Uncle from a poor family

Chapter 782 Shameless

Xie Qian could only try to get rid of Ye Qi for the time being.

Xie Qian knew he wouldn't have any good ideas on how to raise the money, and he was also well aware that Xu Pu and Liu Jian would have a hard time coming up with a solution.

After the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty ascended the throne, although he paid salaries, even more was owed... The court's finances had already been ruined by the end of the Chenghua era, and now there was the need to repair the Yellow River in the Huai River region, and the Northwest required a large amount of expenditure. If the court officials were not corrupt and could barely make ends meet, that would be considered good.

Especially the Hanlin Academy officials, who are best able to understand the current predicament of the imperial court.

You, Ye Qi, were chosen to solve the financial crisis facing the court because of your outstanding abilities, but you say that you are powerless and need others to help you.
What use are you then?
The following morning at court, Zhu Youcheng specifically mentioned the lack of military pay in Liaodong and proposed sending an envoy to Korea to resolve the border troubles in Liaodong as soon as possible.

In the eyes of the civil officials, this was nothing more than asking for money.

The ministers were unwilling to respond.

In their view, we ourselves are almost starving, how can we help Your Majesty raise money for foreign expansion?
I'm sorry, but our principle is to prioritize appeasement and avoid doing anything beyond our bounds. We hope everyone can live in harmony and get by.

After the morning court session, on his way back to the cabinet, Xie Qian deliberately walked up to Xu Pu and Liu Jian and relayed what Ye Qi had told him the day before.

The most remarkable thing right now is that the group of Hanlin officials who came from the ranks of the Crown Prince's lecturers have quickly become involved in important court affairs and are playing an increasingly important role in court discussions.

Because of their teacher-student relationship, they gained the favor of the Hongzhi Emperor, who often listened to their opinions.

This is completely different from the past when emperors only trusted their close associates and sycophants.

After all, during the Chenghua reign, even the highest-ranking Hanlin officials, such as Wan An and Liu Ji, were destined to live a life of idleness and complacency. They themselves lacked independent thought, so how could they expect their subordinates to offer any good suggestions? Under these circumstances, Ji Xiao, Wang Zhi, Liang Fang, and even Li Zisheng took turns rising to power and controlling the government. The freedom of speech for civil officials was severely suppressed, which can be described as the darkest moment for Hanlin officials.

Xu Pu frowned and asked, "Why didn't Ye Qi come to see me in person?"

Xie Qian glanced back at Ye Qi, who was hiding in the crowd, before saying, "Perhaps it's difficult to say."

Upon hearing this, Liu Jian shook his head: "Since the beginning of this year, His Majesty has been frequently active in military campaigns and state affairs, with the amount of money spent increasing daily. Yet, he has never allocated funds or grain for basic necessities..."

"Cough cough."

Xu Pu coughed twice, interrupting Liu Jian, and said, "There is no major disaster in the region, so Your Majesty's actions are understandable."

In Xu Pu's view, one should not arbitrarily criticize the emperor based on the people's livelihood.

If the emperor wants to spend money, that's his own business.

In fact, as long as the money spent is not from the imperial treasury, and the emperor has his own ideas and is willing to pay for it out of his own pocket, the court officials are actually quite happy to see it.

It would be best to bankrupt the emperor as soon as possible, so that he would stop making reckless decisions and would only be able to follow the ministers' orders.

The best way to control a young emperor is to first control his finances so he can't do whatever he wants, and then control his speech so he lives in an information cocoon!
The biggest problem now is that the emperor has not been deceived by them, and he has a lot of money in his pocket, enough to allow him to realize his political ambitions.

Here we must mention that Zhang Luan had previously served as the Vice Minister of Revenue, effectively managing the finances of the Ming Dynasty.

They thought that after Zhang Luan stepped down, without the crucial support of the Vice Minister of Revenue, the people would no longer give him face, and the Zhang family would no longer be able to secretly raise funds for the emperor...

When a different person took over, it was discovered that Zhang Luan's resources and channels remained unchanged.

