The Overlord of the Red Mansion

Chapter 304: Lots of Money
In the cold winter, Jia Rong took out several boxes of medicine for everyone to take.

Now Jia Rong really wants to be a good person.

"Your Majesty! Master Zongzheng is dead..."

Jia Rong was shocked when he heard this and asked, "I haven't given you the medicine yet?"

No, it definitely has nothing to do with me!

After a brief thought, Jia Rong quickly confirmed that it had nothing to do with him. He quickly calmed himself and frowned.

"How did he die? Wasn't he fine a while ago? I remember he spoke during the court session and he looked fine."

The left prime minister also showed an expression of emotion, life is unpredictable.

"He died of joy, on a woman. He was old but still had no self-control. I heard that after they had sex, he covered his chest and tried to speak. He died that day before he could find a doctor."

After hearing the specific reasons, Jia Rong had a rough guess.

"It was probably due to long-term lack of exercise, alcohol, meat and diet, plus strenuous exercise when entering the house from outside in winter. After losing essence and blood, the heart rhythm became irregular and he died suddenly."

"When you get older, you need to learn to be moderate. Don't be as competitive as young people and don't know how to take care of your body."

"I've been practicing medicine for so many years, and most of the causes of death for men are related to women. Many of them die from women's bellies, but they are just embarrassed to talk about it."

"Winter is a season when cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases often occur. The elderly are more likely to die during this period before the Chinese New Year every winter."

Jia Rong sighed and said, "I have known Zong Zheng for many years. I will not go to the funeral to avoid sadness. But I will give his family a few more cigarettes and boxes of wine to make the funeral more lively."

When the people in the Ministry of Internal Affairs who were about to receive their rewards heard this, they shouted in unison: "Your Majesty is wise! Long live the Emperor!"

Jia Rong shook his head helplessly. He wanted to be a good person, but for some reason the people around him refused to give him a chance.

Zong Zheng is only in his forties, at the prime of his life.

Although I had thought that he would die a violent death, die of gastric bleeding, or die of various reasons.

But I never thought that he would die of a stroke.

There is no way to prohibit this kind of thing. Unless it is a national mourning, there is no reason to prohibit these people from having sex.

Jia Rong doesn't want to hold a national mourning, so let nature take its course.

"Come on, it's time to distribute the things. Thank you for your hard work, my dear ministers. You must take good care of your health and serve the country loyally in the future."

"I obey the order! Thank you Lord for your kindness!"

Jia Rong began to distribute things to everyone one by one, giving cigarettes, alcohol, silver, medicine to take care of the body, and some signs to get rice, flour, chicken, duck, fish and meat.

Although there was only money in their salary but no rice, the officials in Beijing could still receive some during the New Year, as they always wanted to celebrate the New Year more lively.

Jia Rong distributed New Year's gifts one by one, and almost always said a few words to each other, chatted briefly, and arranged some things.

He had the ability to be a good emperor, but most of the time he didn't focus on the right path.

For example, Jia Rong could actually do much better than what the previous two emperors were thinking and what they wanted to do, and what their subordinates should do.

But sometimes I just don’t want to do it.

Sometimes, even if he was demoted and stripped of his title, or even if his family might be implicated, Jia Rong would still say that the emperor was a coward.

Even though Jia Rong has become the emperor now and has restrained himself a little, he is still not interested in being a good emperor.

As time goes by, the idea of canonization has diminished a lot, and it doesn’t really matter to me anymore.

After finishing the work in almost the morning and noon, Jia Rong looked at the form recorded by the ministers at hand.

"Why do I feel like there are fewer people this year? Aren't there more officials being promoted?"

Jia Rong asked casually.

His feeling was not wrong, there was indeed something missing.

The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs standing on the side replied, "Your Majesty, those who came today are all officials of the fifth rank and above, and there are not many of them. In addition, some officials have been sent out and have received rewards from the emperor in advance."

Jia Rong stood up and went to check the accounts of the Imperial Household Department and the treasury.

Jia Rong had done a lot of things like checking accounts when he was in Ningguo Mansion, and now many of the Jia family's former accountants have been stationed in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Soon Jia Rong discovered that his current problem was quite serious.

Too much money to spend.

A large amount of gold and silver had been accumulated in the treasury for several years without being moved, and even banks in various places had accumulated a lot of gold, silver and copper coins.

Copper can be melted to support industry, but gold and silver must be kept somewhere safe.

Jia Rong asked his accountant.

"How did you accumulate so much money? So much tax in recent years?"

The accountant replied: "Part of it is the salt and iron trade tax, shipping tax, and the profits handed over by state-owned enterprises."

"Part of it is the money and land harvests confiscated from monks and Taoist priests and folk scammers. Now so many temples and Taoist temples across the country are paying taxes to the emperor."

Jia Rong remembered this incident and nodded. The accountant said, "The Kong family was raided a few years ago, and the total amount added up to 200 million taels of silver."

