In my previous life, I killed my whole family. In my next life, I killed the royal family.

Time passed quickly, and several days had passed, but the Ministry of Revenue still had not paid out the money to pay the salaries. Even the Imperial Guards, who were always regarded as the elite, began to ask for money.

On the morning of August 26, after the morning court session ended, the officials slowly walked out of the palace. They noticed that Minister Lu was walking in front of them with a frustrated look on his face, and they couldn't help but feel dissatisfied.

"If you can't even handle such a small matter, how can you be the Minister of Revenue?" someone whispered.

This sounds a bit unreasonable. One million taels of silver is not a small matter, but in fact there is no problem at all.

Because the Minister of Revenue was in charge of the taxes and commerce of the whole country, and those who could hold this position were highly valued by the emperor. It was not a problem for him to allocate one million taels of silver for emergency use, or even more.

But Lu Shangshu had a bad reputation. He favored his wife and killed his concubines, and was treacherous and unfaithful. Civil officials secretly despised him and kept their distance from him. Merchants were wary of him and always handled official business impartially, fearing that he would get hold of any handle and end up losing all their wealth.

These days, Minister Lu has been borrowing money everywhere. He asked Xiao Ding, a big tea merchant in the capital, "If you can lend me one million taels of silver to tide over this difficult month, I will let you make the tribute tea next year."

Xiao Ding looked embarrassed, "I really want to get the Gongcha deal, but I really can't afford one million taels of silver."

Minister Lu also went to several silver note shops and asked, "I want to borrow some silver."

The shopkeeper declined, "Our boss is not in the capital, so we dare not lend you more money, and we don't have any. The most I can lend you is 10,000 taels of silver."

Minister Lu approached several merchants and got the answer, "There is no silver in the capital, so we used it to purchase goods."

The emperor also stood by and watched. Minister Lu had no other options but to be demoted.

The Ministry of Revenue was already crowded with soldiers who came to ask for silver. "If we don't get the silver this month, how can our family live?" a general shouted.

Most of these soldiers had not received much education, but they understood one thing: the law does not punish the masses. Moreover, they believed that they had a good reason and that after working hard for a month, shouldn't they get the due compensation?

Officials will not go hungry if they don't have their salary for a month.

Without that month's salary, the soldiers and the runners doing rough work would go hungry along with their entire families.

The soldiers and runners surrounded Minister Lu and shouted, "We must get our monthly salary today! My old mother is sick and needs medicine."

"I have five children at home who need to eat. If I don't get the monthly salary, they will starve!"

Faced with the chaotic situation, Lu Shangshu felt helpless. He originally thought that he could solve the problem with his intelligence, but now he was in trouble.

……

Lu Fengyun stood in the corridor of the Ministry of Household Affairs with his hands behind his back, watching the scene quietly. He was waiting for Qi Ze to speak.

"He will definitely ask to borrow money today." Lu Fengyun was very confident.

Suddenly, a team of horse-drawn carriages drove over, driven by several men dressed as Westerners.

A dark-skinned man spoke loudly, "Move aside, we are here to deliver money to Minister Qi."

"Please invite Minister Qi."

Qi Ze walked out of the crowd and said loudly, "I am the official here. May I ask who sent the silver?"

The man said, "We are friends with your second uncle, and we got a message from him. We would like to lend you 100,000 gold at high interest. Please count it."

He jumped off the carriage, handed over the booklet with both hands, and opened the box in front of everyone, "All that was delivered was gold bars."

Everyone present cheered, "There's money to pay salaries now."

"Minister Qi, Minister Qi..." The soldiers immediately changed their address.

"Don't be anxious, let's count the gold bars first and then distribute the salaries." Qi Ze said loudly.

"Okay, Minister Qi." The soldiers listened to the advice and stood aside.

Qi Ze commanded the Westerners to drive the carriage into the yard and count the gold bars in front of the basement.

A Westerner handed Qi Ze a note and whispered, "This is where you will return the silver later."

Qi Ze calmly held the note in his hand, turned around and put it in his pocket for safekeeping.

Minister Lu looked at Qi Ze with envy and jealousy, then turned around and left in shame.

Fortunately, Qi Ze helped him out of his predicament, otherwise, Minister Lu would have been demoted at best and might have been convicted.

Minister Lu couldn't understand: "Why doesn't the emperor help me at this time when he values ​​me so much?"

In this matter, only Prime Minister Pei guessed the emperor's thoughts when the emperor ignored Minister Lu.

After becoming the top scholar in the imperial examination, Minister Lu was spotted by the Lu family and became their son-in-law.

The emperor valued Minister Lu and promoted him to Minister of Revenue in just a few years. In fact, he wanted Minister Lu to use the Lu family to take over all of the Lu family's business, wealth, and power.

But for the sake of face and dignity, Minister Lu killed his wife Lu as soon as he took the position of Minister, ruining the emperor's plan. It was good enough that the emperor didn't find an excuse to kill him, so why would he help Minister Lu when he was desperate?

Therefore, as long as Qi Ze can raise the money, the position of Shangshu will definitely be his.

Prime Minister Pei deliberately brought it up during the morning court session, and the emperor said in person: "Officials in the Ministry of Revenue, whoever can come up with one million taels of silver to pay out monthly wages will be the Minister of State."

The emperor cannot go back on his word.

On that day, under the auspices of Qi Ze, the Ministry of Revenue issued the monthly silver.

On the same day, the Secretariat issued an order to promote Qi Ze to be the Minister of Revenue, and the former Minister Lu was transferred to the Ministry of Rites as the Vice Minister.

Lu Fengyun was very disappointed about this. He actually miscalculated, which was a big blow to his self-confidence.

"Who is helping Qi Ze?" Lu Fengyun thought.

He decided to use the power of the Lu family to find out who helped Qi Ze.

Yilan Courtyard of Qi Mansion

Wu Yi came back from outside and walked into the study to report to Qi Wan: "Master, the matter has been settled."

She quietly told Qi Wan the whole story: "I went to Ghost Valley to call a few brothers and asked them to pretend to be people from the Western Regions. Then, we went to the cave you designated and took away the boxes. We went directly to the capital and delivered them to the Ministry of Revenue."

"Then I told everyone what you said."

"They all thought these were gold bars borrowed at high interest rates by people from the Western Regions."

After hearing this, Qi Wan nodded with satisfaction, clapped her hands and praised, "You did a great job!"

In fact, it was Qi Wan who arranged to send gold to Qi Ze as an aid.

She used her ability to put ten thousand gold into the cave in the West Mountain where the Third Prince had been hiding.

Wu Yize went to call his companions, drove the carriage through the sparsely populated area, and loaded the gold bars onto the carriage without anyone noticing.

Now that his brother has been successfully promoted to Shangshu, Qi Wan is in a good mood.

Originally she was going to continue with her plan to embezzle tax silver, but now she has changed her mind.

She secretly made a decision: "For the sake of my brother's official position, I will not take away the tax silver for the time being."

Qi Wan asked quietly, "Is your master okay?"

"He's fine." Wu Yi hesitated for a moment and said nothing more.

She heard from her brothers that the master was depressed every day and only played sad songs on the piano.

Qi Wan asked again: "Does he know that the Dog Emperor is hunting him down in the name of a bandit?"

"I know that too."

"The emperor sent Zuo Xing to search the mountain. Will he be found?" Qi Wan asked worriedly.

"No." Wu Yi saw Qi Wan's worry and whispered, "There is a tunnel, don't worry."

"That's good." Qi Wan finally breathed a sigh of relief.