prosperous age

Chapter 960 1049 people Ding Sijuan

Wei Guangde's strategy to control Huang started from the upstream and was arranged clearly all the way to the downstream. Zhang Juzheng naturally understood it.

However, Zhang Juzheng was not sure whether such a big battle would have any actual effect.

After thinking about it for a while, I figured it out.

Despite Wei Guangde's suggestion to treat the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River at the same time, in fact the imperial court did not need to bear anything; it was all done with money from local people.

Build some reservoirs in the upper reaches to store water to control the amount of water flowing into the middle and lower reaches. We also find places to store some water in the middle reaches. In the final analysis, it is all to control the amount of water.

As for the downstream, Wei Guangde didn't have many suggestions, but there was Wang Gong's memorial, so it didn't hurt to let him try it for the time being.

However, Wei Guangde's suggestion seems to be reasonable. All the troubles in the Yellow River are in the lower reaches. There are basically no floods in the middle and upper reaches. What does this mean?

Not to mention that the incident was actually caused by too much water and too much sediment.

Controlling water volume to reduce sediment flow downstream may actually be effective.

"I have no objection. Send a letter to Mr. Wan and let him consider the matter. He Qing, what do you think?"

Zhang Juzheng expressed his stance.

"You can try it, I hope it works."

Lu Tiaoyang nodded.

Since the Tang and Song dynasties, all dynasties seem to have been unable to deal with the Yellow River. In the Ming Dynasty, floods have become more and more serious. I can only say that you can try any reasonable plan. If it is effective, it will naturally be the best. If not, then continue to find a way.

After finishing talking about Wei Guangde, Zhang Juzheng also started talking about him.

During this period of time, when he had nothing to do, he read the memorials of Jiangxi and Nanzhili on the trial implementation of the whip method. There were both good and bad in them. To promote it nationwide, it was naturally impossible to copy the methods of Jiangxi and Nanzhili. The imperial court You still have to think about it all.

Which ones are fixed rules and must be implemented, and which ones can be flexibly adjusted by each province, must be carefully considered.

There was no way, Zhang Juzheng had not planned to bring this matter to the cabinet for discussion so early, because Wei Guangde proposed reforming the money law, so he had to throw it out now.

In Zhang Juzheng's plan, he first used the examination method to clean up the officialdom.

After the official clean-up is completed, another whipping method can get twice the result with half the effort.

If we still follow the original rules, we don't know what will happen to the whipping method.

But when Zhang Juzheng was thinking recently, he discovered a thorny issue, which was the issue of tax sharing if all taxes and services were collected in silver.

When he saw the numbers of Hubu's acres from the Hongwu Dynasty to the present Wanli Dynasty, he felt his head was heavy, and the appearance was too ugly.

For more than a hundred years, the court said that the acres of taxable land had decreased instead of increasing, and the decrease was outrageous, which was not normal at all.

So he thought that before implementing a whipping method across the country, he would have to spend a lot of manpower and material resources to clear the country's acres.

The results of the Qing Dynasty were used as the tax base to distribute taxes to various places.

Clearing the land may seem like a small matter, but the final result may be completely different from the current registration in the Ministry of Household Affairs, and may eventually lead to a big trouble that they cannot avoid, that is, errors and omissions in the Yellow Book of the Ministry of Household Affairs.

All officials actually know what is going on in the Yellow Register, which records land acres and household registration information all over the world.

If the land area is wrong, what about the household registration?

At the beginning, Wei Guangde proposed the plan of "dividing a small amount of money into a piece of land", which was to incorporate the corvee's silver into a whip method and break it into small pieces of silver.

This amount of money actually existed in the past. When local governments did not have projects that required the collection of corvee, they would collect it at a discount.

Or because this is not a regular project of the imperial court. In Zhu Yuanzhang's beautiful idea, that is, when the imperial court needs it, it recruits people's power. When it is not needed, it is natural for the people to rest and recuperate.

