Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 444: Noble Lord Field
Zhu Youjian was very happy when he saw Han Yu's memorial.

No matter what Han Yu thinks in his heart, his statement is of great significance to the fight against corruption and promoting integrity.

This person indeed meets his requirements and can become the Prime Minister in the future.

Yes, after Han Yu made this statement, Zhu Youjian had already decided to let Han Yu serve as the next prime minister.

This was not only a display of obedience on Han Yu's part, but also because he was the leader of Donglin and could convince the officials.

With the decision to go to war against the Jianlu next year confirmed, Zhu Youjian needed a prime minister who could integrate the court and prepare for the war.

Han Yu might not be the best candidate, but his prestige, reputation, and obedience made Zhu Youjian decide to make this man the prime minister.

However, according to the previously established system, Huang Liji's term of office will end in August next year. Zhu Youjian decided to continue to whet Han Yu's appetite and let him perform well in the next few months.

Therefore, he asked Cao Huachun, the propaganda committee member who served in the Industrial Committee of the Royal Assets Commission and was responsible for integrating the propaganda industry, to continue to promote anti-corruption and integrity in the newspapers. However, he should reduce the coverage of the gift money case involving Han Yu.

And we must let everyone know that Han Ge Lao voluntarily declared his assets and is an honest official who is determined to fight corruption.

The Dali Court also received instructions to arrange for the Dongcheng District Tingwei Office Primary Court to try the case of Han Yu's relatives accepting gifts and money.

Some of these people were sentenced to fines and deprivation of political rights for several years, while others were sentenced to exile abroad for stealing memorials that Han Yu brought home for processing.

Those who give gifts are also sentenced because according to the gift tax regulations, both the giver and the receiver need to pay taxes.

They did not take the initiative to go to the tax office to pay taxes, which was a crime of tax evasion. They were also sentenced to fines and deprived of political rights for several years.

Of course, their sentences were shorter than those of Han Yu's relatives, because they confessed after being arrested and received some leniency and reduction of sentences.

But these people definitely don't want it, because their names are on the list of counter-cases again and added back.

The result of their gift giving is that they will attract more attention in the rebellion case and it will be more difficult to pick them out from the rebellion case list.

Han Yilian, who initiated the gift-giving case, became famous in Beijing. Many people knew about this incorruptible official who sent all his teacher's relatives to jail.

Although many officials have objections to him, he is welcomed by the public, and many people provide him with clues and report corrupt officials.

The anti-corruption work has got off to a good start, and many officials are no longer as blatant in their corrupt behavior as before.

However, these are only temporary. Zhu Youjian knows that anti-corruption is a long-term task. If there is any relaxation, officials will become very corrupt.

Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang took an iron-fisted approach to fighting corruption, but he was not able to completely eliminate corruption until his death.

Especially now that the salaries of Ming officials are relatively low, it is even more difficult to fight corruption. Zhu Youjian can only catch a few typical cases to prevent the corruption from spreading and affecting the court's plans.

He intends to continue to focus on anti-corruption work and make it a priority.

The person in charge was Han Yu, who proposed in his memorial to the emperor that an agency responsible for anti-corruption be established in the cabinet.

Zhu Youjian planned to reorganize the trial committee of the treason case into an anti-corruption and integrity committee after the trial of the treason case was over, so that the sword would continue to hang over the heads of officials and make them feel awe.

Now he started to work on this matter. He fined Han Yu three months' salary on the grounds that he did not manage his family well in the gift money case, and standardized the process of handling memorials, strictly prohibiting them from being taken out of the office for processing. He also sent back the list of counter-cases that he had initially drawn up.

He asked Han Yu and others to confirm the list of traitors and publish it in the newspapers so that the public could expose and report the traitors.

Especially those who rely on their status as eunuchs to do evil things must be included.

This incident aroused a lot of public response, because when the eunuch party was in power, they not only persecuted the Donglin party, but also did a lot of atrocities among the people. The "private occupation of Huangshan trees and plants case" in Huizhou was a case fabricated by the eunuch party.

After the victims found the channels, they immediately reported the case, including the petty officials who were attached to the eunuch party.

The workload of trying counter-revolutionary cases therefore increased a lot, forcing Han Yu and others to continue to be busy with these cases.

According to the emperor's request, all cases must be tried in public. The newly established Dali Court was so busy that it mobilized all the subordinate courts.

The court became somewhat nervous, and many remaining eunuch officials were worried about being reported and tried.

Although most of the cases reported by the public involved minor officials who had little to do with the officials in the court, there were always some who had abused their status and committed misconduct and were reported.

This time, what awaited them was not removal from office and reappointment, but trial by the court and most of them were exiled overseas.

