Imperial Master of the Ming Dynasty

"Throughout the years, we have been in different situations, but today we meet Jiang Lang with tears streaming down our cheeks. I think you must be thinking so hard!"

In midsummer, Jiang Xinghuo met Li Jinglong at the Shanghai port.

Jiang Xinghuo smiled stiffly and accepted Li Jinglong's over-eager embrace. He didn't know why the other party had adopted the posture of "when the golden wind and jade dew meet, they will win against countless people in the world."

"Get the troops settled first. The barracks and various supplies are ready."

The tax guards have already gone to the countryside in batches, and with these returning expeditionary forces and armed forces in hand, Jiang Xinghuo feels much more at ease.

Former Shanghai County Magistrate Zhang Shouyue went through a round of transfers and has now been promoted to Songjiang Prefecture Magistrate. He rushed from Huating County to Shanghai County and personally took charge of various tasks. He carefully expanded the military camp where the counter-rebellion troops were stationed at that time. In one round, rice, flour, grains, oils, vegetables, fruits, towels, bedding and other supplies were all arranged. The expeditionary force had been bumpy on the sea for a long time, and now they got off the ship and could have a good rest.

A sharpened knife is a good chopper, right?

Entering the flower hall of the Shanghai County Government Office, the two of them poured tea. Jiang Xinghuo's expression calmed down and his eyes calmed down.

"What? The situation in Songjiang Mansion is very bad?" Li Jinglong took a slow sip of hot tea and asked.

Jiang Xinghuo shook his head and said: "The situation in Songjiang Prefecture is not bad, but judging from the feedback from the tax guards who went to the countryside in various prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River, the situation in other prefectures is very serious."

“In the past two years, we conducted a round of work-sharing and land-grabbing, which solved the common people’s burden of corvee work. However, in the final analysis, there is still no in-depth investigation and solution to many land issues.”

There was nothing that could be done about it. Zhu Di had just ascended the throne, and being able to attack the corvees when the foundation of his rule was very unstable was already a great act of courage. Any other emperor would not have been able to make such a decision.

However, the situation in the previous two years could only go so far. As for the problem of the land itself and the closely related agricultural taxation problem, the Ming Dynasty Central Committee at that time was not able to solve it.

But now times have changed. Not only are the internal and external conditions basically stable, but tax guards and guards who can read and count have been trained in large numbers, and there are objective conditions to solve these problems.

In fact, although the Hongwu Dynasty initially cleaned up the Jiangnan gentry in the name of clearing out Zhang Shicheng's influence, but as time went by, thirty years later, the Jiangnan gentry not only did not decline, On the contrary, after Lao Zhu's butcher knife finished chopping, they sprung up like bamboo shoots after a rain, and became dense bamboo forests.

Solving the corvee problem is not the most important step in the land reform. On the contrary, it is only the first step.

Now, through the reactions from various places and his own actual inspections along the way, Jiang Xinghuo has gathered that the gentry's erosion of land and population has seriously weakened the foundation of Ming's rule here.

Land and population were the most important wealth of the feudal dynasty. Without land and population, the huge state machine of the Ming Dynasty would have lost fuel and power and would not be able to operate at all.

As for the tax guards going to the countryside, although not everything has been fully investigated, based on what has been revealed so far, it can be said to be "shocking".

Although the owner-peasants and tenant farmers no longer have the burden of corvee service, the actual burden is still very heavy, because they not only have to bear the summer and autumn taxes, but also various temporary apportionments that are not required by the court but are carried out by the local government. In addition, There is also what Jiang Xinghuo said before about the extortion and extortion by low-level tax officials and others in taxation. When combined, these often lead to people from poor families selling their sons and daughters. But now this situation is a little better, because the people still have There is a way out through work.

With the great development of the textile industry in the south of the Yangtze River, there are not only government-run handicraft workshops, but also spontaneous private workshops among the people. While the sprouts have greatly developed, it also means that the demand for textile workers has increased.

Jiang Xinghuo took out a report document and handed it to Li Jinglong.

Li Jinglong unfolded it and saw that it was Zhu Yong's report. This boy gave up the great future of following his father's northern expedition and really gave up his heart and went to the countryside. Although the article had no rhetoric, at least the sentences were fluent and could explain the story. To be clear, this is considered a pretty good level of education in today's martial arts.

