"Aren't you afraid of causing backlash and public outrage if you are so ruthless?"
Long Tiande said in a deep voice.
Long Huaiyu smiled and said: "Once such a person ascends the throne and controls the world, he will either be an emperor for the ages, or a tyrant who will subjugate his country."
Long Huaiyu bowed his hands to Long Tiande and said, "So father, we should go on this trip."
"He killed someone and sent a message. The implication is that he is not planning to take the second path yet. At least there is room for compromise. So what's the harm in giving him this face if we go to the capital and the East Palace? What's the benefit?
, is what we really want to win.”
Long Tiande frowned and said, "But if you go, wouldn't you admit defeat and let him kill you at will?"
Long Huaiyu said proudly: "Please rest assured, father, there is a child here. Even if he respects us as the prince, he can't take advantage of us at will."
"Now that I understand his mind, he won't be able to gain the upper hand everywhere. The kid will have his own way to deal with him."
Long Tiande smiled cheerfully and said: "Okay, since you are so confident, then you and I, father and son, will go to the East Palace together. When will we set off?"
"immediately!"
...
"Your Highness, the treasury is empty again."
Looking at Xu Changqing standing in the Xi Zheng Hall with his hands spread out and a frown on his face, Li Chen felt a severe pain in his temples.
He closed his eyes slightly and waved his hand to Wan Jiaojiao to rub his swollen temples. Li Chen said: "Xu Changqing, your household department is a bottomless pit. The tens of millions of taels of silver that I confiscated from your house in the past few months have filled it.
You can see the sound when you go in, how long has it been now, and you are telling me that you have no money again?"
Xu Changqing said with a sad look on his face: "Your Highness, you also know that nowadays the imperial court needs money everywhere, and the ministers have been budgeting carefully and cut some unnecessary expenditures again and again, but they are still stretched."
"Not to mention anything else, just the disaster relief funds from various places have consumed more than half of the savings in the past two months. Add in the natural disasters, and the tax revenue from various places cannot be collected at all. Moreover, the Holy Spirit made a decree last year that all those affected by the disaster will
In the provinces, taxes and corvees have been reduced by 50% to ease the suffering of the victims. This will last for three years. This is only the second year, so naturally there will be no tax revenue."
"On the one hand, there is no accounting, and on the other hand, there is a huge amount of expenditure. Now the court is in such a difficult situation that it is a problem to issue salaries to officials at the end of the year."
Xu Changqing secretly glanced at Li Chen's face and said boldly: "The new year is approaching. According to common practice, New Year's gifts will be distributed to officials on the 25th of the twelfth lunar month. I have made a rough calculation of this amount.
There is still a gap of about 700,000 to 800,000 taels..."
"Why does a New Year's gift cost so much money!?"
Li Chen opened his eyes and said angrily: "Seven to eight hundred thousand taels, how many things is enough to do?"
Xu Changqing hurriedly explained: "Your Highness, the total number seems to be large, but there are more officials. If it is divided among each official, there will not be much. In the past years, no matter how difficult it was for the court, at most the annual rituals would be slightly reduced, but in the end it would still be the same.
Yes, but they have not been paid since last year. Many officials themselves are not in trouble. The court owes a lot of salary and has not paid it out. The new year is approaching, so we will never let the officials borrow money to spend the New Year?"
Li Chen snorted. Although he was extremely unhappy, he also knew that what Xu Changqing said was true.
Corruption in officialdom is endless. Li Chen did not expect to create a court where everyone is honest and every official is honest. This is unrealistic.
However, there is still hope to eliminate large-scale corruption and bottomless corruption through the transformation of systems and supervision.
But fundamentally, we still have to solve the problem of officials’ own survival.
Seeing that there is no way to untie the pot at home, how can one expect an official to be honest?
Officials are human beings, not gods, and they also need to eat whole grains, so this expense is really unavoidable.