Chapter 157 The wind and the red flag turned over 13

[157] Wind and red flag turn over the earth (13)

Cixi tilted her head slightly, and her head trembled tremblingly.

She asked impatiently, "How's it going now?"

Li Hongzhang looked up and looked at Cixi, and immediately bowed his head and said, "At present, the troops have been relaxed for a long time. If they don't practice and attack rashly, I'm afraid Wang is making mistakes again. Moreover... Moreover, there is still no money needed to encircle and suppress the army, and the food and fodder needed for tens of thousands of soldiers and horses to march to fight have to raise a large amount of money. According to my rough calculation, Shandong will need at least 3 million taels of silver, grain and fodder for the army to suppress the rebellion.

Cixi said angrily, "It's money again!" I have no money! Go and ask Ding Baozhen for it!"

Li Hongzhang said bluntly, "Wang Zhengqi lost his teacher and lost all the money and grain family in Jinan. Shandong suffered from drought this year, and the money and grain were unsustainable. At present, the treasury of Jinan Prefecture has run away with mice."

Cixi was even more angry when she heard the words: "Find the household department for it!"

Dong Xun, the minister of the Ministry of Household, heard the words and arched his hand sideways and said, "This year, there is a drought in all parts of China. The Ministry of Household has long been tight. In addition, the northwest is using troops, and the Ministry of money and grain in Lord Zuo can't afford it. Now Shandong needs to use troops, and the treasury is really not enough for the army."

Cixi snorted coldly and mocked Li Hongzhang, "The court has no money. Lord Li can find a way by himself. Otherwise, you can discuss with Yao Fan and ask him to return the silver you previously paid for the military ship."

Li Hongzhang was extremely embarrassed for a moment, and his face became more and more gray.

Prince Gong Yixin stood up and said, "I think it's urgent to follow the power. At present, it should be temporarily allocated from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to repair the Yuanmingyuan Silver Two. The garden is so big that I'm afraid it can't be repaired for several years. It's better to slow down first."

When the Minister of Internal Affairs heard this, the general manager once hurriedly said: "Since the renovation of the Yuanmingyuan, more than 480,000 taels of engineering silver and office silver have been spent. At present, more than 140,000 taels of material silver are still owed to factories. The deficit in the account is so large, how can there be allocated? If there is money, how can the progress of the project of repairing the garden be as slow as it is now.

How could Yixin not know that the Ministry of Internal Affairs had no money? He pulled out this topic, which was nothing more than hoping to take this opportunity to completely stop repairing the bottomless hole of Yuanmingyuan.

Now that the little emperor of Guangxu is only five years old, all political affairs are in charge of Cixi, and the ministers in the court no longer pursue the goal of returning to the emperor in the late Tongzhi period. Since Cixi listened to the government again, and it seems that she will at least govern until the adulthood of the little emperor, so the reason for Cixi to rebuild the Yuanmingyuan so that Cixi can have a place to live after returning to the emperor is no longer established. It really doesn't make sense to continue to fill the money into the project of rebuilding the Yuanmingyuan.

As soon as Cixi heard the topic, she pulled her head and secretly scolded that the devil six was not a thing. She was even more annoyed. The hand in her sleeve clenched her fist angrily: "The Ministry of Internal Affairs has proposed several times that there is no money for the project! Prince Gong doesn't know that the money for the garden was raised by all parties. What does it have to do with the court?

Cixi turned her head aside and didn't look at Yixin. She looked at the Zhu Qizhu pillar on the Yangxin Hall and said, "Lord Li, you'd better find another way for this money!" Don't always think of the emperor's inner treasury.

Li Hongzhang said, "I think there are two ways to consider at present."

When Cixi heard that Li Hongzhang had two ways, she thought that you Han ghosts still had a lot of ideas and hurriedly said, "Tell me, talk about it and discuss it. Use it if you can."

Li Hongzhang said, "The first way is to advance the customs money from the customs. The second way is to issue * and return some money to use.

Cixi heard that one of these two methods is to ask foreigners for help, and the other is not to ask foreigners. Naturally, she is willing to choose one of the more shameful methods.

"You have to deal with foreigners to advance tariffs. Not to mention the British, even the head of customs department, Hurd, may not agree. Let's talk about it. What's the way to issue *?

