Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1368 Nancha Disturbance (Forty) Two Doubts
Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue did not reach a consensus during the daytime meeting, or it should be said that neither of them could accurately determine the actual purpose of Gao Yu in this Beijing inspection.

Jingcha, get rid of some opponents and replace some of your own people. This is a normal operation, and everyone knows it very well.It's just that Gao's pragmatic approach to things sometimes seems too wild and unconstrained for them, and it is difficult to grasp his intentions and make corresponding preparations.

Shen Shixing tends to believe that Gao Yushi intends to perform major surgery in Nanjing's officialdom, in other words, to take the real power in Nanjing.

Although it is said that the Jingcha is mainly targeting officials below the fourth rank, and the officials of the sixth department in Nanjing directly go to the emperor to report to Chen, and the emperor finally decides who will stay and who will leave, but in fact there are not many officials below the fourth rank who hold real power.

Unlike most dynasties, the Ariake generation officially implemented the "Shuangjing System".As we all know, as one of the few cities in Chinese history where more than a dozen regimes have established their capitals, Nanjing's geographical advantages are self-evident.

When Zhu Yuanzhang started his army, he was very clear about the advantages of Nanjing. Feng Guoyong, his early advisor, suggested to Zhu Yuanzhang that Jinling should be established first. He once suggested to Zhu Yuanzhang: "Jinling is the capital of emperors. Go forth and conquer, advocate benevolence and righteousness, win people's hearts, don't be greedy for children and treasures, the world is not settled."

Since the economic advantages of Jiangsu and Zhejiang were the highest in the south at that time, occupying Nanjing is equivalent to owning the wealth foundation of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang was also able to do well in the situation of the Four Wars, leveling Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng, and then the Northern Expedition to the Central Plains.

However, this does not mean that Zhu Yuanzhang is completely satisfied with the establishment of Nanjing as the capital. In fact, in Zhu Yuanzhang's heart, Nanjing is too peaceful and unable to stabilize the whole country. The idea of ​​"going back and forth".

However, in the 11th year of Hongwu, after careful consideration, Zhu Yuanzhang believed that Daliang, also known as Kaifeng, was not suitable to be a capital because of its geographical location as the place of the Fourth World War. However, Zhu Yuanzhang never gave up looking for a new capital. He had three goals: "Luoyang , Xi'an, and Peking".These three cities have their own advantages, but Zhu Yuanzhang died before he could make a decision.

After Zhu Di launched the Jingnan Campaign to seize the throne, he began to consider moving the capital almost immediately. The reason is very simple. After all, Beijing is his "Land of Prosperity", so he very much wanted to add a reasonable reason for his succession. The reason is the so-called "since the emperors in the past, either raised commoner clothes to pacify the world, or foreign vassals entered into the great unification, and all of them were promoted in the places where they started."

On the other hand, Beijing's geographical location is more conducive to fighting against Mongolia and controlling the north, so Zhu Di decided to move the capital.In the 18th year of Yongle, the construction of the Beijing palace was completed, and Zhu Di made a complete decision to move the capital to Beijing and change Nanjing to the capital, but this does not mean that the Ming Dynasty regarded Beijing as the only capital from then on.

After Zhu Di's death, Ming Renzong Zhu Gaochi once wanted to move the capital back to Nanjing, but Ming Xuanzong stopped it in time, and Beijing's position began to stabilize from then on.

The capital city has moved, but it does not mean that the institution has also completely moved here.The situation at that time was that the yamen in Nanjing had to hear cases and maintain the operation of the whole country during the process of moving the capital, so they were not abolished. After the completion of the capital move, the yamen in Nanjing was useless, so all the six ministries in Nanjing in the late Yongle period were preceded by "Nanjing" "The two characters, thus forming the unique Nanjing Six Departments of the Ming Dynasty.

Compared with the six films in Beijing, the six films in Nanjing do not seem to be much different.According to the system of the Ming Dynasty, each of the six ministries has a minister (second rank), a minister on the left and a side (third rank), and the Metropolitan Procuratorate has an envoy for the left and right capitals (the second rank), and a deputy censor for the left and right (the third rank). There are all censors on the left and right (the fourth grade), and there are 110 censors under the jurisdiction of [-] supervisors.

These institutions also exist in Nanjing, but there are still differences from the six departments in Beijing: the six departments in Nanjing do not have Zuo Shilang, the Yamen of the Ministry of Officials does not have Yuanwailang, and the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate does not have Zuodu Yushi.

