Chapter 998 Officials obsessed with money
It snows in August in Hutian!
When Su Mingzhe brought A Zi back to Beijing, it happened to be a snowy day, so they stayed in a small town on Qingtang Road for half a month.

Until mid-September.

The two then returned to Kaifeng City.

When Mu Wanqing saw the man bringing back a woman, she immediately drew her knife in anger and chopped at Ah Zi's head:

"Where did this vixen come from, daring to come to my house?"

Qin Hongmian also gnashed her teeth in hatred, making a creaking sound:
"Son-in-law, you've been away for a month and you've brought back a woman. Aren't you a little too fickle?"

You know, Mu Wanqing and Su Mingzhe have not been married for a full year yet.

The novelty wears off too quickly!
"You misunderstood, Ah Zi is Wan'er's sister!"

Su Mingzhe looked aggrieved, which surprised Mu Wanqing and A Zi:
"She's my sister?"

"She's my sister?"

"If you don't believe me, I'll show you the evidence!"

As Su Mingzhe spoke, he took Mu Wanqing's hand with one hand and A Zi's with the other and walked towards the backyard.

Qin Hongmian was a little confused by the man's words, and followed the three men to the master bedroom in the backyard.

As soon as the four of them entered the room, Su Mingzhe asked A Zi to lift up her skirt, revealing the "Duan" tattoo on her shoulder.

Mu Wanqing was still somewhat puzzled, but Qin Hongmian's pretty face turned pale in an instant:

"Is this girl really that man's daughter?"

"I'm not lying, am I?"

Su Mingzhe raised his eyebrows at the three women, with a hint of pride in his eyes.

He had prepared his speech before A Zi came back.

At this moment, Mu Wanqing and A Zi saw that Qin Hongmian looked unhappy, and they guessed that what Su Mingzhe said was true.

Originally, the two women were still confronting each other, but now that they know the other party is their own sister, although they are still furious, they no longer have the desire to kill each other.

I have to say that Su Mingzhe is very experienced in handling household chores.

Just when Su Mingzhe was enjoying the blessing of having many wives and was even preparing to pursue the widow Wang next door, "bad news" came from Cisheng Palace.

The Empress Dowager, who had persisted for nearly five months, finally passed away.

When he was about to die, he suddenly had a flash of brilliance.

She summoned the prime minister Fan Chunren and others and left a message:

"After I die, the emperor will no longer use you. You should know your own limitations and take the initiative to withdraw as soon as possible, so that the emperor can use others to avoid disaster."

The ministers who left the palace sighed and groaned endlessly, and when they returned home, they began to prepare themselves for being demoted.

At this time, Su Mingzhe had completely taken control of the court.

Of course, he also knew about the Empress Dowager's last words.

However, he had a lot of things to do and had no time to change to the new party or the old party.

end of September.

Without waiting for the funeral of the Empress Dowager to be settled, Su Mingzhe, in his capacity as the Emperor, ordered himself to be the Grand Commandant of the Dengzhou Naval Office, commanding 20,000 naval forces, and to go overseas to search for the "Immortal Mountain".

Early October.

After the clone had assembled the navy fleet, he took Mu Wanqing, A Zi, and Qin Hongmian with him and went out to sea.

mid-October.

The fleet appeared near Iwami Ginzan.

The silver mines of Iwami Ginzan are said to account for one-third of the world's reserves.

When the Song Dynasty was in a "money shortage", it was impossible for Su Mingzhe to turn a blind eye to such a treasure mine.

October is over.

As the end of the year was approaching, the ministers had not received any news that the emperor was going to demote them, nor had they even received any news that the emperor was going to recruit the New Party into the court.

The emperor has always been practicing "ruling by doing nothing" and has no intention of demoting the ministers in the court.

At this point, the ministers finally put their minds at ease and began to concentrate on their work.

Su Mingzhe was either in the palace, accompanying the concubines in bathing and having fun, or heading to Iwami Silver Mine, leading his army to sweep away all those who "disobeyed".

The end of December, before New Year’s Eve.

