Start with Baihuguan

Although in the past few years, Dongfang Bubai handed over the educational affairs to Yang Lianting most of the time, but he himself hid on the Black Wood Cliff and saw no outsiders.

But this does not mean that Dongfang Bubai's control over the Sun Moon God Sect has declined. With Dongfang Bubai's power, even if the educational affairs are handed over to Yang Lianting, the Sun Moon God Sect will respect him.

After all, Yang Lianting was able to take charge of the Sun Moon God Sect, in the final analysis, he did not borrow the power of Dongfang Bubai, otherwise, who would be convinced by a mere Yang Lianting.

Seeing the appearance of Dongfang Bubai, all the people bowed down to Dongfang Bubai and said in unison: "I will wait to see the leader."

After glancing at everyone, Dongfang Bubai's gaze fell on Hu Li and said, "Elder Hu, where do you think that girl Yingying is being imprisoned now?"

Under the gaze of Dongfang Bubai, Hu Li hurriedly said: "Master Hui, my subordinates have already inquired clearly, and now the holy lady is being imprisoned in Jinyiwei's prison by the court's eagle dogs."

Dongfang Bubai nodded slightly, his eyes swept over the people present and said: "Yingying is the holy aunt of my Sun Moon God Sect, and it can be said that she is the face of my God Sect. , and how will you treat my Sun Moon God Sect."

Qin Weiye, Hu Li and the others hurriedly said: "What the leader said is true."

Even a fool could see that Dongfang Bubai had made up his mind to save people, and if he stood up against it now, he would be making trouble for himself.

Although Yang Lianting just said that he could not convince Dongfang Bubai, but now seeing Dongfang Bubai's determination to save Ren Yingying, he couldn't help frowning: "Master, think twice."

Looking at the sky outside, a flash of light flashed in Dongfang Bubai's eyes and said to Yang Lianting, "Go and make arrangements. After my leader saves that girl Yingying, I will return to Heimuya overnight."

Hearing Dongfang Bubai's order, Yang Lianting couldn't help being stunned for a moment, as if he didn't expect Dongfang Bubai to change his mind suddenly.

You must know that Dongfang Bubai wanted to trouble Li Huan, the favorite minister of the emperor, before.

This is also what Yang Lianting is most worried about. If Li Huan is just an ordinary court official, that's all right. It's not that there are no officials killed by the Sun Moon God Sect, but someone like Li Huan who is both powerful and deeply favored by the emperor This is the first time I have encountered an official.

The most important thing is that Li Huan is so strong that even Dongfang Bubai can't win. This is the reason why Yang Lianting objected, because Yang Lianting knew that once a powerful figure like Li Huan was angered, the Sun Moon God Sect would never be able to hold him back. thunderous fury.

Taking a deep breath, Yang Lianting looked at Dongfang Bubai and couldn't help but said, "What the leader means is that we only saved Ren Yingying and returned to Blackwood Cliff."

Dongfang Bubai glanced at Yang Lianting indifferently.

At a glance, Yang Lianting seemed to understand the meaning of Dongfang Bubai, and at the same time he let out a sigh of relief, and saluted Dongfang Bubai: "Don't worry, the leader, I'll go and make arrangements to keep everyone out of the capital smoothly." .”

紫禁城

In the imperial garden, the sky gradually dimmed, but at this moment, the lights in the imperial garden were brightly lit.

As the emperor, Zhu Houzhao was sitting in the first place, watching the singing and dancing below. The one sitting beside him was none other than Li Huan, who was recruited into the imperial city by the emperor to clean up the dust for him.

Li Huan sat there, enjoying the singing and dancing in front of him with great interest.

Zhu Houzhao raised his glass to Li Huan and said, "Li Qing, drink up this fine wine."

Although Li Huan's alcohol capacity is not very good, but as a practitioner, he naturally has a lot of means, which can be regarded as a thousand cups without getting drunk, so under the persuasion of the emperor, he drank one cup after another without showing any drunkenness .

Seeing Li Huan's boldness, Zhu Houzhao was very happy, but it's a pity that compared with Li Huan, Zhu Houzhao's alcohol capacity is obviously not good enough. After a while, he was already a little drunk.

Seeing that Li Huan was still sitting there as stable as Mount Tai, Zhu Houzhao, who had been in a good mood for the past two days, waved his hand to signal all the maids to retreat, and soon the imperial garden became quiet.

The servants who were serving around also quietly retreated to the distance under the signal of Gao Feng and Qiu Ju, leaving only Li Huan, Gao Feng and Qiu Ju.

