The system of the three provinces and six ministries of the Tang Dynasty was very complete, with clear responsibilities of each department, and mutual cooperation between departments and restraints each other; various officials were divided into detailed division of labor and clear duties. The Secretariat formulated policies and drafted edicts; the Menxia Province reviewed and reiterated; the Shangsariat issued and implemented. If the edicts and edicts were improper, the Menxia Province had the right to dismiss and reiterated them. For important memorials submitted by each department, they must be submitted to the Menxia Province for review through the Shangsariat. After the Menxia Province recognized, they were allowed to send them to the Secretariat for review. If there was any inappropriateness, they could be rejected and revised.

Therefore, Li Hong had to inspect various departments to submit reports at Guangshun Gate, deal with and decide on some small matters. The main place he went to was responsible for correcting the memorials of the court officials and reviewing the edicts of the Secretariat.

The minister of the Menxia Province was Dou Dexuan, who was one of the confidants of Empress Wu.

When he saw Li Hong arrive at the Junxia Province, he knew that the Crown Prince had resumed the practice of Emperor Gaozong's ordering that he would go to Guangshun Gate to inspect the various departments for presentation. He hurriedly stood up and bowed to Li Hong, and invited Li Hong to the main seat to sit down. He ordered a Zuo Sanqin General to put two stacks of memorials in front of Li Hong and said, "Your Highness, this is the memorial sent by the Shangshu Province today. Some of them have been reviewed, and some have not yet had time to read it. Please ask Your Highness to review it."

Li Hong came to Junxia Province today mainly for the memorials of Jiang Renji, the young minister of the Honglu Temple. As for the memorials submitted by other officials, he had no time to read them and did not want to read them. Because no matter what memorials he read or what instructions he made, as a confidant of Wuxiong, Dou Dexuan would tell Wuxiong what he did in Junxia Province without saying a word. Some of the trivial things he made in Junxia Province were just to be familiar with government affairs and had little practical significance. Since this is the case, why did he have to do this and provoke Wuxiong's gaze?

Therefore, instead of reading the two stacks of memorials placed in front of his case, he asked, "Secretary Dou, have you considered the memorials sent by Jiang Renji, the young minister of the Honglu Temple, today?"

Dou Dexuan was quite surprised. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had just arrived at the Menxia Province and did not read the memorials of others. Instead, he specifically asked Zhao Renji about charging food and accommodation fees from envoys from various countries living in Honglu Temple. Suddenly he thought that in order to prepare for the Tubo mission, the Honglu Temple was listening to His Royal Highness's dispatch. After thinking about this, Dou Dexuan suddenly understood why Zhao Renji, the young minister of Honglu Temple, dared to be so bold and would give such a criticized memorial.

However, Zhao Renji's memorial was very important: First, let envoys from various countries live in Honglu Temple for free food and accommodation, which was decided by the Tang Dynasty when the founding of the country, and it was the decree issued by Taizong himself; second, to charge the envoys from various countries who live in Honglu Temple, which will inevitably affect the relationship between the Tang Dynasty and the surrounding countries. So after reading it, Dou Dexuan did not make any decision to pass the review or reject it, but took it out and put it aside, preparing to invite prime ministers such as Xu Jingzong and Dai Zhide to the Menxia Province in the afternoon, and everyone discussed it together and made another decision.

Now seeing Li Hong ask this, he took out the memorial from the other side of the desk, put it respectfully in front of Li Hong, and bowed and replied, "Your Highness, the content of this memorial is too much to do, and the minister dare not make a decision, so it has not been reviewed yet."

Li Hong opened the memorial and began to read it quickly.

Zhao Renji wrote not much of the memorial. In addition to Zhao Renji's suggestions he mentioned yesterday, Zhao Renji only added a specific plan to charge the missions and envoys of various countries living in Honglu Temple, which made his suggestions much fuller.

Li Hong glanced briefly and read the content above. He put the memorial on the table and asked Dou Dexuan, "What do you think of this memorial Dou Xiang?"

Dou Dexuan had known that the Crown Prince would ask him this long ago. After pondering for a moment, he replied, "Your Highness, let the mission personnel of various countries stay in Honglu Temple and provide them with free food and accommodation. This was set during the reign of Emperor Taizong. Now it is not appropriate to change the rules set by Emperor Taizong. Besides, rashly charging the mission personnel of various countries staying in Honglu Temple will probably cause dissatisfaction among envoys of various countries, and will affect the relationship between the Tang Dynasty and the surrounding countries!"

"The missions that can visit Chang'an City are not short of this amount of money. However, Honglu Temple has to supply dozens of state missions and hundreds of people every year, and the annual cost is tens of thousands of chunks. No matter how abundant the Tang Dynasty's treasury is, it cannot be squandered so much, right?" Li Hong said unhappily, "Besides, in recent years, the Tang Dynasty has been constantly using troops in the Western Regions and Northeast China, and the military expenditure is very large. Dou Xiang also serves as the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue. I believe that he knows better than Gu's current tax revenues in the Tang Dynasty. How much money is left in the treasury?"

As the Minister of Revenue, Dou Dexuan was in charge of managing the taxes and finance of the Tang Dynasty. He naturally knew how much money and grain were consumed in the national treasury because the Tang Dynasty had continuously used troops in the Western Regions and Northeast China in recent years, and how much money was left in the national treasury now.

Therefore, when Li Hong questioned this, he didn't know what to say for a moment.

