Zhao Ziliang said with a smile: "You don't have to worry, it's been two or three years since this king left Xinjing, and it's time to go back and take a look, this king is not leaving right away, why don't you have to wait until the New Year to leave, there are still more than two months!" Besides, the king will not come back after returning to Western Qin, the regent palace will continue to exist, the palace and the cabinet will continue to be in charge of the military and political affairs of the Tang Dynasty, except for the appointment and dismissal of personnel of the third grade and above and major military and political decisions to be sent to Xinjing to be decided by the king, other matters are decided by the ministers of the regent palace and your cabinet, don't be careful of not being able to deal with possible changes, as long as you uphold a belief, what you do is beneficial to the world, you will do it, as long as you adhere to this principle, There's no situation you can't handle! Datang can't be chaotic anymore, officials, soldiers, and people all want peace and tranquility, now stability is overriding everything, anyone, no matter who he is, wants to destroy the current stable and peaceful situation is to risk the world's condemnation, will be spurned by the world, you don't have to worry about who he is, don't hesitate, take immediate measures to suppress it! It is better to nip the crisis in the bud! ”

Li Kui, Li Xian, Yan Zhenqing and others looked at each other and agreed: "Yes!" ”

Within a few days, the news that Zhao Ziliang was going to return to Western Qin spread throughout the court, and Zhao Ziliang did not block the news, and this news would be confirmed sooner or later, and he also wanted to see the reaction of the ministers of civil and military affairs in the imperial court after the news spread. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

The reaction of the ministers of the Chinese military forces of the DPRK was very flat, which shows whether Zhao Ziliang is there or not, and no one dares to come casually, because the new system has been established, and the Tang Dynasty has no external troubles for the time being, and will continue to work on internal development since then. Moreover, the system of supervision of officials has been updated and strengthened, and the pace of rectification of the rule of officials has not stopped, and as long as the regency palace exists, the newly established mechanisms will continue to operate.

According to the results of the secret investigation of the relevant yamen, no one has been found to have any abnormalities because of the news that Zhao Ziliang is going to return to Western Qin.

Zhao Ziliang was relieved at this time, but there was one more thing that made Zhao Ziliang feel at ease. On this day, Li Yi, the secretary of the household department, reported to Zhao Ziliang: "King, now the old financial system and fiscal and taxation system can no longer bring enough money and food to the Tang Dynasty to support the needs of the imperial court, the local government, the army and the imperial court's various expenditures, and it is necessary to reform in these two aspects, but the minister is not good at this, if you want to innovate, you must find a master in this area!" Wechen is ashamed, as the head of the household but there is nothing he can do about it, the wechen is incompetent, and he asks to resign from the post of the head of the household! ”

"Don't resign at every turn, this king and the court let you be this household secretary because I believe that you can manage the court's money bag!" Zhao Ziliang said and waved his hand, thought for a while and said: "That's it, you don't have to take care of this thing, this king will find a way to find you a great talent!" ”

After sending Li Yi away, Zhao Ziliang frowned, although the rectification of the rule of officials has not stopped, and a large number of corrupt officials have been arrested, but the tax has not increased much, Zhao Ziliang knows very well that the burden of the people is very heavy, but the tax revenue into the imperial treasury is less than one-third, two-thirds of the tax has entered the pockets of officials at all levels, they embezzle the tax of the imperial court in various names, and the court has nothing to do about it, because there is no evidence, lack of supervision, and the tax system is not perfect, Let those people have loopholes to exploit.

Li Muchen was on duty in the palace hall today, he heard what Li Yi reported to Zhao Ziliang, and when he saw Zhao Ziliang frowning after sending Li Yi away, he knew that Zhao Ziliang was worried about this matter, and after thinking about it, he stepped forward and said: "If the king can't find a talent who is proficient in financial management, Weichen can recommend a person, but I don't know if the king dares to use it!" ”

"Oh?" Zhao Ziliang turned his head, "Let's talk about it!" ”

Li Muchen said: "Liu Yan, the former head of the household department, is still locked up in the prison!" ”

"You mean to let Liu Yan preside over the financial and tax innovation?"

"Yes!" Li Muchen nodded, "Although Liu Yan is now guilty, Weichen thinks that Liu Yan is worth using. The king, the reason why Liu Yan was deprived of the post of the head of the household department and imprisoned in Tianlai was because he was a person from Yuan Zai at that time, in the big case of rectifying the household officials, Liu Yan's responsibility was the responsibility of poor management and supervision, and he himself was very incorruptible, as far as the minister knew, Liu Yan's family was simply poor except for some books and manuscripts! ”

After Li Muchen's reminder, Zhao Ziliang remembered that others didn't know, but he knew best how Liu Yan was dismissed from his official position and imprisoned in prison. At that time, he had just taken up the post of regent, and in order to Liwei, he was the first to take Yuan Zai's prime minister's faction, and Liu Yan's household department was the first to be targeted by him, and the reason why Liu Yan fell was essentially the result of political struggle, who made him Yuan Zai's person? In fact, he himself is commendable both as an official and as a person, and his mistake is that he is on the side of Yuan Zai.

After thinking about it for a while, Zhao Ziliang ordered: "Come on, go to the prison and bring Liu Yan to see the king!" ”

"Yes, King!"

Zhao Ziliang knows that if you want to find a person who is the best at managing money and has the ability to reverse the declining economic situation in Datang today, this person is none other than Liu Yan, his talent in financial management is better than Yang Yan, and now Yang Yan is in charge of finance in Western Qin, of course Zhao Ziliang can't call Yang Yan back to Chang'an, the only one who can be enabled is Liu Yan.

