Eagle-eyed and wolf-watching

Chapter 1548 Untitled
No matter which dynasty it was, the officials had always had a stable job with guaranteed income regardless of drought or flood, and they ate food from the emperor, which could be said to be very stable!

In order to get this stable T rice bowl, everyone has made tremendous efforts. Officials have studied sage books for ten years, and the runners have also found their own ways. Some of them even sold their houses and land and used their connections to get such a stable job.

Based on this reality, many officials, both at the central and local levels, have the same idea: we have made so much effort and sacrifice to finally get to where we are today. Your Majesty, you cannot just lay us off. What law have we violated?

Your Majesty, you pretended to be merciful and did not collect taxes from Jingchu, Sichuan, Guanzhong and other places, but ended up breaking our rice bowls to pay the bill, and sacrificing us to gain your good name!

Based on this idea, many people are resentful of the tax-free policy, and this resentment reached its peak last year when Ye Mingsheng forced a layoff of 10,000 people. The tax-free period ended this year, and everyone was thinking that now that taxes have been collected from Jingchu, Huainan and other places, the court will no longer be short of money, and everyone's life will become more stable!

So when Wang Huaiyi stood up to express his opinion, he was opposed by many people. Although they were high-ranking officials and the court could not lay off employees, they had relatives and friends behind them. In addition, in order to implement the layoff plan, His Majesty also included layoffs in the assessment, which made everyone very uncomfortable...

Among them, Su Yi himself was the one who hated layoffs the most. Originally, although he did not do a very good job in his job at the Ministry of Rites, he at least had a passing score. However, because of the unfavorable layoffs, he was scolded by Ye Mingsheng, and his position as Minister of Rites was also in jeopardy!

So if possible, Su Yi really doesn't want to continue laying off employees this year. The thought of layoffs gives him a headache. He even dreamed about layoffs before. This incident has made him a little nervous!
It was for this reason that Su Yi had just stood up to refute Wang Huaiyi. He hoped that the court would quickly collect taxes from Jingchu, Huainan and other places. In this way, the court's tight finances would be eased, and His Majesty would have no reason to lay off employees. In this way, his life would be somewhat better!

Su Yi didn't know what Su Junjie, Shen Changhong, Zhao Han, and Ma Zhongjun were thinking, but he guessed that these people were also troubled by the layoffs and wanted to live a few days of peace!
But unfortunately, although they have such ideas, whether the court will continue to lay off employees does not depend on their feelings and thoughts, but on Ye Mingsheng's thoughts and decisions, and Your Majesty still needs to use financial constraints as an excuse to lay off employees!
Therefore, the court’s finances must now be tight, and there must be absolutely no relief!
So the tax exemption turned into tax reduction, and the additional tax of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver was also spent by His Majesty on the grounds of increasing special funds for the navy and education. Thinking of this, Su Yixin was very tired. He really didn't want to face the issue of layoffs...
He was really tired of the offensive work of layoffs. In order to keep their T jobs, these people would do anything. They not only said the classic rhetoric of 80-year-old mother and 3-year-old child, but some even brought their whole family to block Su Yi's door!
Su Yi got a headache just thinking about this matter, but there was nothing he could do. As a minister, he should be loyal to his emperor. Even if it was hard and difficult, he had to bite the bullet and do it for the sake of his position!

Just as Su Yi was worrying about layoffs, Ye Mingsheng, who was sitting in the main seat, continued to speak:

"Although the court wants to lay off employees, the requirement still exists: the efficiency of the G government office must not only not be reduced, but must be improved! Layoffs must not be made at the expense of efficiency!"

"Last year, we discovered a situation where some local county magistrates simply perfunctorily dealt with the request for layoffs. They laid off all those who actually worked and kept those who bluffed and flattered, causing the operation of the entire government to be a mess!"

"We must prevent this kind of situation from happening again this year. Anyone who does this will be severely punished and will not be tolerated!"

"As for the government offices that have done a good job in reducing staff and increasing efficiency, the court will never treat them unfairly. The court is prepared to give everyone 50% of the salaries of the laid-off employees as bonuses!"