The clone personally escorted the fleet and transported three million taels of silver back to the country.

Before this batch of silver was sent back to Kaifeng, the news had already reached the Song Dynasty. The ministers and dignitaries who heard the news were so excited that they were going crazy.

At present, the annual fiscal revenue of the Song Dynasty is only 60 million strings of cash.

According to the market price, one tael of silver can be roughly exchanged for two strings of cash.

The three million taels of silver sent back to the country amounted to six million strings of cash, equivalent to one-tenth of the fiscal revenue.

And this money was only the earnings of less than three months.

If more people were assigned and they worked for a full year, they could at least collect 20 to 30 million taels of silver, which would be 40 to 50 million strings of cash, almost equivalent to the fiscal revenue.

As the saying goes, one becomes an official thousands of miles away just for the money.

The vast majority of officials are greedy for money.

Seeing that the Dengzhou Navy had found such a huge silver mine, a minister immediately proposed to expand the Dengzhou Navy and increase the scale of mining.

Su Mingzhe readily accepted this suggestion.

Many powerful people wanted to take advantage of the expansion of the navy to insert their relatives and children into it.

As long as they were capable, Su Mingzhe agreed.

Of course, before these people entered the navy, Su Mingzhe had to perform a "soul-stealing technique" on them to ensure that their loyalty to the Song Dynasty would not change.

There were also powerful people who wanted to promote Su Mingzhe in name only and demote him in reality, and remove him from the position of the Grand Commandant of the Navy.

Su Mingzhe used his status as emperor to confer himself the title of "Duke of Zhenhai County".

However, the position of the Navy Commander was not given up.

The titles of the Song Dynasty were worthless. There were no fiefs, no military bases, and they could not even be inherited.

Su Mingzhe conferred the title of 'Duke of Zhenhai County' on me, but apart from a slight increase in salary and benefits, there were no other benefits.

The New Year passed in a flash.

The Dengzhou navy expanded five times in one go, reaching 100,000 people.

End of March.

The Dengzhou navy sent eight million taels of silver back to the country.

With so much silver as a base, the "currency reform" piloted in Kaifeng Prefecture last year was successfully promoted throughout the country.

Seeing that the national treasury was becoming increasingly full, the dignitaries and ministers began to actively use their "smart" brains.

Some people proposed to increase the salaries of officials and clerks, saying that "high salaries can maintain integrity."

This is the characteristic of the Song Dynasty.

However, Su Mingzhe directly refused.

The reason is very simple. With each emperor, the officials of the Song Dynasty would get a salary increase of one level.

At present, the combined salary and benefits of the ministers in the capital of the Song Dynasty are approximately equivalent to five thousand taels of silver.

Five thousand taels of silver is roughly equivalent to ten thousand strings of cash, which, converted to later times, would be equivalent to a purchasing power of more than ten million.

The prefect of Kaifeng had a lower salary, but he still earned more than 1,000 taels of silver, which was equivalent to the purchasing power of more than 2 million in later generations.

The salary of an ordinary county magistrate was lower, about one or two hundred silver coins, which was equivalent to a purchasing power of about three or four hundred thousand.

However, there is no restriction on them using public funds for eating and drinking.

It can be said that the welfare benefits of officials in the Song Dynasty were the best in history.

These officials already have such good welfare benefits, yet they want a salary increase. Naturally, Su Mingzhe would not agree.

Not only did Su Mingzhe refuse to agree to a salary increase, he also asked an imperial envoy to propose the "Jingchahe Daji" that was only available in the Ming Dynasty.

According to the "Jingcha and Daji" system, all officials began to have their performance assessed.

The cycle is three years.

If a performance appraisal fails to meet the requirements, the score will be reduced by one level.

If you fail to meet the assessment standards twice, you will be demoted directly.

If you fail to meet the standards three times, you will be dismissed from office.

As soon as this news came out, those officials of the Song Dynasty who were lazy and indolent in their work and advocated "ruling the people by doing nothing" were instantly at a loss.

“This is forcing people to resign!”

(End of this chapter)