Seeing that Dou Dexuan was silent, Li Hong ignored him. Instead, he picked up a pen and wrote the word "pass" on it. Then he said to Dou Dexuan, "The suggestion of this memorial is good. I think I don't want to refute it anymore. I will present it to my father today!"

Dou Dexuan already knew that this was the memorial made by His Highness the Crown Prince Zhao Renji, and as a minister, he had already advised the Crown Prince, but His Highness the Crown Prince still insisted on doing this. He knew that if he sang against His Highness the Crown Prince again on this memorial, there would be no good results. So he bowed and said, "Since Your Highness said that, the old minister will do whatever he wants."

As the minister of the disciples, if Dou Dexuan strongly refuted this memorial, Li Hong knew that even if he was the crown prince, he would not be able to do anything to him. Fortunately, Dou Dexuan was not Wei Zheng, the minister of the disciples during the Taizong period, and he did not have the habit of refusing Taizong's request like Wei Zheng, who dared not to die, so when he saw that Dou Dexuan no longer insisted, but agreed to his own opinions, Li Hong couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief.

After doing this, Li Hong was not going to read other memorials anymore. He stood up and said to Dou Dexuan, "Let's stop here today! I'm a little tired of being alone, so I'll go back and rest first."

Seeing that the prince had just given instructions on Zhao Renji's memorial and did not read other people's memorials, Dou Dexuan breathed a sigh of relief.

Although he was the minister of the ministry and a confidant of the Queen of Wu, he was a minister after all, and Li Hong was the crown prince and the crown prince of the Tang Dynasty. Li Hong really wanted to forcefully interfere in his government affairs in the ministry, so his attitude was not too tough.

Dou Dexuan sent Li Hong out of the door. As soon as the two walked to the door, Li Hong suddenly remembered something and stopped and asked Dou Dexuan, "Dou Xiang, I was not very clear about taxes and national treasury when I just talked about taxes and national treasury money, so I wanted to understand the situation in this regard. Look, can you send someone to send the tax accounts of the Tang Dynasty in the past two years to the East Palace to let Gu understand?"

Li Hong said this on purpose, so he didn't want to find out the tax situation in the Tang Dynasty. However, if Zhang Jianzhi and Li Jiao wanted to investigate the tax issues in the East and West City, they needed to review the accounts of East and West City taxes collected by the Ministry of Revenue in recent years. He said so in order to cover up his hearing.

Because Li Hong mentioned the issue of tax revenue in the Tang Dynasty and the national treasury savings, now he proposed to review the tax accounts of the Ministry of Revenue. Dou Dexuan did not think too much, but said cheerfully, "Don't worry, your highness, I will send someone to the East Palace in the afternoon."

"Then I'm thankful for Dou Xiang!" Li Hong said politely, and then strode away from the door and the village.

When Li Hongyi left Menxiasheng, Dou Dexuan hurried back to the study room, quickly wrote a few words on a piece of paper, and instructed a trusted clerk to deliver the paper to the Zichen Palace in the Daming Palace.

In Xuanzheng Hall, Empress Wu was reviewing the memorial when she suddenly saw the note sent by Dou Dexuan. When she knew that Li Hong was going to inspect the report today, she frowned slightly and couldn't help but snorted coldly. However, when she quickly finished reading the contents of the note, she showed a faint smile on her face. She saw her hand the note to Zhang Ying, an eunuch serving on the side, and said in a plain tone, "It's not a big deal for Honglu Temple to charge food and accommodation fees from envoys from various countries who live in the museum! Since it's in Honglu Temple, if you want to make trouble, let you do it!"

Obviously, Empress Wu was quite satisfied with Li Hong's practice of not reviewing other people's memorials in Menxia Province today, but only citing the memorials of Zhao Renji of Honglu Temple.

Zhang Ying is one of the confidant eunuchs of Empress Wu. Queen Wang, who was out of favor for her childlessness, attempted to use Empress Wu to attack her love rival Xiao Shufei. Since he included Empress Wu from Ganye Temple into the palace, he has been following Empress Wu for fourteen years.

Therefore, the Empress Wu would not hide many things from him, and he pretended not to hear anything he said to Empress Wu. He just took the note respectfully, walked quickly to the brazier, put the note in and burned it, and then returned to Empress Wu.

Empress Wu glanced at Zhang Ying who had returned to her side, pondered for a moment, and then asked, "Yesterday, you sent the maid to the East Palace. Do the prince have any opinions?"

"No! But he just left Zhao Hong's skirt by his side, and the other maids were arranged by Yan Zhuang to various places in the East Palace." Zhang Ying replied respectfully.

"I am worthy of being the son of my father, I am not stupid in my work!" Wu Empress said lightly, unable to tell whether he was happy or angry in his tone. "During this period, the people of those families have begun to be restless again. You let the 'Qiuge' keep a close eye on it. Also, you 'Qiuge' have to be responsible for doing things. I have been tolerant of them for so many years and don't mind to endure it for a few more years. Of course, sooner or later, one day, they say today that I will make them pay a heavy price in the future."

"No!" Zhang Ying bowed and replied, then quickly withdrew from the Zichen Palace.

At this time, Empress Wu did not continue to review the memorials, but put down the pen in her hand and walked to the gate of Zichen Hall. Her deep eyes looked towards the direction of Linde Hall, and a hint of mocking appeared on her slightly tired face. In the back hall of Linde Hall, Emperor Gaozong was singing and dancing with the wife of Wei, Empress Wu's niece Helan Minyue Yingying. (To be continued)
Chapter completed!