Chapter 558 Bathing is useless
Zhao Yulin went back home feeling dizzy from being so busy. Zhidi told him that sister Yangjin was pregnant. He was stunned for a moment and then ran to Yangjin's room.
When he entered the room, he saw the woman half lying on the bed and dozing. He walked over carefully and called softly: "Your Majesty, I'm here to help you bathe."
Yangjin smiled happily and said that helping her take a bath was fake, but the real intention was to strip her clothes off.
It’s no use, I’m pregnant.
Zhao Yulin helped the woman out of bed and went out to have tea under the flower gallery. The warm sunshine of late spring felt a biting on her face.
Yangjin asked him why he came back so early.
Aren’t you here with Lord Cao and Lord Meng to welcome Miao Gui? Why aren’t you enjoying yourself at all?
Zhao Yulin almost fainted.
The woman sat very steadily on the chair, using all the tricks of later times to interrogate people like a prosecutor trying a case.
In order to cheer the woman up, he cooperated like a little wife.
After three rounds of question and answer, Yangjin couldn't stand it anymore and was laughing so hard that she fell backwards.
Shunzhidi saw them having fun and said with a smile, "Brother, you are so happy just because sister Yangjin is pregnant. We are having a double happiness, sister Chenchen is also pregnant."
Zhao Yulin was stunned.
Mom, this is awesome, two babies coming at once?
Just as he was in a daze, Chen Chen proudly performed the role of a pregnant mother walking towards him.
The woman went up to him and said proudly: Hard work pays off, I am really pregnant this time. After saying that, she lowered her head and slapped him on the face, shouting: Brother, you have done a great job, I will reward you with a reward...
In the northern desert, the Guiyou Khan of the grassland empire was delighted after receiving the ransom from the New Song Dynasty, and the princes and nobles were overjoyed when they saw the silver-glittering New Song coins.
Your friend immediately picked up a knife and divided the cake. He first rewarded his eldest son Hecha with 300,000 silver coins. His sons were jealous and each rushed to get the reward.
When it was my turn to entertain the troops, I got very few silver coins.
When Brother Da Meng arrived at the royal court after a long journey, Guiyou Khan rewarded him with a bowl of mare's milk tea. After he drank it, he spread his hands and blamed his brother for being late and saying that there was not much silver left, so he only gave him 30,000 silver coins.
Da Meng was angry but couldn't express it, so he just put it on the account for the time being.
This is the effect Zhao Yulin wants.
It seems that the New Song Kingdom paid a ransom of 1.2 million, but because silver coins were expensive, the royal court kept them for its own people and paid out less than half. And these princes and generals were just as greedy and reluctant to use silver coins to reward the soldiers, so naturally they all reduced the reward by half.
As the deductions go down layer by layer, the amount that actually reaches the hands of the lowest-level military officers is very small, and its effectiveness is naturally greatly reduced.
When your friend saw that the troops brought by Mengge were of mixed quality and very lazy, they still looked like a team, he kept Mengge and wanted him to accompany him as the commander-in-chief of the Western Expedition.
This made Meng Ge secretly surprised, as he thought he had picked up an opportunity to get something for free.
The major camps on the grassland quickly became busy, and every household was collecting supplies as much as possible in preparation for departure.
Brother Da Meng wrote a letter and sent it to Hubili in Hebei, who was also very happy.
Hubili was not happy because Mengge had the opportunity to kill his friend, but because Mengge was going to join the army on the Western Expedition. He was happy because he was no longer bound by Mengge.
However, despite the joy, the troubles ahead remained the same.
This time, in order to prepare a full force for Brother Da Meng, he drew out 30,000 of the most powerful Shi family soldiers in Hebei, and also hid nearly a thousand martial artists from Hebei that he had secretly gathered.
In other words, if something happens in Hebei, it would be a bit difficult for the Haner Army's commander Shi Tianze to take up the lead.
This is not the most important thing. The most crucial issue is that the strength of the Mongolian army left behind in the Central Plains is no longer enough to crush the Song army.
If New Song were to launch an attack, he would become the weakling defending party.
In the past, when Da Mengge was in power, he emphasized that every inch of land must be fought for and must be defended. Hubili knew the combat effectiveness of his subordinates and had to make adjustments.
He issued military orders without hesitation, withdrawing from the cities that were difficult to defend and concentrating forces on defending the large cities with good economic conditions and fast troop transport speeds.
The Mongolian army in Hebei took quick action.
In Jinguan City of Chengdu, King Zhao Feiyan was presiding over a meeting of the Central Council.
Yangjin first reported the situation: the Ministry of Personnel believed that Hu Lan had effectively presided over the rural reforms in Huaxi and planned to promote him to Qiongzhou as the acting magistrate of Huojing County.
Fan Zhong immediately said that Mrs. Hulan was extremely intelligent and the reforms in Huaxi Village were very effective. It was a waste of her talent to be a county magistrate and she should be kept in Jinguan City and given important positions.
The gentlemen all praised him.
Zhao Yulin explained: Huaxi needed to accommodate Mr. Zhao and Grandma Xie who had returned from Mobei. He felt it was inappropriate to let Hulan stay there to work. He had to bring up the issue of his woman and thought it would be more appropriate to send her to Qiongzhou to work at a certain distance.
Du Fan thought that Qiongzhou was hundreds of miles away from here, and Huojing’s popularity could not be as high as that of Chengdu, so it wouldn’t work.
