The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"No wonder people were so concerned about how much land Xu Ge Lao had. It turns out that his family actually had 2,000 hectares of land, which was comparable to some vassal princes' palaces."

Xu Jianglan realized it later, and then she realized that the 2,000 hectares of land in Xu Ge Lao's family seemed to be a bit too much.

At this time, it was still the early Wanli period. The vassal princes of the Ming Dynasty, especially those of the first generation, had gone through several generations. In addition to the land rewarded by the original emperor, they had begun to annex land and wantonly occupied the people's land.

But so far, the vassal princes' palaces with 10,000 hectares of fertile land have not appeared yet.

In fact, the number of rewarded lands that the vassal princes of the Ming Dynasty could get from the emperor when they were established was limited.

In the first year of Hongxi, Emperor Xuanzong gave Zhao Wang 80 hectares of land, which opened the precedent of official land grants to vassal princes in the Ming Dynasty.

Before this, although Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and Chengzu Zhu Di also made their sons kings, they only granted them to build palaces and receive vassal princes' salaries from the court every year, and did not reward land.

From then on, the land granted by the emperor to the vassal kings was tens of hectares, that is, thousands of mu.

There is also a unit problem here. In later generations, the general area units were hectares and mu, and one hectare was fifteen mu of land. Regardless of the fertility of the land, there was a fixed area.

In the Ming Dynasty, the land area units used were hectares and mu, and one hectare was equal to one hundred mu of land.

Because the area of ​​each mu also needs to consider the fertility of the land, the actual land area is not the same.

Therefore, it is naturally wrong to think that the eighty hectares of land granted to King Zhao is the eight thousand mu of land in later generations.

However, after it became a routine for the vassal kings to be granted land, the amount of land granted to the vassal kings each time has been increasing.

So later, the first land granted to the vassal kings generally exceeded one hundred hectares.

Moreover, because the land granted to the vassal kings later increased, the original vassal kings also took this opportunity to lick their faces and used their own money as an excuse to not have enough money to spend, and tried every means to ask the emperor for it.

Faced with such requests, the emperor would mostly choose to accept them, and each time he would give dozens to hundreds of hectares of land as a reward.

In addition to the emperor's reward, the princes' land was also purchased privately by themselves, or even directly robbed from the people.

Moreover, because the Ming Dynasty exempted all businesses of the princes' mansions from tax, including the fields and shops of the princes' mansions, many households chose to donate their land to the princes' mansions in order to evade taxes.

In other words, the land donated to the princes' mansions was not subject to national taxes and miscellaneous taxes levied by local officials. Except for the rent paid to the princes' mansions, no other money had to be paid.

The number of princes' land exceeding 10,000 hectares actually occurred during the Wanli Dynasty, especially when Emperor Wanli took the lead in breaking through the scale of 10,000 hectares.

When Emperor Wanli's younger brother, Prince Lu, was enfeoffed, he received 20,000 hectares of land at one time, and Emperor Wanli's son, Prince Fu, even petitioned for 40,000 hectares of land. Although he was stopped by the ministers in the end, he also received the treatment of 20,000 hectares of land.

Some materials record that "Chong Wang was granted tens of thousands of hectares of land in the first year of Zhengde", but in fact, it is very likely that he was granted hundreds of hectares when he was granted the title, that is, tens of thousands of acres of land.

In fact, in the late Ming Dynasty, the descendants of Chong Wang Zhu Jianze owned a total of 4,726.4 acres of land in seven counties under the jurisdiction of Runing Prefecture, including fields, mountains, lakes, and gardens; and 2,680 hectares and tens of acres of land in seven counties outside Runing Prefecture, including Chenzhou and Zhecheng.

The above two places together account for nearly 7,000 hectares of land, of course, there are more than that, but these are the bulk.

In other words, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, Chong Wang Mansion only owned about 10,000 hectares of land, which was not as large as the scale of tens of thousands of hectares of land granted in the first year of Zhengde.

In short, in this era, it was normal for the prince's mansion to own thousands of hectares of land, but it was exaggerated to have more than 10,000 hectares.

This is also why Xu Jianglan didn't react at first, and now she thinks that it seems that the number of fields is a bit exaggerated.

Of course, that was the land of the Xu family. The Wei family didn't have that much land. It was only two hundred hectares, which was not eye-catching.

In fact, it was not an exaggeration for nobles and some old gentry families to own tens of thousands of acres of land.

The only thing to note is that Wei Guangde was very special. After all, the Wei family's fortune actually started after Wei Guangde passed the imperial examination. Before that, the Wei family was just a hundred-household official in the court. How could it be impossible to own much land?

Now Wei Guangde is the second assistant of the cabinet. It was suddenly revealed that he owned tens of thousands of acres of land. If he was attacked by someone with ulterior motives, it would indeed be a big trouble.

