Chapter 1599: Forced to abdicate, happy pulse, prince
Strengthening the embankments is a task that is done almost every winter.

At this time, the Minister of Revenue brought it up again openly, indicating that there was something fishy going on.

Su Mingzhe didn't want to pay attention to him.

But the Minister of Revenue continued to play:
"Your Majesty, in fact, not only are the granaries in various places full, but the copper and silver reserves in the imperial treasury are also insufficient..."

During the Early Song Dynasty, commerce developed unprecedentedly, which led to a shortage of copper and silver reserves.

The exchange rate between copper coins and silver was stipulated in the early Song Dynasty that one string of copper coins (one thousand copper coins) was exchanged for one tael of silver.

In fact, in most places, two strings of coins, or even three strings of coins, could be exchanged for one tael of silver.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, the exchange rate was even more exaggerated. In some places, ten strings of copper coins could only be exchanged for one tael of silver.

After Su Mingzhe ascended the throne, in order to solve this problem, he specially reformed the system. The copper coins and silver ingots used by the people were changed into copper dollars and silver dollars, and he also forcibly set an exchange rate. This solved the urgent problem.

Now that the Minister of Revenue mentioned this matter at the grand court meeting, Su Mingzhe glanced at Prime Minister Liu Bingzhong.

Liu Bingzhong had no choice but to walk out of the queue, bowed and endorsed the Minister of Revenue:

"Your Majesty, what the Minister of State said is true!"

Su Mingzhe was stunned when he heard this. He didn't expect that Liu Bingzhong, the bald donkey, didn't understand what he meant.

As the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Su Mingzhe naturally knew that what the Minister of Revenue said was true!

The problem is that this issue was not discussed at the grand court meeting.

After a brief contemplation, Su Mingzhe became calm, closed his eyes and meditated, waiting for new situations to emerge.

Sure enough, not long after, the Minister of Works, the Minister of Rites, and the Minister of Personnel all submitted memorials to the emperor, raising various issues.

All of these problems are problems that have existed for many years and cannot be solved overnight.

Faced with this memorial that seemed like an attempt to force the emperor to abdicate, Su Mingzhe still chose to remain silent and wait for someone with ulterior motives to come out.

……

Guo Xiang has gradually gotten used to the days of being the 'Concubine Chen'.

Although Su Mingzhe had some affection for Guo Xiang, he did not favor her alone.

In a month, I would only stay in Qingque Palace for seven or eight days at most.

Although she was often bullied by Su Mingzhe, Guo Xiang's smooth belly remained motionless.

On the contrary, Guo Fu was diagnosed with pregnancy by the imperial physician when her son just turned one year old.

Seeing her sister's happy expression, Guo Xiang's little head was full of question marks:
"Sister, giving birth is so dangerous and painful, why are you so happy to be pregnant and have a baby?"

"When you get pregnant and give birth to a child, you will understand."

Guo Fu didn't know what to say, so she could only use some incomplete words to fool her sister.

The two sisters were chatting when Su Mingzhe strode in.

"Sister, my brother-in-law is here!"

Because Guo Xiang was ashamed of Su Mingzhe's forceful occupation of her, she had always refused to greet Su Mingzhe in an intimate tone like her sister did. Instead, she used the obviously ambiguous title of "brother-in-law".

Little did she understand that the more she did this, the more she would arouse men's interest.

"Fuer, Xianger, you haven't slept yet? It's a good time for you to have lunch with me!"

Su Mingzhe spent the whole morning with a group of ministers, but they eventually parted on bad terms.

Afterwards, Liu Bingzhong and several ministers asked for a meeting, but Su Mingzhe simply refused on the grounds that he was taking a lunch break.

Ah!
In recent years, Su Mingzhe has indeed been more lenient towards ministers and has never punished them.

However, this all has a prerequisite, that is, the ministers have not violated any taboos or made any serious mistakes.

Now these people dared to unite and try to force Su Mingzhe to submit:
"Do you really think I'm the clay emperor of the Song Dynasty?"

……

Su Mingzhe smiled, but Guo Fu and Guo Xiang could both sense that the man was angry.

