Invincible Zhengde

Chapter 444 Old Acquaintances

Inside the Imperial Palace in Nanjing, Zhu Houzhao stood up straight with no expression on his face, reached out and took the towel from Liu Jin's hand, wiped off his sweat, and then threw it to Liu Jin. At the same time, he glanced at Yang Lian who was standing not far away, He reached out and greeted him.

This time when he came to Nanjing, Zhu Houzhao, the biggest spy chief beside him, naturally followed him.

Seeing Zhu Houzhao calling her, Yang Lian hurried over, bowed and stood upright, waiting for Zhu Houzhao to ask questions.

"Has the staff been arranged?" Zhu Hou looked at Yang Lian and asked softly.

Zhu Houzhao's tone was very flat, as if he was talking about a very small matter, but in fact this matter was not small, because this time he was going to do something big in the south, so Zhu Houzhao asked Yang Lian to mobilize a lot of people.

Some of these manpower were brought over from Beijing, and some were drawn from surrounding areas. It can be said that this is a big operation.

These people have all dispersed now, joining up with the former southerners, ready to wait for Zhu Houzhao's orders at any time.

It was for this reason that Zhu Houzhao called Yang Lian over.

"Going back to His Royal Highness, everything has been arranged." Yang Lian said quickly.

This time the matter was too big, so big that Yang Lian didn't dare to neglect at all, and didn't dare to make the slightest mistake.If something goes wrong on her side, His Royal Highness will never let her go, Yang Lian knows this very well.

Zhu Houzhao nodded and said, "Follow me to meet the tax department."

This time, the main body of the action is the people from the tax department, and they are the key to the matter.These years in the south, they have been making arrangements. Although they report to Beijing every year, the reports must not be in person. Zhu Houzhao still wants to ask them about many things.

Soon Zhu Houzhao came to the front hall, where several people were already waiting.

These people are the main figures of the Taxation Department in Nanjing, as well as Mao Huan, the commander of Jinyiwei of the Nanjing Government Department.They were all the main characters in this operation, so Zhu Houzhao wanted to see them.

When everyone saw Zhu Houzhao walking in, they quickly bowed and saluted, "The ministers and others will see His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

Zhu Houzhao waved his hand, motioning them to be excused.

Glancing at the leader, Zhu Houzhao found that this person was actually an acquaintance.

When I was handling the private salt case in Yangzhou, besides Liu Qi, there was another person who was very conspicuous in Yangzhou's official circles. This person was Qi Huan, the prefect of Yangzhou.

Qi Huan wanted Liu Qi's seat at the beginning, so he set out to make things worse for Liu Qi.

What Zhu Houzhao didn't expect was that Qi Huan actually went to the taxation department now, and he was also the head of the Nanjing taxation department.The opportunities in life are truly amazing.

Zhu Houzhao looked Qi Huan up and down, with a playful expression on his face.

Naturally, it was impossible for Qi Huan to go to the Taxation Department by himself, so someone had to transfer him here.So who brought him here?
You don't need to think about it and you know it's Liu Qi. What surprises Zhu Houzhao is that Liu Qi transferred Qi Huan here not for revenge, but to reuse him, making him the head of the tax department in Nanjing.

Whether Qi Huan surrendered to Liu Qi, or Liu Qi subdued him, there are stories between these two people.

But one thing is certain, that is, Qi Huan is a capable person, otherwise he would have been swallowed by Liu Qi long ago, how could he be in this position?
Qi Huan's ability to sit in this position must have won Liu Qi's trust, which is interesting.

"Qi Aiqing, I remember that you were the magistrate of Yangzhou before?" Zhu Houzhao looked at Qi Huan and asked.

"Returning to His Royal Highness, I was indeed the magistrate of Yangzhou before, and was later transferred to be the servant of the Nanjing household department. After the establishment of the tax department, I was appointed as the secretary in charge of Nanjing taxation." Qi Huan said respectfully.

Zhu Houzhao nodded, he didn't expect to have such an experience here.

But this Qi Huan is very interesting, it seems that he is also a person with someone in court, otherwise he would not be able to reach this step.

But these are not important, the relationship in the court is intricate, even if Zhu Houzhao is the Crown Prince of Daming, it is impossible to straighten out this relationship.

So Zhu Houzhao nodded, and then said: "You all know the matter, right?"

