Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 89 Zhu Biao established his government and Zhu Di was deposed

Zhu Biao has been becoming more and more displeased with Zhu Di recently.

The main thing is that I feel like this guy is almost useless.

Although as a prince, it should be a happy thing to see that his brother is disabled and no longer a threat to him.

But Zhu Biao was not an ordinary prince. He was the prince with the most stable position in history.

As long as Empress Ma and the Huaixi noble group behind him were there, even someone as powerful as Zhu Yuanzhang could not depose him.

Therefore, as long as he was sure that he could come to modern times for treatment and would not die young, Zhu Biao never felt threatened by his younger brothers.

Even though the fourth son later became Emperor Yongle.

Therefore, as a crown prince whose position was as stable as Mount Tai, Zhu Biao did not want to see his younger brothers fall into decadence.

If these younger brothers can achieve something and make great contributions in the future, it will also be a good thing for Zhu Biao, their older brother.

After all, as the sons of the founding emperor, they all had to undergo military training.

Running, bayonet shooting, and horse riding are all basic courses.

Long-term basic training has enabled the second generation of the Zhu family to not only have high military literacy but also strong physical fitness.

Although Zhu Biao had never taken action, as the eldest son of the Zhu family, he had received military training since childhood and his fighting ability was very strong. It was really impossible for three or five ordinary people to get close to him.

Zhu Di was so powerful in the past, and he became even more powerful later in history. It would be a pity if he continued like this.

You have to understand that Zhu Biao already knew Zhu Di's future military achievements.

Yet the great Emperor Yongle lived like this.

Every day I eat, sleep, and eat, or I play games and watch videos.

Everyone has gained at least ten pounds.

Is it okay to keep going like this?
But what Lao Si said was right, there really was no other way.

It was his father who asked him to come.

It's just a waste of talent.

I can only hope that the fourth brother will pay more attention to himself.

Let’s not talk about military capabilities for now, but at least you should take care of your health and stop getting fatter.

Zhu Biao thought to himself, and walked to the sofa and sat down, put a notebook in his hand on it and said, "Yunfeng, come and help me take a look."

"Why, have you thought it over?"

Zhu Yunfeng came over.

"Well, you said before that institutional reforms require planning, repeated consultations, and investigations. This is a policy I developed after studying many reform measures in ancient times."

Zhu Biao spread out his notebook and said, "Help me analyze this."

Zhu Yunfeng took it and looked at it, while Zhu Di sat aside bored and picked the dirt between his fingers.

At first, Zhu Yunfeng thought this was just an outline of the reform.

But when I opened it casually, I found that this notebook was A4 size, with about a hundred pages, and at least eighty pages were filled with densely written words, occupying most of the page.

It seems that Zhu Biao is still very enthusiastic about reform.

Moreover, they have done classification and planning, which shows that they are well prepared to carry out comprehensive reforms to the entire system of the Ming Dynasty.

The first page is about tax reform, which reduced the national tax quota, especially in the Jiangnan region. The old quota of 7 dou 5 liters to 4 dou 4 liters per mu was reduced by four tenths; 4 dou 3 liters to 3 dou 6 liters were all reduced to 3 dou; and 2 dou was levied on less than 3 dou 5 liters.

In history, Zhu Yuanzhang had also reduced taxes in the Jiangnan region, but even so, the taxes were still extremely heavy compared to other provinces. Zhu Biao's reduction this time was twice as strong as Zhu Yuanzhang's, and it seemed that he had decided to reduce labor service and taxes.

"I have verified through the Internet and in person that my father's tax system is quite perfect. At least for the early years of the Ming Dynasty, there is no better way."

Seeing Zhu Yunfeng looking at his tax plan, Zhu Biao said, "In the early Ming Dynasty, the south was rich and the north was poor, so the north had fewer taxes but more labor service. The south had more taxes but fewer labor service. This is very consistent with the current situation of unbalanced development between the north and the south."

"I wanted to make innovations in this area, but I found that there was no room for innovation. So I could only start with taxation. For this purpose, I formulated some strategies, such as the first one, which is to reduce labor service and taxes, and give the people a rest."

