Yu Yun and Dugu Qian walked into the gate one after another. Before they could reach the hall, they heard a sudden roar in the hall, "We don't do it! We will not do it!"

He heard Hou Mo Chenduo say angrily: "What do he think of us? Even if he cuts the wool, he has to wait until the wool grows out before cutting. It's only a few months now, and it's about to start again. We have no money and no food. We want to search the house and kill the family and let him go."

Then he heard Zhao Yuanjun's dissatisfaction, "Dou Xiangguo asked himself, are we not supporting him enough? But how did his army perform? He lost consecutive battles and hundreds of thousands of stones of food at any time. It was really easy for money and food to come, and he didn't feel sorry for us at all, but who would guarantee our interests? If the old Dugu leader is here, the only thing he would convene to discuss is how to resist, rather than forcing everyone to share money and food."

At this time, Yu Yun and Dugu ushered into the lobby and saw Dou Wei with awkward face at a glance. Zhao Yuanjun said this very sharply, pointing out that Dou Wei and Dugu Shun's positions were completely different, leaving Dou Wei speechless.

Just as Yu Yun walked in, Dou Wei hurriedly stepped forward and said, "Why is Nephew Yu Xian coming now?"

"The court has official duties and it was a little later when I got home, so I rushed over as soon as I got home, and I didn't even have time to eat supper."

"So that's it. Thank you for your hard work. Please sit down quickly and I'll introduce the situation to you."

Yu Yun smiled faintly, "I heard it just now. It must be that the emperor has given another mission, right?"

"Hey! I have no choice. Now it's like Dou Wei is forcing everyone. It's heartbreaking. Oh, it's hard to do a good person!"

Dou Wei sighed. This time he really didn't want to take the lead. When the prince told him about this at noon, he refused, but the emperor immediately sent someone to summon him into the palace and threatened him with some threats and temptations, forcing him to agree. Now he has become the target of public criticism, which really makes him feel wronged and annoyed.

At this time, Yu Yun stood up and said, "Please be quiet and listen to me!"

The lobby gradually became quiet, and more than a dozen eyes looked at Yu Yun. Yu Yun said calmly: "Actually, I feel dissatisfied and surprised like everyone else. The dissatisfaction is that the interval between the last time was too short. The frequent burden made many of our families very difficult, but compared to the dissatisfaction, I was even more surprised because we paid millions of stones of grain and 500,000 jin of coins last time. It is difficult for me to figure out how to spend the money, but I think the food is a bit strange, because the Tang army also obtained hundreds of thousands of stones of grain under the capture of Jiangling. Before attacking Jiangling, we used the money and grain of local governments in Bashu counties. Where did the million stones of grain we paid last time go? Why did such a big gap and loophole appear? I think the court should make this clear."

Yu Yun's questioning caused a lot of whispers, which is indeed a very strange phenomenon. Judging from common sense, the court should still have a lot of grain reserves, so why did it collect grain from them?

At this time, Dou Wen, who had been silent, stood up and said, "I'll explain this matter."

The lobby became quiet again. Dou Feng was the prime minister after all, so it was more convincing that he could explain the matter.

Dou Wen said slowly: "From October last year to today, the court has been paying off its debts, mainly the old debts of the army. Since the founding of the Tang Dynasty, 150,000 soldiers have been killed in battle, but the pension for the deaths has never been actually paid. According to regulations, each person deserves a pension of twenty guan, which is three million guan. Therefore, the court used a combination of land, grain and copper coins to pay the military debt that had been owed for several years at the beginning of the year, and paid 800,000 guan in grain alone.

Stones, plus disaster relief and military rations from Longyou, were exhausted by one million stones of food. As for the spoils that captured Jiangling, I regret to tell you that Baling County was captured by the Sui army, and half of this spoils were lost. The other half was in Jiangxia. I guess it would still fall into the hands of the Sui army. Now the court is in extremely financially distressed. Not to mention the salary of hundreds of officials a month, even the food that was often closed was only 300 stones. It sounds incredible, but this is the fact."