"Everyone should have noticed that this year's New Year bonus is a little more than in the past few years. This is because the court laid off nearly 20,000 people, and the salaries saved by these people were used to give everyone more bonuses!"

"As long as this year's goal is achieved, the bonus from the court will be more than last year, and everyone's income will be more..."

Although Ye Mingsheng intended to use bonuses to increase everyone's enthusiasm, the people in Tiande Pavilion were still not very interested at this time. After all, bonuses were only a few taels of silver per person on average, at most dozens or hundreds of taels of silver, which might be very important to the group of people below.

But this is just a small amount of money for these civil and military ministers. They hold huge power and can easily get wealth that ordinary people cannot spend in their lifetime.

Compared to this little money, they would rather not lay off employees so that everyone can have a few days of good life!

At this time, Zhang Juning, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, also looked at Cui Shao quietly, with some doubts in his eyes. As Cui Shao's subordinate, he knew very well that Cui Shao had always been very worried about the financial situation of the court. This founding hero of Daqian had always been worried that the high debt would sooner or later drag down Daqian!

Therefore, Cui Shao had always hoped to resume taxation from Jingchu, Huainan, Sichuan and other places as soon as possible, so that the tax revenue could be used to ease the financial pressure. However, Cui Shao's attitude today can be said to have taken a big turn! If Cui Shao had not just stood up and expressed his position, it would have been difficult to change the situation even if Gu Sansi had some memorials in his hand!

So what changed Cui Shao's attitude?
In Zhang Juning's opinion, there is only one answer to this question, and that is that His Majesty must take action!

But even if it is Your Majesty, if you want Cui Shao to make such a big change, I am afraid you have to give Cui Shao some benefits...
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While Ye Mingsheng was meeting with the civil and military officials of Daqian in Tiande Pavilion, An Miaoyi in the palace was leisurely looking at the account book in her hand. Although Ye Mingsheng had been favoring Murong Xinyun continuously during this period, the Queen of Daqian was generally very happy during this period!

The reason why An Miaoyi was happy was that Su Junjie was appointed as the Minister of Works!
The sources of income for An Miaoyi's slush fund are, firstly, the rent from the commercial real estate under her control, and secondly, the agency sales rights for cement, textile machines, kerosene lamps and other items, and this has a lot to do with the Second Manufacturing Bureau!
In order to please An Miaoyi, Su Junjie instructed his men to sell most of the good-selling products produced by the Second Manufacturing Bureau to the businesses controlled by An Miaoyi's white gloves, and then the white gloves businesses controlled by An Miaoyi sold them to other textile factories.

For example, the textile machine, the core product of the Second Manufacturing General Bureau, is a textile machine. It is of good quality and rarely breaks down. The quality of the cloth it produces is also very good, and the machine has a three-year warranty. Therefore, even though its price is nearly twice as high as other textile machines on the market, it is still very popular.

The Second Manufacturing Bureau can produce about 500 textile machines a year. The cost of one textile machine is about ten taels of silver. Su Junjie sells each machine to the business controlled by An Miaoyi for twenty taels of silver, and the business controlled by An Miaoyi sells it for thirty taels of silver or even higher. Just by resell each machine, he can make at least ten taels of silver!
At least 300 textile machines produced by the Second Manufacturing Bureau were given to An Miaoyi, which means that the business controlled by An Miaoyi earned at least more than 3,000 taels of silver from the textile machines alone. As for other good products of the Second Manufacturing Bureau, the businesses secretly controlled by An Miaoyi also dabbled in them...
Adding all these things together, An Miaoyi earns at least 10,000 taels of silver from the Second Manufacturing Bureau every year. This is undoubtedly a form of interest transfer, and Su Junjie is finding ways to bribe An Miaoyi!