Zhu Youjian took this opportunity to clean up the court and, in the name of trying a treason case, purged a group of corrupt and lawless officials.

There were many vacancies in the court, and he asked to select outstanding officials from the local areas to fill them.

The court was busy with these matters throughout the end of the year, so much so that Guo Yunhou's collection of property taxes was covered up.

But while ordinary people did not pay attention, the nobles could not ignore it, because the property tax levied by Guo Yunhou was first targeted at them.

After levying taxes on the imperial farms in Shuntian Prefecture, Guo Yunhou also levied taxes on the farms of the nobles, causing many of them to come to the palace to request exemption from this tax.

Zhu Youjian was very angry about this and asked these nobles:
"My imperial estates have to pay taxes, so why not your estates?"

"If anyone doesn't want to pay tribute to me, stand up in front of me!"

Naturally, no one stood up among the many nobles who cried and complained.

They dared to cry to the emperor when they united together, but almost no one dared to speak up in front of the emperor.

It was still the Duke of England, Zhang Weixian, who had some face in front of the emperor, who said:

"It's not that we don't want to pay tribute to Your Majesty, but the taxes collected by Mr. Guo Si are too high."

"Your Majesty said that the hereditary land of the guards and the land of the nobles were only taxed at 10%, but he collected 30% of the land tax from our manor land."

"Your Majesty, please issue an order to Minister Guo to collect only 1% of the tax on the farmland."

Zhu Youjian was a little confused about this and asked:
"Why is it 30%? How did Guo Yunhou decide it?"

After hearing these people's explanations, we learned that in order to facilitate taxation, Guo Yunhou imposed a 30% land property tax on all land owned by families with more than 750 acres of land.

That is to say, if a family owns 800 acres of land, instead of levying a tiered tax on the first 100 acres as normal, an additional 10% tax on 100 to 375 acres, 20% on 375 to 750 acres, and 30% on 750 to 800 acres, a uniform 30% tax is levied on all 800 acres of land.

This made the tax collection work of the Sinong Temple much simpler. It also met the emperor's requirements and was considered progressive taxation.

The land owned by the nobles undoubtedly exceeded 750 acres, so they were all subject to a 30% property tax.

Zhu Youjian did not object to this approach, and pretended to be puzzled and asked the nobles:

"Isn't the farm your land?"

“Why do we need to collect land tax?”

Duke Chengguo Zhu Chunchen said:
"I want to convert all the farmland into land for the nobility, but Mr. Guo Si disagrees."

"He said that the amount of land for the nobility must be limited and should not exceed the amount of the salary."

"The remaining land will be treated as privately owned land and must pay land tax."

“They even advised us to divide the households and limit the excess land to one thousand acres.”

"It is said that if we do not have titles, all government land exceeding one thousand acres will be taken back." Zhu Youjian nodded slightly, because this was his instruction.

In the absence of a customary setting for title land, he planned to determine the title land of dukes, marquises, and earls according to the number of stones of their salaries.

This is relatively fair and can reduce disputes among the nobles.

But the nobles were unwilling to do so, because that would mean too little land for them.

The highest salary of the Xu family, Duke of Wei, was only 5,000 dan, and according to this system, they only had 5,000 acres of land.

Five thousand acres is fifty hectares, which is much higher than the thirty-five hectares of hereditary land owned by the dukes of the Tang Dynasty.

But the nobles were still not satisfied, because compared with the land they had accumulated over two hundred years, this number was too small.

What's more, some earls only had a salary of 700 dan, which meant they could only own 700 mu of land. Compared with some hereditary officials of the garrisons, they were inferior to them. How could they be willing?

Zhu Youjian had anticipated this situation, otherwise he would not have privately instructed Guo Yunhou to try to use this method to determine the title of nobility.

He knew that the nobles would definitely make trouble, so he asked Guo Yunhou to test their attitude.

Now, after trying it, he immediately realized that the nobles' resistance to this was fierce.

However, some were willing to agree to pay tribute.

So he said to these nobles:

"So what you mean is that you are willing to pay tribute in the hope of having more land?"

The nobles looked at each other and finally nodded helplessly, knowing that if they did not agree to pay tribute, the emperor would probably not give them more land.

Thinking that the emperor's imperial estates had to pay taxes, if they dared to resist, they would be suppressed by the emperor and the civil officials. They could only nod their heads and express their willingness to pay tribute to the emperor.

There were even those who flattered the emperor and expressed their willingness to pay tribute to the emperor's treasury.

They just hoped that the emperor would keep their estates and convert them all into noble lands.

Zhu Youjian certainly did not agree with these voices, but he still smiled and said:
"It's good that you have this intention, but you don't need to pay more."

