The ruthless emperor in the late Ming Dynasty forced Chongzhen to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 319 Household Registration New Policy
In just five days, the edict of the new land and household registration system spread throughout all the prefectures and counties in the four northern provinces, and the official documents of the cabinet were also distributed to all levels of government.

The edict stipulated that all citizens of the Ming Dynasty, regardless of their status, age, or gender, had to be re-registered, and each household was issued a household registration booklet. The household registration was divided into three categories.

One is the scholars with fame, the other is the free and white body without fame, and the other is the slave who sells himself.

The treatment and obligations enjoyed by the three types of people are different. Scholars who are citizens can see officials without kneeling, can wear swords, and can sign up to participate in the examination of the Ministry of Officials to become officials, except for women.

Scholars are divided into three classes: scholar, scholar, and Jinshi.In addition, Juren and Jinshi do not need to perform military service.

There is no distinction between free status without merit and fame. From now on, all men who have reached the age of 16 and have no disabilities must serve in the military for two years, and they can also pay a sum of money instead of military service. .

The third category, slaves who are prostitutes, do not need to perform military service, but they cannot be independent households. They need to be attached to the household registration of the master's family, and in principle belong to the private property of the master's family.

Regardless of whether it is a scholar or a white body without a reputation, every household with more than ten people must pay a head tax of five taels of silver for every extra penny, regardless of men, women, old or weak, or servants.

And if you want to open an account alone, the head of the household must be at least 16 years old and a married man. Women have no official status, and those without children are not allowed to open an account alone.

For widowed and lonely old people without relatives and children, those who have labor force will be registered as households by each yamen, centrally resettled, and allocated fields and houses. Those who have no labor force will be raised by another house established by the government.

The second is the land policy, that is, in the future, no matter whether it is a scholar with a reputation or a white body without a reputation, the private land under each household's name shall not exceed [-] mu, and all excess land will be nationalized.

And if the average private land per person per household is less than [-] mu, they can apply to the government for long-term cultivation of official land. The upper limit is that the average private land per person should not exceed [-] mu.

Private land is divided into three classes, and each class needs to pay one to three renminbis per mu per year. Official land is also divided into three classes, and each class needs to pay four to six renminbis per year per mu. Official land cannot be bought, sold or rented out. .

There is no limit to the number of acres of mines, wasteland, orchards, and woodlands. Once they are reclaimed as fields, they must be reported to the Ministry of Agriculture for registration, and they can be exempted from the land tax for three years, but each household must also not exceed [-] acres. Once exceeded, it will be confiscated.

The official document of the cabinet stipulates that all prefectures and counties in the four northern provinces must complete all household registration and private land registration before August, and issue new household registration and land deeds.

All private land that was not registered in August will be confiscated and returned to the public, and all white people and scholars who are not registered in August will be exiled regardless of men, women, old or weak.

All servants who are not registered will be classified as free agents. If you want to register a servant under your own name, you must hold the other party's contract of sale, and if the other party holds the certificate of merit issued by the Ministry of Rites, the contract of sale will be invalidated and deemed invalid .

Following the promulgation of the cabinet's decrees and imperial edicts to the state capitals and counties, the entire four northern provinces were in an uproar.

The landless people rushed to congratulate each other, knelt down and cried loudly, the landlords and big families were wailing and cursing, and the prostituted slaves were envious and unwilling.

And as the edict spread to the south, the landlords and big households in the whole south began to get excited, which caused the township examination in May to be greatly affected.

Although the big landlords in the world have long been mentally prepared, after all, it has not been implemented yet, but now it is really going to be implemented. Each household can only have [-] acres of private land. This is simply killing them. Each household with more than ten people will also be taxed heavily, which is even more cutting off their roots.

Although the response from the southern gentry was huge, no one immediately took the lead in rioting and resisting. Instead, they all waited for the reaction of the northern gentry, and most of them were ready to respond.

Obviously, the big gentry in the south also understand that after the implementation in the north, it will be the turn of the south.

Especially those big families in the south of the Yangtze River who own tens of thousands or 10,000+ mu of mulberry fields have already started conspiring together and are ready to go all out.

The big gentry in the four northern provinces were really in a hurry, but under the deterrence of the powerful swordsmen everywhere, no one dared to take the lead in resisting for a while.

However, no one took the initiative to cooperate with re-registering and opening an account. They just took their servants and their contracts of prostitution and went to the yamen to register.

Because the time limit given by the yamen is only ten days, if the slave does not register after ten days, the contract of sale will be invalidated, and after ten days, anyone can go to the yamen to open an account and register freely.

So ten days later, those ordinary people were much more active than the big households. Facing the officials who came to count and handle household registration, all the villages lined up long queues with old women and children. out.

As long as you are not a fool, you will not hide the size of your family. Ordinary people rarely have more than ten people in their family. Even if they do, they can open two households. As for ordinary people with two hundred acres of private land, they have long since disappeared. .

Therefore, whether it is more than ten households to collect taxes, or more than two hundred acres of private land to be confiscated, it will not have the slightest impact on ordinary people.

But when the time comes to allocate official land, it will be distributed according to the population. One more person will add [-] acres of land in the future. This account, even for dull people, will be counted.

Due to the active cooperation of the people from all over the country, and the fate of those officials in the south of the Yangtze River, all the ordinary people with free bodies in the four provinces completed the distribution of new household registration statistics in just one month.

If family members have relatives who joined the army, they will not be counted in their own household registration. Soldiers are temporarily unified into military registration, and the household registration will be moved back after they retire in the future.

After waiting and watching for a month, some small landlords finally began to compromise and began to divide their homes and land. As long as they can set up their own households, they are basically ready to open their own households.

For this reason, in the past month, the whole north is full of joy, the sound of gongs, drums and firecrackers is constant, and weddings are everywhere.

In some landlord families, the sons in the family are only eleven or twelve years old, and they marry their wives in a hurry and get married. There are even a few ten-year-old boys who get married.

Apparently all the landlords and gentry are making two-handed preparations, opening more accounts and keeping as much private land as possible, so as not to be caught off guard.

And as time passed day by day, and the officials urged their lives every day, the landlords of those small households got married and divided their families. They couldn't bear it anymore, and they went to the Yamen to register and open an account with their families.

Because after the division of the family, there will not be much surplus land left, and the servants in the family also have their own share, and there are rarely more than ten people.

Those who have a big family and a big business, and the population still exceeds the limit after getting married and dividing the family, began to screen the servants in the family again, those ugly maids, old women, and tenant farmers who sold themselves to them, Tongtong returned the deed of sale to them and let them find their own way out.

Even so, some big households with wives and concubines in groups and a large number of maids and maidservants still seriously exceeded the standard.

And those tenant farmers who were released, ugly maids and wives, took their sons and deeds of prostitution to the yamen where they were located to get rid of their slave status first, and then re-opened accounts to become free.

And those maidservants who couldn't open an account and couldn't find their relatives could only find a man to marry after their slave status was cancelled.

For this kind of lonely woman who can't open an account, those ordinary people almost scratch their heads.

Those who are willing to marry will be married, and those who are not willing to marry will not be forced. Temporarily accepted as a foster daughter, the whole north will become a mess in a short time.

(End of this chapter)