The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 445 Land Reform
Zhang Gaowen's family followed more than a dozen carriages and headed eastward.

Since Zhigu was quarreled by the Ming army, many officials in the capital of Jianlu were as thoughtful as Zhang Gaowen, especially the Manchu officials, who rushed to send their families back to Liaodong to avoid the war.Among them, there is even the Bushan family, the son of Gagai who created the Manchu script.

Later, everyone met unexpectedly on the way, and finally formed a huge convoy with the Bushan family as the core.

But recently I heard that the Ming army came out of nowhere to attack Jinzhou, so the convoy no longer dared to go straight to the northeast, but went north first, passed through Ningcheng in the south of Horqin, and then turned east to Shengjing .

In this way, although the distance is nearly doubled, it can avoid Jinzhou, and the safety is guaranteed.

Zhang Gaowen's wife had been driving for several days, and her bones were almost broken. She was complaining to her sister-in-law with a bitter face, when a driver in front of the convoy shouted: "Be careful! There is a large army of soldiers!"

Bu Shan's cousin frowned, "It should be from some tribe in Horqin, so don't panic."

Although he said so, there were more than 200 servants and guards accompanying each family, each holding a sword and bow to surround the masters.

Soon, a huge number of people came up from all around. Although these people were dressed in different clothes, they had excellent weapons in their hands. There was a huge "Zhao" character on the banner in the army.

Immediately, Yiqi rushed out of the team, and shouted at the team coming from Beijing, "Who are those people in the car?"

Immediately, a member of Bushan's family stepped forward and said respectfully: "Master Jun, this is Lord Bushanbu's family in Jialazhangjing, and behind him are Lord Zhizhongga of Shuntian Prefecture, Lord Yushi Zhao, and Lord Zhang in Shizhong. Waiting for the family members of others, please also invite the military master..."

Unexpectedly, the knight was overjoyed when he heard the words, and ran back to the team, reporting to Zhao Gongwei: "Brother Zhao, they are the family members of Jianlu, and they are all high-ranking officials!"

"Oh? Caught a big fish?" Zhao Gongwei waved his hand without hesitation, "Don't let any one go!"

……

Shaoxing.

Since the king of Lu changed his title to Chaozhou, the first half of the original Lu king's mansion has been used as the chief envoy's yamen.

In the side hall on the north side of the original palace, Zeng Ying, the right servant of the household department, bowed to Zhu Lin and said, "Return to Your Highness, some time ago, the survey and compilation of the barren fields by the chief ministers and envoys were completed. This is such a big event that Yang Gebu wants to kiss." I came to report to you, but there are too many various affairs in the household department recently, and the cabinet department is afraid that His Highness will think about it at this time, so I asked the lower officials to convey it on my behalf."

Zhu Linmei nodded and took the thick thread-bound booklet in his hand, and Wen Zeng Ying continued: "The war in Yunnan has just ended, and the army in northern Zhejiang is still suppressing captives, so the figures for these two places are the latest to come up, and there may be more omission."

He pointed to the mu book and said: "The arable wasteland harvested from the central and southern parts of Zhejiang is mainly the original fiefdom of the King of Lu, the land confiscated and surrendered to the prisoners, and the unowned land left by the people who were killed by the war. The common arable land [-] dumps, but more than half of the counties have not yet completed the measurement."

Zhu Linmin nodded. There is a total of about 80 square meters of arable land in central and southern Zhejiang. Now that less than half of it has been counted, [-] square meters of unclaimed land have been gathered. This is already a lot.

Zeng Ying continued: "Most of the official lands from Yunnan are located in Lijiang and Ami, with a total of more than [-] land.

"In Jiangxi, there is the fief of Ganzhou donated by your Highness, the land invested by King Yongning and King Yi, plus the unclaimed land caused by the war disaster, a total of [-] land.

"The former Ding Kui Chu encircled the land occupied by Guangdong and the unclaimed land born of drought and plague..."

After Zhu Linming listened patiently, she finally concluded that the Ministry of Household Affairs had collected a total of 32 unowned land in various places plus the original official land.To measure these lands, Yang Tinglin and various local officials also spent a lot of energy.

However, judging from the situation Zeng Ying described, there should be many places that have not been measured clearly.You know, the six provinces in the south of the Yangtze River actually controlled by Taizheng Dynasty have more than 240 million cultivated land registered in the "Da Ming Hui Dian", and the actual number should be at least 100 more than this. More than ten thousand tilt.

After successive years of wars, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujing and other places have a large number of unclaimed land due to population deaths. In addition, the confiscation of captive officials and the land donated by Zhu Linmi and several princes should account for at least a quarter of the total cultivated land area. One or more is right.

Therefore, the 32 tilt should be far away.Zhu Linmei first put away the mu booklet, and then told Zeng Ying: "It is very important to count unowned land and official land. You go back and tell Yang Ge's department to continue to investigate the unowned land. If someone dares to embezzle it privately, the local government will strictly punish it." .

"In addition, the local officials are ordered to report the detailed figures of the unowned land in the area under their jurisdiction at the latest by the end of the year. The imperial court will select some places to re-measure. If the figures are too different from the local reports, the local officials will be judged as 'not good'. say'."

Disqualification is the worst first-level evaluation.

"Also, we must strictly investigate the situation of taking advantage of the opportunity to occupy the property of the people. If there are offenders, they will be punished as a felony of corruption. I will ask the Jinyiwei to cooperate with the Police Department and the Criminal Department to carry out this. The Ministry of Finance itself must always keep an eye on it Son."

Zeng Ying hurriedly bowed and said, "Your official, please remember."

Land is the most important asset of a country, especially in an agricultural society like the Ming Dynasty, it is not an exaggeration to call land the life.However, after more than 200 years of land annexation in the Ming Dynasty, especially the blatant enclosure of land by the gentry at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the land was basically concentrated in the hands of a few officials and landlords, and there were fewer and fewer self-cultivating farmers who owned land.

These peasants who lost their land could only become tenants of the big landlords and endure exploitation.In addition, the landlord and gentry class relied on their large land resources, thus greatly controlling the bottom society.

At that time, the imperial government's decrees often couldn't go on at the village level, and the real power in the villages and towns was the big clan and big landlords.The reason is that those who control the land have the right to speak at the bottom.After a long time, the people who depend on them for a living can only be at their mercy, even the government's decree can't match it.

Zhu Linming has read many historical analyzes in later generations, and naturally knows the harm of land mergers. If the land distribution problem cannot be solved from the top down, then there will be Li Zicheng and his like, who will mobilize the crowd to redistribute land by violence from the bottom up.

If you want the society of Ming Dynasty to be stable and the country to last forever, land distribution is an unavoidable problem.

As for the solution, it is also ready-made, that is, the "household joint production contract responsibility system" successfully demonstrated by New China, in which the state controls the land and only allocates the right to cultivate, and does not let go of ownership.As a result, it was difficult for the gentry and landlord class to annex land through capital or power.

Moreover, having the percentage of income paid for contracted fields formulated by the state is equivalent to drawing a line for the landlord class across the country. If they want to collect more rent, they will definitely cause tenants to switch to contracted fields.

(End of this chapter)