"There are constants in the sects of every year, but the county adds miscellaneous materials from time to time, with various names and colors. It is said that they are sent to the vassal. However, after repeated questioning, there is no way to find out. There are officials writing about gods and ghosts, and there are many things. Those who love profits, those who are clever will reduce the regulations if they are exempted, while those who are foolish will impose heavy levies and make it difficult, which makes the countryside collect taxes excessively and tax onerously. The people often frown and tell each other when they encounter additional sects.

There are hundreds of fees charged today, some are named after lamps and lanterns, some are named after firewood and charcoal money, some are named after money for managing food, and some are named after money for raising horses. Adding to the interests and disadvantages of Li Lao, the people There is no time left to speak of.

Miscellaneous taxes are paid by others, and the poor have no money to ask for it, so they have the reality of being poor but not the name of poverty; the rich use it to win the market, but they have no reputation of being rich but have the reality of being rich, and the disadvantages are long-term. That’s it! "

The report is not long, but the problems reflected are serious.

Li Jinglong frowned and said: "It seems that the reason why the prefecture and county are not cured is because of the powerful subordinate officials."

"yes."

Jiang Xinghuo tapped the table with his fingers.

"This kind of situation where powerful subordinates unite and squeeze out normal resources from both ends, if not solved now, will inevitably cause unstoppable turmoil in the future and will inevitably impact the foundation of rule. If two hundred years pass, Jiangnan will really be like the Ming Dynasty. no problem."

Jiang Xinghuo was telling the truth. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, Jiangnan was self-contained. Even after Beijing fell and the emperor hanged himself, Jiangnan's entire political, economic and cultural system was still able to create Nanming on its own.

To put it bluntly, the court at the end of the Ming Dynasty could not even collect taxes in Jiangnan. When people were sent to collect taxes, they were beaten up and beaten to death, and they could not control them.

"Then what are Jiang Lang going to do?"

In this situation, if you ask Li Jinglong to find a way, he will definitely not be able to do anything, but it does not prevent Li Jinglong from believing that Jiang Xinghuo has a way.

In fact, Jiang Xinghuo did have a solution.

According to the previous thinking, the first one is to clean up the illegal land occupation by powerful people, and the second one is to put an end to the influence of low-level tax officials in the tax collection process.

Through the actual investigation during this period, Jiang Xinghuo expanded these two points according to specific situations and expanded them into four key points to solve the tax problem.

These adjustments based on the actual situation have been put into writing after Jiang Xinghuo's thinking, and he plans to use them as the fundamental method of this tax reform and spread them widely.

The first point is the system of village chief and grain chief.

This system is relatively complex, and we need to briefly trace its historical origins.

To put it simply, a unified grassroots organizational framework was not formulated immediately after the founding of the Ming Dynasty. Some of the rural organizations in various places were inherited from the Yuan Dynasty, and some were reorganized or founded. It was not until the 14th year of Hongwu that Lao Zhu ordered a nationwide The Lijia system was implemented within the scope, and the original grassroots organizations in rural society that had been inherited from the Yuan Dynasty were basically integrated into the unified institutional framework of the "Lijia system."

The specific method of organizing Lijia is that every one hundred and ten households are divided into one "li", and the ten households with the most Dingliang take turns serving as "Lijia". They take turns serving in a fixed cycle of ten years, and the order is based on Dingli. The amount of grain is pre-arranged, and the remaining 100 households are called "Jiashou". If there are elderly, disabled, young children, widows, foreign residents, etc. who cannot afford it, they are called abnormal households.

As mentioned before, in the official grassroots system of the Ming Dynasty, there is actually no concept of "townships and towns". These are spontaneously formed civilian settlements. In the official standard, there is only "du", so in Hongwu II When the Yellow Register was compiled for the second time in 14 years, it was also stipulated that the integrity of the original rural divisions such as "du" should be maintained when organizing Lijia. For example, a city with 600 households would be classified into 550 households. There are five "li", and the remaining fifty households are assigned to the "capital", under the name of the head of each li, and they are responsible for the responsibility. Households in other capitals are not allowed to make up for it.

In addition, in the administrative envoys in southern Zhili, Zhejiang, Huguang, Jiangxi, Fujian and other areas with relatively large amounts of land tax, the Ming Dynasty also successively established the system of grain chiefs, who were responsible for collecting grain during taxation.

But with the passage of time, these systems, whether it is the area chief or the grain chief, have begun to go out of shape.