Looking at Li Huan, Zhu Houzhao took a deep breath, let go of his drunkenness, and said slowly, "Li Qing, do you know how much property you brought back from Yangzhou Mansion this time?"

Li Huan frowned, looked at the emperor and said, "I really don't know exactly how much. After all, the value of many of them is immeasurable. Could it be that the internal treasury has already estimated the value of the things?"

Since yesterday, it has been continuously moving property into the inner warehouse. If you do the math, it should be almost enough by today.

After all, Jinyiwei and Dongchang dispatched a large number of horses and horses to transfer the property. Otherwise, so much property could not be transported within a day or two.

If everything has been entered into the inner warehouse, then there must be an extremely detailed record of the entry in the inner warehouse. In this way, it is not impossible to say that the inner warehouse can count a specific number.

Zhu Houzhao nodded slightly, and sighed a little: "Except for those fixed fields, manors, and mines that cannot be estimated, the value of the gold, silver, jewelry, jewelry, silk, and antique calligraphy and paintings that Aiqing brought back this time has already been reduced." It is estimated that the total is more than sixty-eight million taels. If you add the value of those fields, manors, and mines, it will be as much as nearly one hundred million. I really didn’t expect a land in a mere district Officials and tycoons are so greedy for ink.”

Speaking of this, Zhu Houzhao's face was flushed, obviously very shocked.

On the contrary, Li Huan actually had an estimate of the value of these finances in his mind. Now that he heard the figures reported by Zhu Houzhao, they were not much different from his estimate.

Seeing the emperor's excited appearance, Li Huan bowed to the emperor and said: "Yangzhou government officials are greedy for ink, and the local tyrants control nearly half of the huge profits of the Ming Dynasty's salt industry. The wealth accumulated over the past century has been swept away by the officials. As for Kong, it is expected that he can get this amount of wealth."

Zhu Houzhao took a deep breath, looked at Li Huan's face with a serious expression, and said: "I have carefully read the memorial presented by Ai Qing, and among these properties, only those that were not copied by the local powerful families It accounts for as much as [-] to [-]%, which shows how great the profit of the salt industry is."

As he said that, Zhu Houzhao suddenly slapped his palm on the table, and said with a cold snort, "But why does our Daming salt tax only collect a mere 200 million taels of salt tax every year? The rest of the benefits of the salt industry, could it be It all fell into the hands of these salt merchants?"

Li Huan once made a calculation for Zhu Houzhao. According to the current population of the Ming Dynasty, salt is an indispensable thing for everyone. It can be said that as a human being, you can not eat meat or drink alcohol, but you must definitely eat it. Salt.

Although the price of salt is not high, it is the daily needs of the people, but the benefits of the salt industry are huge. No matter which dynasty, the profit of salt and iron is the biggest tax in a dynasty besides the grain tax.

Of course, even in Daming, the salt tax still accounts for 200-[-]% of Daming's taxes. In the past, Zhu Houzhao didn't feel that the salt tax of [-] million a year was less.

But now Zhu Houzhao feels that within a year, Daming can only collect so little salt tax, which is too little.

Because it is related to the people's livelihood, the amount of salt tax collected by Daming has always been low, in order not to cause the price of salt to soar due to the salt tax and affect people's livelihood.

It can be said that the Ming Dynasty gave the benefits of the salt tax to the common people, but what Zhu Houzhao did not expect was that the court's benevolent deeds came to the bottom. After the court officials and the world's salt merchants, the salt price was not as the court thought. No matter how much it was really reduced, the common people did not enjoy the benefits of low salt tax. Instead, it enriched a group of salt merchants and officials who dealt with it.

At this time, Zhu Hou looked at Li Huan and said, "Ai Qing thinks I'll rectify the salt tax and redefine the salt tax?"

Hearing this, Li Huan said without even thinking about it: "Your Majesty must not!"

I thought that Li Huan would strongly support him to reform the salt tax, but never thought that Li Huan would object, which made Zhu Houzhao a little puzzled.

Seeing the emperor's puzzled look, Li Huan couldn't help showing a wry smile.

How could the salt tax reform be so simple? It is true that so many officials in the court are blind or that the emperors of the Ming Dynasty are all fools.

They really can't see the various disadvantages of Daming Salt Industry, don't they want to reform it?

This is obviously impossible, but reforming the salt tax is not such a simple matter. If you don’t mention anything else, just talk about how to change it. Could it be that you want to directly increase the salt tax?

Believe it or not, if the imperial court increased the salt tax, the private salt price would rise accordingly. The direct consequence is that the people who are already living in poverty may not even be able to afford salt.

