The Prosperous Era of Longwan

Wei Guangde led hundreds of officials into the Meridian Gate. No one stopped him this time, and they returned to the cabinet smoothly.

There were too many people, and the check-in room could not be accommodated, so naturally we had to open the main hall of Wenyuan Pavilion.

This place is only opened when large-scale meetings such as the Jiuqing Meeting are convened. Normally, several members of the cabinet would not talk here at all, and would just talk directly in the duty room.

There are two seats on the left and right in the middle of the main hall, which are the positions of the first assistant and the second assistant.

Since ancient times, China has respected the left, so the seat on the left is naturally the position of the chief minister.

The seat on the right is where Wei Guangde, the secondary assistant, should sit.

Wei Guangde was about to go to the seat on the right when an official congratulated him from behind: "Congratulations to Chief Minister Wei on your promotion."

Hearing this, Wei Guangde suddenly turned around and looked behind him. They were all court officials wearing crimson official uniforms. The voice just now was so abrupt that Wei Guangde didn't hear clearly who said it.

But when he looked back at everyone, they all looked happy, as if they really came to congratulate him on his promotion.

Wei Guangde understood that these court officials did not return to their respective yamen at this time, but they were holding back here.

"Who said that just now?"

The group of people in front of them are not from Wei Guangde's faction. Although the leaders Tan Lun, Jiang Zhi and others are there, none of the people below are involved in today's matter.

After all, Wei Guangde had given repeated orders not to allow them to get involved.

Therefore, the courtiers in front of him are not his own, so Wei Guangde does not need to show respect to him.

"Who said that just now?"

Wei Guangde spoke again and asked sternly.

In fact, when the first shout was made, Zhang Siwei, Ma Ziqiang and others were shocked, knowing that someone was trying to cause trouble.

Like Wei Guangde, they also heard the voice, but the crowd was dense and it was impossible for them to be familiar with all the officials here, so they did not hear who was speaking.

At this moment, they also looked at the officials with wide eyes.

This momentum suddenly made the people in front of him subconsciously take a few steps back.

Seeing that no one was talking, Wei Guangde also guessed that someone wanted to fish in troubled waters, so he said, "I don't care who said that just now. You know what you are thinking. Don't treat others as fools."

After speaking, Wei Guangde turned around and pointed to the chair on his left hand and said: "That seat is occupied by the Chief Assistant.

The chief minister is not decided by you. It is the emperor's decree. Whoever is in charge of the cabinet can sit on it.

Indeed, I am currently in charge of the cabinet, but I am not yet the chief minister.

You guys just can't tell the difference between the king and his ministers. You talk about benevolence, righteousness and morality, but you forget about loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness. "

Wei Guangde knew that there were some people with ulterior motives in the crowd who wanted to take the opportunity to bring down Zhang Juzheng and overturn the policies he had formulated before.

But seeing that the plan could not succeed, he focused on him and wanted to force him out to compete with Zhang Juzheng.

If Wei Guangde really took a fancy to the position of first assistant, Wei Guangde would have already taken action, even if they still needed to promote it.

At the very least, it will be much simpler and smoother than them.

You only need to find Feng Bao first and make some guarantees, and Feng Bao may be shaken.

After all, he and Feng Bao still have a cooperative relationship.

What Feng Bao wanted was nothing more than the influence of the previous dynasty and the fact that when the palace needed support from the household department, the household department could provide support.

As for the New Deal reformed by Zhang Juzheng, although Feng Bao also knew that it would be beneficial to the court in the long run, forcing it forward in the short term would do more harm than good and would tear the court apart.

Although Wei Guangde is not sure if Feng Bao will choose to turn to him if he does this, at least the probability is high.

There is great righteousness at hand, especially if Wei Guangde guarantees that he will continue to uphold the Kao Cheng method, but the matter of clearing the father-in-law is postponed, Zhang Juzheng's talent will not refuse.

After all, if he was in a position where he could not see clearly before, but at this time, he would not be able to guess the deep malice that is invisible but intangible.

"Here I warn those people that it is not easy for the court to be in the current situation. Think about it before, from the Jiajing Dynasty to the Longqing Dynasty, before the end of the year, the court would be troubled by the deficit of the year.

Although I have reservations about the New Deal implemented by the Prime Minister, everyone can see the structure of the trial implementation of the New Deal. Although there are some flaws in the process, this should actually be blamed on the unclear selection of personnel from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Metropolitan Procuratorate, rather than the fault of the New Deal.

Don't have any thoughts that you shouldn't have, otherwise I won't be polite.

The idea is all over my head. Do you really think I can’t kill someone without a knife in my hand? "

Wei Guangde's next words were very straightforward. They not only expressed the differences between him and Zhang Juzheng regarding the New Deal, but also expressed his attitude that the New Deal was effective and he would support it.

In fact, most officials are like this, especially the Ministry of Household Affairs.

But the most important thing is to beat the person who just spoke. Wei Guangde expressed his strong dissatisfaction.

