Rebirth of the Ming Dynasty: Sixth Generation of Glory, I don't want it

"Well, Your Majesty, this is a bit biased..."

Zhang Chang scratched his head.

The girl said that Prince Yan was a very nice person, except that he had a bit of a bad temper.

But he looked, as if, a little silly.

It's not the kind of stupidity that comes from being a fool, but the kind of stupidity that occurs when one's character is not very flexible.

"Tell me, how am I biased!!! Merchants are greedy for profits, buying people's land and forcing them to leave their homes. Isn't that abominable!"

Zhu Di raised his eyebrows and became a little angry.

"Your Majesty, there is a cause for every effect."

Zhang Chang was not afraid either.

Just like his sister said, the prince is willing to employ him and he likes the prince, so he will do his job well.

If neither of the two is satisfactory, then there is no need to do it. He always has a choice between going back to Peking to help Zhang Xin or returning to his hometown to work as a minor official.

As for himself, he has the ambition to achieve great things, but he is not so persistent.

"Don't say half and half!"

Zhu Di glanced at Zhang Chang.

"Speaking out might offend the prince?"

Zhang Chang asked back.

"Exonerated!"

"Well, I think the late emperor didn't think it through."

What Zhang Chang wanted to say was that the old emperor was hypocritical, but considering that the person in front of him was someone else's son, he changed his words to be more gentle.

"My father is not thoughtful?"

Zhu Di's eyes widened. Although he was resentful, he still respected his father very much.

All day long, his mind was constantly working. He went to bed in the middle of the night and got up in the middle of the night. He spent the whole day reviewing memorials, explaining every detail. If it were him, he really wouldn't be able to do it.

"It's too good to be true."

Zhang Chang took the paper from Zhu Di's desk and decided to give Zhu Di a lesson on grain economics.

He was very familiar with this topic. His father kept complaining about how ordinary people had a hard time.

At the beginning of the founding of the dynasty, the late emperor sympathized with farmers. He surveyed the taxed land across the country and registered it, fixing the annual land tax at around 27 million shi of rice. From the first year of Hongwu to the thirty-first year of Hongwu, this number has hardly changed.

The land tax, without going into detail, is roughly one in thirty.

The entire imperial court depended on the income of 27 million shi of rice. The salaries of court officials were paid in rice. Even the annual salaries of the royal family and relatives were calculated in rice.

From the first year of Hongwu to the thirty-first year of Hongwu, in the past thirty years, the population has been increasing, and the number of officials in various places has also been increasing.

Whether it was war, disaster relief, people's livelihood construction, or expenses for the royal family, everything had to be paid out of the inner treasury.

Some of these problems can be solved with food, but some really can't.

The court had seriously insufficient money, and had to find a way to solve the problem.

Don’t the common people still have to perform corvee labor?

Adult labor service was called Jun Yao. In addition to Jun Yao, there was also labor service according to household, which was called Jia Yi. In addition, there was also labor service temporarily assigned by the government office, which was called Za Fan.

This corvée is different from the land tax, there is no fixed number at all.

There are two ways to serve in the army. One is to sell labor, which is called labor service, and the other is to spend money to avoid disaster, which is called silver service.

In the early years of the Hongwu Dynasty, most of the work was done as laborers. Every household had to take turns to do the work of digging ditches, building houses, repairing roads, etc. several times a year.

Before Zhang Chang left Yongcheng and came to Beiping, most of the people in this yamen were silver miners.

The silver difference provides a lot of room for local operations.

The local governments have the final say on how to convert the labor difference into the silver difference, how many times to send troops, and how much can be handed over to the court in the end.

From place to place, everyone goes in and out together.

I will pay the same amount as you do, and we can discuss it together.

In the end, the amount of money handed in is completely different from how much is actually collected.

The taxes may seem very low, but in the end, the common people have to pay more because of corvee labor.

The court was not in a good situation either, as it was all in the hands of these people in the middle.

That's fine, at least everyone can make ends meet.

But the key point is that commercial tax is also 1% of thirty.

This is a typical case of no comparison, no harm.

The farmers were originally farming well, but suddenly they found that it was more profitable to do business.

They work hard for a year, and after selling the crops they grow, they make money by reselling them. They are not afraid of natural disasters or man-made disasters. Whenever there are disasters, it is a time for merchants to make more money.

Later on, big businessmen would take advantage of the farmers' lack of money to buy their land.

Many self-employed farmers became tenant farmers in this way.

When natural disasters strike, tenant farmers who have not harvested any grain of rice cannot pay the rent for their land and have no food to survive, so they become disaster victims.

This kind of thing doesn't just happen in disaster-stricken areas.

This was happening everywhere throughout the Ming Dynasty.

For farmers, natural disasters are major calamities. It is okay for the whole family to be wiped out once one happens, because after all, all four elements will be lost if someone dies.

What they fear more is that family members will get sick, or that able-bodied laborers will become disabled or lose their ability to work while serving in the military, or simply die. These things that happen in daily life can drag an entire family that was able to make a living into a quagmire and become unable to recover.

"You are wrong. Even if the big merchants said they would rent out their land, they still have to pay two taxes, one for land and one for business! Besides, my father also asked everyone to reclaim wasteland, and the reclaimed wasteland was exempted from taxes for three years."

Zhu Di listened very carefully and quickly found the loophole.

"Every policy has its own countermeasure. Your Majesty has never lived among the common people, so he doesn't know that there are so many tricks."

Zhang Chang shook his head violently.

"Then tell me what else is going on."

This is indeed an area that Zhu Di had little knowledge of.

Before I was ten years old, my parents were responsible for taking care of the family’s food and drink.

He became a prince in his teens, and his father was still responsible for the family's food and drink. Even though the annual salary decreased year by year, it was enough for the family to eat and drink.

At this point, the princess, her son, and her daughter-in-law also had a clear account of the palace's income.

"Hang on."

Zhang Chang only said two words.

Before Zhu Di could respond, the monk Daoyan, who had just entered the room, heard him say:

"Who wants to come and attach themselves?"

"Meet the master."

Zhang Chang quickly stood up and saluted.

"Amitabha--"

Monk Daoyan clasped his hands in return.

"understood."

Zhu Di knew a little about affiliation.

His father blindly favored scholars and even gave face to those who had just started studying.

As long as you become a scholar, you don't have to pay taxes or perform labor service. Breaking the law will be extremely tolerant. You don't have to kneel when you see the county magistrate, and you can receive food every month.

He really didn't think it was necessary.

The circle of intellectuals and old officials surrounding his father seemed righteous on the surface, saying they were serving the country and the people and were generous and righteous.

In fact, the interests of scholars were not compromised at all.

The taxes and corvée labor that were set by the court as ancestral rules were all borne by the common people, while the scholars' lives were getting better and better.

The better they are, the more money they will have left over to buy more land.

Good guy.

It’s terrifying to think about it carefully——

[Brief science: The book used to register population in the Ming Dynasty was called the "Yellow Book", and the book used to register land was called the "Fish Scale Book".

In the 6th year of Hongwu, the national population was 6 million. Throughout the Ming Dynasty, the registered population fluctuated around million. The actual population was far more than that.

At the beginning of the Hongwu Dynasty, the registered taxed land was 857 million hectares. By the 422th year of the Hongzhi Dynasty, the registered taxed land had become million hectares.

Throughout the Ming Dynasty, people with power did not have to pay taxes or serve in the military. Rich people used various means to hide their fields and households to avoid paying taxes and serving in the military. The only people who actually paid taxes and served in the military were the poor.