Dahan first prince

Chapter 195 The Dukes' Mouse Tail Juice!

"Ah~"

"Miscalculation..."

After the court meeting was over, all the officials of Gonghou walked on the palace road exiting Changle Palace, and their eyes were involuntarily locked on Prime Minister Xiao He.

In the end, a few people bravely stepped forward, followed Xiao He's footsteps, and asked Xiao He softly.

"Ms. Xiao thinks that the family's plan to 'loyal ministers are thin', so that His Majesty knows how many private slaves we have in our family. Is it accidental, or is it deliberately done by the family?"

Asked with a guilty conscience, everyone anxiously waited for Xiao He's answer.

Hearing this question, Xiao He also quietly recalled the scene that happened in Changxin Hall half an hour ago.

The emperor Liu Bang didn't pierce the window paper of the "tax evasion" of the princes and officials for many years, but threw this problem lightly to the prince Liu Ying.

Even now, recalling Liu Bang's original words just now and Liu Ying's answer, Xiao He couldn't help but feel a little hopeful about Liu Ying's performance...

"It's not a few years old, Prince, already quite worthy of His Majesty..."

Sighing secretly, Xiao He finally came back from his thoughts, and when he looked at his colleagues in the court beside him, there was a faint gloomy look in his eyes.

"All the princes and ministers, Cao, are the pillars of the community, and all of them are grateful to your majesty for knowing and meeting, so as to embrace the current two thousand stone ranks and thousands of households' food."

"However, in the past few years, all the lords have been stingy with slaves to count tens of thousands of dollars, which has made the income of the Shaofu even more difficult..."

As he said that, Xiao He shook his head slightly, and a little shame also quietly appeared on his face.

"The old man thinks that this is not what a minister should do."

"Even though I am an old man, I have never dissuaded my lords because of this. Now, this old man owes His Majesty's trust."

"The old man wants to go to the Shaofu in person tomorrow, in order to pay the unpaid slaves last year."

Saying this in a low tone, Xiao He frowned slightly, and looked at Zhifang Hou Yongchi who asked the question.

"The original intention of Ji Jiashang's drafting of "Loyalty and Goodness Book" is to ask for credit from His Majesty in person for us; there is absolutely no reason for Zhi Fang Hou to doubt the etiquette of the family."

"—Even if this matter was done deliberately by the family, we, as ministers, should respectfully accept it."

Hearing Xiao He gave such an answer, the courtiers and officials who gathered around quietly retreated quietly with the look of luck on their faces.

Instead, there is a guilty conscience visible to the naked eye, and a little unwillingness to be seen.

However, Yong Chi put on a heartbroken expression without any scruples, and still did not give up, stepped forward and gave Xiao He a little bow.

"What Xiang Xiang said is true."

"However, even if this is the case, shouldn't Xiao blind date go to the Shaofu to make up for the land where slaves are counted?"

As he said that, Yong Chi even licked his lips with a greedy expression, and said: "Just now, Your Majesty will not say anything: this matter will be handled by the Prince Jian Guo, and His Majesty will not ask?"

"It was also said by the family: In the past few years, the Kanto was in constant chaos, and the salaries of the courtiers and the food of the meritorious princes were not enough. Can we ignore the matter of slavery?"

Hearing Yong Chi say this with anticipation on his face, the eyes of everyone gathered around Xiao He couldn't help showing some anticipation.

Slave calculation, that is, "slave tax", does not sound like much, five calculations per person, that is, six hundred dollars.

But if you think about it carefully, this is a rather huge expenditure for courtiers and princes of meritorious service who generally have dozens of private slaves at home, compared to the seemingly small "slave tax".

——Slave calculation does not mean that each slave only needs to be called [-] yuan for a lifetime, but [-] yuan per person per year!
Take the distance of Xiao He, who is the wealthiest family in the court today: There are nearly 200 male slaves and female concubines in Xiao He's family, and the annual slave count is nearly 12 yuan!
You must know that nowadays, even ordinary people and peasant households need to pay a yearly calculation, which is only one calculation per household, that is, 120 yuan.

In other words, according to the slave calculation stipulated in the "Han Law", the tax calculation that each slave needs to pay is equal to the tax calculation that five peasant households need to pay.

And Xiao He needs to pay 12 yuan a year, which has already exceeded the court's judgment standard for a "middle-class family": the family wealth exceeds [-] yuan...

Of course, even if the property of a middle-class family has to be handed over to the Shaofu every year, there is no pressure on Xiao He, who has a lot of money and ten thousand households.

But for other people, especially those courtiers who don't even have the title of Marquis of Che and only have a salary of two thousand shi, especially those courtiers who don't have the title of Marquis of Che, but only have a salary of two thousand shi, this amount of money is astonishingly high!

