amaotonovel Chapter 1184 This official is only good at causing trouble, but you are the truly wicked ones?
Chapter 1184 This official is only good at causing trouble, but you are the truly wicked ones?
Yang Shaofeng planned to hurry home and sort things out.
Is this fucking right?
This is not right.
I have tormented Lao Deng, schemed against Li Shanchang, and treated the entire court as if they were Japanese. Every official had their own unspeakable suffering.
Including that old scoundrel Xue Xiang—wasn't that old fellow losing his hair every day when he was in the Ministry of Works? How come he's suddenly become bald in the Ministry of Rites?
As Yang Shaofeng was secretly questioning his life, Li Shanchang said with a smile, "Your Highness, I've had someone get me something good these past few days. I'd like to ask Your Highness to take a look at it."
Without waiting for Yang Shaofeng's reply or refusal, Li Shanchang pulled a booklet from his sleeve, stuffed it into Yang Shaofeng's hand, and said with a smile, "Take a look at this first."
Yang Shaofeng opened the booklet, puzzled.
"Genealogical Ranking of Families".
"Ranking of the Richest Businessmen"
The former begins with a lengthy account of the origins of various aristocratic families, starting with the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors; the middle section details the development and evolution of each family; and the ending ranks the families based on factors such as the number of officials, scholars, land, and servants.
The latter begins by directly discussing the necessity of the existence of merchants, then discusses the evolution of various industries and the profit analysis of merchants, and concludes by comprehensively considering the merchants' influence in the industry, the amount of taxes they pay each year, and the estimated total profit, to select the one hundred richest merchants in the Ming Dynasty.
Yang Shaofeng became increasingly confused, and finally couldn't help but look at Li Shanchang and ask, "What does the Duke of Han mean?"
Li Shanchang stroked his beard and smiled, saying, "There's an old saying, 'follow the map to find the horse.' With these two rankings compiled every three years, we can directly pick the fat sheep to slaughter next time."
What?
Yang Shaofeng looked at Li Shanchang with a completely bewildered expression.
That's the logic.
that's the truth.
Almost all lists and rankings are just for the purpose of creating a ranking system to make it easier to choose.
Rich lists are generally created to make it easier to select easy targets.
The Bai Fang Pu (百芳谱) was generally created to facilitate the selection of beautiful women.
This way of playing isn't anything special.
The key question is whether this can be said directly in the imperial court?
Yang Shaofeng looked around in bewilderment, only to hear bursts of laughter beside him.
Good heavens, those who appeared in the court today were either key figures of the Huai-Xi nobles or key figures of the Zhejiang civil officials, plus the heads of the cabinet and various ministries, directorates, temples and academies, almost all of them were Deng's confidants.
So, I'm just good at causing trouble, while you guys are the truly wicked ones?
Li Shanchang laughed and said, "This matter was proposed by Marquis Chengyi."
Li Shanchang felt no guilt whatsoever about selling Liu Bowen.
Liu Bowen was equally unconcerned. Instead, he stroked his beard and said, "These people are all ungrateful. The more you treat them well, the more they will take advantage of you."
“If we reduce their taxes, they will think about not paying taxes at all.”
“If they are allowed to study, they will think about controlling the court.”
"This incident involving the Fujian Provincial Governor further proves this point."
Yang Shaofeng neither confirmed nor denied Liu Bowen's statement.
Those powerful families and wealthy merchants were certainly not good people.
The question is, what kind of good guy are you, Lao Liu?
If it weren't for your fellow Zhejiang natives repeatedly stabbing you in the back, you old scoundrel would probably still be playing the game of self-preservation.
Otherwise, you old scoundrel Liu would have been worthy of being a duke just for proposing the garrison system, and wouldn't have only received the title of Earl of Chengyi when Lao Deng was bestowing titles upon meritorious officials.
The thought of Liu Bowen's title unconsciously reminded Yang Shaofeng of another fool.
Liao Yongzhong.
This idiot is loyal enough, but his brain is severely lacking. As a proper confidant of the old Deng, this guy dared to get too close to Yang Xian and was easily fooled into sinking the Little Ming King's ship.
It's fortunate that it was Old Deng; if it had been someone with a smaller mind, that idiot Liao Yongzhong would have risked his life to accompany Little Ming Wang.
Yang Shaofeng clicked his tongue, just about to comment on the two rankings, when Yang Siyi jumped out with a dark face, looking at Xue Xiang and saying, "What did you just say, you old bastard?"
Xue Xiang rolled up his sleeves, sneered, and said, "I just called you, Yang Siyi, a stupid donkey. You disagree?"
Unusually, Yang Siyi didn't make a move. Instead, he sneered and said, "Since you, surnamed Xue, say I'm stupid, then I'll show you how stupid I can be!"
After speaking, Yang Siyi straightened his clothes and solemnly bowed to Emperor Zhu, saying, "Your Majesty, the Ming Dynasty's treasury currently has a shortfall of 37,250,496,300 strings of cash!"
The Zhu Emperor, who had been watching the show with a smile, was suddenly dumbfounded. After a long while, he asked in a daze, "Didn't you say that the taxes in the eighth year of Hongwu's reign were enough to cover the expenditures and even have a surplus?"
Yang Siyi cupped his hands and replied, "Your Majesty, what I was referring to was a shortage of paper money, not a shortage of taxes."
After a slight pause, Yang Siyi continued, "Since the third year of Hongwu, when that old scoundrel Xue Xiang took charge of the Ministry of Works, the Ming Dynasty recruited many laborers from abroad and also purchased a lot of spices and minerals. The money spent on these items all came from the national treasury."
"Although the Dengzhou border market, which was managed by the Prince Consort, kept making money, it really couldn't keep up with the spending."
"In addition, many merchants from the vassal states secretly brought back banknotes to their vassal states, which resulted in the Ming Dynasty's treasury losing more than 30 million strings of banknotes out of thin air."
"The problem now is that the gold and silver in the national treasury have not decreased, but the paper money is not enough."
Xue Xiang looked at Yang Siyi with a completely bewildered expression.
I just said something to you, and you're trying to pin this huge blame on me?
No wonder you, Yang Siyi, have the surname Yang—just like your relative Yang the Madman, neither of you are any good!
Emperor Zhu was also taken aback, and looked at Yang Shaofeng, asking, "My dear son-in-law..."
Yang Shaofeng chuckled dryly twice and said, "I don't know anything about this stuff either..."
"Theoretically speaking, the amount of gold and silver in the national treasury should be equal to the amount of paper money it holds."
"Now that we have lost more than 30 million strings of paper money, does that mean we have gained more gold and silver worth more than 30 million strings?"
Yang Siyi nodded with a dark face and said, "That's right, there are indeed more than 30 million strings of gold and silver in the national treasury."
"However, having this gold and silver does not mean that the Ming Dynasty can directly print more than 30 million strings of paper money."
"Because the more than 30 million strings of gold and silver flowed into the vassal state, it did not completely disappear."
"In other words, if a foreign merchant comes to the Ming Dynasty with more than 30 million strings of cash to buy things, it's as if more than 30 million strings of cash have appeared out of thin air in the Ming Dynasty's market."
"However, not printing more paper money means that the Ming Dynasty will be short of 30 million strings of paper money, which will cause the problem of cheap goods and expensive money."
Yang Siyi grinned, turned to Xue Xiang and said, "I admit I'm a stupid donkey, but you, Xue, are a clever old man. Come and think of a way for me."