Daming talker

Chapter 778 Big Financial Hole

From last year to May this year, there has been no rain or snow in the capital and its surrounding areas, and even the water level in Lin Tailai's Summer Palace has dropped significantly.

There was a severe drought in the capital area, wheat seedlings dried up, and crops failed on a large scale. The price of rice and other commodities in the capital began to rise.

At the end of May, an imperial censor submitted a memorial saying that Your Majesty has appointed treacherous and immoral people to serve as prime ministers, and has abused rewards to exclude dissidents, which has led to the celestial warning!

At this time, the newly appointed Prime Minister Shen Li was still thinking about how to carry out the next stage of personnel adjustments. When he suddenly saw this "Astronomical Warning", he was a little confused.

As a leader of upright gentlemen, it is outrageous that someone would call me a traitor! In the past, it was always me who called others traitors!
I have been eliminating evil and promoting good for forty years, but now I am the evil one?

What does the drought in the capital have to do with me as the Prime Minister? Is it because I am in power? I have only been in office for less than half a month!

Just when Prime Minister Shen, who was furious, was about to write a rebuttal himself, he was persuaded by Third Prime Minister Li Chun.

Prime Minister Shen has just arrived at the cabinet and may not be very accustomed to this position, but Li Chun has been in the cabinet for almost ten years and knows the difference between the cabinet and the outer court.

Li Chun advised: "When a cabinet minister encounters such a provocative memorial, he should either resign voluntarily or keep silent and hand it over to the emperor.

You must not refute it yourself, otherwise you will be accused of blocking the way for speech and being unworthy of a minister."

In short, as a Prime Minister, arguing with the Censor will only make the Censor more excited.

Shen Shoufu sighed: "The world is like this!"

The Deputy Prime Minister Zhu Geng was a little speechless. Wasn’t this routine invented by you Qingliu forces?

Isn’t this how the censors from your Qingliu faction provoked Shen Shixing, Xu Guo, and Wang Xijue more than a decade ago?

The past two years may have been a period of minor climate cycle, resulting in frequent disasters.

In midsummer June, there were continuous strong winds and heavy rains from Jiangbei to Huanghuai, and then floods broke out, with reports from various places that more than 800 people had been drowned.

Li Sancai, the Fengyang governor and governor-general of Hecao, had just taken office and was not familiar with the situation, so his disaster relief efforts were slow.

In the Jiangbei and Huanghuai regions, which is the junction of the four provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong and Henan in later generations, it has been a place with wild folk customs and frequent bandits for hundreds of years. In recent years, the imperial court even set up a special military preparation department to regulate it.

Now they were faced with another major disaster, and relief was not in place. Suddenly, the hungry people rose up in swarms and became bandits, and "peasant uprisings" broke out in many places almost simultaneously.

For some unknown reason, the riots grew larger and larger, and the shadow of the White Lotus Sect, a professional rebel group, seemed to appear among the starving people, and they even distributed a few days' worth of rice to the starving people.

The leaders in Xuzhou were Zhao Guyuan, Li Darong in Haozhou, Yang Sijing in Suizhou and others, who led tens of thousands of hungry people and rushed to the various water storage warehouses along the canal.

This made Li Sancai, the governor of Hecao, panic-stricken and he hurriedly petitioned the court for help.

For a time, the Huanghuai area was in chaos and traffic on the Grand Canal was cut off. The grain ships did not dare to continue heading north after reaching Yangzhou.

In addition, those that should be shipped to the capital during the summer tax period include Yangzhou's 1 million taels of salt tax silver, Jiangnan's 1.2 million taels of gold flower silver, Suzhou and Hangzhou Weaving Bureau and Jiangnan Communications Bureau's 200,000 taels of dividend silver, and Suzhou Jinong Warehouse's 100,000 taels of tribute silver.

A total of 2.5 million taels of silver were used, and all operations were temporarily suspended due to road banditry.

The Fengyang Guard troops in the disaster area have evolved over the years into a canal army and are completely incapable of fighting.