But it turned out that it was just wishful thinking on his part.

The dingyin collected by the government was not handed over to the court, but stayed in the local area. In the end, it actually went into the pockets of the officials.

After the tenants were allotted to the land, the taxes and services were combined and converted into silver. Naturally, all taxes and silver had to be sent to the court in proportion, and the remaining part was paid to the local government.

If the place needs money, then reach out to the court so that the court can control the place. This is a clever trick.

In fact, in later generations, the so-called tax reform is also a game of tax distribution, a game between the central and local governments, competing for the right to distribute tax revenue.

The key point of Zhang Juzheng's economic approach lies in land.

At this time, the phenomenon of land annexation and deception of the government was very serious across the country. Dingkou fled, his household registration was unclear, and the local tax burden was extremely unbalanced, resulting in "the country was deprived and the people were poor", and only local gentry and officials benefited.

In response to this, Zhang Juzheng came up with the plan to re-measure the acres of land across the country, check for leaked land, and at the same time recover the accumulated tax arrears.

In fact, one of the purposes of the Kao Cheng Law itself was to recover accumulated tax arrears. The court was too poor.

Wei Guangde used coined money to increase profits for the court, and he had to find a way to greatly increase the court's income, otherwise he would be outcompeted by Wei Guangde.

But if he clears his land, he will have to face the problem of yellow registration.

How many households are there in the world, how many people are there, and where are they distributed?

It can be said that clearing land and household registration are very consuming tasks for the government and cannot be carried out lightly.

These two points are also known as the biggest obstacles to the implementation of the one-whip method.

If the land acres and household registration are unclear, a single whipping law will not achieve its purpose, because the purpose of this law is to combine land taxes, corvee and other miscellaneous levies in various states and counties into one, consolidate and levy silver tael, and pay it per mu.

The Yellow Book and the Fish Scale Book of the Ming Dynasty recorded household registration and land status across the country respectively, and were the basis for the court to collect taxes and levies.

Wei Guangde and Lu Tiaoyang were a little hesitant after listening to Zhang Juzheng's thoughts quietly.

Of course they knew the problem, but both the yellow book and the fish scale book had to be updated. This waste of manpower and material resources was not just a matter of words.

But the Yellow Book, according to the rules set by Zhu Yuanzhang, was re-edited every ten years. Each compilation required the mobilization of local officials, as well as the mobilization of thousands of supervisors from the Northern and Southern Imperial Colleges to participate.

It was also because it was too troublesome, so in the middle period, the yellow book gradually became a formality. In many places, the previous yellow book was copied directly, and each person registered in it was just added ten years old.

For this reason, there was a joke in Hangzhou at the beginning, that is, hundreds of centenarians appeared in Hangzhou.

But in fact, many of these people are no longer there. They are just establishment officials who want to save trouble and directly copy the work.

Inventorying the acres of land and finding out the hidden fields is conducive to the distribution of taxes and servitude, which is "equal". However, if the population is also included in the inventory, the workload will be huge.

But if the population involves Ding Yin, shouldn't we investigate it?

You must know that the slogan of the imperial court's trial of a whipping method was "equalize taxes and levies, so as to alleviate the people's poverty." It was not only taxes but also levies that were investigated.

"There is one thing that Shandai may not know yet. I just suddenly remembered it yesterday and felt that there might be something weird in it."

Zhang Juzheng added, "This was reported in the Nanjing newspaper in the fifth year of Longqing's reign. At that time, Shandai was still in his hometown of Dingyou."

Therefore, in Zhang Juzheng's mouth, an old incident in Nanzhili was uncovered and mentioned in the cabinet.

"This incident originated from the 6146th year of Jiajing. Cheng Peng and Wang Xiang, who were from She County, Huizhou Prefecture, Southern Zhili, discovered that She County alone paid taxes on "people's silk silk", totaling taels of silver, while the other five counties under Huizhou Prefecture did not need to pay tax.

