding a tiger, and when Xue Shu wanted to lift him off the tiger and feed him to the wet nurse, he clung to the tiger general's back and refused to get off, uttering vague protests.

General Tiger thought it was some new game, so he tilted his neck and started howling too.

The nanny stood aside with an embarrassed look on her face. Xue Shu's face turned pale and veins on his forehead throbbed. If it weren't for Yin Chengyu watching, he would have wanted to make Yin Chengqian understand deeply what "Master Wu" meant.

Fortunately, the stalemate didn't last long, as Wei Xihe came with urgent news and rescued him.

Xue Shu quickly picked up Yin Chengqian who was still calling and put him into the arms of the wet nurse, then strode towards Wei Xihe: "What do you want to report?"

Wei Xihe stepped forward and presented the secret information in his sleeve to Yin Chengyu: "This is a secret letter from Wala. I dare not open it rashly."

"Is there any movement from Wuzhu?" Yin Chengyu was slightly surprised, and took the letter and opened it. After reading it, he smiled a little, then his expression became a little serious, and handed the secret letter to Xue Shu: "Wuzhu, this chess piece, is more useful than I expected."

The progress was even faster than he had imagined.

When Yin Chengjing was forcing the emperor to abdicate, he took advantage of the chaos to have Wuzhu sent to the eldest prince of the Oirat, Muduo, with the intention of using Wuzhu to balance the internal situation of the Oirat, and to use Wuzhu's understanding of the Tatars to control the Tatars in the future. At that time, the old Oirat king died, and before his death, he passed the throne to his favorite youngest son Mubal. But Mubal was too young to obey the crowd, and the eldest son Muduo was in his prime, so he naturally refused to give up the throne, so he brought his own people to kill his brother and seize the throne.

However, Muduo was brave but lacked wisdom, and he failed to completely eliminate Mubal's faction, so the two sides fought back and forth.

After Wuzhu was escorted to Wala by Dongchang Fanzi, she forged her identity documents and was presented to Muduo as a tribal woman in distress.

Muduo had shown his affection to Wuzhu in the past, but was rejected by her. Now that he met a woman who looked exactly like Wuzhu, he naturally doted on her.

With Muduo's favor, Wuzhu quickly gained a firm foothold in Wala. When Muduo and Mubal were fighting, she made plans for him and repeatedly dealt heavy blows to Mubal's faction, thus gaining Muduo's trust. Before long, Muduo seized the throne, and Wuzhu became Muduo's most favored woman.

The secret letter said that Wuzhu was pregnant. Although Muduo had wives and concubines, he only had three daughters. If Wuzhu could give birth to a son, she would be the queen of Wala.

Now Muduo is obedient to Wuzhu. Under her persuasion, Muduo, who has just ascended the throne, is willing to submit to Dayan and completely submit to Dayan to seek protection.

However, Wuzhu's ambitions were obviously not limited to this. In addition to the various preferential treatments after surrendering, she also made another request in the secret letter - to let Dayan send troops to attack the Tatars together with the Oirat.

The Oirat was originally weaker than the Tatar, and after the internal turmoil caused by the struggle for the throne between the two kings, it became even weaker than before.

Since the Red Rhino Winter Hunt, the Tatars have been keeping a low profile. They seem to be honest, but in fact they are gathering strength and plotting in secret.

According to Wuzhu, the Tatars are now frequently mobilizing troops and have tried to attack the Oirat several times. If it weren't for this, Muduo would not be easily persuaded by her.

And she obviously still resented being abandoned without hesitation during the winter hunt for Danxi, and cunningly wanted to use Dayan to inflict heavy damage on Tatar.

"What do you think?" Yin Chengyu looked at Xue Shu.

Xue Shu put away the letter and said, "It is a good opportunity, but it is too hasty. And we have to be on guard against the Oirat defecting to the Tatars."

Yin Chengyu nodded. Wuzhu acted too quickly. If he could have delayed it by half a year, he would not have hesitated. Although Wuzhu wanted to use Dayan to deal with the Tatars, he also wanted to take the opportunity to swallow up the Oirat and the Tatars and completely pacify the northern tribes.

