Chapter 498 497 Abolition of Bad Government
In the early years of Hongzhi, due to insufficient annual income, Emperor Hongzhi issued an edict soon after he ascended the throne, announcing that all clan members' salaries and grains would be "halved."
In the 14th year of Hongzhi, the imperial court promulgated further reform measures, "The prince's lumi and the royal family received both half and half of the lumi, while the princess's lumi and the lower lumi were four cents of the original color and six cents of the discounted banknotes. ", and stipulates that the part of the original color Lumi that is converted into silver "will still be reduced by twenty taels for every one hundred taels."
When the banknote law was in bad condition and treasure banknotes were severely devalued, the imperial court adopted the method of "breaking banknotes", which reduced the actual amount of Lumi paid out by the clan during the Hongzhi period by about half compared to the Hongwu period.
However, in fact, these reforms to reduce Lumi have not fundamentally solved the problem of clan Lumi. The reason is due to two points:
First, because the amount of Lumi paid was too large and overwhelmed, local governments were unable to provide it, so they resorted to arrears, either not paying it at all, or paying it according to a certain proportion.
The second point is that due to insufficient distribution of Lumi, the lower-level clans are unable to receive the Lumi they depend on for survival, and are increasingly impoverished.
The reason for this factor is that the distribution system of Lumi is not received by the clan itself from the local government office, but by the prince, who then distributes it to the county king, and then to the town and state in turn. General, General of Fuguo, General of Fengguo, and finally Lieutenant of Fengguo.
It is natural that there is enough Lumi in the local area, but once the local allocation is insufficient, the small amount of Lumi will be directly divided by the princes and princes, and the lower clan will not get any Lumi at all.
Lin Run's memorial was to solve the problem of lower-level clans and proposed that princes and princes receive rice and three stones every month.
Three stones means that they can guarantee that they will not die of hunger or poverty.
Of course Wei Guangde knew the reason for Lin Run’s suggestion. Wang Zongmu, the right-hand governor of Shanxi Province, reported that due to famine and arrears of rice, “several to two hundred people died from famine last year”. .
As for the issue of the Lumi clan, Wei Guangde felt from the beginning that the endless reproduction of the clan was the root cause of the collapse of the Lumi system. Every emperor who ascended the throne would increase the number of princes, and the princes would increase the burden on the princes and the court. Keep improving, and in the end everyone has nothing.
Once this memorial is submitted, Wei Guangde believes that it will definitely be approved. As long as he guarantees that the clan will not starve to death, Emperor Jiajing will definitely not refuse. However, the local government will further owe the clan lumi.
Of course, Lin Run was not stupid enough to offend the upper-level clan alone. He also proposed that "it is appropriate for the ministers to gather together to discuss the matter at court. Together they can formulate strategies for dealing with the aftermath, and then gather the public to make their own decisions." There is a saying that rules are never easy to change."
For the current clan, the lower-level clan members will certainly like Lin Run's memorial, because it solves some of the problems they face, but for the clan from top to bottom, they are also dissatisfied, because the full text of the memorial has been revealed Come up with an idea - or reduce the salary.
For upper-class clans such as princes and county princes, in fact, they do not rely on Lumi. No matter how much Lumi they had in the early Ming Dynasty, they constantly reported to the emperor and asked for Lumi rewards, which is the so-called The "clan's begging" is the same as the nobles' begging for salt, both of which are based on lack of funds.
However, their real income is that they hold a large amount of tax-free land in their hands, and they continue to annex land, usurp local commercial taxes, and even use their status to monopolize commerce and gain huge profits.
It is impossible to abolish Zonglu directly. This will bankrupt countless lower-level clans and ultimately harm the face of the royal family. However, it is feasible to ask the upper-level clans to fund it, but it will actually destroy the property established by the Ming Dynasty. All systems.
Even as an emperor, he is said to be rich all over the world, but he cannot deprive others of their property at will.
Holding Lin Run's memorial in his hand, he looked up at him and asked: "When do you plan to submit it?"
"I just want you to correct me. I have already discussed it with others."
< br>After saying this, Lin Run pointed around, "Some of them are interested, but more people are still unwilling to touch the clan for fear of getting angry."
Wei Guangde naturally understood the meaning of Lin Run's words.
As long as there is a vassal king in their hometown, even if these officials know the inside story, they are not willing to touch the vassal system. They are worried about offending the clan and being disadvantageous to their clan locally, because they have to solve the problem Zongfan Lumi can only be reduced in nature. Only by continuously reducing their demand for Lumi can the financial pressure be fundamentally solved.
In fact, Wei Guangde also had some ideas over the years, but this idea would be extremely detrimental to the upper-level clan. He was worried about getting burned, so he could only continue to think about other methods.
Now that he met Lin Run, Wei Guangde was considering whether to use him as the knife to slash Zongfan fiercely.
