Chapter 143: Treasury Deficit
The 46th year of Kangxi's reign passed peacefully. During this period, Yihuan stayed in the mansion to raise her children, and in her spare time, she would visit her father at Ulanala's mansion.

Fei Yanggu relied on his amazing willpower to finally overcome the infection and disease. He came back from the gates of hell, but he looked much older, with a lot more white hair on his head, and his thin body looked empty in his robe.

Fortunately, he was very open-minded and handed in his military command as soon as he felt a little better. In return, Kangxi gave him the title of first-class duke and a sinecure that allowed him to just lie at home and collect a salary.

Fei Yanggu, who was now completely free, began to take care of his children again, increased his supervision over the third generation, and kept a tight rein on them.

Yihuan's third prince was very easy to feed. He ate everything and found everything delicious. In a few months, he swelled up like a balloon. His skin became delicate and smooth, and his eyes became big, looking like grapes. After seeing him once, Defei liked him very much and kept asking Yihuan to bring him into the palace.

The little wolf eats well and sleeps soundly. He is too heavy for Yihuan to hold for long. When she puts him on the bed, he doesn't cry or make a fuss, but can play by himself for the whole day.

Liuliu is so excited to have a younger brother that the first thing she does when she wakes up every day is to give him a kiss, and the last thing she does before going to bed is to visit him.

Although Liuliu looks careless, he is actually very gentle to his younger brother and has never hurt his younger brother without knowing the severity of the situation.

The little wolf gradually got used to Liuliu's company. Sometimes when he woke up early, he would stick his head out and wait for his sister's kiss. Whenever Yihuan saw this scene, her heart would become incredibly soft.

Honghui is nearly ten years younger than his brother. He couldn't bear to watch the little wolf rolling around on the bed with his little butt exposed, sometimes biting his toes in a silly and cute way. He refused to admit that he had also gone through this period.

Yinzhen came in with a stern face, and when he saw the children surrounding Yihuan, his expression softened a lot.

After sending the children away, Yinzhen rubbed his brows, obviously a little tired. Yihuan stood behind him and stretched out her hand to give him a gentle massage: "Your reputation has now been heard even by a woman like me."

"Reputation?" Yinzhen smiled, "Fujin is laughing at me."

"Master, you are wrongly accusing me." Yihuan handed a piece of paper to Yinzhen, on which were a bunch of names and numbers. "These are the silvers that were handed over by my third sister-in-law, my ninth brother's wife, my thirteenth brother's wife, my fourteenth brother's wife, and the Ulanara Mansion in recent days. I was asked to return them all."

"This is not a small amount. Aren't you tempted?" Yinzhen roughly calculated that the total amount here is at least hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. These people are really hateful. They use official silver to bribe blatantly. If they have this intention, they might as well just pay off the debt directly!
It turned out that the Yellow River flooded this year, more than a dozen river embankments were breached, and millions of victims were displaced. This was the most serious disaster in this dynasty.

Kangxi immediately ordered the opening of the national treasury to provide silver and grain. Yinzhen worked in the Ministry of Revenue and was very busy. He went out early and came back late, and even Yihuan rarely saw him awake.

After finding out the actual amount of money and grain, Yinzhen brought the account books and memorials to the emperor. Kangxi was furious and traced the whereabouts of the money in the national treasury.

The result was unknown until we checked. We were shocked to find that since some time ago, all officials of this dynasty, regardless of their rank, had to borrow money from the national treasury. Whether it was as small as marrying off their children or as big as repairing ancestral tombs, the court paid for it all.

After looking at the results of the investigation, Kangxi issued an oral order, requiring all borrowers, whether they were royal relatives or seventh-rank officials, to repay the debt within ten days. Those who refused to repay would be arrested and punished according to the law.

Now, seven or eight days have passed, and no one has taken the lead in repaying the loan. In fact, Yinzhen also borrowed money. He took 50,000 taels from the national treasury when he established his government, but he has not repaid it to date. Everyone is just waiting and watching.

