The film and television world begins with the battle for the throne in Kowloon

Chapter 1063: Political Discussion in the Imperial Study (Part )
If the blue line is so important, what about the red line?

Cen Wenben quickly asked: "Your Majesty, what does this red line represent? Please explain it to us."

"Well, actually, if you understand the blue line, the red line won't be difficult."

Li Yan nodded and said slowly: "It represents the total expenditure of the court in this whole year. One blue and one red, one income and one expenditure. This can also most directly reflect the health status of the court."

The ministers hurriedly came to the map and looked at it intently. After a while, the hearts of several important ministers sank. They saw that unlike the blue arc that rose and fell, the red line rose from the lower left corner and remained high.

The red line was lower than the blue line during the Kaihuang period. During the Renshou period, it was almost the same. During the Daye period, as income declined, expenditures remained high. During the years of building the Eastern Capital and the Grand Canal, expenditures soared to more than 80 million guan.

During the three expeditions to Goguryeo, he even made it to the end with 90 to 10 million strings of cash.

After everyone had fully understood the meaning of this graph, Li Yan said, "As you can see, the revenue and expenditure of the court fully reflects the true state of a country. The health of the finances represents the degree of danger of the country."

Putting the picture aside, Li Yan and several important ministers returned to their seats.

When they came back, they were no longer relaxed and casual as before. They had realized that what Li Yan said was something they had not paid attention to before, or even did not understand at all.

Something that reflects the state of a country in a more concrete and objective way. Is this the way countries in the far west are governed?
Through some brief information from Li Yan, everyone already knew that the land in the West was also vast and there were many countries. Just like the Zhou Dynasty in the history of the Central Plains, it started with hundreds of forces and continued to merge and merge through war.

Now there are more than a dozen major forces, and wars break out every once in a while.

Seeing that everyone was lost in thought and silent, Li Yan said again: "Through these two indicators, we can clearly see that if a country's expenditure is less than its income, then the country is healthy."

"Even great prosperity, such as the Kaihuang Reign during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty."

"If expenditures and revenues are equal, the country is in a state of insecurity;"

"If expenditures exceed income, the country will be in danger. The larger the gap, the closer it is to extinction. In fact, this principle is not difficult to understand. A country is like a family. If a family's income is not enough to make ends meet, it will definitely not be able to survive."

The attendants Xiao Yu, Liu Bo and Ma Zhou were all very shocked at this moment. They had previously thought that the emperor, a young man, could never be as good as them, the veterans who had been immersed in the government for a lifetime.

Although Li Yan was the emperor, this position was given by the emperor emeritus, and the ability to govern the country had to be learned little by little by himself. According to their experience, if the new emperor wanted to truly control the country, he would have to work hard for ten or eight years.

But at this time, the emperor bypassed the familiar way and used another unique perspective to irrefutably explain the rise and fall of the dynasty. This inference, supported by data, was obviously more convincing, which made them dare not underestimate the emperor anymore.

Everyone looked at the illustration beside them with complicated expressions and thought to themselves, it seems that those barbarians are not completely useless.

At least this way of data analysis is refreshing.

Liu Bo glanced at everyone and finally asked Li Yan, "Your Majesty, do you mean that we in the Tang Dynasty can also use this method to judge the state of the dynasty in advance?"

"Yes, the Tang Dynasty has been established for nearly 30 years, Emperor Gaozu's Wude reign lasted for nine years, and Emperor Taishang Huang's Zhenguan reign lasted for nineteen years. I also made such a picture." After saying that, Li Yan waved his hand and asked Wang De to bring out another picture that was the same as the one just now.

Compared with the former Sui Dynasty, everyone was more concerned about the current Tang Dynasty. They stood up and gathered in front of the picture.

This picture is similar to the previous one, except that the time and line segments are different from the Sui Dynasty. Everyone stared at it intently.

After reading it, all the ministers frowned, looking so worried that they couldn't open their brows.

Originally, everyone thought that the Tang Dynasty was still in its heyday. But looking at the chart, the court's income increased from 20 million guan in the early years of Wude to 50 million guan in the 11th year of Zhenguan, and then entered a relatively stable period.

The growth was very slow. By the end of the 18th year of Zhenguan last year, the total revenue of the national treasury was 60 million strings of cash.

As you can imagine, the annual expenditure of the Tang Dynasty has always been high. Except for a brief decline from the fifth to the tenth year of Zhenguan, which was lower than the income, it has been on an upward trend since the eleventh year of Zhenguan.

Last year, the national treasury revenue was 60 million guan, but the expenditure reached 80 million guan, and the two lines have been getting further and further apart.

After everyone sat down again, their mood had become very heavy.

