Minister Huang of the Ministry of Revenue was delighted.
Ever since the Fountain of Youth had gone on sale, the court had finally begun to see some silver.
When everyone attended court, tempers had cooled considerably, and they had even started calling each other brother.
The conflicts had eased greatly as well.
Cartloads of gleaming silver were hauled into the palace.
Then it was distributed to the Ministry of Revenue for use under the guise of releasing funds from the imperial treasury.
Thankfully, they had encountered a wise Empress Dowager who had not kept all that money clutched in her own hands.
There had been stingy rulers like that before, unwilling to spend money to reward the troops. In the end, the rebels seized the money and killed the ruler too.
He had truly never known just how much money those wealthy landlords possessed.
His own family had bought some farmland, but not much. After all, the Huang Family had only begun to prosper after he passed the imperial examination.
Since the beginning of the year, the Empress Dowager had released thirty million taels of silver from the imperial treasury alone.
For the first time, the border troops had received their full pay and eaten their fill.
For that reason, he had specifically asked the Empress Dowager to issue an edict sending people to inspect the borders and verify the actual troop numbers.
The civil officials all knew that border commanders padded their payrolls with nonexistent soldiers.
They had not investigated before because the pay issued had never been enough. For an army of ten thousand, the silver provided could only feed three thousand.
What else could be done? The border commanders could only use two thousand men to pretend to be ten thousand, leaving a thousand vacant posts to