Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 1411, all sent to Nanjing for the elderly

In addition, the taxation situation of the Ming court has been greatly improved. In recent years, the tax silver collected by the court has been increasing year by year. Now the tax silver collected by the court has exceeded [-] million taels of silver a year.

This is an extremely huge sum. Five hundred million taels of silver was collected in a year, and the imperial treasury couldn't hold it, so another warehouse had to be built for this.

In addition, in addition to tax and silver, in-kind collections, such as grain, cloth, tea, etc., have also increased year after year, many times compared to before.

The granaries set up by the imperial court in various places have already been full of grain, and there is more than enough to eat. The grain collected by the imperial court alone is enough to feed the entire Ming Dynasty for several years.

These were things that were unimaginable before.

You must know that in the ninth year of Hongzhi, the tax collected by the imperial court was less than three million taels a year, which included the salt tax after the opening of the bank, which was collected by the entire Ming Dynasty and various places. Taxes and money are pitifully low. In many cases, a wealthy and large county in the south of the Yangtze River can only collect a dozen taels of silver a year, which is simply unbelievable.

As for the collection of goods, it has also been decreasing year after year. A large amount of land is attached to the famous juren and gentry to avoid the taxation of the court. The granaries set up in various places are often empty, so that it is often found that there is no food available during disaster relief.

Emperor Hongzhi saw such a huge difference.

Among them, of course, is the economic development brought about by the rapid development of capitalism and colonialism in Ming Dynasty. Every year, a large amount of wealth can be plundered from overseas. In addition, the continuous expansion of Ming's territory has led to an increase in tax revenue.

However, Liu Jin implemented tax reform, set up tax bureaus, and adopted strong means to collect taxes. Without this, those wealthy gentry and businessmen would not pay a copper coin no matter how much money they earned.

The second is the reform of official administration and the assessment system, which includes tax revenue as an important assessment indicator.

There are officials with a vegetarian meal, but most of them still want to climb up. Naturally, they have to follow Liu Jin's instructions and actively and hard cooperate with the tax office to collect taxes in the local area to improve their assessment indicators. Get promoted.

Emperor Hongzhi saw these things in his eyes and kept them in his heart, so he has always supported Liu Jin with all his strength.

Hearing Liu Jin's words now, Emperor Hongzhi thought seriously.

Do I want to give Liu Jin more power so that he can better implement the system.

As for Liu Jian, Li Dongyang, Xie Qian, Zhang Mao, and Zhong Zhong, all of them were frowning.

Of course they are clear about this matter, and they have even come forward to speak for some officials in many cases.

They are very clear that the situation of many officials, even themselves, is actually the practice of old officials in many cases.

"My dear friends, let's all say yes."

Emperor Hongzhi glanced around, looked at the ministers present, and said with a smile.

If it was before, of course it doesn't matter much.

However, many things and problems occurred during the annual vacation this time, such as a large number of migrant workers returning to their hometowns, and it is easy to cause accidents when returning to their hometowns in the severe cold, plus road bandits, bullies, black shops and so on.

These questions were first raised by Liu Jin. Didn't other officials notice this question?

Someone must have noticed this problem, but no one stood up to take care of it, because for these high-ranking officials, they didn't care about the lives and deaths of these ordinary people at all.

As long as there is no famine or civil uprising, they have nothing to do with the life and death of the common people. For them, the life and death of the common people may not be as important as they are looking for plums in the snow.

In addition, with the opening of the train, public order and sanitation are prone to problems in places with a lot of traffic like the railway station, but for these officials, they don't care about this matter at all.

This obviously doesn't work.

The times have changed.

The scale of the city is getting bigger and bigger, the population of the city is increasing, the concentration of the population, and the expansion of the city will bring a lot of new problems. Among them, there are higher requirements for the timely response ability of officials.

Problems should be solved in a timely manner, instead of waiting for the problem to become serious before trying to find a solution.

For example, if a disease like smallpox spreads in the city, if it is not controlled in time, how many people will die in a city with a population of one million?
With the style of previous officials, can it deal with these new problems?
Obviously, it must not work.

Officials who do nothing, sit on the table, and do nothing are very likely to cause huge losses to Daming.

To use a popular metaphor.

In the past, the Ming Dynasty was like a bullock cart. It was a good thing to be inactive as an official. As long as it was clean and honest, it was enough to maintain local stability and order.

