Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

Chapter 376 You have to spend it sparingly. This amount has been checked many times by the Ministry of Revenue. In fact, all the cabinet ministers, including Emperor Chongzhen, have known about it for a long time.

But once such a huge amount was read out in front of everyone, it still made people present look sideways.

Zhang Shikang was the only one present who did not know the exact amount.

He only knew that he could seize a lot of silver, but he had no idea how much exactly.

But he doesn't like money and is not interested in money.

So the only guy who didn't know about it didn't react at all.

"Among the properties of the criminal officials, more than 18,000 mansions were confiscated, and from these mansions, 1,460 carts of jewels, 3,286 carts of calligraphy and paintings, and more than 6,000 carts of antique jades were seized.

If estimated based on market prices, excluding the mansion, but only counting jewelry, jade, calligraphy and paintings and antiques, it would be worth more than 40 million taels of silver.

This is just the Ministry of Revenue’s estimate, and the actual sale is a big problem.”

As for this big problem, Hai Zhongqi didn't say it, but in fact most people understood that almost all the rich people had been killed.

The remaining rich people may not dare to buy it. The court’s actions in the past two years have all been weird.

Anyone who understands can see that wealth should not be shown off. The first to suffer were the Shanxi merchants, followed by the Donglin Party bureaucratic group. These are the richest guys.

The Taicang warehouse certainly could not hold tens of thousands of cartloads of valuables, so the Ministry of Revenue had no choice but to report to the emperor and requisition vacant mansions in the capital and provincial governors' seats, and store all the valuables in these mansions.

"Just keep those things for now. Rich people will always have them. If you don't have them now, you will have them in the future. It's a big loss to sell them now." Zhang Shikang expressed his opinion.

The process of breaking old rules and establishing new ones is bound to be extremely destructive.

But economic laws tell him that wealth will always concentrate on the upper class. Once the new rules are implemented for a long time, a new class of wealthy people will naturally form.

This behavior is not subject to human will. In the past, it was the Donglin Party bureaucratic group. Zhang Shikang later planned to vigorously develop commerce and maritime trade. Who knows, the wealthy class at that time would become those businessmen.

But no matter who it becomes, selling the property of those corrupt officials now will result in a loss.

Emperor Chongzhen nodded and agreed to Zhang Shikang's proposal. Hai Zhongqi said:

“During the process of tax and land reform, a large number of gentry and landlords refused to hand over their land and were investigated by the factory guards.

The confiscated items included 48.37 million taels of silver, more than 40,000 houses, and more than 3,000 carts of jewelry, jade, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, with an estimated value of more than 16 million taels.

The above-mentioned seizure proceeds do not include Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and the three southwestern provinces, and it is estimated that it will take another four months to summarize them.

Therefore, the actual income this year totaled more than 224,460,000 taels of silver.

This item does not include the confiscated mansions and valuables, nor does it include the commercial taxes that were not collected in Jiangnan.

Excluding a series of expenses this year, Taicang currently has a total of more than 184.86 million taels of silver in cash.

The expenditures included the total expenditures of various government offices, which amounted to more than 18 million taels, and the expenditures of the Marquis of Guanjun, which amounted to more than 22 million taels.

Hai Zhongqi finally gave a general account of the current financial situation.

Emperor Chongzhen seemed to still be immersed in the huge number, and not only him, but other cabinet ministers were also in the same mood.

Among these people, except for Hai Zhongqi, the Minister of Revenue, the others only knew roughly that this year's annual revenue was very high, but they only knew specifically that there was more than 100 million taels of silver confiscated from corrupt Donglin officials, and they were not very clear about other statistics.

More than 200 million taels of silver! This does not include the more than 10,000 cars and valuables, and tens of thousands of luxury houses, not to mention the uncollected commercial taxes in Jiangnan. In addition, there are still several provinces that have not been confiscated.

This is almost equivalent to the annual revenue of the Ming Dynasty in the past decade.

The most important thing is that this money is one-time, cash after deducting all costs.

If the imperial court followed its previous revenue and expenditure situation, it would probably take Taicang decades to accumulate so much silver.

Everyone present was breathing heavily.

As the officials of various departments had no objections, this year's revenue and expenditure situation was quickly approved.

However, Li Banghua, Hai Zhongqi and others were still upset about Zhang Shikang's private spending of 22 million taels of silver, believing that this was not in compliance with the court's regulations.

But Emperor Chongzhen didn't care, so they could only express their dissatisfaction.

It was already past noon at this time. Emperor Chongzhen was happy, and immediately ordered the Shangshenjian to prepare a sumptuous lunch and invited all the cabinet ministers to dine together.

In fact, this was the first time that Emperor Chongzhen had given a meal to the new cabinet since its formation, and several cabinet ministers were very reserved.

Of course, Zhang Shikang was the happiest person while eating. The old men around him still followed the rules of not talking while eating or sleeping. Whenever Zhang Shikang found something delicious, he would ask the people around him to share it with him.

This caused Hai Zhongqi and others to frown. It was not right to respond, nor was it right not to respond.

Most of these people were very opposed to the current emperor handing over all military power to Zhang Shikang alone. Instead, they were very determined and submitted memorials almost every month, hoping that Emperor Chongzhen would take back the military power.

But their memorials always fell on deaf ears. Emperor Chongzhen insisted on turning a blind eye and would never submit such memorials, so there was nothing they could do.

But the position remains unchanged.

Zhang Shikang actually knew why these people always disliked him, because they were powerful officials.

He didn't care and was happy with it. His father once told him that the best way for a powerful official to survive is to be an isolated official. To put it bluntly, it means not having close relationships with other court officials.

Although Zhang Shikang thought it made sense, he did so because he was too lazy to build relationships with court officials.

"It's boring to have a meal without talking.

The elders have been reporting for the whole morning, so why not let me report on the battle situation this year as well, hehe." Zhang Shikang said while eating.

Seeing that no one else said anything and only Emperor Chongzhen was waiting for him to speak with great interest, Zhang Shikang said again:

“This expedition lasted ten months, and I fought more than twenty battles, both large and small, killing more than 144,000 rebels and capturing more than 108,000 garrison soldiers.

Of course, Benhou also killed many corrupt officials and gentry from the Donglin Party, in addition to the dozens of bandit leaders who were captured.

Nearly 100,000 people were killed, including those petty and medium-sized corrupt officials who held low-ranking officials, as well as landlords and gentry who had committed crimes.

The imperial sword given by your majesty is even blunt-edged!" Zhang Shikang stressed.

In order to improve efficiency, during this plowing process, any corruption discovered was basically executed on the spot.

The rolled blade of Zhang Shikang's imperial sword had absolutely nothing to do with killing people, as he was not the one who killed people.

The blade of the Imperial Sword was bent simply because he insisted on using the Imperial Sword to chop wood when he was amusing a girl in Nanjing.

"So, my lords, that silver was not easy to come by, it was all earned by me fighting with my sword and gun.

You have to be more frugal with next year's budget!"

Zhang Shikang said seriously.

According to the regulations, the focus of the afternoon court meeting will be the court's expenditure budget for next year.

……