prosperous age

"It's only a few cents per mu, so a million mu is only a few tens of thousands of taels of silver."

Wei Guangde said slowly, "To be honest, the taxes collected by the court are really low."

Even though history books often say that the princes of the Ming Dynasty owned tens of thousands of hectares and millions of acres of land, if you really count them, the taxes they had to pay were actually only tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

"Shandai, that's what you say, but nominally, your Majesty no longer has an imperial farm."

Zhang Juzheng also knew that according to the system, taxes should be collected from the land of royal family members and nobles, but whether or not the taxes could be collected would cause a lot of trouble.

If taxes were levied on the land of royal family members, the exemption of scholars might be exposed by royal family members.

Don't think this is a trivial matter. If things go wrong, it may cause unrest in the world.

The idea that scholars are exempt from taxes has become deeply rooted in the minds of ordinary people after years of continuous operation.

“Furthermore, if the royal family sees the royal family paying taxes, they will also pay, but they will certainly ask the court to levy taxes on scholars according to the system.

I don’t know how big of a commotion this will cause.”

Zhang Juzheng continued.

The people know that they have been cheated for so many years and have paid taxes to the gentry for so many years, so they will inevitably feel resentful, and the consequences are unpredictable.

"Let's not talk about the past. We will re-evaluate the tax exemption rules for the gentry. The same applies to the royal family. We will not hold the past responsible. We will only trace back the taxes from the first year of the Wanli reign."

Wei Guangde said, "As for the fact that the imperial farm that Uncle said no longer exists, you and I know it very well, and so do all the officials in the court.

I have estimated that the so-called "official land" now controlled by the inner court is at least 47,000 hectares, and the nominal tax in one year is only more than 200,000 taels of silver.

Tell Shuanglin that the silver must be paid into the treasury."

Just as Wei Guangde said this, he saw Zhang Juzheng's lips moving slightly, as if he wanted to interrupt, so he quickly waved his hand to stop him from speaking.

He continued, speaking faster, "As for the silver that was sent to the Ministry of Revenue, half a month later the Ministry of Revenue will pay out 300,000 taels of silver to the inner court in the name of palace expenses."

Wei Guangde could imagine that if he really asked the inner court to pay the money, not only would Feng Bao not agree, but perhaps even the young emperor Zhu Yijun and the two empress dowagers would not agree.

But Wei Guangde came from later generations, and what he was best at was knowing what "flexibility" meant. If you can adapt, you will succeed.

As the movie said, "The rich's money will be returned in full, and the poor's money will be divided 30% to 70%." The court wanted to collect money from the royal family and nobles, not the emperor's money.

"As long as the palace pays the money on the surface, it will be easy to deal with the royal family later.

The Ministry of Revenue has collected too much money, so if the palace needs to withdraw money from the Ministry of Revenue, isn't it easy to explain?"

Wei Guangde continued to seduce.

Although Feng Bao is not here, Zhang Juzheng is here, and it would be the same if he could pass the message to Feng Bao's ears.

As long as Feng Bao understood the meaning, he would not object. With his intelligence, he would not fail to understand the benefits of this matter to the inner court and the imperial court.

The imperial estate of the Ming Dynasty was first built during the Yongle period and was also called "Palace Estate".

The location is in Fengrun County, Shuntian Prefecture, and was named Renshouguanzhuang. During the Xuande period, Qingning and Weiyanggongzhuang were successively built.

These palaces and villages cover a vast area, starting from Fengrun County in the northeast of Northern Zhili, and extending southwest through Baodi, Wuqing, Jinghai, to Hejian and other prefectures and counties.

After that, during the Tianshun, Chenghua and Hongzhi periods, the Ming Dynasty royal family controlled seven imperial farms, covering a total area of ​​more than 12,000 hectares.

However, after Emperor Zhengde ascended the throne, the number of imperial farms increased dramatically, reaching more than 30, covering an area of ​​more than 37,000 hectares.

Zhang Juzheng just said that there were no imperial farms in the Ming Dynasty, but in fact it started from the Jiajing period.

In February of the second year of the Jiajing reign, Xia Yan compiled the materials obtained from the investigation into a memorial entitled "Investigation and Report on Imperial Farms" and presented it to Emperor Shizong, detailing the establishment process, number, geographical distribution, and hazards of imperial farms. He also suggested abolishing the imperial farms and returning the land to the people in order to eliminate the various drawbacks caused by the imperial farms.

After seeing the memorial, Emperor Shizong issued an edict, saying: "The grain and silver from the farms of each palace should still be submitted to the Ministry of Finance, and at the end of the year, they should be submitted for use.

The number of hectares and acres shall be changed to official land according to the new register, and there is no need to call it the imperial farm."

Afterwards, he issued a decree: "All the people in charge of the village should be dismissed."

What does this mean? Actually, it means changing the management model of the imperial farm back to the ancestral system, and local governments will be responsible for managing these fields, including collecting rent.

The expenses of the palace would naturally be asked from the Ministry of Revenue. They would only ask for as much as they needed, so they would not have to buy land and collect rent to make a living.