Take the village head system as an example. On the one hand, there is the problem of household evasion. Because of the heavy taxes, even if there is no pressure from corvee work, the pressure on farmers has been greatly alleviated. However, there are still a large number of household evaders in disaster years, which leads to There is a situation where few residents in Lijia have registered permanent residence; on the other hand, the residents take turns to do so, but they are all measured according to the family income situation ten years ago. After ten years, the person who takes the turn may have already fallen into financial ruin. Once the need arises, Compensation means making a fuss to the point where the whole family will be unable to pay or reimburse the entire family.

Obviously, people can become evil, and you cannot expect people to have moral consciousness in the face of interests.

In order to reduce their own pressure, or simply to make money during their term of office, some district chiefs will take advantage of the opportunity of collecting taxes and collude with yamen officials, subordinate tax collectors, etc. to do evil together. The same is true for grain chiefs.

Therefore, when cleaning up the powerful and subordinate officials at the grassroots level, we must also vigorously rectify the already somewhat broken system of district chiefs and grain chiefs.

The second point is the issue of "jingdui", that is, the hands of subordinate officials in the process of tax collection and transportation. This is often regarded as a good opportunity for blackmail by grassroots officials. Jiang Xinghuo has said it before, so I won't go into details.

The third point is the issue of "resignation".

The so-called "take refuge" in the early Ming Dynasty was on the one hand in terms of land and acres. The powerful gentry registered their land in other people's names through so-called sprinkling, deceitful sending, flower sharing, false posting, etc. to avoid paying taxes. The burden of grain; on the other hand, it refers to men who were required to perform corvee labor. In order to escape the heavy labor service, they were forced to take refuge with the powerful gentry families and became servants, foster sons, farmers, etc. under the shelter of the wealthy families. But the good news is that corvee labor is The problem has been solved, so many people who took refuge in the powerful households of the gentry have now returned to their own household registrations.

No matter what the name of these fraudulent means is, or how the specific methods are different, they are actually the same in nature, that is, the gentry and powerful people use all methods to push the taxes they should bear onto others. This kind of problem It cannot be solved by relying on normal officialdom methods alone.

Is Hai Ruitou strong enough? Are the bones hard enough? This can be ranked at the forefront of the entire Ming Dynasty history, but even so, in the history of Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, in the fourth year of Longqing, when Hai Rui was in office as governor of Yingtian, he made great determination to correct the land occupation that was not worthy of its name and rights. The abnormal phenomenon of being out of touch with responsibilities vigorously undermined the powerful and set off a climax of "retreating from the land". However, after only a few months, it could no longer be implemented. As far as I could see, almost everyone was against him, so he wanted to To clear up the old shortcomings, especially to seriously deprive the gentry and powerful powerful people of their illegal benefits, they will inevitably encounter stubborn resistance and vicious frame-up by them and their spokesmen.

Jiang Xinghuo had mentioned this problem before in the design of the system for the unified payment of grain by the gentry. In fact, both the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty were very troubled by this problem, and the only way to really get to the root of the problem was with a knife.

Referring to Fourth Brother's experience, Jiang Xinghuo prepared enough knives this time and planned to use them against the powerful gentry in Jiangnan.

This is why Jiang Xinghuo has to wait until Li Jinglong's expeditionary force returns to China before he plans to officially set off.

The fourth point is the issue of “preferences and exemptions”.

In the early Ming Dynasty, this term mainly referred to the compassionate care of special groups such as the elderly and widowed women. In the first year of Hongwu, Lao Zhu issued an edict: "Those over seventy years old will be allowed to have a son to raise, and will be exempted from miscellaneous labor service"; In the second year of Hongwu's reign, a decree was issued: "For all people who are over eighty years old and have only one son, if they have land and should be sent to serve as servants, they are allowed to hire someone to take the official position; if they have no land, they are allowed to have servants and are exempted from the labor service." In the third year of Hongwu's reign, a decree was issued: "Any widow whose husband died before thirty years old and who does not change her vows after fifty years old will be exempted from the family's official duties."

These compassionate care for special groups fully reflect Lao Zhu's humanity. The problem does not lie with the special groups, but with the officials. The preferential and exemption policy also states that "if an official dies, his family will be exempted from serving for three years; "Officials accompanying the court are exempt from all miscellaneous duties except for the taxes and grain of the household." In fact, Lao Zhu's stipulations are very strict. The exemptions and exemptions for officials are extremely limited and are limited to the expenses that the household should pay. Miscellaneous servants were not exempted from all their main items of money and food. When Lao Zhu was alive, even the noble families of princes and nobles were not allowed to indulge in tenants, servants and other servants who did not serve their duties.

So from the looks of it, isn't it a problem with the servants? Now that the labor is divided into acres, there should be no problem with the preferential and exemption policies!

