Use a substitute on your wedding night to scatter the ashes of your entire family

Today, 30% of the farmland in these counties is still barren, and the people can only barely survive by relying on the porridge distributed by the court.

But Li Shuangwan knew that the treasury of Northern Jin was now an empty shell.

The Ministry of Revenue has already collected taxes for the 22nd year of Jingzhang. If they were to collect more money from the people, they would probably not be able to collect any more.

If Ling Heng or Emperor Jingzhang still continues to impose taxes by force, at best tens of thousands of people will starve to death or freeze to death, at worst it will cause public outrage and unrest.

Li Shuangwan turned to Gu Xingyan and said, "I have never asked you, in your previous life, how long did it take you to destroy Northern Jin? How many troops did you have?"

Gu Xingyan stared at her blankly for a long while before saying, "In less than a year, there are 600,000 troops."

Li Shuangwan took a breath and said, "One year?"

Gu Xingyan nodded: "One year! Many people in the prefectures even held their officials hostage and worked together to open the city gates, allowing our Daliang army to enter directly."

Li Shuangwan widened his eyes in shock. Among the five countries in the world, Northern Jin was now the second largest country after Daliang, and its territory was comparable to that of Daliang.

But Gu Xingyan actually took less than a year to destroy the entire Northern Jin.

"It took a year because the Northern Jin was too big and the Daliang army needed to rest and resupply. Strictly speaking, the cities that were actually captured by the army were less than 30% of the entire Northern Jin, and the time was less than half a year."

"It only took me one battle to conquer Shengjing City. The 600,000-man army surrounded the entire Shengjing City like a dumpling, and launched a general attack at the four city gates. It took two days to completely capture it."

"Without your father, the Northern Jin army is like a pile of loose sand. In the previous life, Zhennan Marquis Xi Wenquan was implicated by Ling Yan and his entire family was wiped out early on. The Imperial Guards, the Five Cities Military Command, and the Beijing Camp have no fighting power at all."

Li Shuangwan's face didn't look good at all.

In his previous life, the Minister of Personnel Wan Liming was investigated for selling official positions and titles. Later, it was discovered that he had privately minted silver and coins, which was tantamount to treason. Emperor Jingzhang exterminated his entire clan early on.

Although Wan Liming was dead, Emperor Jingzhang was not angry and ordered Jinyiwei commander Lu Dongqing to conduct a secret investigation.

Half a year later, Lu Dongqing had solid evidence in his hands, enough to prove that the large sum of silver that Wan Liming privately minted was used to train private soldiers for Ling Yan.

Emperor Jingzhang, whose throne was threatened, killed Ling Yan without even blinking an eye.

The Fifth Prince's wife and her entire clan were executed because of the Ling Yan incident.

As the maternal family of the Fifth Prince's wife, the Xi clan of Zhennan Marquis could not escape the fate of being exterminated.

In this life, many things have changed because of their rebirth.

Wan Liming is still working as the Minister of Personnel.

Ling Yanyi is still the fifth prince who is as powerful as Ling Heng.

However, no matter in the past life or in this life, the suffering of the people has not decreased in the slightest.

Gu Xingyan looked at Li Shuangwan with a very cautious expression.

He said: "Yan Yan, the day I return to Daliang will be the day I ask my brother the emperor for permission to destroy Northern Jin. You..."

Li Shuangwan suddenly laughed: "Shouldn't the Ling Dynasty be destroyed? The people don't even have food to eat, but those Ling family members and court officials are still thinking about plundering the people's wealth all day long."

Not to mention Northern Jin, even Shengjing City was like a funnel. Daliang's intelligence network spread throughout Northern Jin, and they knew nothing about it.

"Among the five countries in the world, which country would collect taxes three or four years ago and still want to snatch money from the people?"

Gu Xingyan's expression did not relax because of Li Shuangwan's words.

"By then, your uncle and your brother will have 300,000 Li family soldiers..."

He didn't want to confront Yanyan's father and Li's army.

But by then, there will be two countries, and there will always be a war between the two.

Yanyan was caught in the middle, and he didn't want to make things difficult for her.

Li Shuangwan smiled and said, "It's three thousand miles from the northwest to Shengjing. Even if we travel day and night, it will take two months, not to mention that the military pay has not been paid for half a year."

"There is not enough food and supplies, and even the soldiers don't have winter clothes and blankets for this winter. How can they fight like this?"

Li Shuangwan knew his concerns: "Don't worry, I'll talk to my father about this matter, he will understand."

Gu Xingyan didn't say anything, just nodded.

In fact, from the moment he set foot on the territory of Northern Jin again, he had already decided that as soon as the delegation returned to Northern Jin, he would personally lead the army to destroy Northern Jin.

But I still don’t know how to say this to Yanyan.

……

At this moment in the imperial study, Ling Heng was in a state of panic because he had no money.

The Minister of Revenue, Marquis of Yongning Su Yueming looked at Ling Heng with a worried look on his face.

Normally he had been on Ling Heng's side from the beginning, but the treasury was empty and people everywhere were reaching out to him for money, and he was really worried and at a loss.

I had to come to Ling Heng.

Little did he know that as soon as he entered the imperial study, several other ministers also followed in.

"Your Highness, the national treasury can no longer afford to give us even one ounce of silver. Fenzhou was hit by a snowstorm, and Shuzhou was hit by a locust plague. The people in the ten counties of the two places had eaten up all the crops they had planted during the spring ploughing. The court has been providing porridge for most of the year."

"As soon as the crops are harvested, we have to pay back the borrowed crops and collect taxes. Now the people are lucky to be able to eat half full. In some places, even eating half full has become a problem. However, the national treasury really can't take out silver and grain."

"Not to mention that the five cities of Yongzhou are currently suffering from floods and are also anxiously waiting for relief from the court. Your Highness, I can't think of any silver. If you don't distribute porridge, I'm afraid there will be unrest among the people, Your Highness!"

Ling Heng supported his forehead with one hand, sat in front of the imperial desk, lowered his head, and said nothing.

The chief eunuch Cai Zhong standing behind him could see from his angle that the usually calm Crown Prince now had a face full of dark clouds, like a ferocious beast on the verge of exploding.

The ministers in the imperial study could not see Ling Heng's gloomy expression at all.

Wen Song, the Minister of War, said anxiously, "Master Su, what do you mean by this? What do you mean by not having even one tael of silver left? Then what will my Northern Jin army of several hundred thousand people eat? What will they wear?"

"It's almost Mid-Autumn Festival, and we have to prepare winter clothes and quilts. You say you have no money now?"

Minister of Personnel Wan Liming bowed to Ling Heng, who was above him, and said, "Your Highness, the salaries of the officials of the six ministries have not been paid for three months. If they are not paid soon, they will all quit their jobs, and there will be no one to do all the work."

Shen Wenjie from the Ministry of Rites also wanted to say something. Seeing that the emperor was about to die, he was afraid that if there was a national funeral, there would not be enough time to make temporary preparations.

But when he saw the prince holding his forehead with his hand and ignoring everyone, he swallowed the words that were about to come out of his mouth.

Minister of Works Lu Ziqi was also anxious: "What should we do? The collapsed houses in the ten counties that were hit by the disaster last year have not been repaired yet. The autumn flood is coming, and the embankments must be reinforced."

"Master Su, I don't care about other things, the money from the Ministry of Works must be in place. Otherwise, we won't be able to survive this winter!"