Jingnan Strategy

Chapter 276 Clarifying the Tax System

"What did you say?!"

In Zhuozhou, when Zhu Di suddenly stood up, Zhang Fu, who was standing in the Yamen and came to deliver the message, had no choice but to answer again.

"The Southern Army has changed to the flag of Bohai. It seems that His Highness has taken the capital and announced that Li Jinglong has been surrendered."

"Then no one came to find your father?" Zhu Di looked at Zhang Fu eagerly, hoping that Zhu Gaoxu would send someone to give him an answer.

"Back to His Highness, he hasn't shown up yet, but he should be there soon."

Zhang Fu bowed in response. Upon hearing this, Zhu Di turned his attention to Yao Guangxiao, who was beside him.

"Old monk, who do you think I am now?"

"He can be regarded as the future emperor." Yao Guangxiao spoke openly, or there was no need to hold back.

"I don't believe that the second son would be so generous as to give up the throne to me. He wouldn't even be willing to give me the artillery."

Zhu Di fell into self-doubt. Why couldn't he think of Zhu Gaoxu's style of play?

If he had thought of it, he would be the one breaking into the capital now.

But after he thought about it, he realized that the most critical aspect of Zhu Gaoxu's style of play was warships, and he didn't have any warships at all.

What's more, Zhu Gaoxu has him to help contain Li Jinglong, but if he wants to imitate Zhu Gaoxu's style of play, Zhu Gaoxu may not necessarily help him contain Li Jinglong.

"Do I have to go back to Peiping and tell Sister Xu and the boss the news?"

Zhu Di was undecided, but at the critical moment, Zhu Gaoxu helped him make the decision.

"Your Highness!"

Before Zhang Fu even left, a new messenger came from the south, but this time it was Wang Yi.

As the commander-in-chief of an army, the message sent by Wang Yi personally was self-evident, and everyone was watching him.

He quickly walked into the yamen, then bowed and said: "The person who appeased Cao Guogong is Yi Zhangyin. He also brought a message from His Highness, telling you to go to the south of the Yangtze River as soon as possible!"

"Really give it to me?!"

As soon as Zhu Di heard Wang Yi's words, he immediately looked at Yao Guangxiao in surprise, only to see Yao Guangxiao with a smile on his lips, lowered eyebrows and counting Buddhist beads in his hand.

"Just give it up. I will do it for a few years and then return it to him after a few years."

After all, it was the throne. Although he thought it was an unexpected blessing, Zhu Di happily accepted it.

"Old monk, please come with me." Zhu Di tried to call Yao Guangxiao, but Yao Guangxiao shook his head: "It's better for the poor monk to continue in Peiping. Afterwards, he can go south with the princess."

"Okay." Zhu Di couldn't hide the smile on his face, turned around and ordered:

"Wang Yi and Zhang Fu, summon the veteran cavalry from the Yan Mansion, and we will ride southward."

"Yes!" After hearing Zhu Di's words, the two immediately turned around and went to take care of things.

Seeing the two leaving, Zhu Di also walked back and forth excitedly: "It's better to be the second child. I didn't love him in vain. He even gave up the throne to me. How filial!"

He was blinded by happiness, but Yao Guangxiao had to pour a basin of cold water on him.

"The ancients said that a favor should be reciprocated. Your Majesty has given His Majesty the throne. What should Your Majesty give His Majesty?"

Yao Guangxiao changed his title, and Zhu Di paused when he heard this, and stood there thinking for a moment.

"Judging from the fact that the second brother is anxious to withdraw military power, I'm afraid what he wants is military power."

"Military power is an important thing, but I can give it to him, but before giving it to him, I have to get to know him first."

Zhu Di was still worried that Zhu Gaoxu would be harmful to Zhu Gaochi, but Yao Guangxiao looked at him like this but said nothing.

Although he didn't have a close relationship with Zhu Gaojiu, he could tell that Zhu Gaojiu was arrogant and didn't worry about anyone threatening his position, let alone Zhu Gaochi who had no military power.

As long as Zhu Di doesn't delegate power to Zhu Gaochi, but shows his attitude from the beginning, then Zhu Gaoxu still doesn't mind giving Zhu Gaochi a fortune.

In his opinion, Zhu Di was just caring and causing chaos.

When he actually went south and arrived in the capital, it would be easier for the father and son to talk things over.

With Yao Guangxiao thinking like this, Wang Yi, Zhang Fu and others also went to Zhuozhou, selected more than 4,000 cavalrymen from the Lao Yan Mansion with strict military disciplines, and called on a group of generals.