Take the example of Jiuqing, Shaofu Yangchengyan, the only Jiuqing who has no Marquis of Che in the current court:
——As the Jiuqing of the current dynasty, at any rate, he is also a high-ranking official of two thousand stones. In Yangchengyan's family, there must be three or two doormen, four or five servants, old maids, one or two coachmen, and a trustworthy old man, right?

Not to mention the extension of Yangcheng, now in Chang'an, all the courtiers whose rank ratio can reach a thousand stones and who are eligible to participate in the court council basically have this configuration in their homes.

This is already the simplest 'ultra-low configuration'.

But even if it is an ultra-low allocation, the annual payment for these ten or twenty people is tens of thousands of dollars!
Maybe some people will say: If you get a salary of 160 shi, you get 1 shi of Lumi every year, and the price is millions of dollars. Could it be that even the slaves who pay more than [-] yuan can’t afford it?

This is the crux of the problem.

——A slave, in addition to paying slave bills, he also has to eat food...

In addition to eating food, you have to change into new clothes during festivals, or when there are distinguished guests at home, so that you can dress up your appearance.

Calculated in this way, the annual "maintenance cost" of twenty slaves is nearly six hundred shi of grain.

All the slaves spent so much money, so the wives and children in that family naturally had no reason to live frugally—three or five wives and concubines, seven or eight children, and five hundred shi of grain for eating and drinking in a year was nothing to worry about.

With such a simple calculation, more than half of the salary of more than 2000 shi in Yangchengyan was used by the slaves, wives and children in the family.

The remaining half is not without a place to go.

——Anyway, he is a courtier, so Yang Chengyan has to socialize, right?
——Colleagues in the DPRK and China have an affair, Yang Chengyan must prepare a gift, right?

Coupled with the daily exchange of courtesy and favor, the annual salary of 160 shi in Yangcheng Yan, it would be great to be able to use it!
In this case, there is an extra sum of tens of thousands of dollars per year, what can Yang Chengyan do?
If it is kind, then it is natural to live frugally and set aside this slave money from daily expenses; if it is not kind, then there is nothing but corruption besides corruption.

Thinking of this, there was a little bit of dissatisfaction on everyone's face.

"Using slavery to force each other, does the family want to make us helpless to accept bribes?"

Thinking this way, everyone looked at Xiao He again, and the guilty conscience that was on their faces before also dissipated a little.

But when Xiao He heard what Yong Chi said, he turned his head away with a gloomy expression, and put his hands behind his back.

"Ju Fanghou is confident, so why bother to ask this old man?"

After leaving a word in a lukewarm manner, Xiao He let out a low muffled groan, and then walked towards the palace gate.

But just two steps out, Xiao He finally stopped with a stern face, and turned around slightly.

"Slave calculation is a system explicitly ordered by the "Han Law"."

"Your Majesty doesn't ask now, and the family doesn't confiscate, but in the past, it was a common practice for the princes to flee. Your Majesty and the family don't want to force the princes to rush."

"However, if you still don't care about it, you just think that the prince is young and easy to bully. In the future, the official's resume will be 'reckoned as the year of escaping slaves'. If you want to regret it, it may be too late!"

After saying a word coldly, Xiao He stared deeply at the crowd meaningfully, and then walked towards the palace gate with determination on his face.

And behind Xiao He, only the courtiers Gonghou and the courtiers were left looking at each other, looking at Xiao He's leaving back with hesitation, and couldn't help shaking their heads repeatedly.

"Ugh······"

"In the future, I'm afraid it will be a little shorter than the use at home..."

"After returning to the mansion, I should talk to my wife about this matter; in the future, don't spend extravagantly again, and lose money..."

·
"Tell me."

"Why are you not in a hurry to collect?"

Changle Palace, the apse of Changxin Hall.

Asking softly, Liu Bang looked at Liu Ying with a gentler gaze.

Hearing that her father asked this question, Liu Ying suppressed her anxiety a little bit, spoke for a while, and then bowed her hands a little seriously.

"I report to my father."

"As the saying goes: It is not a day's work to freeze three feet; it is not a day's work to wear a stone with dripping water."

"My Han family intends to use the 'slave calculation' to curb the trend of keeping slaves. This is a law that has been enforced since the fifth year of the Han Dynasty."

"However, since the system of 'Slave Calculation' was promulgated, everyone over the age of six, regardless of the meritorious officials in the court, hundreds of officials, or wealthy merchants and rich merchants, all do not care about the system of slave computing."

Speaking of this, Liu Ying's expression became more and more serious.

"A while ago, my son learned that there were tens of thousands of private slaves in the family of hundreds of officials in the court, and he was suspicious: if there are thousands of slaves, it is 600 million yuan to pay slaves at the age; The annual enslavement of the government is not worth a million."

"My son asked Xiao Xiang to solve this confusion, and then he knew: Today, the private slaves of all meritorious princes, officials, and wealthy merchants are afraid of more than a hundred thousand, and the year-old slaves are worth nearly tens of millions!"

"However, this slave counts tens of millions of dollars, and so far, he has never received any money from the Shaofu..."

