After talking with Liu Hongxun for more than an hour, Qian Longxi walked out of Liu Hongxun's mansion with a worried look.

In the days that followed, Liu Hongxun summoned more than a dozen relevant low-level officials for questioning and collecting evidence.

Because Liu Hongxun is openly questioning the case, and Huang Zongxi's lawsuit for his father has become the hottest news in the capital under the spread of people with good intentions. Therefore, when questioning the case, a large number of lively Beijing citizens came to the criminal department to watch the filial son.

Although Huang Zongxi was young, he spoke sharply when he passed the court, and often questioned these officials who were summoned speechlessly, coupled with Liu Hongxun's intentional or unintentional partiality when he passed the court, the image of a dutiful son with unparalleled righteousness was suddenly erected.

In the past six months or so, first the Emperor of the Apocalypse banned drinking and entertainment, and then the Beijing Mutiny, and the Strike Hard, which caused some of the entertainment of the people in the capital to disappear.

The people of the capital, who were short of spiritual food, encountered Huang Zongxi's case, and suddenly seemed to have found some kind of spiritual sustenance. Under the rendering of the people, Huang Zongxi was also named "Yaojiang Huang Xiaozi".

All of a sudden, the streets and alleys, after tea and dinner, all heard the sound of discussion about this case, and even the storyteller in the teahouse took the daily criminal department's questioning of the case as an introduction to attract the audience at the beginning of the day.

When Liu Hongxun first began to inquire about the case, he was still relatively cautious, and the officials he summoned were not of very high rank, nor were they important figures in the eunuch party.

However, when the public opinion in the capital fermented and began to sympathize with Huang Zongxi and several Donglin gentlemen who were killed, and the palace did not interfere with the criminal department's questioning, Liu Hongxun's courage suddenly became bigger.

He no longer listened to Yuan Keli's dissuasion, nor did he ignore Yang Suoxiu's opposition, and continued to expand the target of interrogation, and began to implicate Cao Qincheng, Li Fan and other eunuch backbones.

Since then, Huang Zongxi's case has since moved away from the category of drama that the masses like to see when the filial son redressed his father's unjust case, and has turned into a political struggle between the Donglin Party and the remnants of the Korean and Central Eunuch Party.

The officials who were regarded as the remnants of the Eunuch Party and the officials to whom the Donglin Party belonged were immediately divided into two distinct factions.

Officials who were regarded as remnants of the eunuch party wrote to accuse the Donglin party of using the topic to play with the intention of setting off party disputes again.

The Donglin Party believes that these eunuch remnants want to use party disputes to confuse right and wrong in order to cover up the truth about the persecution of the Donglin gentlemen.

Since Chongzhen ascended the throne, the seemingly calm court situation suddenly turned into a pot of boiling water. At this moment, no matter what tacit understanding there used to be between Huang Liji and the leaders of the Donglin Party, it is now all broken.

And Huang Liji, the first assistant who seems to monopolize the power of the cabinet, has become the target of the Donglin Party. Compared with the eunuch leaders Wei Zhongxian and Cui Chengxiu, Huang Liji received more attacks than two.

Only then did Huang Liji realize that he, the head of the cabinet, was now unable to stop a criminal department attendant from questioning the case. However, the emperor, who had always been most disgusted with the party struggle between the DPRK and China, did not express his position on this case.

This is like a weather vane, and some officials who were still waiting to see the development of the situation have also joined the political dispute and began to impeach the eunuch members of the DPRK.

Seeing that the Donglin Party was becoming more and more active, and his protégés and subordinates were also beginning to be involved, Huang Liji finally couldn't hold his breath, and he planned to formally propose this case to Chongzhen at today's national meeting to find out the emperor's clear attitude.

There are two most important topics on the agenda of today's national meeting, one is about the establishment of grain trading markets in various provinces after the establishment of the grain bureau and the supervision of grain trade. and the issue of issuing public bonds to purchase grain reserves as a means of regulating grain prices in various localities.

The other is that the water department of the four subordinate departments of the Ministry of Works, the original chief officer was Lang Zhong, and now it has been promoted by one level and a squire has been added to manage it.

The Ministry of Water Resources will also be renamed the Ministry of Water Resources, which will still oversee the world's water conservancy undertakings. However, the emperor clearly put forward the goal of water control by the Ministry of Water Resources in the next five years, that is, to control the five major water systems of the Pearl River, the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, the Huai River, and the Haihe River, and turn water disasters into water conservancy.

In order to raise funds for water control, it is also necessary to issue public bonds. The issuance of public bonds requires collateral, and today's meeting of the state is to discuss the scale of issuance and collateral of these two public bonds.

At today's meeting of the state government, the members of the Sixth Ministries and the Ninth Secretary of State and the cabinet were a little absent-minded, and everyone had no intention of entanglement, and hurriedly passed several items that were not very important.

When the discussion on the grain issue began, Zhu Youzhen paused everyone's speeches and said: "What I and Zhu Qing can discuss here can only be a general direction of the grain issue and some issues of principle.

