The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 537: The Ming Dynasty's Revenue
Something big happened in the Ministry of Revenue.

The gold and silver in the treasury and the grain in the granary were all adulterated.

This matter is already known to everyone in the government and the country.

The Minister of Revenue, Chen Shengna, has been thrown into prison.

Originally, everyone in the government and the country thought that a frenzied round of arrests and even executions would follow.

Who would have thought that several days would pass and there would be no movement at all.

What is going on here?
Few people in the entire capital knew what was going on.

No one knows what the current emperor is thinking these days.

Also, after Chen Sheng was thrown into prison, the position of Minister of Revenue became vacant.

The current emperor has not ordered the Ministry of Personnel to select officials to replace him.

The Ministry of Revenue, such an important government office, has been unattended for several days.

Originally, the position of Minister of Revenue was the most popular among the six ministries except for the Minister of Personnel.

In fact, for officials who want to be corrupt, this position is more attractive than the Minister of Personnel.

If it were normal, there would probably be a lot of people vying for this position.

However, this moment is extremely abnormal.

The Ministry of Revenue is in such a mess, who would dare to take over the position of Minister of Revenue?

This is a hot potato, the kind that can burn someone to death. If you touch it, you might lose a layer of skin. Anyone who touches it may be burned to death!

Who dares to take it?
I didn't expect that someone actually picked up the call.

Li Hualong, the governor of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, had just returned to the capital when he took over the position of Minister of Revenue.

Li Hualong, the new Minister of Revenue, takes office.

This guy seems to be coming with great momentum.

The next morning at around 3 a.m., when the streets and alleys of the capital were still pitch black, this guy actually came to the Ministry of Revenue with hundreds of Jinyiwei carrying rows of lanterns.

The doorman on night duty was shocked.

When the officials from the Ministry of Revenue heard the news, they were even more frightened.

This is the rhythm of arresting people directly!
Those corrupt officials in the Ministry of Revenue were even afraid to report for work.

The problem is that they have to go even if they don't dare to. Leaving their post without permission is a crime comparable to corruption and abuse of power. Being dismissed from office and stripped of their official title is considered a light punishment, and even beheading is possible.

This is also the reason why they dare not pack up and run away.

They had already committed corruption and abuse of power, so packing up and running away would be tantamount to confessing their crimes. If they had not committed corruption and abuse of power, why would they run away?
If they insist on staying, their corruption and abuse of power may not be discovered.

If he runs away, he will be charged with desertion from his post, and he will be charged with corruption and abuse of power. With two serious crimes combined, he will definitely be dead.

Therefore, knowing that they would be investigated, none of the officials in the Ministry of Revenue dared to run away. If they ran away, they would die, while if they didn't run away, they would still have a glimmer of hope. Everyone knew this.

It was not yet the hour of Mao, but they still had to grit their teeth and walk through the lines of Jinyiwei and arrive outside the lobby of the Ministry of Revenue. They lined up neatly according to their positions, waiting for the new Minister of Revenue to call in.

It was still dark at this time, and the sight of the Jinyiwei standing with swords in hand in the darkness made one's spine chill.

At this time, the lobby was brightly lit, and the new Minister of Revenue, Li Hualong, seemed to be sitting in the main seat and starting to look through the roster.

There seemed to be a captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard standing behind that guy, and both sides of the lobby were also lined with Embroidered Uniform Guards.

Who are they trying to catch?

Or maybe just grab a bunch?

Most of the officials in the Ministry of Revenue began to feel uneasy, as most of them were corrupt!

At the hour of Mao, when a glimmer of dawn appeared in the sky, the night watchman's clapper rang out like a death knell, and the person who struck it trembled in his heart.

Li Hualong flipped to the first page of the roster without hesitation and said aloud, "Li Dai, the Viceroy of the Warehouse Department."

This guy wouldn't want to target me first, would he?
Li Dai's heart trembled upon hearing this, but he still bravely walked in, bowed, and said, "Your humble servant is here."

This guy may be the biggest corrupt official in the Ministry of Revenue and even in the entire Ming Dynasty.

Li Hualong looked up and took a closer look, then waved his hand.

what?
Is this really just a check-in?
Li Dai was stunned when he saw this, and then he quickly bowed and took his leave.

Immediately afterwards, Li Hualong really called out the names of each official as if he was taking attendance, then looked up and took a closer look, and then waved his hand to let everyone leave, without exception.

The Ministry of Revenue has the largest number of officials among all the government offices, without a doubt.

These are the thirteen Qingli Si, corresponding to the thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty. Although most of these thirteen Qingli Si were not equipped with Yuanwailang, there were generally more than two people in charge, and some Qingli Si even had four or five Langzhong.

There are also ambassadors and deputy ambassadors in charge of warehouses in various places, and there are even more of them than doctors and managers.

Li Hualong spent nearly half an hour just counting the hours. By the time he finished, it was already light and the sun was about to come out.

At this time, all the officials in the Ministry of Revenue couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, this guy didn't order anyone to be arrested.

Unexpectedly, just as they were about to breathe a sigh of relief, several runners from the Ministry of Justice rushed in and went straight to the warehouse at the back. They read a piece of official document, locked the warehouse, and left. Ambassador Zhang Chao!

At this point, the officials in the Ministry of Revenue began to feel uneasy again. They were afraid.

How many people in the entire Ministry of Revenue are not corrupt!

If they are caught, can they hold back and not confess?

Fortunately, the Ministry of Justice only came and arrested a ninth-rank official.

The newly appointed Minister of Revenue, Li Hualong, did not do anything to them.

