Chapter 10: The Ministry of Revenue is out of money

  "Kotsu Gunjō."

  "Wei Chen is here," Bone Instrument stood up and said loudly.

  "Immediately dispatch yamen runners from various government offices to keep a close watch on the movements of the refugees at all times, in order to prevent any unexpected changes."

  Yang You thought of the famous saying of later generations: stability outweighs everything. At this time, he would not make the same mistake again and would not allow the refugees to have the opportunity to make trouble, in order to better provide relief to these refugees.

  "General Qu and General Yin."

  Mo Zhe will rise in Qu Tutong and Yin Shisheng.

  "From today on, the military will strengthen its vigilance and strictly prevent Da Hui Sun Hua's infiltration." Yang You ordered.

  "Your Highness can rest assured, Daxing has tens of thousands of elite soldiers, Sun Hua and others will not dare to attack Daxing." Qu Tutong said loudly.

  Yang You then issued a series of decrees to stabilize the refugees, and only then did he turn his attention to Wei Wensheng.

  "Please rest assured, Your Highness, I will definitely urge the various counties to provide disaster relief as soon as possible and not let a single refugee go hungry." Wei Wensheng solemnly guaranteed, he was the Neishi of Jingzhao, and the various counties of Daxing were under his jurisdiction.

  "Thanks for your hard work."

  Yang You nodded in satisfaction. At this time, no courtier pushed back, after all, the stability of the Daxing area was not a bad thing for them.

  Yang Guang left, leaving Daxing to the various ministers to manage. Before he left, he was wealthy and at ease, but soon after his departure, the land was filled with starving corpses. Even if you had a heaven-sized excuse, it would be impossible to justify this outcome.

  "His Highness, the King of Dai, is wise and those displaced people will surely remember His Highness's great kindness. Su Sheng choked with emotion, "I recently calculated that there are approximately 23,000 refugees in the Daxing area, but nearly 10,000 are near Daxing City alone. The cost of disaster relief for just the Daxing City area would be almost 1,000 guan."

  Almost a thousand strings of cash, which means that the entire Daxing area spends two or three thousand strings of cash on disaster relief every month.

  Moreover, the number of refugees is also increasing continuously. It's estimated that by the end of this month, the number of refugees will exceed 50,000." Su Sheng added another sentence.

  That is to say that the relief efforts this month will cost 5,000 guan. Moreover, it's not just this month, at least until next spring, the refugees can slowly disperse, and as time goes on, the news of the disaster relief in Daxing will spread outward, and more and more people will gather in Daxing.

  "It will be worth at least one million yuan by then." an official muttered.

  One hundred thousand taels is no small sum. Many people involuntarily looked at Yan Juncheng, who was the Deputy Minister of Revenue and responsible for the granary of Daxing.

  "Ugh..." Feeling the gaze of everyone on him, Yan Jun Cheng couldn't help but curse his bad luck. Where was he supposed to come up with 100,000 yuan from?

  "This domain store has no money left..." Yan Juncheng said with a hardened expression.

  No money? How could the treasury of Daxing be empty? The court was in an uproar. It's worth noting that Daxing is notoriously wealthy, it's the starting point of the Silk Road, every year merchants gather, commercial taxes exceed agricultural taxes, and annual taxes are second only to Luoyang.

  "The Ministry of Revenue originally had a considerable amount of savings, but in recent years, the Daxing area has been paying a large amount of taxes to Luoyang every year. Last month, Your Majesty just ordered the construction of a city at Yongfeng Warehouse, which also consumed a large amount of treasury."

  Yan Juncheng directly pointed out the current difficulties of Daxing, which was echoed by many officials. Indeed, the recent expenses have been quite large, and just the Yongfeng Warehouse alone has been a burden for Daxing to bear.

  "At present, Daxing's treasury only has 700,000 taels of silver left, and the taxes from Daxing will not be collected for another two months."

  Yan Jun Cheng said with a sad and indignant tone, "The 50,000 yuan was also spat out by me this time."

  700,000 guan seems like a lot, but just the salaries of officials in Daxing next month are estimated to take up more than half. If we use up these 700,000 guan now, the officials in Daxing will have nothing to eat next month.

  Yan Jun Cheng gazed at Su Sheng with a resentful expression, thinking that if it weren't for this meddling guy, he wouldn't be in such bad luck. He had just escaped from the Substitute King's hands and was relieved for only a moment before falling into another predicament.

  All the ministers fell silent, as the saying goes, "a single coin can defeat a hero", now this 100,000 taels has defeated the entire court.

  "Your humble servant has a matter to report to Your Majesty."

  Gu Yizhen suddenly stood up and walked forward, handing over a folded paper.

  Wei Wensheng looked at Gu Yi with a puzzled expression, unsure of what kind of trick the old fox was playing, and why he would submit another memorial at this time.

  Wang Xi quickly ran down to take over the folded paper from Gu Yizhi's hand and handed it to Yang You.

  As he opened it, Yang You couldn't help but frown. This was a memorial requesting this year's corvée labor, originally such things had precedents in previous years and usually didn't require discussion to pass.

  Isn't Bone Instrument already bothered by his own troubles, yet he still worries about this matter at this time.

  Yang You thought to himself, but his face didn't reveal any expression. He looked up at Gu Yi and tried to read some information from his face.

  In later generations, officials often appeared with half-truths. Yang You estimated that at this time, submitting the memorial had another profound meaning.

  However, Gu Yi still had a stiff face and stood motionless on the spot. Yang You did not receive any signal, so he looked at the memorial again, hoping to get some useful information.

  The memorial was nothing different, just saying that each household should send out a few laborers and which ditches to repair.

  Yang You looked at it again and still didn't find anything, so he had to close the memorial. Suddenly, a bright idea struck him, and he quickly opened it again to carefully examine the very bottom of the memorial.

  The information at the bottom is simple, it says that if you are a senior citizen over 60 years old, you can pay for exemption from service.

  Yang You read these few sentences several times, and only then did he close the memorial with a pleasant expression.

  His Royal Highness's big movement has already been noticed by the lower officials, but it is not clear what kind of medicine is being sold in the gourd.

  Now seeing King Wang's relaxed expression, they couldn't help but feel surprised. Could it be that the memorial was still able to produce money?