"Sir, please go and tell the Crown Prince. There is chaos outside. Many officials who donated less than 2,000 taels have their homes confiscated. I heard that you only donated 1,000 taels, so I think a big disaster is coming..."

"

In the mansion of the newly appointed chief minister of the cabinet, Li Banghua, the housekeeper of the Li mansion is earnestly persuading his master to go to the crown prince to plead for mercy. He is really worried that the Li mansion will be raided.

Although the master is honest and has never been greedy, he never owes the servants and housekeepers of the Li family their wages. He treats them like his own family and they also respect him.

Li Banghua's face was as gloomy as water, and his heart was filled with anger and helplessness.

What made him angry was that those corrupt officials clearly had tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of taels of silver in their houses, but when the donation was made, they only spent a few hundred taels of silver to deal with the court. In the eyes of the crown prince, it was no different than seeking death!

What he was helpless about was that the crown prince was not used to those corrupt officials and raised a butcher knife against them, ransacked their homes and killed people. But where did the crown prince's actions put the laws of the Ming Dynasty and the precepts of his ancestors?

Killing him like this will not only bring disgrace to the crown prince, but will also have a huge impact on Emperor Chongzhen's reputation. In the future, history books will definitely write this father and son as tyrants!

As for the housekeeper's worry that his Li Banghua residence would be raided, Li Banghua was not worried at all. It was not that he thought the crown prince would not raid his Li family, but that he was poor and had nothing to raid.

Seeing the butler being verbose, Li Banghua waved his hand to ask him to leave:

"The Li family is very poor, there is no need to worry, just retreat!"

"master……"

The housekeeper had no choice but to bow out of the study, but soon he came back again:

"My master, something bad happened. An army surrounded Li Mansion..."

Li Banghua knew as soon as he heard that he belonged to the crown prince. How could other armies dare to surround the residence of the chief minister of his cabinet? Li Banghua said to the housekeeper:

"Go to the warehouse and get a thousand taels of silver, and go out with the master to take a look!"

No matter how much Li Banghua disliked the Crown Prince's misbehavior, he was given the title of Chief Assistant after all, and he still respected the Crown Prince in his heart.

Soon the butler arrived with a sad face and a cloth bag:

"Sir, the total in the warehouse is only a thousand and a few dozen taels of silver. After today's donation, you may have to borrow money to live for a while!"

"Don't worry, you won't starve to death. You can borrow some from the Crown Prince when the time comes, but you must go all out to donate!"

Li Banghua said and walked towards the gate of Li Mansion, and the housekeeper quickly followed him with a look of reluctance.

"Bang bang..."

The door of Li's Mansion was knocked rhythmically again, unlike other officials' mansions where they kicked in directly.

Li Banghua waved to the two gatekeepers:

"Open the door!"

"yes"

The two servants immediately opened the door of Li's Mansion and saw about a hundred soldiers standing neatly outside the door of Li's Mansion. Li Banghua, who had once been in charge of the Beijing camp, suddenly brightened up, showing the demeanor of a strong army!

Seeing the chief minister of the Ming Dynasty cabinet going out in person, Sun Yingyuan, the commander-in-chief of the Longteng Army, immediately stepped forward and said:

"Excuse me, Mr. Ge. I came here to collect the donation on the order of the Crown Prince!"

It is said that the crown prince's subordinates are like wolves and tigers, and they almost always break into the official residences. Li Banghua saw that this was not the case at all. Sun Yingyuan and his subordinates were very polite.

"General, thank you for your hard work. This is my donation of one thousand taels of silver!"

Li Banghua waved to the butler, who immediately handed the bag containing a thousand taels of white eyes to President Long Tengjun Qian.

After Yang Qiang took the bag and asked his subordinates to count it, he put half of the silver back into the bag and handed it to the butler. The butler was immediately confused. He didn't know what the military master meant.

When Sun Yingyuan saw that the chief assistant and his housekeeper were confused, he hurriedly raised his hands and said with a smile:

"The Crown Prince knows that Mr. Li is incorruptible, and he does not want the tragedy of an honest official starving to death. He ordered the emperor to collect half of it and donate five hundred taels. Mr. Li said goodbye..."

After saying this, Sun Yingyuan waved his hand, and Long Tengjun immediately rushed to the next house.