Faced with this grim situation, the Minister of War Wei Yunzhen hurriedly mobilized troops from the nearby Henan and Shandong garrisons, and appointed Li Sancai as the governor of all troops to encircle and suppress the rebellion in the Huanghuai area.

However, the rebellion was not quelled until September, and more than 10,000 rebels even approached Huai'an Prefecture, the core city in the north of the Huanghuai River.

Li Sancai, the governor in charge of suppressing the rebellion, originally wanted to adopt a strategy of appeasement, but he was impeached by the censors and was accused of being "incompetent and flattering the rebel."

Sitting in Wenyuan Pavilion, Prime Minister Shen was reading the military report and felt numb. In another month and a half, that is, in November, the northern section of the canal will freeze over!

If the official troops in the inland garrisons such as Henan and Shandong are still not enough, we can only urgently transfer elite border troops from Xuanda, Shanxi, Shaanxi and other less critical areas to quell the rebellion.

However, even if troops were transferred from the border towns now, it would be impossible to solve the problem before the freezing of this year, so this year's canal traffic would be ruined.

All we can hope for is that the rebellion will be quelled within the year and north-south traffic will be restored immediately after the spring thaw next year.

However, although the elite border troops are capable of fighting, they cost too much money and are an expense that cannot be avoided.

As the saying goes, good fortune never comes alone, and misfortune never comes alone. Bad news often comes one after another.

Just when Prime Minister Shen and Grand Marshal Wei made up their minds to withdraw border troops, Liaodong Governor Wang Zhiyou and Liaodong Town Commander-in-Chief Li Rusong reported that there were also rebellions by disaster victims in Lelang State and miners rioted at several copper mines in Jiashan County, so production was temporarily suspended.

This means that the 100,000 copper coins worth more than 100,000 taels of silver that should have been handed over to the inner treasury this year are gone.

Another situation is that the 800,000 taels of Japanese silver that should have been shipped from Japan have not yet landed.

Prime Minister Shen made a rough calculation and found that according to the original amount, the total amount of cash transported to Taicang and Neiku from various places this year should be around 6.5 million taels, in addition to 4 million shi of grain.

But so far, 3.4 million taels have not been delivered, and it may not be delivered this year, which is more than half of the total! The grain shortage was originally half, or 2 million dan. After hundreds of thousands of dan were urgently transferred from the northern water warehouse to make up for the capital, it was still 1.5 million dan short of the original amount.

In other words, even if nothing is done, the country will still suffer a deficit of several million in silver and grain!
Prime Minister Shen has lived for seventy years and has never seen such a terrible financial hole!
Then, looking at the budget list for the Crown Prince's "three rituals" that Emperor Wanli had just sent him yesterday, Prime Minister Shen fell silent.

Emperor Wanli was very considerate and cut the budget from the original 5 million taels to 2 million taels. The inner treasury did not have that much money, so the imperial granary needed support.
"Go to the Ministry of Revenue and tell the Grand Tutor to think of a solution!" After coming to his senses, Prime Minister Shen irritably instructed the Secretary of the Central Secretariat.

You can't just be upset by yourself, if you want to be upset, let's be upset together.

The secretary replied helplessly, "The Minister of Revenue, Yu Da, claimed to be ill last month and has been bedridden at home for more than a month."

Prime Minister Shen: “.”

Could it be that this is what they call a duck first knows when the river water warms in spring? Did the Minister of Revenue realize that something big was going to happen, so he got sick early as a sign of respect?
In desperation, Shen Shoufu first wrote a note to Emperor Wanli, saying: "The Holy Son of Heaven should rule the world with frugality as the guide and avoid extravagance."

Emperor Wanli replied: "When Mr. Zhao was in power, he never said these embarrassing words."

This comment was like saying "My ex never hesitated to spend money on me", which almost made Prime Minister Shen autistic.

Afterwards, Prime Minister Shen could only think of ways to patch up the gaps by taking money from one pocket and asking the Ministry of Revenue for the amount of silver that was stored in the old treasury.