"Wei Cifu has made it very clear that some people have thoughts that they shouldn't have. I advise you to stop and don't offend people you can't afford to offend."

At this time, Tan Lun, Minister of the Ministry of War, also spoke.

"The Ministry of Rites will keep an eye on this matter."

Ma Ziqiang said immediately.

"This year, the Beijing Inspection Bureau and the Ministry of Personnel will assess officials more strictly."

Finally, the new official minister Wang Guoguang also spoke.

In fact, just now, he was still somewhat hesitant in his heart.

Seeing that many courtiers tended to let Zhang Juzheng worry, Wang Guoguang, as an important supporter of Zhang Juzheng, was also a little wavering.

Especially for Wei Guangde, the current second assistant in the cabinet. If he really wants to be the first assistant, with the support of these people, he may have a chance.

This time around the Meridian Gate incident, he wanted to come to the cabinet for the purpose of testing Wei Guangde's intentions.

But he didn't expect that before he even tried it, there were already people eager to use him as a gun user.

Wei Guangde's stern reprimand actually expressed his meaning.

It was not that he had no intention of taking the position of chief minister, but the emperor did not appoint him, and the emperor still supported Zhang Juzheng as the chief minister, so he never considered getting involved in the throne of chief minister.

Zhang Siwei, Ma Ziqiang and others all consciously stood behind Wei Guangde, not to mention Tan Lun and Jiang Zhi. They actually occupied the main power of the court.

Zhang Siwei and Wang Guoguang seem to represent Zhang Juzheng's faction, Wei Guangde himself has Tan Lun, Jiang Zhi and others, and Ma Ziqiang represents Hanlin Qingliu.

As long as these three parties express unanimous opinions, the others will be just monsters and clowns, unable to stir up any trouble.

"Okay, now that we're at the cabinet, if you have any questions, you can speak up now."

While Wei Guangde was speaking, he had already asked the ministers around him to sit down. He was still sitting in the second assistant position. Zhang Siwei walked to the second chair on the left and sat down.

At the starting position, Ma Ziqiang, Wang Guoguang, Tan Lun and others sat down in sequence, with only Jiang Zhi at the end.

But after he finished speaking, he fell into calmness.

Many people initially wanted to discuss how to continue the rebellion at the cabinet, but the protagonists didn't get involved, so why were they making a fuss.

Seeing the silence, their thoughts were actually clear to everyone on the seats.

In order to avoid an awkward atmosphere, Tan Lun took out an official document from his sleeve and said, "Since everyone has nothing to do, I have an official document here that was originally intended to be sent to the cabinet, so I'll report it first."

"Battle report?"

Wei Guangde asked with a frown.

"Southwestern War Report, Li Chengliang has handed over the seized assets to Yu Dayou. According to the assets signed and pledged by both the land and navy divisions, a total of more than 70,000 taels of gold, more than 410,000 taels of silver, and sixteen gems and jade were counted. box.

By the way, in addition to this, there are also a large number of exquisite utensils made of gold, silver and brass. Li Chengliang suggested loading them on ships and transporting them by sea to Tianjin and then to the capital.

These things were all found in the palace of the King of Burma, and it is inconvenient for them to deal with them."

Tan Lun opened the official document and read the most important contents aloud.

"Myanmar is really rich, and millions of taels of silver have been seized."

Tan Lun continued to say above that he had begun to mention the nearly one million kilograms of copper materials confiscated in Myanmar, and asked whether it should be handed over directly to the Yunnan Official Money Bureau for casting.

The courtiers below had already begun to whisper to each other.

More than 400,000 taels of gold and silver, converted into an income of one million taels of silver. For the Ming Dynasty, the court's cash collection was only a few million taels a year, which was already a huge number.

As for the Southwest War, which almost depleted the food and grass in several southwest provinces, especially the Yunnan treasury, officials thought it was just a trivial matter.

Can the grain hoarded in the southwestern provinces be sold for one million taels of silver?

Although the value is not small, it is really not worth much money.

The officials below were discussing the rich harvest in Myanmar, while Wei Guangde, Zhang Siwei, and Li Youzi, who was temporarily in charge of the household department, were discussing what to do with the million kilograms of copper materials.

"Half of it will be shipped to the capital along with the utensils, and handed over to the Ministry of Household Affairs to mint coins. The rest will be minted into coins at the nearby Yunnan Official Money Bureau and shipped to Nanjing."

Wei Guangde came up with his own method to divide the copper materials equally between the north and the south.

Nearly one million kilograms of copper material. The Ming Dynasty only produced more than 200,000 to 300,000 kilograms of copper material a year. I didn't expect that small Myanmar would be so rich in copper resources.

"Mr. Wei Ge, I'm afraid this is inappropriate."

However, Wei Guangde's proposal was opposed by Li Youzi, "The imperial court has always shipped copper from Yunnan to the north. It can be seen that there is no shortage of copper in the south, but in the north due to lack of copper materials, the people often suffer from inconvenience due to lack of copper coins.