This forced them to re-examine whether there was a problem with their methods of controlling emperors.

If there were no problems, why would a skinny old man who was born into the imperial family and was not very ambitious be able to solve the financial problems that had plagued the emperor for many years?

There must be something fishy going on here!

……

……

The cabinet was essentially at a loss when it came to raising funds for the military.

They knew almost all of Zhang Luan's methods for raising money, most of which relied on his extensive network of connections, but they couldn't correct them... Even if they knew all of his tricks, knew the path he might take in the future, and even saw through everything about him... they still couldn't imitate him no matter what.

To think that one could open up a new source of revenue to earn money and provisions for the court was nothing short of a pipe dream.

It seems that since ancient times, there has only been one path to Mount Hua, and one must follow Zhang Luan's route...

You won't succeed because you're not Zhang Luan, and you don't have a son as capable as Zhang Yanling. Others won't fawn over you like they do over Zhang Luan and his son. Let alone the court only giving Ye Qi the position of Right Vice Minister of Revenue, even if he were Minister of Revenue, or even Grand Secretary, it wouldn't make a difference.

Ye Qi encountered setbacks at every turn.

His connections and reputation quickly plummeted to their lowest point.

He had only recently taken over as Vice Minister of Revenue from Zhang Luan, a time when a new official should be making his mark, yet he was looked down upon. Whether they were his supporters or former comrades, they all avoided him like the plague.

The biggest downside of being the Vice Minister of Revenue is that if you, who are in charge of money and grain, can't come up with the funds yourself, and even try to squeeze money out of others, then that's intolerable.

If someone knows you're broke and tries to borrow money from you to use for other purposes, wouldn't they stay far away from you?
Finally, Ye Qi took a different approach and simply went to see Zhang Luan on his own initiative.

Of course, he couldn't meet Zhang Luan directly, so he used his connections to find Shen Lu, who was Zhang Luan's messenger. He explained the difficulties he was facing to Shen Lu, and with Shen Lu's introduction, he was taken to the new Shouning Marquis's residence, where he finally met Zhang Luan in person.

Before the formal meeting, Ye Qi could only wait in the front hall.

Shen Lu made an excuse to go in and announce his arrival. When he got to the inner courtyard, he saw his brother-in-law, who had a hostile look on his face.

"Ru Xue, what do you mean by this? My newly renovated imperial residence hasn't even been fully renovated yet, and you've already brought this debt collector to my door?"

Zhang Luan was very angry.

I told you when I would be coming to the new house so that you could witness with me the grand occasion of my family moving into the Shouning Marquis's Mansion, and so that you could share in my joy.

On my happiest day, you brought Ye Qi, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, who temporarily replaced me and made me very unhappy, to see me. Were you deliberately trying to disgust me?

Shen Lu asked in surprise, "Lai Zhan, didn't you ask me to bring the person here? It was... Yan Ling who had someone notify me."

"Prolonging life?"

Zhang Luan then realized that he seemed to have been tricked.

Shen Lu said, "If you don't see me, I'll go out and tell Vice Minister Ye to go back for now. Just say you're seriously ill; everyone in the court believes it anyway..."

Zhang Luan sighed, "Do they really believe I'm sick? I guess they're just pretending to believe me to save His Majesty's face... or maybe they'd rather I were seriously ill..."

"hehe."

Shen Lu smiled helplessly, roughly meaning, "If you understand it, then you're happy."

……

……

Zhang Luan, accompanied by Shen Lu, finally came out to meet Ye Qi, who was waiting respectfully.

"Greetings, Grand Secretary Zhang."

Ye Qi had previously looked down on Zhang Luan, or rather, he had never taken Zhang Luan seriously, considering him a shameless scholar who sold his daughter for personal gain and had even taken his position.

But now...

For some reason, it's hard not to show respect.

Not only because Zhang Luan is still a nominal Grand Secretary, but also because he himself has tried many times and found that Zhang Luan's methods of raising money are something he can't learn no matter how hard he tries, so he only came to ask for an audience when he was desperate.

