Chongzhen Undergraduates

For the sake of the crabs as big as his face, Zhu Youjian didn't complain anymore. Anyway, the crabs he bought twice were almost enough to eat.

The emperor personally cooks and entertains the officials of Wuchang. This is a way to save face, something that has never been heard since the beginning of the world.Everyone stretched out their chopsticks excitedly, and all greeted the pot of roasted radish and pork.

When Zhu Youjian ate the fifth crab, he felt that someone was watching him. He put down the big crab pliers in his hand and looked up. Many people had already finished eating, and they looked at him with some puzzlement.

"Have you all finished eating?" Zhu Youjian felt strange, why are these people looking at him?

"Your Majesty, this crab has no meat in its legs." Ji Biao reminded him in a low voice.

"Yes! Look at such a big piece of crab meat." Zhu Youjian knocked open the crab leg, revealing a small piece of shredded meat inside. He tore it out with his hands and threw it into his mouth.

Everyone glanced at each other, not daring to look at Zhu Youjian again.Du Yinxi looked at this scene, his face was flushed, and he gave his subordinate a hard look.Du Yinxi thought to himself: The emperor is more frugal than me, he doesn't even let go of crab legs, if he continues to save like this, he might even eat ant legs.

After a meal, everyone dispersed, but Zhu Youjian was still eating crabs.Ji Biao came forward with two plates and said, "Your Majesty, this is braised pork specially reserved for you."

"You can eat it yourself, I don't eat meat." Zhu Youjian pushed away the fatty piece of meat and continued to attack the crab. He had already abandoned the crab's calf, and he specialized in dealing with the big pliers and crab roe.

"Hey! Why are there all fish and crabs left?" Zhu Youjian found that there were only Wuchang fish and hairy crabs left on a few tables. He didn't eat hairy crabs, but ate fatty meat. He didn't know what these people were thinking. of.

"They say crabs have no meat."

"That fish is delicious!" Zhu Youjian wondered, his skill in cooking fish is not bad, this is the authentic braised Wuchang "Bream", with thirteen and a half thorns.

"There are many thorns, prick the mouth."

"Pfft!" Zhu Youjian was amused, and when he turned his head, he saw that all the rice had been eaten.

In this era of lack of food, meat is definitely more expensive than crabs.Hairy crabs are enjoyed by the rich, and poor people eat food. Even if there are a lot of hairy crabs for a copper coin, no one cares about them.

......

"Let's go, go find Deng Zhirong. By the way, bring that basket of live crabs with you." Zhu Youjian glanced at the poor yamen in Wuchang Mansion, knowing that he couldn't get the truth out of Du Yinxi's mouth.

Arriving at Deng Zhirong's barracks, here is another scene, the whole barracks is full of vigor and vitality.Because of the fact that [-] grassroots officers of the Chuangjun Army had been mobilized to Nanjing for training, this real Beijing battalion has been completely reborn.The officers at the grassroots level are all selected from the best performers in the training.

These people are all old men who joined the Beijing camp. They have good food, good training, and naturally good equipment.The entire Beijing camp is only short of combat experience from the elite, and a few good senior officers can be taken out to fight a battle or two, which is enough to be used.

"How many people are there in total? What's the average age? What's the average height and weight?" Zhu Youjian entered the barracks, caught Deng Zhirong and asked, he was the kid who took the exam.

"Report to the commander-in-chief, there are 320 nine people in this camp, with an average age of 20 years, an average height of five feet six, and an average weight of 120 catties."

"Well, it's not bad!" Zhu Youjian nodded, agreeing from the bottom of his heart, and answered in detail without any hesitation, which showed that Deng Zhirong was not fooling around in Wuchang.

"What's going on at the governor's yamen?" Zhu Youjian continued to put on a tiger's face, probably only asking Deng Zhirong about the Hubei matter could be clarified.

"He Tengjiao is only willing to provide money and food for the Beijing camp, not for other troops in Hubei. Du Yinxi has no choice but to sell all the tables, chairs and benches in the governor's yamen, and only eats two meals of porridge a day to support the army."

After Deng Zhirong finished speaking, Zhu Youjian wanted to understand why the yamen he saw in Wuchang was such a miserable scene.The production areas in Hubei have been almost destroyed. If Hubei alone supports the loyalty camp, I am afraid that it will not be able to support it at all.

He Tengjiao has always looked down on the peasant army. Du Yinxi used to be He Tengjiao's subordinate, but now he is on the same level as He Tengjiao. It may be a dream to expect He Tengjiao to help him.It is estimated that the situation will be better when Yuan Jixian is there. Now that Yuan Jixian has been transferred to Nanjing, He Tengjiao will ignore him directly.

"Where did the rations for the local resettled people in Wuchang come from?"

There are 10,000+ people in the Chuang Department. After reorganization, there are only [-] soldiers, and all others are placed on the spot.Although the number of people is not very large, just an empty Wuchang is enough to arrange, but these people still need food subsidies in the first year here.How to survive without food?

"The food problem is okay. Jiangling, Yiling, Xianning and Huangzhou can provide some. After all, there are only tens of thousands of rations. The most difficult thing is the military salary, especially Li Dingguo's department. They are forced to ask for it every month, and they can't delay for a day. .” Deng Zhirong reported the situation in Hubei in detail.

"Where is the Azig Department now?"

"Our two sides are in a stalemate in the area of ​​Chengtian Mansion. The Zhongzheng Battalion does not have enough manpower, so they dare not take the initiative to attack. The Azige troops occupy Xiangyang, Yunyang and most of Chengtian Mansion."