This guy just asked them to hand over the income and expenditure accounts of the past few years.

As for whether problems would be found in the account books, they were not too worried about that.

It would be a joke if they couldn't even do the accounts properly.

There shouldn't be any problems in the account books.

Sure enough, Li Hualong sat in the duty room and flipped through the account books for the whole morning, but didn't seem to find any problems.

However, this guy seems unwilling to give up.

It was only noon when this guy actually ordered the Jinyiwei to carry all the account books into the palace!
In Ciqing Palace, hundreds of secret guards were already sitting around a large table, holding abacus and waiting.

Li Hualong asked these secret guards to start calculating without even waiting for dinner.

This took almost an hour.

At about 3:00 p.m., when Wanli came in holding little Zhu Changxun, the whole side hall was still filled with the clattering sound of abacus.

Li Hualong was actually holding a big bowl and eating while walking around the big table.

As soon as he saw Wanli and little Zhu Changxun coming, he quickly found a place to put his bowl and prepared to pay his respects.

The secret guards also quickly stopped thinking about the abacus, stood up hurriedly, and prepared to salute.

Seeing this, Wanli raised his hand and said, "No need to be polite, everyone, please sit down and do what you need to do. You don't need to be polite when you are working. I am not here to disturb you."

Upon hearing this, the secret guards quickly sat back down.

Li Hualong hurriedly took a few bites and then handed the bowl to the Jinyiwei beside him, signaling him to take it away quickly.

Seeing this, Wanli said with concern: "Yuye, you don't have to work so hard, it's not good for your health."

This is not about neglecting sleep and eating. I rarely forget to eat.

Li Hualong said with some embarrassment: "Your Majesty, I have been looking at the account book for the whole morning. My mind was so focused on it that I forgot to eat. I just remembered that I haven't eaten yet when I felt hungry.

Normally, I remember to eat, but this time I was so engrossed in the accounts these guys were doing that I forgot."

Have you been watching it all morning?
Upon hearing this, Wanli was quite curious and asked, "Do you see any problem?"

How do you say this?

Li Hualong thought for a moment, then explained in detail: "These guys deliberately made the accounts very detailed, complete, and messy, making it impossible to calculate.

For example, no matter how much they earned or spent, they recorded it all in the account book, from the taxes paid by a prefecture or even a province at one time to the money spent by the Ministry of Revenue on lamp oil or even ink.

The taxes that a prefecture or even a province paid at one time could be hundreds of thousands or even millions of taels, while the cost of buying lamp oil might be just a few taels, and the cost of buying ink might be a few cents or even a few coins.

They deliberately recorded them together, and mixed up the income and expenditure, just like keeping a running account. Anyone who checked the account book would be confused.

In addition, they deliberately did not keep accounts on an annual or even monthly basis. They could record the court's annual income and expenditure in several or even dozens of account books, and the income and expenditure of other years and months were also interspersed in between. It would take an unknown amount of time to go through them.

In short, it is difficult for them to calculate the specific income and expenditure by doing the accounting in this way. It is difficult to calculate the specific income, expenditure, and surplus every year or even every month.

They are deliberately keeping confusing accounts to prevent those above them from checking the accounts. They just don't want them to know exactly how much the court earns and spends each year or even each month, and how much surplus it has.

The person mentioned above probably refers to the emperor.

By the way, how could the emperor not know the court’s annual or even monthly income and expenditure?

It’s true, even the emperor didn’t know about it, at least the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty didn’t know about it.

The case of the empty seal is clear evidence of this.

During the Hongwu Dynasty, the Ministry of Revenue started to keep confusing accounts. These guys actually stamped blank official documents and even blank account books with the Ministry of Revenue seal and let the subordinates fill in the income, taxes and even expenditures themselves!
At that time, Emperor Hongwu was kept in the dark and had no idea how much the Ming Dynasty court's annual income and expenditure were.

If Emperor Hongwu had not discovered the Ministry of Revenue document with an empty seal and ordered people to investigate, no one would have known that these guys had used this method to embezzle more than 20 million dan of tax grain in just a few years!

During the Jiajing reign, Yan Song and his son managed the court's accounts in such a way that the emperor could not understand them at all.

If a large number of officials had not submitted petitions asking for their salaries, Emperor Jiajing would not have known that the court owed officials two or three million taels of salary. If natural disasters had not struck, leaving the capital with starving people everywhere and the court with no money for disaster relief, Emperor Jiajing would not have known that the national treasury had been emptied.

From then on, Emperor Jiajing began to suspect Yan Song and his son, so when Yan Song and his son proposed that Yan Maoqing go to inspect the salt and collect the salt tax, Emperor Jiajing specially arranged for the Jinyiwei to track him secretly.

As a result, Yan Maoqing collected 5.3 million taels of salt tax and gave 1 million taels to Jiajing, and only 2.3 million taels were paid into the national treasury. The remaining 2 million taels were directly divided between this guy and Yan Shifan!

This is how these corrupt officials play it. They use all kinds of means to make the emperor unaware of the exact amount of the court's income and expenditure. They have the final say on income and expenditure, which makes it easier for them to be corrupt!

Wanli now has no idea how much the Ming Dynasty court earns, spends, and earns.

The five or six million taels a year mentioned by Shen Li were all estimates based on the reports from the Ministry of Revenue. It is very likely that they were the figures after layers of corruption!
Many historical materials also give estimates, and most of them are different. In the same year, the difference can be hundreds of thousands or even millions of taels.

No one really knows how much the Ming Dynasty court earned.

(End of this chapter)