This time the annihilation of the White Lotus Sect's honorable group was a great success. Even the Beijing camp, which had always been crotchless, actually achieved considerable results.
Although Zhu Chunchen's Shenji Battalion suffered a disastrous defeat, under Li Xianzhong's polish, it became Cheng Guogong, a righteous man who used himself as bait to attract the main force of bandits.
The heads of the core members of the White Lotus Sect who were captured and beheaded were regarded as Zhu Chunchen's gains.
The British Duke Zhang Weixian regained a large number of states and counties in Yanzhou in one fell swoop, which was a real achievement.
The two also received awards from the court.
This battle also gave the court the illusion that the Beijing camp could fight.
Zhu Chunchen also understood that his Shenji Battalion lacked training, so after returning to Beijing, he quickly recruited some soldiers and started training intensively.
Now Li Xianzhong, who is the Duke of Liao, is equal to Zhang Weixian in terms of title.
In addition, he is the largest real power among the nobles, and now sits in Liaodong and North Korea.
The nobles all followed Li Xianzhong to make a fortune in North Korea, and he naturally became the leader of the noble circle in the capital.
Xiong Tingbi, Minister of the Ministry of War, has now become Li Xianzhong's public spokesperson in the court. Although the Xungui Group's right to speak in the court is limited, it is an indisputable fact that their influence is gradually increasing.
Currently, among the six ministries, Xiong Tingbi's Ministry of War belongs to Li Xianzhong's noble forces. Feng Quan, Shangshu of the Ministry of Personnel, and Wu Chunfu, Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, are from Wei Zhongxian. Li Ruhua, the Shangshu of the Ministry of Revenue, is a neutral person, while the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Punishments are in the hands of the Donglin Party members.
However, since Yang Lian and Zuo Guangdou were killed, the Inspectorate has been controlled by the eunuch forces.
Cui Chengxiu, the censor of the left capital, and Li Kuilong, the censor of the left deputy capital, were both from Wei Zhongxian.
Wei Zhongxian, who controls both the Ministry of Personnel and the Inspectorate, only needs to wait until next year to use the "Beijing Inspection" held every six years to completely drive the Donglin Party members out of the court.
Since Wei Zhongxian controlled Dongchang and Jinyiwei and could directly send people to prison, the role of the Punishment Department was greatly weakened.
The number of cabinet members has now increased to 9.
They are Han Xu, Feng Quan, Xiong Tingbi, He Zongyan, Zhu Guozuo, Gu Bingqian, Zhu Yanxi, Wei Guangwei and Sun Chengzong.
The five new cabinet ministers are Feng Quan, Gu Bingqian, Zhu Yanxi, Wei Guangwei, and Sun Chengzong.
Among them, Zhu Yanxi and Sun Chengzong were members of the Donglin Party, while Feng Quan, Gu Bingqian, and Wei Guangwei had already defected to the Eunuch Party.
Since He Zongyan and Zhu Guozuo, who are neutral in stance, are still politically biased towards the Donglin Party, Han Xu, as the chief assistant, still has the say in the cabinet.
In fact, Li Xianzhong had never attended the court meeting, but he was granted the title of Duke of Liao this time and happened to be in the capital, so he could not find a reason not to go to court.
The court meetings of the Ming Dynasty were usually held outside the palace, which was called "imperial gate listening to politics."
During the morning court, ministers must get up at midnight and travel through half of the capital to the Meridian Gate. At Yinshi (3 a.m.), the minister arrived and waited outside the Meridian Gate.
When the drum on the Meridian Gate tower beats, the ministers will line up; when the bell rings around Mao hour (5 a.m.), the palace gate opens.
All the officials entered one after another, crossed the Jinshui Bridge, and formed a team in the square.
At almost Maozheng time (6 o'clock), the emperor came to the Gate of Supreme Harmony to listen to the reports from the officials.
This is the early morning time in spring and summer. In autumn and winter, due to the late dawn, it will be delayed by half an hour.
Of course, not all cats and dogs are qualified to report to the emperor. Only officials of fourth rank and above have the opportunity to talk to the emperor.
Ministers reported government affairs to the emperor, who asked questions or gave answers.
To be honest, after this set of procedures, if you don’t have a good body, you won’t be able to withstand it.
We have to gather at 3 o'clock and get up at least an hour in advance.
If it's okay in the summer, in the winter in the capital, it's time to go out and be exposed to the cold. Without a good body, it's impossible to bear it, so it's very common for ministers to take leave and miss the morning court.
Of course, those petty officials must have arrived and lined up in advance. Those elderly ministers would usually arrive a little later, but they certainly could not make the emperor wait for him. They would usually arrive at least two or three times earlier than the emperor. Arrive in a quarter of an hour.
It has been three and a half years since Li Xianzhong first came to Beijing in the 47th year of Wanli.
Although he has been to the palace many times, this is the first time he has gone to court in the morning.
Emperor Wanli did not attend the morning court at all, and Emperor Taichang spent all his time in prison.
Although Tianqi Chao encountered morning court several times when he was in Beijing, Li Xianzhong disliked the trouble of morning court and took leave of absence.
This time he was just promoted to the title of Duke by His Majesty. If he didn't even go to court in the morning, he would inevitably be called arrogant and domineering.
Therefore, Li Xianzhong had to get up early.
Even if I get up early, I'm not allowed to eat.
The officials tried their best to eliminate the feces and urine in their stomachs before going to court, and then they were not allowed to eat or drink, not even drink water.