He continued, "Second, all people in the country, no matter noble or humble, princes, nobles, gentry, or officials, must pay taxes. Third, the number of official farms in the south should be reduced, and wasteland should be reclaimed in the north to promote crops such as sweet potatoes, corn, and potatoes. Fourth, commercial taxes should be levied. Fifth, supervision should be strengthened. For example, those who leak the tip of the bucket and kick the bucket, or collect more than the bucket of flour, both superiors and subordinates should bear responsibility. The saying that those who do not know should not be held responsible should be changed to a responsibility system. As long as something goes wrong, they must be held responsible. Sixth, all preferential treatment for Confucian students should be cancelled, and corvée labor should also be performed."

Zhu Yunfeng looked at it carefully and found that Zhu Biao had done a lot of homework. He nodded slightly and said, "Well, you are on the right track. The policies formulated by our ancestors in the early days are indeed a strategy that perfectly fits the current situation. I am afraid that it is impossible to make major changes. We can only make changes to the details."

“But it’s only been a few decades.”

Zhu Biao sighed, "You are right. Father's policies were only useful in the early decades of the Ming Dynasty. By the Yongle period of the fourth son, they had basically become a strategy that brought disaster to the Ming Dynasty. The fourth son is also really stupid. Seeing that father's policies were already harmful, why didn't he change them?"

what?
Zhu Di next to him looked confused.

who I am.

where am I?
How do I change it?
TM's.

I am not Emperor Yongle anymore, so why should I change?

"You can't blame the fourth brother. He became the emperor through rebellion. If he overturned his father's policies, wouldn't that be denying his own legitimacy?"

Zhu Yunfeng spoke up for Zhu Di.

The tax system established by Zhu Yuanzhang in the early Ming Dynasty was actually very reasonable, there is no doubt about that.

The richer the south, the more taxes are levied; the poorer the north, the less taxes are levied.

Apart from the fact that the South levied taxes too harshly, even more harshly than sustainable exhaustion, so that the annual tax quotas in the early days could not be collected, there were no major problems.

He was even meticulous in this regard in order to prevent his subordinates from collecting more grain and engaging in corruption.

For example, in the "Ming Law·Household Law·Excessive Collection of Tax Grain and Flour" formulated by him, there is a provision: "Those who kick the tip of the hu and collect excessive hu of flour shall be beaten with a stick 100 times."

But it's of no use.

Although the salaries of officials in the early Ming Dynasty were not as high as those in the Song Dynasty or the Tang Dynasty, there was no problem in maintaining basic living, although they were not particularly wealthy.

However, as the treasure notes were issued indiscriminately, the money in people's hands became less and less valuable, and their lives became increasingly impoverished. Even an official like Hai Rui, who was not greedy or possessive at all, was still poor and destitute even though he had reached the second rank.

The result was that all his regulations became worthless pieces of paper. During the Ming Dynasty, officials in the southeast desperately tried to find ways to reduce or exempt taxes, but the lower-level officials took advantage of the situation and extorted as much as they could by collecting more flour.

By the time of the Hongzhi Restoration, the amount of taxes that the Ming court could collect had been reduced from 850 million hectares of land at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to more than 400 million hectares, a reduction of nearly half.

This is due to the Ming Dynasty's unique system that allowed the gentry to be exempt from taxes.

In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang only stipulated that "all the students should be exempted from various duties according to the example of Confucian students." In other words, they should be exempted from corvée labor to encourage scholars.

But it was like a hole had been opened in a big net, and successive Ming Dynasty officials tried their best to widen the hole.

In the end, the regulations that were originally intended to exempt people from corvee labor became exemptions from taxes, and even if there were taxes, they could be passed on to the people through various means.

As a result, as long as one passed the imperial examination, countless people would come and donate their land to get tax exemption, thus giving rise to the saying that scholars became poor while juren became rich.

Fan Jin is a typical example.

Zhu Biao had obviously realized this problem and began to patch it up.

Zhu Yunfeng looked through all the policies formulated by Zhu Biao and found that there were no particularly drastic changes, almost all of them were patches.

For example, in the regulations for vassal kings, their finances were no longer paid by the central court, but were supplied by the land belonging to the prince's palace, and they had to pay taxes.

In the establishment of the Wei Suo, the hereditary system was abolished and the soldiers would be converted to civilian status after five years of verification. He planned to gradually abolish all the Wei Suo and switch to a recruitment system when he was in power in the future.

It can only be said that based on the existing foundation, it is still unrealistic for Zhu Biao to make drastic changes, which is not in line with the current situation in the early Ming Dynasty.

But even so, he did a good job.

Just like in addition to providing many detailed supplements in terms of taxation to reduce the burden on the people, there are also various restrictions, benefits, KPI assessments and other measures on officials.