Dou Guan expressed his opinion, and another prime minister Dou Lu Kuan, who was present, also stood up and said, "The Prime Minister Dou has basically explained the problem clearly, but I need to add one thing, that is, why the imperial court urgently needs money and grain. The news just received this morning, Wang Shichong's army has entered Nanjun and is preparing to attack Jiangling. In other words, Wang Shichong has turned against Zhang Xuan in order to take Nanjun. The emperor believes that this is a major opportunity for us to attack Luoyang. The losses we suffered in the south must be supplemented by Wang Shichong. There is also a major matter that everyone needs to understand. This time, the emperor asked everyone to borrow money and use Luoyang's business to repay it after conquering Luoyang. I believe everyone understands what it means to control the rice market in Luoyang and what it means to monopolize salt cloth. All kinds of benefits are the compensation given to everyone by the emperor."

The lobby was silent, and everyone was thinking about their own thoughts. Although it was still a very distant thing to conquer Luoyang, the various benefits that Li Yuan promised made people moved.

After a while, Hou Mo Chenduo asked, "I wonder how to share the money and grain this time?"

Dou Wei saw that the resistance of the crowd was no longer as strong as before, so he struck the railway while it was hot: "I consider the distribution of money and grain this time in two ways. One is subscription. If the recognition is insufficient, the rest will be distributed equally. In this way, I think everyone's burden will not be very heavy. This time, a total of one million stones of grain and five hundred thousand coins are also possible. One tael of gold is converted into twenty taels of gold. We divide the grain and copper coins into 100 parts, one portion is 10,000 stones of grain and five thousand coins. Finally, it is repaid by Luoyang commercial, and it is distributed according to the number of parts you subscribed. The larger the subscription, the more benefits you get. This shows fairness. Let's express your opinion!"

The lobby was still silent, and Dou Wei had no choice but to say, "Then I will throw in the bricks and jade. The Dou family will subscribe first, and the Dou family will subscribe for twenty copies, which means taking out 200,000 stones of grain and 100,000 guan of money."

Since the Dou family has subscribed, the Dugu family cannot fall behind. Dugu said, "The Dugu family, like the Dou family, subscribes twenty copies."

Yu Yun raised his hand and said, "The Yu family subscribed five copies!"

"The Hou Mochen family also subscribed five copies!"

"The Zhao family is also five parts!"

"The Yuan family subscribes five copies!"

"Three parts of the Changsun family!"

Everyone expressed their opinions that in just a moment, they divided the indicators of one million stones of grain and five hundred thousand coins. In the end, the two smaller families, the Daxi family and the Helan family, had no share. The Dou family and the Dugu family had to give up two shares to them, and in just one hour, they solved the money for the food required by the Tang army to fight the Eastern Expedition.

That night, Dou Wei entered the palace again and reported to Emperor Li Yuan about the results of raising money. Li Yuan had just fallen asleep when he heard that Dou Wei was asking for an urgent meeting, so he immediately got up and met Dou Wei in the inner hall.

Li Yuan stood in front of the window with his hands behind his back and listened to Dou Wei's detailed process of raising money. An undetectable sneer appeared on the corner of his mouth. These Guanlong nobles were not without money and food, but were unwilling to take it out to support themselves. They gave them a little sweetness and generously donated it, which means that these people still have the right to be profit-oriented and ignore the overall situation at all. If one day Zhang Xuan promised him some benefits, would they turn to Northern Sui?

Li Yuan suddenly felt that these people were really unreliable, but then again, not only the Guanlong nobles were pursuing profits, but who among the officials of the court did not pursuing profits? This is beyond reproach.

After all, it is really difficult to find reliable people besides his own family. Li Yuan understands this truth, and Wang Shichong of Luoyang also understands it. It is probably Zhang Xuan also understands it. It is just that he has no family children, which leads to him being reluctant to ascend the throne and having to sacrifice the power of the court and keeping the power of the military firmly in his own hands.

After thinking about this, Li Yuan felt a little relieved. He turned to Dou Wei and said, "Go back and tell them that I will not break my promise, but I hope that they sincerely help the Tang army, and that they will gain something if they have some help. But no matter what, I thank them for their generous donations today."

"I will definitely tell you."

"Go! It's too late. Mr. Dou has worked hard for a day, so take a break early!"
Chapter completed!