prosperous age

Chapter 133 Chapter 132
Many things happened in the 31st year of Jiajing, including the resumption of border conflicts, from Datong to Liaodong, the flames of war spread throughout northern Xinjiang, so that Emperor Jiajing, who only wanted to cultivate immortals, had to interrupt his cultivation and stop trading again.

There is also a complete outbreak of the Japanese pirate disaster, and it is becoming more and more serious. The Japanese pirates have dared to fight the government and the army head-on, and even killed officials and seized the city.

This year, several provinces in the entire territory of the Ming Empire suffered from severe drought, especially in Jiangxi and Huguang.

This year, Yu Long Yu Dayou, who was called "Yu Long Qi Hu" by later generations, officially appeared on the stage. His name entered the eyes of the rulers of Ming Dynasty. He hoped that he could quickly put down the trouble of Japanese pirates by virtue of his past achievements.

In the same year, a child with a modern soul hidden inside officially took the imperial examination and became a scholar of the Ming Empire.

His name is Wei Guangde, and his name is no longer only recorded on the account post, but appears in official documents, although it only appears in local documents for the time being.

On the second day of February, the dragon raises its head. This day is also known as Spring Plowing Festival, Farming Festival, Qinglong Festival, Spring Dragon Festival, etc. It is a traditional Chinese folk festival.

In farming culture, the "dragon raising its head" signifies the growth of yang energy, the increase of rain, the vitality of all things, and the beginning of spring farming.

Since ancient times, people have regarded the Dragon Head Up Day as a day to pray for good weather, to drive away evil spirits and avoid disasters, and to bring good luck and luck.

This day was the day when Wei Guangde's cousin Wu Dong married his cousin-in-law. There were lights and festoons on the inside and outside of the gate of the Jiujiang Weiyou Army Qianhu Office in Pengze, and it was a joyous scene.

Two days ago, Father Wei asked for leave just after taking up the post of Governor of Jiujiang Wei Township, and returned to Pengze for the wedding of Wu Dong, our family.

The marriage of the Commander's family was naturally known to everyone in the Commander's Division of Jiujiang Guard, and each family also sent people to congratulate them.

People are in good spirits on happy occasions. Today, Wu Dong is wearing a new red dress. Accompanied by Wei Guangde, Zhang Hongfu, Zeng Yuanshu and other classmates, he went to marry his wife.

For the sake of ostentation, Wei Guangde came up with the idea to transfer elite soldiers from the two teams of hundreds of households to serve as guards of honor.

"That's right, I'll do the same when I hold weddings later."

The eldest brother Wei Wencai was riding on the horse, and he was very moved when he saw the stars holding the moon around him.

He will be up in three months, and his cousin Wu Dong is envious of him.

It wasn't just Wei Wencai who was moved, Zhang Hongfu was also moved.

These two teams of soldiers have been carefully drilled, their steps are in order, their advances and retreats are measured, and the newly added recruits can only go to one side and muddy.

When the wedding party marched into Pengze County, in the far north, in the square on the east side of the inner court of the majestic Forbidden City, countless civil and military officials knelt down in the room, and on the steps, the consort Wu Jinghe stretched his hands. The decree, read it out loud.

"My heir, ancestor Hongye, has been caressing Zhaomin for thirty-two years. Yu here ordered the Taifu and Prince Taishi Chengguo Duke Zhu Xizhong to hold him, Shaobao and Prince Taibao Shangshu Dongge University scholar Xu Jiepeng Book, Feng Jinyiwei's deputy Qianhu Li Ming's daughter, Li, is Princess Yu, and it is the Rina levy."

After the reading was finished, Wu Jinghe carefully put away the imperial decree, and under the guidance of the eunuch at the side, respectfully held the imperial decree and enshrined it in Fengtian Hall.

After the ceremony of enshrining Princess Yu in the Hall of Enlightenment, the Minister of Rituals and the left and right attendants greeted her in person at the Wenhua Hall and saluted.

It’s impossible to cooperate with all your strength, because three days later, the ceremony of conferring Concubine Jing to the First Palace will be held again, followed by the wedding of King Jing, and the wedding of the two kings will be held almost at the same time. It's time.

After attending his cousin's wedding, Wei Guangde went back to Bengshan Castle for a few days, and then returned to Jiujiang Prefecture School to start studying.

To be honest, at this time Wei Guangde read too many books and documents, and the more he read, the more confused he became.

In later generations, Wei Guangde had nothing to do and read a lot of ancient Chinese articles. He gave Wei Guangde a deep impression that in the Ming Dynasty, people with fame were exempted from tax and labor. This is one of the reasons why Wei Guangde is obsessed with imperial examinations.

In his mind, as long as he passed the imperial examination and got the honor, he would be exempted from tax and labor for everything he did. He was so happy.

But now he has searched all the residence newspapers from Hongwu to Jiajing, but he has not seen a single decree about the exemption of gentry from taxation.

In fact, Wei Guangde had doubts about this point before when he read the "Da Ming Law" issued by the Hongwu Dynasty and the "Minghui Code" compiled by the Hongzhi Dynasty and revised by the Zhengde and Jiajing Dynasties, because there is no such thing as exempting gentry from taxation throughout the text.

However, whether it is my father or all the scholars around me, they all say so.

Wei Guangde only found provisions for preferential exemption from miscellaneous labor, but there should indeed be provisions for taxes and regular service.

Labor labor, perhaps due to some policy changes, has long since ceased to exist in Wei Guangde's later generations, so many people know about it, but the specific details are not clear, so in the eyes of many people, the ancient times were mainly handed over to the government. tax.

When Wei Guangde came to this era, he had already figured out what happened by reading books.

The tax in the tax and service is the tax, and the service is the labor service.

Taxation is not only to collect land output, households in this era also have to pay a small tax, which is also known as the poll tax in later generations.

The same is true for labor service, which is arranged according to the number of fields held and the number of family members. There are three items in it: regular service in Lijia, average corvee, and miscellaneous service.

Therefore, what Mr. Liang Fangzhong said, "there is servitude in the tax, and there is tribute in the service", is the essence of the tax system in the Ming Dynasty.

The records in the Great Ming Huidian should be the real records of regulations and systems in this era, but there are only regulations on preferential treatment and exemption, but there is no clause on tax exemption at all.

Wei Guangde found the most recent statement about exempting tax and labor from the "Regulations on Preferential Exemption" promulgated by the imperial court in the 24th year of Jiajing. Six stones of rations for military service and six dings for each person; half for foreign officials; two stones and two dings for ex-employees, prisons, and students; seven tenths of this product for serving as officials."

What does that mean?

With Wei Guangde's current status as a student, what he can enjoy is the preferential treatment of two stones and two free grains.

To be more specific, it means that the two members of the family can be exempted from hard labor other than regular service, and at the same time, there are chores shared by the two stone farms.

The specific executor is Lizheng, so it is inevitable that the actual distribution of labor will not be given to people with fame, at least not too much, otherwise if it is unfair, they can directly sue the county government.

After reading many books, Wei Guangde realized something.

In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, scholars were not given such, such, and so many preferential treatment at all.

There are discounts, but not many.

However, it seems that in the process of implementation from top to bottom, the imperial court's policy has been misinterpreted.

(End of this chapter)