They found something inappropriate and reported the situation to Huizhou Prefecture many times, and even reported it to the governor of Yingtian and the governor of Yingtian. Since the governor and inspector were quickly transferred, and the officials in charge were people from the other five counties, the matter was delayed until they died, and the matter was settled. In the third year of Longqing's reign, Shuai Jiamo, a military household affiliated with Xin'an Guard in Huizhou Prefecture, found "human ding silk silk" and asked She County to bear it alone. He verified his idea through records in Huizhou Prefecture's annals, and followed Cheng Peng and Wang Xiang. He continued to submit the document, describing his investigation process in detail, and submitted it to Liu Shihui, the censor of Yingtian Xunji, Hai Rui, the governor of Yingtian, and others at that time. "

The so-called "Ren Ding Silk" means that silk is collected based on the registered population and paid in kind. The natural silk collected is supplied to government weaving, and the colored silk is folded and transported to the central government in preparation for salaries and rewards.

The silk silk tax of the Ming Dynasty was mainly divided into Xia tax silk silk, Nongsang silk silk and Rending silk silk.

In the Ming Dynasty, the silk silk tax in the northern region retained the practice of collecting taxes based on household registration and population, and was called "rending silk silk". The silk silk tax in the southern region was taxed based on the number of acres of land, which was a land tax subject, and was called "summer tax". Silk."

This was actually a place where taxation was flexible in the early Ming Dynasty. There were many people in the north, so miscellaneous taxes were mostly allocated based on household registration and recognition, while the south had more fields, so they were spread directly on acres.

This is so because the population in Jiangnan dropped sharply after successive wars in the early Ming Dynasty, while in the north there were relatively few wars and the population reduction was limited.

Therefore, the human ding silk silk in Zhang Juzheng's mouth should actually be the summer tax silk silk, but the meaning is similar, and Wei Guangde does not need to remind him.

"Can the source of this matter be traced?"

Wei Guangde asked with a slight frown.

Since this matter has reached Zhang Juzheng's ears, Nanjing will definitely find out the source when reporting it.

"It is indeed recorded in the "Huidian" that Huizhou Prefecture must pay 8780 pieces of human silk silk every year, equivalent to more than 6100 taels of silver, but there is no record that She County should bear it alone.

In addition, it was verified that in the early Ming Dynasty, it was not only She County that owed summer wheat, but the other five counties in Huizhou also owed more than 10700 shi in total, but no compensation was paid.

Furthermore, they owed more than 9700 shi of grain. If the wheat was converted into silver, according to the official discount standard at that time, it would be 3 qian per shi. This amount was only 8780 taels, but it would cost 7 pieces of silk at qian each. , it’s more than six thousand taels.

According to the situation after the inspection in Nanjing, She County should actually bear 3,000 taels of this tax, and the other five counties should bear more than 3,000 taels.

It's just that the Zhongshu Province copywriter made a mistake and mistakenly placed the taxes borne by the six counties of Huizhou on She County, and it has been borne until now. "

Zhang Juzheng sighed: “It has been more than a hundred years since Hongwu, and She County has always borne thousands of taels more tax than the surrounding five counties.

I remembered yesterday that I read Shuai Jiamo's submission, and one sentence in the submission was well written.

'The way of the world is to call for equality, so things will be called if they are not equal. Shexian County has long been partial to taxes, and the people have been extremely poor. When Renming was in power, he prepared a petition and begged for equality.

This article is well-founded and must be true. "

After Zhang Juzheng finished speaking, he remained silent, letting Wei Guangde realize the meaning of his words.

"You want to investigate the taxes and servitude in the world?"

Wei Guangde understood that Zhang Juzheng planned to conduct an inventory of the world's taxes and services recorded in the "Da Ming Huidian" in order to promote a fair and just whip law.

You know, Zhu Yuanzhang set the taxes and levies in various places and ordered future emperors not to change them.