"Hey, let's just give Datang a chance, and give Liu Yan a chance!"

When he was sighing, several jailers and soldiers escorted Liu Yan in, the heavy anklets and shackles dragged on the ground and made a dull sound of metal colliding.

Liu Yan knelt down in the middle of the hall, "The criminal minister Liu Yan sees the king!" ”

Zhao Ziliang, who was facing away from the door, turned around, looked at Liu Yan and said, "Liu Yan, are you guilty?" ”

Liu Yan lowered his head: "The criminal is guilty!" ”

"What crime?"

Liu Yan was stunned for a moment, and then said: "During his tenure as the head of the household, the criminal minister not only turned a blind eye to his subordinates' corruption and embezzlement of the imperial court's treasury money and grain, but also aided in the abuse and stood on the side of Yuan Zai to cause chaos in the court!" ”

Zhao Ziliang nodded, "You're not confused!" The king has a few questions for you, and if you answer to the king's satisfaction, the king can consider giving you a lenient sentence, and if you are not satisfied, you can go back and sit in prison, do you understand? ”

Liu Yan said: "The sinner understands, please ask the king!" ”

"First, although there are many acres of land in Guanzhong, but because Chang'an is the capital of the Tang Dynasty, the population is far more than other towns, the daily consumption of food is huge, and now due to the long-term rebellion and the division of the feudal town, resulting in the waste of Caoyun, not only Guanzhong is seriously short of grain, other places also have different degrees of food shortage, although the direct transportation method in Caoyun can solve the problem of lack of grain, but the direct transportation method is too large, and frequent capsizing accidents, not only cause a large amount of food loss, but also cause casualties, What do you think needs to be done to transport grain from the important grain-producing areas along the Yangtze River and Huaihe to the grain-deficit areas? ”

Liu Yan had obviously thought about this question for a long time, and he said without thinking about it: "Reform Caoyun!" ”

Zhao Ziliang was not surprised, and asked: "How to reform?" ”

"To change the direct transportation method to the section transportation method, we must first organize a large number of manpower to dredge the river, divide the whole process into four transportation sections, and build a transfer station. It has prevented river boats from entering the Bianshui, the Yellow River, and the Weishui, thus improving the efficiency of grain transportation and putting an end to the accident of capsizing. In addition, warehouses are set up at the junctions of Yangzhou, Biankou, Heyin, Weikou and other rivers to store grain for transshipment. At the same time, it is also necessary to set up a supervision yamen in the Caoyun Yamen to prevent the Caoyun officials from taking advantage of their positions to seek benefits for their relatives and others! ”

Zhao Ziliang didn't expect Liu Yan to come up with a set of effective methods so quickly, and thought that he really deserved to be the No. 1 financial expert in Datang, and he deserved his reputation! He also asked: "Salt tax has always accounted for a large proportion of the imperial court's taxes, but in the past ten years due to various reasons, the salt tax collected by the imperial court has been greatly reduced, but as far as this king knows, the salt tax paid by the merchants has not decreased, but has become more and more. ”

Liu Yan arched his hand and said: "Your Majesty, there are several reasons for this situation: first, because the price of official salt is too high, and there are a large number of traders who traffic illicit salt among the people, and the government has also vigorously suppressed it, but with little effect!" Because someone in the salt yamen sent a message to the private salt traders. Second, because the salt affairs yamen of the government is huge, bloated, complicated, and uneven in quality, and there are very few salt taxes that have been exploited layer by layer and finally entered the imperial treasury! Third, collusion between officials and businessmen. Many officials are worried that it will be easy to find out if they make money directly from the salt tax. Therefore, the official salt was sold to the smuggler at a low price, and the smuggler gave the officials a handsome return! ”

This period is not like the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, the salt farms of the Tang Dynasty are basically controlled by the government, and the government has a strong crackdown on the sale of privately boiled salt, except for a few private salt that the traders secretly cook themselves, most of the private salt is secretly sold to the traders at a low price by the officials of the salt yamen, and the traders give the salt tax paid to the officials in return, which is also one of the reasons why the salt tax is more, but it is less than one-third of the real treasury of the imperial court.

Zhao Ziliang's brows wrinkled together: "Since you know these drawbacks, why didn't you take relevant measures when you were the head of the household department?" ”

Liu Yan arched his hand and said: "The criminal minister also figured out these after several years of investigation, just when the criminal minister wanted to write to the emperor to take relevant measures, there was a rebellion, Chang'an was broken several times, and many yamen in the imperial court have stopped operating, and the criminal minister cannot be implemented even if he writes the book, so it is ??????."

Zhao Ziliang walked around in front of Liu Yan with his hands behind his back, and after walking back and forth a few times, he waved his hand to Li Muchen who was standing aside, Li Muchen nodded, took out an edict and opened it and read: "The regent decree, although Liu Yan bears the unshirkable responsibility for the ineffective management and supervision of his subordinates in the household corruption case, and should have served a sentence of ten years in prison, but now that the imperial court is employing people, this king uses his privilege to pardon him." Appointed Liu Yan as the household servant, full support, transfer, minting money, renting and other envoys! Come on, remove the torture tools for Lord Liu! ”

Liu Yan let the left and right officials remove the torture tools for him, and he fell on the ground with tears like rain and kowtowed again and again: "The king is gracious, the ministers should bow and die as hard as they can!" ”