I, the Ming Dynasty, can still save me

Chapter 476 Immigration and Famine Preparation

Pay attention to business taxes and protect businessmen.

All the Donglin Party members present agreed with these ideas, so it was not difficult for Zhu Youxiao to implement them.

Zhu Youxiao's mood immediately improved a lot when he thought of this, but at this moment, a discordant voice appeared from the crowd below.

"What your Majesty just said is true, but I boldly suggest that since the proportion of commercial taxes and customs duties is getting larger and larger now, can we reduce the burden on farmers, such as abolishing or reducing Liaoning rates?"

Zhu Youxiao's face immediately turned ugly when he heard this. He followed the sound and found that the speaker was Huang Kezhan, the Minister of Punishment.

He didn't finish what he just said, he continued to look at Zhu Youxiao and said:
"Your Majesty, the people are already in poverty. Now that the Liao salary has been increased, the burden on the people has increased. They really try their best to pay the taxes every year. Some even sell their children and daughters to pay off the taxes. Now that the imperial court has commercial taxes, The income from customs duties and salt taxes is enough to make up for the income from Liao's wages, so I also ask Your Majesty to abolish or reduce or reduce Liao's wages to relieve the people's poverty."

Listening to Huang Kezhan's "heartfelt words", Zhu Youxiao did not respond.

He will never abolish Liao's salary. There is no reason to pay back the money he finally "earned".

Furthermore, the taxes or regular taxes on farmers in the Ming Dynasty were not high, even if Liao rates were added.You must know that the three-rate silver payment was not abolished in the Manchu and Qing Dynasties at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The people in the Manchu and Qing Dynasties had a higher burden than the people in the Ming Dynasty. I don’t know how much it weighed, but it was okay.

However, Huang Kezhan was a veteran minister, and he was thinking of the people when he said this. It was not easy for him to refute, so he could only wave his hands and said:
"Huang Aiqing, these commercial taxes and customs duties have just begun to be levied, and the tax amounts are not yet stable. How can we abolish the Liao salary all at once? Besides, the Jianlu is not destroyed yet, and the court will have many places to spend money in the future. The Liao salary is ten thousand It must not be abolished, I don’t think this kind of thing will be mentioned again.”

Upon seeing this, Huang Kezhan wanted to continue playing, but Zhu Youxiao waved his hand to tell him to stop talking, so he could only bow his head and give up.

After this episode ended, the focus of the conversation returned to the budget for the coming year.

Now that next year's income has been roughly calculated, the cabinet and the Ministry of Household Affairs have also made a plan for tomorrow's general expenses, which will also be discussed at this year's meeting and approved by Zhu Youxiao.

"Your Majesty, the amount of court taxes this year is 6209 million taels, of which 320 million taels are allocated as internal funds, and 520 million taels are real income (the payment is grain and cloth, not silver).

After taking this into account, plus this year's surplus of 200 million yuan from the Household Department, the disposable income of the Imperial Household Department next year will be approximately 9809 million taels.In the past few days, the cabinet has been discussing with the six ministries, and has finalized some major expenditures for the court next year, and needs to seek instructions from His Majesty. "

Now that the court's income has been clearly calculated, let's talk about the most important expenses.

Liu Yishen didn't talk nonsense. He stood up immediately, held a question book above his head, looked at Zhu Youxiao and spoke slowly.Zhu Youxiao naturally had no objection to this matter, and immediately nodded and asked him to continue and see what the expenses were.

"Your Majesty, although next year's Liaoning salary and the nine-sided salary have been deducted from this year's surplus. But I think that if the Liaodong war starts, the Liaoning salary alone will not be enough.

Therefore, I still hope to use 800 million taels from next year's budget revenue as a reserve fund for Liao and Jiubian rates. If money is urgently needed for the Liaodong war next year, it will be allocated from this. If there is still some left at the end of next year, it can be Pay the Liao and Jiubian rates for the year after next. "

Zhu Youxiao didn't have any objections to this. Liu Yishui only wanted to use the money for the Liaodong war. He would not have to report to the court in the future. Instead, he would set aside a special amount of money for special use to facilitate the turnover of military supplies.

Zhu Youxiao was extremely satisfied with this. It was not his money anyway, so it didn't matter, so he nodded in agreement immediately.

Liu Yishen's worried heart was relieved when he saw this, and he then continued:
"Your Majesty, there is a severe drought in Liaodong and Shandong this year. The imperial court encourages Shandong victims to immigrate to Liaodong. So far, according to the statistics of the Liaodong Dusi, more than 5 people have gone to Liaodong and been registered as households. There are even more refugees who are not included in the official statistics. .

This kind of thing kills two birds with one stone. In addition, Yang Lian actively promoted farming in Liaodong and established a new Liaohe County at the mouth of the Liaohe River. These still require more people, so encouraging people to farm in Liaodong needs to continue.The ministers and others also discussed with the Ministry of Household Affairs and planned to allocate 80 taels to Liaodong and Shandong Dusi to continue to encourage Shandong refugees to go to Liaodong, especially Liaonan and Liaoze to farm. "

Zhu Youxiao has been paying attention to the matter of immigrating to Liaodong to farm, and will definitely continue to push forward this year. However, Liu Yishen said that more than 5 people went to Liaodong last year, which really gave him some surprises.

"So many people went to Liaodong last year. Then the cabinet and the Ministry of Household Affairs have an approximate budget for how many people there might be this year."