Therefore, Su Junjie was also appreciated by An Miaoyi. Before, when Su Junjie was reported by the censor for having improper dealings with some businessmen and accepting bribes, it was An Miaoyi who persuaded Ye Mingsheng a lot and finally made the matter smaller, allowing Su Junjie to get through safely and escape the disaster!
An Miaoyi really disliked the former Minister of Works Chen Fu, and she also disliked the former Vice Minister of Works Chen Changgui. These two people would not listen to her. Chen Fu would cry poor all the time. He was the Minister of Works, but he acted like an old beggar in front of her. He just opened his mouth and said he had no money. The Furen Palace project had cost her a lot of money!
As for that Chen Changgui, he was even more hateful. Because of some things happening within the Ye clan, An Miaoyi had someone say hello to Chen Changgui. As it was originally a matter of job transfer, An Miaoyi just thought that Chen Changgui would do it for her quickly like other people did!

But who would have thought that Chen Changgui thought he was the emperor's favorite general and had the emperor's support, so he didn't take her, the queen, seriously at all. He even rejected An Miaoyi's request on the grounds that it was not in line with the rules and regulations of the First Manufacturing General Administration, forcing An Miaoyi to find someone else to get things done...
This matter also made An Miaoyi very angry. Although she wanted to deal with Chen Changgui, this Chen Changgui was indeed Ye Mingsheng's favorite. Many of Ye Mingsheng's projects were handed over to Chen Changgui. So even though An Miaoyi was angry, she had to let the matter go.
So now that Chen Fu and Chen Changgui have left, An Miaoyi is very happy to see Su Junjie become the Minister of Works!

Su Junjie being in charge of the Ministry of Industry can better cooperate with An Miaoyi's ideas and make the treasury accounts look better. Now with Murong Qingwu watching over her, An Miaoyi really can't be as unscrupulous as before. It would be best if the treasury had a surplus every year, otherwise Murong Qingwu would probably have something to say!
Just as An Miaoyi was sitting on the sofa thinking about how to get some benefits from the Ministry of Industry, Qiqige came to her side and reported:

"Your Majesty, there is news from the Imperial Academy!"

An Miaoyi, who was thinking, subconsciously asked:
"What's the latest news?"

"It's related to the coal mines in Liaoyang! It seems that His Majesty wants to do something like "G retreat and advance the people" in the coal mines in Liaoyang!"

"What does G retreat and the people advance mean?" An Miaoyi frowned slightly and said in confusion:
“This means that 40% of the shares of five coal mines including the Liaoyang Shanhe Mine are being sold to private businesses, and these businesses will be responsible for the mining and operation of the coal mines…”

An Miaoyi frowned even deeper when he heard this. Liaoyang is the region with the highest coal production in Daqian. Nearly 60% of Daqian's coal is supplied by Liaoyang. The coal produced in Liaoyang is worth hundreds of thousands of taels of silver every year. It can be said that it is Liaoyang's largest commodity!

Liaoyang has dozens of coal mines of various sizes, nearly half of which are private coal funds, which only pay taxes to the court every year. However, these private coal funds are all small and medium-sized coal funds. The coal funds with high output and good quality are controlled by the Liaoyang Provincial Government and the Fusheng Company, which was split from the Dadongsheng Company!

Just before the beginning of this year, a major accident occurred at the Shanhe Mine under the jurisdiction of the Liaoyang Provincial Government, killing and injuring hundreds of miners, and problems with the accounts were exposed. Because of this incident, Wang Chunlai, the Liaoyang Governor, was impeached by the Censor. As a result, Ye Mingsheng was removed from his post as Governor and handed the case over to the Censorate and the Dali Temple for investigation!
This was also an important reason why Murong Hui was able to serve as the governor of Liaoyang. Now there was news suddenly coming out from the Hanlin Academy that they were going to do something called "G retreat and the people advance". An Miaoyi knew as soon as she heard it that this must be related to Ye Mingsheng. Otherwise, with the moral character of those people in the Hanlin Academy, they would probably never have such an idea in their entire lives...

After being with Ye Mingsheng for so many years, An Miaoyi has become more or less accustomed to some of Ye Mingsheng's weird ideas, such as there is an invisible hand in the market. When An Miaoyi first heard this, she was a little surprised. Isn't this hand visible to the naked eye?

How can you say this hand is invisible?

I can’t see this hand. Is there something wrong with my eyes?