Chapter 50

Beads of sweat gradually began to seep onto Hong Hong Chengchou's forehead.

All under the watchful gaze of the book boy.

Hong Hong Chengchou, his forehead covered in cold sweat, looked at the book boy and gritted his teeth, whispering lowly,

"Go home, fetch the silver!"

Upon hearing this, the book boy couldn't help but stare in blank surprise.

"Huh?"

"I said, return to the residence, fetch the silver!"

"Quick!"

Hong Hong Chengchou suddenly yanked down the sedan curtain and shouted loudly,

"Hurry back to the residence; whoever runs fastest shall be heavily rewarded by the Master!"

Hearing mention of a reward,

the several sedan bearers seemed as if they had stepped onto wind-fire wheels, sprinting wildly all the way toward Hong Hong Chengchou's residence!

With the fulfillment of the first batch of investments,

carriages at Zhou Kui's residence hardly ceased coming and going.

By the second day, the silver stored in Zhou Kui's residence had already exceeded two million taels.

And this number continued to increase relentlessly.

In the end, Zhou Kui was forced to transport a portion of the silver to Wang Wang Wang Chengen ahead of schedule.

Yet those frantic civil and military officials across the court, who kept sending silver to the Earl of Retainer's residence, remained unaware

that these cartloads of silver were also binding them tightly to this dilapidated vessel known as the Great Ming...

52, Hong Hong Chengchou: Where is Laozi's money?!

After obtaining the silver, Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian did not remain idle either.

As the silver kept accumulating,

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian now saw matters with increasing clarity.

What a load of nonsense about a court filled with upright gentlemen.

Not a single one of these bastards could be relied upon.

On the contrary, after Wang Wang Wang Chengen's rectification, the inner court centered around the Directorate of Ceremonial had become considerably cleaner.

The matter Zhou Kui was currently undertaking was almost the Great Ming's top-secret affair.

Only a handful of people knew about it.

Even without knowing the details, many eunuchs from the inner court also took their silver to find Zhou Kui.

However, the financial resources of these eunuchs were clearly nowhere near the scale of those civil and military nobles in the outer court.

Compared to those sums that easily reached hundreds of thousands or nearly a million taels of silver,

the ten or twenty thousand taels, or at most fifty or sixty thousand taels held by these inner-court eunuchs,

could honestly be described as destitute.

Looking at the account books delivered by Zhou Kui,

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian felt a hundred emotions swirling in his heart.

How the hell was this a list of victims!

This was clearly a record of the loyal and the treacherous of the Great Ming!

Upon seeing the account books, Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian, without the slightest hesitation, transferred all this silver into the inner treasury.

The Armory Bureau of the inner court was tasked with forging weapons and purchasing grain.

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian even selected a few young eunuchs to disguise themselves and travel far to the southeast to construct sea vessels.

The reason was simple.

The grain produced within the Great Ming itself was simply insufficient to feed everyone.

What the court actually lacked was not silver,

but rather grain in the marketplace.

After calculating accounts repeatedly for several days and nights, Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian and Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Yuanzhang finally concluded that, provided grain supplies in Jiaozhi were ample,

purchasing grain from overseas was thirty percent cheaper than procuring it within the Great Ming.

However, Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian was ultimately still too young.

Although Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian had anticipated that the nobles throughout the court possessed wealth,

he never could have imagined that the nobles across the entire court were wealthy to such an extent!

Within the entire Forbidden City, there were altogether over thirty thousand eunuchs.

At present, every single eunuch was busily rushing about in a frenzy.

Yet over at Zhou Kui's end, silver was still being continuously sent into the inner treasury!

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian's speed of spending money simply could not match Zhou Kui's speed of swindling it!

Midnight.

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian was in the Palace of Heavenly Purity reviewing memorials sent to the capital from various regions.

Wang Wang Wang Chengen, however, approached with a look of difficulty on his face.

"Your Majesty..."

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian didn't even lift his eyelids.

"Wang Wang Chengen, hold on a little longer."

Wang Wang Wang Chengen, wearing a mournful expression, looked at Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian and said,

"Your Majesty, this slave does not wish to speak of it, but, but this slave truly cannot endure it any longer."

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian was just about to offer a few words of comfort.

Wang Wang Wang Chengen stated with decisive firmness:

"It is not that this slave is unwilling to exert himself; the crucial issue is that the silver vaults of the Inner Treasury are already packed full."

"If the Imperial Father-in-Law continues sending silver to the palace, we will have to simply pour it directly into the Imperial Garden."

Although this silver could not be spent all at once,

leaving it piled in the Imperial Garden meant that within a month, the eunuchs and maids of the rear palace would pick it clean—five taels today for you, ten taels tomorrow for me.

Hearing this, Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian could not help but stare in shock.

"How much silver is there now?"

Wang Wang Wang Chengen lowered his head and replied:

"It has already exceeded thirty-five million taels; the accumulated silver in the Inner Treasury alone amounts to over twenty-two million taels."

Upon hearing this figure,

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian felt his temples throbbing incessantly.

Thirty-five million taels!

Last year, the court had already increased taxes to cover expenditures thirty years into the future.

The annual revenue was merely fifteen million taels of silver!

Yet now, with just a few words, Zhou Kui had somehow swindled over thirty million taels of silver!

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian took a deep breath, glanced at the memorial before him, and said through gritted teeth:

"Disburse two million taels from the treasury to first pay the arrears owed to the soldiers of the Nine Borders by the Ministry of War!"

Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian knew clearly:

once the Inner Treasury began allocating silver to the Ministry of War,

the matter would essentially reach the point where the map is unrolled and the dagger revealed.

After all, the court officials were not truly fools.

Those civil and military ministers knew even better than Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Zhu Youjian exactly how much silver should currently be in the Inner Treasury!

Wang Wang Wang Chengen stepped forward.

Bowing his head low, he kowtowed and said:

"This slave accepts the imperial decree!"

The next morning,

Minister of War Yang Yang Sichang submitted a memorial requesting the allocation of two million taels to settle the arrears owed to the soldiers of the Nine Borders.