The Six Departments of Nanjing basically have nothing to do in normal times. For example, the Nanjing Criminal Department can only manage cases in Nanjing, and has no right to try cases in other places; the Ministry of Officials in Nanjing can only assess officials in the Nanjing area.Most of the Nanjing yamen are sacred places for the elderly. It is not a pleasure for everyone to go to Nanjing to enjoy the treatment after retiring from Beijing.

But this does not mean that Nanjing’s yamen is not important. As a system to consolidate the accompanying capital of the Ming Empire, Nanjing Six Departments can still play a role at critical moments (such as the entry of Qing soldiers into the customs), at least directly taking over half of the country. It can be seen that everyone in normal times All agree with the idea of ​​"Nanjing manages the South".However, the highest administrative body in Nanjing is not the six ministries of Nanjing, but the "defense conference" in Nanjing.

Nanjing usually set up a garrison. As an existence to guard Nanjing for the emperor, most of the Nanjing garrison were princes and ministers, and most of them were served by Wei Guogong.The garrison office meeting, which is composed of garrison officers, counselors, and internal garrison officials, is where the highest power in Nanjing lies.

This composition has a certain degree of institutionality. Among them, Nanjing Counselor and Mechanical Affairs is concurrently held by the Minister of the Nanjing Ministry of War, so the Minister of the Nanjing Ministry of War is also a special existence among the six departments of Nanjing. It does have real power, and the real power is very large. Regard the five parts as extremely heavy clouds."

Among the six ministries in Beijing, the Minister of Officials is called the "Tianguan", who can control the promotion, appointment and removal of officials below the fourth rank. The Tianguan also has a strong right to make suggestions on the appointment, dismissal and adjustment of higher-ranking officials.However, among the six ministries in Nanjing, the Nanjing War Department is the strongest, and can control all the military training and defense expenditures in Nanjing. That is to say, the Minister of the Nanjing War Department can mobilize the army to support Beijing at critical moments.

However, the six departments in Nanjing are the six departments in the accompanying capital after all, and in fact no matter what they do, they have to be restrained by the six departments in Beijing.For example, if the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing wants to hold sacrificial activities, it must first consult the Ministry of Rites in Beijing; the selection of officials in the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Nanjing is controlled by the Ministry of Officials in Beijing; ... and so on.

So in fact, many Nanjing officials feel very aggrieved. After all, although the names are similar, and the official status (referring to the administrative level) is logically the same, but in fact, Beijing officials are legal wives, and Nanjing officials can only be regarded as concubines.

Shen Shixing’s view is that Gao Yushi may use Nancha to control the doctors and principals who actually manage various affairs in the Six Departments of Nanjing. In the hands of the doctors and chiefs of the various departments.

The doctor is the fifth grade, and the master is the sixth grade, both of which are within the scope of Nancha.From Shen Shixing's point of view, it is still very difficult for Gao Wushi to directly replace the officials of the Six Departments of Nanjing, but if he only needs to replace some doctors and principals, after Haigangfeng is sacrificed, it is completely possible. In this way, Nanjing's administrative system can also be actually controlled-in any case, the ministers and ministers have to listen to Beijing in major matters.

As for the garrison meeting, the Nanjing garrison minister was Xu Bangrui, the Duke of Wei, who was promoted by Gao Yushi. The garrison in Nanjing was Chen Ju's man.

However, Wang Xijue's view is different from that of Shen Shixing. He believes that high pragmatism will not "bloom in full bloom", but will definitely focus on it.This emphasis, Wang Xijue believes that nine out of ten it will be on financial issues.To be precise, it is likely that it should be at the head of the Nanjing household department.

The Nanjing Household Department also has certain real power. It is responsible for the collection of taxes and grains in Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Huguang provinces (these four places accounted for almost half of the Ming Dynasty). .

Especially for the matter of Yanyin Kanhe, the Nanjing household department was in charge of this matter from the beginning to the end of the Ming Dynasty, and only two years in which the Nanjing household department was not in charge of this matter: in the third year of Zhengde, Liu Jin reformed and changed to the Beijing household department Responsible, "Nanjing Yinban, all ordered to be destroyed"; but in the fifth year of Zhengde, after Liu Jin was imprisoned, the Ministry of Households requested to "print and print Yanyin, and still belong to the Ministry of Households of Nanjing", which was approved.It has remained unchanged since then.

In addition, the Nanjing household department is also in charge of the collection and management of the national yellow books, which are stored in Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing.By the way, the minister of Nanjing household department also often serves as the prime minister's grain storage.

Wang Xijue's eyes were on taxes and salt quotations, and he believed that Gao Yushi was most likely to take action on these two aspects.