But he was unwilling to give up such an opportunity.

Yin Chengyu thought for a long time, and finally said, "Call the Minister of Revenue and the Minister of War to the palace."

…

Yu Chen and Lu Jing were summoned to the palace together. They bumped into each other in front of the palace gate and saw deep doubts on each other's faces.

After entering the Yangxin Palace, I saw Yin Chengyu sitting behind the desk, looking down at a letter carefully.

Seeing the two coming, Yin Chengyu first looked at the Minister of War Lu Jing and asked, "How many troops can be mobilized from the nine important towns on the border?"

Great Yan established nine important military towns along the northern border, stretching from the Mazi River in the east to Jiayu Pass in the west, stretching for thousands of miles. He led the frontline soldiers, and their number of troops accounted for 70% of the entire Great Yan's military strength.

Lu Jing replied: "The total number of troops in the nine important border towns is 680,000."

"If I mobilize 300,000 soldiers to march north, how long will the food and supplies last?" Yin Chengyu asked again.

Lu Jing was shocked when he heard this, and subconsciously looked at Yu Chen: "The border has been peaceful for a long time, and there has been no major war. The surplus of the Ministry of War can only supply half a month at most. If it is longer, the Ministry of Revenue will need to transfer it."

Yu Chen's eyes widened, and he subconsciously shouted: "The money used to manage the canal comes from your Majesty's inner treasury, where does the Ministry of Revenue get the money?!"

Yin Chengyu stepped back and tapped the table. "If we emptied the treasury and the national treasury, could it last for three months?"

Yu Chen counted quickly on his fingers, and finally said hesitantly: "It is possible, but——"

Before he could finish his words, Yin Chengyu said, "Three months will be enough."

After three months, whether it was cutting the expenses of the vassal kings or coastal trade, his arrangements should have begun to show results. Even if the war could not be stopped in three months, it would not hurt the foundation.

Yu Chen and Lu Jing finally understood Yin Chengyu's intention of summoning them to the palace, and could not help but advise: "The northern expedition is a serious matter, please think twice."

Especially Yu Chen, he stared at his nephew who looked at Duan Fang with gentleness, and wanted to say that the money in the national treasury was not enough to support the war.

But Yin Chengyu had obviously made up his mind. He pushed the secret letter in front of the two men and said, "Even if we don't fight now, in winter, there will be a tough battle between us and the Tatars. During the winter hunting of the red rhinoceros last year, the Tatars' ambitions were already obvious."

According to the trajectory of the previous life, the Tatars invaded the border southward in the winter of the 19th year of Longfeng.

Instead of waiting for the enemy to be fully prepared, it is better to take the initiative and catch the enemy off guard.

However, Dayan is now in a state of disrepair and in urgent need of recuperation. It is risky to start a war again at this critical moment. If we win, it will be fine, but if we lose...

Seeing that the two were hesitant to speak, Yin Chengyu waved his hands, somewhat hesitant, and asked them to go back first: "The Northern Expedition is of great importance, I will consider it again and again. Don't spread this matter first."

Seeing that he did not insist on his own way, they both secretly breathed a sigh of relief, bowed and retreated.

After everyone left, Yin Chengyu leaned back heavily in the armchair, rubbed his brows, and lowered his eyes in deep thought.

Xue Shu walked behind him and gently massaged his temples. "In my previous life, I led troops to fight against the Tatars. If the Oirat had not rebelled, and the army had received a steady supply of food and fodder, three months would have been enough to crush the Tatars."

Yin Chengyu sighed: "But this is the best case scenario. I don't trust Wuzhu."

It is true that he arranged for Wuzhu to go to Wala, but Wuzhu is not a chess piece that can be manipulated by others. On the contrary, she is cunning and ambitious, and she can do anything for the sake of interests. The general is not subject to orders from the foreign army. Even if she is watched by people from the East Factory, there is no guarantee that she will not turn against the party for the sake of interests and join forces with the Tatars to set up a trap for Dayan.

Even though this possibility was not great, he had to consider the worst possible scenario.

Xue Shu thought for a moment and said, "Then let's send someone to Wala to find out the truth first, and then make a decision."