On the seventh day of the Palace Coup, the plaza before Jianji Hall was cleaned and restored.
Yet in the gaps between the bluestone slabs, the faint crimson stains could simply not be washed away no matter what.
In seven days, Gu Jinzhi issued a series of personnel appointments and administrative orders, finally managing to slightly stabilize the chaotic court politics.
Aside from processing the massive backlog of state affairs and filling vacant positions, the most important task was the reorganization of the cabinet.
The surviving heads of the former Six Ministries—Shi Weizhen of the Ministry of Works and Xia Heng of the Ministry of Punishments—were promoted by him into the cabinet and bestowed the title of "Grand Scholar of the East Pavilion."
Added to the original Grand Scholar of the Hall of Martial Valor Lu Zhenyan and Grand Scholar of the Wen Yuan Pavilion Wen Boyuan.
The cabinet was restored to its four-person size once more, barely able to function.
On the inner court side, Wei Xun was promoted to Director of the Directorate of Ceremonial, while Chu Hong remained as Eunuch Secretary, but Gu Jinzhi assigned him concurrent duties in the Eastern Depot, putting him in charge of confiscating the assets of Prince Su's estate, the Wu family, and a batch of remaining rebel factions.
Over the course of seven days, the physical silver confiscated by the Eastern Depot and the Imperial Guards totaled over nine million taels; as for land deeds, title deeds, antiques, and precious treasures, they were piled up like mountains.
Ever since Gu Jinzhi began handling state affairs, he had long known that the annual tax revenue of the Great Jing Dynasty was only around five or six million taels of silver.
He never expected that the silver "contributed" by half the court officials