Jia Rong asked curiously, "Is he so rich?"

Although it was Jia Rong who ordered the descendants of Confucius to be copied, it was just a matter of a word and no one cared about it afterwards.

The accountant replied, "The Kong family has a large amount of sacrificial land granted by the imperial court for the worship of Confucius. These lands are spread across Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu and other places, with a total area of hundreds of thousands of acres. Together with the Kong family's own private land, the annual rent is not a small amount."

"The Confucius Mansion also operated pawnshops, banks, shops, silk shops, pottery kilns, etc."

"The most important thing is that the court has always exempted the Kong family from land tax and business tax. Whatever they earn from business is theirs. In addition, there are rewards from the court, donations from local officials and gentry, and even the fees charged by the Kong family's school are not small."

"In the past, a family of Rong Mansion's size could have accumulated two to three million in wealth, not to mention Confucius' family that controlled the finances of an entire county."

The Kong family had been high-ranking officials in every dynasty, and as the "Yanshenggong Mansion", they possessed enormous wealth and privileges.

The gap between Rongguo Mansion and Ningguo Mansion and Duke Yansheng Mansion is huge. Even the eight dukes combined cannot compare to Duke Yansheng Mansion.

Jia Rong frowned. When I was messing around with the Kong family, didn’t the people below scold me?
The incident happened so long ago that Jia Rong could not remember what happened at all.

It is impossible for Jia Rong to remember something that was confirmed in just a few words so clearly after several years.

"What mistake did the descendants of Duke Yansheng make?" Jia Rong asked his subordinates.

Generally speaking, there are so many national affairs that it is impossible for the accountant to know about them.

However, the matter of Duke Yansheng was no small matter, and everyone had heard about it.

"Your Majesty, we are colluding with foreign races and intending to rebel and surrender."

Jia Rong frowned, then quickly relaxed his brows, "Then they should not be wronged."

Others did not dare to damage the Confucian reputation of the Kong family because they needed a name to rule, and Confucianism was very useful to the emperor.

However, in order to become a saint himself, Jia Rong killed the descendant of another saint and did not consider the consequences of his words and actions.

Now that the matter is done, the rice has been cooked and the matter has been settled, it will soon be forgotten.

Fortunately, now all places are promoting officials who are proficient in mathematics and engineering. The original sage articles have gradually lost their prospects in becoming officials, so naturally no one cares about this anymore.

Jia Rong saw that he had more money than he could spend, so after thinking for a few seconds, he made a plan.

"From now on, only reward silver and banknotes, and try not to give gold. Store up all the gold, and it would be best if you could collect all the gold from the people."

“Gold doesn’t take up space and is easy to store.”

The accountant agreed: "As you wish!"

Jia Rong was thinking about how to spend so much money.

In China, it feels like most things are yours and you don’t need to spend any money at all.

Besides, it is easy to raise wages but difficult to lower them. Randomly raising wages will cause big changes.

After much deliberation, Jia Rong decided to spend the money.

Then we have to do business with foreign countries, but now our own territory is too big. It takes more than a few minutes to walk from the bedroom to the door, just like from the bedroom to the door in the Holy Palace.

At present, the war has reached Eastern Europe in the west. Jia Rong doesn’t know the specifics of how the war is fought, but he knows the general idea.

But because the focus was not here, and he did not encounter large-scale resistance or strong enemies along the way, he was not crowned king.

Most areas were conquered on the scale of a county, and the targets were all backward and worthless grassland tribes with only a large number of cattle and sheep.

This time the army fought faster and more fiercely than the Mongolian army, and they left military supply points along the way to facilitate replacement of personnel from the rear.

It may also be because of the memory of the invasion by the Mongols that the westerners surrendered relatively quickly this time, causing the expansion of territory to be too easy.

Most of the titles conferred were county titles, because people from all levels did not take the grassland tribes seriously, so a third-class county viscount who was hereditary for a generation was enough.

The railways have not been laid yet, and the ocean-going ships have not been built yet, so now we can only rely on airplanes.

Although it goes against common sense, it is faster to build a plane than a train.

Historically, it took about 16 years from the invention of the first airplane to the advent of the first passenger plane, and a lot of time was wasted during this period.

In real history, in the second year after the company was established with military funding, it was able to mass-produce reconnaissance aircraft, dozens of wooden aircraft a year.

It would take more than sixteen years to build the railway to the border.

Land transportation can only be done slowly. If we want to speed it up now, we can only develop ocean and air routes.

If you find the right way, you can do everything quickly.

Jia Rong, who had a lot of money but nowhere to spend it, quickly ordered people to build schools in various counties and towns to train a large number of talents and accelerate the dissemination of books and knowledge.

Build steel mills, fertilizer plants, oil refineries, and printing houses.

At the same time, high-yield food crops and harvests were used to bring large numbers of workers from farmland to factories.

(End of this chapter)