Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 234 Heroes See the Same Thing

Beijing.

Emperor Shunzhi was only eight years old, and all government affairs were entrusted to the emperor's uncle, the regent Dorgon.

When the courtiers saw Dorgon, they all knelt down to welcome Dajia. The little Shunzhi Emperor said that the king was the relative of the emperor's uncle and the regent. How could the subjects not kneel?

Dorgon also seems to regard himself as the lord of the Qing Dynasty, and he is also very concerned about military and political affairs.

Since entering Beijing, he has been wearing night clothes and food, and has been extremely diligent in administration.

Early this morning, I was wearing a dark dragon yellow satin casual robe, reviewing memorials in the imperial study.The imperial case is full of memorials, but looking through it, there is not a single piece of happy news.

Zhou Yun, the governor of Zhending, made a performance, saying that he patrolled all over the place, and it was desolate in the extreme, and the old money and food were still difficult to count.Kuang, the acres of land are barren, and the people are in exile, six or seven of the ten live.

However, Yang Fangxing, Governor of Shandong Rivers, said that the land in Shandong was barren, and there were only one or two people in one household, and only one or two acres of ten mu of land were planted.

Shaanxi governor Lei Xing visited Guanzhong and went to Shu. The remnants of the aborigines have not returned. Compared with Baojun, the desolation is no less than Tianyuan... The empty city of Shitian, in name but without substance, has been an open land for a long time.

Dorgon's three most important scholars, Gang Lin, Feng Quan, and Qi Chongge, also complained to him one after another, talking about financial difficulties.

Today, he summoned Yan Wogong, who has repeatedly made outstanding achievements in the south of the Yangtze River. Dorgon specially summoned him to the capital. After calling him several times, he admired him very much.

"The Ministry of Household Affairs plans to report that this year's national expenditure will require 570 million 4000 taels of silver, of which 300 million taels will be spent on military pay, accounting for nearly 500% of the total expenditure. Ten million taels, the shortfall is as high as more than [-] million taels.”

Dorgon invited Yan Wogong to sit aside and made him a cup of tea.

"Recently, the State of Lu Wangjian in eastern Zhejiang has been unanimously supported by all the ministries of the remnant Ming. I never thought that Zhu Yousong and Zhu Changhao were captured and surrendered, and now there are still people who refuse to join. Hong Chengchou misunderstood me at the beginning. It is said that Jiangnan's propaganda can be determined, but now it is a good opportunity to miss."

My father-in-law Yan sat on the chair with half of his buttocks, leaned forward, and was very careful.

Holding the tea given by the emperor's uncle and the regent, he listened quietly.

"Now there is another war in Huguang. Azig said at the beginning that Huguang and Jiangxi are all settled, but now the situation reported by the lower levels is not the case. Yunyang has not been captured, and Jiangxi Ganzhou is like a stubborn rock. Recently, Jiangning has reported that Huizhou has fallen. Chongming at the mouth of the Yangtze River and Zhoushan in eastern Zhejiang are all rivals..."

Dorgon also held a cup of tea and sat down, complaining about his suffering.

"This year, 1000 million taels of taxes are collected in various places. However, the two major granaries in the south of the Yangtze River, Huguang, etc. need to levy natural grain, and the supply of military supplies cannot be converted into silver. Even the reorganization of the army in various places into the green battalion requires a large amount of additional military expenses, asking for payment everywhere. If you want food, this king can’t conjure money and food out of thin air.”

"Yan Qing, you came from the south of the Yangtze River and pacified the west of Zhejiang. When you were in the west of Zhejiang, you not only quickly quelled the rebellion in the west of Zhejiang, but also quickly recruited and integrated many people. With the three prefectures in the west of Zhejiang, you provided tens of thousands of horses and horses. Not only did you protect one side Anding, even sent troops to help suppress Su Songzhi's rebellion and regained many places, tell Gu, how did you do it?"

My father Yan got up quickly and was about to kneel down to answer.

Dorgon supported him, "Sir, you don't have to be so formal, this is the imperial study, you sit and answer."

