The Ministry of Revenue deposited 500,000 taels of silver, the treasury deposited 2 million taels of silver, and the gold was 50,000 taels of gold. This is all the money left by Tianqi to Zhu Youjian.

To be honest, Zhu Youjian was still a little surprised about this family background. After all, the biggest impression left by the Chongzhen Dynasty in later generations was that it was poverty!

In history, in order to save money, Chongzhen stipulated that the standard for meals for all concubines in the harem was one dish, one soup, no food or waste. He asked the concubines to have one dish, and of course he was no exception.

He set an example and never bought new clothes. He wore several sets of dragon robes from level to death. When they were broken, he asked Queen Zhou to sew with needles and threads.

At first, Chongzhen was a little shy in a patched dragon robe, afraid that the patches on the dragon robe would be seen by the ministers, so his sitting posture was often very awkward, and he often stuffed the patched part under his butt to cover it up.

But the more he concealed it, the more clearly the ministers saw it. However, not only did these ministers not feel pity because of the emperor's embarrassment, they stood up and generously donated money to share the worries of the king, but instead made fun of Chongzhen in private that he "looked like a king."

Never had an emperor like Chongzhen who couldn't bear to eat a meat and vegetables, or even a new piece of clothing, and lived a life worse than the wealth of the countryside.

But what about his ministers?

Almost everyone is rich enough to rival a country. The Ministry of Revenue deposits only 500,000 taels of silver. If you pick out any minister, your wealth will be far more than this.

When Li Zicheng entered Beijing, the first thing he did was to rush to the palace treasury. In his opinion, the Ming Dynasty has lasted for nearly three hundred years, and the palace must be filled with mountains of gold and silver.

But the result disappointed Li Zicheng. Even though he scraped three feet of the ground in the palace, he only found 130,000 taels of silver. Moreover, the money was the one that Chongzhen gave up the emperor's dignity when Li Zicheng was at the city and begged the ministers to his mother-in-law and grandma.

Li Zicheng could not find money in the palace, so he naturally could not explain to his subordinates, so he turned his eyes to the civil and military ministers in the capital, which surprised him and even plundered 70 million taels of silver from the minister's house.

This result made Li Zicheng feel very sympathetic to Chongzhen, saying that Chongzhen "is not very dark, he is isolated and has many Yangjiao; his ministers do everything in private, but he is less loyal than the party."

Translation: Chongzhen, you are not a foolish monarch, but you are weak and you are surrounded by people who only eat but not work; the ministers are all concerned about their own interests and form cliques everywhere for personal gain, and there are almost no one loyal to you.

Li Zicheng is a sensible person!

When the Dashun army was at the city, in order to defend the capital, Chongzhen summoned all civil and military officials and said: In the case of difficulties, the country will pay money and make efforts, and call on everyone to raise funds to pay military salaries to defend the capital.

The civil and military officials had no choice but to pledge the donation, but Wei Zaode, the chief minister of the cabinet, only donated 600 taels, and the other ministers followed suit and donated hundreds or dozens of taels, just like begging for food.

Compared with all officials, the eunuchs understood the truth that there was no hair left. The eunuch, the richest eunuch, donated 10,000 taels, and most of the donations of the other eunuchs were more than 1,000 taels.

Seeing this situation, Chongzhen was anxious and angry, and he had no choice but to come up with a solution. His father-in-law Zhou Kui was a rich man. Chongzhen wanted him to take the lead in donating 100,000 taels so that other ministers could follow suit.

But Zhou Kui was silent, but instead found his daughter and cried poor. Empress Zhou was very aware of the righteousness and took out five thousand taels to Zhou Kui. Zhou Kui donated three thousand taels and intercepted two thousand taels privately.

The father-in-law of the country was so perfunctory, so the ministers naturally enjoyed being like this. In order to show their poverty, some ministers even took out pots and pans at their doorstep to sell them to show their determination to sell their pots and donate them to the national crisis.

In the end, he raised more than 100,000 taels in scattered pieces. Chongzhen was completely desperate. As the emperor, he had already begged all officials to raise funds to save the country. The officials were still unwilling to come up with more to save the country. Soon Li Zicheng captured Beijing, Chongzhen committed suicide, and the Ming Dynasty was destroyed. The wealth-guarding slaves were also searched by Li Zicheng one by one.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian couldn't help but gritted his teeth, wishing to take control of military power now, follow Li Zicheng, and search all the civil and military officials' homes.

But reason prevented Zhu Youjian. Although he had been hiding at the bottom of his later generations, he had also heard of the principle that governing a big country is like cooking a small freshman. If he had done his own nature, he might not have been as long as Chongzhen in history.

The treasury is about 2.5 million taels and the treasury is 500,000 taels, which is a total of 3 million taels. This money seems to be a lot, but now the Ming Dynasty is not full of internal and external troubles, but it is still not enough to spend.

It seems that I have to be careful and spend the money on the edge of the knife. However, saving money can’t be saved, and the key is to open source.

When Zhu Youjian thought of open source, he thought of the sea trade at the first time. In later generations, the Ming Dynasty implemented a policy of banning the sea, but when Zhu Youjian traveled back, he found that his impression was wrong. The Ming Dynasty had already opened the sea during the Longqing period.

Unfortunately, Longqing took too little steps to open the sea. Maritime trade only opened a small gap. Only Yuegang in Haicheng, Fujian is regarded as the only open "special zone".

All merchant ships with foreign trade along the coast must go here to go through cumbersome procedures, load and leave from here to port, and inspect the goods in port; all ships must apply for "ship by" and "trade-in" before they can go to sea.

To this day, this system has even implemented a total control over the construction and operation of ships to sea. Each east and west has limited 44 ships, and it is strictly prohibited to cross-border traffic between them. Those who fail to return after going to sea will still be punished for engaging in Japanese even if they have complete documents.

Therefore, although the Ming Dynasty has already opened up the sea, the annual income of the Maritime Bureau is only 200,000 taels, which is only a drop in the bucket compared to the income of the Jiangnan Dahai Merchants.

The Ming Dynasty was actually not without money. One-third of the silver excavated by Spain from the Americas flowed to the Ming Dynasty, but most of these silver was earned by the maritime merchants. Then they hid the silver in the cellar and did not circulate it in the Ming Dynasty, which made the Ming Dynasty look far less prosperous than the coward.

Zhu Youjian thought that instead of hiding these silver in the cellar and becoming moldy, it would be better to earn to develop the national strength of the Ming Dynasty by himself. However, Zhu Youjian also knew that if he wanted to expand the scale of sea trade, he could not avoid Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xiang and other pirate forces. At this time, the Ming Dynasty navy was already unable to fight and was not the opponent of the Eighteen-Zhi Pirates led by Zheng Zhilong.

If Zhu Youjian rashly expanded the scale of sea trade, Datou would definitely be eaten by the pirate forces. He could only eat some soup and had to deal with the huge pressure from civil servants, which would not be worth the loss.

"By the way, Zheng Zhilong in history seems to have been recruited by the Ming Dynasty. Why don't I recruit Zheng Zhilong and let him use it for me! Moreover, his son Zheng Chenggong is loyal to the Ming Dynasty and can earn a navy general for nothing."

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian remembered this matter deeply. After taking control of the inner court, he immediately sent the factory minister to recruit Zheng Zhilong and the huge pirate forces of the Eighteen Zhishe to establish a navy for the Ming Dynasty.
Chapter completed!