But the current Daming is a rumbling high-speed train, and the speed is very fast. As the driver, the official must concentrate and be prepared to deal with various emergencies at all times, otherwise, if the train rolls over, the loss will be disastrous. .

"Your Majesty, my Ming Dynasty is now at the beginning of a great era."

"The rapid development of factories, workshops, overseas trade and colonization, as well as the vast land and rapidly growing population of our Ming Dynasty that is expanding every year."

"These are situations that have never happened in the past dynasties, so there are many things that we can no longer learn from history, but must develop and innovate."

"The first way to govern the country is to govern the officials. Officials also need to keep up with the development of the trend of the times and constantly adapt to the new era. Only in this way can they better assist the emperor in governing the country."

Liu Jian, Li Dongyang, Xie Qian and others around him looked at each other, and seeing that everyone wanted him to speak up, they had no choice but to think for a while and speak up.

First of all, he made an attitude on the surface, that is, the times are undergoing tremendous changes, and officials can no longer live a happy life with their legs crossed and drinking tea as before.

Officials must also keep improving with the changes of the times, and the requirements for officials must also be continuously raised, so that this increasingly large Ming Empire can be better governed.

"The bureaucratic reform and assessment system formulated by Liu Jin is in line with the development needs of the new era, and it is a policy that benefits the country and the people!"

"The imperial court should punish those officials who do nothing and leave their bodies as vegetarian meals."

"It's just that under the official reform and assessment system, the promotion of officials pays more attention to political achievements, and officials' personal morality is not important. It is also very easy for some officials to use whatever means for their own political achievements."

"For example, in some places, in order to build roads and bridges, some officials forced local gentry and common people to pay money and effort to build concrete roads and new bridges."

"In some impoverished places, the people are already in a difficult situation, but each household has to spend more than ten taels of silver to build roads and bridges."

"Building roads and bridges is of course beneficial to both the country and the people, but it must be done according to local conditions. Some officials are unwilling to persecute the people and gentry, so they will naturally suffer in terms of assessment and promotion."

"This is also the reason why many officials oppose the assessment system."

Liu Jian's attitude is still very clear, the assessment needs to be tested, and officials who eat vegetarian meals with corpses must also be punished, but this assessment system itself may not be perfect. In order to seek political achievements, local officials can easily force local people to do things that people are unwilling to do.

"Hmm~"

When Emperor Hongzhi heard this, he also nodded slightly.

Liu Jin frowned. Of course, Liu Jin knew what Liu Jian said. There were indeed such officials who would do anything for their political achievements.

For example, in terms of encouraging childbirth, it is recommended that Ming people should accept foreign concubines, or buy slaves to have more children, so that the population growth rate will be very fast.

For the sake of infrastructure, it is true that local gentry and common people are forced to contribute money and efforts to build roads and bridges, and some poor places even caused troubles.

"Your Majesty, I also think that those officials who don't do anything and sit on a vegetarian diet should be punished, but this assessment system also needs to be changed, and we can't act too hastily. Some officials are eager for success, not only did not achieve the desired results, but seriously affected stability of the place."

Li Dongyang thought about it and stood up to express his opinion.

Those who do not act will be punished, but the assessment system must continue to be improved. We should not only look at the results but not the costs or consequences, but we should consider it comprehensively.

"What Liu Gong and Li Gong said is true. Officials who do nothing and sit on a vegetarian diet are better off going home to grow sweet potatoes. To be an official is to be the master of the people, and the side of the shepherd must lead the people to make a fortune."

Zhang Mao also followed suit. Relatively speaking, he naturally supported Liu Jin more.

All the ministers followed suit, but they all meant the same thing.

Everyone is a human being, and they all understand the meaning of Emperor Hongzhi from what Emperor Hongzhi said.

For Emperor Hongzhi, he is determined to make a difference, a monarch who has made great achievements, naturally he will not tolerate those officials who do nothing, not to mention it was said at the beginning that this is the beginning of a great era. In such a position, it is natural that it can no longer be the same as before.

What's more, everyone is unwilling to go through those hard days before.

In the past, the imperial court was miserable, the emperor was miserable, and their life as officials was not easy, among other things, the poor salary and treatment are pitiful, and it is difficult not to be a corrupt official.

Now that the imperial court is rich, the salaries of officials have increased many times, and everyone's life is much better.

"Since the opinions of all the love ministers are more consistent, then it is decided like this. Those officials who do not do anything and have a vegetarian diet will all be sent to Nanjing for retirement!"

Emperor Hongzhi looked at the crowd and said.

(End of this chapter)