I have a cornucopia

Chapter 188 Queen Development Plan
Faced with Yang Feng's extravagant efforts, the Suzhou Elderly Association's choice is...

Endure it!

Isn’t it just one million taels more per year?

I paid for it!
I have a lot of money!

"Look, they are like this. Once they kneel down, it is difficult to stand up again. They will even give themselves a kneeling position, looking for some high-sounding explanation. Are my knees weak? Do I have no courage to resist? ? No, how can we, who have read the books of sages, be so weak in our knees that we dare not resist? It is obviously for the sake of the overall situation! It is obviously because of our loyalty to the Ming Dynasty.

With these explanations, they can kneel down with peace of mind.

Then they would keep kneeling.

On the contrary, like a temple, respecting them and giving them face, they feel easy to bully. Only by stepping on them with a knife, like Taizu Gao Emperor, who confiscates their homes and exterminates their families from time to time, will they be honest and obedient.

Shit!

They are all bitches! "

Yang Feng said contemptuously.

The princess sat next to him and just smiled.

"As Zhu Guo said, they are all paper tigers."

Ma Shiying also had a sigh on his face. Lao Ma never expected that the Suzhou Senior Citizens Association would agree readily. He rushed Yang Feng's tax book to Suzhou for 500 miles. After the new Yingtian Governor Guo Weijing handed it over to the Suzhou Senior Citizens Association, The elders held a meeting in a hurry the next day and agreed after a reportedly intense discussion.

But outsiders don’t know the negotiation process.

They directly closed the door of Xuanmiao Temple and held a closed-door meeting.

Of course, they have additional requirements.

However, this requirement is very simple, that is, the supervisory state can appoint a tax supervisor, but this tax supervisor does not need to specifically collect taxes. The Suzhou local magistrate is responsible for collecting taxes, and the tax bank will be handed over directly to the tax supervisor.

Of course there is no problem with this request. Originally, this was what Yang Feng really wanted.

Everyone understands.

What's more, there is no one in Yang Feng who can actually collect taxes.

The tax supervisor he designed was Wang Chengen, but there is still no news about Lao Wang. It is not known whether Chongzhen will let Lao Wang go south. After all, there are not many people around Chongzhen who can talk at this time. His Majesty the Emperor lives in the palace that was originally transformed from Prince Qin's palace, and the guards are all arranged by Li Zicheng, that is, several concubines and eunuchs who follow him are waiting on him. Among them were Concubine Yuan Guifei. Of course, this woman went to find Chongzhen. She had been named the imperial concubine and the queen was vacant. There was also his son Zhu Cijiong. The family lived in the palace in Xi'an, sitting in a well and watching the sky.

But most of the palace maids and eunuchs who followed the westward journey have dispersed.

After all, there is no future.

The maid can go out and find a man to marry, and the eunuch can also find a general under Li Zicheng to be a slave. Anyway, serving someone is not serving anyone. If you follow Chongzhen, you may not even have enough to eat.

Those who are still following him are truly loyal.

In short, Chongzhen may not be willing to let Lao Wang go.

After all, for His Majesty the Emperor, having Lao Wang by his side can still give him the feeling of being the king of the world, and Lao Wang mainly deals with Li Zicheng on his behalf...

He couldn't just go to Li Zicheng and ask for some firewood, rice, oil and salt, could he?
He is His Majesty the Emperor!
Li Zicheng, a traitor, withheld all contributions from various places. After all, he could even withhold the beauties that Yang Feng paid tribute to him. It was all because Lao Wang went out to find Li Zicheng to beg for various supplies. Li Zicheng could still give Lao Wang some face. , in short it’s hard to say. Before Lao Wang arrived, Yang Feng was not prepared to actually send out tax inspectors. As for after Lao Wang arrived, it was Lao Wang's business. Anyway, he provided force as a backing and Lao Wang studied how to collect taxes. In the final analysis, this It's not something that requires genius...

All you need for taxation is a knife. As long as you have a knife in your hand and can kill people at any time, it will no longer matter whether the tax system is reasonable or not.

So what if it's unreasonable?

Do you still dare not to hand it over?

When we collected taxes in the Qing Dynasty, no one dared to say that it was unreasonable, and no one dared to say that we were competing for profits from the people...

What people?

I, the hard-core crops of the Qing Dynasty, are the Chinese.

Did the Qing emperor compete with the hardcore crops for profit?

"It's just that this generation is dissatisfied after all, and they just want to delay it. Nowadays, the regiment training troops are insufficient, and they are mostly a mob. There are less than 20,000 people who can be used. In Suzhou alone, there are only a few thousand people. They also know that this is not enough. Fight against the imperial court. But there is no shortage of money and soldiers in this life, and cannons are easier to obtain. It only takes two or three years to have the courage to fight against the imperial court. At that time, the reform will continue to be implemented, and the gentry everywhere will become more unified. After all, they can no longer tolerate it. Go down.