In terms of assessment, he followed Zhang Juzheng's performance evaluation method, using the six departments and the cabinet to conduct institutional supervision and strengthen local management.

The restriction is the restriction of power. Zhu Biao wanted to expand the supervision scope of the Censorate, change the Censorate into the Board of Censors, and add more board of censors officials across the country.

Zhu Yuanzhang would definitely merge the Yiluansi and the Imperial Guards into the Jinyiwei, with one for secret spying and the other for open inspection, thus effectively supervising local officials in all aspects.

In terms of welfare, wages and benefits were improved. In the early Ming Dynasty, the wages of officials were basically only enough to support their families. A first-rank official received 300 shi of grain plus 1300 guan of paper money, which was equivalent to shi.

Not to mention the exaggerated salary packages of Song Dynasty officials, the first-rank officials of the Tang Dynasty received 12 dan of grain plus 60 hectares of official land and hectares of permanent land. Note that it is hectares, not mu.

Based on the Tang Dynasty's rate of 50 mu per hectare, that would be 3600 mu. Even if each mu only produced 3 dan, that would still be a wage level of more than dan.

The ninth-rank official in the Ming Dynasty received 65 shi plus 30 guan of treasure notes, which was equivalent to 95 shi of grain.

In the Tang Dynasty, it was 30 dan, two hectares of official land, and two hectares of permanent land, which was equivalent to more than 600 dan of grain as an annual salary.

That’s the key point.

The Baochao is still depreciating and its purchasing power cannot reach the level where one coin is equal to one stone of grain.

You can imagine how big the gap is.

So Zhu Biao immediately made changes. In terms of grain, the first rank was changed to 300 dan of grain, plus 12 silver dollars, and hectares of official land.

As for how the official fields came about, it was actually quite simple.

Before the Song Dynasty, the traditional agricultural provinces in the Central Plains, such as Hebei and Henan, were declining in population and had a lot of wasteland.

He planned to take advantage of the current period of more than 1000 million silver dollars per year to carry out work-for-relief in the north, investing cash in infrastructure construction in the relief areas.

At present, the North is poor, dilapidated, has a small population, and low grain output. The burden of labor service is too heavy.

Therefore, the best way is to spend money by the court to carry out large-scale water conservancy and road construction in Henan and Hebei regions in the north. This will stimulate the economy, increase agriculture, and attract population.

It is also stipulated that the state must spend money on large-scale infrastructure construction, while corvée labor only needs to be responsible for relatively easy tasks such as transportation, repair, and maintenance.

For example, if the imperial court wanted to build a water conservancy facility, it would spend money and hire common people to do it. But if there was a problem with the water conservancy facility and it needed to be repaired and maintained, it would be solved through corvée labor.

This will also greatly reduce the burden on the people.

“Well, from the perspective of system design and repair, it is very reasonable.”

Zhu Yunfeng finished reading all the system designs and nodded, saying, "I just want to tell you, Master Taibo, that there is no best system in the world, only systems that can be used. After 30 years, a policy will basically have various problems. The fundamental problem is not whether the system is good or bad, but the ability to change. The current systems are more reasonable, but it does not mean they will be reasonable in the future, so I think it is still necessary to discover and solve problems."

"Yes, I studied policies before, and the Internet said that policies have a lag. Often, they are not changed when problems are discovered in advance. Instead, they think of solutions and conduct investigations at all levels. It may take several years before the system can be changed again."

Zhu Biao also said: "It is too difficult to make timely corrections to any policy, but fortunately we can see what will happen in the future and make timely adjustments. Otherwise, my father's system will indeed have a great impact in the future. But it is also thanks to you."

After that, Zhu Biao smiled and said, "If it weren't for Yunfeng, you could find a way to get the money, many of these systems would not be implemented."

"In the final analysis, every dynasty is short of money. Well, except for the Song Dynasty. However, the Song Dynasty was a situation where the central government retained more money and the local governments retained less, which led to the continuous exploitation of the people. But the Song Dynasty also had its advantages."

Zhu Yunfeng thought of Zhao Jun and said, "The Song Dynasty had some commendable aspects in terms of commercial taxes, and the Song Dynasty vigorously promoted the development of commodity economy, and the settlement method was relatively advanced. The failure of the Ming Dynasty to collect commercial taxes was a failure. The commercial prosperity in the late Ming Dynasty was no worse than that in the Song Dynasty. Textbooks even show that the late Ming Dynasty had the embryonic form of capitalism. However, more taxes were retained by the private sector and less by the central government, which greatly enriched the private gentry and wealthy businessmen. This is also a drawback caused by the lack of system."

