The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"Uncle, what do you mean?"

Wei Guangde hesitated for a moment, but ultimately did not say anything.

"Clear the land of the world."

Wei Guangde didn't say anything, Zhang Juzheng took it on his own.

This time, Wei Guangde was silent for a long time before he asked: "Brother Uncle, do you want to solve the problem of unreal farm acres?"

When Wei Guangde asked this question, he actually wanted to find out what the purpose of Zhang Juzheng's economic reform was.

Because in later generations, Wei Guangde was not familiar with the Ming Dynasty, so when he saw that Zhang Juzheng's reform included the clearing of land, he naturally understood it as a re-measurement of the land and the discovery of newly cultivated fields that had been concealed.

But now that he has passed through, he naturally knows many things that were not clear before.

In the Ming Dynasty, not only the fields were wrong, but the population was also wrong.

In later generations, each household had a household registration book. In the Ming Dynasty, it was a household registration card. In later generations, there were policemen at police stations who were responsible for household registration, that is, household registration police. Now the government also has a household department to handle this.

According to the practice of later generations, as long as there is a strict system for birth, old age, illness and death, there will naturally be no problem of inaccurate population.

But unfortunately, the population of the Ming Dynasty was the same as the acres of land, and the data the court had was definitely wrong.

Zhang Juzheng had talked about this matter with him before, but at that time they had only scratched the surface.

Now that Zhang Juzheng has become the chief minister and has mastered the power, Wei Guangde believes that since Zhang Juzheng proposed to clear the land, he must have a deeper meaning, that is, the "yellow book" that is full of errors and omissions.

Sure enough, when he heard what he said, Zhang Juzheng nodded and smiled bitterly: "Shandai, you should have considered this issue, right?"

Wei Guangde's expression did not change, but he did not speak.

Seeing this, Zhang Juzheng had no choice but to continue: "The biggest problem facing the country's talent is actually the uneven distribution of taxes and levies, and the fundamental reason is caused by land annexation.

In the land annexation, there are many disadvantages of land tax. The most serious ones include tricks, insinuations, raising titles, false claims, passing the capital, and receiving donations. These are all transitional means for wealthy people to annex weak and small self-cultivated farmland properties in disguise, and have been used for a long time. old career.

The result is that the wealthy people have land but no food, while the poor people have no land and food, and because they are weak and weak, there is nothing they can do about this situation.

When the county magistrate collects taxes, the poor people are unable to pay the tax. In order to complete the prescribed tax revenue, the county magistrate has no choice but to apportion it, and the world suffers even more.

The imperial court has lost control over land annexation for too long, and half of the world's cultivated land has been owned by wealthy people. This has not only caused a sharp drop in the dynasty's land tax revenue, but also directly affected the bankruptcy crisis of the remaining farmers due to the apportionment of taxes.

Therefore, in order to save the financial crisis and the national and social crisis caused by land annexation, we must first clarify the actual ownership of these lands, and then implement clearing. "

Wei Guangde nodded. A very important reason for the uneven distribution of taxes and levies is that when the government formulates taxation policies, they only consider the old fish scales and yellow books.

In fact, the fields recorded above have been transferred to powerful hands several times.

The result of taxing according to the yellow book is that bankrupt farmers who have lost their land have to bear the taxes and servitude of the powerful people who occupy the land.

Don't think it's unreasonable. In fact, this is exactly what the local officials of the Ming Dynasty did.

It was only in the middle and late period that the abuses reappeared, the people were unstable, and a large number of people fled their hometowns. The government had to make a series of adjustments and impose taxes on some of the wealthy people.

However, these people have huge influence, so naturally they cannot collect all the taxes they should pay according to the actual situation, so they can only receive part of it, and the remaining tax difference will be passed on to other farmers.

This is actually the result that the powerful gentry needs.

In this way, although they still paid a little more tax, the bulk of it still went into their own pockets, which eased the relationship with the government.

As for those self-cultivating farmers, after bearing their share of taxes and servitude, they also had to dilute the taxes and servitude of the fields in the hands of the powerful, which naturally increased their burden. It was easy for them to go bankrupt due to some changes, and then be forced to sell their fields and become farm laborers.

"I also noticed that in some places before, because of the refugees, the Ding tax was included in the land tax. This is actually a good way."

Suddenly, Zhang Juzheng added another sentence.

"Dividing a small family into an acre?"

Wei Guangde said subconsciously.

"Yes, what Shandao said is exactly what he said, it means spreading a small family into an entire land."

Zhang Juzheng stroked his hands and smiled.

In fact, it was not Emperor Yongzheng who came up with the plan. When he was the prince, he went to various places on errands and found that some people in extremely poor places chose to become refugees and wander around in order to avoid the government's tax collection.