"Back to His Royal Highness, I already know about it." Qi Huan quickly replied: "After receiving the news, I have already formulated a strategy. This is the strategy formulated by my colleagues and colleagues from the Nanjing Taxation Department. Please have a look at it."

While talking, Qi Huan presented a plan

Zhu Houzhao nodded.

Liu Jin hurried over to take the memorial, and handed it to Zhu Houzhao respectfully.

After Zhu Houzhao took the memorial, he quickly flipped through it.

The content of the memorial is not much, no nonsense, very concise.This is also Zhu Houzhao's request.As long as I can get my hands on it, the author is required to be concise, and all of them are not allowed to talk a lot of nonsense.

In this strategy, Qi Huan made things very clear. He thought that the first step in doing things was to take over the tax account books of all local government offices and then verify them.

Wherever there is fraud in the locality, it will be held accountable.And in the process of tracing, if one is found, one will be punished.In fact, this is also to keep a back hand, the purpose is to clean up those disobedient local officials.

Once some local officials neglect their duties or refuse to cooperate, then use this article to clean them up.

After reading this article, Zhu Houzhao raised his head and glanced at Qi Huan,
Now Zhu Houzhao understood why Liu Qi chose Qi Huan, and at the same time why he was able to get to where he is today.

This is a very mature bureaucrat, and he sees the problem very accurately.

The difficulty of the matter this time actually lies in the local opposition.In local opposition, local officials will play a key role.

So Qi Huan's first step was to target the local officials. If he was obedient, it would be fine; if he was disobedient, then he would get rid of them.It is a good strategy to look at the problem from an accurate perspective and to find a good method.

Zhu Houzhao was very satisfied, so he turned to look at the second item.

In the second article, Qi Huan mentioned the second difficulty in this matter, which was the issue of land concealment.

Qi Huan discussed this issue from two directions, one is dedication and the other is intentional concealment.Although there are two directions, there is one problem to blame, and that is the imperial court's tax exemption policy.

This policy was formulated by the great grandfather, so Qi Huan did not point fingers at this policy, but instead thought of a solution to the problem, that is to check the fields, recompile a fish scale book, and then collect taxes according to the new fish scale book .

Zhu Houzhao knew that this matter was done by Zhang Juzheng later, and indeed a lot of land was found that time, but because it was done by civil officials, that is, they checked themselves, so there were many loopholes.

But from the perspective of the rulers, this policy is indeed good; but from another perspective, it must be problematic.

Because in this way, the landlord will increase the rent and pass the pressure on to the people below, that is, the tenants.Their life will become more and more difficult, which is also a big problem, and the people will be very sad.

After all, landlords will not bear taxes themselves, and all taxes will be transferred to poor people.They no longer have their own land, and the land rent is lower than the tax when renting and planting, so there will be contributions.It would be even worse for them if all land was taxed without this hidden part of the land.

This requires increasing food production and then taking those who have a surplus off the land.

This is crucial, otherwise it will definitely lead to a civil uprising.

Because their production and living pressures are too great, it has reached an unbearable level, and there will be a large number of refugees, and they will rebel if they are not careful.

So this is also a problem that needs to be solved, but the people present can't see it, and maybe they won't say it when they see it.

But Zhu Houzhao is well aware of the danger here, and a little carelessness will cause big trouble.This is why Zhu Houzhao came to Nanjing. He needs to solve this problem.

If this problem is not resolved, the policies will be castles in the air.No matter how well you think, you will become a tool to exploit and squeeze the people down below.

But this has nothing to do with Qi Huan and others, they just need to do things well, so Zhu Houzhao started to look down.

Qi Huan also planted a foreshadowing behind this point, that is, if it is found out that there is a lot of hidden land in a certain place, the local officials can be directly held accountable.Even if it is found that there is collusion between officials and the local government, severe punishment can be imposed.

In a word, use various nooses to trap officials, and once they dare to take action, they will be taken down directly under various names.

Two consecutive foreshadowings were laid, which shows that Qi Huan is not optimistic about these people.

Zhu Houzhao is very pleased that this is an official who can do things for himself.If things are done well this time, I can promote Qi Huan.

In the third article of this booklet, Qi Huan stated the problem of fire consumption.He said one thing above, that is, to return the fire consumption to the public, which Zhu Houzhao also thought of.

