The end of the Ming Dynasty swept the world

Chapter 475

"I will take care of you, Mr. Ding and Mr. Ma." The little official scolded with a smile: "Everything must be obeyed by the Emperor Ming."

"The military expenditure of the Guanning Army in front is not enough, and the imperial court ordered that [-]% must be collected."

"It's none of our business that the Guan Ning army's military expenditure is not enough."

"Do you want to rebel? Which Lord Ding is it? Tell me? I want to see, which Lord Ding is bigger than the emperor?"

"This is the Ming Dynasty, who will be the current emperor?"

"The emperor wants to collect taxes, who of you dare to say no?"

The little official was very fierce and yelled at them.

He brought more than 30 people, and someone drew his sword directly, and said, "Do you want to rebel?"

Hu Gensheng and the others were few, and there were still family members in the fort, so they were frightened for a moment and dared not move.

But they were all very angry, and many of them were gnashing their teeth. This was taking their flesh and drinking their blood.

After working so hard for three years, the harvest is about to be bumper, but the imperial court wants to harvest [-]% of it?
This Ming Dynasty is about to perish.

Old Emperor, please open your eyes and have a look.

"Stop, where are you from?" Suddenly someone shouted not far away.

When Hu Gensheng and the others looked up, they were all overjoyed. It turned out that it was Gao Yunhai, the general manager of the Dengzhou camp.

Gao Yunhai was the one who was in charge of training their fort back then, and now he often comes to see them, and every year they hand over their rations to Gao Yunhai.

"General Manager Gao, he's from the magistrate's yamen, and he's here to collect grain." Hu Gensheng said hastily.

Gao Yunhai walked over and said angrily: "These fields are all under the name of Mr. Ding. We have set the rules and cannot be changed."

Hu Gensheng and the others nodded one after another. Master Ding is benevolent and will not change if he says no.

"Which one of you, Mr. Ding?" the little official said angrily.

"Our Master Ding is Master Ding Yiding, the chief soldier of Dongjiang Town." Gao Yunhai said loudly: "You want to collect taxes, tell us Master Ding."

"Bastard," the little official was furious: "How dare a mere military commander call himself a master? Is Ding Yi bigger than the emperor, bigger than the court?"

"Does he want to rebel?"

Gao Yunhai was so scolded that he dared not speak.

Of course he didn't dare to answer this sentence, he thought about it, and said bravely: "Anyway, we won't hand it over without Master Ding's order."

"Looking for death, arrest him." The clerk gave an order, and several arresters rushed forward.

Gao Yunhai still wanted to resist, but was immediately knocked down to the ground with three punches and two legs, bang bang, his nose was bruised and his face was swollen.

Hu Gensheng and others were furious when they saw it, and finally someone couldn't help it: "Damn it."

The crowd rushed forward, they were half-training and half-farming, half of each year in military training, they were very brave, a dozen of them beat up more than 30 people on the opposite side and fled in embarrassment.

"You wait, you are rebelling, you wait, Ding Yi will be in trouble." The little official cried, turned and ran away.

"It's over, you caused trouble, and you caused trouble for Master Ding." Gao Yunhai patted his thigh and cried.

Hu Gensheng and the others looked at each other in blank dismay.

"It's the other way around." Suddenly someone in the crowd shouted.

Then everyone shouted: "It's the other way around, can people still live in this world?"

"It's the other way around." The audience echoed.

At the end of August, the imperial court collected food everywhere, hoarded troops, and the new arrivals from Dengzhou yelled at each other, and conflicts and fights happened every day.

The hoarders gathered at night, clamoring for rebellion.

These people have done it once before, and now they are even more excited.

The court wants to levy [-]%, which is to drink their blood and eat their flesh.

Fortunately, Master Ding soon received news to reassure everyone not to get excited.

Mr. Ding said that he is negotiating with the imperial court. It is not easy for everyone to farm and support their families, so they cannot pay so much.

This year, Mr. Ding discussed with the court that only [-]% of the autumn grain will be paid.

Originally everyone only needed to pay [-]%, but in fact they only needed to pay [-]% more, and the [-]% was paid by Mr. Ding himself, not by everyone.

Mr. Ding is trustworthy, and if he asked everyone to pay [-]%, it must be [-]%.

