Emperor Ming Dynasty

Chapter 374
"My lord, I'm overjoyed—"

Yang Le stepped on his boots and ran over impatiently. When he saw the emperor reading "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", he couldn't help changing his tone.

"how?"

Zhu Yixi's expression changed.

"News came from Xiangyang that Mrs. Miao gave birth to a son on the 26th."

Of course Yang Le knew the hobbies in the emperor's heart, especially the nervous Miaoxian girl, so he couldn't wait to come and report.

"Mother and son are safe!"

"Peace is good enough!"

Zhu Yixi breathed a sigh of relief, feeling refreshed all over his body.

After all, Miaoxian is not an ordinary person.

Walking around, Zhu Yixi was excited for a long time, and suddenly thought of something:
He didn't even have an eldest son.

For an emperor and dynasty, the importance of the eldest son is far above everything else.

The national struggle during the Wanli period promoted the arrival of the party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty, and it was a waste of national power.

The reason why Zhu Di was able to launch the Jingnan campaign was not only the decree left by Zhu Yuanzhang to punish treacherous officials, but also his own status as a son-in-law was also very important.

Now, as the founding emperor, the stability of the eldest son is exactly what he needs.

The joy gradually dissipated, and the emperor said: "Since she is born, let her cultivate in Xiangyang for the time being. Others, especially the queen, let them come to Nanjing as soon as possible!"

The cabinet immediately came over, in addition to congratulating the emperor's heirs on the harvest, more importantly, it was to describe the collection of summer grain.

"Your Majesty!" Yan Chongxin said happily, "After the enthronement ceremony was held in June, summer grains from various places have arrived one after another."

"Among them, there are 190 million shi in Jiangxi, 220 million shi in Zhejiang, 500,000 shi in Fujian, 600,000 shi in Guangdong, 200,000 shi in Guangxi, and a million shi in Sichuan..."

"Nanzhili is nearly 6 million stones."

"Adding the 900,000 stones in Huguang, there are 330 million stones in total."

"Huh?" Zhu Yixi was startled, and even suspected that there was something wrong with her ears: "In the huge south, the sum of five or six provinces is only worth one Nanzhili?"

"Your Majesty, this is only the total amount collected by the local government, but not many are sent to Nanjing."

Yan Chongxin hurriedly said, he was afraid that the emperor might misunderstand something.

"How much is the delivery?"

"About fifty percent."

"too low."

The emperor sighed.

Half and half looks good, but for the local government, it is very loose. You must know that in the Song Dynasty, all grain had to be sent to Kaifeng, and distributed according to the income and expenditure of the coming year.

Even in the Qing Dynasty, the tax collection ratio exceeded [-]%.

Of course, in Huguang, Zhu Yixi collected [-]% directly and did not leave too much food for the local area.

"Tell them that when the autumn tax comes, [-]% must be paid."

The emperor said in a deep voice, his words were resounding.

"But, Your Majesty, the feudal lord..."

"The Zonglu of the vassal king's clan will no longer need to be issued by the local government."

Speaking of this, Zhu Yixi was full of anger.

He deeply remembered that almost all of his 17 years of Zonglu were corrupted by local officials, and he was sitting on nothing.

According to the habits of the Ming Dynasty, the princes, princes, and princes did not dare to cross the line, and the small and medium clans were also affected by the disaster.

"Yes!" Yan Chongxin happily agreed.

The reason why it is divided into half and half with the local area is that the princes and clans occupy the main factor. Without this part of the expenditure, many places can be a lot more affluent.

"Fifty percent, that is, more than 600 million shi of grain."

The emperor calculated softly: "Regardless of the first half of the year, it should be enough."

"Your Majesty, salt tax, commercial tax, etc. have been collected for nearly 5 million taels in half a year, which is more than enough to feed the army."

"Not enough, not enough!"

The emperor shook his head and pointed out the unreasonable taxation: "Zhejiang and Jiangxi are only about 2 million shi. You must know that this place has been rich since ancient times, no less than Nanzhili. How can there be such a big gap?"

"Also, why are there so few in Lingnan and Sichuan? Is there something wrong with the fish scale book?"

Guangdong is close to the sea, the Pearl River Delta is fertile, and the Sichuan Basin is even more famous. The low taxation is only half of that of Zhejiang, which even makes people doubt life.

Does such a huge gap mean that local areas are out of control, land mergers are fierce, and conflicts between people and land are prominent?

"Your Majesty, you know that the taxation in Shandong over the years is only second to that of Nanzhili, and it is only [-]% less."

At this time, Zhao Shu couldn't help but said: "The third place is still not Zhejiang, Jiangxi, or even the south, but Shanxi, which suffers from border affairs, and its tax is double that of Zhejiang."

"The fourth is Shaanxi, the fifth is Henan..."

Hearing this, Zhu Yixi was taken aback.

The gap from what he imagined was really too big.

It never occurred to them that it was the northern provinces that really supported Daming, which was completely unexpected.

And the so-called Cao grain is actually the imperial court using money to buy grain from Huguang and transporting it to Beijing, which is not as imagined to use up the power of the people in the south of the Yangtze River.

"This is the reason for the endless wars in the north!"

The emperor sighed, feeling inexplicable in his heart.

Frontier soldiers, vassal kings, corrupt officials, and the three mountains are enough to crush all hope of living.

Zhang Shenyan said slowly: "It is urgent to sort out the money and food in the south."

"Tax arrears, tax evasion, unfair taxation, food transportation for the broken family, and the situation of double collection of money and food..."

The emperor murmured, and couldn't help but smiled wryly: "Difficult, difficult, difficult——"

"However, no matter how difficult it is, you have to do it, otherwise it will cause endless harm!"

"Your Majesty, you can start with the easy and then the difficult!"

Zhao Shu thought about it, raised his head and said: "The tax arrears are shaking the mountains, and the tax evasion is to refresh the government. Only the grain chief system should be changed."

The so-called food chiefs are local village sages who are forced to work voluntarily.

At the beginning of Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang deeply hated the local subordinate officials for collecting taxes indiscriminately, so he set up a grain chief according to the amount of grain collection, which was about a thousand stones, and asked them to collect grain voluntarily.

It not only saves expenses, but also eliminates corruption, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

Later, more people did not pay taxes, and fewer people paid taxes, but the tax amount remained the same, and they had to transport grain by themselves, and the grain growers became a business that broke the family.

Moreover, the imperial court later split up the powers of the head of grain, and there were "head of urging grain", "head of harvesting grain" and "chief of long-term transportation of grain".

With less power, Hai loses money, so naturally no one is willing.

"But without the Chief of Grain, how can taxes be levied?"

Yan Chongxin asked carefully.

Moving thousands of stones, hundreds of thousands of stones, the local government must be difficult to transport, and there are many omissions between them.

"How about paying silver instead?"

Zhang Shen couldn't help but speak.

One whipping method is to replace food with silver, which was gradually deposed because food is too important.

"How to say?"

the emperor asked.

"Your Majesty, Southern Zhili is short of food, but there is a lot of money, so you can pay for it, while Sichuan Huguang and others have more food and less money, so you can pay for it."

"Moreover, these major grain-producing provinces have prosperous water transportation and convenient grain transportation."

(End of this chapter)