The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 587 The tax-free land is gone
The cabinet has also started to take real action.

The Prime Minister Shen Li revised the "Kaocheng Law" and began to implement it in full.

This time I really passed the exam, it was not just a formality.

If the officials in charge fail the test, they will be demoted or even dismissed and investigated.

This is actually not a two-pronged approach, but a three-pronged approach.

The Cabinet is conducting performance appraisals, the Censorate is conducting inspections, and the Ministry of Justice is still constantly punishing corrupt officials.

After Wanli's rectification, the Ming Dynasty officialdom was truly renewed.

All officials seemed to become loyal and diligent, and corrupt officials seemed to have disappeared, at least on the surface.

All expenditures of the Ming Dynasty seemed to be decreasing sharply, while the court's taxes were increasing continuously.

In July, the cabinet's half-yearly examination was completed, the Ministry of Justice had almost punished corrupt officials, and the inspectors of the Censorate were constantly traveling around the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty.

It seems that there are really no problems in the Ming Dynasty officialdom, and all officials seem to be working diligently.

In fact, these are just appearances, and there are many hidden dangers beneath the appearances.

As Wanli saw that the political situation was gradually stabilizing, he prepared to take steps to resolve these hidden dangers.

On the fifth day of the seventh month, at about noon in the morning, he actually ordered his men to summon the chief minister of the cabinet and all the ministers of the six ministries and seven departments to the hall which was originally built to receive envoys from various countries.

Everyone was amazed when they saw the magnificent decoration.

The tables and chairs here are all made of golden nanmu. Wanli even ordered someone to make a high-legged chair made of golden nanmu for little Zhu Changxun to sit next to him.

Song Yingxing, the prince's companion, was standing next to little Zhu Changxun.

Everyone was a little confused about this situation. What was His Majesty going to do?

When Wanli saw that everyone was present, he ordered someone to serve a pot of tribute tea to everyone present.

He invited everyone to sip their tea, then said solemnly: "Everyone has worked hard. After more than a year of rectification, the officialdom has achieved remarkable results and has been completely renewed.

The Ming Dynasty is also moving towards a peaceful and prosperous era. As long as everyone works together, we will surely be able to create an unprecedented prosperous era."

Does this mean that you are calling everyone here to celebrate?

Question: Do we just drink tea to celebrate?
Although everyone was a little excited in their hearts, they were still a little confused.

Wanli raised his hand and said, "Yu Ye, tell me, roughly how much tax revenue does the court receive every month?"

How do you say this?

Li Hualong thought about it carefully, then said carefully: "The tax revenue of the court is different every month. If you average it out, it is more than 4 million taels per month.

However, the expenses were also relatively high. The labor costs of the court and local government offices exceeded 500,000 taels per month, and the officials' salaries and miscellaneous expenses also exceeded 500,000 taels.

Therefore, the average monthly deposits are only about three million taels."

You only have about three million taels!

In the past, the imperial court couldn’t even save three million taels a year, okay?

When everyone heard this, they couldn't help but show a look of shock.

They all knew that the court's tax revenue was definitely more than before. Not to mention anything else, the land confiscated from punishing corrupt officials alone amounted to tens of millions of acres.

However, they did not expect that the court's tax revenue had reached such a level.

Actually, that’s not enough.

Wanli nodded slightly, then said: "Yuye, from now on, all military farms will be taxed according to the civilian farmland.

We will no longer collect military rations from the military households’ cultivated land. In the future, military rations will gradually be allocated from the fields owned by the Ministry of Households. If it is not enough, we will collect tax grain from part of the land tax to make up the difference.

Starting from September this year, taxes on military households’ farming can be gradually collected from the various dusi and mobile dusi in the south all the way to the major border towns, Liaodong dusi and Nurgan dusi.

You should also send someone to make fish-scale maps of the Liaodong and Nurgan Dusi. The land these two Dusi have opened up is probably more than 200 million mu, and we can't just leave it alone."

what?
More than 200 million mu!

It turns out that the military farms of the various military governors, mobile military governors and border towns of the Ming Dynasty totaled more than 100 million mu!

This means that the land tax will increase by more than 300 million mu?
How much is that?

If we calculate based on the price of two dan of grain per mu being one tael of silver for two dan, that would be more than 30 million taels!
Can this military farming be calculated in this way?
Li Hualong was stunned for a moment, then said carefully, "Your Majesty, how many dan of grain should we calculate for each tael of silver?"

It’s really troublesome to calculate the price of grain.

Wanli pondered, "Right now, grain prices across the Ming Dynasty are not uniform, so we can only calculate them by region.

For Liaodong and Nurgan Dusi, let's assume one tael of silver is four shi. For other places, you can look at the local grain prices.

Also, the Nurgan Regional Administration is only producing grain this year, and they have just started raising pigs. Most of the garrison troops there don't have any money yet.

Therefore, this year the Nurgan Regional Administration can only collect grain as land tax. The grain there should not be shipped out, but should be stored in various citadels. It will be used as military rations next year."

How much military rations will we need to store now!
Li Hualong nodded repeatedly and said, "I understand."

Wanli explained in detail: "There is also the issue of commercial taxes. We cannot just collect commercial taxes from the Portuguese.

From now on, any business in the Ming Dynasty that reaches a certain scale must pay commercial taxes. As for how big a business must be to pay commercial taxes, you will set the standard.

Next year we will begin to collect merchant taxes across the board, starting with the major businesses in Wansheng Hall, the fiefs of the various princes, and all the fiefs of the nobles and dukes."

what?
They also levied comprehensive commercial taxes!
How much tax revenue is this?
Now the combined business of all the major businesses in Wanshengtang alone is at least tens of millions of taels a year!