Li Hongzhang's idea was heard in detail from Li Jingfang, Li Jingshu and Li Jingxuan. This was also because Yao Fan told his three children at the beginning. Li Hongzhang thought about it for a long time after hearing it, but because of the lessons learned from the issuance of treasure money in the Ming Dynasty to harm the people, although he was moved, he never dared not use it easily, such as In this urgent matter, he only wants to follow the power.

Li Hongzhang chattyly said, "The court issued* and took back the silver and copper money. Copper and silver are both metal and can be sold. In this way, there will naturally be items. Hundreds of millions of copper and silver issued by the Qing Dynasty outside, even if it is returned to 10 million taels of silver a year, which is quite considerable, and it is not It will affect the normal monetary order of the market.

Then the government uses the exchanged silver as military expenses, so that the glue thief can be flat.

In the future, you can also have money to find foreigners to buy machines and ships, build factories to engage in foreign affairs, and make foreign cloth, steel, dyes, ships and other goods to sell in China, gradually reducing the market share of foreign goods.

Li Hongzhang became more and more energetic: "When it comes to Fa*, some people objected and talked about the treasure banknotes of the Ming Dynasty, but the issuance of treasure banknotes in the Ming Dynasty was because the finances were not enough to make ends meet, which could not be compared with the problem of scabs in Daqing's eyes. As long as the rubber thief is destroyed, the deficit of military expenditure can be stopped.

And the finances of our Qing Dynasty are very good, and the customs have increased year by year. With such a source of income as a guarantee, it can be said that it is a good time to issue money.

Nowadays, all Western countries are issuing money. If the Qing Dynasty didn't catch up with this trend, wouldn't it be a loss? People used paper as money, but the Qing Dynasty used silver as money, which was really a great loss.

Li Hongzhang's words basically copied Yao Fan's nonsense. Yao Fan did not tell him that the reason why foreigners dared to send * is because the system of modern countries can effectively control the currency circulation! And once any feudal dynasty tastes the sweetness of the money printing machine, it is like a bear licking honey and can't stop! And at this time, the issuance of * in Western countries has a strong central bank that can control the circulation of currency and exchange * equivalently. It can exchange * for gold and silver with treasury reserves.

Cixi was very moved at that time when she heard it! So he immediately asked the ministers present, "Do you think this law is feasible?"

Li Hongzhang took the lead and said, "When the long hair was wiped out, official tickets and Daqing banknotes were also issued. This is a stopgap measure, and a small amount of use is harmless."

Prince Gong Yixin, who is also a member of the Western Affairs School, said: "At the turn of autumn and winter, it is the time to build river engineering and water conservancy. The court can pay this year's river industry silver with paper money, so that money can be used as military expenses."

A powerful minister, plus a relative of the emperor, the two of them supported the * policy. Moreover, there was a precedent of issuing paper money in order to suppress bandits in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. How could other ministers be willing to stir up this bowl of muddy water and kept their mouths?

Li Hongzao, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, was anxious as soon as he heard it. Although his name was different from Li Hongzhang, he had no relatives. He immediately stood up and said, "Paper money instead of silver is a corruption. How can it be! There must be complaints about collecting banknotes everywhere. How can we do things hard?

Cixi choked, "Then you and I will find silver!"

Li Hongzaomu stood there in a stunned way and couldn't speak.

Cixi also said, "The northwest needs troops, and Shandong needs troops. How can the court have so much money to fight? Now the soldiers and horses in Shandong have fought almost completely with Yao Fan. Presumably, the group of rubber thieves are attacking the city and land at this time!

Shen Guifen, let me ask you, in addition to Mo Zushen and Li Peirong, there are more than 2,000 people in Shandong, isn't there also green camps in Yanzhou Town and Caozhou Town? There are more than 4,000 people in each of the two departments, adding up to 10,000. Can't we suppress bandits?

Shen Guifen, the minister of the Ministry of War, stood up and said, "The green battalions in Yanzhou Town and Caozhou Town are garrison battalions. They are usually stationed in various places and are not good at fighting in the city. If they are thousands of miles to help and are not familiar with the place, I am afraid to repeat the mistakes of Chen Huilong, the general general of Dengzhou, to attack.