"I collect taxes from you only to shut up the civil servants and make them pay taxes according to the law."

"In the future, these taxes will be converted into titles and salaries and returned to you."

"So Mr. Guo said that the land of nobility can be the number of nobility salaries, which is exactly one mu and one shi."

All the nobles were grinning as they heard this, and no one believed it.

If the emperor had not approved, how could Guo Yunhou dare to set the number of title fields so low?
But they did not expose it, because the emperor's attitude clearly allowed them to bargain, and the amount of the title land had not yet been determined.

Therefore, these people said that it was impossible to pay one shi of rent per mu. The current grain yield per mu is just over two shi. If the tax is paid according to the eleventh standard, it should be a little more than two dou.

Therefore, they requested the emperor to set the number of lord lands at five times the number of lord salary. In this way, the taxes paid by their lord lands would be roughly equivalent to the lord salary.

Some people were even more greedy and demanded that it be set tenfold or even a hundredfold, and that the number of stones of title and salary be directly changed to the number of mu, so that all of their family's farmland could be converted into title land.

As Zhu Youjian listened to these people's requests, his face gradually darkened.

When these nobles saw the emperor's expression change, they lowered their voices.

British Duke Zhang Weixian said:
"I think five times the number of shi of salary is enough, and there is no need for too much land."

"You don't have to collect the salary and then distribute it, you can just deduct it directly."

What this sentence means is that the tribute from the noble land does not need to be collected and paid out, but can be directly deducted.

It is equivalent to tax exemption without the trouble of taxation.

Zhu Youjian certainly disagreed with this. He knew that if there were tax-free acres of land, there must be land hidden.

After all, the government has not done the survey, so they have the final say on how many acres a piece of land is.

Moreover, the nobles paid tribute to the emperor, which represented their submission to the emperor. Zhu Youjian certainly could not just exempt this tax and not collect tribute from them.

He also hoped to collect more tributes from these people after they established their own fiefdoms in the future!
So he said firmly:
"Taxes are taxes, and salaries are salaries. They should not be confused."

"But the salaries of the ministers can be raised. For example, the salary of the Duke of Ying can be raised to 5,000 koku."

"All marquises will be counted at the highest level, and their rank will be raised to 1,500 shi."

"The same goes for the earl, who was promoted to 1,000 koku."

This decision made Duke of Ying, Zhang Weixian, very happy, because the salary of 5,000 dan was comparable to that of Duke of Wei, Xu's family.

Duke Chengguo Zhu Chunchen was somewhat unhappy, because the salary of Duke Chengguo was only 4,200 dan—

It used to be ranked above the Duke of England's 3,200 koku, but now it has been surpassed.

Zhu Youjian saw his expression, but did not raise the salary for Duke Cheng. After all, if he did, it would not show how precious the five thousand stones were.

How can I get the Duke of England to support me if I don't bribe him in this way?

After hearing that the emperor had raised the Duke of Yingguo's salary to 5,000 dan, Zhang Weixian was indeed bribed. Not only did he enthusiastically support the emperor's decision to increase the amount of land for the title fivefold, but he also did not express any opposition.

This was not only because the Duke of Yingzhou’s land holdings reached 250 hectares, but also because of his salary of 5,000 dan, which put the Duke of Yingzhou at the top of the Ming Dynasty’s nobles.

From then on, the Duke of Yingguo was known as a five thousand stone official together with the Duke of Wei, and was called the head of the nobles in the capital, which was also well-deserved.

When the salaries of other marquises and earls were raised to 1,500 and 1,000 dan, although they did not agree on the spot, most of them stopped protesting.

Because their land was increased to 75 or 50 hectares, it was already quite satisfactory for some nobles.

Although this amount of land cannot completely cover the family's farmland, by distributing the farmland to some family members, the land tax can be completely avoided.

Of course, there were some nobles who had too much land and were not satisfied with the amount of land they owned. So they asked the emperor to allow them to own manors in addition to their land, and not to impose such a high land tax on the manors.

Zhu Youjian was somewhat annoyed by their greed and asked:

"Don't you want to divide your farmland among your own children?"

"If each household is given 100 mu, wouldn't that allow them to avoid the land tax?"

"Do you want me to help you divide the households and distribute the land to the children of the family?"

These people were suddenly speechless, as they did not want the emperor to interfere in their family affairs.

If the emperor provoked a dispute over the succession, like the Xinjian Earl, they would need to fight for the title. They might be forced to move from the rich and powerful land of the Central Plains to overseas.

Although some of these nobles, like the Duke of England, were preparing for overseas fiefdoms, most of them were unwilling to leave the Central Plains and go to the wild lands.

(End of this chapter)