What's more, the Battle of Yangzhou has confirmed that when regiment training actually goes to the battlefield, it is already as good as the elite officers and soldiers.

They are just stalling for time. "

Yang Guanguang said.

By this time Zhang Guowei had already solved Liu Liangzuo...

Just as Yang Feng guessed, after the 24-pound heavy artillery destroyed a section of the city wall, civil strife broke out in Tianchang Wall that night. Liu Liangzuo's general Cao Hu led his men to besiege Liu Liangzuo. During the melee, the servants defected, and Liu Liangzuo was hacked for more than ten times. knife, and then was carried out bloody and surrendered to Zhang Guowei. However, they besieged Yangzhou and killed too many people. Lao Zhang didn't know whether it was intentional or careless, or he arranged for Yangzhou soldiers, Ma Minglu, to take Yangzhou soldiers, Cao Hu and other surrendered generals to escort Liu Liangzuo to Beijing, and then left. Halfway through, he was ambushed by Liu Zhaoji's troops prearranged by Ma Minglu. More than 3,000 surrendered troops were trapped and killed by the Yangtze River. Liu Liangzuo was cut into pieces by those Yangzhou soldiers. It can really be said that he was cut into pieces.

It is said that many Yangzhou soldiers with deep hatred ate his flesh.

Can understand.

After all, Yangzhou was besieged by him for several months, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties inside and outside the city.

There was a blood feud.

"Then, they dare to resist?"

Yang Feng said.

"This one……"

Yang Guanguang is not sure.

Indeed, they dared to resist at that time?

"They are just a bunch of misers. If they are not forced to the point of desperation, who will stand up and fight?

It’s just money. They don’t lack it. They only get two to three million more a year. The group of salt merchants in Yangzhou alone make no less than nine million a year. There are looms in half of Suzhou and countless looms outside Suzhou. A town in Shengze can shout "Sunrise Ten Thousand Horses, Clothes and Quilts for the World", they are richer than Yangzhou salt merchants.

At that time, each Xu family owned 400,000 acres of farmland and had thousands of weavers, so they could earn one million taels a year. However, there were more than dozens of people like the Xu family in Jiangnan.

They all live in fine clothes and fine food, who would fight for this little money?
Besides, the money is really gone? Taking the 2.8 million shi as an example, do they really have to go elsewhere to buy food? Whose family does not have a warehouse full of grain? They pay taxes in exchange for silver, but collecting rent is not exchange for silver. The area around Taihu Lake is full of fertile farmland. Three or four stones of grain per acre are few. Six or seven stones is not surprising. Land rent cannot be found. A few were under a stone and a half. The court tax only collected a few dollars, which was only three liang dou per acre of land, and it had to be heavily allocated to official land. These gentry collected five times as much as the court, and 2.8 million dan was nothing more than rent for a million acres. How could it be used anymore? You have to go out and buy food.

It's just that I can't sell it for two liang and one stone, so I feel like I've lost money.

That's not taking money out of the house.

But to make less money.

Making less money is a loss for them. "

Ma Shiying said.

He still understands the Jiangnan gentry.

It's crazy that these guys who have lived in fine clothes and lived happily in the garden all their lives have the courage to rebel. It is inevitable to say that there are some hard-core among the gentry, but the elders will decide at the meeting of the elders, and expect a lot of It would be even worse if the elders with their own ulterior motives would work together and prepare to rebel at the risk of destroying their entire family.

Isn't it good to kneel down?
No matter how much Yang Feng asked for, it was just something within easy reach for them.

But if life and family are gone, then they are really gone.

"Then why are the people so hungry that they rebel? Why do they say that the imperial court imposes excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes?"

the princess said curiously.

Yang Feng and others all smiled slightly.

"Princess, it is true that the people pay taxes at two or three dou per acre of land, and only the official fields in Suzhou, which are heavily taxed, have so much. These fields are official fields, and the civilian fields according to Taizu's rules are taxed one for twenty and one tax for thirty. It's just The Suzhou area is special. Most of them are heavily allocated to official land. There is no way around this. A paddy field in the south of the Yangtze River can cost seven dan, and the average one is four or five dan. , especially in northwest Liaodong, four or five bushels of grain is considered good in mountainous areas. Emperor Taizu Gao was wise and harvested more grain in areas with a high yield and less in areas with a low yield. Four bushels of grain were harvested in areas with a yield of four stones. , there are still three stones and six left, four bushels per mu, even if the harvest is four liters, there is only a fraction left.

Take the excess and make up for the deficiency.

This is how a country should be governed.

After all, the world is big. The people of the Ming Dynasty are the people of the blessed land, and the people of the Ming Dynasty are the people of the barren land. As a king, you have to take care of both the north and the south.

But today's Ming Dynasty is no longer the time of Taizu.

