prosperous age

It must be acknowledged that the Third Lady played a crucial role in ending the hostile relationship between the Mongols and the Ming Dynasty. If the Ming Dynasty had not been so corrupt and incompetent, it would not have ultimately led to the Mongols siding with the Jianzhou Jurchens and following the Qing army into the Central Plains.

However, Liaodong today is completely different from Liaodong in history. Qi Jiguang was stationed in Liaodong, and Wei Guangde also thought that Nurhaci was dead, so he never considered that the Liaodong Jurchens might have a chance to rise again.

Don't think that just because someone is a big shot, they're like cabbages that keep popping up everywhere.

Such a great figure, someone who can change the course of history, only appears once every few thousand years.

Even if Nurhaci hadn't died, he would have lost the conditions for his rise to power.

After Wei Guangde helped the Ming Dynasty recover the Nurgan Regional Military Commission, the Jurchens had already lost the opportunity to rise from Liaodong.

"Grand Secretary Wei, what should we mainly be doing in Mongolia now?"

Liu Shouyou put away his smile and bowed to Wei Guangde, asking for his advice.

"Closely monitor the movements of Altan Khan's sons to prevent them from launching a surprise attack on Guihua City."

Wei Guangde's biggest worry now is that Huang Taiji will take a risk and lead his troops to launch a surprise attack on Guihua City, thus staging the Xuanwu Gate Incident.

At that time, even if Anda Khan didn't die, he was probably not far from it.

Although this may cause chaos on the grassland, a chaotic grassland is even more dangerous.

Don't assume they'll fight amongst themselves first, then decide on a Khan before launching a war to the south.

It's possible that the brothers might discuss it, divide up their territories, and fight their own battles, launching surprise attacks on various border fortresses of the Ming Dynasty.

A unified Mongolia was more powerful, but also easier to deal with.

With a large family and many affairs, there are more concerns, making it even less likely to start a war lightly, especially when the Ming army has the superior military strength.

In fact, Wei Guangde really hoped that Huang Taiji would sit on the throne, because this kid was not very old, just a master of empty talk, and the battle in Liaodong had already terrified him.

His current bluster is merely a manifestation of his blustering but cowardly nature.

"We also paid close attention to Han Naji and San Niangzi in Guihua City, especially their attitude towards our Great Ming."

Wei Guangde continued to give instructions.

Liu Shouyou listened and nodded slightly. After Wei Guangde finished speaking, Liu Shouyou said, "Ever since Han Naji ran away to Xuanfu last time, he has been very nice to our Great Ming. After all, our Great Ming was on his side back then."

Moreover, he seemed more satisfied with life in the Ming Dynasty, and had previously expressed his desire to move to the Ming Dynasty and give up his Mongol identity.

He only returned to Mongolia after being persuaded by Wang Zongxian, but even so, he had previously often spent a month or two living in Xuanfu.

"So you mean, Hannagi wants to live the life of the Ming people?"

Wei Guangde frowned and asked.

"Indeed."

As the head of intelligence, Liu Shouyou certainly knew more about many things than Wei Guangde.

"Now that the Mongols have Guihua City, perhaps they will no longer yearn to live in Xuanfu."

Wei Guangde, however, said...

"This"

Liu Shouyou was somewhat smug, after all, the Ming people's lives were obviously better than the Mongols', and even the Mongols' little prince longed for it.

But when he heard Wei Guangde mention that Mongolia had a city called Guihua, he also felt that there was some truth to it.

The Mongols did not have a habit of settling down, which is why they felt that living in a city was better and more convenient.

But once they have their own city, the Mongolians' lifestyle might change.

“Send someone to keep an eye on him and see how his attitude changes.”

Send more people over there. There is a prosperous city beyond the Great Wall, which could not have been formed without the merchants of our Great Ming Dynasty.

Given the Mongols' ingrained habit of living in tents, even if Guihua City were built beautifully, it would only become a ghost town.

Wei Guangde chuckled lightly and said.

Mongolia's population was already small, and with a large portion of them becoming monks in temples, plus the herders from various tribes who needed to graze their livestock, how many people were left?

However, building cities for the Mongols wasn't without its advantages; at least it would reduce their mobility, which should alleviate much of the pressure to move south.

After Liu Shouyou left, Wei Guangde's gaze returned to Ma Fang's resignation memorial in front of him.

Since there's no draft proposal, let's put it aside for now.

Wei Guangde took out the letter paper and wrote a letter to Ma Fang.

The content was simple, mainly about the current situation in Mongolia, and Wei Guangde's continued hope that Ma Fang could stay in Xuanfu for another year.

Even though Ma Gui was already capable of handling things on his own, Wei Guangde still hoped that he would continue to stay in Xuanfu.

If the Ming Dynasty were to need to send troops to intervene in the situation on the grasslands and quell the chaos, Ma Gui leading the troops and Ma Fang stationed in Xuanfu could stabilize the morale of the Ming people and prevent panic.