The incident in She County was probably not only noticed during the Jiajing Dynasty, but no one said anything because of it.

After all, this tax has been recorded on She County and it is difficult to change it.

Zhang Juzheng remained silent in response to Wei Guangde's question.

Rubbing his hands, Wei Guangde was a little worried that the matter would end badly if it got bigger. Even if it was justified, it would be difficult to overturn the established facts, so he asked again: "Since this matter has happened for many years, what is the situation in Nanzhili?" How to deal with it?”

"Governor Hai Rui gave an instruction to "yangfu to investigate and report the seizure", and inspector Liu Shihui instructed to "ask Huizhou to convene responsible officials, squires, elders and other people from the six counties for a collegial discussion."

Since then, all counties have responded, among which Jixi County has responded with the following statement: "It will be accepted as usual, so that the common people will not have to worry about sudden changes in the common people, and the government and the people will be satisfied." "

Only then did Zhang Juzheng speak.

"hiss"

Wei Guangde took a breath, Jixi County could dare to say threatening words to Haigangfeng.

Doesn’t the worry of the small people’s violent upheaval refer to the popular uprising?

However, the surprise only lasted for a moment. Wei Guangde suddenly realized that the matter might not be that simple.

After lowering his head and thinking for a moment, he roughly figured out the reason. He couldn't help but look up at Zhang Juzheng and asked, "Are they dissatisfied with the whipping method?"

Any government decree is actually mutual. There is only so much wealth in the world. Either you give more, or they give more, and the total amount remains unchanged.

If the whip method is introduced to alleviate people's difficulties, it will be a huge loss for those who have previously gained vested interests.

"Then?"

Seeing that Zhang Juzheng did not answer, Wei Guangde asked again, "What happened in the fifth year of Longqing?"

"Shuai Jiamo checked the surveys of Huizhou from the previous dynasties of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and guessed that the scribes of Huizhou Households had committed fraud, which caused all the tin silk silk to fall on She County.

At the end of the fourth year of Longqing's reign, Shuai Jiamo submitted his new discovery to Huizhou Prefecture. When there was no response, he decided to go to Beijing.

In the fifth year of Longqing's reign, the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate replied that "the codes must be followed, the taxes should be distributed equally, and the copies should be made according to the discretion." The Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs approved "the title of Hou's headquarters patrolling the Yamen", and also issued a special notice to Huizhou Prefecture. A speech asking them to explain and come up with solutions.

But until now, there seems to be no progress. "

Zhang Juzheng replied.

"Where is the handsome Jiamo man? Since he has done so many things, it is impossible for him to do nothing in the past two years."

Wei Guangde said in surprise.

“I just want to use this case as an example as the source of the investigation of taxes and levies, first to check the taxes and servitude, then to check the household registration and re-edit the yellow roll, and finally to clear the land and acres.

After these things are done, a whipping method will be implemented in the thirteen provinces of Ming Dynasty.

Otherwise, if we promote a whipping method based on the current situation under the control of the Ministry of Revenue, we are afraid that it will fail. "

Zhang Juzheng said.

Hearing this, Wei Guangde frowned slightly and said, "Uncle, this method has been implemented in many places in Jiangnan. There is nothing wrong with it."

"It was implemented by the prefectures and counties. If there are any mistakes, just correct them in time. But when the imperial court implements it throughout the Ming Dynasty, it must consider these impacts. Shandai will not forget what happened in Shandong."

Zhang Juzheng reminded, "Yellow books and white books are also not conducive to the court's actions and must be unified."

Wei Guangde felt a toothache. Now Ge Shouli, the censor of Zuodu of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, was appointed as the Minister of Household Affairs in the first year of Longqing. He opposed the whipping method because of the Shandong Rebellion.

As for the yellow book and the white book, Nanjing Huguang Road Examination Supervisor Chen Tang also made it clear in the memorial.

(End of this chapter)