Daming: I can’t kill such a greedy prince-in-law?

"Teacher, what did His Majesty say to you?"

Huang Zicheng had been staying at the Duke of Korea's mansion. When he saw Li Shanchang coming back, he immediately came up to him and asked him questions.

Li Shanchang looked a little unhappy. He did not reply but walked back into the house calmly.

Huang Zicheng's heart suddenly skipped a beat and he quickly followed Li Shanchang inside.

Li Shanchang sat on the chair and took a sip of tea, then his expression eased a little.

Huang Zicheng stood aside and did not ask any more questions. He had followed Li Shanchang for quite some time and naturally knew Li Shanchang's character. Li Shanchang was obviously very angry now. If he continued to ask questions at this time, it would probably make Li Shanchang's mood even worse, and he might even vent his anger on him.

So even though Huang Zicheng really wanted to know what Li Shanchang and Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang had said, he did not open his mouth to ask, but waited silently.

Time passed little by little.

Li Shanchang's expression eased a lot. He glanced at Huang Zicheng and then said, "Zicheng, does anyone else know about your contact with those remnants of Confucianism?"

Hearing this, Huang Zicheng immediately understood that Emperor Zhu Biao summoned Li Shanchang into the palace in order to incite the people with the remnants of Confucianism.

"No! Teacher and I know very well that if we have too much contact with the remnants of Confucianism at this time, it will inevitably cause big problems, so I try my best to avoid contacting the remnants of Confucianism. In total, I have only met the leaders of the remnants of Confucianism twice. The meeting places were extremely secret, and there was no way a third person could have seen it!"

Huang Zicheng quickly explained.

He knew very well that Li Shanchang would never ask questions without a purpose, but now he asked him this directly, obviously he suspected that Huang Zicheng had been discovered.

"No third person saw it? That's really strange!" Li Shanchang was obviously dissatisfied with Huang Zicheng's answer. "Your Majesty summoned me today to discuss that someone was secretly fanning the flames!"

"And you asked me to investigate this matter!"

"Let you, teacher, come to investigate?! That's a good thing!" Huang Zicheng originally thought that he was finished, but now that Li Shanchang is the one who investigates, then he, Huang Zicheng, is completely safe.

"Not necessarily." Li Shanchang looked up at Huang Zicheng and said in a deep voice, "The Emperor clearly asked me to investigate this matter. He knew about it a long time ago. The Emperor's real purpose is to warn me!"

"what!!"

Upon hearing this, Huang Zicheng's face suddenly turned ugly.

"Teacher, you mean that the Emperor has known the truth of the matter for a long time!" Huang Zicheng frowned and shook his head repeatedly, "That shouldn't be the case! The students have very little contact with the remnants of Confucianism, and they have used various means to cover it up. Logically speaking, even the Emperor doesn't know that this matter has anything to do with us!"

"So I am very confused. I trust you, Huang Zicheng, to do things, but how did the emperor know the relevant information?"

"Zicheng, think carefully, maybe you missed something? The two times you went to meet the remaining leaders of Confucianism, were you ever discovered?"

Li Shanchang asked again.

"This..." Faced with Li Shanchang's repeated questioning, Huang Zicheng's face began to look suspicious.

At this moment he was not too sure whether he had really not been discovered.

Suddenly, Huang Zicheng seemed to have thought of something, and hurriedly said: "Every time I went to see the leader of the remnants of Confucianism, I told my housekeeper, and he was the only one who knew what I was going to do. But this housekeeper is my old housekeeper. He first followed my father, and then followed me. It can be said that he is loyal and there is no way he would betray me!"

"If no one else knows about it, then the person who leaked the information is most likely you, the old housekeeper." Li Shanchang shook his head. "Don't you know what the Jinyiwei means?"

"Not to mention the housekeeper who has been with your family for many years, even if it's your own father, he can make him sell you out."

"But fortunately, your butler doesn't know much, and the Jinyiwei don't know what you talked about with the leader of the Confucian remnants. After all, the Confucian remnants are not wanted by the court now, so it's not a crime for you to meet the leader of the Confucian remnants."

"But this is enough to make His Majesty suspect that our Huaixi Party and the remnants of Confucianism planned this incident together. This is also the reason why His Majesty did not choose to confront me, but asked me to investigate and warn me!"

Hearing this, Huang Zicheng nodded repeatedly, "Teacher's analysis is correct. I am ashamed of myself. Please forgive me. It was my lack of consideration that almost harmed you and the entire Huaixi Party."