This time, not only Li Hualong was a little confused, but the other officials present were also a little confused.

If the imperial court collected taxes like this, the monthly tax revenue would probably be tens of millions of taels! What would they do with so much money?
Does this mean that the imperial court will have to pay for the army’s food, wages and military rewards in the future?
Then this amount of money seems not enough.

Li Hualong was stunned for a moment, then nodded repeatedly and said, "I understand."

We have almost finished talking about taxes, now comes the key point.

Wanli glanced around slowly, then said solemnly: "I summoned you all today mainly to discuss the issue of tax exemption for land owned by Jinshi, Juren, and Xiucai.

This is obviously a bit out of date. Now the number of scholars we recruit has doubled. On average, there are more than 300 new Jinshi, more than 1,000 new Juren, and several thousand new Xiucai every year.

You should know how much land there is that is tax-free for so many Jinshi, Juren and Xiucai.

If the exemption continues like this, the newly added tax-free land will exceed two million mu each year, and will exceed 20 million mu in ten years.

This is assuming that these people are not greedy or corrupt and do not merge land crazily. If these people merge land crazily, the number of newly added tax-free land each year will probably inexplicably increase by 10 to 20 million mu, which means 100 to 200 million mu in ten years.

If this continues, the common people will have less and less land, while the scholars with official titles will have more and more land. Within a hundred years, all the land in the world will probably be annexed by them!

Therefore, the land owned by Jinshi, Juren, and Xiucai is no longer tax-exempt, and this must be abolished.

What do you think? Tell us what you think."

Land annexation is a chronic problem that has never been solved in all dynasties.

The land under the names of Jinshi, Juren and Xiucai has corresponding tax-free quotas. This is actually a disguised incentive for these people to annex land, and everyone present is aware of this.

The problem is that they also have tax-free land. If the tax-free quota is cancelled, they will also have to pay land tax.

What do they say about this?

Minister of Justice Yuan Keli was the first to speak up: "Your Majesty, I agree with the abolition of tax-free land. The annexation of farmland by corrupt officials is truly shocking. We cannot encourage them in this disguised way."

Very good, you didn't disappoint me.

Minister of Revenue Li Hualong nodded and said, "I agree."

Zhu Guozuo, the Left Censor-in-Chief of the Metropolitan Censorate, quickly followed suit, saying, "I agree."

Upon seeing this, Minister of Rites Lü Kun and Minister of Works Zeng Tongheng also nodded and said, "Your humble servants also agree."

The Cabinet's Chief Minister Shen Li, the Minister of Personnel Yang Zhao, and the Minister of War Liang Menglong also realized what was going on and nodded quickly, saying, "Your humble servants agree."

Well, everyone knows the importance of being obedient.

Wanli was actually testing these trusted ministers in power to see if they would raise any objections.

If anyone dares to raise objections for personal gain, he will consider replacing them.

The reason why he carried out such a crazy purge was to completely control the entire court.

These people are his tools or trusted ministers to completely control the court.

If any of these people oppose him, then his goal of completely controlling the court has not been achieved.

He will replace anyone who opposes.

Fortunately not.

He nodded slightly, then said solemnly: "I also know that canceling the tax-free land will affect many scholars. They will definitely have opinions, especially those poor scholars.

Poor scholars, poor scholars, tax-free land may be their only source of income. Most poor scholars do not have any land, and many of them even rely on the 80 acres of tax-free land to make a living.

I canceled their tax exemption not to make them starve, but I just didn't want to encourage scholars with official titles to annex land in disguise.

Now that the court is rich, we cannot become more and more stingy. We still have to give scholars the benefits they should have.

Otherwise, it would be absurd for ordinary people to study hard for more than ten years and pass the imperial examination to become a scholar, but end up being so poor that they have no food to eat.

We will adopt a one-whip approach, cancel all tax-free amounts, and give them cash instead.

The scholar originally had eighty mu of tax-free land. Based on the yield of two dan per mu and the tax rate of one liang of silver, the tax exemption was only four liang of silver.

These four taels of silver are not enough for them to have enough food to eat in a year, so we will give each of them an additional ten taels of silver every year.

The Juren originally had 400 mu of tax-free land, and the tax exempted was only 20 taels per year. We will give each of them an additional 20 taels of silver per year.

The Jinshi originally had 2,000 mu of tax-free land, and the tax exemption was only 100 taels per year. We will give them an additional 100 taels of silver per year."

what?
It turns out that they even gave me some compensation!
Could you please finish it in one go?

In fact, most of those who hesitated just now were worried that the scholars would have strong opinions about this.

Now the tax-free land is gone, but the scholars are given silver compensation, and the compensation is doubled. Most scholars should have no objection.

As for those who had objections, most of them had annexed a lot of land.

People like this will be dealt with sooner or later, so they don't need to care about their opinions.

Oh, there is another question.

Li Hualong thought for a moment, then asked carefully, "Your Majesty, you mean that regardless of whether or not one has land in their name, as long as they pass the imperial examination, they will all be granted land, right?"

of course.

Wanli nodded without hesitation and said, "Yes, no matter whether you have land or not, as long as you pass the imperial examination, you will be granted the title.

Those landless scholars need subsidies from the court even more, so of course we have to provide them with them."

Upon hearing this, Li Hualong nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty is wise. Now this poor scholar won't be so poor that he won't have to worry about having nothing to eat."

Everyone nodded and said, "Your Majesty is wise."

(End of this chapter)