Hearing Liu Ying's words, Liu Bang couldn't help but patted his thigh lightly, and let out a long and leisurely sigh.

"Ah~"

"This matter is indeed as the prince said, it is frozen three feet, it is not a day's cold..."

After speaking, Liu Bang slowly got up from the soft couch, and took two steps with his hands behind his back.

"Hidden household."

Liu Bang turned around quietly, stretched out a finger to Liu Ying, and said a word that Liu Ying was extremely unfamiliar with.

"Since the time of Ji Zhou, the affairs of hidden households have become popular in the Kanto; by the end of the week, when Xiong Chu plundered the peasant households in the head of Guizhou, the incidents of hidden households have become more and more common in Chu."

"Later Shi Huang swept away Liuhe, and the world became one. Relying on Qin's strict laws and cruel officials, the matter of reclusive households is temporarily eliminated."

"However, Qin won all the people in the world, and didn't want to rest with the people. Instead, he used this to increase taxes and taxes repeatedly, and because of the large-scale construction in Qinzhong, he recruited extensively to serve in the Kanto."

"Because the household is not hidden, the people have no way to avoid it, or they may die in the Great Wall and Efang, or flee to Lingnan and Damu."

Speaking of this, Liu Bang laughed at himself again.

"It was when I first fell into the grass, and when I was going to send laborers into the Guanzhong, several people from the township party feared death and left, so I had to release the rest and fled into the mountains..."

Slightly self-deprecating about this disgraceful past, Liu Bang brought the topic back on track again.

"Afterwards, the people complained about Qin Guo's death, and I was able to rejuvenate Han Zuo as the king of the world."

"However, most of the people in the world have suffered from the fact that the Qin Dynasty had obtained all the households, and they had repeatedly increased taxes and imposed hard labor. By the beginning of the Han Dynasty, half of the people in the world were hidden in the mountains and did not want to be recorded in the book."

"For this reason, I have discussed with Marquis Feng, intending to give the people a generous gift of Tian Jue, to lure the people to register, and to hide their households in our Han family..."

Listening to Liu Bang's inexplicable and bleak tone, telling the background of the release of "Shou Min Tian Jue Ling", Liu Ying nodded in agreement, and couldn't help but sit upright.

But seeing Liu Bang slightly shaking his head and sighing helplessly, he sat back beside Liu Ying again and slapped his thigh helplessly.

"Hi~"

"With land and nobility bestowed by me, the people have no reason to hide in the mountains and forests; so far, among the peasant households in Guizhou, it is rare for them to hide from their households."

"Later, Marquis Feng made the "Law of the Han Dynasty" and used the "Jinguan Order" to prohibit the people from running around, so that the hermits will be completely eliminated from the world."

"The hermitage of the people was extinct because I granted the title of land to the people and promulgated the "Jinguan Order"; but the hermitage of the slaves has not yet been resolved..."

After saying this with a sigh, Liu Bang finally turned his head again, looking at Liu Ying, there was a little recognition that was rarely seen.

"Prince..."

Subconsciously blurted out the word, Liu Bang's complexion suddenly became a little stiff.

Only a moment later, I finally saw Liu Bang gritted his teeth, smiled and patted the back of Liu Ying's hand.

"Ying'er was only half a year old when he was in charge of the country, so I'm really relieved to investigate this serious problem."

"However, if you want to recruit slaves, it is enough, you must first untie the slaves, and then you can do it."

"Since the Spring and Autumn Period, the trend of slavery has become more and more popular in the world; therefore, everything involving slavery should not be too violent. Speak softly and slowly..."

Hearing Liu Bang's words, Liu Ying nodded thoughtfully again.

After Liu Bang chuckled and lowered his head, Liu Ying explained her plan in front of her father Liu Bang.

"My father's teachings, my son will remember them in my heart."

"And this time, my son is asking for meritorious service on behalf of the courtiers, and the number of private slaves who have won the meritorious service is just a small attempt to stop it and try it out a little."

"Even if it is not possible to make the matter of the meritorious prince escape from slavery a little bit, it can be restrained a little bit."

"What's more, the child is still young, if you want to use it in the court's meritorious service, you have to hold the barriers of meritorious officials and hundreds of officials, so you can feel at ease..."

Hearing Liu Ying say this with anxiety on his face, Liu Bang only smiled even more.

"Um······"

"Exactly."

"As long as you are old and strong in the future, the king and his subjects should all hold the weapon of life and death."

"—not for life and death; but for ministers who are afraid of life and death, and who are cautious about matters to the king."

As he spoke, Liu Bang got up with a smile and nodded to Liu Ying again.

"With such a view on the government, I don't have much to worry about."

"If there is nothing else to do, the prince will go to Weiyang and tell the empress based on my just discussion."

Hearing this, Liu Ying also took a deep breath, and immediately bowed to Liu Bang with a respectful face.

"My son, take your leave..."

(End of this chapter)