Zhang Luan said, "Minister Ye, you're too kind. Please have a seat." He didn't lead the guest to the main hall of the courtyard, but instead received him directly in the front hall.

Zhang Luan probably didn't want to receive guests from the court in his new residence. After all, in his view, private life was of utmost importance, and who would want their political enemies to interfere in their affairs?

I'm sorry, but you can't come into my house. If my son hadn't tripped me up and made me come, I wouldn't even want to look at you.

Ye Qi quickly told Zhang Luan about the difficulties she had encountered.

Zhang Luan said in surprise, "Minister Ye, you don't think that my current physical condition is capable of doing these things, do you? It's precisely because I'm incapable that... Alas! I also want to serve the court and be loyal to the Ming Dynasty, but for some reason, ever since I revealed the secrets of heaven last year, my body has been out of control... It seems I'm not destined to be an official!"

Ye Qi said, "Grand Secretary Zhang is too modest. When you were the Vice Minister of Revenue, you brought in over a million taels of salt tax revenue for the court, something we could never have imagined before."

Zhang Luan waved his hand and said, "You're wrong. Even if that silver isn't sent to the capital, it will be converted into grain and transported to various parts of the Northwest. Even so, those censors and officials are all accusing me of causing a serious reduction in the number of military farms in the Northwest due to my new policies, leaving the soldiers hungry! The current predicament faced by the soldiers in the Northwest may be indirectly caused by me."

"You can't say that."

Ye Qi seemed to be Zhang Luan's little fanboy, praising him as soon as he opened his mouth: "It is because of you that the military and political situation in the Northwest has not fallen into great chaos. It was only after I took over the affairs of the Ministry of Revenue that I found that the funds and grain I could allocate were extremely tight, so I had no choice but to come and ask for your advice."

Zhang Luan asked curiously, "Didn't you suggest to your superior, Minister Li, that the money and grain from the Taicang and Tongzhou granaries be transferred to the border towns to alleviate the urgent crisis?"

Ye Qi said helplessly, "I did mention it at the court meeting, but the officials in the court generally believe that the court has many expenses now. Since the situation in the nine border areas is relatively stable, we only need to make up for the money and grain owed over the years. After this year's summer harvest, the difficulties in various places will naturally be resolved."

"It makes sense."

Zhang Luan nodded.

"But how can we make it to the summer harvest?" Ye Qi asked. "What His Majesty hopes to see is that all the outstanding military pay owed to the soldiers be paid in one go."

Zhang Luan sighed, "We can't force it if we can't do it, right? I used to scrape together a little bit here and a little bit there, but in the end I didn't even have enough money, and I ended up getting sick from all the effort."

"How much did you collect..."

Ye Qi's eyes lit up. Now the clouds had parted and the moon was shining through; they could finally know Zhang Luan's trump card.

Zhang Luan was stunned for a moment, almost thinking he had misheard.

Shen Lu, who was standing to the side, was also surprised.

The two men exchanged a glance, as if to say, "This guy dares to claim he's sincerely seeking guidance? Why does he sound so shameless?"

If you can't raise the money yourself, you want to ask Zhang Luan how much he raised before, and give it all to you temporarily so you can use it to get by?
Do you think you have a lot of influence, that everyone has to live at your beck and call, or that you are the guiding light of the Ming Dynasty, and everyone has to live according to your whims?
Zhang Luan said with difficulty, "I didn't raise much money... I didn't even manage to raise that much!"

"How much exactly is it?"

Ye Qi was really going all out.

Forget about shame.

I'm almost being laughed at as an idiot now, and my career is about to be ruined because of it. Asking you for some money... isn't that too much to ask?

Why doesn't His Majesty help me? Why don't the cabinet ministers help me? Why do even my colleagues keep their distance from me?
I'm not asking for your help now, but using the righteous cause to force you to hand over the money so I can use it to get rid of you!
Zhang Luan sighed, "Probably a few hundred taels."

"How many?"

Ye Qi almost spat out a mouthful of blood.

