prosperous age

Wei Guangde led all the officials into the Meridian Gate. This time no one stopped them, and they returned to the cabinet smoothly.

There were too many people, and the duty room definitely couldn't accommodate them, so naturally they had to open the main hall of Wenyuan Pavilion.

This door is only opened when large meetings such as the Nine Ministers Meeting are convened. Normally, the cabinet members will not talk here at all, but will talk directly in the duty room.

There are two chairs on the left and right in the middle of the main hall, which are the seats for the first and second assistant ministers.

China has always respected the left since ancient times, so the seat on the left is naturally the position of the prime minister.

The seat on the right is where Wei Guangde, the second assistant, should sit.

Wei Guangde was about to move to the right seat when he heard an official's congratulations from behind him: "Congratulations to Prime Minister Wei on your promotion."

Hearing this, Wei Guangde suddenly turned around and looked behind him. There were court officials wearing crimson official uniforms. The voice just now was abrupt and Wei Guangde did not hear clearly who said it.

But when he looked back at the crowd, they all looked happy, as if they really came to congratulate him on his promotion.

Wei Guangde understood that the reason why these court officials did not return to their respective yamen at this time was that they were staying here.

"Who said that just now?"

The group of people in front of them were not from Wei Guangde's faction. Although the leaders Tan Lun, Jiang Zhi and others were there, the people below did not get involved in today's events.

After all, Wei Guangde had repeatedly ordered them not to get involved.

Therefore, the court officials in front of him were not his own people, so Wei Guangde did not need to save face for them.

"Who said that just now?"

Wei Guangde spoke again and questioned sternly.

In fact, when the first shout was uttered just now, Zhang Siwei, Ma Ziqiang and others were all shocked, knowing that someone was going to cause trouble.

Like Wei Guangde, they also heard the voice, but the crowd was dense and they could not be familiar with all the officials here, so they could not hear who was speaking.

At this moment, they also stared at the officials with wide eyes.

This momentum made the people in front subconsciously take a few steps back.

Seeing that no one spoke, Wei Guangde guessed that someone was trying to take advantage of the situation, so he said, "I don't care who said that just now. You know what you are thinking. Don't treat others as fools."

After saying this, Wei Guangde turned around and pointed to the chair on his left and said, "That seat is where the Prime Minister sits.

The position of Prime Minister is not appointed by you, it is the emperor's decree. Whoever is in charge of the cabinet can take the position.

It is true that I am now temporarily in charge of the cabinet, but I am not yet the prime minister.

You guys just can't tell the difference between ruler and subject. You talk a lot about morality, but you forget about loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness."

Wei Guangde knew that there were some people in the crowd with ulterior motives who wanted to take the opportunity to overthrow Zhang Juzheng and overturn the policies he had previously formulated.

However, seeing that the plan could not succeed, they turned their attention to him, trying to force him out to compete with Zhang Juzheng.

If Wei Guangde really set his sights on the position of Prime Minister, there would be no need for them to push him forward. Wei Guangde would have done it long ago.

At the very least, it will be much simpler and smoother than theirs.

All you need to do is find Feng Bao first and make some guarantees, and that might make Feng Bao waver.

After all, he and Feng Bao still have a cooperative relationship.

What Feng Bao wanted was only the influence of the previous dynasty and the ability for the Ministry of Revenue to provide support when the palace needed it.

As for Zhang Juzheng's new reform policy, although Feng Bao also knew that it would be beneficial to the court in the long run, forcing it to be pushed forward in the short term would do more harm than good and would tear the court apart.

Although Wei Guangde was not sure whether Feng Bao would choose to side with him after doing so, the probability was at least very high.

With a righteous cause at hand, especially if Wei Guangde could guarantee to continue maintaining the performance evaluation system and just put the land survey on hold, Zhang Juzheng, with his intelligence, would not refuse.

After all, even if he couldn't see clearly the position he was in before, at this moment, he would not be able to guess the deep malice that could not be seen or touched but could be felt.

"I'm here to warn those people that the current situation of the court is not easy. Think about the past, from the Jiajing Dynasty to the Longqing Dynasty, before the end of the year, the court would worry about the deficit of the year.

Although I have reservations about the new policies promoted by the Prime Minister, everyone can see the structure of the new policy trial. Although there are slight flaws in the process, this should actually be blamed on the Ministry of Personnel and the Censorate for not selecting people clearly, rather than the fault of the new policy.

Don’t have any inappropriate thoughts, otherwise I will be rude.

You've got this idea, it's all on my head, do you really think I won't kill anyone without a knife in my hand?"

Wei Guangde's next words were very straightforward. They expressed the differences between him and Zhang Juzheng on the new policy, but also expressed his support for the significant effects of the new policy.

In fact, this is the case for most officials, especially those in the Ministry of Revenue.

But the most important thing was to criticize the person who had just spoken, and Wei Guangde expressed his strong dissatisfaction.

"Wei Ci Fu has made it very clear. Some people have developed thoughts that they shouldn't have. I advise you to stop and not offend people you can't afford to offend."

