Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 152 Jingtian Feudalism
Another bad debt. Zhu Youjian was too lazy to pursue it and had no way to pursue it. He said:

"Let's forget what happened in the past. From now on, the Liaodong Protectorate Office will be established and managed with reference to the Military and Civilian Office."

"The Hujun Mansion has a Government Affairs Office, a Court Office, and a Guard Office to manage civil affairs, justice, and law enforcement affairs."

"The cities in various places will decide whether to establish government offices based on their needs."

"All political affairs in Liaodong are under the jurisdiction of the military envoys. The official positions in the government offices are held by the military captains."

After increasing the functions of the Liaodong Military Envoy and entrusting him with military control of all political affairs in Liaodong, Zhu Youjian added:
"In addition to the original departments, the Government Affairs Office of the Hujun Government has set up a special Lands Department to be responsible for land affairs."

"Measure all the land currently cultivated in Liaodong, determine the private lands owned by the people, and issue land titles to them according to the prefectures and counties in the interior."

"But it must be made clear that these lands will only belong to them after the war is over."

"During the war, all land was expropriated for farming and unified management was implemented."

"As compensation, the imperial court will allocate land to them in Liaodong after it is recaptured."

"With 10% compensation every year, they will be able to obtain land equivalent to the current area in ten years."

This policy made all the officials breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that the emperor did not expropriate land at will.

The annual compensation of 10% is a very high compensation. Existing landowners can easily acquire more land.

However, in order to prevent some people from benefiting too much, Zhu Youjian also set restrictions, saying:

"The maximum compensation is 10,000 acres."

"The Ministry of Household Affairs must pay attention to all families with land of more than 10,000 acres."

"These families have a lot of land, so they must be big taxpayers. The Ministry of Household Affairs should pay attention to their situation and help them solve their difficulties."

"In the future, local provinces, prefectures and counties will select the top ten taxpayers to commend their contributions."

"Don't let low-level officials arbitrarily make things difficult for those who provide taxes to the court."

The ministers were ashamed when they heard this. They didn't know whether the emperor knew it or not. Most of the families who owned tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of acres were donated by the common people in order to reduce taxes and corvee——

These families don’t pay taxes at all, let alone big taxpayers.

The emperor's statement was like putting families with more than 10,000 acres of land on the fire, asking everyone to pay attention to their taxes.

Of course Zhu Youjian knew that they were evading taxes. This policy was to put them on the fire and make people in the government and the opposition pay attention to these families.

For him who was too poor to make ends meet, he wished he could have these big families pay back taxes immediately.

He hates the preferential treatment of officials!
Preferential exemptions for officials began during the Hongzhi period. But at that time, it was just free from labor, free from miscellaneous labor.

But after officials made this opening, they began to expand it. In the 24th year of Jiajing, formal rules for exemptions and exemptions were finally formulated.

But at that time, the first-rank official in the capital, who had the most exemptions and exemptions, was only exempted from 30 dan of grain and 30 men.

No one could have imagined that just over twenty years later, Xu Jie would own hundreds of thousands of acres of land relying on this policy.

Local officials simply do not dare to check how much land they own and how much land should be exempted.

This kind of thing is almost free of charge!
If we only look at the exemptions and exemptions stipulated by the imperial court, the taxes exempted by the imperial court are not many. But in actual implementation, this loophole is very large.

Later, in order to prevent the preferential exemption from becoming full exemption, during the Wanli period, the preferential exemption was defined as an acre of land. An acre of land was exempted from three liters, and the maximum was 1,000 acres.

However, local officials dare not conduct an inventory or strictly enforce the 1,000-acre standard. When local officials even increased the number of acres of preferential and exempted land tenfold and used this standard to inspect the land, the former chief minister of the cabinet said that he would personally handle the matter of bringing grain to Beijing.

It can be said that it is a fact that preferential exemptions are implemented as full exemptions in some places.

Thinking that so much land needed to be exempted and exempted, and even more land was hidden, Zhu Youjian couldn't help but feel heartbroken and wanted to punish them immediately for tax evasion.

However, most of these people were senior court officials or retired ministers. Zhu Youjian, the newly ascended emperor, could not possibly touch them at this time. We can only list the families with more land first so that people will pay attention to their tax issues.

At the same time, he decided to include tax evasion in his crackdown on eunuchs. According to the preferential and exemption regulations established during the Wanli period, tax evasion by rebellious officials was strictly investigated.

In the future, Zhu Youjian also plans to tighten tax exemptions and even abolish all tax exemption regulations. Let the nobles, officials and gentry all pay taxes together.

After these thoughts flashed through, Zhu Youjian asked again:

"If Liaodong is recovered, how much arable land will there be?"

Yuan Keli, Minister of the Ministry of War, said:

"According to Qingzhang data during the Wanli period, Liaodong Dusi had more than 29,000 hectares of cultivated land."

"During the Jiajing period, it was more than 38,000 hectares."

"How much?" Zhu Youjian couldn't believe this data with his eyes widened.

He finally understood why Sun Chengzong mentioned his achievements in cultivating more than 5,000 hectares of farmland. Because during the Wanli period, the entire Liaodong had only 29,000 hectares of cultivated land. Sun Chengzong was able to cultivate more than 5,000 hectares of farmland in that small area outside the Pass. It was really a great achievement. .

