The Soul of the Han Dynasty in the Late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 536
A few days ago, a young eunuch named Wang Yongji from the Luwang Mansion brought four or five people to the vicinity of Houjiazhuang when he was spotted by the "Red Banner Army" patrol cavalry and refused to accept inspection and interrogation. Also cursing.

The little eunuch here does not mean young, this eggless guy is over 30 years old, but because he has no rank, he is just a small boss who manages a dozen eunuchs.

In fact, such eunuchs are not eunuchs, but the folks don’t know how to distinguish them. When they see such people, they think they are eunuchs. There are more than [-] eunuchs in Ming Dynasty, and no more than [-] can be called eunuchs. The others are just eggless servants. That's all.

The "Red Banner Army" has less slavishness and more self-confidence, and the cavalry is a proud unit. It is a warrior who will go forward bravely against the Jiannu cavalry.

Most of the cavalry who have served for more than a year have decapitation skills of more than three levels, and this team of patrolling troops is a small flag and eleven cavalry.

The little banner officer who stopped a few eunuchs and asked for a routine inspection is a veteran with the rank of a warrior who has not been able to write [-] characters by heart until now. Now that the non-commissioned officer system has been adopted to take care of many good soldiers, the requirements for selecting officers have been raised to the level of mastery More than five hundred words.

The cavalry flag officer's name was Zhou Liangchen, and Liu Fenyong and Yuan Siming were led by Huang Han and his son at the same time.

Those people were selected by Han Zhikuan from a hundred generals of the Ming army, and they were also the number one Ming army led by Huang Han and his son.

There are a total of 33 cavalry with three small flag officers, and less than 20 are still serving. Six of them died in battle, including one small flag officer. Nine of them retired because they were disabled and could not ride. The level of disability is not high. The four of them turned into banner guards.

Among the survivors were Liu Fenyong and Yuan Siming, the two small banner officers at the time, the "Red Banner Army" who now holds the rank of general, and He Yongqing, the warrior's personal guard next to Huang Han.

A few years have passed, and the "Red Banner Army" has fought dozens of battles, large and small. In each battle, these veteran cavalry basically participated in the battle.

The fundamental reason is that these three non-commissioned officers have nothing to say in war, and they just can't write.

He Yongqing, as the head of the family's personal guard, should be doing better than Zhou Liangchen and Shen Sixiao who are still serving as small cavalry flag officers at the grassroots level.

Zhou Liangchen, a small flag officer with the rank of warrior, was respected in the barracks. He once fought side by side with Li Ruolian and Fang Zhenghua, and also drank with people from Jinyiwei and Dongchang.

He has seen a lot of big scenes, and he knows many real eunuchs, seeing how rude the few eunuchs from the mere palace made him furious.

Fortunately, Zhou Liangchen has been educated by Huang Han for many years, and he has long since lost his sexual habits.

He saw that the little eunuchs just talked happily and did not beat them. Instead, they locked up these five people and starved them for three days, and told them when they were polite and able to speak well before they would be released to ask for clarification and run here purpose of coming.

People who pretend to be powerful are often worthless. When Wang Yongji and the others were just locked up, they still yelled loudly, clamoring that if his prince found out, he would definitely kill these soldiers.

On the same day, the news that Zhou Liangchen imprisoned Lu Wang's slaves spread like wildfire. When He Yongqing heard the news, he was worried that his violent comrades would cause trouble and immediately saw the opportunity to report to Huang Han.

Whether it is the princes or scholar-bureaucrats of Ming Dynasty, folk rumors abound that they are not good birds. In fact, there are many reasons why they are domestic slaves who do evil.

Even relatives who can't reach the pole use the names of officials and royal relatives to run amok, and the superiors may not know what these people are doing.

Huang Han learned that he didn't take the arrogant and unclean-mouthed Lu Wang's slaves seriously, he took care of He Yongqing and still didn't beat or scold them until the five were so hungry that they would let them out to eat.

What did they call Dongpinghou and the "Red Banner Army"?Take the initiative to confess in the form of words and sign and draw a pledge, and similar situations will be handled in the future.

He Yongqing was originally worried that Zhou Liangchen would cause a catastrophe, but after hearing the Patriarch's advice, he was so happy that he could see his teeth but not see his eyes. He immediately told Zhou Liangchen the good news and spread it widely in the army.

When the soldiers of the "Red Banner Army" saw that the patriarch did not hesitate to offend the prince in order to protect his robe, they all felt warm and felt the strength of the collective even more.

How could the arrogant house slaves have been bullied like this before? They became honest after being starved for two days, but they refused to write down and sign their words cursing Dongpinghou. Zhou Liangchen still didn't beat or scold them, and continued to starve them.

On the third day, the five house slaves were completely subdued, and the governor of the "Red Banner Army" town gave them two bowls of porridge and released them after receiving the confession documents.

It is conceivable that when these people return to King Lu's mansion, they will add fuel and jealousy to the high-ranking eunuchs and cry about their experience in coming to Houjiazhuang to do business. These low-level eunuchs will not be able to meet King Lu casually.

During this time, Huang Han also read a lot of materials compiled by Qiwei. They were all vassal kings and county kings with fiefdoms in Henan. King Lu's reputation is actually not bad, and he is also a versatile literati.

He was going to use King Lu as a breakthrough to solve the big problem of hundreds of thousands of mu of land belonging to vassal kings and county kings.

In the early years of Wanli, through Zhang Juzheng's integration and statistics, it can be confirmed that the entire Ming Dynasty has more than 18 million acres of land, which is less than half of the more than [-] billion acres of cultivated land in later generations.

The average tax rate of land tax is less than four liters of corn per mu. The land tax rate in Henan is lower than the average tax rate, which is about three liters and two for one mu. Can't get it.

In fact, the "three salaries" were not collected at the same time at the end of the Ming Dynasty. In the late Chongzhen period, most of the so-called "practice salaries" were borne by Jiangnan, because Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi were basically smashed.

The maximum positive tax per mu of land tax in Henan would not exceed four cents of silver. Officials in the Ming Dynasty generally calculated the land tax on the basis of eight cents of silver per stone of grain.

According to the law of the Ming Dynasty, the so-called fiefdoms of vassal kings, county kings, dukes, marquises, and earls are actually owned by land tax, which does not mean that they own hundreds of thousands or even millions of private lands.

Every mu of land has an owner, and the emperor often confiscates tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of mu of land to a certain vassal. Where does the need for so much mature land come from?

The real situation is that the ownership of the land remains unchanged, but the land tax originally received by the household department has become the food salary of the vassal king.

In history, Zhu Changxun, the King of Fu who was loved by Emperor Wanli, went to enfeoff Luoyang as a vassal. Wanli was afraid that this son would not live well, so he bestowed [-] hectares of fertile land. This hectare does not represent fifteen acres of land.

From ancient times until the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, one hectare of land was 200 mu. It can be seen that King Fu owned [-] million mu of fertile land. Although the area of ​​one mu in this era is less than [-]% less than that of later generations, the total amount is also scary.

(End of this chapter)