The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 414: Dayu has its own national conditions

In the palace, Queen Zheng Shishi brought a bowl of ginseng chicken soup to Mo Zibu. The moment she saw Mo Zibu, her eyes lit up.

Mo Zibu took the chicken soup and easily picked up Zheng Shishi's.

They really carried her, not hugged her. Empress Zheng was 1 years old, but she was still only about 55 meters tall and weighed no more than kilograms. Compared with a strong man like Mo Zibu, who was meters tall and weighed more than kilograms, she looked extremely petite.

"Hahaha!" Zheng Shishi laughed triumphantly a few times, and her two slender white legs wrapped around Mo Zibu and immediately hung on him.

The two of them entangled all the way to Mo Zibu's desk. Zheng Shishi curled up in Mo Zibu's arms and accidentally saw the tax reform document on the table.

So she changed her position, sat in Mo Zibu's arms with her back to him, and began to curiously touch him with her hands.

"Fifteen percent!" Zheng Shishi exclaimed slightly, then looked at Mo Zibu, "Your Majesty, aren't you a little too impatient? We haven't even reached half of the country yet.

I heard that the land tax for the gentry in Guangdong is less than 7%, which is equivalent to making them pay twice as much tax."

The word "percentage" was named by Mo Zibu himself at the instruction of Mo Zibu when he translated the book "Universal Mathematics" by the great Western mathematician Leonhard Euler at Jiading Imperial College. It is now widely used.

Hearing Zheng Shishi's concern, Mo Zibu touched her face lovingly. Mo Zibu knew that his queen was actually quite panicked inside.

Because in this era, if a woman cannot give birth to a child, it can almost be considered a crime, not to mention that Zheng Shishi is the queen.

As Mo Zibu's territory grew larger, the issue of his offspring attracted more and more attention. Although Zheng Shishi had a son, he was born to the concubine Wu Qian who came with her as a dowry.

This child has half Thai blood. If he were to be in Southeast Asia, he might be the perfect king in the eyes of the Thai and other indigenous people. However, in China, the possibility of him succeeding to the throne in the future is basically cut off, especially when Mo Zibu is promoting nationalism.

The Han people in the Central Plains would absolutely not accept a prince who was half Thai, unless they had no choice.

On the other hand, Zheng Shishi’s biggest competitor, her cousin Chen Yizhen, is too powerful.

My little cousin is from Mingxiang, and her grandfather is the cousin of Mo Zibu’s maternal grandfather Chen Shangchuan. As a result, the people of Mingxiang and the fellow villagers in western Guangdong all support my little cousin.

Within the Mo family, the retired emperor and empress also supported my little cousin. After all, the retired empress Chen was my little cousin's aunt.

And now the most active Cantonese people under Mo Zibu also support the little cousin, because they all speak Cantonese, which is much more approachable than Queen Zheng who speaks Teochew and Little Sister Ye who speaks Hakka.

The most important thing is that Asen, born to my little cousin, is not only Mo Zibu’s eldest son, but also very smart.

The eight-year-old boy has already learned three hundred thousand. The day before yesterday, he came to Mo Zibu with a copy of Mengqiu to report the good news, because he had finished learning the book.

The so-called Mengqiu is a primer written by Li Han in the Tang Dynasty. It has a total of 2484 characters, and almost every four characters are an allusion. It is an advanced version written three thousand years later.

Mo Zibu tested him and found that he knew every allusion by heart, even the allusion like Hong Qiao throwing the water. It was definitely not an exaggeration to say that he had learned it all.

In addition to this, this kid weighed more than seven kilograms when he was born, and he has basically never been sick until he is eight years old. This is simply the strongest condition for a successor. His good health ensures that he is unlikely to die unexpectedly.

Therefore, Zheng Shishi, who felt great pressure, has been trying to help Mo Zibu deal with some political affairs recently, in order to show that he is a qualified queen and a good wife.

Mo Zibu was a little amused and confused. How did Zheng Xin, the father-in-law, teach his daughter? In an ordinary family, a wife who could help the husband solve many problems would indeed be a good wife.

But this is the royal family. If the queen does this, it would be suspected of interfering in politics.

However, Mo Zibu still explained to Zheng Shishi, because the emperor did not claim to be wrong. Mo Zibu had many real thoughts that he could not tell to the people below him, so telling the truth to the queen was also a way to relieve stress.