Yes, as long as Ma Fang is in Xuanfu, the people there will not live in fear; this has been a habit formed over more than ten years.

Ma Fang's reputation in Wei Meng on the grasslands had spread throughout the northern border towns through years of trade, making him a pillar of stability on the Ming Dynasty's borders.

Wei Guangde didn't plan to do anything else, and he didn't even send anyone to contact Sonam Gyatso, whom he was supposed to contact.

He believed that Sonam Gyatso was a smart man whose goal was to restore the influence of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, and that the Ming Dynasty and the Mongols were undoubtedly his greatest allies.

The deterioration of relations between the Ming Dynasty and the Mongols would not benefit him in achieving his goals.

Therefore, Wei Guangde believes that Sonam Gyatso must also hope for peaceful coexistence between the Han and Mongolian peoples, and that they can help him achieve his goal of returning to Lhasa.

He instructed Lu Bu to send the written letter out of the palace to Wei's family, and Zhang Jihui arranged for someone to deliver the letter to Xuanfu.

Not long after Lu Bu left, voices could be heard outside the door.

"Is Grand Secretary Wei here? Grand Secretary Wei."

"What's the matter?"

Wei Guangde knew that Lu Bu must have left. Because of the short time, he did not ask Zhongshu to come and temporarily act as a gatekeeper.

"This humble servant pays his respects to Grand Secretary Wei. The Grand Secretary requests your presence to discuss some matters."

The person who came was from the Chief Minister's office. After bowing to Wei Guangde, he said...

"Okay, I understand. I'll be there in a bit."

Wei Guangde said something and began to tidy up the memorials on his desk.

"Yes."

The man answered once, then got up and left the duty room.

But just as he retreated to the door, Wei Guangde suddenly asked again, "Do you know why the Grand Secretary has summoned me?"

"The villain doesn't know."

The man quickly replied.

Upon seeing this, Wei Guangde waved his hand and said, "You may leave."

Wei Guangde was unsure why Zhang Juzheng wanted to see him, but he knew he couldn't afford to delay too long.

After briefly organizing the processed and unprocessed memorials, Wei Guangde got up and walked out.

He wasn't worried that Lu Bu wouldn't be able to find anyone when he returned, as there were secretaries in the side room helping with official documents, and they had also overheard the conversation that had just taken place.

When Wei Guangde entered the Grand Secretary's office, Shen Shixing was already waiting inside.

"Oh, Rumo is here early."

Wei Guangde said with a smile, and then, at Zhang Juzheng's signal, sat down on the right side of the head of the table.

Zhang Siwei sat to the left of the lower seat, facing the same direction as Zhang Juzheng, while Shen Shixing sat to the lower seat of him; this had become a customary rule.

"I wonder what brings you here."

After Wei Guangde sat down, he waited for the clerk to bring him tea before asking, "Ru Mo has roughly sorted out the investigation results for various places. Although the figures are not yet accurate because the land survey is not yet complete, the difference should not be too great."

The reason I called everyone here is to give you all a heads-up beforehand.

Zhang Juzheng spoke with a slightly serious expression.

"The results are in."

Wei Guangde nodded slightly, indicating his understanding.

"Yes, the results are in."

Zhang Juzheng spoke up.

Not long after, Zhang Siwei also came in from outside.

His duty room was a bit far from here, so he arrived the latest.

However, upon entering the house and seeing that Shen Shixing had already arrived, she was slightly taken aback.

"Rumo, tell me what happened."

After Zhang Siwei sat down, Zhang Juzheng spoke to Shen Shixing.

"Gentlemen, based on the latest land survey figures reported by various provinces, especially the preliminary estimates from the south, it can be basically confirmed that the total acreage of our Great Ming Dynasty may exceed 700 million mu."

As Shen Shixing began to recount the events, the nationwide land survey conducted by the Ming Dynasty over the past two years began to show its initial results.

"Seven hundred million mu."

Before Wei Guangde could speak, Zhang Siwei exclaimed in surprise.

Zhang Juzheng, who clearly already knew the general situation beforehand, did not show any surprise at this moment.

In fact, Zhang Siwei had also made a guess. He knew that the Ming Dynasty had concealed a lot of land, but he never expected it to be so much.

Putting aside other things, just look at the figures from the fifth year of the Longqing reign: how much taxable land did the Ming Dynasty have on its books?

4.6 million mu.

The fact that this land survey, completed in just ten years, revealed that there were 700 million mu of farmland nationwide, an increase of more than 50%, could not have shocked Zhang Siwei.
If he was relatively accepting of the fact that 20% to 30% of the farmland was concealed before, this figure of 50% is truly astonishing.

"Could they have taken measurements haphazardly? How could there be so many extra acres?"

Zhang Siwei interrupted Shen Shixing's narration and asked a question.

"The figures should be accurate, as they were obtained under the supervision of the Provincial Administration Commission, the Provincial Surveillance Commission, and the Censorate."

The rules for this land survey, including the measurement of special terrains such as hillsides, were all established by the Ministry of Revenue.