The next day, more than 200,000 Southern troops began to break up camp and disband, and the Yan army in the north also began to disband.

For a time, cheers continued on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and everyone was celebrating that the war was finally over.

They lost too much in this war, some lost their brothers, some lost their nephews, and some even lost their friends.

But no matter what, they survived in the end and could finally go home safely.

Zhu Di appointed Zhang Yu as the commander-in-chief of Peiping and Zhu Yong as the commander-in-chief of Shanxi. They each took 20,000 Yanfu troops to Datong and Kaiping to defend against the Mongols. He himself wrote a letter home and then brought With Qiu Fu and more than 4,000 cavalry, they went south.

The scope of the Battle of Jingnan, due to Zhu Gaoxu's surprise, was successfully controlled in the two areas north of Dezhou and east of Mount Tai.

After the war, it is not an exaggeration to say that the population of these two areas was reduced by half.

Of course, the former is due to fleeing and the latter is due to migration.

But no matter what, the people's livelihood and economic losses caused by this war were still controlled by Zhu Gaoxu. As long as it lasted for three to five years, the local population would be filled in.

This is just a simple exemption policy, but if we want to talk about population siphoning, Zhu Gaoxu is very familiar with this stuff.

Many policies of later generations can be applied to this era as long as he changes them well.

Before Zhu Di went south, Zhu Gaoxu used Yu Xin's influence to start to appease the provinces. He comforted those who were far away, and mobilized troops to intervene in those who were close.

The six thousand cavalry were divided into six teams and went on patrol respectively. Soon, many surrender reports were received from Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces, and they tended to spread outward.

Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong also responded quickly to Zhu Gaoxu, even faster than Fujian, Huguang, and Sichuan.

Judging by the time, they probably sent the memorial when Zhu Gaoxu surrounded the capital.

This is not because they are far-sighted, but because these three provinces are basically Zhu Gaoxu's people.

The three Fu brothers and the Wang father and son from Yunnan...

Yang Wen and Lin Su from Guangxi, Fu Rang and Zhang Chun from Guangdong...

There is absolutely no need for these three provinces to confront him. If they do not surrender earlier, there is a real possibility that the officials of the Sansi Yamen will be martyred for their country.

Perhaps the three provinces took effect too quickly, so Huguang and Sichuan had no choice but to follow suit, while Fujian had to ship the notice by sea.

For a time, all provinces on both sides of the Yangtze River, including Beijing and Kowloon, surrendered. Even Shandong in the north hurriedly surrendered when they saw something was wrong.

After the news of Li Jinglong's surrender spread, local officials such as Wu Gao, Li Jian, Sheng Yong and others all changed their posts, and memorials were also sent from Huaibei, Henan, Shanxi and Peking.

Under such a situation, only the Shaanxi Sidusi in the north did not have time to express their position, but judging from the relationship between Song Sheng and Zhu Di, it is estimated that as long as Song Sheng nods, Shaanxi Xingdusi and Shaanxi Sandusi will submit their orders.

The overall situation of the world is now in Zhu Gaoxu's hands...

"This foundation is really strong!"

In the small courtyard of the Grand Teaching Center, the small courtyard where Zhu Gaoxu once lived has now become almost a small imperial court.

Yu Xin sent hundreds of officials from the Sixth Department, Sixth Section, Five Prefectures, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate here.

They each found an empty yard near Zhu Gaoxu's courtyard and worked nearby.

After their sorting, in just ten days, Zhu Gaoxu sorted out all kinds of data from the Jianwen years.

The reason why he sighed at this moment was because Lao Zhu had such a solid foundation for staying.

There are still more than 16 million shi of grain in the Yunhe Shuizi warehouse, more than 13 million shi of grain in Changping warehouses in various provinces, more than 7.6 million shi of grain in the reserve warehouses of various health stations, and there are still 7.6 million shi of grain in Beijing. More than a million stones of grain.

Adding up all these, after a year of consumption during the Jingnan Campaign, Zhu Yuanzhang still had nearly 45 million gu of grain reserves, more than 4 million gu of copper coins stored in Beijing and local treasury, and various other miscellaneous items. The discount price is about 7 million yuan.

This is only the foundation left behind financially, but also the foundation left behind militarily.

In the year of Jingnan, the Ming army's number of soldiers dropped from more than 1,186,000 inside and outside the 31st year of Hongwu to more than 977,000, and nearly 200,000 were killed or disbanded.