Generally speaking, after the implementation of these three items, the tax department will completely become a tax agency.

After putting down the brochure, Zhu Hou looked at Qi Huan and said, "You did a good job, let's do it like this."

"Yes, Your Highness the Crown Prince." Qi Huan quickly agreed.

He was afraid that His Royal Highness would be dissatisfied, so although these three things seemed simple this time, he thought about it for a long time, and at the same time, he didn't hesitate to dig out the root of the matter.

Fortunately, the effect is good, His Royal Highness is satisfied, this is enough.

Zhu Houzhao showed no expression on his face, turned his head to look at Mao Huan, the commander of Nanjing Jinyiwei, and then said: "Jinyiwei will try its best to cooperate, and you must listen to Lord Qi. If there is anything, please report it in time. Nanjing transfers a thousand households to you, in case something happens, there is no one on hand."

It can be said that Zhu Houzhao was very worried. You must know that many tax inspectors sent in the future were beaten to death at that time. Who knows if anyone will do such a thing now?Recklessly coercing public opinion and making a posture that the law does not blame the public, this kind of thing must be contained from the beginning.

No matter where there is a problem, the magistrate must deal with it directly.It's just that if the other party has the upper hand in public opinion, it will stir up popular uprisings, and this must be done ahead of time.But this is a matter in the dark, and Zhu Houzhao is going to leave it to Yang Lian to do it.

"Okay, you go, get things done." Zhu Houzhao said.

"Yes, Your Highness the Crown Prince." Everyone hurriedly bowed in agreement, turned and retreated.

After everyone went out, Zhu Houzhao turned his head to look at Yang Lian, and then asked, "Did you find out everything I asked you to investigate here in Nanjing?"

Hearing Zhu Houzhao's words, Yang Lian stood up quickly, her face became serious, and her expression was very solemn.

He knew that the crux of the matter had come to this time. The matter that His Highness the Crown Prince explained before was really too big. Once it happened, countless people would go bankrupt and perish.

"Go back to His Royal Highness, the servants have already checked it out." Yang Lian said.

"Then let's talk about it!" Zhu Houzhao nodded and said.

"The Japanese pirates that His Royal Highness asked the servants to investigate are indeed true. It's just that they can be traced back very early. They already existed in the Yuan Dynasty. They had already imprisoned Suzhou, Huai'an and other places in Shandong during the Taizu. Taizu In the second year of Hongwu, Taizu took advantage of the opportunity of announcing the revolution of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties to the Japanese kingdom to order the Japanese kingdom to exterminate the Japanese pirates. Compared with the Japanese pirates at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the Hongwu period, the scale of the Japanese pirates in the Yongle Dynasty increased significantly."

"After Zheng He and Eunuch Zheng went to the West, the imperial court implemented a sea ban policy and only opened up exploration and cooperation trade. It was peaceful at first, but in the wars of the Japanese Kingdom a few years ago, the Japanese who had exploration and cooperation traded with exploration and cooperation, and those who did not have exploration and cooperation at sea. and Daming coastal looting."

Zhu Houzhao nodded. He probably understood that he also knew about this matter. He also checked the information before leaving Beijing, or he knew about it earlier.

At this time, the Japanese pirates in the Ming Dynasty were not serious, because the military towns along the coast were not seriously destroyed, the farmland had not been completely destroyed, and the military households could barely transfer their ownership and still have the ability to fight.

It's just that at this time, it has already begun to collapse. The big households in the area have already extended their hands to the farmland of the military households, and local military officers at all levels have also begun to plunder money.Many places have gone bankrupt.

Many refugees in Jingxiang are actually military households.

But these are not the key points, Zhu Houzhao is not concerned about Japanese pirates, he is concerned about the internal problems of Ming Dynasty.

"Slave servant investigation found that the merchants along the coast are basically related to overseas smuggling. In fact, the sea ban along the coast has been completely broken by them. In Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other places, many big merchants are doing this."

Zhu Houzhao nodded, he also guessed this, and this is also the purpose of his coming here.

"Continue." Zhu Houzhao said expressionlessly.

"Most of their trade is concentrated on those who have cooperation, and at the same time, many people go to sea privately, loading goods to the sea in small boats, and then transporting them away in large ships."

(End of this chapter)