"Well, when the rice is harvested in June this year, I will promote the new rice and indigenous composting system throughout the country next year. After the national grain production increases dramatically, I will vigorously promote business prosperity."

Zhu Biao nodded. This was a trend. Only with an agricultural revolution and abundant food could the development of the commodity economy be accelerated.

Only after the commodity economy developed did the imperial court have money to carry out the industrial revolution.

"Then make a plan."

Zhu Yunfeng smiled and said, "We can make a five-year or eight-year plan or something like that. We can make such a general development direction every few years, and set a tone for the future. Every emperor must implement it in this way and move towards the set goal. If it cannot be achieved, then there must be a problem in the middle. We should find the problem and solve it. In this process, it will be logical to carry out reforms every once in a while, so that the system will not become rigid and all classes will not lose confidence in the Ming Dynasty."

"Okay, do you think there are any areas where these measures need to be modified?"

Zhu Biao asked again.

“It’s basically been perfected.”

Zhu Yunfeng shook his head, indicating that there was nothing he could help with the revisions.

After all, Zhu Biao did not rely on modern imagination to create these contents.

Instead, we combine modern perspectives on history, find the shortcomings left by Zhu Yuanzhang in history, and then conduct personal research.

During this period, Zhu Biao also studied the official system within the court, the living conditions of local people, and the land ownership of gentry in the south of the Yangtze River in order to make responses.

On the whole, the main focus is on strengthening centralization, improving administrative efficiency, alleviating land annexation, and reducing the burden on the people.

If it were in the original history, it would have been difficult for Zhu Biao to carry out such reforms.

Dojo inside the snail shell.

The court was so small and powerful that if you reduced the burden on the people, the court's income would decrease, and it would still have to trigger a Guo Huan case to make up for the shortfall.

But the appearance of Zhu Yunfeng gave Zhu Biao great help. The silver dollars made up for the deficit of the court. More than 10 million strings of silver each year was equivalent to one-third of the current court's finances and was a huge income.

When the economy develops in the future, there will be no problem in exporting overseas or directly plundering.

So the key lies in the existing economic base, how it determines the superstructure, and the development of the lower levels.

Zhu Biao's research during this period has not been in vain and he has done quite well.

Naturally, there was nothing to criticize about Zhu Yunfeng.

After all, he has even restricted and changed the feudal system. Under the current circumstances, the feudal system cannot be abolished, so this is the best he has done.

"If that's the case, then so be it."

Zhu Biao stood up and said confidently: "I will officially issue these regulations in July this year, and we must promote them nationwide and implement them next year."

"Well, next year will basically be a prosperous period for the Ming Dynasty. Grandpa Taibo has made an indelible contribution to this."

Zhu Yunfeng praised him.

"I go first."

Zhu Biao held up his notebook and said, "I will have to discuss this with my father before it works."

"I'll see you off."

Zhu Yunfeng followed.

Zhu Di also stood up and stood obediently to the side.

Zhu Biao was about to leave, but when he passed by Zhu Di, he saw him again, thought for a moment, and then said, "Fourth brother."

"Big brother."

"Remember not to be lazy. Whether it is military or politics, you must study hard in the modern era."

"I understand, big brother."

"I saw you playing games a lot before. You can't keep going like this. You will become useless. Even if you can't be the emperor in the future, I will send you to conquer other countries and build territories overseas."

"Yes."

Zhu Di agreed repeatedly.

"Ah."

Zhu Biao then went downstairs.

Zhu Yunfeng took Pipi downstairs and walked her all the way to the entrance of the cellar.

As soon as they left, Zhu Di sat in front of the computer excitedly, just like a child whose parents finally went to work during the holidays.

"Hey, hey, here's my dark horse."

Zhu Di was immersed in it. Dandan Cat, who was curled up on the computer desk next to him, glanced at him sideways and continued to sleep.

When Zhu Yunfeng came up, he saw Zhu Di fighting like a tiger, and then he was killed by a single punch from Tiger Vanguard.

"Boiled!"

Zhu Di was so angry that he said, "I have died more than 300 times, but I still can't get over it."

Zhu Yunfeng rolled his eyes.

My own ancestor.

This is really going to be a waste.

(End of this chapter)