Although there were many casualties, compared with the 500,000 or 600,000 casualties in the Battle of Jingnan, about 50,000 of the 200,000 were disbanded. The real casualties were only about 150,000, which is still controllable. .

The only thing that is not good is the number of war horses. In the 31st year of Hongwu, there were at least more than 58,000 war horses in the country, but now Zhu Gaoxu infers that it will not exceed 40,000, which is almost a sharp drop by one-third. Therefore, horse management must be improved. promote.

Military and financial, Zhu Gaoxu only focused on these two points. As long as he grasped these two points, no one could shake his position, not even Zhu Di.

Therefore, he looked at the situation in the booklet and immediately spoke to the Ministry of Revenue official standing in front of him: "There are more than 150,000 war dead in the world, many of whom died in the Southwest, and many died in the Jingnan. But no matter what, they will always fight and die for their own Ming Dynasty."

"I decree that from now on, all soldiers and horses in the world who die in battle will be compensated with ten guan of copper coins and thirty dan of grain." Zhu Gaoxu changed the Ming Dynasty's pension, reducing six dan from the original thirty-six dan of grain. Add ten strings.

Ten guan of money is enough to buy 256 shi of rice, which means that after the war, a pension of 556 shi of grain is enough for a family of five to work without work for two years.

Despite this, Zhu Gaoxu was personally not satisfied. The pension he wanted to issue most was actually for cultivated land. However, the situation of cultivated land in the pass was not optimistic, and the court did not organize large-scale reclamation. Therefore, there were not so many fields for Zhu Gaoxu to distribute to the defenders all over the world.

But that doesn't matter, Zhu Gaoxu will soon introduce a new policy for the troops all over the world, allowing them not only to have their own fields, but also to double the Ming Dynasty's fields.

The immediate priority is for the Ministry of Household Affairs to first calculate the money and food needed for the pension of these 150,000 soldiers, and whether the local government treasury is sufficient and whether it can be allocated.

"I will take someone to settle the matter now."

The officials from the Ministry of Household Affairs bowed in response, turned around and exited the hospital, and soon after sent Zhu Gaoxu the specific amount of the pension.

At present, the number of soldiers in the country who have not paid pensions for one year or so is 149,672, of which 3,767 are military attaches, and the rest are ordinary soldiers.

According to the pension policy, each of them needs to distribute 1,776,400 guan of copper coins and 5,062,300 dan of grain.

This is a large amount of money, at least 80% higher than the original pension during the Hongwu and Jianwen periods, but Zhu Gaoxu knew that this pension must be paid.

"Just do it like this."

Zhu Gaoxu did not refute, and directly chose Zhu Pi. At the same time, he said to the officials: "Bring me the rules on how the Ministry of Revenue and local governments collect taxes, how local governments transport goods, and how much they transport to Beijing. I will take a closer look."

"I accept your order!" The official did not dare to refuse. After all, the arrests of officials in Beijing were still going on. Who knew if he could not say a word well, he would be imprisoned.

Soon, he arrived at the hospital with two officials and more than 20 thick books. After putting down the books, he got Zhu Gaoxu's permission to leave.

As for Zhu Gaoxu, he planned to sort out the tax system in the early Ming Dynasty before Zhu Di went south, and come up with more reasonable methods based on the problems encountered in the middle and late Ming Dynasties in history.

He looked at it for three whole days.

Even though he had an almost photographic memory, it took him three days to roughly understand the complicated tax system formulated by Zhu Yuanzhang himself.

First of all, the agricultural tax rate set by Zhu Yuanzhang is indeed very low, only one tax per twenty. However, in the early Ming Dynasty, such a low-tax tax system was able to maintain a high revenue and expenditure surplus and fiscal savings.

Because in addition to agricultural taxes, the Ming Dynasty also had a large amount of income from farming, salt classes, tea classes, and labor. In addition, the government in the early Ming Dynasty was relatively clean. Zhu Yuanzhang was also more ruthless in punishing corrupt officials. The "middlemen" who made the difference did not dare to go too far. , so the collection efficiency is relatively high.

However, with the passage of time, the fiscal revenue brought by government-owned land, salt classes, tea classes, and treasure banknotes have undergone tremendous changes or shrunk. In order to maintain the various expenditures of the government at all levels, the actual agricultural taxes collected by the Ming Dynasty It's not low anymore.