At this moment, Huang Zicheng felt a little scared just thinking about it.

Li Shanchang waved his hands at this moment, "It is true that you did not do this carefully enough, but it is not entirely your fault. If I am not mistaken, Ouyang Lun and the Prince Consort's party must have instigated this!"

"We originally wanted to take advantage of the tense relationship between the people and the government to make His Majesty dissatisfied with Ouyang Lun, but Ouyang Lun succeeded in making His Majesty suspicious of us, causing His Majesty to send the Royal Guards to investigate!"

"Then teacher, what should we do now? If the Jinyiwei continues to investigate, it may not be possible," Huang Zicheng said worriedly.

He was naturally aware of how powerful the Jinyiwei were. As long as he could find his butler as a breakthrough point, it would not be difficult to capture Huang Zicheng.

"Don't worry, since His Majesty the Emperor has only given us a warning, he will not really take action against you for the time being. You are an important official of the court after all, so it is not in the interests of His Majesty the Emperor to take action against you at this time." Li Shanchang comforted him, "But your housekeeper must not be kept, otherwise he will definitely be a disaster in the future!"

"Also, you have to tell the remnants of Confucianism that we, the Huaixi Party, will no longer be involved in this matter. It is up to them to decide what to do. If the matter is exposed, they must not implicate us in any way! Otherwise, we can only let their families who are hiding in secret fend for themselves."

"Yes, teacher. I will take care of these things as soon as I return!" Huang Zicheng nodded repeatedly. "I have been in private contact with the leader of the remaining Confucianists. If the time comes, I will just send someone to kill him. I have already planted people around the leader of the remaining Confucianists. As long as we want him to die, he will definitely not survive!"

"That's great!" Upon hearing this, Li Shanchang nodded with satisfaction.

Perhaps it was the policy given by Ouyang Lun that worked, or perhaps it was the withdrawal of the mastermind behind the scenes. The tense atmosphere between the people and the government gradually disappeared!

Even in the end, many people openly supported the court's policies.

Directly stage a scene of officials and the people being like one family.

On the surface, everyone thought that this was a grand reconciliation made possible by the court's efforts and understood by the people, but in fact, it was a game of interests behind the scenes.

However, Ouyang Lun can't take care of these things now, because as time approaches the end of the year, affairs are becoming more and more busy.

The Ministry of Revenue has to organize various data and conduct more comprehensive year-end assessments of officials, with the focus naturally on taxation.

Ouyang Lun, who was hiding in the clan house, had to come to the Ministry of Revenue.

"Greetings, His Excellency the Prime Minister!" Guo Zi and a group of officials from the Ministry of Revenue bowed to Ouyang Lun, who was sitting in the main seat of the Ministry of Revenue.

"No gift."

"Guo Zi, please tell us about the recent situation of the Ministry of Revenue. Just talk about the important things and you can decide on the minor matters!" Ouyang Lun said.

"Yes!"

Guo Zi nodded. He was naturally familiar with Ouyang Lun's character. He sorted out his words in his mind before speaking: "Master Prime Minister, let me first report to you about the engineering problems of our Ming Dynasty this year!"

"Yeah." Ouyang Lun nodded.

Guo Zi did not speak directly, but handed Ouyang Lun a thick booklet with both hands.

"Master Prime Minister, this booklet records the status of several major state-owned construction companies in Ming Dynasty!"

"This year, Daming has built 11 large-scale projects, 121 medium-sized projects, and 1,380 small-scale projects. If we add in the projects that were approved and started before last year but have not been completed, the total number of projects is more than 3,800!"

"I have calculated with the accountants of the Ministry of Revenue many times. The project payment that needs to be settled this time is 130 million taels of silver, mainly for workers' wages and suppliers' payments. The Beijing-Pinggu Railway project accounts for about 60% of the total amount!"

While listening to Guo Zi's report, Ouyang Lun was also flipping through the documents in his hand.

The project expenditure of 130 million is indeed too much, and this is only for this year. It is estimated that there will be more next year. The Ming Dynasty really spends money in too many places.

To be honest, when the officials of the Ministry of Revenue calculated this number, they initially thought that they had miscalculated. In the past, the Ming Dynasty's annual expenditure on engineering projects was only about 10 to 20 million taels of silver. The result was almost ten times the amount!
If Ming Dynasty's tax revenue had not increased, this project payment alone would have bankrupted the Ming Dynasty!