At this time, the Minister of War Tan Lun also spoke.

"The Ministry of Rites will keep an eye on this matter."

Ma Ziqiang said immediately.

"This year, the Ministry of Personnel will be more strict in assessing officials during the Beijing inspection."

Finally, the new Minister of Personnel, Wang Guoguang, also spoke.

In fact, just now, he was still somewhat hesitant in his heart.

Seeing that many court officials were inclined to let Zhang Juzheng observe mourning, Wang Guoguang, as an important supporter of Zhang Juzheng, also became somewhat wavering.

Especially the current cabinet second minister Wei Guangde. If he really wants to be the first minister, he may have a chance with the support of these people.

After the incident at the Meridian Gate, he wanted to come to the cabinet with the purpose of testing Wei Guangde's intentions.

But he didn't expect that before he even tried, someone was already eager to use him as a gun.

Wei Guangde's harsh rebuke actually made his point clear.

It's not that he had no intention of becoming the Prime Minister, it's just that the emperor didn't appoint him, and the emperor still supported Zhang Juzheng as the Prime Minister, so he never considered getting involved in the Prime Minister's throne.

Zhang Siwei, Ma Ziqiang and others all consciously stood behind Wei Guangde. As for Tan Lun and Jiang Zhi, it goes without saying that they had actually occupied the main power of the court.

Zhang Siwei and Wang Guoguang seemed to represent Zhang Juzheng's faction, Wei Guangde himself had Tan Lun, Jiang Zhi and others here, and Ma Ziqiang represented the Hanlin clean stream.

With these three parties expressing the same opinion, the others are just evil spirits and clowns who cannot cause any trouble.

"Okay, now that we are in the cabinet, you can speak up if you have anything to say."

While Wei Guangde was speaking, he had already asked several ministers around him to sit down. He still sat in the second assistant position. Zhang Siwei walked to the second chair on the left and sat down.

As for the starting positions, Ma Ziqiang, Wang Guoguang, Tan Lun and others sat down in order, with only Jiang Zhi at the very end.

But after he finished speaking, everyone below fell into silence.

Many people initially wanted to discuss in the cabinet how to continue to overthrow Zhang, but since the protagonist did not want to get involved, why were they making a fuss?

Seeing the silence, everyone in the seats knew what they were thinking. To avoid an awkward atmosphere, Tan Lun took out a document from his sleeve and said, "Since everyone has nothing else to do, I have a document here that I was planning to send to the cabinet, so I'll report it first."

"Battle report?"

Wei Guangde asked with a frown.

"Southwest War Report: Li Chengliang has handed over the captured items to Yu Dayou. According to the assets signed and sealed by the Army and Navy, a total of more than 70,000 taels of gold, more than 410,000 taels of silver, and 16 boxes of gems and jade were counted.

By the way, in addition to these, there are also a large number of exquisite utensils made of gold, silver and brass. Li Chengliang suggested loading them onto ships, transporting them by sea to Tianjin, and then sending them to the capital.

These things were found in the Burmese king’s palace, and it is inconvenient for them to deal with them.”

Tan Lun opened the document and read aloud the most important content.

"Myanmar is really rich. They have seized a million taels of silver."

Tan Lun continued to say that he had already mentioned the nearly one million kilograms of copper confiscated from Myanmar, and asked for permission whether it should be directly handed over to the Yunnan Official Mint for casting.

The court officials below had already begun whispering and discussing among themselves.

More than 400,000 taels of gold and silver, converted into an income of one million taels of silver. For the Ming Dynasty, the court's annual revenue was only a few million taels, which was already a huge number.

As for the Southwest War, which almost exhausted the food and grass in several southwestern provinces, especially the Yunnan treasury, the officials thought it was a trivial matter.

Can the grain stockpiled in several southwestern provinces be sold for one million taels of silver?

Although it is of considerable value, it is not worth much silver.

The officials below were discussing the rich harvest in Burma, while Wei Guangde, Zhang Siwei, and Li Youzi, who was temporarily in charge of the Ministry of Revenue, were discussing what to do with the one million kilograms of copper.

"Half of it will be shipped to the capital with the instruments and handed over to the Ministry of Revenue for minting. The rest will be minted at the Yunnan Official Mint and shipped to Nanjing."

Wei Guangde came up with his own idea and divided the copper equally between the north and the south.

Nearly one million kilograms of copper. The Ming Dynasty produced only about 200,000 to 300,000 kilograms of copper a year. I didn’t expect that such a small country as Myanmar had such rich copper resources.

"Lord Wei, I'm afraid this is inappropriate."

However, Wei Guangde's proposal was opposed by Li Youzi, "The imperial court has always transported copper from Yunnan to the north, which shows that there is no shortage of copper in the south. It is the north that is short of copper materials, and the people often suffer from the lack of copper coins.

This batch of copper materials should all be transported to the capital to be minted into coins to meet the needs of the north."

There is no doubt that the Ministry of Revenue in Beijing intended to keep the copper for itself.