When there is a serious loss of people in a place and the government's taxes and services have reached a limit, the local government is afraid that if the showdown continues and the people will completely lose their ability to bear it, which will trigger a civil uprising, they will find ways to increase taxes from the land owners.

Therefore, they incorporated the Ding tax into the field tax and levied it together.

In this way, regardless of whether there is a loss of population, their Ding tax will not be reduced by a penny.

As for the extra part, of course the farmers will bear some of it, but more of it will be in the hands of those with large fields.

However, before Emperor Yongzheng launched it to the world, it was only a last resort measure in some places.

The disaster of refugees actually existed in the Ming Dynasty, and naturally some local officials used this trick.

"However, before allocating land into acres, we should measure the land in the world first, and we will talk about the rest later, step by step."

Zhang Juzheng continued.

Wei Guangde understood that Zhang Juzheng had been aware of the issue of equalization of land ownership and taxation system, and was also looking for ways to solve it. Clearing land was actually just one part of the policy policy he envisioned.

If Zhang Juzheng dies within a few years, he may also introduce a reform policy on the taxation of small households.

"Uncle, the stakes in this matter are huge? Do you still remember the Du Tian Order?"

This was the first time that Zhang Juzheng stated his land reform ideas in such detail, and that he wanted to re-compile the fish scale book and collect taxes according to this book.

But although Wei Guangde had thought about it, he didn't dare to reach out because the thing would be quite dangerous when it came out.

Didn't the ancients know that the reason for the change of dynasties was mostly due to land annexation?

Of course not, it's just that you know it, but it is too difficult to actually implement it. After all, people are selfish.

When many dynasties were first established, they would try every means to crack down on local tyrants. Among them, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, was the one who did this to the extreme.

In fact, anyone who is familiar with history will find that many of Zhu Yuanzhang's actions in the early Ming Dynasty were based on the practices of Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

The Fish Scale Yellow Book he formulated was actually derived from Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu's "Order to Save the Fields".

After the peasant uprising in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, the land issue eased slightly. Liu Xiu wanted to solve this problem so that in the fifteenth year of Jianwu (AD 39), he implemented the "land transfer order" and ordered all states and counties to conduct an inventory of people's possessions. The number of fields, household registration, and age were used to restrict powerful countries from annexing land and enslaving people, and at the same time facilitated the state's collection of taxes and corvee collection.

At that time, many large landowners were armed and known as "big surname soldiers". They concealed their fields and the population dependent on them and opposed the inventory.

Local officials were afraid of them, some took bribes, colluded with each other, and allowed the landlords to lie.

Liu Xiu ordered the execution, imprisonment and removal of dozens of county and state ministers for the crime of "unrealized land transfer".

As a result, "the great surnames of the county and the soldiers and bandits" rebelled one after another, and Liu Xiu used all means to suppress them, moving thousands of landowners to "other counties", thereby ensuring the operation of "land control" and successfully succeeded in It solved the problem of inaccurate farm acres in household registration during the Han Dynasty and laid the necessary foundation and conditions for the rule of Ming and Zhang.

Zhu Yuanzhang did the same in the early Ming Dynasty. He spent a lot of money to conduct a large-scale census and compiled a yellow book of fish scales as the basis for taxation. At the same time, he also moved powerful people to prosperous areas such as the capital, just to prevent them from living in their original places and to suppress them. Influence.

During the unification war, he also took advantage of the opportunity of these landlords and gentry to support the hostile forces to eliminate the wealthy families in Jiangnan. In the early Ming Dynasty, there were few wealthy families left.

These are all important factors that enabled the Ming Dynasty to conduct censuses and compile the Yellow Book of Fish Scales.

Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu's national action of "conquering the land", that national movement to "conquer the land" was in vain and ultimately failed completely. The reason for the failure was that the foundation of the Eastern Han Dynasty was originally supported by the powerful families.

After wiping out the various power groups vying for control of the imperial power and finally realizing the unification of national power, the wealthy families supported Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu's efforts to unify the imperial power. Their motivation was nothing more than the determination to be a power representative who could safeguard their economic and social rights and interests.

Liu Xiu's own identity is also a member of a wealthy family.

In other words, the Eastern Han Dynasty was a powerful family regime that was becoming aristocratic and gentry.

During the most critical period for the rise of such a wealthy family, Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu was naturally unable to deprive the wealthy families of their strong asset strength and unlimited pursuit of political power with the national policy of "land expansion". "The national economic strategy has lost its foundation.