“Your memorial will help the lower-level clan get a little money in the short term, which will help them satisfy their hunger, but it still cannot fundamentally solve the problem. Over time, they will also make trouble.”
Wei Guangde He just commented lightly.
“But now the imperial court’s finances are no longer able to support the supply of vassal rice. Shanxi and other provinces with many vassal kings have chosen to resolve their conflicts by defaulting on arrears and sending conflicts to the imperial court.
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In fact, the Lumi problem of the sect has reached a point where we have to face it and find a solution. Is it possible that the Henan clan will once again stage a futile rebellion in the 16th year of Jiajing? "
Lin Run just said.
Wei Guangde fell into deep thought. Before coming to the Ming Dynasty, Wei Guangde had the same view as most people on the Internet. He believed that the finances of the Ming Dynasty were almost crazy by the vassals. Reproduction is not the case at all, or it is not accurate.
The Ming Dynasty. Zongfan was indeed very capable of multiplying. During the Jiajing Dynasty alone, taking the Zhou Prince's family in Henan as an example, there were more than a thousand people in the early years of Jiajing, but by the first two years, the population had expanded five times to nearly 6,000 people. It took more than thirty years.
Wei Guangde did not pay attention to this data, but only heard it mentioned in casual chats.
The skyrocketing population of the clan will indeed increase the demand for Lumi infinitely and create a huge financial burden for the court. However, in fact, the Ming Dynasty had problems with its finances very early on. The solution at that time was "Zhechao" and "Zhese". The problem is solved in a similar way to official salaries.
Part of the Lumi was folded into waste paper-like treasure banknotes, and part of the actual issued Lumi was folded into silver. The price of each stone was far lower than the market price, so in fact, the Lumi issued by the Ming court to the vassal The rice is only about 30% of what should be given to Lumi.
But even this 30% figure is still a large expense, especially for the already stretched Ming court finances.
However, based on Wei Guangde's understanding of the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty, he felt that this was not entirely due to the local government's inability to pay the arrears.
Beginning in the middle period of Jiajing, the Zonglu of the middle and lower-level clans were often deducted and delayed by local officials. Considering that the civil servants of the Ming Dynasty dared to embezzle and delay military pay, let alone have no power or power. An ordinary clan?
That is to say, for relatively high-status clans such as princes and county princes, local officials dare not deduct money at will, but delays do occur from time to time.
As for what Lin Run said about the Henan clan's "repeated protests", it was actually caused by Henan Zonglu's arrears of more than 2.4 million shi. This figure is actually the true total amount, and the actual amount after discounting is More than one million stones were released.
As for why there is such a huge number, of course it is not the Lumi that should be paid out in a year, but the result of many years of accumulated arrears.
"I think we can hand it over first, let's do it."
Wei Guangde looked at Lin Run, thought about it and added: "As you said, it must be solved, otherwise sooner or later it will be the same. Something is going to happen.”
Wei Guangde thought about it and did not let Lin Run modify the memorial. After all, this is what people in this era can think of, and he did not intend to submit his own plan immediately. He also wanted to see what other courtiers said about the clan. What opinions would Fan Lumi have?
Test the waters with Lin Run's proposal to see if Emperor Jiajing plans to amend the vassal regulations in the next few years to pave the way for his son to ascend the throne.
However, after talking about this, Wei Guangde asked curiously: "Ruoyu, how did you think of this?"
In Wei Guangde's impression, it seems that he has not heard of the person under the palace this year. The clan troubles are really strange.
“Last year I read the memorial of Lord Zongmu Wang of Shanxi Province, and I became interested in it.”
Lin Run replied. "As expected."
Wei Guangde thought in his heart. It is estimated that he has been inquiring about Zong Lu from many sources for more than a year, so he has delayed it until now.
After leaving the Metropolitan Procuratorate and sitting on the carriage, Wei Guangde sighed in his heart. In fact, could the Ming Dynasty clan lord Lumi really not be able to afford it?
In fact, this is not necessarily the case. At least as far as the clan of the Jiajing Dynasty is concerned, there is no problem at all in paying taxes, but the premise is that taxes and servitude must be collected.
Why can't the taxes be collected?
It’s not that there are too many tax-free fields and no one pays taxes. Those who should pay taxes also try their best to donate them to nobles and famous scholars to avoid taxes and servitude.
Essentially, the local government has no subjective initiative and is indifferent to increasing taxes and revenue.
Thinking of this, Wei Guangde couldn't help but secretly laugh at Zhu Yuanzhang, the great ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, who had come up with some policies to cut off his descendants and dig holes for his descendants.
In fact, looking at ancient and modern times, there are really not many emperors like Zhu Yuanzhang.
It is strange that state taxes have not increased at all since the founding of the Ming Dynasty nearly two hundred years ago.