Grain tax is not a commercial tax. The four provinces under the control of Nanjing have always been major taxpayers. After the "Hai Rui vs. Xu Jie", the one-whip law has been implemented in Nanjing provinces for more than ten years. Now these four provinces are not In addition to collecting tax in kind such as grain, it should be levied in silver and copper coins.

Now that Gao Wushi is the Secretary of the Household Department, according to Wang Xijue's observation and understanding of him, this Gao Situ is particularly stubborn about tax issues, and it is hard to believe that he will rest assured that the Nanjing Household Department will do this by himself.

In particular, the amount of tax collected by Nanjing last year was not up to the standard, with a loss of more than 3000 taels of silver. The reason was that the typhoon hit last year at the turn of spring and summer, which affected the harvests in Zhejiang and other places.

Wang Xijue was in Suzhou at the time, so he knew very well that this matter was nonsense.The wind disaster was real, and the impact was indeed there, but it actually had nothing to do with the collection of grain taxes.

Why?Because the amount of tax collected by the imperial court is relatively fixed, and the amount will not change because of your disaster.There is only one exception, that is, the emperor specially approves that a certain place is exempted from tax due to a disaster, or that a certain place is clearly allowed to reduce the tax in a certain year.

In the past few years, because the imperial court was much richer than before, Zhu Yijun often approved tax reductions and exemptions. Among them, the year of Huangzhuang reform was the most ruthless. I was almost pissed off.

After his persuasion, Zhu Yijun restrained himself. In the following years, most of the tax exemptions and tax reductions throughout the country were kept within 30 taels a year.As for last year, Zhu Yijun was more strict in this regard because of the decision to lift the feudal ban. The annual reduction was only 14 taels, and the Jiangnan typhoon disaster was basically ignored here.

In other words, the Ministry of Household Affairs in Nanjing said that it was due to the typhoon that it had undercollected more than 7 taels of tax money. This reason is not tenable in terms of legal principles.

Secondly, although the hurricane in the south of the Yangtze River will definitely cause economic losses, the grain tax in the south of the Yangtze River has long been independent of the grain produced in the south of the Yangtze River. The provinces in the south of the Yangtze River have to buy grain from Huguang. How does the hurricane in the south of the Yangtze River affect the grain tax?The Huguang grain tax is also under the management of the Nanjing Household Department, but there is no typhoon in Huguang, let alone affect it.

However, the wind disaster last year still affected some economic activities. For example, if the mulberry tree is blown down, it will affect the silk production. Weaving mills, paper mills and other workshops cannot start work under the wind disaster, so the impact of the disaster is more direct.

Many of these people are landowners, such as Wang Xijue's family, who have both the government and the business, so they have to find some way to make up for it after the disaster.

This is actually how the food tax reduction came about.Ordinary people can't enjoy it, and those who can enjoy it are those who the Nanjing Ministry of Households does not want to offend.

Wang Xijue's family is one of them. Of course, he will first think that Gao Yushi is eyeing this matter, and then he will stretch his hands into Nanjing's financial power.

Although Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue did not reach a consensus, the interests of the two parties were always relatively consistent, so after returning home, they both began to arrange according to their own ideas.

Shen Shixing wrote another letter to the senior officials of the Xin School in Nanjing, reminding them not to just write their own self-reports, but also to pay more attention to their subordinates of the Xin School. We must pay attention to "protecting cadres" in other aspects.

Wang Xijue was more straightforward. He first wrote a letter to his family, asking them to sort out their accounts, and make sure that every income and expenditure is "reasonable, reasonable and legal". Something went wrong in the investigation.

Immediately afterwards, I wrote a letter to the relevant officials in the Nanjing household department, and asked them to check the accounts immediately and fill in the "flat" accounts quickly. Every income and expenditure must be clear, at least if it seems that there is no problem.

Specific to last year’s tax reduction due to wind disasters, although Wang Xijue refused to put his words on paper, he also hinted that Nanjing must stick to the article of “Under the disaster situation, I cannot bear to force the tax collection” and must not argue for other reasons .

Don't care if someone is talking about the system, you just say that you can't bear the forced recruitment and it's over.

The reason is very simple, the system is there, and there is no way around it, but "can't bear forced expropriation" elevates this matter to a moral issue.What is the status of morality in the Ming Dynasty? Needless to say, as long as the non-payment of taxes is transformed from a legal issue into a moral issue, the nature will be quite different. lay down.

"Gentlemen of integrity" enjoy magical immunity in this society, and sometimes even breaking the law cannot be added to the crime.

After the two old gentlemen in the pavilion finished their work, they felt a lot more at ease, and then they could only wait for Gao Pragmatic to make a move.
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(End of this chapter)