Five days later, Li Yanqing's official report was delivered to the court, and at the same time, a list of Zeng's property was attached. This list shocked the court. There were 300,000 taels of gold alone, 8 million taels of silver, more than 30 million stags of copper coins, hundreds of boxes of jewelry and jade, hundreds of shops, and large-scale industries such as houses, docks, warehouses, fleets, mines, etc. This property is equivalent to the current fiscal revenue of the Song Dynasty for one year, and it is simply rich enough to rival a country.

The silver inventory in Zuozangku is only 6 million taels and 300,000 taels of gold. While everyone criticized Zeng Xiulin for his great corruption, how to deal with the Zeng family's wealth has become a hot topic. There are too many places in the court that need money. It is necessary to restore the relief and pension system, rebuild the Imperial College, restore schools in various places, and build dormitories for officials. Now many lower-level officials still squeeze in a room with three or four people.

Zhao Gou also wanted to increase his salary to the ministers and improve his life in the harem, so that all the concubines in the harem used Baoyanzhai's powder. At present, they used Zhang Gu's powder, which is a mid-to-low-grade product from Baoyanzhai. There was really no money in the warehousing.

Of course, we must also restore the army, increase the number of troops, build a large number of weapons, and build a strong defense. All kinds of things require financial support, so Li Yanqing's retrieval immediately gave the court great hope.

Of course, Li Yanqing also had the conditions. He proposed two allocation plans. The first plan was that the court and the Sichuan-Shaanxi Jinglifu each took half of each. The Northwest Third Routes required huge military expenditures. The Northwest Third Routes maintained the scale of 200,000 Song army, and the military expenditure reached one million guan a month, reaching 12 million guan a year. In addition, it was necessary to build new recruits' armour, build trench machines, fire cannons, purchase tents, turbulent oil, gunpowder, pig iron and other military items, and maintain the scale of craftsmen of about a thousand people, and at least five million guan a year.

The second plan is to get one year's military expenditure from the Northwest Third Route and pay the rest to the court, but the court needs to support the reform of the tea and wine sale system of Sichuan and Shaanxi Province in Bashu.

In fact, Emperor Zhao Gou has approved Li Yanqing to implement the reform of the sale system in the third route of Bashu. However, this major institutional reform that concerns people's livelihood and finance is not enough to be approved by the emperor alone. The key is the support of the Zhizheng Hall, that is, to obtain the support of the imperial court. If the emperor can be successfully implemented with the approval of the emperor alone, then Wang Anshi's reform will not be so difficult.

Li Yanqing's reform was to restore the tea and wine monopoly department, which was independent of the local governments. This reform was not novel. In Bianjing, tea and wine monopoly was under dual management and there were also monopoly department, but the Ministry of Revenue could also intervene, so there was not much controversy about Li Yanqing's reform itself.

The key is that the Monopoly Office is directly under the jurisdiction of the Jingluo Office, and all the monopoly income is used for military expenses of the three northwest routes and will be handed over to the court five years later.

This condition is a bit unacceptable. Although the current taxes of the three routes of Bashu are used to support the three routes of the northwest, the taxes are controlled by the government and are now controlled by the Jingliufu. To put it bluntly, it is controlled by the army, and the military is not a good thing to interfere in politics!

It is precisely because of this that Li Yanqing showed great temptation that he only had 17 million guan, the remaining 300,000 taels of gold, more than 8 million guan, more than 10 million guan, and a large amount of real estate in the store belonged to the court.

If the court refuses to agree to his plan, then the wealth may not be obtained.

For this reason, the court also had huge differences, with half of the supporters and opponents. Opponents believed that once the financial independence was independent, it would cause the three northwest routes to lose control and form a risk of separatist warlords. However, supporters believed that if the three northwest routes had the intention to be independent, even if the court controlled the finances of Bashu, it would be meaningless.

Moreover, the three northwest armies could easily occupy Bashu, and the court had no choice but to let the Jingliufu control the monopoly department, so that the court could obtain huge wealth, and greatly improve the financial difficulties of the court.

The debate within Zhizhengtang was the same as the court, and the two opinions formed a three-to-three confrontation. Fan Zhixu, Gao Shen and Zheng Wangzhi supported Li Yanqing's second plan, Lu Yihao, Fan Zongyin and Zhu Shengfei opposed the control of the monopoly by the Jingliufu.

The final choice was decided by the emperor Zhao Gou, but this time the Supreme Emperor Zhao Ji intervened, and Zhao Ji clearly opposed the control of the monopoly by the Legal Affairs Office.

