When Yueyang hurried into the palace, he was taken to Nuanxiang Pavilion by the eunuch.●⌒

Yueyang has been here several times for Nuanxiang Pavilion, so I know that this is actually the place where Chongzhen works on weekdays. To put it bluntly, it is his imperial study room. He spent nearly half of the day here. However, when Yueyang came to Nuanxiang Pavilion, he found that there were quite a few people present today. In addition to the four cabinet ministers, the six ministers and several ministers he didn't know were all there. Even Cao Huachun and a middle-aged man in a flying fish suit were listed in awe, while Chongzhen sat behind the dragon case with expressionless expression.

"What happened today? How did you put forward this battle?"

Yue Yang was very puzzled. He strode forward and bowed to Chongzhen, who was sitting behind the dragon throne, and said, "My loyal and brave Hou Yueyang, who is here to meet my emperor, long live my emperor!"

Seeing Yueyang coming, Chongzhen nodded: "You are here, please give me a seat!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

Soon a eunuch brought in a brocade stool and placed it under Chongzhen's right head. Yueyang sat down without hesitation.

After sitting down, Yue Yang did not politely with Chongzhen, and asked directly, "I wonder what is the important thing about Your Majesty's urgent call to come?"

"This..." Seeing Yue Yang asking, Chongzhen hesitated and did not answer, but instead turned his attention to the chief assistant Zhou Tingru on the side.

After seeing Comrade Xiao Zhu's gesture, Zhou Tingru hesitated for a moment before coughing lightly and said, "Marty Yue, that's right. Since the Martyr did not attend court this morning, he didn't know much about some things. Now I will tell you something."

"You said... I'll listen!" Yue Yang acted in a scrupulous manner.

Under Zhou Tingru's slow tone, Yueyang finally understood his meaning after a while. It turned out that Zhang Xianzhong, who was entrenched in Sichuan half a month ago, was finally wiped out by Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting. Since Zhang Xianzhong's bandit leaders have been killed, and Sichuan has finally been re-embedded in the embrace of the court.

Zhang Xianzhong's execution was a good thing, and the court was also happy, but what happened next was embarrassing. The bandits entrenched in Sichuan were eliminated. The court should reward the officers and soldiers involved in the suppression of bandits. It also had to pay tribute to the local people. The government had to distribute food, seeds, farm tools and other things to the people who returned to their homes, and encouraged them to rebuild their homes.

But the biggest problem now is that after years of war, Sichuan has changed from a country of Tianfu to a poor place where people live in poverty. Where can the government have the ability to help the people? The Sichuan government does not have this ability, so naturally turned its attention to the court. After Chongzhen found out, he ordered the Ministry of Revenue to prepare to allocate funds for disaster relief, but the Ministry of Revenue's answer shocked Chongzhen. Although the Ministry of Revenue still has some money, the food is gone. This will knock Chongzhen down.

Under Chongzhen's inquiry, Li Huiwen, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, then hesitated that the Ministry of Revenue's granary had no food, but this scared Chongzhen and quickly asked for the reason.

Li Tiewen's explanation is this: Although the Ministry of Revenue's tax revenue has increased in the past two years, due to the continuous drought and rampant bandits in recent years, the Ming Dynasty's grain output has not recovered much. In addition, this year, a large number of disaster relief grains have been allocated to Henan, Shaanxi, Hubei and other places, which have had more severe disasters. In addition, it is almost the end of the year. Therefore, there is not much grain left in the several major granaries of the court, so there is no way to provide relief to Sichuan.

It is said that there is nothing wrong with this answer, but Chongzhen was more careful. He immediately asked someone to take the account book of the disaster relief food allocated this year. Who knew that after seeing this, he saw something went wrong. It turned out that the Ministry of Revenue allocated several consecutive food and disaster relief money since this year, but now the local government is still asking the court to continue allocating silver and food to provide disaster relief.

Seeing this, Chongzhen could no longer bear it and was furious on the spot. After retreating from the court, he called all the important officials to Nuanxiang Pavilion to continue discussing, but after discussing for a long time, these people stared at each other and couldn't even come up with an effective method. Someone suggested that since the Zhongyong Hou was also in the capital, why didn't he invite him to come over to discuss matters, which led to the trip to the palace in Yueyang.

Hearing this, Yue Yang's brows were already frowned into the character "Chuan". He turned his head to Li Daiwen behind him and said, "Shu Li, I don't understand something. The Ministry of Revenue should have had an estimate when allocating silver. Why is it not enough to allocate silver and food several times in a row? Instead, he continues to extend his hand to the court. What's the problem here?"