In the south, there are Yunnan and Nanjing that mint coins to meet the needs, so there is no shortage of money like in the north.

There are some details to this. Although they are both the Ministry of Revenue, the two capitals of the north and the south have two sets of accounts. The copper coins entering Nanjing represent the income and expenditure of the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue. Although the Ministry of Revenue in the capital is larger, it is difficult to control and manage this amount of money.

Although Li Youzi wanted to be promoted to the position of Shangshu and even submitted a letter of surrender, it was impossible for him to be promoted to the Minister of Revenue. The most likely candidate was still other ministries.

After all, with the decree to transfer Wang Guoguang to the position of Minister of Personnel, and the candidate for Minister of Revenue has been confirmed as Zhang Xueyan, the decree has been sent to Liaodong, urging him to return to Beijing as soon as possible to take over.

After Li Youzi expressed his opinion, he looked at Zhang Siwei beside him for help.

After all, the two of them are in the same group and should help each other.

Of course, Li Youzi did not forget his former superior, Shangshu Wang Guoguang, who had just taken over the Ministry of Personnel.

“Youzi’s words make sense. Nanjing has a large supply of Yunnan copper every year, so the South is not short of copper coins.

In contrast, the north lacks copper materials, and needs this batch of Burmese copper materials to mint coins even more.”

Noticing the gaze coming over, Zhang Siwei immediately spoke up, expressing his support for Li Youzi's opinion.

Immediately afterwards, Wang Guoguang expressed a similar idea. In general, there was indeed more copper in the south of the Ming Dynasty than in the north.

Whenever there was a shortage of copper in the north, copper materials would often be mobilized from Yunnan and other places, or copper coins would be directly transported to the capital to alleviate the problem of money shortage in the north.

At the beginning, Wei Guangde divided the money into two parts in order to avoid trouble in the Ministry of Revenue in the northern and southern capitals. After all, the amount of copper materials was not small and the profits were enormous.

In the Ming Dynasty, the Ministry of Revenue in Beijing actually found it difficult to control the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing. So even if someone was an official in Nanjing, they would not think of themselves as inferior to others and would not want to give in when they had a quarrel.

Therefore, in recent years, some important government offices often do not have a chief official, that is, they do not appoint a minister from the six ministries of Nanjing, but only appoint a vice minister to take charge of the power of the department.

In this way, the Minister of Revenue in Beijing can, in principle, manage the Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing, after all, the highest official position there is that of Vice Minister.

However, even so, the six ministries in Nanjing still refused to give in to the six ministries in Beijing and would fight for any advantage.

"It's no big deal to transport the copper materials north, but if Nanjing knows about it, I'm afraid they won't be at peace."

Wei Guangde looked at Zhang Siwei and said hesitantly.

Hearing Wei Guangde's words, Li Youzi immediately replied: "This matter is easy to discuss. The Ministry of Revenue will resolve the dispute between the North and the South."

Wei Guangde glanced at Li Youzi and saw how confident he was, and was unable to react for a moment.

What he said was really an attempt to shirk responsibility. What he meant was that, Zhang Siwei, if you could resolve the conflict between the Northern and Southern Ministries of Revenue, he would not care.

But Zhang Siwei didn't say anything, but Li Youzi took over.

But soon, Wei Guangde thought of it.

Li Youzi had given Feng Bao and Zhang Juzheng a letter of surrender, and based on his merits, he would probably be promoted to a higher level.

Where to go?

Naturally, he can only be the Shangshu.

The Ministry of Revenue already has people in it, so the solution is to move them to other government offices.

You bastard, you actually tried the empty city plan.

Wei Guangde thought that he would be transferred soon anyway, so if he could obtain huge benefits for the Ministry of Revenue before leaving, he could also get a share of the profits and win everyone's favor.

As for what happened afterwards, Zhang Juzheng and others would naturally handle the follow-up, since he was no longer in that position anyway.

Li Youzi's words were not credible, so Wei Guangde just nodded slightly, but his eyes were still on Zhang Siwei.

Zhang Juzheng is not here, so if we want to throw the responsibility aside, it is natural that you, Zhang Siwei, will take it.

Zhang Siwei was not stupid and he figured it out quickly.

Li Youzi wanted to take credit for the work without getting himself into trouble. He was a real sly person.

However, thinking that Li Youzi had spoken up for Zhang Juzheng before, Zhang Juzheng would definitely find a way to help Li Youzi handle the matter of the Ministry of Revenue.

It took at least half a year from the time the agreement was reached to the time the decree was issued and then to the time the copper materials were transported to the capital.

At that time, Zhang Juzheng had already returned to the cabinet to do his work, and he was not the one who needed to be dealt with, so he nodded and said, "Since the Ministry of Revenue can handle it, that would be the best.

I will keep an eye on this matter and not cause any trouble.”

When Wei Guangde heard Zhang Siwei's affirmative answer, he flipped through the official document and said with a smile, "In that case, let Ziwei draft this bill."

After saying this, Wei Guangde handed the military document to Zhang Siwei. (End of this chapter)