Zhao Hao read the telegram drafted by Ma Xianglan again, revised a few places, and handed it to Chang Kaiche.

But he did not go to send the message, but stood there and refused to leave.

"Anything else?" Zhao Hao leaned back in the rocking chair and took a puff of his pipe comfortably.

"There is also a telegram from Beijing." Chang Kaiche took out another folder from his briefcase and handed it to Zhao Hao. Since the telegram came, his work has become much more arduous. Of course, this is a good thing.

"Here we go again..." Zhao Hao gave a bitter smile, took the folder and opened it, smoking his pipe while watching what trouble Master Zhao was going to cause him.

Having said that, he also knew that his father had not had an easy time in recent years.

Since the death of Zhang Juzheng, the days of prosperity and good harvests in the Ming Dynasty seemed to be over.

In the 15th year of the Wanli reign, the whole country was hit by floods. Heavy rains fell continuously in the capital, and countless houses of officials and civilians collapsed. Countless residents were crushed to death or drowned. After finally getting through it, who would have thought that from August onwards, there would be no rain at all, and droughts continued throughout the winter and spring. The severe drought in the north has lasted for two years.

It wasn’t that it didn’t rain in the whole country, but it rained in the south. Throughout the 16th year of the Wanli reign, there was a locust plague in the north of the Yangtze River, a severe drought in the north, and heavy rain in the south of the Yangtze River. There was also a major earthquake in Henan, which collapsed countless battlements, drum towers, pavilions, and houses, and killed and injured more than 10,000 people. Even Shanxi and the capital felt the tremor, and the birds flew away and the houses shook.

The situation in the south is relatively good, as the Jiangnan Group is organizing flood control and disaster relief efforts, so the court does not have to worry about it.

But there was no way to deal with those places in the north that were beyond the reach of the gangs. According to Sun Piyang, the right assistant minister of the Ministry of Revenue, "the hungry people in the Yellow River ate grass and trees, and Pucheng and Tongguan counties in Shaanxi even ate stones."

The cabinet chief Zhao Shouzheng therefore said: "Now the country is suffering from the increase in taxes. Please adjust the annual expenditure to eliminate the redundant ones that are difficult to cut and give a rest to the people who are unable to support themselves."

However, although Emperor Wanli made nice statements and sent officials to various places to provide relief, he never stopped collecting money from the Ministry of Revenue. Yang Wei, the Minister of Revenue, could not satisfy the emperor, so he sent eunuchs to various places to plunder, not caring about the lives of the people at all.

Because Emperor Wanli had more important things to do—his younger brother, Prince Lu, was going to be enfeoffed!

We don't know what Emperor Wanli was thinking. He had no feelings for his country and his subjects, as if the sky had nothing to do with him. But he was extremely kind to his family members, and he wanted to pick all the stars in the sky for them.

This was especially true for his only brother, Prince Lu. When Wanli went out of Beijing to visit the mausoleum, he asked Prince Lu to supervise the country several times. Previously, Prince Lu's crown ceremony cost a full 600,000 taels.

In the tenth year of Wanli's reign, when Prince Lu got married, he embezzled more than 900,000 taels of silver from military expenses alone, and even bought out all the jewels in the capital.

This shows how much Wanli loved his younger brother.

Naturally, he could not be careless about his brother's most important matter, such as his enfeoffment. In the 12th year of Wanli's reign, Wanli began to order large-scale construction to build a palace for his brother.

In May of the 16th year of the Wanli reign, after four years and costing four million taels of silver, the Prince Lu's Palace was finally completed. The entire palace complex was large and magnificent, occupying the eastern half of the entire Weihui Prefecture City!

The construction of Prince Lu's Palace was managed by Wanli's uncle, the newly appointed Marquis of Wuqing, Li Wenquan.

By this time, Li Wei had passed away, and according to the rules, the title of a relative by marriage could not be inherited. But after Zhang Juzheng's death, no one could control Wanli, and Zhao Shouzheng was unwilling to quarrel with the emperor over such a matter, so he turned a blind eye and let his eldest son Li Wenquan inherit the title.

Given the conduct of the Li family, half of the four million taels could be used for the palace project, even if the uncle didn't cheat his nephew...

Now that the palace was built, Prince Lu's enfeoffment naturally became the agenda.

The unfortunate Minister of Revenue Yang Wei needs to prepare resettlement expenses for Prince Lu again...

This time, Wanli gave the Ministry of Revenue a task of two million taels of silver.

Yang Wei was so angry that he laughed. What a guy, do you really think that all the money in Taicang comes from the wind?

So he petitioned, saying that disasters were everywhere in the country, and how many prefectures and counties needed relief? It was only July, and the revenue from last year had already run out. The emperor was asked to be frugal. As for the issue of Lu Wang's resettlement expenses, hadn't he been rewarded with so many imperial farms and tens of thousands of hectares of land? Wouldn't it be enough to just cash them in?

As a result, Wanli reprimanded him harshly. He said, "I only have this one brother, and this farewell will be forever. Do you want me to have any regrets?"

He had already calculated the accounts for the Ministry of Revenue. Zhang Juzheng should have saved more than 12 million taels. The grain was enough for ten years. After allocating 2 million taels to his brother, there would be 10 million taels left, which was more than enough for disaster relief!

Yang Wei's nose was crooked with anger. Although most of the assets left by Grand Tutor Zhang were still there, he had only been dead for two years and there was already a full five million taels missing from the account. Wasn't this shocking enough? !