And in the case of the Duke of Wei's Mansion, although Xu Jianglan didn't know how much land her mother's family had, the amount would definitely not be small, and it might even be tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of acres.

In fact, not all the land of the Duke of Wei's Mansion was hung in their mansion.

Many family members of the Duke of Wei's Mansion also got official status, that is, official status, and they could also enjoy tax-free land treatment.

Therefore, some dirty fields are often registered under the names of these people first, but actually belong to the Duke of Wei's Mansion.

Of course, there is also the intention of dispersing wealth.

No matter who it is, if you have too much wealth, you will be envied to some extent.

"Then try to reduce some fields in the next two years and distribute them."

Xu Jianglan said directly when she thought of it.

"Yes, fortunately, Fujian is now a pilot project. I know why it was chosen there, because there is no vassal palace there, and there are no great nobles there. Even if there are fields, there will not be too many."

Wei Guangde said, "Fujian is a place where the land is originally barren. Who would develop there?

With Fujian as a model, the vassal kings, nobles and big households in other places would have enough time to spread out the fields in their houses, so as not to reveal any shocking figures.

To put it bluntly, the court wanted the land to collect taxes and did not care who owned the land. "

Having said this, Wei Guangde turned his head to look at his wife and said with a smile: "It's just that I really didn't expect that my family would already have more than 20,000 acres of farmland without knowing it."

"Most of them are donated. I just use your reputation as a Jinshi to avoid being punished by the local government."

Xu Jianglan smiled.

"But they put it in my name and avoided the assessment. All the money that was collected in that place was passed on to those little people."

Wei Guangde couldn't help but sigh when he said this, like crocodile tears.

"Then what you mean is that the imperial court will also clean up such donated fields in the future?"

Xu Jianglan asked uncertainly.

"The affairs of Xu Ge's hometown are actually known to both the court and the central government.

Even Hai Rui knew in his heart that of the more than 200,000 acres of land owned by the Xu family, only a few tens of thousands of acres actually belonged to Mr. Xu Ge, and the more than 100,000 acres were actually donated.

But just because their family was greedy for this little money, countless people were ruined.

After the land was cleared, the imperial court would implement a whipping method. The taxes and fees borne by the people's land would be clearly calculated and basically fixed. "

Wei Guangde said.

"What about the land donated to the feudal prince's palace? I heard that nearly half of the fields in Henan are in the hands of a few princes' palaces, as well as the county princes below."

Xu Jianglan frowned and said.

"I estimate that the land granted to officials by the emperor should still be exempt from taxes, but the land purchased outside the palace should be required to pay taxes."

Hearing Xu Jianglan talk about the fields in the palace, Wei Guangde couldn't help but feel moved in his heart.

As long as the amount of land rewarded by the emperor is blocked and the feudal princes are required to pay taxes on all the annexed land, will it weaken their enthusiasm for land and slow down the speed of land annexation?

To put it bluntly, the output of land is actually limited. It’s just that Chinese people are too enthusiastic about land. They don’t know how to use the money they have. But the only two uses left are lending and buying land.

Thinking of the rumors from later generations that wealthy businessmen in Shanxi melted their silver and poured it directly into the cellar to store the silver and prevent it from being stolen. Wei Guangde couldn't help but think of the financial tools of later generations and see if he could think of some way to get out the stored silver.

Even though the government has tried every means to recover the silver ingots on the market and cast them into silver coins, the things hidden underground are really not that easy to take out.

Don't forget, the Ming Dynasty has been at peace for nearly two hundred years, and the secrets of aristocratic families are not so easy to uncover.

He put his arms around his wife. Although Xu Jianglan was in her thirties, she was extremely well-maintained and her every move showed the charm of a mature lady.

Although Wei Guangde couldn't resist the temptation of young girls, he also had no ability to resist the charm of mature women.

There was nothing to say all night, and soon it was the next day.

After Wei Guangde got up and washed himself, he did some boxing exercises to exercise his muscles. After breakfast, he was not in a hurry to go out and went to the study first.

I wrote several letters, one of which was naturally sent to the Duke Wei's residence in Nanjing, and the other was a letter to my father from Jiujiang.

Several other letters will also be sent to Jiujiang, but they will not be sent directly, but will be given to his father for consideration.

They are all officials who have returned to their hometowns after serving in recent years. By virtue of their official status, it is better to name people in those fields.

They are no longer in the court, so it doesn't matter if they have more or less land in their hands, as they are not afraid of criticism from the people.

And since he, the elder, was here, he was not afraid of what those officials might think.

Wei Guangde handed the letter directly to his wife Xu Jianglan, and she arranged for people to go south.

After doing this, Wei Guangde went out, got on the sedan and rushed to the imperial city.