Speaking of this, we have to say that the tax system established by Zhu Yuanzhang in the early Ming Dynasty had already stipulated and fixed the amount of land tax that each prefecture and county in the world should pay.
Thinking about the common people, to be honest, Zhu Yuanzhang is definitely the most conscientious emperor.
After the land tax is fixed, the people will open up wasteland and cultivate the land on their own. Calculated in this way, there will be more and more cultivated land and more and more people, but the tax revenue will not increase. Then the taxes and levies will be equally distributed to each common people. will decrease.
Of course, the disadvantage is that the local officials do not have the task of increasing taxes. They only need to complete the tax collection figures set by their elders every year. This is also the reason why there were a large number of hidden fields in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. , the government did not care at all about this, and did not bother to check the actual status of the fields.
What's more, they colluded with local gentry families to pass on the equally divided land taxes to the people, and levied taxes and servitude on their original land and newly reclaimed land. If they wanted not to pay taxes, they naturally had to find reasons.
Thus, the policy of preferential exemptions for scholars came into being. The emperor's original preferential and exemption regulations were intended to encourage folk writing, but their effects were gradually magnified by them.
At this moment, the carriage suddenly stopped, and someone from the front of the carriage shouted: "Master, Prince Yu's Mansion has arrived."
Wei Guangde got up, got off the carriage, and walked in Go to Prince Yu's Mansion.
For the concierge and bodyguards of Prince Yu's Mansion, they are very familiar with Wei Guangde, so naturally they will not stop him from entering the mansion.
No matter what happens, I always come to Prince Yu's Mansion. The main reason is that you can learn a lot of news here.
The current Prince Yu's Mansion is like a small Jin Yiwei, constantly collecting news from various government offices in Beijing.
When Wei Guangde arrived, only Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng were in the room. There was a stack of notes in front of each of them, which should be the message sent today.
“Hey, everyone is busy.”
Wei Guangde smiled as he entered the room.
"Haha, actually there is nothing to be busy with."
Yin Shizhen said with a smile.
Wei Guangde sat down in his seat, turned sideways and asked them: "Is there any good news from the DPRK today?"
Recently, the Ming court seems to have really become smoother because of Yan Song's resignation. There are not so many messy and annoying things in the past, so Wei Guangde said this.
“Don’t tell me, it really is.”
Yin Shizhen answered the conversation, flipping through the papers in front of him, finding one of them and saying: "Today Xu Xu, the censor of the salt patrol, reported that during the ancestors' time, Huaiyan salt had Changgu, Cunji and Shuixiang, totaling 705,000 One thousand one hundred and eighty Ten jins, each jin weighs 200 kilograms.
Each jin of salt in the border is worth eight cents. After Yongle, each jin is two buckets and five liters.
In recent years, it has increased, including hair. , except for salt , there is surplus salt; in addition to the remaining salt, there are also processing costs, adding orders, adding quotations, and cutting them off.
Yan Maoqing saw that the salt was not selling well, so he wanted to clear it up, but he did not know whether there was a switch in front of the salt. For sale, businessman is trapped Ji, please ask the Ministry of Household Affairs to waive the increase and still collect 600,000 taels every year."
Hearing Yin Shizhen's words, Wei Guangde was stunned and couldn't help but ask: "Is this good news?"
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Wei Guangde's question stunned Yin Shizhen and said, "Isn't it good news to get rid of the bad government established by the strict party?"
Zhang Juzheng understood the meaning of Wei Guangde's words, but with a smile on his lips, he lightly Shaking his head lightly.
Zhang Juzheng, like Wei Guangde, is more practical and does not pay attention to who proposed the so-called "bad government", but only whether it is beneficial to the court.
If we simply say that the salt policy reform carried out by Yan Maoqing is wrong because he is a strict party, then it is definitely wrong.
In fact, as Yin Shizhen said, under Yan Maoqing's salt policy, the court could receive one million taels of salt tax every year. However, according to what Xu Xu said, the tax tax would be reduced by more than 400,000 taels immediately.
This is more than 400,000 taels of tax silver. How many 400,000 taels of silver were wasted by the Ming court?
As for his report that the salt merchants could not sell the remaining salt in time, it meant that there was too much salt from the salt field and could not be sold, which would be lost to the salt merchants. Wei Guangde felt like hehe.
As the censor of the salt patrol, Xu Xu could not possibly not know how many people the official salt could use.
It was only two months after Yan Maoqing resigned from the post of Prime Minister Yan Zhengdu Censor. He had previously transferred to Dali Temple, but was soon dismissed and left idle. Unexpectedly, in such a short period of time, the salt merchants would get through the joints. After contacting Xu Xu, he was quite powerful.
"What did the Ministry of Finance say? Are you really going to report it directly?"
Wei Guangde thought of Yin Shizhen's previous attitude and asked.
(End of this chapter)