I saw the secret fold of Yang He, the governor of Shaanxi, and listened to Chongzhen's explanation. Huang Liji understood the emperor's intentions, and Chongzhen agreed with Yang He's appeasement opinion, and he hoped that he would support the appeasement in the cabinet.

And if you want to be appeased, you naturally lack money and food, otherwise you will be looking for trouble for yourself. But with the emptiness of the treasury, he couldn't take out even 300,000 taels. Even if the household department had this silver, he was reluctant to throw it into the bottomless pit of Shaanxi.

As Chongzhen just said at the Huangji Palace, the border areas of northern Shaanxi and Gansu-Shaanxi, because of the poor transportation and the barren land itself, have become ghost domains in addition to the county seat after years of severe drought.

There is no rooster crowing for thousands of miles, and the white bones are exposed in the wild. This is no longer a poem used by people to feel nostalgic, but a realistic scene that happened in the Ming Dynasty. Officials from Shaanxi have written several times to complain about the catastrophe that befell their hometowns.

What they want is that they hope that the imperial court can increase its disaster relief efforts for Shaanxi, so as to help their hometown fathers and elders survive this year of famine. However, Huang Liji was powerless to respond to the pleas of these Shaanxi officials.

This year, under Chongzhen's supervision and emergency measures, the imperial court can be said to have mobilized every ounce of strength. He even did not hesitate to offend the gentry in Shanxi and Henan, and adopted a policy of limiting the price of grain and restricting the sale of grain in certain areas.

Compared with last year's drought in Shaanxi, this year's amount of money and grain donated by the imperial court and the palace for disaster relief is almost ten times that of last year. However, the road from Henan to Shaanxi is difficult, and from the Guanzhong Plain of Shaanxi to the affected northwest and northern regions, it is even more difficult for grain trucks to walk.

In addition, when the disaster was hit last year, the people of Shaanxi still had some savings in their hands, and there were still some animals, wild vegetables, and tree bark in the mountains that could be used as food. This year, not only are the people's hands empty, but they also can't find the bark of grass roots and trees in the nearby mountains, so they can only feed on Guanyin soil.

In Huang Liji's view, the imperial court has done everything it can, and the rest depends on the will of heaven. After all, in addition to the disaster relief in Shaanxi, there are also civil strife and foreign wars that have not yet subsided, and Jiangnan has also suffered from floods.

And Chongzhen agreed to Yang He's request for appeasement, but did not ask the cabinet for appropriation, coupled with his evaluation of Henan's affairs, Huang Liji understood that the emperor had put 2.5 million yuan in relief money and 600,000 stone in relief food on the Henan gentry.

As a scholar, Huang Liji has a natural aversion to Chongzhen's plans. He didn't want Chongzhen to develop the bad habit of attacking the bureaucrats and gentry when he was short of money.

But as the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, he also knew that this was really the fastest way to solve the problem of appeasing the people in Shaanxi and settling down Shaanxi.

Shaanxi suffered a series of severe droughts last year and this year, and according to common sense, next year should be a year of wind and rain.

However, if Shaanxi is not allowed to settle down as soon as possible, the Shaanxi disaster victims who have fled the famine will not be able to return to their hometowns, and once they miss next year's spring sowing and delay the planting of grain in Shaanxi, it will be equivalent to another year's delay.

There has been no harvest for three consecutive years, where else will the imperial court find money and grain to help the people of Shaanxi? Once there is chaos in Shaanxi, it is obviously difficult for him, the first assistant of the Ming Dynasty, to escape his responsibility.

Huang Li thought about it for a long time before he said hesitantly to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, should we wait a little longer and think of other ways?"

This Yuan Liqing is not only a native of Henan, but also a member of the Donglin Party, and he is famous in the court, and he is friends with Sun Bachelor.

If we insist on collecting grain from the big households in Henan and using it for the appeasement work in Shaanxi, I am afraid that it will be difficult for the officials and gentry from Henan to explain it.

As for His Majesty, whether it is the victims of the disaster in Shaanxi or the gentry in Henan, they are all ordinary people after all. Isn't it the same as choosing which one of them will die? This may also hinder His Majesty's prestige. ”

Zhu Youzhen looked at him calmly and said, "I don't want to make such a choice, but if the victims of the disaster in Shaanxi can't return to their hometowns as soon as possible to resume production, more people will die." And on the side of the Henan gentry, it is nothing more than the loss of some money and food, how can people die?

Even if someone really dies because of this, it is not good to have more victims than Shaanxi. At the very least, I know that every day that passes now, the number of unnatural deaths in Shaanxi will not be less than 1,000, and God knows how long such a high abnormal mortality rate will last.

I am indeed choosing now, but I am not choosing who to die, but I am choosing to let more people live first.

As for my prestige, I never thought about what I wanted to do, so Mr. Huang didn't have to worry about my prestige.

If Mr. Huang is worried that Mr. Sun will support Yuan Shangshu after returning to the court, then he will leave it to me. I will personally persuade Mr. Sun not to meddle in the affairs of Yuan Shangshu. It is more appropriate that military affairs should be managed in military affairs, and political affairs should be returned to political affairs, and the two should not be confused. What does Mr. Huang think? ”

Although Chongzhen has been trying to dispel Huang Liji's concerns, he wants him to stand with him, so as to get the cabinet to support the policies pursued by Xu Xianchun and Yang Suoxiu in Henan.