At this moment, the officials of the Ministry of Revenue were also very nervous. After all, this was not a small amount of money, and the Prince Consort Ouyang Lun might be furious.

However, contrary to what the officials of the Ministry of Revenue thought, Ouyang Lun was not angry at all. Instead, he was quite calm.

"One hundred and thirty million is not too much. This money should be allocated as quickly as possible to ensure that the workers' wages are paid first. Anyone who prevents the workers from getting paid before the New Year should not work next year!"

Ouyang Lun said calmly.

"Yes!"

Guo Zi nodded and kept the matter in mind, preparing to issue a formal announcement when the time comes. If anyone dares to disobey, he will directly remove them from the Ministry of Household's list, and they will not be able to participate in any projects in the future, not even a hair.

After reporting on the project payment, Guo Zi started to report on the next item, "Master Prime Minister, the next item I will report on is tax-related matters."

"Well, tell me!"

Ouyang Lun knew very well that for the Ministry of Revenue, taxation was the most important matter.

"As for taxes, our Ministry of Revenue has already started collecting taxes, which involves tax exemptions and refunds for some people. However, according to the Ministry of Revenue's calculations, the tax exemptions and refunds will not have a big impact on the overall tax revenue of our Ming Dynasty this year!"

"It is expected that everything will be sorted out in half a month! Judging from the data that has been sorted out, our Ming Dynasty's tax revenue this year is higher than last year and is still growing!"

"Oh, by the way, Prime Minister, every year you give year-end gifts to outstanding officials and common people. Do you have any instructions for this year's year-end gifts?"

Hearing Guo Zi asking this, Ouyang Lun couldn't help but frown.

The reason is very simple. In the past, Ouyang Lun sent out the year-end gifts to civil and military officials and outstanding people every year in the name of Empress Ma. After all, if he sent them in his name, he might be impeached for buying people's hearts. He was unwilling to send them in the name of Zhu Yuanzhang.

But the situation this year is somewhat special.

That is because Empress Ma has always been in poor health, and it would be inappropriate to send it in her name.

"There's no rush for this. I have to go discuss this with His Majesty the Emperor. Just continue to do your work at the Ministry of Revenue!"

"The affairs of the Ministry of Revenue involve a wide range of issues. You must be careful. It doesn't matter if things go slowly. There is no need to be timid. Even if the sky falls, I will protect you!"

"But if someone has bad intentions and goes astray, don't blame me for being rude!"

When Ouyang Lun said this last sentence, his entire aura burst out, directly stunning many officials on the scene. Many officials were so scared that sweat began to appear on their foreheads.

"Please rest assured, Prime Minister. I will keep this in mind!"

Guo Zi took the lead in speaking, and other officials nodded in agreement.

In fact, officials who have followed Ouyang Lun for a long time know very well that Ouyang Lun is very lenient towards his subordinates. He is never vague about delegating power when necessary and supporting when necessary. He also provides many benefits and welfare. In the few years that the Ministry of Revenue has been in Ouyang Lun's hands, the treatment of its officials can be said to be more than twice that of officials from other departments!
Ouyang Lun did not have many requirements for his officials. The most important point was to do everything according to the rules. If there were rules, they should follow them. If there were no rules, they should ask for instructions and then make the rules!
As long as you do this, you can at least rise steadily, even if it doesn’t mean you will rise straight to the top!
Ouyang Lun then listened to the reports from Guo Zi and other officials of the Ministry of Revenue, then gave them a few words of encouragement and left.

Ouyang Lun knew very well that if he continued to sit in the Ministry of Revenue, it would be difficult for the officials in the Ministry to do their work.

After leaving the Ministry of Revenue, Ouyang Lun could not go back to the clan house to lie down. He had to go find Zhu Biao. After all, the year-end bonus had to be decided as soon as possible.

When he rushed to Taiji Hall, he was told that Zhu Biao had gone to Zhu Yuanzhang's Taile Palace.

Ouyang Lun had no choice but to rush to Taile Palace.

When they arrived at the Taile Palace, Ouyang Lun was brought directly before Zhu Yuanzhang and his son Zhu Biao.

"Your Highness Ouyang Lun pays respect to His Majesty the Emperor!"

Ouyang Lun saluted.

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao were quite surprised to see Ouyang Lun coming. You know, on normal days Ouyang Lun might not come even if they called him, but today he came over on his own initiative.

"Hey, isn't this the Prime Minister of our Ming Dynasty? How come you have time to come here today?" (End of this chapter)