In the study room of Xizhaoshan Royal Villa, Zhao Ji slapped the table with anger and asked, "Are you still the emperor? Can you accept such a ridiculous condition? He is a minister. What qualifications do he have to bargain with the court first? Could he be an independent warlord?"

"Father, if he was an independent warlord, he would not have to inform the court at all. He could have transported all of his property. He also collected taxes independently in Bashu. He was the Sichuan-Shaanxi Military Commissioner. These were his powers. But he did not do this, but put forward his own ideas and hoped that the court would agree. This shows that he has enough respect for the court. My son believes that if the court does not agree, he will not continue to implement reforms."

"Hmph! What a respectful person to the court. Is he playing with the court? Why don't he let the court control the monopoly department? Why don't he transport all his wealth to the court and let the court redistribute it? If he is really a minister of the court, he should do this."

"The father also saw with his own eyes that Zeng Xiulin not only had unimaginable wealth in recent years, but also arbitrarily seized military funds that should have been given to the Sichuan-Shaanxi Administration, which seriously affected the morale of the Jingzhao Army. Such a situation did not want to happen again, so he agreed to Li Yanqing's investigation of Zeng Xiulin."

Zhao Ji said coldly after a while: "It is my decision to ask Zeng Xiulin to seize the military expenditure of the Sichuan-Shaanxi Administration!"

The room suddenly became cold and the two of them stopped talking. After a while, Zhao Ji said coldly: "I ask you to remove Li Yanqing from his position as a strategic envoy and transfer him back to the court!"

Zhao Gou lowered his head for a while and said, "Father, this decision is difficult for me to obey my ministers!"

"Okay! OK! OK!"

Zhao Ji sneered at the sky, "Your wings are finally hard and you no longer listen to your father's advice. Do you want to send troops to take me back to the Jin Kingdom and let the Jin people continue to imprison me?"

Zhao Gou knelt down and said with a sad face: "My son has never thought this!"

"Bang!"

Zhao Ji slapped the table heavily and roared: "Then why don't you listen to my advice? Do you think I dare not depose you?"

Zhao Gou was hit hard, and his father finally said this.

He was silent for a while, and suddenly gritted his teeth and said, "The reason why I fully support Li Yanqing's expansion of the army is because I decided to let Li Yanqing send troops to destroy Xixia."

Zhao Ji was stunned for a moment, and after a while, he asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Father, Xixia is actually extremely weak and cannot afford to support the war with the Song Dynasty, so he withdraws troops from Xihe Road to seek peace. If it weren't for the Jin soldiers eyeing Hexi Road at that time, Li Yanqing's army could even fight to Xingqing Prefecture."

"Then aren't you afraid that the Jin soldiers will take the opportunity to invade Hedong Road and Shaanxi Road this time?"

"Reporting to my father, my son has obtained accurate information. The main force of the Jin army is conquering the tribes in the northern desert. Liu Yu from the Central Plains and Gao Qing from Hebei have not had time to establish their own army. This is an excellent opportunity. If Wanyan Xie also wants to break the agreement, then we can go north and recover the Central Plains and Shandong with just a legitimate reason."

Zhao Ji walked a few steps behind his hands and asked again, "When will the troops to Xixia?"

“The plan is next spring.”

Zhao Ji narrowed his eyes again, "What if Li Yanqing fails to attack Xixia?"

"Li Yanqing issued a military order to his sons. If he fails to destroy Xixia, he will resign from his post as the Chief Secretary of Sichuan and Shaanxi."

Zhao Ji nodded, "Okay! If it is really for the purpose of attacking Xixia, I promised you to deal with the matter of Bashu this time. I will not interfere anymore. But if the attack on Xixia fails, Li Yanqing must resign from all military positions. These are the three rules between you and me, and you must remember them clearly."

Zhao Gou took a deep breath, "My son understand!"

"Go! I want to rest."

Zhao Gou slowly retreated, Zhao Ji stood in front of the window with his hands behind his back, and he was also very confused. Of course, he knew the purpose of his son's war against Xixia. Once Xixia was really destroyed, it would greatly increase his reputation. It would not be easy to destroy him at that time.

But attacking Xixia is a double-faced sword. If attacking Xixia fails, it will also be a heavy blow to his son's rude power. It will be even more legitimate if he destroys him.

It was this double-faced sword that made Zhao Ji really uneasy and could not calm down for a long time.

In the afternoon of the same day, Zhao Gou held a small court meeting. At the court meeting, he formally stated that he agreed to Li Yanqing's second plan. The monopoly department of the Bashu Third Routes was controlled by the Sichuan-Shaanxi Jingliufu for a period of five years. He also used 30 million jin of jin as military expenses for the Northwest Third Routes, requiring them to make every effort to prepare for war and build an elite army.
Chapter completed!