Wei Guangde entered the check-in room and had just picked up the tea cup that had been delivered to him. Before he drank it, Lu Bu left and came back again, holding a piece of paper in his hand.

"Sir, it's just a memorial sent by the First Assistant. It's said to be a draft. Please take a look."

Wei Guangde reached out and took it, only glanced at it, and said to Lu Bu: "I understand, you can go down."

In his hand was Zhang Juzheng drafting a memorial requesting a comprehensive clearing of land in Fujian.

Of course, this memorial was not written just last night, but had been completed a long time ago. It was just revised continuously. It may even have accepted the opinions of Zhang Siwei, Wang Guoguang and others before it finally appeared in my hands.

Wei Guangde had no objections to this memorial, but simply read it once and put it aside.

Instead of starting to deal with official business, he took out a piece of paper and quickly wrote a few paragraphs.

This is to be handed over to the Ministry of War for them to draft and send it to the southwest.

In order to ensure the circulation of Ming Dynasty Yuanbao in Myanmar and other places, it is natural to prohibit the use of silver ingots in Myanmar.

This time, all the gold and silver seized by Yu Dayou in Toungoo City must be transported back to the Ming Dynasty, even copper materials. In the future, all gold, silver, copper and other precious metals mined in Myanmar will be purchased by the local government of Myanmar and transported back to the Ming Dynasty to mint coins.

After thinking about it, Wei Guangde put the written note aside, took out another one, spread it out, and wrote a note to the Ministry of Revenue.

The Ministry of Household Affairs requested an advance payment of 200,000 taels of silver to be sent to the southwest to be used for military expenses in Myanmar.

This amount of silver can be deducted from the gold and silver returned by Myanmar in the future.

In short, the Ming Dynasty's ingots were first circulated to Myanmar, and gradually the locals became accustomed to using the Ming Dynasty coins like the Ming Dynasty.

It can also enhance the Burmese people's sense of belonging to the Ming Dynasty in a subtle way.

In fact, although the people of the Ming Dynasty have accepted the circulation of gold and silver coins minted by the court, due to the regional advantages, the gold and silver coins of the Ming Tongbao are now more circulated in the north, and there are still fewer in the south.

This year, the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue has begun to no longer limit itself to minting copper coins, and gold and silver coins have also begun to be minted. I believe that in a few years, the gold and silver Tongbao will be popularized in the south on a larger scale.

Rectifying the currency system seems to be a small matter, but in fact, under the silver standard system, the influence on the common people is too great.

Wei Guangde is unwilling to let the people under his rule be exploited by illegal merchants because of the money law. They manipulate the silver price and plunder the interests of farmers.

Even Wei Guangde has been imagining that when the court's finances are abundant, according to the existing levels, protective prices will be set during the summer and autumn grain harvest to prevent rice merchants from manipulating rice prices and causing farmers to suffer losses.

The minimum price for purchasing grain set by the government must be supported by a large amount of silver money.

Otherwise, if the so-called minimum price is simply set without open purchase, the farmers will inevitably suffer in silence.

Because the price set by the government cannot turn the harvest into money at all, when faced with the taxes to be paid, the people can only accept the low purchase price given by the grain merchants no matter how unwilling they are.

However, Wei Guangde did not know that even if the Ming court issued such a regulation, what countermeasures would be taken by the local government at that time.

After the note was written, Wei Guangde handed over the reed cloth and asked him to arrange for someone to send it out immediately.

After the reed cloth left, he started his work today.

In the next two days, the entire Ming Dynasty court seemed to have been paused, and the official business of many government offices stagnated to varying degrees.

Because after the officials entered the government office, most of them gathered together to discuss the matter of Fujian's land survey.

Who owns the land in the Ming Dynasty?

The royal family, military settlements and scholars occupy the vast majority, while the number of self-cultivating farmers is decreasing.

The royal family is protected by the ancestral system and does not have to pay taxes, so they are not afraid.

Military settlements are nominally military households, but in reality they are controlled by nobles and have been divided up like private fields.

The scholars are naturally the civilian gentry and officials. This land reclamation has a great impact on them.

"Master, the Prime Minister is outside the door."

Lu Bu just brought in a pile of memorials, walked to the door and fell back, whispering in Wei Guangde's ear.

"Didn't he summoned to the palace?"

Wei Guangde asked in a low voice.

"It's been a while, maybe he's back."

Lu Bu replied in a low voice.

"If he comes, let him come in directly."

Wei Guangde ordered, "If he comes in, watch outside and don't let anyone get close."

After Lu Bu went out, Zhang Juzheng walked into the room in just a moment.

"Uncle brother."

Wei Guangde bowed.

"Shandai, the land reclamation has been approved by the palace."

Zhang Juzheng said. (End of this chapter)