The two sisters looked at each other, then got up from the bed tacitly, accompanied the man to the living room and sat down, waiting for lunch.

Soon, Su Qingying, Su Qingtong, and Su Qingque also came over. After lunch, the three little guys were taken to take a nap by their nanny.

Su Mingzhe looked at the sisters Guo Fu and Guo Xiang, hugged one of them with each hand, and were about to sleep together in the same bed.

Guo Xiang quickly stopped the man:

"Brother-in-law, my sister is not feeling well..."

"Feeling unwell? What's wrong with Fu'er?"

Su Mingzhe sniffed, but he didn't smell any blood.

Guo Xiang saw that Su Mingzhe had misunderstood, so she could only speak frankly:
"The imperial physician came to check my sister's pulse this morning and said she's pregnant again!"

"Are you pregnant again?"

Su Mingzhe's eyes softened as he looked at Guo Fu. His hands, which were kneading the woman's shoulders, also became cautious:
"You're pregnant, why didn't you tell me? I just asked you to drink with me..."

"It's just a few drinks, nothing serious."

Guo Fu had already given birth to three children for men, so she had some understanding of the taboos during pregnancy. She was not as cautious as she was when she was pregnant with her first child.

Because Guo Fu was pregnant again, Su Mingzhe's original plan to bully his sisters could not be carried out.

After sleeping with the two sisters for a night, Su Mingzhe returned to the imperial study at the end of the afternoon.

Liu Bingzhong, the bald donkey, had a bowl of golden fried rice from the imperial kitchen at noon, and then came here to wait. When he saw Su Mingzhe coming, he hurried forward to apologize.

"Let's talk inside!"

Su Mingzhe has not experienced much and has long passed the stage of being swift and decisive.

The ministers in the court wanted to compete with him in patience, but they chose the wrong person.

After entering the imperial study, Liu Bingzhong confessed his crime again:
"I am guilty..."

"What crime has the Prime Minister committed?"

Su Mingzhe sat on the dragon chair, took a sip of tea, spit out a tea leaf, and began to miss the purple clay teapot from his previous life.

"I should not have consulted with others privately and concealed the truth from Your Majesty, thus committing the crime of deceiving the emperor..."

Liu Bingzhong was relatively honest and told the whole story about the collusion among the ministers in the court.

The core of this incident was actually instigated by the Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace.

Liu Bingzhong was the prince's teacher. The prince asked him to keep it a secret, and he did not dare to disobey the prince's wishes.

Because the matter is complicated, we have to start from last year.

At that time, Su Mingzhe asked Liu Bingzhong to submit a memorial on "Ten Years of Lessons", which led to Liu Bingzhong being labeled as "Emperor's Running Dog" and "Clay Prime Minister".

Originally, Liu Bingzhong was strong inside and didn't care about these rumors.

However, it could not be stopped, and many people spoke ill of Liu Bingzhong in front of Crown Prince Su Hui.

Crown Prince Su Hui was young and unable to distinguish right from wrong. As more and more people spoke ill of Liu Bingzhong, he really developed a prejudice against Liu Bingzhong.

Liu Bingzhong knew that Su Mingzhe was quite satisfied with Crown Prince Su Hui and had never thought of replacing the crown prince.

So, when Crown Prince Su Hui had something against him, it scared Liu Bingzhong.

This time, Crown Prince Su Hui personally asked Liu Bingzhong to keep it a secret, so how could Liu Bingzhong dare to disobey?

"This little bastard has really grown up!"

Su Mingzhe learned that the mastermind behind the ministers' forcing the emperor to abdicate was actually Crown Prince Su Hui. For a moment, he was so angry that he did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Seeing that the emperor didn't seem angry, Liu Bingzhong smiled bitterly and said:

"Your Highness the Crown Prince is indeed wise and intelligent. This old minister all... all..."

"That's it, that's all!"

Su Mingzhe knew what Liu Bingzhong wanted to say. He waved his hand, sighed, and then spoke:

"Since the prince wants to do something, I, as a father, cannot stop him. How about this? You go to the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Works, and the Ministry of War and tell them that I will go to Chengde a month earlier this year..."