Chapter 269 268 A step too late

Chapter 269 268 A step too late

"Last year we only borrowed 80,000 taels of silver, but this year it suddenly became 700,000 taels."

In the Yongshou Palace in Xiyuan, Emperor Jiajing sat on the throne and looked at the note that had just been sent to him. This was not a memorial, but a request for instructions from the cabinet.

Looking at the handwriting, Emperor Jiajing could tell at a glance that the note written by Xu Jie was stamped with Yan Song's seal at the back.

I thought that after Jiangnan increased taxes, the imperial court's finances would be able to breathe a sigh of relief this year, but I didn't expect that the deficit would continue to worsen.

Emperor Jiajing naturally knew how to distribute the 700,000 taels of silver. He just didn't say many things, but it didn't mean that he didn't know.

Footsteps sounded outside the palace, and not long after, a small chamberlain came in to report: "Your Majesty, Governor Lu outside the palace has requested an audience."

Hearing that Lu Bing was coming, Emperor Jiajing nodded slightly to let him in.

The little chamberlain naturally understood the meaning of his prince's action, and immediately bowed and retreated.

Not long after, Lu Bing, dressed in a python suit, strode into the palace and saluted in front of Emperor Jiajing.

"Just be flat, there's no need to be so polite."

Emperor Jiajing looked at Lu Bing, a rare smile appeared on his calm face and said: "What are you doing here today? This is not the time you usually come here. Has something big happened again?"

Although Lu Bing held many official positions, his main task was to be responsible for the Imperial Guard and to monitor the world. Naturally, he had the right to meet the emperor at any time, otherwise the role of the Imperial Guard would be useless.

"Your Majesty, this is a memorandum written by a minister. Please read it."

The Ministry of Household Affairs was worried about money for the New Year, and Lu Bing believed that the palace must know about it.

At this time, Emperor Jiajing, although he didn't say anything, he was definitely thinking about it in his heart.

Even though Emperor Jiajing was almost fifty years old, he was usually ascetic in order to practice Taoism, but in fact he still had a playful heart and especially liked to watch fireworks.

There was no big industry in ancient times. Every object was handmade by craftsmen. Although it cannot be said to be unique, they were indeed rare and naturally expensive. Even the ordinary fireworks of later generations were the same.

Now that the Ministry of Finance has no money, Emperor Jiajing must also be worried about the New Year. Lu Bing feels that the opportunity he has been waiting for has finally come.

Impeaching Li Bin when the emperor was worried about money, even if Emperor Jiajing favored him, he would still have a hard time and wield the butcher's knife at this time.

Huang Jin took the memorial from Lu Bing, placed it gently on the imperial desk, and then stepped aside.

Emperor Jiajing did not read the memorial at the moment. He just stared at Lu Bing with interest for a while, then looked back at the memorial in front of him, picked it up and read it carefully.

Gradually, as he read through the memorial and saw the contents, the face of Emperor Jiajing, who had been relaxed before, gradually turned gloomy.

While the emperor was reading the memorial, Lu Bing quietly glanced at Huang Jin next to him. Huang Jin shook his head at him without opening or closing his mouth.

Even so, Lu Bing also trembled slightly in his heart. It seemed that he came at the wrong time today.

Huang Jin said nothing, but shook his head. He probably understood the meaning.

Yes, Lu Bing planned to take action against Li Bin, and he naturally had an explanation with Huang Jin beforehand.

Li Bin was not promoted by Huang Jin. Like Gao Zhong, he came from a wild place. He was valued because of his ability when Emperor Jiajing first entered the palace.

Of course, this is not because Huang Jin is jealous of Li Bin's favor. His position is unbreakable. In the past, he was happy to see Li Bin and Gao Zhong fighting openly and secretly in the Li Prison.

It's just that compared to Gao Zhong, this Li Bin is more courageous and greedy, which makes the loyal Huang Jin more and more intolerable to Li Bin.

Although he, as the admiral of the inner court, could nominally manage all the eunuchs and chamberlains, he was often unable to control the eunuchs around Emperor Jiajing. He could only take action against them under the emperor's orders.

After Lu Bing found two pieces of evidence that Li Bin was corrupt and perverted the law, Huang Jin naturally would not object to Lu Bing's impeachment. He just didn't get involved and let Lu Bing do what he did. However, he still had to take due care. of.

Lu Bing asked to see him at the wrong time today, and what he said after entering the palace made him know what the memorial said, and it should be evidence of Li Bin's crime.

Unfortunately, if it had been earlier, before the cabinet handed over the note, Emperor Jiajing might have ordered Li Bin to be taken down on the spot.

Now, maybe they will be detained first, or they may be called and scolded.

Thunder, rain, and dew are all in the heart of the emperor.