The so-called old treasury is a reserve treasury that is not included in the current year's expenditure and is generally kept unused for emergency use. Only when the finances are really unable to support it can silver be diverted from the old treasury.

The Ministry of Revenue reported that there were only two million taels of silver left in the old treasury, which was not enough to make up for the huge hole this year.

Then Prime Minister Shen asked the Imperial Household Department about the accumulated silver for the horses, but was directly scolded by the Imperial Household Department Minister Wang Zhidu.

Wang Taifu cursed Prime Minister Shen in public for "selling his father's land without any regret" and said that he had been in office for less than four months but he was already thinking of embezzling all the silver in various old warehouses. He was really incompetent!
Prime Minister Shen, who was almost desperate, begged again and again, and finally the "three ceremonies" of the crowning, enthronement and wedding of the crown prince were all postponed for one year to the winter solstice next year. At least this year he didn't have to spend the two million taels.

However, Prime Minister Shen had to agree to the emperor's new budget of three million taels, an increase of one million taels from the most recent budget of two million taels.

Moreover, all the increased expenses were to be paid by the Ministry of Revenue's Taicang Warehouse. When this news spread, there was another public outcry.

Until the northern canal froze, no more silver and grain were transported to the capital.

The worse news is that the border troops that were mobilized did not move quickly enough and failed to achieve the goal of quelling the rebellion by the end of the year.

Whether it was the Prime Minister Shen Li, the Minister of War Wei Yunzhen, or the front-line governor Li Sancai, they all felt that their command was not effective.

This means that even if the ice thaws in the spring next year, navigation between the north and south of the Grand Canal may still be cut off.

The grain, silver, and silk that should have been shipped after the spring still could not be transported to the capital.

So near the end of the year, in just a few days, the price of rice in the capital, which had been rising all year, suddenly skyrocketed several times.

At one point it reached the point where the price was three or four coins per dou (a bushel of rice). The people were suffering terribly, and even the New Year was not a festive occasion.

There were also complaints in the official circles of the capital, with many voices accusing Prime Minister Shen of governing incompetently, Grand Marshal Wei of being incompetent and ignorant of military affairs, and Li Sancai of being incapable of quelling the rebellion.

There was even an incident of mutiny among some officers and soldiers due to lack of pay. Fortunately, Wang Zhidu, the Minister of the Imperial Household, took out 500,000 taels of silver from the price of horses accumulated over the years and was able to pacify the Beijing camp.

Prime Minister Shen and his old partners were in a state of panic. Accustomed to being the "opposition party", they finally realized that being in power was actually very difficult.

At the year-end party, Gu Xiancheng said to Prime Minister Shen Li: "It seems that all the bad things that happened after May this year have the shadow of Lin Tailai.

If Lin Tailai hadn’t been in the dark, the current situation would definitely not have been so bad.”

Shen Shoufu said helplessly: "See through it but don't speak it out. Even if you know it in your heart, you can't make a public accusation."

He has seen clearly that if he openly overturns the table and tears off the fig leaf, the situation will be completely out of control.

Lin Tailai is not just Lin Tailai. He also connects a giant interest group that spans countless fields and is closely related, from Jiangnan to border towns, from maritime trade to border cities, from industry to commerce, from domestic to foreign, from the court to local areas. Even the imperial power cannot penetrate into many aspects.

Zhao Nanxing said indignantly: "Can't we just report Lin Tailai's evil deeds to His Majesty and ask Him to punish him?"

Prime Minister Shen shook his head and said meaningfully: "The emperor probably doesn't want to know the truth. If the emperor was really so decisive, he would not have been forced by Lin Tailai to establish a crown prince.

What is being tested now is patience. In such an extremely high-intensity confrontation, it is impossible for Lin Tailai to hold on forever.

When Lin Tailai can no longer hold on, the chain of interests associated with him may begin to collapse on its own.”

Smart people can see that Prime Minister Shen’s words are actually just a helpless way to cheer up his own people.

When you are at your wits' end, you can only wait and see, and bet that the other party will have problems themselves. What else can you do?

(End of this chapter)