The rise of the prince

Chapter 510 The hidden story of history

"Who."

"Wei Yubai." Li Xingzhou said.

The emperor's face became even more ugly, "You are the grandson of my emperor, it's okay to fall in love with a few more women, but women are women after all! If you fall in love with the daughter of the Wei family, let him send her to the mansion, why bother to make such a fuss .”

"is not what it means."

"What's not, Gentle Township, Hero Tomb.

Women, if you wait too long, you won't miss them. "The emperor said solemnly again: "Furthermore, since you are a descendant of the Tian family and a descendant of me, you must firmly remember that everyone in the world can bear it, let alone a woman. "

Li Xingzhou was speechless: "I didn't mean that. This Wei Yubai is the best equestrian I have ever seen in my life. I want her to train my horse army."

The emperor still gave him a suspicious look.

Li Xingzhou is short of breath, is that the kind of person his mother is?Is it the kind of person who wants to climb on top of a woman when he sees it?

The emperor didn't speak, and finally nodded: "It's up to you. The appointment of the new army is up to you. If the official department has any questions at that time, I will approve it, but only this time."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Li Xingzhou cupped his hands, finally feeling relieved.

"What are you going to do with the black mountain bandits imprisoned in Dali Temple?" the emperor asked again.

"Let him go back." Li Xingzhou took a sip of tea.

"Let him go back?" The emperor glanced at him, frowning.

"He surrendered, and putting him back can show that the heavenly family forgives him."

"If forgiveness was useful, I would not have let Zhong Daoyu send troops back then." The emperor obviously disagreed with this move.

"It's not just because of this, blocking is worse than sparse." Li Xingzhou continued: "In the past, we always wanted to rely on soldiers to deter and dominate a place, but there may be other ways."

"What way?" The emperor looked at him curiously.

"To control their money, I plan to have merchants buy some cotton seeds for me from the northwest, and then invite some people who know how to grow cotton to come back, and then grow cotton in the Taihang Mountains." Li Xingzhou said: "Then the palace will buy it out their cotton."

"Do you think it's feasible?"

"We have to try whether it is feasible or not." Li Xingzhou said, cotton is an important strategic material.

"It's up to you, I will inform Dali Temple." The emperor let go several times in a row, which really surprised Li Xingzhou.

"You want to manage the world with money. From the many businesses in your palace, I can see some of it." The emperor said with a sigh, "Actually, not only you have thought about it, but I have also thought about it."

As he spoke, he stood up, "Do you know why Jingguo seems to be prosperous and why the treasury is empty?"

Li Xingzhou also stood up and followed behind him, shaking his head, "I don't know."

The emperor looked at the snow that was gradually melting outside the palace, and then waved away the eunuchs and maids who were waiting around, and then said softly: "In Jingguo, taxes are calculated on a per capita basis. There was no problem at the beginning of the founding of the country. Ten taxes are one hundred. Surnames are also affordable."

As he said that, his tone became gloomy: "But later, gradually foreign enemies surrounded us, and the tax was increased to eight tax one, or even five tax one, but the national treasury was still not filled much, do you know why?"

"Land annexation." Li Xingzhou subconsciously said.

The emperor looked back at him, his eyes lit up, and he nodded slowly: "That's right, I didn't expect you to have such a thorough insight.

Local powerful families sometimes use means to buy land from the common people, be it by force or money temptation, ordinary people have no land to cultivate, and large households have tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land.

Just your grandmother's house, Wu's house in the middle of Shu, scattered fields, at least 10,000+ mu! "

When the emperor said this, his face darkened, "Just their family, how many taxpayers and how many people have been left without land to grow in Jingguo, do you understand?"

Li Xingzhou nodded. He naturally understood that land annexation was the reason for the demise of many dynasties, but until modern times, no one had the ability to solve it. Many ancient emperors and loyal officials tried to find a way, but to no avail.

There is one who is about to succeed, that is Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty. Unfortunately, as soon as his son Qianlong came to power, he immediately overturned the old man's pot.

In this regard, Li Xingzhou really admired the Emperor Yongzheng who was scolded miserably behind him.

He is a real cross-browed cold finger.

He requires large households to pay taxes according to the number of acres of land they have, requires that fire consumption be returned to the public (explained in the free section below), requires scholars to pay taxes like ordinary people, and requires bannermen to cultivate land, not relying on the state to raise it for nothing.

Precisely because of these, he touched the cakes of powerful households, officials, scholars, and bannermen of his own clan. He was nervous, resisted all opinions, worked hard, and died of exhaustion at 56, leaving countless infamy behind him.