Therefore, nominally speaking, the imperial farms of the Ming Dynasty no longer existed starting from the Jiajing period.

But in fact, these imperial farms returned to the control of the inner court after the 30th year of Jiajing.

The reason was very simple. It was too expensive for the emperor to practice Taoism and make elixirs. He had asked the Ministry of Revenue for money before, but the Ministry of Revenue made excuses. Naturally, the Imperial Household Department thought that it was better to control the financial resources themselves.

As a result, the imperial farm, which was originally one of the inner court's income, naturally came back into their sight.

What's more, running these industries is also beneficial to the people in the inner court.

The Prime Minister Yan Song who was in power at the time turned a blind eye to this and allowed the evil to revive.

To this day, the imperial farm still exists and is managed by eunuchs sent by the inner court, but it is no longer called an imperial farm to the outside world, but only official land.

Zhang Juzheng blinked. He understood what Wei Guangde meant. Although he felt that this seemed not good, it seemed to be the best solution.

Otherwise, given the current situation in the world, it would be quite difficult to collect taxes from royal families and nobles.

"Brother Uncle, as far as I know, the king's manors in various places are also the places with the most hidden fields."

Wei Guangde continued, "Whether they are members of the royal family or nobles, they manage their own farms and fields, and the local officials are afraid to investigate, so they have the opportunity to occupy the farmland without reporting it to the authorities.

If the land is really measured according to the regulations, the amount of land in those farms will be increased by at least 50%.

If we can use the opportunity of land surveying to collect taxes on farms, then our Ming Dynasty will not have to worry about finances and taxes for a hundred years.”

Wei Guangde was still reminding Zhang Juzheng that if they only surveyed the land but did not take action on the estates of royal family members and nobles, the land would continue to be annexed. After a few years or decades, the amount of land that could pay taxes would be greatly reduced, and the results of their current survey would be in vain.

"Brother Uncle, we actually didn't change the ancestral system, we just followed it.

As long as the imperial farms are willing to pay taxes, and with the elder uncle and brother introducing the performance evaluation system, as long as the court reiterates the rule that 'royal family members who buy land but do not pay taxes will lose their official positions', the local civil and military officials will naturally know what to do."

"It is hereby ordered that any member of the royal family who buys land but does not pay the taxes shall have it confiscated by the government, and the land of all royal relatives shall be confiscated by the relevant officials, just like the case for meritorious officials."

This was a clear decree issued by Emperor Jiajing, but after the decree was issued, it was not seriously implemented at the lower levels because there was too much resistance.

This happened in the 39th year of the Jiajing reign. Emperor Jiajing had already felt the horror of the number of estates held by royal family members and nobles, so he issued an edict to set a limit on the number of estates held by nobles, and any excess would be confiscated.

Emperor Jiajing directly dispatched the censor Shenyang to clear out the farmlands that had been seized, concealed, and falsely claimed, totaling more than 16,000 hectares.

Muzong followed the advice of the censor Wang Tingzhan and set a limit that would decrease from generation to generation: meritorious officials were limited to 200 hectares of land for five generations, and relatives of the emperor were limited to 700 to 70 hectares.

However, it was not until that time that the court learned that although Emperor Jiajing had nominally abolished the imperial farms, the farms belonging to the emperor actually still existed.

The Xingwangfu and Wangzhuang alone had more than 8,300 hectares of land in the six villages and two lakes of Chengtian, which were ruled by eunuchs and allowed to be annexed by schools. To date, another 880 hectares of land have been added, divided into twelve villages.

It is hard to say whether the Jiajing Emperor inherited more than 30,000 hectares of imperial farmland from his cousin, the Zhengde Emperor, or whether the original farmland of the Prince Xing’s Mansion alone was close to 10,000 hectares.

In fact, the imperial estates inherited from Emperor Jiajing during the reign of Emperor Longqing exceeded 40,000 hectares.

Although Emperor Jiajing put an emergency brake on this round of land annexation that started with Emperor Zhengde, the effect was obviously not good.

Of course, Emperor Jiajing later gave the original farm of Prince Xing's Mansion to Prince Jing, and also gave him a lot of land.

However, after King Jing died, all the newly incorporated land, except the farmland of Prince Xing's palace, was returned under the leadership of Xu Jie. However, the farmland managed by the Imperial Household Department still amounted to more than 40,000 hectares.

Well, we can only say that the biggest landlord in the world is actually the emperor. The princes are also big landlords, but they are still not as tyrannical as the emperor.

"That's it for now. I'll discuss it with Shuanglin in the next two days."

Wei Guangde’s idea was actually quite good, and would be of great benefit to both the inner court and the imperial court.

However, the difficulty of getting the palace to pay money lies mainly in face.

"Brother Shu, remember to remind Brother Shuanglin that those 'official fields' must pay taxes and labor service."

Wei Guangde emphasized that it was necessary to make it clear to Feng Bao that the land for paying taxes was "official land" and not "imperial farm".

With this distinction, it naturally would not affect the emperor's face.

Zhang Juzheng nodded and said goodbye to go back to his duty room. As he reached the door, Wei Guangde seemed to have thought of something and caught up with Zhang Juzheng in two steps. He whispered in his ear: "If the palace hesitates, the silver allocated by the Ministry of Revenue to the inner court can be doubled according to the amount of tax paid by those official fields.

