"I heard that Fang Yuegong is very tired recently, so let him take a break!" Chongzhen agreed with Gao Shiming's idea.
Fang Yuegong was a loyal minister.
He is not greedy for money or lustful, and he devotes all his attention to his work.
Under his management, the entire Ministry of Revenue was in good order.
If there had not been the new policy of currency reform, Chongzhen would have wanted to weld Fang Yuegong into the position of Minister of Revenue.
Unfortunately, plans cannot keep up with changes.
The currency reform was not implemented smoothly in Jiangnan.
This new policy is of vital importance to the Ming Dynasty, even a thousand times more important than recovering Liaodong.
The South is the Donglin Party’s stronghold!
The currency reform affects their interests, and the difficulty of implementation can be imagined.
Therefore, Chongzhen’s countermeasure was to force Fang Yuegong to step down and replace him with a member of the Donglin Party as the Minister of Revenue.
On the surface, this move wronged Fang Yuegong and boosted the arrogance of the Donglin Party.
In fact, the opposite is true.
Letting Fang Yuegong step down is to protect him from being implicated in subsequent events.
Letting the Donglin Party take up the post of Minister of Revenue was a complete conspiracy.
If the Donglin Party wanted to gain Chongzhen's trust, they had to achieve results.
What is performance?
Currency reform!
However, currency reform would harm their interests.
For the Donglin Party, they will face the difficult choice of choosing performance or interests.
Is it okay if you can’t achieve results?
wrong!
Chongzhen's sword had not killed anyone for a long time, and both he and the sword missed the taste of blood.
After the Donglin Party came to power, they either gave up their interests in exchange for performance, or lost their lives and their wealth.
Two options, one chance to choose.
For many Donglin Party members who are afraid of death, life is the most important thing, and other things have to take a back seat in the face of life and death.
In this way, the currency reform can be implemented smoothly.
After the currency reform was completed, the Donglin Party lost its value.
Although Chongzhen would not do such a thing as abandoning the donkey after it has done its work, he made use of the good people in the Donglin Party and kicked the bad ones out of the official ranks.
Gao Shiming was not clear about Chongzhen's ultimate intention. He only knew that he should impeach Fang Yuegong.
After the impeachment, Fang Yuegong will leave the position of Minister of Revenue.
Who will take over?
The Ming emperor in front of him obviously already had a suitable candidate, otherwise he would not have secretly instructed him to impeach Fang Yuegong.
It’s not appropriate to ask directly.
If you don't ask clearly, you won't be sure.
Gao Shiming thought for a moment and kowtowed to Chongzhen again: "Your Majesty, the Ministry of Revenue is in charge of a country's money and grain, which is extremely important! I think we should choose a capable minister from the six ministries and nine officials to take over the position of Minister of Revenue!"
Chongzhen smiled faintly: "I don't know who the capable minister is, so you need to slowly look for him! There are capable people among the provincial governors, and the officials of the six ministries also have real abilities. If you can't find a suitable candidate among these people..."
"Just look for it among the Nine Ministers!"
Gao Shiming blinked and understood what Chongzhen meant.
Nine Ministers!
The next Minister of Revenue will come from among the Nine Ministers.
If Chongzhen really didn't have a suitable candidate, he wouldn't have said the last sentence.
"I will go look for one right away!"
"Don't be in a hurry, let's talk about it after the festival!" Chongzhen instructed.
Fang Yuegong worked diligently for the court and was extremely loyal to him. If he was taken down before the New Year, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to celebrate this New Year.
Let him have a good year.
"I understand!" Gao Shiming breathed a sigh of relief, knelt down and saluted, then turned and left.
After Gao Shiming left, Chongzhen began to analyze the situation in the court.
Although there are few factional disputes in the court today, political parties still exist.
Compared with the numerous political parties in the past, there are now much fewer parties, and party members are not divided by region.
Taking the current Ming Dynasty court as an example, there are four parties in total.
The first is the Prime Minister Party headed by Fan Jingwen.
Although this party does not have many members, they are all powerful people.
The second is the Ministry of Revenue party headed by Fang Yuegong.
Before this, the Ministry of Revenue did not have much power, but after the establishment of the Postal and Telecommunications Administration to collect commercial taxes, the power of the Ministry of Revenue began to rise.
Became the second largest party in the court.
The third party is the eunuch party.
The eunuch party has two leaders.
One is Gao Shiming, the eunuch in charge of the Imperial Household Department, and the other is Wang Zhixin, the governor of the Eastern Depot.
The composition of officials attached to them is rather complex.
There are both corrupt officials and honest people.
Not only that, many members of the "Imperial Party" also joined the Eunuch Party to hide their identities.
The fourth party was the Donglin Party.
The Donglin Party here is not the Donglin Party in a narrow sense, but the Donglin Party in a broad sense.
In a narrow sense, the Donglin Party was a bureaucratic group mainly composed of literati from the south of the Yangtze River. They held one or two large meetings a year and a small meeting once a month.
In a broad sense, the Donglin Party refers to those who only shout slogans but do not do any practical work.
These people are the most hateful.
Many Donglin Party members advocated reducing land taxes and corvee labor, reducing commercial taxes, and abolishing mining taxes.
These propositions are very popular among scholars and the people!
but...
The imperial court was a huge money-eating machine that required huge amounts of funds to keep running.
The premise of reducing taxes is that expenditures should also be reduced.
Otherwise, the national treasury will be unable to make ends meet and will be in deficit!
The Donglin Party didn't care about that. They only proposed reducing taxes but didn't consider how to make up for the deficit.
This behavior of seeking fame for oneself and not caring about the life and death of the imperial court is no different from treason.
Chongzhen wanted to let them jump out on their own and then slap them to death!
In Chengqian Palace, Chongzhen once again held Shen Peiqing in his arms.
As it was getting dark outside, Shen Peiqing's heart began to beat fast.
She looked up at Chongzhen's face, then quickly lowered her head and asked, "Why is your majesty so worried?"
"There are several important things to happen after the festival, and I have a heavy burden on my shoulders!"
Shen Peiqing raised her head seriously, "I am willing to share the burden with Your Majesty!"
Chongzhen lowered his head, looked at Shen Peiqing's pretty face and said with a chuckle, "Let's eat first, and then share the burden after the meal."
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