The emperor revealed a sense of powerlessness: "Since you can figure it out, I don't need to hide it. There are more than one family in Jingguo like this. I also thought about it 12 years ago. Let the big clans report the number of acres. Taxes. But do you know the result?"

Li Xingzhou shook his head. He actually knew that the result must be that the local officials and gentry would protect each other and nothing would happen.

"Oh, it turned out that the reported acres were all false numbers. Taking the Tian family in Beijing as an example, Ying Tianfu actually said that the Tian family had 320 mu of land! Can you believe it! There is also the prefect of Chengdu, who reported the Wu family's land. 590 mu of land," the emperor raised his tone.

"Do they all think I'm a fool! It's more than 300 mu, and I'm not surprised even if he reported 30 mu!
And it's not just these two families, famous families from all over the world have reported very few lands. Calculated in this way, there is no chance of [-] mu of arable land in Jingguo! "

As the emperor spoke, his breathing became heavy.

"What will the emperor do later?" Li Xingzhou asked, there were only the two of them in the empty hall.

"Later, I fully understood that they were protecting each other. If court officials did not have the support of local powerful families, it might be difficult to act because of different government orders. Local powerful families regard officials as protective umbrellas.

In a fit of rage, I dismissed many local officials regardless of opposition, demanded a thorough investigation, and demanded that local clans clean up their fields and pay taxes according to the number of acres, and the result was "

The emperor lowered his tone when he said this, and his voice was very soft: "It turned out that in just two years, the rebellion of King Wu broke out."

As he said that, he turned his head: "Do you know about the rebellion of King Wu?"

Li Xingzhou nodded: "They said that King Wu's plan was unruly and ambitious, and it was the disaster of the heavenly family."

"Nonsense!" The emperor's face was so gloomy that he was about to drip water: "Although King Wu is a prince, he is also an idle prince. He has ambitions and plots against others. Where will he get money and food, where will he get soldiers!"

Li Xingzhou was taken aback, "Could it be."

"Many big families in the south helped King Wu to gather troops and support money and food. After King Wu was defeated, I sent people to question the crime, but they said that they were forced to do nothing. The courtyard is safe and sound." The emperor gritted his teeth:
"They did it on purpose! They deliberately supported the king of Wu to cause chaos, and I couldn't do anything about them. Later, I killed tens of thousands of prisoners of war in a row, because many of them were disciples of the southern rich families!

They send out people, and Wu sends out orders. If the matter is successful, the king of Wu can abolish my new policy and continue their wealth;If a King of Wu dies, who can tell whether there will be a next King of Wu! "

Speaking of this, the emperor's face was extremely ugly, and his fists were clenched.

"I have to make concessions, abolish the New Deal, no longer pay taxes by the acre of land, no matter how many fields a powerful family has, still pay taxes by person." The emperor looked unwilling, he let go of his fist slowly, and sighed, "Ah!"

Only then did Li Xingzhou suddenly realize that he understood the emperor's forbearance these years, and also understood the hidden truth of King Wu's rebellion.

What the emperor hated was not King Wu, but the powerful family who supported King Wu behind their backs. In order to continue to annex the land and grow their own family, they not only killed 10,000+ people, but also caused the people to have no peace. The Liao plan.

Land annexation is almost an inevitable trend, and it is difficult to stop, but the final result of annexation is that the local tyrants become bigger, the people have no land to cultivate, and then rebel
"I've told you so much, I just hope you can understand where Jingguo's troubles really lie." He shook his head as he said, mocking himself: "I don't have that much ability. These things can only be mediated through it."

　The silver collected from the tax must be minted into official silver, because the silver in the world is not pure, and there will be a difference when it is cast into silver.

　　And fire consumption is a method of legal corruption by upright officials. For example: a family has to pay eight taels of tax according to the regulations of the court, and local officials can say that he should pay ten taels. It's called fire consumption, and fire consumption belongs to officials.

　　But officials can also ask them to pay 80 taels. The reason is that the silver is not pure, and only eight to one can be refined into official silver.

　　This kind of situation did happen. Some local officials in the Qing Dynasty directly levied eight times the tax set by the court on the grounds of fire consumption.

　　This is also the main source of income for local officials to make a fortune.

　　Yongzheng proposed to return the fire consumption to the public, but increasing the treatment of officials would cut off the legal way for officials all over the world to embezzle. Therefore, he was opposed by the officials and was scolded miserably after his death.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)