"Uncle Xie Regent, judging from the experience of my ministers in the south of the Yangtze River, it is indeed not easy for the court and the place. It still takes time to consolidate. Now, as His Highness said, the most important thing is to consolidate the newly occupied land first, to enrich the government, integrate the green battalion, and garrison the elite of the Eight Banners in some key towns."

Dorgon sighed, "Money, where does the money come from?"

"Your Highness, before the collapse of the Ming Dynasty, it was due to taxation. Ming's taxation was too light, so the country perished."

Dorgon frowned, "Isn't it always said that heavy taxes and people have suffered for a long time?"

"Your Highness, in fact, these are two situations. The Ming Dynasty has always had the lightest tax rate. In terms of land tax only, in the early Ming Dynasty, it was only a few liters per mu, and roughly thirty taxes were less than one. However, there are about a dozen taxes or even twenty taxes. Those who are really suffering from heavy taxes are actually other than the regular taxes, various exorbitant taxes and apportionment levies, such as three rates, etc., and the local government also consumes all kinds of envy, foot money, etc. , resulting in an increase of several times or even ten times the normal tax.

The preferential exemption for the gentry, not only did not pay within the prescribed quota, but even a large number of additional fields were not paid in arrears or underpaid. Taxes in various places were undercollected year after year. Subjugation is also inevitable. "

"Then what good advice can Mr. Teach me?"

Yan Wogong looked profound, and slowly raised a finger, "All the accumulated abuses of the previous dynasty are too involved, so the accumulated abuses are hard to change, and we can only sit and wait for death, but my new dynasty does not have these problems. So only a few With the edict, these long-standing disadvantages can be abolished, and the burden can be thrown off."

"Article [-], stop the withdrawal of the previous guards in various places, all military households in the guards will be converted to civilian registration, and all guards and field soldiers in the guards will be unusable, and they will all be abolished, and the fields of the guards will be taken back. It can save hundreds of thousands of monthly rations for the guards every year, and each person is one stone per month, which is several million stones of monthly rations this year."

"The military settlements in various places have recovered tens of millions of acres of land. If they are sold, they can earn tens of millions of taels of silver. The local military camps are still unable to support themselves for the monthly food, and the nearby prefectures and counties still have to bear [-]% to [-]% of the food. Now this food can be turned over to the imperial court, and another grain income will be obtained."

Dorgon nodded straightly.

"With so many guards being abolished, will there be hidden dangers?"

"In fact, the previous dynasty has always wanted to abolish the guards, but those military officers and even the powerful gentry from all over the place refused, because they invaded and divided up the farmland of the guards, and even used the military households of the guards. A lot of them have a lot to do with it. Naturally, I don’t want to worry about the sum of income. But these are not a problem for my Xinchao.”

"Those officers and soldiers in the guards are useless except to waste my Qing Dynasty's food. What are they keeping? If anyone dares to object, they will be wiped out, and they will be able to confiscate the money and grain accumulated by their occupation and embezzlement over the years. What about money and food?"

Dorgon laughed loudly after hearing this, "Wonderful, just for this one thing, abolishing the guards will not only save millions of shiyue grains a year, but also add millions of shitun grains, one in and one out." , but the difference is tens of millions."

"What else is there to do, let's come together quickly."

"The minister's second strategy is to pay the gentry as a whole, abolish the gentry preferential and exemption policy of the previous dynasty, and not give those gentry the opportunity to work together to encroach on the interests of the court."

Dorgon hesitated, "Fan Wencheng once told me that after entering the customs, we should treat scholars preferentially and subdue people's hearts."

"There are actually many ways to subdue people's hearts. For example, the salaries of officials in the previous dynasty were extremely low. Our dynasty can definitely increase the salaries of officials. The amount of salary is all clear. However, the previous court favored and exempted scholars, but they took advantage of loopholes, sent names, donated, etc., so that the world's taxes cannot be collected five times out of ten, which is very harmful."

"If officials and gentry pay food and errands together, all the land and silver can be collected in full. This alone can increase millions or even tens of millions of taels of silver a year. If the salary of officials is increased, if it is increased by one million taels a year Two, that's pretty amazing, too."