Besides, most of the weapons in the Green Camp are old, and there are very few foreign guns, most of which are birds carrying guns, big knives and spears. Those rubber thieves all use new foreign guns and hundreds of cannons! More than 1,000 people can annihilate more than 4,000 Huai troops! How can such a bandit be attacked by the Green Camp?

The more Cixi listened, the more angry she became: "In this way, we can only rely on the Huai army?"

Shen Guifen bowed her head and arched her hand and said, "I have a word. I don't know whether to say it or not."

Cixi frowned and said, "When is it? Just say it directly!"

Shen Guifen said, "I have repeatedly read the memorials of Pingdu and Zhijin Ruchun. He said that after Yao Fan's rubber thieves entered the city, they did not kill the people, nor did they slaughter and surrender soldiers. After only took away the money and grain depot, they gave up the city they had finally captured and directly retreated to a corner of Jimo in Jiaozhou. Similarly, after the rubber thief killed Jiangshan County, he did not station the army, but just took away the money and grain and abandoned the city.

Isn't this suspicious? When the public heard about the rebellion, they were all angry and eager to send troops to kill it. Don't they want to know why Yao Fan rebelled?

Cixi asked doubtfully, "Then you can talk about it."

Shen Guifen pulled out a letter from her sleeve and said, "This is Jin Ruchun's secret letter. The military department pretended to be safe. The letter details what the thief Yao Fan said to Jin Ruchun in private."

The eunuch took the letter and handed it to Cixi. Cixi didn't read it and asked, "Since you have read the letter, let's talk about it."

Shen Guifen spit and said, "This letter has nothing to do with military affairs, but the words of Jin Ruchun's family. I originally wanted him to be a little acquaintance, and what he said was irrelevant, but the whole story was still worth talking about.

Jin Ruchun said that Yao Fan complained to him, saying that he was bitterly blackmailed by Lu Shan, the new general. After Lushan came to Jiaozhou, he insisted that Yao Fan's family was rich and asked him to take out 500,000 taels of silver to help him pay. Yao Fan refused to drink and plead bitterly. During the banquet, Lu Shan was angry, insulted Yao Fan's ancestors, and scolded him as a Chinese dog, about After drinking too much, Lu Shan ordered his own soldiers to tie up Yao Fan, saying that he would go to prison without taking out money to redeem him.

When Shen Guifen said this, she saw that although the Han officials in the Yangxin Hall all lowered their heads, their faces were rich, some full of anger; some were nervous, and some sighed silently.

Shen Guifen felt something was wrong, but it was not easy to stop, so she had to continue: "Yao Fan got the order of Shandong Dingjunmen to run Xiangyong. The leader of Xiangyong was his close family. His surname was He Shicheng. This man was reckless. Seeing Yao Fan being put in prison, he immediately took Xiang Yong to the prison and robbed the soldiers of the government office. After the conflict, he killed people. He Shicheng did nothing but robbed the prison and released Yao Fan, and arrested Lu Shan and put him in prison.

Yao Fan said to Jin Ruchun that Lushan is now in prison.

I think that since he said so, looking at what he did after abandoning the city immediately after attacking the city, I don't want to wait for the court to be safe.

After Shen Guifen said this, Cixi's face was already dark.

"Who is Lushan?"

"When the Empress Dowager returned, Lu Shen's sister married the cousin of the eldest brother of the Duke of Fuguo to fill in the house. His rank of general has just been active this year. In order to have such a shortness in activities, he is probably in short supply." Shen Guifen had already found out and reported it quickly.

Cixi said unhappily, "What's wrong with the Ministry of Public Affairs? What kind of confused things are sent abroad? Such a trouble-provoking slave, even if he saves his life in the future, he will ask the patriarch to deal with him again!"

Shen Guifen hurriedly said, "This is Yao Fan's private complaint to Jin Ruchun. One side of the words may not be true, but Weichen feels that since Yao Fan has some regrets, it is better to pretend to recruit him. Even if the security fails, at least it can make him continue to hesitate to stay in Jimo and not run around to make trouble. When the imperial army raised enough food and fodder and the soldiers and horses were trained, they would be caught off guard when the time came.

Man Shangshu Guangshou of the Ministry of War said, "The Empress Dowager is angry and can't be angry for an anti-thief. So Yao Fan has made such a big deal of trouble now. Do you still expect to recruit peace? I don't think so!"