Zhu Youjian really couldn't believe this number of acres. Even if it was 38,000 hectares and 3.8 million acres during the Jiajing period, Zhu Youjian didn't believe it - even if the current productivity is backward and the three northeastern provinces have only developed part of Liaoning, it must be at least tens of millions of acres, right?

2.9 million acres, 3.8 million acres, only one-third of this number.

Officials were too bold to hide their land and could not award land to soldiers based on this number of acres.

Really unable to believe this number, Zhu Youjian asked carefully and found out that the number of acres in Liaodong was so small because of the use of large acres.

A normal mu is two hundred and forty steps per mu. In Liaodong, one mu is seven hundred and twenty steps, which is three times the normal mu. Therefore, the approximately 30,000 hectares of cultivated land in Liaodong is actually about 90,000 hectares——

There is not much difference between the nine million acres of cultivated land and the tens of millions of acres estimated by Zhu Youjian.

Zhu Youjian reluctantly accepted this statement. However, he did not dare to allocate land by acre. This complicated acre system was too troublesome. The same acre of land may be three times the size of another piece of land. Even Sun Chengzong couldn't tell whether the more than 5,000 hectares of military settlements he cultivated were used for large acres or small acres, and Zhu Youjian did not dare to use this kind of acres.

Thinking of his plan to establish a fiefdom overseas, Zhu Youjian asked:
"How big is Liaodong?"

"Is there a square that is thousands of miles away?"

Not knowing what the emperor was going to do, Yuan Keli said:

"In the past, there were Liaodong capitals who could measure thousands of miles away."

"If we expand further north, we can still reach thousands of miles."

It would be nice to have this area. Zhu Youjian envisioned the fiefdom to be calculated based on square miles, and the land in Liaoning was distributed. He also planned to divide the land based on area, so he said to the ministers:

"Mencius said: There is a well in every square mile."

"The Chunqiu Guliang Biography" says: In ancient times, a mile was three hundred steps long, and it was called a well field."

"I plan to change the distance outside the pass to three hundred steps, and each square mile, that is, one square mile, is a well field."

"A thousand miles square is a million square miles and a million well fields."

"These million mine fields will be used as one million military merits to be awarded to all the heroes who participated in the recovery of Liaodong."

"The minimum is one minefield, the maximum is one hundred minefields. Those with greater merit will be selected first, and those with less merit will be selected later. Priority will be given to martyrs who died, to disabled soldiers, and to soldiers on the front line."

"These lands are subject to a tithe tax according to the well-field system. No one is exempt from tax, but no other land tax is paid."

"Credit cannot be bought or sold, nor can mine fields be bought or sold, nor can it be divided. It is inherited by the heads of households from generation to generation, and is given and taken back by the court."

It is planned to trial enfeoffment in Liaodong, divide the land into small pieces, and distribute them directly.

If things go well, we will entrust larger ones overseas in the future, starting from ten miles square.

When the ministers heard what the emperor said, their eyes widened. I really didn't expect that the emperor would distribute the land like this.

Especially Ida's statement made them excited, thinking that the emperor was restoring ancient rituals——

Which Confucian scholar has no idea of ​​restoring the well-field system?
It's just that the well-field system is really unfeasible, as Wang Mang's failure to reform has proved.

Therefore, Confucian scholars had to give up the well-field system.

However, throughout the dynasties, there were many scholars who advocated the well-field system. Now the emperor proposes to implement the well-field system outside the customs. Regardless of whether it is feasible or not, it means that the emperor is implementing benevolent government and is committed to the rule of the three generations.

Huang Liji, the chief minister of the cabinet, immediately led his ministers and said:
"Mencius said: A benevolent government must begin with the economic realm; if the economic realm is not straight, the wells and ground will be uneven, and the grain and salary will be uneven. Therefore, the tyrant who corrupts the officials will have to slow down their economic realm. Since the economic realm is correct, the land and salary can be divided. Just sit still."

"Hai Rui of this dynasty once said: If you want peace and order in the world, you must go to the mine fields."

"Your Majesty established mine fields in Liaodong and implemented benevolent government. I will congratulate the world."

All the ministers praised him and believed that the emperor was benevolent and implemented well-field feudalism.

He really didn't expect the ministers' reaction to be so great. Zhu Youjian found that he had underestimated the significance of the well field system in the hearts of Confucian scholars.

In his mind, the well-field system is an ancient system, and he has never thought of restoring it. It's just that there happens to be a well field in one area, so I borrowed this name.

Now the reaction of the ministers made him feel that this name was used correctly. From now on, the overseas fiefdoms of Fang Shili and Fang Baili will be renamed as One Hundred Well Fields and Ten Thousand Well Fields.

Jingtian feudalism is indeed the romance in the hearts of Confucian scholars. I want to satisfy their fantasies and carve out mine fields for them——

Let them go overseas to establish territories or even vassal states to move the Ming Dynasty population out and reduce the population burden.

This is what Zhu Youjian planned, the new era of wellfield feudalism!

　"History of Ming Dynasty·Biography of Hai Rui":
　　Rui studied hard all his life and focused on being strong. Because he called himself Gangfeng, the world called him Mr. Gangfeng.

　　Taste said: "If you want peace and order in the world, you must cultivate well fields. If you have to limit the fields, and if you have no choice but to equalize taxes, you can still preserve the will of the ancients."

　　Therefore, from the county to the governor, he tried his best to implement the rule of law and promulgated a whip law. The intention is to benefit the people, but the actions cannot be unbiased.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)