"Ma Zhou, you know how to read this chart. I wonder if I have made any mistakes in these data?" "Your Majesty, I have been in the Secretariat for many years. I know the expenditures during the Zhenguan period very well. I have also looked up information about the Wude period. Although it is not so accurate, it is generally correct." Ma Zhou quickly stood up and replied.

Changsun Wuji and Xiao Yu were both silent. They had lived through that period and naturally knew these data well.

Li Yan nodded and said in a serious tone: "You are all the most important officials of the Tang Dynasty. I think you all know the income and expenditure data. If we follow the diagram of the former Sui Dynasty, what stage is the Tang Dynasty in now?"

After this question was asked, the ministers no longer had the smugness they had before, and instead lowered their heads in frustration.

Seeing that everyone's high spirits were gone, Li Yan bent two fingers, knocked on the imperial desk without hesitation, and said seriously: "If my judgment is correct, the current Tang Dynasty should be similar to the fourth and fifth years of Emperor Yang of Sui's Daye."

"That is to say, our Tang Dynasty has passed its heyday and is on the decline."

"Of course, if I were to make trouble like Yang Guang did, the Tang Dynasty would also repeat the old path of the Sui Dynasty. Even if I were to be a conservative ruler, not to fight wars or build major projects, then this process of decline would probably continue."

"It will become slow. It may take fifty years or even a hundred years. In the end, the process will still repeat itself, right?"

Li Yan's words made several people sweat profusely, and they wanted to refute.

If Li Yan had said this before, they could have naturally refuted it with references to classics. After all, who knows what will happen in the future? However, Li Yan used this special method to analyze the rise and fall of the former Sui Dynasty using the revenue and expenditure of the national treasury.

They found themselves speechless in the face of such ironclad facts. Because the data could not be faked, and the graph was also referenced by the previous Sui Dynasty, they could not find a reason to overturn it.

Zhang Sun Wuji had no choice but to bite the bullet and said, "Your Majesty, although we also hope that the Tang Dynasty can last forever, the rise and fall, honor and disgrace are the laws of historical development, just like the birth, aging, illness and death of a person, no one can control it."

"Master Changsun is right. However, some people die in their teens, while others live to their eighties or nineties. How can they be the same?"

Li Yan was very dissatisfied with Zhangsun Wuji's perfunctory response and said flatly: "The Sui Dynasty lasted for 38 years, and the Qin Dynasty only lasted for 14 years. But the two Han dynasties combined lasted for 400 years, and the Zhou Dynasty before that lasted for 800 years."

"There is no country that will never perish, and no one who will never die."

"But there is a huge difference between the length and the shortness. Can we just sit there and wait without doing anything to prolong the life of the dynasty?"

Xiao Yu hesitated and said, "Your Majesty, we will naturally do our best to change the status quo. However, the current situation cannot withstand drastic changes. We can only make some adjustments to the details, such as increasing revenue and reducing expenditure."

“Although the situation can be improved to some extent, it is unlikely to bring about a radical change.”

Cen Wenben was very smart and understood that the emperor must have some ideas behind this move, so he asked modestly, "What Lord Xiao said is very true. It is also the truth. According to our current situation, it is roughly like this."

"However, Your Majesty has traveled to the Far West and has a broad vision that is beyond our reach."

"Just this one picture that can explain the true state of the dynasty is enough to make us admire it. I wonder if the emperor has any other way to solve these problems. How does the dynasty in the far west govern the world?"

As soon as Cen Wenben finished speaking, Changsun Wuji, Liu Bo, Ma Zhou and others were silent.

They naturally guessed that the emperor must have had some ulterior motive for making such a move. Although they were reluctant, the fact was that the little emperor's views and perspectives on things were beyond their knowledge and cognition.

They vaguely felt that this was a completely new perspective.

In this regard, they could only passively accept it, but could not question it, because they did not understand it at all. Facing this kind of dimensionality reduction attack, their previous preparations were useless. If they made an unreasonable and tough rebuttal, they would offend the emperor.

On the other hand, there was also curiosity in their eyes. Could it be that the emperor really had a way to learn from others and solve the problem that they were all helpless to solve?
Before, when Li Shimin and Fang Xuanling faced these problems, they could only focus on the aristocratic families. By solving these stubborn problems, they could release population and financial resources, alleviate governance pressure and social conflicts, so everyone was afraid that Li Yan would follow suit.

Everyone could imagine that Li Shimin would definitely pass on some advice before he died.

These tactics are definitely about how to stabilize the situation and then fight against the aristocratic families. This is almost the same routine for hundreds of years. Even if it doesn't need to be said, everyone understands it. Apart from this, what new tricks can there be?
They didn't expect that the emperor actually came up with something new today.

(End of this chapter)