Good son-in-law of the Ming Dynasty

This time, Su Mu also regained his spirits. This is a staunch main fighter. Moreover, his qualifications are old, and his words are very important.

He said: "Old Yang Ge has been fighting against the Tatars in Ningxia Town, and I feel that Elder Yang Ge's opinion can be used as an important reference."

Rarely, Zhengde did not avoid Su Mu's gaze, but nodded slightly at him.

Yang Yiqing came out of the routine, and as soon as he opened his mouth, Su Mu was greatly surprised.

"My minister, Yang Yiqing, is right. This time we will use troops against the Tatars. It is still possible to fight. However, it is not appropriate to send an army to the five towns. We can let Datong Town adopt a defensive posture and decide on its own military actions to drive out the Tatars. .”

"Ah!" Su Mu couldn't help but let out a soft cry, annoyed in his heart: Good Yang Yiqing, I didn't expect you, a guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes, to betray the revolution, are you still my friend?

Zhengde was also very disappointed, but said calmly: "Come on."

Yang Yiqing: "The ability to use troops to cut off our troubles in the north in one fell swoop is of course meritorious in the present and beneficial in the future. However, has your Majesty thought about how much military expenditure will be required for these 40 people to go to the front? What is the current financial situation of the imperial court? I don’t need to say more about the faces of the elders! Let’s take the military expenditure against the Tatars this time as an example..."

He raised his fingers and began to count: "Xuanfu Town is the largest town in the world, not to mention. The other towns each have 600 soldiers. They need [-] boxes of rice and [-] boxes of military pay every month. More than ten thousand taels, this is still in the case of garrison. If they go to the battlefield, the soldiers need a lot of food to supplement their physical strength, because the food intake will quadruple. Moreover, the troops need to be distributed when they go out, and they also need to be distributed when they go to the battlefield. The pensions and rewards also need money. Therefore, a town of border troops, after a battle, a million taels of silver can't afford it. What's more, Su Mu is going to send soldiers from five towns to fight the Tatars this time. According to Yichen , At least [-] million taels are needed. If the war is protracted, tens of millions are also possible."

"Ah, tens of millions of taels!" Everyone couldn't help taking a breath, this was already the total income of the Ming Dynasty for a year.

Su Mu originally thought that Yang Yiqing, a cabinet elder from a trilateral system, would support the war, but he didn't expect that he would speak out against it at a critical moment, which caught him by surprise.

However, this is also understandable.Just because Yang Yiqing knows soldiers and has dealt with Tatars for many years, he must also know the power of the grassland people in his heart.To be honest, if it is a one-on-one contest, the current combat effectiveness of the Ming army is indeed no match for others.

It seems that no one supports him anymore.

Su Mu knew that no allies were reliable in today's debate, and everything had to depend on himself.

On the surface, Yang Yiqing did not directly oppose sending troops, only saying that there was nowhere to go for the military expenses.In this way, it is more troublesome than simple opposition, and it can also be seen that Yang Yiqing's sophistication.

In fact, based on Su Mu's understanding of the military and the central finance of the entire Ming Dynasty, this time the battle against the Tatars would not cost that much money.Moreover, if the imperial court is making up its mind, some ministries can squeeze out some money.

During the reign of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, they wanted to suppress peasant uprisings at home and fight against the Manchus abroad, so a lot of military expenditures were allocated as usual.

It's just that Su Mu didn't want to argue with Yang Yiqing on this kind of pure data. If he really wanted to, he wouldn't be able to understand for a while.If Yang Yiqing continued to discuss with Su Mu on the details of various data, there would be no need for this imperial meeting.From this aspect, we can see Yang Yiqing's shrewdness.

As expected of an old official fox!

Su Mu secretly praised in his heart.

If you want to refute Yang Yiqing, you can't simply discuss the facts.Didn’t Mr. Jiang Ge and Mr. Liang Ge use big hats to suppress people just now? This line of thinking may be feasible.

Su Mu smiled: "Old Yang Ge, I want to ask you a question."

Yang Yiqing looked calm: "Scholar Su, please tell me."

"The current finances of my Ming Dynasty are not bad, and it is still possible to support a foreign war. Let alone this, I would like to ask you a question, even if my Ming treasury is empty, I can't even pay the military salary. Can you just watch the Tatars invade and harm the people of our Ming Dynasty, and ignore it? Today, the Tatars invade Datong, and we just ignore it. Tomorrow, if the enemy invades Xuanfu, or even enters the capital directly, don’t we care?"

Su Mu spoke frankly: "We are waiting for the salary of eating the emperor, and the matter of being loyal to the emperor. Where does this salary come from? There is a famous saying in the Taizu: Your salary is all people's fat and people's anointing. That is to say, we It was all given by the people of the Ming Dynasty. After eating the food and clothing given by the people, the people suffer from disasters, but we sit in the city and enjoy the blessings. I am afraid that this reasoning cannot be justified?"

This is already a very serious accusation, and Yang Yiqing's face flashed green.

Su Mu's eyes were sharp, and out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the unknown twitch of Emperor Zhengde's mouth: It seems that Emperor Zhengde wants to fight with all his heart.

Yang Yiqing snorted: "Scholar Su, did I say that I just sit back and watch the people suffer from the war and ignore it? What I mean is that there is no need to use so many soldiers and horses, just use the Datong Town Army to drive the Tatars out of the country."

Su Mu smiled wryly: "The problem is that Datong Town alone can't beat it, otherwise, the enemy would have been driven out long ago, so why don't you use [-] miles to rush for help?"

Zhengde coughed and said majestically: "Today we are discussing whether to fight or not to fight. If not to fight, the problem of military expenditure will naturally not exist. If it is to fight, it will not be too late to discuss where the military expenditure will be moved from."

Now that the emperor has set the tone, Yang Yiqing naturally doesn't want to pester him any longer: "Yes, Your Majesty."

Then back off.

Now, except for Li Dongyang and Yang Tinghe, everyone else in the cabinet has expressed their opposition to the use of troops.

As the chief assistant of the cabinet, Li Dongyang played the role of a referee, so he couldn't have his own opinion. Now, there is only one Yang Tinghe left.

All eyes fell on Yang Tinghe, even Emperor Zhengde was no exception.

Su Mu did not have any confidence in Old Master Yang. According to his previous principles of doing things, he was a standard civil servant and would definitely oppose the use of troops.

Without waiting for Yang Tinghe to speak, let the old man continue, who knows where the topic will go.Su Mu said excitedly: "Now let's go back to the military expenditure issue of Mr. Yang Yingning and Yangge just now. If you say that you can't fight the enemy without money, then when Chengzu went to the north, was the national treasury more abundant than it is now? Should Cheng Zu shrink his military power to one place in the south of the Yangtze River instead of unifying the whole world? Could it be possible that since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the seven generations of emperors have competed to recuperate and recuperate, and the national power is not as strong as when the Chang Dynasty was first established? , the seven generations of emperors since Cheng Zu are all foolish emperors in the eyes of Ge Lao?"

When Shanggang went online, he was so raw that he couldn't make a sound, Yang Yiqing gradually showed an angry look on his face.

With a huff, he shook his sleeves and was about to refute.

It's a pity that Su Mu just shot a false shot, but aimed his fire at the three cabinet ministers Jiang, Liu, and Liang: "Just now, the three cabinet elders Liang, Liu, and Jiang talked about Wang Hua and Jiao Jiao Hua, and even let the Tatars The enclosed words are not wrong, and they are in line with the words of the sage. The sage said that there is no distinction between teaching and learning. However, according to Su Mu, the three elders still haven't grasped the essence of the sage's words."