Since Kangxi had issued a death order to collect the debts, everyone except those who were tough and fearless had to be prepared to pay them back. However, how much to pay back and how to pay it back were very particular.

Honghui had analyzed the situation to Yihuan privately, and he said that the people who owed money could be roughly divided into several categories. The first category was people who had no shortage of money and were in high positions. Most of them were named Aisin-Gioro, and they treated the national treasury as their own money bag. They would buy an antique today, and a garden tomorrow, and they would pour money into it like water, and the national treasury would pay for it.

The second group was senior officials with experience and merits. They often had the favor of Emperor Kangxi and used money from the national treasury to show off. Although they did not owe as much as the first group, they also owed several hundred thousand taels.

The third type is those who go with the flow. They see that everyone is asking the national treasury to borrow money. If you are an official in the same dynasty and you don’t lend money, you are pretending to be noble and not sociable. Most of them owe at most tens of thousands of taels.

The fourth type is those who really need money and have to borrow it out of necessity. The amount is not large and is scattered, ranging from a few hundred taels to a few thousand taels. However, there are many people who borrow money, so when settled, it is also a considerable sum.

According to Honghui's analysis, the fourth type of people who borrow money are like throwing meat buns to a dog and never come back. These people can barely make ends meet and can be considered good officials if they do not extort money from the people. Even if they are squeezed dry, they will not produce any money.

The third type of people have the strongest desire to repay the money, but they dare not repay it first. After all, borrowing money requires looking at the eyes of their superiors, and repaying the money depends on how much their superiors have repaid.

The second type are old ministers who rely on their own merits. They have money in their hands but would never spend it even if they die. When they are forced into a corner, they cry in the Yangxin Palace. Kangxi has to give them some face for the sake of their white beards.

The first one is more difficult, as they are all Yinzhen's elders or his brothers. Not to mention anything else, the Tenth Prince owed the national treasury 500,000 taels of silver, and this was even with the help of the Emperor and the Ninth Prince. No one knew where he spent the money.

Honghui imitated the conversation between the Tenth Prince and Yinzhen, which made Yihuan laugh for a long time.

"Fourth brother, I don't even know how long my salary will be deducted. I had to borrow the money, and I can't pay it back." The Tenth Prince was just being shameless. As his elder brother, could Yinzhen force him to do anything?
Yinzhen was not Kangxi, and he did not buy into his tricks at all: "If a prince breaks the law, he shall be punished the same as a commoner."

The Tenth Prince opened his eyes wide, looking at Yinzhen's serious expression, dumbfounded for a moment, "No way, Fourth Brother is serious with me, but I really can't take out that money."

Yinzhen looked at him and said word by word: "All the properties under your name can be used to repay the debts. In the end, the court will not lose money."

"No!" The Tenth Prince shook his head vigorously, "Those were given to me by the Emperor. I can't sell them."

"Are you using the Emperor's father to pressure me?" Yinzhen asked back.

The Tenth Prince quickly shook his head and was about to explain when the Ninth Prince pulled his arm twice. He looked at the Ninth Prince, who moved his mouth. He carefully distinguished the three words "Emperor Father".

The Tenth Prince suddenly realized what was going on. He jumped up and said, "Fourth Brother, I'll go find the Emperor. He will definitely settle my brother's account!"

After saying this, the Tenth Prince went straight to the Forbidden City.

Yihuan listened to Honghui's story and knew that Yinzhen was secretly teaching his brothers how to correctly default on their debts. After all, the money in the national treasury belonged to Kangxi. If he said he didn't want it, who would insist on holding him accountable?

But this kind of thing can only happen once and not twice, and it must be done quickly. Only the Tenth Prince, who has always been honest and upright in the emperor's heart, can accomplish it. Anyone else would be beaten out with a stick.