Tang Dynasty: The beginning of the game is to touch the Princess Changle

In the evening, Chang Sun Chong and others returned to the manor and told Su Chen that the remaining cement roads would be poured today.

Now only the drainage ditch is still being worked on, and it is estimated that it will be finished in two days. The other work is watering maintenance and patrolling.

But what surprised them was that the people who were doing watering maintenance and patrolling refused to ask for wages.

You should know that watering maintenance is not just one day. Su Chen had previously instructed that it would take at least five to seven days to maintain and water.

Now the weather is hot and the water evaporates quickly, so watering should be done every two hours.

It happened that it was the dry season now, so it was not easy to get water, and it had to be transported from afar by ox cart.

The watering maintenance was arranged for six villages along the way, and the villagers were responsible.

It was agreed that the wages were 30 wen per day, but they refused to take the money no matter what, on the grounds that building this road facilitated everyone's travel and connected the village roads to this road.

And they had also helped build the road together before.

Su Chen was also a little surprised when he heard it. He didn't expect these villagers to be so simple.

"When we harvest the grain, we will send more to the villagers in these six villages." Su Chen wanted to compensate the simple villagers.

"Chang Sun Chong, how many days of wages have you not settled?"

"I settled the wages twice before, and only the last one has not been settled."

Su Chen smiled and nodded, patted Chang Sun Chong: "Okay, have a good rest these days."

...

Seven days later, it was already July.

Early in the morning, many people gathered outside the entrance of the manor, and they seemed to be discussing something.

"This road leads to Chang'an from here!"

The sun, like a fireball, scorched the earth, but it could not stop the people's curiosity about the cement road.

Today is the second day of the Mingde Gate being unsealed. Before that, many people looked at the cement road curiously across the roadblocks.

They were all curious about how such a large "boulder" road appeared here and where it led to.

Some people knew about it and knew how this road came about.

But there were still some people who were completely unaware. They had not seen the road when it was under construction.

The common people didn't have carriages, so they just walked along the cement road to see where the 'huge stone' led to.

Su Chen hadn't been anywhere in the past few days. Chang Sun Chong and several other contractors had already paid all the wages of the people two days ago.

Now they were sorting out the account books for the final summary, and the housekeeper Jin'er was calculating the food expenses during the road construction.

Su Chen was waiting for them to finish the calculation and planned to go to the palace.

Fang Xuanling had said before that within June, there would be 30,000 to 50,000 disaster victims from Shanxi coming to Chang'an, but he hadn't heard any news at all.

He couldn't wait any longer, he wanted to go to the palace to ask, and if the disaster victims didn't come, he would make other plans.

Finally, they calculated the total account, and the cost of a two-zhang wide cement road, one mile: 23,000 guan.

This did not include the cost of gravel and sand.

Not long after, Su Chen took Zhang Long, Zhao Hu and four others to the palace.

He had to keep time and wait until Li Shimin was almost out of court before entering the palace.

…

Taiji Hall, morning court.

Crown Prince Li Chengqian and Prince of Wei Li Tai stood at the head of all officials.

Prince of Wei Li Tai rarely attended court before, but today seemed a little different.

The atmosphere in the hall was a bit depressing, and no one dared to speak in the court!

There were more people attending the morning court than before, and some officials who were not qualified to attend the morning court according to convention also appeared in Taiji Hall.

It was only because the Crown Prince and Prince of Wei finally sorted out the accounts of the Ministry of Revenue for more than a year after seven days of hard work.

Li Shimin looked at the account books that had been sorted out, classified and remade with lowercase numbers.

The expression on his face became more and more serious. The biggest omission in the account was the charity granary.

Li Shimin looked at the account book in his hand. Since the first year of Zhenguan, more than 5 million shi of grain in the charity granary has disappeared. There is no need to think too much, it must have been resold by someone.

The charity granary system was improved by the previous dynasty, and it was used as a war reserve grain depot for the Tang Dynasty to provide disaster relief and rescue the people.

Bang! Li Shimin threw the account book hard, his chest heaving, and glared at the ministers below, no one dared to look at him.

"More than five million shi of grain have been embezzled in more than a year, aren't you afraid that I will punish all of your nine clans?"

Some officials' calves were already trembling, and they would kneel down and beg for mercy as soon as someone took the lead in confessing the crime.

"Raise your heads for me, so that I can see how big your mouths are and how sharp your teeth are!" Li Shimin shouted loudly to the ministers who were bowing their heads below.

Li Shimin glanced at the ministers with dignity, and those officials who had a guilty conscience immediately felt that Li Shimin was looking at him.

Unable to bear the pressure, they immediately wanted to kneel down and beg for mercy.

Li Shimin was actually also a headache, he knew roughly who these corrupt officials were.

Some of them were from the Cui family. If, as Su Chen had said before, they were given a chance to make up the embezzled money, they would not be pursued.But the Cui family has been dispersed, how can they get the money to make up for it?

After a moment, Li Shimin said solemnly:

"I am willing to give you a chance. Anyone who commits a crime will take the initiative to make up for the money and grain that they have embezzled within ten days, and I will forgive them.

This matter is fully under the control of the prince. I should not know about it. If you dare to commit it again, you must kill all your clans!"

After speaking, Li Shimin glanced at the ministers again, "Do you understand?"

"Your Highness obeys your order!"

The ministers in Taiji Hall finally breathed a sigh of relief, especially those corrupt officials.

Seeing this, Li Shimin's expression eased and his anger dissipated.

"From now on, all officials in charge of account books in various departments must use lowercase numbers to register and record, and the accounts will be referenced by this."

Li Shimin picked up the account book on the table and said.

"I know you have never seen this lowercase number. The King of Wei is responsible for teaching. You must study hard. From now on, I will only recognize this type of account book."

"Your Highness obeys your order!" The ministers replied respectfully.

"Qingque, you will teach the lowercase numbers and the new accounting method to the ministers." Li Shimin said to Li Tai below.

"Your son obeys your order!"

Li Shimin nodded and glanced at Wang Defa beside him.

"Dismiss the court!"

...

"Dai Aiqing, you can see this account book clearly. In the future, you must restrain the officials of the Ministry of Revenue and register according to this account book."

Although there is corruption in the Ministry of Revenue, it is related to the Minister of Revenue himself, and it is considered that his rule is not strict.

Dai Zhou himself will not embezzle the money of the national treasury, and Li Shimin is still sure of this.

"I am guilty. Thank you for your forgiveness. I will strictly guard against my subordinates in the future to prevent such things from happening."

Dai Zhou took the account book and confessed his guilt first, then looked through the account book. He learned these small characters and numbers when he was listening to the lecture in the manor.

But I have never seen how Su Chen taught Li Tai and others to do accounts.

Li Shimin nodded, "I know that you are a person and an official, and I don't blame you!"

"Everyone, it's still early now. I want to go outside the city. Let's see what the demonstration project that kid said looks like. What do you think?"

The road is 12 miles wide and has drainage ditches on both sides. Li Shimin felt very curious when he thought about it. He wanted to go and see it.

The most important thing is that he wants to try it. After being equipped with horseshoes, the horses can walk on the cement road. There is no need to run fast, just a little faster than the carriage.

Su Chen has an idea to build this road, and Li Shimin has the same idea.

He wanted to build a cement road to the Turkic direction, and he was still angry.

But Li Shimin now felt that the treasury was still a little short of money.

Su Chen asked him for 600,000 strings of cash for building a 12-li road.

What about a hundred miles or a thousand miles?