There are hundreds of palaces for princes and dukes across the country, and the royal farms and fields alone probably account for no less than one million hectares, not to mention those of the nobles.

If the imperial court could really get this money back, the Ministry of Revenue would no longer be short of money.”

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

Previously, Wei Guangde had roughly estimated based on official figures that the land owned by royal families and nobles was estimated to be more than two million hectares. If all the hidden land among the people were to be found out through land survey, the Ministry of Revenue would probably have to increase its cash by millions of taels each year.

Wei Guangde knew how to do the math on this, and Zhang Juzheng naturally knew it too.

He didn't say anything, just nodded slightly.

Afterwards, Wei Guangde didn't want to continue the analysis.

"Lubu."

After shouting to the door, Wei Guangde sat back at his desk.

"Master, you called me."

Lu Bu walked in quickly and bowed before him.

"Send all these documents back to Wenyuan Pavilion."

Wei Guangde pointed to the documents that had been reported back earlier and gave instructions, including those he had picked out.

The paper notes I had written on had already been taken away by Zhang Juzheng. It would be inappropriate to keep these documents here any longer, so I'd better send them back.

"That's right, sir."

Just as Lu Bu was about to pick up the clerk and send him away, he suddenly stopped what he was doing and said to Wei Guangde, "Master, the lotus flowers in the pond are blooming this morning, two months earlier than in previous years, and the flowers are more beautiful.

If you feel tired, you can go to the lotus pond and look at the white lotus to relax. "

"Haha, the lotus has bloomed. This is quite rare. I'll go take a look later."

Wei Guangde laughed after hearing this.

However, a lot of time was wasted today, and Wei Guangde's room was already piled with a lot of documents that needed to be dealt with.

Having said that, in the end, of course, the matter was completely forgotten.

No matter how hard I try, I still haven't finished processing today's memorials.

However, Zhang Juzheng seemed to be troubled by what he had said before, so he did not send anyone to inform the cabinet of a small meeting before the court was dismissed today.

When the time came, Wei Guangde asked Lu Bu to clean up the duty room and he left the cabinet.

When he reached his sedan chair, Wei Guangde instructed his attendant, "Go and ask Zhang Ji to wait for me at the house in Baodafang. We will go there too."

"Yes, sir."

The attendant received the order, agreed, and ran quickly into the distance.

When the sedan bearers saw Wei Guangde walking to the front of the sedan, they naturally lifted the rear sedan to make it easier for Wei Guangde to get in.

Wei Guangde did not plan to go back home directly today. Firstly, he was annoyed by the noises from the officials in Beijing these days and wanted to get away from it. Secondly, he had other things to ask Zhang Ji to do.

Soon, when Wei Guangde's sedan chair arrived at the outer residence of Baodafang, Zhang Ji was already waiting with his head bowed at the gate of the compound.

"Come in with me."

As soon as Wei Guangde got out of the sedan chair, he saw Zhang Ji. He just said something and walked towards the house.

After entering a small room in the inner house, Wei Guangde spoke up, "I have something to arrange for someone to do, and it must be done secretly. Is there anyone in the mansion who is smart and trustworthy?"

"Master, there are a few in the outer city. They were all adopted from the back mountain of Bengshanbao in the early years."

Zhang Ji whispered.

"Oh, when did they come?"

Wei Guangde knew that the mountain behind Bengshanbao was a paradise, a small village full of illegal residents who were not registered with the government.

“I came here a few years ago, and the people have been replaced.

I remember telling the master about this matter, but the master told me to ask the lady to take care of it."

Zhang Ji hurriedly explained that he was afraid that Wei Guangde would misunderstand that his problem was his, so he did not report it to him in time.

"I forgot all about it."

Wei Guangde certainly knew about the people sent from the back mountain. In addition to farming the fields, those people were also raising assassins for his father.

Don't talk about why a centurion needs to keep death squads. In fact, anyone who plans for his own family will secretly keep such people.

Who knows when you might run into a troublesome opponent? If you can't defeat him head-on, you'll have to resort to dirty tactics and eliminate him physically.

"Listen to me, do you still remember Cheng Shoujie?"

"Cheng Shou. The Dali Temple Secretary?"

When Wei Guangde asked, Zhang Ji quickly remembered this person.

"That's him. He's from Caozhou, Shandong. Send someone to keep an eye on his family, especially his sons, and check if there are any account books or anything like that hidden in his house."

Wei Guangde whispered.

"Master is saying that he might have hidden the account book!"

Zhang Ji was a little surprised, then nodded, "Master, if it is true, do you want it?"

Having said that, Zhang Ji made a cutting gesture with his hand.

"Let's observe for a while first to see if there are other people watching his house, and then we can find out what's going on in Cheng's house.

You should arrange for someone smarter to go there so as not to alert the enemy.

I also brought a few people from the back mountain with me, just in case.

It’s best if you don’t have anything left behind, but if you do have anything, you must not reveal it.”

Wei Guangde said in a low voice. (End of this chapter)