The surveying tools all came from the Ministry of Works, so the figure of 700 million mu should not be too far off.

Shen Shixing, with his good temper, wasn't annoyed by Zhang Siwei's interruption and said gently, "Besides..."

After explaining that the survey data was correct, Shen Shixing became somewhat hesitant again.

"What else?"

At this moment, Wei Guangde spoke up and asked.

Shen Shixing looked up at Wei Guangde at the head of the table before continuing, "As requested by Grand Secretary Wei, the censors demanded that local officials hand over and copied the white books they had. According to the white books, there is a huge discrepancy between the current population of our Great Ming and the records in the Yellow Book."

"how many?"

This time, Wei Guangde didn't wait for Zhang Siwei to speak and directly pressed him for an answer.

"No less than 90 million people, not including migrants and unregistered residents from various places."

Shen Shixing finally spoke.

"hiss"

Zhang Siwei gasped again, while Wei Guangde looked slightly disappointed.

Zhang Siwei was stunned by the population of 90 million. The Ming Dynasty's official population was 60 million, so this was a 50% increase.

Wei Guangde was disappointed because the population had not even reached 100 million.

People from later generations may have become accustomed to using the unit "hundred million" when discussing China's population.

This is the "ten thousand" that Shen Shixing mentioned.

Although the term "billions" is frequently seen in ancient official documents, and these are all large numbers exceeding ten thousand, they were not actually used commonly by either the government or the general public.

After all, the number is too large, exceeding the current productivity level, and is often used metaphorically to mean countless.

"万万" already represents the largest numerical unit that the ancients could conceive of and use.

Don't assume that the Ming Dynasty's land area was only 7 million mu, or that there was hidden land, or that the figure was inaccurate for other reasons. After all, the land red line in later generations was as high as 18 billion mu.

In fact, considering the environment and other factors at that time, 7 million mu was already the largest. After all, the Northeast granary had not been fully developed, and the territory of the Ming Dynasty did not cover western regions such as Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet.

7 million mu was already the limit for the Ming Dynasty.

As for the occasional figure of 8 million mu of land, the generally accepted explanation is that it is the result of converting mountains, forests, ponds and lakes into farmland, or the result of using "legal" measuring tools.

"The number of displaced people can't possibly be as high as a million."

Zhang Siwei spoke up, but he wisely refrained from mentioning the hidden household.

As everyone knows, there are many people hiding in the mountains and rivers to avoid taxes and corvée labor, as well as people hidden by powerful families in various places.

This is really difficult to calculate accurately.

"Ninety million people is a fairly accurate figure."

Wei Guangde nodded slightly, indicating his approval of the data.

Immediately afterward, Wei Guangde looked at Zhang Juzheng and said, "In that case, the annual salt tax revenue of less than two million taels is at least a loss of one million taels."

"Yes, the salt administration needs to be changed."

Zhang Juzheng nodded. When he heard Shen Shixing reveal that the population was 90 million, he had already suspected that the Ministry of Revenue's estimate of 2 million taels of salt tax based on a population of 60 million was incorrect.

"Grand Secretary Wei, regarding the salt tax issue, it's not necessarily true that it will rise to three million taels."

Shen Shixing, however, spoke up, saying, "In the past, the consumption of salt by ordinary people may have been overestimated due to spoilage, but there was definitely a loss of salt tax revenue."

In ancient times, there were no cold storage facilities or refrigerators, and food preservation was mostly achieved by salting meat, which was also an important way of consuming salt in ancient times.

The slang used during the Shenshi hour (3-5 PM) means that there might not be as much smuggled salt as people think.

"The Ministry of Revenue reported a million salt permits last year, so the real number must be no less than 120 million."

After hearing Shen Shixing's words, Wei Guangde did not calculate the actual salt certificates as high as 1.5 million certificates based on 50% of the original 1 million certificates. Instead, he discounted it further, increasing it by only 20% to say 1.2 million certificates.

Actually, 120 million jin is not a small amount; that's equivalent to 5 million jin of salt.

A salt certificate issued during the Ming Dynasty weighed approximately 400 catties and sold for over six taels of silver. After deducting costs, the imperial court received a little over one tael of silver, which was a major source of revenue for the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, the actual amount of salt produced was only 700,000; the rest was surplus salt.

Even so, the cabinet members all turned their attention to the salt administration, hoping that the salt tax could increase the court's annual revenue by hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

"The current issue is how to resolve the huge discrepancy between the white and yellow registers. If the news gets out, it will likely cause a huge uproar in the court, and the palace will probably be furious as well."

The population cannot increase suddenly; it must be accumulated gradually over many years.

The Yellow Register was created every ten years, so it's impossible for the population to increase so much in just ten years.

The only explanation is that officials below falsified the records during the previous compilation of the Yellow Register.

The entire local government was falsifying documents; it was an outrageous scandal.

At this moment, all four cabinet ministers began to sweat. (End of Chapter)