When Emperor Jiajing put down the memorial in his hand, his expression had returned to calm.

Being indifferent to emotions and anger may be the basic skill of an emperor.

However, Huang Jin and Lu Bing, who were familiar with him, could still feel the anger in his heart at this time.

Yes, although his face was calm, the emperor was still a little angry. It was just his long-term monastic career that made him learn to control his emotions.

The purpose of Taoist cultivation is naturally to achieve greatness, immortality, and transcendence into sainthood. To achieve this, one must be focused on nothing else.

If you want to practice without any distractions, you must cut off the so-called seven emotions and six desires.

Seven emotions: joy, anger, worry, thought, sadness, fear, and surprise. Six desires: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind.

In Taoist cultivation classics, fog is often used to describe the seven emotions and six desires. This is a very vivid and clever description. Once you see through it, you will naturally understand it and you can concentrate on your cultivation without being affected by the outside world.

Huang Jin and Lu Bing naturally didn't know whether Emperor Jiajing had seen through the fog, but they didn't guess because the emperor didn't seem to have learned the skill yet.

In this era, there are atheists, but not many, so naturally they are not among them.

So at this time, they could still see that Emperor Jiajing was angry inside.

"Wow, wow, haha, it's really difficult for a slave to accumulate such a huge fortune."

Emperor Jiajing looked at Lu Bing, then looked at Huang Jin, and asked, "Huang Jin, how much wealth have you accumulated?"

Hearing the emperor's question, Huang Jin was so frightened that he knelt down with a "pop" and exclaimed: "Your Majesty, although this servant has accumulated some money, it is all a reward from the Emperor, as well as the New Year's Eve of the ladies in the palace. The rewards given by the emperor, and when I go on errands for the emperor, the people below will give me some money for transportation, but I have never been corrupt and perverted the law to accept ill-gotten gains. Your Majesty is aware of this."

With that said, Huang Jin kowtowed to Emperor Jiajing.

"Get up, I just want to ask, don't your sons and grandsons show their respect to you?"

Emperor Jiajing asked, waving his sleeves and placing his hands on his knees.

"Yes, there are some, but not much. They don't have much money themselves."

Huang Jin didn't expect that the incident would involve him. At this moment, he felt regretful. He should have at least informed Lu Bing beforehand that if he was going to be impeached, he would first find a chance to leave Yongshou Palace and let others bear the burden.

Can these eunuchs around me not accept gifts?

Even the emperor has tributes sent from all over the country every year, which is actually one of the ways to receive gifts.

Emperor Jiajing would not notice if the people around him accepted some money and could still serve him wholeheartedly.

Hundreds of thousands of taels of silver were a bit too much, beyond the limit he could bear, which naturally made him think of the saying "eat people with short tongues and treat people with soft hands".

These days, the wealth of local wealthy families probably only amounts to this amount.

"Several hundred thousand taels of silver, haha, you can really collect a lot of money. I don't know how much trouble you will do if you take this money."

After Emperor Jiajing waved his hand for Huang Jin to get up, he turned to Lu Bing and said.

Hearing the emperor's words, Lu Bing's previously worried heart finally relaxed. Li Bin was finished.

"Your Majesty, the crimes listed in the memorandum of the ministers are all supported by witnesses and material evidence. Otherwise, we would not dare to report the matter. After all, the matter is of great importance. Eunuch Li serves as the Supervisor of Ceremonies."

Lu Bing whispered.

Only this time, after Lu Bing finished speaking, Emperor Jiajing did not speak immediately. Instead, he kept his hands on his knees and looked at the memorial on the imperial desk.

I don't know what Emperor Jiajing is thinking about. At this time, Lu Bing and Huang Jin didn't dare to say anything. They could only stand there quietly, waiting for the emperor to speak.

I don't know how long it took, but Emperor Jiajing seemed to have thought it through, and then he said to Lu Bing: "First put him under surveillance and check for evidence of his crime. I don't believe that he has just such a small amount of guilt. Let me check it carefully. Don't let him go." He got away."

Emperor Jiajing did not immediately order the arrest. Lu Bing was confused at this time and could not distinguish the situation.

If we don’t take away people before the New Year, what will happen to our Jinyiwei side during the New Year?

However, the emperor had already said this, so he naturally had no choice but to obey.

After leaving Yongshou Palace, Lu Bing did not go out of Xiyuan directly. Instead, he found a place to sit down near Yongshou Palace. He wanted to wait for someone and figure out the situation.

The person he was looking for was naturally Huang Jin, the eunuch beside the emperor. No one knew the emperor better than him.

Huang Jin had given him hints before. Apparently something happened before that he didn't know about, and the timing he caught was a bit wrong.

Lu Bing didn't know the details, but Huang Jin roughly guessed Emperor Jiajing's thoughts.