You've put in so much effort, everyone thinks you're a great and capable minister, and I also thought you'd already raised hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, almost enough.

Even if you gave me tens of thousands of taels of silver, I could still get by.

result……

But you say you only managed to scrape together a few hundred taels?
If you don't want to be used by me, then stop playing games with me like this, okay?
Zhang Luan said, “I am a straightforward person and I don’t like to hide things. It is true that I only have a few hundred taels! When I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t raise the money and that I was far from His Majesty’s expectations, I felt more and more that I was unworthy to be a subject, so I took the initiative to resign.”

"..."

Ye Qi is now convinced that Zhang Luan is playing him.

He didn't believe a single word Zhang Luan said.

Zhang Luan continued, "However, His Majesty comforted me, saying that I could go home to recuperate for the time being, and after a period of recuperation, someone would be found to replace me and take over the work... This way, I can have some peace of mind, and I can decide which government office to take up after I recover."

Ye Qi said, "So His Majesty made me take the fall and shoulder this mess?"

Shen Lu quickly said, "Minister Ye, you can't say that. The Vice Minister of Revenue is the Junior Minister of Education, a high-ranking and powerful official. How could he be a mess? Perhaps there is a better solution."

"Grand Secretary Zhang, what have you been working so hard for all this time? And how did you manage to raise funds and provisions for the court on so many occasions?"

Ye Qi questioned, "And you said you would help Lizi Province complete the Yellow River diversion project. Is this little bit of money enough?"

Zhang Luan said with a bitter face, "I know my own situation. I'm just an ordinary person with no ability, that's all."

Ye Qi stood up and said righteously, "Shouldn't even mediocre people present facts and reason?"

"What? You think I'm deliberately teasing you?"

As Zhang Luan spoke, he looked at Shen Lu, who was sitting upright to the side, once again.

It's as if they're questioning, "Is this the person you found?"

Why aren't you saying anything now, trying to smooth things over for us?

At this moment, Shen Lu had a look of utter despair, as if to say, "I don't care who you are, just end this embarrassing meeting and go home. Anyway, there's only one clown here, and that's me."

I meant well but ended up doing something wrong!
I wanted to take advantage of Ye Qi's visit to seek my advice to spread the word that Ye Qi's abilities were far inferior to yours, so that the world would know about Zhang Laizhan's skills!

Who knew that a shameless person would come to your door asking for money, and you would directly tell them that you have no money and no ability to raise funds.

Ye Qi said, "Then tell me, how did you manage to raise the hundreds of thousands of taels of silver before?"

Zhang Luan frowned and said, "When did I ever scrape together hundreds of thousands of taels of silver? Did you add the salt tax as well?"

Shen Lu then chimed in, saying, "Lai Zhan, actually, during the period from before the New Year to after the New Year, we raised funds and provisions for the war in the Northwest in two batches, totaling two or three hundred thousand taels, didn't we?"

"Are there that many?"

Zhang Luan counted on his fingers, then suddenly realized and said, "Oh, I know. Actually, I only raised tens of thousands of taels. The money mainly came from Lizi Province and Huizhou merchants. The rest came from my son through different channels... In addition, the cotton clothes, quilts and cloth for the Northwest front were obtained from the Imperial Palace's weaving, so they should be included in these hundreds of thousands of taels of silver."

Ye Qi said, "If we could raise the money then, why can't we this time?"

Zhang Luan shrugged and said, "Because my son won't give it to me."

"..."

Ye Qi was so angry she almost fainted.

Listen, is this human talk?

If you can't win an argument, you're using your son as a shield?

What great things can a mere child accomplish?
Zhang Luan said, "Also, Li Zisheng is now in charge of river repairs and can't even take care of himself. He's even sent someone back to urge me to pay for the river repair funds."

"The Huizhou merchants are currently busy with the salt permit business and have recently been busy mining in Xishan. They have no time to pay attention to me. The several hundred taels of silver I mentioned were paid out of my own pocket!"
"Minister Ye, if you don't believe me, go out and ask around, and see if I've uttered a single falsehood!"

(End of this chapter)