Most of the land in the world has long been in the hands of the gentry, and those who farm the fields are no more than tenants, or even child servants. Most of the food produced by this generation's blood and sweat has to be given to the gentry. The latter built gardens with huge sums of money and raised concubines in their families. Thousands of slaves and maids, as well as descendants with fine clothing and fine food, will all come from this food.

The more prosperous and wealthy the gentry were, the more they extracted from their tenants, children and servants.

If the gentry is greedy, the latter will naturally not have enough to eat. "

Yang Guanguang said.

"What about excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes?"

said the princess.

Yang Guanguang and Ma Shiying stopped talking.

"Princess, you don't think that being an official is just for the salary, do you?
As far as we know in the Ming Dynasty, the only people who make a living on salary are probably Haigangfeng. Take a county official as an example. When he takes office, local gentry and officials at all levels have to give him money for his sedan chair and birthday gifts. , we still need to give gifts during the holidays, so where does the money for these gifts come from? Naturally, it comes from the people. In addition, there is fire consumption, which is the loss when the silver collected from the people is recast into large ingots. When Haigangfeng was the governor of Yingtian, the rule was that the fire consumption was two points. This is reasonable, he calculated it over and over again, but the amount of tax collected in each place depends on the conscience of the local officials. Now the maximum has reached three or four qian. If the tax of one tael is charged, it will cost three or four qian more for fire consumption. In addition, local officials have to think of other ways to make money. Feng Menglong wrote about a county magistrate. After taking office, Toli Zheng bought him eggs, but he did not take them away after buying them, and asked Li Zheng to hatch chicks for him and raise them. .

He won't pay for food to feed them.

Li Zheng did not dare to starve to death for him, and even if he was bitten to death by a weasel, he would have to make up for it. However, Li Zheng could not pay for his own food to raise chickens for him, and it would only be distributed to the people under his rule.

He can't afford to offend the county magistrate, but he can pass it on to the people!
When the chickens are grown, they can be sold, and the money from the sale will of course go to the county magistrate.

Even the officials during Taizu's time actually dared to do this. In Taizu's palace, there was an officer guarding the gate. He kept geese and ducks at the city gate, and then forced the people who entered the city not to worry about what food they brought. He had to be fed before he could enter the city. Of course, Taizu could bring Da Gao to the capital to complain, so he was exiled by Taizu.

All of this, no matter how it is done, the money collected by officials will ultimately be borne by the people.

The common people are at the bottom.

Other officials, gentry, and businessmen will all take what they lose from them. I can guarantee that the price of salt shipped from Yangzhou this year will rise sharply. Yangzhou salt merchants have suffered too much this time, so they can only raise the price from the common people. Get it back from your body. Similarly, the price of cloth shipped from Suzhou will also increase. The money lost by the gentry this year will still have to be recovered from the common people. All of this is squeezing the people at the bottom.

Of course the people at the bottom don’t have enough to eat.

Then they overturned the table. Since others would not let them have enough to eat, they stopped eating.

This is the eternal source of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong's rampage in the world.

thief?
All poor people in the world can be thieves. "

Yang Feng said.

Ma Shiying and Yang Guanguang stood there awkwardly.

I have to say that Yang Zhuguo always makes things so clear. Everyone is an official after all. It is said that Ma Shiying has accepted a lot recently. Although Yang Guanguang is stronger than Ma Shiying, he is not unaccepting at all. But Yang Feng is really as honest as water... …

Bah, he doesn't look down on that corrupt money at all.

He robbed them all.

The princess sat there frowning.

"Your Highness, I can't take my duty seriously. I really deserve death."

Ma Shiying said quickly.

"Forget it, in this Ming Dynasty, these are no longer critical. Let's stabilize it first and talk about it later!"

The princess said with a sigh.

Obviously she is not Yang Feng after all, but this is inevitable. We cannot expect her, a princess who has been aloof since she was a child, to truly think about problems from the perspective of the poor. Nor can she be expected to be like Yang Feng and naturally think that an empire ruler, first of all, We must prevent people from starving to death...

In fact, no one can be found at this time who has such high requirements for rulers as Yang Feng.

For this era, including the people, it is already a prosperous era if there is no large-scale famine. Other natural disasters and people starving to death are normal.

Natural disasters, it’s all God’s fault!
"Actually, if it were not for natural disasters, even with these shortcomings, it would not cause chaos in the world. This was already the case at the time of the temple. There were no natural disasters at that time, so it was still a prosperous age. Fortunately, there are no more burdens now. With the wealth of Jiangnan, even if There are also some natural disasters, which will not lead to starvation and death like in northern Shaanxi. Your Highness oversees the country in Nanjing, so you don’t have to worry about these troubles. You only need to protect the country for Your Majesty. When the world is in chaos and the storm is precarious, who can take care of it? many."

Ma Shiying said.

(End of this chapter)