"Your Majesty, it is estimated that there will be more than [-] ministers this year. However, as the progress of establishing counties and farming villages in Liaodong is accelerating, I believe that not only Shandong will immigrate, but also many people from Gyeonggi, Hebei, Henan and other places will go there. In Liaodong, if the imperial court is willing to open the door to convenience, maybe more people will be like this."

The people's obsession with land far exceeded Zhu Youxiao's imagination. After hearing that they could cultivate land for free in Liaodong, there would always be some interested people who wanted to go.Zhu Youxiao is naturally very happy to hear this. The current contradiction of Ming Dynasty is that there are more people and less land. What he can do now is to develop more land and encourage immigrants.The more immigrants there are in Henan and Shandong, the less conflicts they will have in their local areas.

"Ai Qing's suggestion is a good one. The imperial court can issue orders to the chief secretaries of Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Shandong to encourage local people to go to Liaodong. However, it must be noted that except for the disaster area in Shandong, other chief secretaries are not allowed to force people to relocate. It can only be encouragement, otherwise lawless people will definitely use this opportunity to frame the people."

Zhu Youxiao knew what the government below was like. If the superiors assigned targets, they would coax and deceive the people to move in order to complete the targets. Who knows how much trouble this would cause for him.

Therefore, this kind of thing cannot be rushed, and can only be encouraged. People will naturally take the initiative to migrate in order to make a living. This was the case when they traveled to Xikou and immigrated to Taiwan in their previous lives.

Liu Yishen and others could also hear the meaning of Zhu Youxiao's words, and they all nodded in agreement.

The matter of immigrating to Liaodong is over, and the next thing still has something to do with it, but Liu Yishen himself did not say anything about it, but gave the opportunity to Ye Xianggao.I saw Ye Xianggao coughing slightly, slowly getting out of the queue, and then looked at Zhu Youxiao and said:
"Your Majesty, this second item of expenditure is related to disaster relief in Liaodong and Shandong. Last year, Liaodong and Shandong suffered serious disasters. Thanks to your kindness, Your Majesty allocated 200 million taels from internal funds for disaster relief, which put great pressure on the Ministry of Household Affairs. relief, and also rescued the victims from floods and fires, giving them a glimmer of hope.

But weather conditions are uncertain. There was a severe drought in Shandong last year and this year. There is no guarantee that other chief secretaries will also experience severe drought in the future.Therefore, after careful consideration, I feel that we must prepare for a rainy day and not just sit back and wait for death.Otherwise, every time a natural disaster occurs, the court will not spend money to provide disaster relief, but the failure of timely response measures will lead to the death and injury of victims. This is really a dereliction of duty by the court. "

This idea came from the brainstorming of the cabinet and others. Otherwise, there would be disasters every year, and there would be a bottomless hole every year, and we don’t know how long it will be blocked.

Zhu Youxiao even agreed repeatedly. It can be said that he has had this idea for a long time.

It's the second year of the Apocalypse, and there are still five years until the severe drought started in the late Ming Dynasty in the seventh year of the Apocalypse.Although the current main task is to deal with Jianlu.

But the matter of famine and disaster preparedness should indeed be put on the agenda, but what he didn't expect was that before he could say it, Ye Xianggao and others proposed it in advance.

But what surprised him was that Ye Xianggao said that the court had no measures to prepare for famines and disasters. Zhu Youxiao really didn't believe it.

"What Aiqing said does make some sense, but I am also confused. Didn't the imperial court have any measures to prepare for a famine?"

Seeing this, Ye Xianggao quickly explained.

"I have made a mistake. Our government attaches great importance to famine policy (measures to prepare for famine). During the Hongwu period of Emperor Taizu, he issued an edict and ordered the chief secretaries to select elderly villagers to transport money to buy grain and store it in the countryside in the name of preparing for famine.

Each state and county has four granaries, east, west, north and south.During the Yongle period, an edict was issued to move the preparation warehouse from the countryside to the city.Most of the stored grain is loaned to farmers in late spring and recovered after the autumn harvest, similar to a loan.This is the so-called reserve warehouse system, and officials' promotions are linked to this. "

After listening to Ye Xianggao's explanation, Zhu Youxiao nodded silently.

Just say that according to Lao Zhu's character, it is impossible not to do this kind of thing.But now that there is no money in the reserve warehouse in the lean years, it is estimated that this system is corrupted.Ye Xianggao continued to explain.

"However, although the imperial court set up reserve warehouses to prepare for famine years, there was no one to supervise them, and its construction was gradually destroyed. During the Jiajing period, Emperor Shizong issued an edict to restore the reserve warehouses, and the amount of grain in the warehouses was only a matter of officials. It was only regulated by the court. The amount is too high, making it difficult to implement.

During the Wanli period, the reserve warehouse system became even more corrupted, and the imperial court repeatedly wanted to link the reserve warehouse with official assessment, but the intensity of both rewards and punishments were too low, which resulted in many officials being unwilling to do this, leading to the current lean years. The local government also had no food available. "

After listening to this, Zhu Youxiao understood that for officials, it was thankless for them to do this kind of thing. If they did well, they would not be promoted, and if they did not do well, there would be no punishment. So who would be willing to do it.

Therefore, if we want to make a good preparation for this preparation, we must mobilize the enthusiasm of officials, otherwise it will never be completed.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but ask:

"Ye Aiqing, as you said, this reserve warehouse has been abandoned. What should the court do to better prepare for the shortage?"

(End of this chapter)