This batch of copper materials should be transported to the capital to mint coins to meet the needs of the North. "

There is no doubt that the Ministry of Household Affairs in Beijing intends to monopolize this copper material.

In the south, there are Yunnan and Nanjing to mint money to meet the needs, but there is no shortage of money in the north.

There is something special about this. Although they are both the household department, the northern and southern capitals have two sets of accounts. The copper coins entering Nanjing are the revenue and expenditure of the Nanjing household department. Although the household department in the capital is larger, it is difficult to control and control this money. .

Although Li Youzi wanted to be promoted to the position of Minister, and even took out the certificate of nomination, it was impossible to be promoted to the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs. The highest probability was from other departments.

After all, with Wang Guoguang's decree to be transferred to the position of Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, the candidate for the Minister of the Ministry of Hubu has been determined to be Zhang Xueyan, and the decree has been sent to Liaodong, urging him to return to Beijing as soon as possible to take over.

After Li Youzi made his point, he looked at Zhang Siwei standing aside for help.

After all, the two of them are on the same team and should help each other.

Of course, Li Youzi did not forget his former immediate boss, King Guoguang Shangshu, who had just taken over as the Ministry of Personnel.

"Youzi's words make sense. Nanjing has a large supply of Yunnan copper every year, and there is no shortage of copper coins in the south.

In contrast, the north lacks copper materials and needs this batch of Burmese copper materials to cast coins. "

Noticing the glances coming over him, Zhang Siwei immediately said, expressing his support for Li Youzi's opinion.

Immediately afterwards, Wang Guoguang also expressed a similar meaning. Generally speaking, there was indeed more copper in the south of the Ming Dynasty than in the north.

Whenever there was a shortage of copper in the north, copper materials were often mobilized from Yunnan and other places or copper coins were transported directly to the capital to alleviate the problem of lack of money in the north.

At the beginning, Wei Guangde divided it into two parts to avoid quarrels between the households in the northern and southern capitals. After all, the amount of copper material was quite large, and the benefits were huge.

In the Ming Dynasty, it was difficult for the yamen and the household department in Beijing to control the household department in Nanjing. Therefore, even if someone was an official in Nanjing, he did not think that he was inferior at all, and would not even think about quarreling.

Therefore, in recent years, some important yamen often did not have official officials, that is, they did not arrange for the ministers of the six departments in Nanjing, and only appointed ministers to take charge of the departments.

In this way, in principle, the Minister of Household Affairs in Beijing can manage the Household Affairs Bureau in Nanjing, where the biggest official position is after all.

However, even so, the Nanjing Sixth Department still refused to give in to the Beijing Sixth Department and fought for any advantage.

"It is a trivial matter to transport copper materials to the north, but if Nanjing knows about it, they may not be able to live in peace."

Wei Guangde looked at Zhang Siwei and hesitated.

After hearing what Wei Guangde said, Li Youzi immediately replied: "This matter is easy to discuss. The Ministry of Household Affairs will resolve the dispute between the north and the south."

Wei Guangde glanced at Li Youzi and saw his confident look, but he didn't react for a moment.

When he said that, he was really shirking responsibility, meaning Zhang Siwei, if you can resolve the struggle between the northern and southern household departments, he will ignore it.

But Zhang Siwei didn't say anything, but Li Youzi took over.

But soon, Wei Guangde thought of it.

Li Youzi had given Feng Bao and Zhang Juzheng a certificate of merit, and if they were rewarded based on their merits, they might be promoted to a higher level.

Where to go?

Naturally, it can only be the position of minister.

There are already people in the household department, so they will move to other yamen.

Turtle son, he actually played an empty city strategy.

Wei Guangde thought about it. He would be transferred soon anyway. If he could get huge benefits for the Ministry of Revenue before leaving, he could also get a share of the pie and win everyone's favor.

As for what happens next, Zhang Juzheng and the others will naturally handle the follow-up, since he is no longer in that position anyway.

Li Youzi's words were not credible, so Wei Guangde just nodded slightly, but his eyes still fell on Zhang Siwei.

Zhang Juzheng is not here, so if he wants to throw away the responsibility, it is naturally you, Zhang Siwei, who will take the responsibility.

Zhang Siwei is not stupid and figured it out quickly.

Li Youzi wanted to grab the credit, and he would not get into trouble. He was completely cunning.

However, considering that Li Youzi spoke up for Zhang Juzheng before, Zhang Juzheng would definitely find a way to help Li Youzi handle the household affairs matter.

It took at least half a year from the time it was agreed to when the decree was issued, to when the copper material was transported to the capital.

At that time, Zhang Juzheng had already left the Qiqi Pavilion on errands, and the person who needed to be dealt with was not him, so he nodded and said: "Since the Ministry of Revenue can solve it, it is naturally the best.

I will pay attention to this matter and won't cause any trouble. "

When Wei Guangde heard Zhang Siwei's affirmative reply, he flipped through the official document in his hand and said with a smile, "In this case, let Ziwei do the voting."

After speaking, Wei Guangde handed the official documents from the Ministry of War to Zhang Siwei. (End of chapter)