Li Dawen smiled bitterly, and the gods stopped talking, and finally he could only say vaguely: "Well... I'm afraid the local government has mistakenly calculated that the number of local disaster victims is insufficient, so he will submit a few consecutive comments and ask the court to allocate disaster relief funds."

Yueyang continued to ask: "How much money did the imperial court allocate to Henan, Shaanxi and Hubei this year?"

"A million taels of silver and 700,000 dan have been allocated." Li Tiewen answered honestly.

"call……"

Hearing this, if Yue Yang didn't understand what was going on, he would be in vain. He took a long breath and turned to Chongzhen and sneered: "Since that's the case, what's the matter with the emperor calling me to come? The court has no choice but to do this, what's the way for me?"

"This..." Chongzhen was also a little stunned. He really couldn't speak such a thing.

Finally, Li Daiwen coughed lightly and said, "The emperor and the ministers mean that they want to ask if there is still food in Shanxi and Shandong, and whether another batch can be allocated to Sichuan to solve the urgent problem."

"hehe……"

As soon as Li Tiewen said this, Yueyang was immediately excited. He smiled at Li Tiewen and said, "A batch is allocated, how many batches are?"

Li Daiwen did not notice the tone in Yueyang's dialect and quickly said, "It's not a lot. It's only 300,000 taels of silver and 400,000 dan of food!"

"Hahaha..." Yue Yang could no longer help laughing on the spot.

Looking at Yue Yang who was smiling so hard that he leaned back and forth, Chongzhen frowned and Li Daiwen showed a look of embarrassment, while several other ministers showed a hint of anger.

Chen Yan said unhappyly on the spot: "Mr. Yue, Your Majesty is discussing matters with the ministers here, but what is the reason why you laugh so loudly?"

Yue Yang, who stopped laughing, looked at Chen Yan with a strong sarcasm in his expression, "Mr. Chen, does this marquis really look so foolish? Or are you a fool yourself?"

Before Chen Yan could answer, Yue Yang continued: "Everyone knows the tricks of the local governments. Besides, what is the name of letting Shanxi allocate silver to the court? This year's taxes have been paid, and so many refugees have poured into Shanxi every year. The Shanxi government itself is too busy. How can we still have the energy to allocate silver? Besides, if you want to take the wealth, it is the most important thing for Jiangnan. Why doesn't Lord Chen allocate silver and food from Jiangnan?"

Yueyang's words made Chen Yan speechless. In fact, everyone can see the thoughts of the ministers. They treated Yueyang as a sucker. If the Ming Dynasty today says who the richest person is Yueyang, no one dared to recognize the first place. So much wealth has caused many people to have a red eye, but people also know Yueyang's strength and ruthlessness. No one dares to put his hand into his pocket. But if the autumn wind is beaten in the name of the court, many people are happy to do it. This thing has been the same since ancient times. It can block the world's long mouth in the name of the country.

But Yueyang is not a person who is easy to deal with. He said to Chongzhen seriously: "Emperor, in fact, the court has not suffered the burden of Liao pay in the past two years. Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong have been wiped out again, and the expenses of the court have also been greatly reduced, but what followed was that the greed of government officials in various places has also increased.

One million taels of silver and seven hundred thousand tannes of grain. After taking it, they even reached out to the court. Is this a treasure pot that the court does not regard as an inexhaustible treasure pot? Is it a treasure pot that the court continues to indulge them, and they will not be satisfied if you give them 10 million taels of silver. Therefore, I think this matter must not be easily understood. It is time to investigate it thoroughly!"

Yueyang's dialect was filled with murderous intent, and everyone's hearts were trembling.

Yueyang continued to say to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, I often hear that if the court allocates disaster relief silver to the local area, the officials in the capital will usually reduce 20% before issuing the local area. After arriving at the prefecture, the local area will shave 20% off as usual. Then the county will shave 20% off. If 40% of the people can be left in the hands of the people, it is considered that local officials have a conscience. What's more, the people not only did not get one tael of silver after the government arrived at the local area, but the local governments also had to continue to plunder the land. What's the use of even if the court allocates more disaster relief silver? If this wind is not severely punished, our Ming Dynasty will sooner or later be destroyed in the hands of those worms!"

Hearing this, the officials in the hall looked ugly. Yue Yang's words were like revealing this scar and posing all the problems. This made them very uncomfortable, who were used to being with the light and dust.

Hearing this, Chongzhen's face became darker. As the emperor, he naturally knew that local officials were corrupt, but over the years, he had been focusing on how to resist foreign countries and eliminate bandits. He had always turned a blind eye to the greed of officials. Now that such a big thing has happened, he also thought it was time to deal with such a thing.

After a long time, Chongzhen opened his eyes and gritted his teeth and said, "Yue Aiqing, what are your good plans?"
Chapter completed!