But the censors still didn't understand him, and they wrote letters to impeach Yang Wei, scolding him, saying that the country had suffered such a serious disaster, but your Ministry of Revenue not only did not provide relief to the victims, but instead succumbed to the emperor's unreasonable demands!

Poor Yang Wei was so frustrated that he felt like he was really going to collapse. In a fit of rage, he handed in his resignation and quit.

At this time, only the first peacemaker of the Ming Dynasty, the Prime Minister Zhao Shouzheng, could come to settle the matter. He comforted Yang Wei, saying, "The boy should not cry, stand up and masturbate." At the same time, he taught the censors, "Be harmonious and serve the public, there is no need to argue with words."

I'll discuss this with the Emperor later. Two million taels is really too much. How about we reduce it?

In the past two years, Wanli has become more and more dependent on his teacher Zhao. Without Zhao Shouzheng to smooth things over for him, he would have been drowned by the censors' spit. He had to give Zhao some face, so he said to reduce the salary by one-fifth.

Zhao Shouzheng said to reduce it further. Wanli said it couldn't be less than one quarter.

Zhao Shouzheng said to reduce it further. Wanli said at most one third, any less would be hard to explain...

~~

"Son, you must help Dad. The emperor is only willing to reduce the amount by one third. But the Ministry of Revenue is only willing to pay one million taels at most. Dad only kept Yang Bu Tang because he said it was no problem. The Ministry of Revenue cannot do without him. If someone else were to take over, it would be even more difficult..."

Zhao Hao smiled bitterly when he saw his father's "emergency help" telegram. However, this telegram was not entirely good. For example, if his father encountered difficulties, he could immediately send a telegram for help no matter where he was.

"What do you think we should do?" He looked at his general manager, Ma Xianglan.

"Three hundred and thirty thousand taels is not much." Ma Xianglan flipped open a thick notebook covered with labels and took a look. "But this year's special funds are not much."

Even though Zhao Hao is the one who has the final say in the group, as the one who makes the rules, he must take the lead in abiding by the rules and cannot break them at will. Therefore, Zhao Hao must also follow the group's budget at the beginning of the year, otherwise it will be embarrassing when the year-end accounts are settled.

"So quickly?" Zhao Hao was a little surprised. The special fund group gave him flexible control to deal with contingency expenses.

"Too many places have suffered from disasters this year. And my father alone has received over one million taels in subsidies this year," Ma Xianglan explained softly.

In addition to being the chairman of the group, Zhao Hao is also a junior minister of the Ming Dynasty and the teacher of a quarter of the country's officials. The latter two identities are to protect and support the group, and of course Zhao Hao cannot pay for many expenses himself.

In the past, this amount of money was mainly used to pay tribute to his father-in-law. Every time Zhang Juzheng said that there was a lot of expenditure in a certain place, he would have to transfer the money to the designated account obediently, right?

When his disciple, who is an official in a county, writes to him about the difficulties in the locality, his teacher cannot just sit back and do nothing, right?

However, Zhao Hao still tried to keep the accounts clear. For example, if his disciples were not well-off, or had weddings or funerals, Zhao Hao would pay for them out of his own pocket and would not use special funds.

Don't underestimate these favors. Each one may not seem like much, but Zhao Hao has 3,000 disciples, so he has to pay hundreds of thousands of taels a year. If he is also asked to pay for the donations to the local government, he may not be able to afford it...

You think being a teacher is so easy. Being loved by others comes at a price.

It was not too bad at first, with dozens of donations a year, totaling about one to eight hundred thousand taels of silver.

But since last year, Zhao Hao's special funds have obviously been insufficient, so this year's group budget doubled his special funds.

But I didn't expect that this year the whole country would suffer from a disaster. There was drought in the north, floods in the south, earthquakes, and locust plagues. Disciples' letters complaining about their problems came pouring in. Now, the special funds were in short supply in the middle of the year.

"Forget it." Zhao Hao waved his hands in frustration and said, "Let's go from Singularity Investment's account."

Singularity Investments is his sole proprietorship, so this money can be considered as a personal donation from him... after all, that's his father.

"Let me see." Ma Xianglan opened another red notebook, flipped through it and looked it up: "Okay. But this place is not very wealthy, mainly because the communications department spends too much money."

"Well, this is mainly because we have established more than one hundred communication squadrons. The initial cost is indeed..." Chang Kaiche was sweating profusely. He didn't know why his boss was giving him a hard time out of the blue.

"Alright, alright, go ahead." Zhao Hao waved his hand and said, "If my father ever telegraphs to ask for money again, just burn it."

"Hey, hey." Chang Kaiche retreated awkwardly. He of course knew that the boss was just speaking in anger.

"Alas, other people are making money as junior cabinet ministers, but I have to pay for it." Zhao Hao leaned back in his chair, took a few puffs of his pipe and said in a low voice: "I thought that since my father-in-law passed away, I could save some money. I didn't expect that my own father would be even more rude when asking for money."

"What do you think?" Ma Xianglan said with a smile, "I heard that people gave father a nickname, 'Spring Breeze and Rain'."

"Good fellow, it's like a spring breeze and timely rain." Zhao Hao understood immediately: "It turns out that there is only a wrong name, but no wrong nickname."

After the couple finished talking, they looked at each other and laughed, and Zhao Hao's little resentment disappeared.

"Forget it, forget it. Isn't the money we earn to spend on Dad?" Mr. Zhao closed Ma Xianglan's notebook, put his arm around her shoulders and said, "My lady, let's continue..."

"Yes." Ma Xianglan's face flushed and she nodded slightly, showing a bit of shyness of a young girl.

Zhao Hao's heart was shaken when he saw this, he picked her up and walked into the house...