"The reason I proposed this condition is because I know they will agree. Compared to paying a little silver over a year, the gentry in Jiangnan will get more.

Because currently the people who are best at reading and most capable of reading are all from the Jiangnan area of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi.

I have lifted the restrictions on nonlocal officials serving as magistrates. Except for the fact that people from this county cannot serve as county magistrates, and people from this prefecture cannot serve as prefects, all other restrictions have been lifted. This is a good policy that cannot be bought with any amount of money."

As he spoke, Mo Zibu began to untie Zheng Shishi's skirt from behind with a wicked smile, "As long as the scholars in Jiangnan are dealt with, the lands of Fujian and Guangdong will all be ours. They don't have many good farmlands. The good farmlands have all been snatched away by the Eight Banners, and now they are in my hands and have become imperial farms.

Then, if the scholars from the six economically powerful provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong all support me, the gentry from other places will be unable to resist."

Although it may not be pleasant to hear, it is indeed the truth. Because in China's current tax map, except for Fujian due to its size, the other six provinces are all in the top ten. Even Fujian ranks among the top in terms of per capita tax.

Among the other top ten players, Shandong, Henan and Hebei were pushed up entirely by their population. Except for Shandong, the influence of Henan and Hebei in the government is completely insufficient.

In later generations, Hunan and Hubei, which had better economies, paid land tax at the same level as Fujian. It was obvious that a lot of land was concealed.

As for Sichuan, it has not yet recovered from the war in the late Ming Dynasty. The current Sichuan Province is the Sichuan and Chongqing provinces of later generations. With such a large territory, the population is more than one million less than that of Fujian, and the land tax paid is less than that of Gansu.

The amount of money given is small, so naturally their words have no weight. It will be difficult for them to cause trouble in the future since Jiangnan has already agreed to give up all tax privileges.

Zheng Shishi barely understood what was said. She held down Mo Zibu's mischievous hand in a scolding manner, then looked back at Mo Zibu with some admiration.

"Your Majesty is truly a benevolent ruler. If you allow these gentry to have a little more, the burden on the people will be much lighter."

Mo Zibu laughed heartily. Since ancient times, administration has been about whether the king can legally and reasonably get more money from the gentry.

For example, when Sun Kewang was in charge of the southwest, he collected taxes of more than 20% in poor places like Yunnan and Guizhou, but the people did not feel much pressure and the military expenses were sufficient.

This is the ability of a true prime minister.

However, Mo Zibu shook his head. "I am not a benevolent monarch. The reason why I asked these people to take out the money is to reduce the burden on the people. My main purpose is to reduce the land income of these gentry and bring down the inflated land prices.

As income and land prices dropped, they could no longer support so many tenants on the land, and these tenants could go to Southeast Asia.

At the same time, if the gentry were to pay taxes and serve as officials, and if the hidden fields were uncovered, the burden on the people would be much lighter. They would then have money to spend, and the economy would become active.

Only when the market economy is active will many more profitable industries emerge than buying land and collecting rent, and they will then take out the silver they have hidden and invest it."

Mo Zibu's words were the product of long and careful consideration. Although this is an era where one should try to avoid keeping one's own country's capital out of competition, Mo Zibu is still unwilling to follow the old path of Britain and France in history.

The so-called "outside the competition" simply means that there is no generation gap in everyone's technology, and the products are similar due to their singleness. Everyone can only compete with each other to the death and try to lower costs as much as possible in order to defeat the vast number of similar products and exclude them from the competition.

The most effective way to fight to the death is to treat people as non-human beings.

Therefore, in this era, there will be scenes like those in London's Little Ireland area, where a 20-year-old worker can lose his ability to work or even his life due to extreme fatigue within a few years, and capitalists will use cannons to force workers to work overtime, otherwise they will be shot to death.

The capitalism of this period can actually be called bloody capitalism, and its main point is that people are far less important than cattle and horses.

But the situation in China at this time was slightly different, because compared with Britain and France, China not only had a huge population and a vast domestic market, but also had flagship products that they were completely unable to compete with.

Therefore, there is no need to force the lowest class in the country to death like Britain and France did, and the culture formed by China's thousands of years of history does not support turning the country into a bloody capitalist society where people eat each other.