"What major military actions has Houjin taken recently?"

"They sent a lot of people to arrest people in Yunyang and Dabie Mountains. It is said that tens of thousands of people have been arrested and sent to Henan. The population in Hubei has dropped sharply. At present, some people are hiding in Shenlong Mountain. The only ones who have not survived the war are the barbarians. mausoleum."

Yiling, a place Zhu Youjian is very familiar with.It is next to the Shizhu area of ​​Qin Liangyu, and it is also relatively rich. Later generations will be a sub-provincial city in Hubei and a world-renowned capital of hydropower.

Now that Wuchang was so poor, it would be unreasonable for Zhu Youjian not to help Du Yinxi, so Zhu Youjian had to specially approve 20 silver dollars to Wuchang for emergency.This money is considered to be Wuchang's loan from the inner government. It does not go to the account of the household department, and it cannot be calculated as interest. It is a typical interest-free loan.

"When Azig captures all the people in Hubei, there will really be only an empty shell left in Hubei. It seems that our strategy of going west this time is really timely."

Zhu Youjian looked at Zuo Maodi and spoke from the bottom of his heart.At least in the memories of later generations, there is a saying in Liu Yinglong's hometown: In the year of famine, the beggars from Henan came again.This is Liu Yinglong's hometown - Yunyang Mansion.

In other words, as long as there is turmoil, a large number of people on the plains will move to the mountains in order to avoid the flames of war.The Yunyang Mountains, Shenlongjia Mountains, and Dabie Mountains are all gathering places for exiles in Henan.

In the same way, if Azig really took away more than half of the population in these places, Houjin's strength in Henan might really increase suddenly.

If the history does not change, the people in these places will be filled by Huguang in 20 years and immigrate to Sichuan.

All of this shows one thing: there are still people, it depends on how everyone grabs them!

"I suggest that Chengtianfu, Jingsha, and Wuchang should be exempted from taxes for three years. At the same time, we should distribute the land to the common people and encourage them to go out of the mountains to resume production." Huang Zongxi suggested.

This time following Zhu Youjian, Huang Zongxi gained a lot of knowledge. In the past, he only knew how to read and study Confucianism, but now he began to re-understand the sufferings of the people.

"No, the land cannot be divided, and there is no need for tax exemption. It only needs to be low taxed. If the land is divided, the first ones will not be ordinary people, but the landlords in Hunan. They will be the first to rush to snatch the ownerless wasteland, these lands become their private property."

Zhu Youjian knows the landlord's love for the land too well, and these people are also the most capable to open up wasteland.As long as there is a policy, the landlords in Hunan will bring all their long-term workers to open up wasteland. How can the displaced proletarians in the mountainous areas be able to snatch them.

Chapter 242: All the way

At this time, the tax is the head tax, which means that the court does not care how many acres of land you have, the court only looks at the number of people in your family.There are only a few people in the landlord's family, but he can hire long-term workers. The landlord has a lot of land, but the tax is light.The people have little land, but the taxes they pay are not light.Coupled with the tax exemption policy after the election, it is the phenomenon that the people depend on these gentry.In the final analysis, this is a tax evasion behavior that takes advantage of the court's loopholes.

"In the Jianghan Plain, the land is divided into land, the land is combined into one, the poll tax is abolished, and the tax is only collected on the basis of the field. And the tax rate of the field tax is set below the level of the average land rent in Hunan.

In this way, families with a large population in the surrounding area will actively move to this side.At the same time, we must drive Houjin out of Hubei in order to ensure the normal flow of people. "

Zhu Youjian felt that since the population in the Jianghan area had been lost anyway, it would be impossible to collect taxes here.It's not as good as the pilot project, which is just right, and the resistance is the least.

Although the mountainous areas can escape the flames of war, there is little arable land and the output is small. Most of the land is still in the hands of the landlords, and the people still need to pay rent.

Only when the land tax is lowered to a level lower than the land rent, the common people will leave the landlords and rent land from the imperial court.

However, the land is only rented and not divided, and the land deeds are in the hands of the imperial court. If the landlord class does not see the benefits, they will not be willing to rob these lands. Only the exiled people who lost their land will come.

It was not the first creation of Yongzheng, it was the masterpiece of Zhang Juzheng of the Ming Dynasty, and it was only promoted by Yongzheng.

Zhang Juzheng was from Jiangling, Hubei. In addition, he had been rehabilitated in the early years of Chongzhen and implemented his policies in his hometown. Zhu Youjian thought it was just right.

Of course, Hunan is bound to be the hardest hit when the implementation of the per-acre scheme in Hubei.And Hunan is the most stubborn area of ​​the landlord class. Whether there will be an intensification of conflicts at that time depends on the methods of the rulers.

If we say that in the Ming Dynasty in this era, the class contradictions were the most serious and the most antagonistic to each other, it was none other than the gentry and merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang against the handicraft proletarians; the landless and proletarian peasants in Sichuan and Huguang against the landlord class; .

However, the north has been completely overthrown, there are not many royal families and nobles left, and the north is not under the control of Daming for the time being, so Zhu Youjian naturally doesn't have to worry about this kind of leisure.

Just giving Du Yinxi 20 silver dollars will not solve the problem in Hubei at all.If Hunan did not receive blood transfusions, Wuchang would really not be able to support the army in Hubei.

"What should I do?" Zhu Youjian looked at Zuo Maodi, pretending to have a real headache.When he was in Nanjing before, he said that there is a solution to the problem of military expenses for the westward march.Now that we have entered the west, we have to pay for the military expenses.