But in fact, the preferential and exemption system has begun to change with the passage of time and the relaxation of discipline. Officials enjoy these preferential treatment not only in corvee work, but also in taxation. Many officials who have returned to their hometowns and settled in their hometowns call themselves gentry and do not pay taxes. It has become a social custom that people should not do corvee work. Even scholars, once they gain fame, regard themselves as new rich and want to enjoy actual preferential treatment.

This led to the gentry and scholars, who separately gnawed away at the money and food of the Ming Dynasty, grabbed and expanded the privileges as much as possible, and shied away from their obligations to pay money and food.

The problem of preferential treatment and exemption, that is, the problem of gentry and scholars paying less or even no taxes, has been fully exposed through the investigation of the tax guards in the countryside. Jiang Xinghuo must take precautions before it happens.

In fact, if the issue of exemptions and exemptions is ignored and Jiang Xinghuo does not interfere in the historical line of this world, then it will not take until the end of the Ming Dynasty two hundred years later, but only the middle of the Ming Dynasty one hundred years later, for the entire Jiangnan tax to be reduced. Because half of the exemptions are basically bad.

Due to the great reputation of Jiangnan science and the large number of officials who have entered and retired from official positions, this kind of preferential and exemption privileges have even gone from being invisible to the official system. On the one hand, Songjiang Prefecture once clearly stipulated that "the first grade is exempted from 10,000 acres of land, and the number below the second grade is gradually reduced." "Three thousand acres of land will be exempted for those who reach the rank of Lang"; Haiyan County also has a clear stipulation that "three thousand acres of land are exempted for Jinshi, 1,500 acres for candidates, and the number decreases further for scholars and scholars, 60 acres for supervisors, 40 acres for students, and 40 acres for officials. Thirty acres”. On the other hand, counties such as Suzhou, Hangzhou, Jiading, and Huzhou actually drew separate maps for official households and private households, that is, dividing the fields in a county into official household maps (serving and retired officials). In addition to sending rumors and paying no money or food, the officials and gentry not only got rid of the taxes that their households should pay, but also relied on their preferential and exemption privileges to recruit dependents, thus absorbing a large amount of land and population.

After listening to Jiang Xinghuo's thoughts and looking at the thick stack of documents handed over, Li Jinglong couldn't help but feel a little numb.

Yes, before he even started, Li Jinglong gave up.

In Li Jinglong's opinion, this matter was not done by humans at all.

The people who are going to be offended are not just one or two, but tens of thousands of scholars, gentry, and officials!

Without the use of thunderous means and severe punishments, it is simply impossible to deter these slippery subordinates, servants, tax collectors, district chiefs, grain chiefs and other people at the grassroots level, so as to solve the problem of "menstruation".

At the same time, as for the gentry's powerful "descendence" and illegal occupation of land, these two methods of occupying more land and paying less tax are not suitable, and it is also impossible for them to spit out the fat in their mouths. .

The issue of "preferences and exemptions" is bound to offend the vast majority of serving Jiangnan officials and retired gentry who have returned to their hometowns.

Think about it, you have to offend so many people in one breath, including current officials, senior gentry, powerful gentry, subordinates and servants, and village and grain chiefs. Moreover, these people are serious and powerful people. We need to reduce or even abolish what they have captured for a long time. The privileges obtained will inevitably arouse stubborn resistance and backlash.

"Scared?"

Li Jinglong gritted his teeth: "I'm so scared!"

At this time, Li Jinglong remembered that it was no longer the Hongwu Dynasty, nor the Jianwen Dynasty. He did not need to shrink his head. With Jiang Xinghuo in front, he only needed to be responsible for the knife.

What is the same dust as light? Now there is only light and no dust! I can't tolerate dust in my eyes!

"now it's right."

Jiang Xinghuo laughed and said: "Cao Guogong destroyed his family to benefit the country, and killed his head to seek relief. How can the scholarly public opinion be swayed by mere frivolous talk? The country has laws, and if you dare to slander ministers who are brave enough to do their jobs, the central government will not tolerate it. , so let’s go and do it!”

Li Jinglong let out a "humph", no longer hesitated, and just asked: "What should we do now?"

"Let the soldiers of the expeditionary force rest for seven days. After seven days, they will set off. Starting from Songjiang Prefecture, they will ensure that the fields of each prefecture are cleared in order. Things that were not checked out last time when the soldiers entered the acres must be done together this time, and then According to the four key points issued next, we will conduct an investigation one by one."