Chinese farmers may appear docile, but they are actually quite rebellious and possess a relatively strong martial spirit. They are completely different from the European and Japanese farmers who were often oppressed by the knights or samurai classes.

But Mo Zibu wanted to save the country and the nation, and he did not necessarily want to carry out capitalist reforms in China.

He only needs to pull this country up, even if it only maintains the level of Tsarist Russia, it can stand firm.
So, there is absolutely no need to be so extreme.

Wouldn’t it be better to give people at all levels some space so that they can discuss things together when encountering problems?
However, this theory was too confusing for Zheng Shishi. Before she knew it, she was completely robbed by Mo Zibu. Zheng Shishi still didn't understand what Mo Zibu was trying to do.

. . . .

Qing Dynasty, Beijing, Forbidden City, Purple Light Pavilion.

A large number of high-ranking Qing officials sat silently in the room, with the Sixth Prince Yongrong as the leader.

But when Heshen moved the chair next to Yongrong, almost side by side with him, no one thought there was anything wrong.

Heshen glanced around the room. The speed with which they retreated from Linqing Prefecture showed how panicked these people were.

They did not have the courage or control that Qianlong had, so when the news came that Mukden'a was defeated and the entire city of Jiangning was captured, these people immediately surrounded Qianlong's carriage and returned to Beijing.

"Sixth brother, Lao Ba has replied. He said that the troops in Shaanxi and Gansu are not yet trained and cannot be sent to the Central Plains."

When Qianlong's eleventh brother, Yongyan, saw Heshen had also arrived, he began to complain to Yongrong.

A trace of anger flashed across Yongrong's face. The eighth brother was Yongxuan, who was sent to Guanzhong by Qianlong. Now he has become the biggest competitor of him, the sixth brother Yongrong.

"Yongxuan is disobeying the imperial court's orders because the emperor is ill!

He has been in Shaanxi and Gansu for three years. It is said that Wang Jie helped him obtain several million taels of silver and recruited 50,000 troops. Now he is asked to send 20,000 troops to Luoyang, but he refuses.

No one in the room spoke, because Yongrong was adopted, and if Heshen had not supported him, the correctness of his succession would be far less than that of Yongxuan.

Moreover, Yongxuan controls Shaanxi and Gansu, and has an army of 50,000. He is obviously the largest force among the remaining bannermen. It is still unknown who will win.

Yongrong got angry for a while, but found that few people agreed with him, so he could only turn his eyes to Heshen.

Heshen rolled his eyes and looked at the brothers Fulongan and Fukangan.

In history, Heshen and Fukang'an competed for favor in front of Emperor Qianlong, which led to a very unpleasant quarrel, but this did not happen this time. On the contrary, the two of them even had some mutual respect.

Because their power came from Qianlong, Yongrong and Yongxuan could not give them the same support as Qianlong.

They are the two who most want Qianlong to be alive, especially Fu Kang'an.

"Sixth Prince, this is not the time to pursue these matters. Perhaps Eighth Prince really has his own reasons."

Hearing Fukang'an come out to smooth things over, Yongrong immediately backed down and said, "Well, Yizhizhai, if Lao Ba is unwilling to send troops, how are we supposed to hold on to this half of the country?"

Fu Kangan took a deep breath. "Now, our Great Qing has money, people, and land, but we lack guns and time to train our troops. If we want to gain this opportunity, in addition to sending people to contact countries like England in the West, we should also..."

Before Fukang'an could finish his words, the governor of Shandong, Guotai, sent someone to deliver an urgent letter over 800 miles away. When everyone gathered around and took a look, they all looked happy.

"This thief Mo is courting death!" Heshen, who had been pretending to be calm, couldn't help but speak out.

"He's actually added all the government's miscellaneous taxes to the main taxes. Now all the Han officials in the world should give up and know that it is the Qing Dynasty that is willing to share the world with them."

"That's really bold!" Fu Kang'an also became excited. "Sixth Prince, my lord, let's petition His Majesty to allow Han officials from all regions to organize militias."

He Shen nodded, a fierce expression on his face. "Not only must we organize militia, but we must also tell all Han people in the world that as long as there are militias, after paying the court's land tax, the rest will be theirs!"

(End of this chapter)