In the two hundred years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, after completing the aristocratic and gentry transformation of the powerful landlord class, Guozha finally formed a powerful class with huge economic and social influence, and finally moved to the forefront of imperial power politics, and experienced the process of directly controlling imperial power. After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, it declined.

The later failed "Wang Anshi Reform" actually had a plan for the "Fangtian Tax Equalization Law", but it was not implemented in time, and the reform almost died.

Now, Zhang Juzheng's intention has been revealed in front of Wei Guangde. Clearing the land is the first step, and the next step is to rely on the land owners to collect taxes, instead of collecting taxes according to the useless yellow book.

The second step is to build on the achievements achieved and incorporate the Ding tax into the land tax to solve the problem of equalization in land ownership and taxation systems.

In this era, the importance of land is the most important thing in everyone's eyes, so he does not dare to use all the means at the first step, but takes it step by step.

It is reasonable to levy taxes according to landowners, and it is not difficult to implement.

The reason why some people oppose it is actually for reasons that are not worthy of publicity.

As long as the government decree can be issued, the follow-up will be promoted step by step through the legal examination.

Everyone knows what the current land tax situation is in the Ming Dynasty, and they occupy the right name in the name of enriching the national treasury.

As for the reason why the opposition can move out, it is just a waste of money and people, and there is no problem of tampering with the ancestral system.

In fact, according to Zhu Yuanzhang's request, the Ming Dynasty had a system of conducting a census every ten years to update the fish scale yellow book.

It's just that there was no strict implementation at the local level, and the imperial court was muddle along, so those officials simply copied the old book's method to fool them.

After all, an inventory is too hard for such officials.

However, as the Ming Dynasty has developed to this day, the landlords and gentry who disappeared in the early Ming Dynasty have reappeared. They will inevitably become the main opposition force to Zhang Juzheng's reforms. If things go wrong, there will be a popular uprising.

This is no small matter. If it doesn't happen, Zhang Juzheng, the chief minister, will be in trouble because of it.

That's why Wei Guangde mentioned Emperor Guang Liu Xiu's order to conquer the fields, which was achieved through actual suppression by force.

Moreover, it was implemented at the time, but was soon abandoned. After all, the resistance below was too great, and the officials were worried about themselves and did not dare to strictly implement it.

"That's why I proposed to clear the land, and other things will not be involved for the time being."

Zhang Juzheng said that of course he knew about the Dutian incident and was trying his best to avoid confronting local wealthy families too early.

"Now that the national treasury is depleted, it is forbidden to clear the land to supplement finance and taxation. The first priority is to clear the land. Otherwise, it will burden the people and cause catastrophe sooner or later."

Having said this, Zhang Juzheng took out a piece of paper from his sleeve and handed it to Wei Guangde, motioning for him to take a look.

Wei Guangde took it and took a look. It was some things that Zhang Juzheng had thought of. They were simply classified and not written down, but the meaning could still be understood.

"Acres are measured and paid evenly. If there is a difference in the height of the land, the original limit will be used as the original limit. The length will be cut off to make up for the shortcomings. The land of the officials and the people will be cleared and the original amount will be made up. If the government does not divide the land evenly, the same amount will be paid. state."

After reading it briefly, Wei Guangde knew that clearing the land was an important reform project for Zhang Juzheng, which created conditions for the court to increase revenue, so he naturally would not object.

Moreover, according to his memory, although some things may have happened in Qingzhang, overall it did not cause a major disaster, that is, a civil uprising, so it is naturally feasible.

It is Wei Guangde who believes that what is said in the history books must be incomplete, that is, Zhang Juzheng's implementation of Qingzhang will definitely not be so smooth, and he does not know how many disturbances there will be during the period.

"Uncle, this matter is too big, I have no objection, but I still hope to wait.

Nowadays, the top priority of the imperial court is actually the southwest affairs. It would be better to wait until the southwest affairs are resolved and the prestige of your majesty and the imperial court is greatly increased before taking care of it slowly. "

Wei Guangde said.

"Well, that's what I mean. I just want to inform Shandai in advance. You might as well think about it when you have time and check for any gaps."

Wei Guangde nodded slightly when he heard what Zhang Juzheng said.

"Brother Uncle, do you have a place in mind to try this strategy?"

Wei Guangde asked.

Just like the whip law, the issue of clearing land cannot be rolled out across the country. One province will be selected first for trial implementation, and then the rules for clearing land will be formulated.

"Following the order of the whipping method, how about letting Jiangxi and South Zhili try it out first?"

Zhang Juzheng suddenly said.

"inappropriate."

Wei Guangde immediately said: "Although the whip method has matured, after all, the imperial court has not yet published it to promote it nationwide.

If there is a discrepancy in the Qingzhang, it may have an impact on this method, which is inappropriate. "