It wasn't until Sun Yingyuan and the others disappeared that Li Banghua and the housekeeper reacted.

Li Banghua was very excited. The crown prince's chaos was only aimed at corrupt officials, and he was as warm as spring to honest officials. He hurriedly bowed in the direction of Zijin City:

"Your Highness is wise!"

The butler smiled happily. Just when he was about to say a few words of flattery, Li Banghua raised his hand and lightly slapped the butler on the head and said with a smile:

"Who told you that the crown prince's subordinates ransacked homes and killed people everywhere? Don't talk nonsense in the future..."

Cheng Guoxiang, the Minister of Household Affairs, received the same treatment as Li Banghua. Watching Weiwuying leave, Cheng Guoxiang was equally confused...

Zhu Cixiang would never work for corrupt officials or officials who were not loyal to the Ming Dynasty.

But for those loyal and honest officials, the main thing is to win over and win people's hearts.

Don't say that so-and-so is an honest official and is not tempted by money, but it depends on who treats him.

The recognition from the crown prince and the emperor would completely make them cry with gratitude and die exhausted.

Li Banghua and Cheng Guoxiang are such people. Money can't buy them at all, but a small move by Zhu Cixiang can make their hearts surge.

…

The search for money took two days to complete, and more than four million taels were originally donated.

As a result, Zhu Cixiang finally got 12 million taels of silver and more than 20,000 taels of gold. In addition, there were many jewelry, jades, antique calligraphy and paintings, and more real estate and land.

The common people clapped their hands and applauded, while the corrupt officials and officials talked a lot, most of them scolding the crown prince Zhu Cihong, and the nobles hated Zhu Cixiang deeply.

This time, more than 130 corrupt officials and relatives were beheaded, and the homes of more than 210 corrupt officials and nobles were confiscated. Most of the money was dug out from the cellar. Zhu Cihong was even more indignant about this.

As a time traveler, Zhu Cixiang is very aware of the problem of lack of money in the Ming Dynasty. Most of the money is in the hands of the officials, gentry and merchants of the Xungui clan.

They hid huge amounts of wealth underground, and only a small amount of silver circulated on the market. This directly led to a shortage of silver or even no silver available.

As the helmsman of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor should have been rich in wealth, but he was kicked away by this group of people. The treasury was empty and ordinary people had no money to use, which was also one of the main reasons for the collapse of the country.

Zhu Cihong ordered his people to rearrange the account books and left five million taels of silver and all the properties, shops and land for himself. The properties would be distributed to meritorious soldiers in the future, and all the land would also be given away.

He took out one million taels of silver, twenty thousand taels of gold, and some jewelry, jade, antique calligraphy and paintings to enrich the emperor's internal funds. It is estimated that the emperor's internal funds income exceeded two million taels of silver.

This amount is nothing to ordinary emperors, but it means something different to Emperor Chongzhen, who was so poor that he could starve a mouse to death. He would probably wake up laughing even when he was sleeping.

The remaining more than six million taels of silver were handed over to the Ministry of Household Affairs, and some jewelry, jade, antique calligraphy and paintings were also handed over to Cheng Guoxiang for auction, and were estimated to fetch one million taels of silver, which were also used by the Ministry of Household Affairs for disaster relief.

After sorting out the account books, Zhu Cixi looked at several capable officers and asked:

"During the search of the house, did you discover that any soldiers were tempted to secretly hide gold and silver?"

Li Ruolian and Gao Wencai bowed and replied:

"Don't worry, Your Highness, this is not the first time Jinyiwei has ransacked a house. They don't dare to be greedy!"

Zhou Yuji:

"Reporting to Your Highness, the Mighty Battalion has just returned victoriously from the battlefield. Everyone has been promoted and rewarded, and no one has any selfish thoughts!"

Compared with the mighty camp of Jinyiwei, the newly formed Longteng Army still had some problems with military discipline. Sun Yingyuan's embarrassed face was a little feverish. He bowed and said:

"Your Highness is responsible for the Longteng Army. During the process of ransacking the house, more than 20 soldiers secretly took gold and silver. The amount was about five taels. The responsibility lies with the general. Please punish him!" I like the Ming Dynasty. In the prosperous era, I started to invite everyone from the prince to supervise the country.
Chapter completed!