When Dorgon heard that the gentry of the Ming Dynasty was exempted from taxes, the imperial court received half of the taxes a year, and he couldn't help but hate his teeth. Now that they are in the Qing Dynasty, this preferential exemption from tax evasion is just swallowing their money.

"What else is there to do?"

"I heard that Canming Lu Jianguo implemented a new policy in Shaoxing, which is to directly fix the Dingyin from all over the country, and then distribute it to all the fields according to the government, and publicize that in the future, there will be more people and no more taxes. Your Majesty, this trick is very vicious. He only said that there will never be a tax increase, but he didn't say that there will be no other taxes, etc., but how do those ordinary people understand this? "

"We can't fall behind the puppet Lu Jianguo, and we should also promote the distribution of people to the mu, and never increase the tax. We must compete with them for their hearts."

"Never increase the tax, then the population will increase in the future, won't it be a lot of tax loss?"

"Your Highness, the war is constantly going on, the world is not at peace, and the population continues to drop sharply. How can the number of people increase? Now the puppet Lu Jianguo clearly says that he will breed people and never add money. In fact, he is playing tricks. He collected Dingyin according to the number of people in each prefecture in Wanli 46, and then spread it among the fields. Think about it, Wanli 46 was a peaceful year, how many people were there at that time? After the Chongzhen chaos, how many people are there now? There are more than one Wanli year? But he still collects silver according to the number of tenths of the Wanli year. Wouldn’t it be too much? Then he said that he would never increase the tax. This is deceiving the world. The appearance of a saint created is really hateful!"

Dorgon understood what he heard, and couldn't help but patted his legs, "I never thought that King Lu would be so cunning, it's such a trick to steal."

"Yes, within 20 years, the population will definitely not be able to recover the figure of 46 years of Wanli, but he collects silver according to the figure of Wanli every year. This method is really good, so we can do the same. Common people who understand, can levy more Dingyin, why not do it?"

Dorgon was very excited when he heard that, "Is there any other good plan, let's talk about it together?"

"I have another trick, which is to confiscate all the land and properties under the name of the former vassals. For this alone, I estimate that I can not get hundreds of millions of acres of land. In addition, those former relatives who refused to surrender to my Qing Dynasty Officials also confiscated their fields. If it is implemented, it will immediately solve the problem of insufficient funds for the imperial court. Not only will it be enough to support the 20 Eight Banners military salaries, but it will also reorganize another 60 million green battalions. Totally enough."

Dorgon couldn't help nodding.

"What do you think about the Huguang report asking for help, saying that Yu Ni of the Shun Army is besieging Jingzhou and Wuchang?"

Strictly speaking, I said, "Your Majesty should not be underestimated. Although it is a remnant of trespassers, there are many people, but now they are attached to the remnants of the Ming Dynasty, and they are coming in a fierce manner. I suggest that the soldiers from Jiangning, Anqing, Jiangxi, and Henan should be sent up along the river to help Jingzhou and Wuchang." , must be resolved quickly, and cannot be migrated for a long time, so that the place is corrupted."

These words made Dorgon very satisfied. From the abolishment of the guards to the confiscation of the land and property of the noble clan of the former Ming Dynasty, and even the urgent aid to Huguang, etc., it was basically the same as what he had figured out in his heart. Now I feel that Yan Wogong is really a hero Seeing the same thing, he really is a peerless national scholar.

"Yan Gong, the one who knows Gu, originally wanted to keep Yan Gong in the court to assist Gu's regent, but now I want Yan Gong to go to the south. I want you to be the governor of Jiangxi and Henan, stationed in Nanchang, and govern the two provinces of Henan and Jiangxi. The province, the governor’s military affairs and food and pay. Your main task is to help suppress the Huguang rebels, and at the same time, according to what you just said, abolish the guards of the two provinces, clean up the land of the former clan and vassal nobles, and try to implement the one-off payment of food and errands by officials and gentry.”

(End of this chapter)