For example, Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated the "Xiaqiu Mimai" white grain, the so-called "ten taxes and one tax" and "twenty taxes and one tax" do not mean that after farmers have harvested and reported the amount of grain that year, they will be levied according to the conversion ratio of this data. .

Rather, the Ministry of Household Affairs of the imperial court had already set the specific annual land tax amount for each province, prefecture, and county based on the actual situation of local land quality and household registration amount.

In this case, the so-called "ten taxes -" and "twenty taxes one" actually don't make much sense.

For example, suppose the imperial court believes that Shanxi should produce 10 million shi of grain a year, and now assumes that the tax will be 100 yuan per year.

Well, you Shanxi should pay 500,000 shi of grain this year. This rated amount is a showdown with the Shanxi Governor and Shanxi Chief Secretary, and it is now up to them to collect and implement it.

Naturally, they went down to the next level to show their cards to the prefectures, counties, and the agencies dispatched by the Chief Secretary... The grain supervision road was collected by the most basic district chiefs and grain chiefs.

No matter what method is used, this extra amount of tax and grain must be collected.

Sometimes the allocation is assigned to the lowest level, and each household is divided into upper, middle and lower households. The so-called "wealthier upper households" pay unified grain and tax. If the payment is not enough, they need to make up for it themselves, so the so-called "wealthier upper households" who are assigned to "Going to the household" can result in severe bleeding or even bankruptcy, or in severe cases, the family may be destroyed.

"When I entered the warehouse and paid, I was subjected to the harsh demands of the accumulated labor. I was kicked and showered, and exposed to the wind and sun. I had no money to buy compensation, so I endured the hardships and was punished."

At that time, the common people tried their best not to be designated as an upper household. If the local official had a grudge against someone, he would be designated as an upper household. After a lot of trouble, his family could be destroyed easily.

If there are any natural or man-made disasters or people with registered residence escape, and the local government really cannot collect them all, then they will owe it first and wait for the collection to continue in the future. For example, in places like Nanzhili, Zhejiang, and Fujian in the south of the Yangtze River, it is delayed year after year. , the pursuit will never end.

Seeing this, Zhu Gaoxu could guess that there would be a push for conscription later. Sure enough, after he continued to look back, he immediately saw many unscrupulous things.

However, compared with pressing for collection and collection, what is more unscrupulous is increasing consumption.

The so-called additional consumption refers to the additional levies imposed by governments at all levels on the basis of the court's basic land tax.

Because there are indeed certain losses in the process of expropriating and dismantling the capital, these losses will naturally be borne by the people, which gives governments at all levels a certain amount of room to operate.

In order to maintain the increasing expenditures of the government at all levels, as long as the local government could pay the court's land tax in full, the court would often acquiesce in the increase in consumption, and even stipulated the corresponding proportion of the increase in consumption for each province.

For example, in Zhejiang, every one stone of grain consumes seven dou, and one stone is equal to ten dou, which means that the people have to pay one stone and seven dou, which is too much extra burden.

After reading this, Zhu Gaoxu only felt a little troubled, because he knew that these were just superficial. In fact, when people paid taxes, they were still prone to encounter difficulties from various government officials.

Among the official methods of the Ming Dynasty that Zhu Gaoxu knew about, in order to collect more grain from Tan Mo, he even coined the term "Linjian kicking dendrobium".

The so-called "Lin Jian Kicking Dendrobium" means that when the people hand over grain, the government uses large dendrobium as a measuring device. In order to harvest more rice, the rice will be piled up into sharp points in the dendrobium, and then the officials in the warehouse will kick it a few times. After the kick is completed, the remaining grain must meet the collection requirements.

In fact, this is a very technical and professional job that ordinary people cannot do.

This overflowing grain is said to be used to make up for losses during storage and transportation, and grain collectors are not allowed to sweep it back. In fact, it has always been kept by the government and divided privately according to position, relationship, etc., or used as public funds for grassroots officials. .

Don't underestimate these few kicks. According to the estimates of the Ministry of Revenue during the Zhengtong years, the ratio of this "pointed rice" to the "main harvest" is at least four to five liters per stone.

During the Chenghua period, in order to rectify finances and promote honesty and anti-corruption, the Ministry of Household Affairs promulgated standards to classify "sharp rice" as "normal income".

However, there are policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom. When grassroots governments implement specific operations, they are "top on top".

Throughout the Ming Dynasty, as time went by, this increased consumption ratio became larger and larger, and the operation of pouring the tips and kicking the stems will never go out of style.