Praises were heard everywhere in Dengzhou, and many people cried bitterly. Mr. Ding is benevolent and righteous, a good official who is rarely seen in a century.

Why does the imperial court persecute us like this?

As mentioned earlier, there are still some fields in Dengzhou in the hands of ordinary people and Jin gentry officials.

The common people have relatively few fields, and many people work as tenants for others.

Those Jin gentry were killed in two batches, the first batch was killed by Kong Youde, and the second batch was killed by Lu Chao. Those who can still survive now either were lucky at the beginning and were not in Dengzhou, or they had some background later, Ding Yi is unwilling to touch them.

But now, Ding Yi wants to collect taxes. The imperial court does not accept these Jin gentry, and Ding Yi wants to collect them.

According to the regulations at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the tax rate for civilian land was about one-thirtieth (it varies from place to place, Suzhou is the heaviest). Officials and people with high reputations can pay less tax, that is, they have the right to be exempted, but as time goes by, In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the scope of preferential exemption gradually expanded, and it became an excuse for officials to pay less or even no tax.

For example, the "New Rules for You and Mian" in the 24th year of Jiajing stipulated that Beijing officials should be exempted from grain for [-] shi and ding [-] ding.

What do you mean, that is, in the family of a first-rank Beijing official, the grain output is within [-] shi, and the population is within [-] ding, which is tax-free.

In actual operation, Xu Jie, the chief assistant of the cabinet in the late Jiajing period, was a first-rank official in the capital, and his family had a grain field of 24 mu, and the number of people was unknown. Who would dare to collect taxes from him?Who can receive his tax?

Later, Zhang Juzheng found that this was not possible, because the tax was too little, so he implemented a whipping method to convert all taxes and corvees into silver, except for a small amount of grain used in Suzhou and Hangzhou, which had a high output, and handed over to the imperial court for use, and a small amount Except for the materials used by the country, other places will be converted into color silver, and the land of the whole country will be measured again, and money will be paid according to the area.

But since Zhang Juzheng's death, this whip method has also existed in name only. At the end of Ming Dynasty, because the court lacked money, it sent salaries many times. It's due.

Up to now, the imperial court collects taxes directly and distributes the amount.

For example, in Dengzhou Prefecture, assuming that the imperial court thinks that you have 100 million mu of land, according to the amount of silver per mu, how much tael will be handed over to the imperial court a year, and the imperial court will not care about the amount. thing.

Ding Yi's Dongjiang Town was considered by the court to have 30 mu of land, and he had to pay 9000 taels of tax silver every year.

As for the other corvée, which were originally included in the whipping method, they naturally exist in name only now.

If you want to be exempted from corvee, you also need to pay money, and wealthy landlords can offset it with money and get exempted from corvee.

There are seven counties in one state under the jurisdiction of Terengganu Prefecture. Last year, the imperial court verified 62 mu of land, and the summer and autumn taxes totaled 600 taels.

Based on this calculation, the six prefectures under the Chief Secretary of Shandong (Shandong Province) can collect about 15 taels of tax.

This is still relatively good. Like Guizhou in the same period, the province's annual tax revenue is about 2 taels.

Later, in the hands of the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu Qing implemented the reform of the land, and only the provinces of Sichuan, Lake, Yunnan and Guizhou re-stated the number of acres of land included in the regular tax, which is equivalent to an increase of three provinces.

So Chongzhen at this time was really poor, and the entire Ming court's annual fiscal revenue was only 300 to 2000 million. (The additional distribution is not counted. He can increase the maximum distribution to 500 million taels. In fact, it does not exceed [-] million taels a year at most. Even if the distribution is increased, it will not be collected.)
In fact, there is no need to increase the distribution at all, and it is enough to count all the acres of land for taxation.

For example, in Terengganu, the actual number of acres is at least 150 million.

Ding Yi did not dare to move in the first two years, because the officials were all members of the imperial court. In the past two years, through continuous rotation, except for a few officials who could not be changed, all the officials were Ding Yi's own people.

More importantly, no one used it before (Lu Chao had to lead someone to pretend), but now someone uses it.

So when Ding Yi left Dengzhou that day, he asked Du Ruhai to stay here and start to count the acres, measure the land, and collect taxes according to the actual amount.

Of course, it is best not to use your own name to offend the landlords of the world.

(End of this chapter)