Chapter 2573 Toward One’s Mother’s Family

"I have already expected this. Si Huanian dare not tell it."

Zhao Shu then knew that he must have used some method to get Si Huanian to keep his condition a secret.

The emperor's condition was originally the biggest secret. It would cause turmoil in the government and the public at least, and turmoil in the country at worst.

Externally, Zhao Shu has always agreed to keep things secret.

Now we can only hide this situation until the prince is older and can take charge of his own affairs in a few years.

The prince is thirteen this year and will get married in two or three years.

Probably, it can only last until that time.

After the morning court, Zhao Yuanjing kept several officials from the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Works to discuss the river repair project.

Every autumn flood is a major event that the court attaches great importance to.

If it is not available, it will easily cause thousands of people's farmland and houses to be flooded and displaced.

Building river embankments requires hiring a large number of craftsmen, plus money to buy materials, and inevitable layers of exploitation by officials at all levels. The cost of building river embankments invested by the court every year is also huge.

This time we are discussing money matters.

The imperial court's money is in the treasury and is managed by the Ministry of Household Affairs.

The current Minister of Household Affairs is Jin Lan.

Jin Lan has an excellent memory, and all the accounts of the household department are kept in his heart. Without looking at the account books, he could tell the emperor the data he needed without hesitation.

The minister of the Ministry of Industry asked for an allocation of two million taels of silver.

The right minister of Hubu snorted: "Master Shi is really a lion. Do you really think that we, Hubu, are the gods of wealth and can make money by ourselves?"

This Master Shi is Wei Jintai's father-in-law.

Although he is old, he is in good spirits and speaks with great energy: "If we don't have enough money, building the river embankment will be like giving up halfway!"

"All the money was given to your Ministry of Industry, but other places are left to eat dirt?"

"alright."

Zhao Yuanjing raised his hand to stop their argument, looked at Jin Lan, and asked: "How much can the national treasury allocate to the Ministry of Industry at most?"

Jin Lan said: "Originally, this year's Ministry of Industry allocation was sufficient, but due to the war, a lot of money from the national treasury was consumed."

In order not to kill people, the consumption of artillery shells is very large.

It's all silver.

This is also the reason why some officials do not agree with using money to replace people. What's the use of leaving so many lives behind? The money spent cannot be exchanged for it.

There were many places where the imperial court used silver.

A lot is consumed here. Naturally, there is less money available there.

In the eyes of many people in power, the lives of the people and soldiers at the bottom are not valuable and are not worth exchanging expensive artillery shells.

This also caused some forces in the court to question the Queen's decision. They felt that the Queen's use of expensive artillery shells in exchange for the lives of lowly soldiers affected their interests.

In addition to this incident, many ministers in the court were dissatisfied with the decision of Northern Qi King Xiao Ziliang.

Originally, there was a consensus both inside and outside the court that the Northern Qi King was unable to have children, and the second prince would inevitably inherit the Northern Qi throne in the future. In this way, Northern Qi was firmly controlled by Zhou Dynasty.

Northern Qi will never be able to restore the imperial family.

But now, the Sihua Nian brought back by the Empress claimed that it could cure Xiao Ziliang's infertility. If he gave birth to a son, the King of Northern Qi would no longer have a chance to have the second prince in the future.

Northern Qi became an uncertain factor again.

This goes against the wishes of many.

This made many people begin to suspect that the Queen still cares for her natal family in her heart. Otherwise, why not let his second son become the King of Northern Qi, but go to all the trouble to let Xiao Ziliang have a son?