Whether it is the scale of the establishment of grain reserves or the issuance of public bonds for the purchase of grain reserves, only the actual operators can give us a feasible plan for these details.

Therefore, I thought that in order to discuss this issue, the officials in charge of the Food Bureau, as well as the governor of the Daming Central Bank, who undertook the public debt, should also participate in this meeting. ”

Before the ministers at the meeting could react, Yao Shiheng had already walked into the conference room of the Wenhua Hall with the two of them.

The first person following Yao Shiheng was a civil official wearing a cyan plate-collar official uniform, and several people recognized that this was Lang Zhong Jiliang of the Food Bureau.

But behind Ji Jiliang was an old man dressed in civilian clothes. Wang Fengyuan lowered his head and followed closely behind Ji Jiliang, not daring to look up at the situation in this conference room.

The ministers in the conference room were surprised to see a civilian walk in, and the conference room suddenly fell silent for a while.

Zhu Youzhen pointed to the two people who came in and said to the ministers: "These two people are, Ji Jiliang, who is responsible for establishing the Ming grain reserve system, and Wang Fengyuan, the president of the Daming Central Bank, who is about to be established, and he will decide the amount of public bonds to be underwritten." ”

Guo Yunhou, the head of the household, was not surprised by the emperor's statement, but the others were in an uproar.

After the establishment of the rule of holding the National Council on a regular basis, at the strong request of the officials, in addition to the officials of the Six Ministries and the Cabinet Ministers, the Bachelor of Hanlin was also allowed to participate in the meeting and learn the experience of governance.

Yang Jingchen, the attendant of Hanlin, was a little incomprehensible to the scene in front of him, and he first stood up to protest to the emperor: "Your Majesty, the issuance of public bonds to purchase grain is the key to establishing a grain reserve system to resist the year of famine.

How can a civilian decide such a major matter related to the national economy and people's livelihood? The minister thinks that this practice is suspected of disorderly government, and please think twice. ”

Zhuang Jichang, who had just been recalled, also thought that it would be too frivolous to let a businessman like Wang Fengyuan participate in a meeting to discuss national affairs.

Several officials of the Hanlin Academy were arguing, but the officials of the Sixth Ministry and the Cabinet did not say anything. Zhu Youzhen looked at the situation in the field, and finally said out loud: "Since you are so dissatisfied with the participation of representatives of the Daming Central Bank in the meeting.

Then I will also give you a chance to establish a grain reserve network throughout the Ming Dynasty, according to Ji Jiliang's calculations, the investment in the first phase will be at least 5 million yuan.

Since you are opposed to allowing merchants to underwrite these public debts, I have another option, which is to bear a certain amount of public debt according to the rank of the officials.

In line with the idea that with great power comes great responsibility. I bear 100,000 yuan of public debt for the Ming Emperor, and you are all important ministers of the participating countries at the conference, each of you buys 50,000 yuan of public debt, and so on, what do you think? ”

Some of the officials who were watching the fire from the other side just now were suddenly frightened by the emperor's words. One by one, they all spoke out against it, either crying about poverty, or thinking that this method would only force the officials to exploit the small people and increase the burden on the people.

It is not that these officials cannot afford their share of the public debt, but they are afraid that after this start, if the emperor is short of money in the future, they will come again, and they will not become the emperor's money bag.

Whether it is the so-called eunuch party or the Donglin party, at this moment they have forgotten the differences between the two sides, and they oppose Chongzhen's new plan in unison.

The corners of Chongzhen's mouth fell, it was the first time he saw the officials in front of him, regardless of faction or background, who were interested in opposing one thing.

Zhu You raised his hand to silence everyone, and then said with a slight mockery: "Since everyone thinks that my new plan is not feasible, do you have anything else to say about the underwriting of public bonds by the Central Bank of Daming?" ”

Officials who had just opposed the new plan immediately agreed to let the central bank of Daming underwrite public bonds according to the original plan.

Yang Jingchen, who first proposed it, also involuntarily retreated, but Zhuang Jichang did not give up, he continued to say to the emperor: "If Your Majesty wants to hand over the public bonds related to the national economy and people's livelihood to businessmen to handle, then what kind of organization is this Daming Central Bank?" Is it the new yamen of the government, or is it a pawn shop run by a group of merchants? ”

Zhu Youzhen thought for a moment, and then said: "The Daming Central Bank is a financial institution in charge of monetary and credit business established by businessmen under the guidance of the Ministry of Households.

The Daming Central Bank has independent operational rights, but it must operate under the policies formulated by the Ministry of Households. Of course, the central bank can make financial proposals to the Ministry of Households that are conducive to the healthy operation of the national economy, and through the Ministry of Households, they can be translated into national policies..."

Zhu Youzhen simply explained to everyone the original intention of the bank he wanted to establish. Except for Guo Yunhou, who understood this issue because he had talked to the emperor about this issue before, most people didn't understand the emperor's words with a large number of new terms.

However, they generally understood that the basic role of the bank was to raise special construction funds for the state to ensure that the construction projects proposed by the imperial court could be completed on time.

After understanding this part, most officials began to think that there was nothing wrong with setting up such a bank and raising money from businessmen.