In the twelfth year of Zhengtong, Chen Lun, an official in the Ministry of Personnel, said in his memorial that during the Hongwu period, the summer and autumn taxes only required regular consumption. Later, because they had to be transported to Beijing, the consumption increased by two or three dou per stone, and then it increased. It has reached more than six or seven fights.

When the local government levied taxes, they apportioned various fees and levied them all according to the method of pouring the tips and kicking the stems. If calculated according to the rated regular tax, the actual tax was already more than twice the rated amount.

After deliberation with the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Revenue proposed to stipulate the proportion of increased consumption in each province, and reiterated that only sharp Dendrobium should be used for regular grains, and flat Dendrobium should be used for additional grains. However, the local governments did not inform the people, so they requested the imperial court to list the people.

In the end, Ming Yingzong did not agree, indicating that he was clearly aware of how the local government exploited the people, but he approved of this approach.

At that time, the Cangdou-level servants who collected grains usually used the best soldiers from various guards. Many of these errands were bought with money. They came to do errands just to make another fortune, and the officials of various prefectures, prefectures, and counties also shared the same grain chiefs. Cheating and exploiting people as much as possible.

They levied two stones of food from the people, but only gave one stone to the court. In the end, it was the court that took the blame.

Except during the Hongwu period, when this phenomenon was cured, the rest of the time was like a grasshopper after autumn, jumping higher and higher.

Even now, Zhu Yunwen has only been emperor for two years, and local officials have already begun to feel fat...

"It is still necessary to train enough grassroots officials. We must not continue to rely on subordinate officials and local gentry. In addition, the replacement of the currency system must also be accelerated."

After reading the Hubu's brochure, Zhu Gaoxu rubbed his swollen temples.

He did a simple calculation. Based on the current Ming Dynasty's cultivated land of about 400 million acres, even if the yield per mu can only reach one stone, as long as it can collect one tax per ten, the court can obtain nearly 40 million stone from the cultivated land. food.

But as long as it is food, things like "drench the tip and kick the stems" will happen.

The reason why this happened was because the subordinate subordinates at the lower level and the corrupt officials in the government worked together to seek public benefit for personal gain.

This kind of thing will still happen no matter how many people are replaced.

If you want to avoid it as much as possible, you should change from in-kind tax.

In addition, there are also big problems with the assessments set by the Ministry of Household Affairs. Zhu Gaoxu carefully looked at the assessments in each province and found that the assessments set by Shanxi were too high, while those of Zhejiang and Jiangxi were too low.

But raising taxes is really not advisable, because there are too many situations that can be interfered with in the three steps of "upper, middle and lower households".

The reason why the Ministry of Household Affairs is so divided is because the local government does not have enough officials, so it can only give up part of the benefits to local subordinates, using their local power to collect taxes, and at the same time, it is also cheaper for them.

However, Zhu Gaoxu did not intend to take advantage of this group of people. He planned to spend more than ten years cultivating local tax revenue bit by bit and unplugging the system of subordinate staff bit by bit.

There are 60 million people in the Ming Dynasty. As long as we can maintain a grassroots team of 300,000 people, we can actually control the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Gaoxu has already collected one-tenth of the 300,000 yuan team. Now all he has to do is continue to wait and then increase his efforts.

Only with enough grassroots officials can he maintain a long-term clean and effective tax system.

Simply speaking, the system prescribed by Zhu Yuanzhang does not have any major problems in nature. Apart from some minor problems with apportionment, the biggest problem is that the squires and subordinates interfere too much, making it more difficult to collect taxes in places with more people and easier to default on taxes. .

It is impossible for Zhu Gaoxu to overthrow his own rule, but enlightening the people's wisdom does not mean overthrowing his own rule.

He wanted to clear out the feudal and corrupt squires and subordinates and replace them with officials belonging to the imperial court.

Using the barrel of a gun and the barrel of a pen, he didn't believe that he couldn't defeat this group of country squires and subordinates.

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu opened a blank booklet and began to make detailed arrangements on how to expand the scope of the Bohai education system.

As long as there are enough people, he can continue to bring fresh blood to the officialdom. By then, it will be difficult to find three-legged toads, and people who can read and do arithmetic will be everywhere. Is he still afraid of officials clumping together?

Thinking of this, Zhu Gaoxu began to write quickly.

While he was writing furiously, Zhu Di from the north finally arrived in the capital before May after more than ten days of traveling...

(End of this chapter)