But Huang Liji remained silent, what he wanted in his heart was to come up with a more secure plan, not to let him rush to the front, and directly confront Yuan Liqing's Donglin Party members.

Looking at Huang Liji's forward-looking appearance, Zhu Youzhen finally figured out one thing, that is, why Huang Liji, as a cabinet chief assistant, was still regarded by the Donglin Party as a henchman attached to Wei Zhongxian, and his status in the eunuch party was not as high as Cui Chengxiu's.

This person has been immersed in officialdom for too long, and he has become a conservative mentality that strives to be stable and stable in all aspects.

Although he is indeed loyal to himself, he is not blindly following himself in doing things, and resting to let him move before he is sure. It can be said that if he hadn't pushed him forward desperately, it is estimated that it would have been difficult for him to push the cabinet reform to this extent.

Of course, Zhu Youzhen also knows that it is not a bad thing to be cautious and conservative. In such a huge country, most of the news you receive is old news that has been delayed for days, or even tens of days. Moreover, the accuracy of the old news sent by the local government is also very doubtful.

To rely on such a pile of outdated and indistinguishable news to govern such a huge country, enthusiasm and intelligence alone are not enough.

Sometimes, by the time the countermeasures issued by the imperial court arrived at the local area, the local problems had already disappeared, or the conditions had changed to such an extent that the imperial court's countermeasures were ineffective.

Therefore, the officials of the Ming Central Committee finally summed up a set of experience in dealing with local problems. Drag it out and see if the problem goes away on its own. Or put it off and wait for the local officials to sort things out on their own.

Only when the local officials have repeatedly urged and asked the central officials to understand that the local problem cannot disappear automatically or cannot be solved at the local level, will the next policy be issued.

Although it seems that this is very lazy and lazy, it cannot be completely blamed on the officials in the center. Because there are nearly 3,000 counties in the Ming Dynasty, not every county official is a capable official.

Many books are well read, but nerdy county officials who don't know about general affairs often report to the top in detail, hoping that the officials or the court will come up with an idea, so as to evade their own responsibilities.

If the cabinet members had to read and answer every official document reported by the local government one by one, then they would not have to do anything.

The right way to deal with government affairs is to delay for a while, let the problem go away, or wait for the news to be more comprehensive and make a decision.

But Huang Liji, who lives in an agrarian society, is accustomed to using past experience to solve current problems. This way of doing things, for Su Changqing, a soul from the information society, is really a bit annoying.

The concept of time in the information society is to focus on the future, what will change; Industrial society, on the other hand, is focused on the present, what is happening around them. People who are two eras apart naturally have different views on the same thing.

Huang Liji finally opened his mouth and replied to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, it is obviously a bit inappropriate to let Xu and Yang continue to promote the policy of land and grain requisition in Henan.

First, the gentry in Henan were very resentful, and there were officials like Yuan Liqing in the court to open their eyes for them. Once the news of what happened at today's court meeting spreads, the gentry of other provinces will naturally sympathize with the plight of the gentry in Henan.

Second, the reform of the cabinet and the official system of the six ministries promoted by the old ministers, coupled with the reform of commercial taxation and the establishment of the quota of admission to the provinces for the examination, have long made the officials and gentry in the south dissatisfied.

If these officials are allowed to use this incident as an excuse to target the new policy, I am afraid that we will still lose more than we gain.

According to the old minister, His Majesty might as well postpone the policy of land requisition first, and this grain requisition might as well be changed to borrow grain. As long as we can survive the disaster in Shaanxi this year, we can always pay it back slowly.

However, His Majesty did want to appease Master Sun, since the news that Master Sun led his troops to defeat Lin Dan Khan came back. Now in the mouths of the people outside, Master Sun is comparable to Yu Zhongsu.

If he speaks out in support of Yuan Liqing, the situation will be in chaos. ”

Huang Liji compared Yu Qian to Sun Chengzong, which is obviously not a good thing. However, Zhu Youzhen didn't care about this, he was thinking about the idea that Huang Liji proposed earlier.

After thinking about it for a long time, although Zhu Youzhen was a little unwilling, it was obvious that this plan was the most effective way to alleviate the contradictions.

He finally spoke: "Now my top priority is to maintain the stability of Shaanxi, as long as I can get grain from the gentry in Henan, then borrow grain."

However, the land that has been expropriated cannot be returned, and the implementation of the imperial court can be suspended, which does not mean that the policy implemented by the imperial court is wrong. Henan has been peaceful for a long time, and there are many people, but land annexation is in the forefront of the provinces.

If we don't take measures, I'm afraid that one day chaos will arise. The land that has already been expropriated is leased by the Cabinet to the farmers who are currently tenants.

A 3 into 5 rent tax is levied on each mu of land, and in addition to this 3 into 5 rent tax, the peasant households do not have to pay any more fees.

After the local government collects 3 into 5 into the tax, it leaves 1 percent as the land endowment and the handling fee for collecting the land rent, and the remaining 2 into 5 is handed over to the landlord. ”