Yu Jie immediately took over and proposed: transfer the county magistrate of Wenjiang to the Ministry of Water Resources to be the deputy envoy of the Water Conservancy Bureau. The previous deputy envoy resigned, so this person is a good choice to fill the position.
This will make room for Hu Lan.
Yangjin nodded, thinking that since Hulan was still breastfeeding her baby, it would be a good choice for her to work in Wenjiang, so the decision was made.
Zhao Yulin said: From now on, let Mrs. Qian be in charge of the aftermath of Huaxi, and after all the demonstrations are completed, it will be handed over to the village for self-management.
Then, Miao Gui reported the military situation.
Everyone was shocked to see that the number of the Shenwei Army continued to increase, and the military pay, military supplies and resettlement expenses of the soldiers were rising like a rocket.
Fan Zhong explained to the gentlemen: In recent years, we have been fighting against the grassland empire, and the military expenditure is huge. Fortunately, thanks to the careful management of Minister Ma Ling, the financial resources of our new Song Dynasty can still hold on. If it were the previous dynasty, I am afraid that they would have started printing money long ago.
The gentlemen couldn't help laughing when they heard it.
Zhao Feiyan asked with a smile: "You all look happy. This is the military expenditure approved by Minister Miao." When she saw the gentlemen nod, Geng said to Miao Gui: "It's approved. The warriors of our Shenwei Army are fighting bravely and bravely. We support the Ministry of War no matter how much it spends."
The gentlemen shook their heads and nodded in approval.
It was Ma Linger's turn to report the situation. After introducing the railway construction strategy jointly drafted by the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Water Resources, she believed that there were still many uncertainties in the current war in the north and that the country's financial resources could not be used up. If the war in the front line required expenditure and we could not take it out, it would seriously affect the progress of the war.
Ma Ling's words were very subtle, but everyone understood the logic.
There is indeed no spare money to invest in building railways at the moment.
However, Zhao Yulin thought of a trick used by the Ministry of Finance in later generations, which was to issue bonds and government bonds.
The country has no money, but the people have money, like the jade and jewelry merchants Qu family, his father-in-law Chen Zhongshun and other businessmen and wealthy families have money.
He privately suggested to Ma Ling: By raising funds through the issuance of railway bonds by the Transportation Department, we can mobilize the dead money of those wealthy families in the bank to build railways. We only need to pay a little interest to make the money active.
Ma Ling'er was born to be a businessman, and Zhao Yulin understood it immediately. At this time, she was already talking and selling her railway construction bonds to the public.
The railway bonds designed by the Transportation Department have one-year, three-year and five-year terms, which can be purchased by banks or subscribed by individuals. Each issue is 20 million guan, and the starting point for subscription is 5,000 guan.
Zhao Yulin explained why the subscription threshold is so high. This is a long-term investment bond of the state, and people with a certain financial strength are needed to buy it. After the transaction, it cannot be cashed out within the contract period. If someone is in a hurry to spend money, it will be difficult to deal with it.
The Central Finance Bureau thought this was a good idea. The railway was short of money? We could raise funds or borrow from banks. If we had to spend money on the war, we couldn't borrow from banks. We had to spend it.
People began to discuss railway bonds.
Fan Zhong asked Ma Ling with some concern: In the previous dynasty, the government issued money notes, which meant that the government borrowed money from the people, and the emperor issued an edict to collect it back when it was due. As a result, because the treasury was empty for a long time, the government's promises and the emperor's edicts became empty words. Are the people willing to do this?
Ma Ling said: The people will certainly have doubts, so we need the Ministry of Rites' newspaper to do a good job of publicity. We must not only issue railway bonds to build roads, but also mobilize the people to donate every penny to support the construction of railways.
She believes that the country will have many places to spend money in the future, and issuing three, five or even ten-year medium- and long-term bonds is a reliable way to raise funds in a stable manner. This will avoid the need to print money and will not have a major impact on the court's economy.
Zhao Yulin told everyone: Building bridges and roads is a great thing to do to accumulate virtue. The Ministry of Rites has written a clear and thorough account of the fundraising, and there must be many benevolent people willing to lend a hand and express their kindness. We can definitely succeed if we accumulate little by little.
The country needs to advocate and encourage the people to work together to accomplish great things.
After discussing it again and again, Ma Ling saw that many people still had doubts, so he reduced the original plan to raise 30 million strings of cash by half, and finally the plan was unanimously passed.
Zhao Feiyan explained to the gentlemen: In fact, considering the current financial resources, the Ministry of Transportation can come up with the money to build the railway.
However, we must plan ahead and explore ways to raise funds for road construction. The country has more and more things to do, and if we rely entirely on the Ministry of Transport for expenditures, the treasury will eventually run dry.
Furthermore, we must give up the idea of indiscriminately issuing paper money. Why is the currency of the New Song Dynasty, even a piece of paper money, a popular coin that people all over the world are vying to put in their pockets?
It is because our New Song Dynasty has kept its word and not issued paper money indiscriminately that the common people treasure the paper money like silver coins and use it all over the world.
She assured the officials that she would never order the excessive issuance of coins during her term of office.
Not only that, the Transportation Department will also send special envoys to various prefectures and counties to supervise the operation of banks, resolutely stop localities from using bank funds for construction regardless of financial resources, and never allow local officials to interfere with the local economy.