If Li Bin is captured now, as eunuch Bingbi, the eunuch in charge of etiquette, the news will soon spread throughout the officialdom of the capital.

Hundreds of thousands of taels of silver were copied, and it was the New Year's Day. It was impossible for Fang Rui and the others not to be interested in this money. The Ministry of Household Affairs was already anxious and angry because of the lack of silver.

If the things are copied to the dirty punishment treasury, the civil servants will definitely clamor to use the dirty silver as expenses for the new year in the palace. The amount of silver they want to borrow from the Changying treasury of Taipus Temple should be reduced in quantity. Some, but not too much.

In short, those civil servants kept a close eye on the palace, especially money.

Emperor Jiajing consumed a huge amount of money because of his cultivation and enjoyment, so he naturally would not be indifferent to these hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

Emperor Jiajing wanted the silver in the Chang Ying Treasury of Taipu Temple, and not a single bit of the silver stored in Li Bin's family could be spared.

As long as the time of the crime is moved back a little and the Taipusi money is loaned out and sent to the palace, it should be the time for Emperor Jiajing to take action.

If the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was rich, he was really rich, at least on paper.

The emperor is the emperor and is rich all over the world. It is said that all the wealth in the world belongs to him. If necessary, he can just raise taxes.

But the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was unlucky to have a meddling ancestor. Zhu Yuanzhang settled everything and made it what the civil servants called the ancestral system.

Although Emperor Jiajing didn't value that thing, he would change it without hesitation if necessary, but he was tired of fighting with civil servants for a long time, not to mention that he had to concentrate on his cultivation and could not be distracted by these mundane affairs.

Well, as the emperor, Emperor Jiajing could not feel the feeling of being rich all over the world.

When asking for money from the Hubu, he had to talk to Mr. Zhang and Xia Yan for a long time. They tried their best to meet his needs if it was better to replace him with Yan Song. However, the money was the Hubu treasury money accumulated by the previous generations of emperors. Now it is also spent. Empty.

In the past two years, the imperial court's money has been demolishing the east wall to repair the west wall. He knew this, but he didn't want to get involved and let the civil servants make trouble on their own.

If you stick to your own principles and get what you deserve, then you have to enter the inner court.

Cultivating the Great Dao is for the livelihood of the people in the world, and naturally requires money from the national treasury.

Yes, Emperor Jiajing's inner court had income, but the money would not be used for his own cultivation.

No one understood the importance of money better than the Ming emperor.

Governing the world actually relies on the control of financial power. As long as we control the financial flow of the court, we can effectively control the power of the country.

This theory is definitely contrary to the current Confucianism, but Emperor Jiajing understood it, Yan Song also understood it, and Wei Guangde actually thought of it.

The ultimate goal of later fiscal and taxation reforms is actually for this, to control local governments more effectively.

Lu Bing waited outside the palace for a long time before Huang Jin took the time to come out of Yongshou Palace.

It wasn't that Huang Jin had developed skills through training with Emperor Jiajing and was good at pinching and calculating, but that a young eunuch quietly told him about it.

Huang Jin knew what Lu Bing wanted to know, but by serving the emperor, he naturally knew when to leave the emperor's side.

Fortunately, he finally found a chance. Shang Meiren in the palace came here with nothing to do, so Huang Jin naturally wanted to withdraw from the hall.

When he arrived at the gate of Yongshou Palace, Huang Jin looked back at the majestic palace. That Shangmei was really blessed with eight lifetimes of cultivation. He thought that the emperor would punish this unruly little maid.

Who would have thought that it would be a blessing in disguise. From a young age, the maid suddenly became a beauty, and the serf turned around and sang and became the little master in the palace.

She was the little palace maid who made fun of Emperor Jiajing for napping in the palace before. Not only was she not punished for her gaffe, but she was invited to sleep with Emperor Jiajing. This luck was no one else's.

After leaving Yongshou Palace, Huang Jin saw Lu Bing and whispered to him about the note just sent from the cabinet.

Lu Bing was naturally also a smart man, and he instantly understood what Emperor Jiajing meant.

On the way out of Xiyuan, Lu Bing was even more worried. He couldn't have raided Li Bin's house a year ago, so where could he get the Jinyiwei's annual gift?

The reason for delaying the impeachment until this time was not only because of the need to collect sufficient evidence, but also because this was a period when the palace was short of money. Another reason was that Jin Yiwei also wanted money to send his men away.

Although Jin Yiwei is very well-off in the capital, he does not have just a few people under his command. Not to mention other Jin Yiwei across the country, there are tens of thousands of people who rely on him for a living in the capital alone, and this does not include those who are rewarded. A false position.

While riding on the horse, Lu Bing felt a little lost.