If you want to reform the salt tax without a truly perfect regulation, it is not beneficial to the country and the people, but a move that harms the country and the people. Li Huan didn't know the stakes in it before, and he wanted to persuade the emperor to make drastic reforms. The drawbacks of the salt tax, but after realizing the powerful relationship among them, Li Huan temporarily gave up such thoughts.

When Li Huan slowly revealed the powerful relationship among them, Zhu Houzhao's complexion also changed accordingly. After a while, he let out a sigh of relief, looked at Li Huan and said, "Fortunately, Ai Qing woke me up, otherwise I would commit a big crime." wrong."

After all, Zhu Houzhao is also a promising king. The reason why he came up with the idea of ​​​​reforming the drawbacks of the salt tax is nothing more than being stimulated by the massive gold and silver wealth that Li Huan confiscated this time.

After all, before this, even in his dreams, the emperor would never have imagined that those salt merchants could obtain such terrifying wealth by relying on the salt industry.

Thinking that so many interests in the salt industry were seized by a group of businessmen, it would be strange if Zhu Houzhao, the emperor, was not moved.

With a light cough, Li Huan hurriedly said: "Your Majesty is serious. It is a good thing for Your Majesty to serve the people wholeheartedly. I think it is impossible to reform the salt industry, but Your Majesty can send clean and honest officials to investigate the major salt farms controlled by the imperial court and clean up corruption. Rot."

Hearing what Li Huan said, Zhu Houzhao's eyes lit up, and he said as if he had no teacher: "Li Qing means to let me investigate corrupt officials, ransack their families and exterminate their families, and take the corrupted property of these officials into the state treasury?"

Li Huan was slightly taken aback. To be honest, he really thought so, but he didn't expect the emperor to react so quickly.

There was a little smile on the corner of his mouth, looking at the emperor who was looking forward to him, Li Huan nodded slowly and said: "Your Majesty is wise, the matter of salt tax involves a lot, and you should not move lightly, otherwise it is very likely to bring disaster to the whole world." The people, but dealing with some corrupt officials in the district is beneficial to the country and the people, one can punish corruption, and the other can enrich the national treasury, it can be said to be the best."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Houzhao looked at Li Huan and couldn't help laughing and said: "The Qing family mentioned those salt merchants before, saying that these people are fat pigs, and they will be killed after they are fattened up. Now I understand."

Here, Li Huan was talking and laughing with the emperor, deciding the life and death of those officials who were greedy for ink, salt and profit, but said that as night fell, figures slowly left the square building and headed straight for the Jinyiwei prison.

It is not a secret that Jin Yiwei's prison is located in the capital.

Next to Jinyiwei's yamen is Jinyiwei's big prison, unless it catches up with Daxing Prison, there really can't be many people in Jinyiwei's big prison.

After all, the prisoners in the Jinyiwei Prison are generally court officials who committed crimes, not as complicated as the criminals in the Prison of the Ministry of Punishment.

Since Li Huan took charge of Jinyiwei, Jinyiwei's case-handling efficiency has been extremely fast. It can be said that whenever one enters Jinyiwei, the case will have a result in a very short period of time. The result is that no criminals are detained in the Jinyiwei prison.

But just the day before yesterday, Xiang Wentian and Ren Yingying were imprisoned in Jinyiwei prison.

As the two of them, it makes sense to be imprisoned in the Jinyiwei Prison. After all, the assassination of an imperial envoy by the two of them is considered a crime of treason.

It's just that the identities of the two are there. If it is true that they are sent to the prison of the Ministry of Criminal Justice, Li Huan is really worried.

At this time, in the prison, Ren Yingying and Xiang Wentian were each locked in a cell, because there were no other criminals in the prison, the cells of the two were not far apart, and they could even see each other from a distance where the other party is.

At this time, Ren Yingying was sitting cross-legged there, and Xiang Wentian who was not far away was full of self-blame and annoyance, and said, "Yingying, it's all my uncle's fault, if it wasn't for me, Yingying, you wouldn't have ended up like this Tian Di, I have no face to see the leader..."

Ren Yingying looked at Xiang Wentian and took a deep breath and said, "Uncle Xiang, why blame yourself, you are also trying to save father, you can only blame me for not being good at learning, not that dog... Champion Hou."

If she followed Ren Yingying's temperament, she would definitely call Li Huan a dog official, but not long ago, she had suffered in Li Huan's hands, and when the words came to her lips, she instinctively changed her words.

[It's the end of the month, and in the last two or three days, those bigwigs who have monthly tickets have smashed their tickets. 】