The most you can do is hold a few slices of ginseng in your mouth to replenish your energy.
Li Xianzhong also had to sigh: "No wonder Emperor Wanli refused to go to court early. Who the hell set these rules? It's completely ineffective and just a torment!"
The ministers waiting before the start of the morning court were also clearly divided into three waves: the eunuch party, the Donglin party, and the neutral parties and nobles formed a wave.
As the sky gradually became brighter, the ministers gradually arrived.
At this time, a large number of lights suddenly appeared in the darkness. The eight eunuchs at the front were holding big red gauze lanterns to guide them, followed by a long list of honor guards, and behind the team were two rows of bright Dutch chandeliers that illuminated the surroundings.
Finally, there is a phoenix chariot with a high hub and embroidered curtains and tassels and jade pendants. Sitting on the chariot is the Hakka family.
At this time, a large number of eunuch officials knelt on the ground to greet her from a distance, shouting: "Welcome to the Holy Lady!"
The Donglin Party members on the side had expressions of disdain.
There were hundreds of people in this scene, and Li Xianzhong thought it was Emperor Tianqi who came.
Fortunately, Zhu Chunchen on the side reminded him that this was the Hakka family, otherwise he might have knelt down along with the group of people in confusion.
Ke Yinyue, on the other hand, had a condescending attitude and didn't even look at the group of kneeling eunuch officials below.
But when the phoenix chariot passed in front of Li Xianzhong, Ke Yinyue signaled the bearers to stop.
She said with a slight smile: "The Duke of Liao actually came to the morning court today. This is the first time I've seen him. It's rare!"
At this time, Li Xianzhong could only hold up his hands and said: "Xianzhong has met Madam Fengsheng!"
Then the sedan chair of Ke Yinyue's casualties continued to move forward.
Li Xianzhong immediately felt that this woman was very powerful. With a simple sentence, he pulled Li Xianzhong onto the eunuch's chariot.
Although Li Xianzhong's collusion with Wei Zhongxian was not a secret, it was still done secretly and secretly.
Her words clearly caused a wave of hatred for Li Xianzhong in front of the Donglin Party.
Several Donglin Party members from the Ministry of War greeted Li Xianzhong before, but now they looked at Li Xianzhong with anger in their eyes.
It seemed that Li Xianzhong was more shameless than those officials who knelt on the ground and kowtowed to guest Yinyue!
But to be honest, Ke's appearance is really good, with fair skin and very delicate facial features, especially the size of the pair of jade rabbits on her chest, which are definitely larger than those of Li Xianzhong's women.
She doesn't look like a servant at all, but has the temperament of a royal sister.
With the arrival of Zhu Youxiao, the court meeting finally began.
First, officials reported the disasters in various places, and then either requested tax reductions or exemptions or allocated money to repair dams. Anyway, it was just two words of money.
Then Xiong Tingbi reported the list of rewards and soldiers' pensions drawn up by the Ministry of War to quell the White Lotus Rebellion in Shandong, which required another 500,000 taels of silver.
Li Ruhua, the Secretary of the Ministry of Household Affairs, was very calm. He just said "no money"!
Li Xianzhong listened for a long time. The group of people argued with each other, and in the end they couldn't come up with any useful solution to the problem.
But he knew these were just appetizers.
Sure enough, Feng Quan said not long after: "Now that the Jianzhou Rebellion in Liaodong has been put down, it is really not advisable to collect 'Liao pay' from the people."
"Now that there is a severe drought in the world and the people's hearts are unstable, in order to appease the people and stabilize the hearts of the people, I ask your Majesty to cancel the 'Liao pay'."
No matter what Feng Quan's purpose was, what he said was actually not wrong.
Given the current situation in the Ming Dynasty, continuing to collect "Liao rates" will only lead to the emergence of more peasant rebels.
However, Ming Dynasty's fiscal revenue was insufficient, which was a contradiction that was difficult to resolve.
Sure enough, this proposal was quickly opposed by Li Ruhua, the Minister of Household Affairs, and other Donglin Party members.
It's normal for Li Ruhua to object, because the Ministry of Revenue simply can't come up with any money.
The silver reward for quelling the White Lotus Rebellion in Shandong this time was all taken from Zhu Youxiao's internal funds.
However, the Donglin Party members opposed it, mainly to prevent Wei Zhongxian from re-imposing commercial taxes in Jiangnan.
For a while, the two sides were at loggerheads.
In fact, the nobles are also opposed to increasing business taxes. After all, this is taking money directly from their mouths.
However, Li Xianzhong did not express his position at this time, and they did not dare to express their position at will.
Tianqi Emperor Zhu Youxiao had nothing to do about this. Every time he talked about money, he would argue endlessly and then withdraw it from his internal funds.
Although he does not care much about money, he is not a fool. Although the property in his name, Huangzhuang, can add some income to the internal funds, how can he afford to spend it like this?
In the final analysis, we still need to increase fiscal revenue, which is why he acquiesced in Wei Zhongxian's use of various means to suppress the Donglin Party.
But today's situation is different. After all, Li Xianzhong is here.
So Zhu Youxiao said: "The Duke of Liao must know the situation in Liaodong best. I wonder what the Duke of Liao's attitude is towards the cancellation of 'Liao pay'?"
Li Xianzhong said: "I agree with Feng Shangshu's suggestion to cancel the 'Liao pay'. First of all, Jianzhou has been pacified, and there will be no more large-scale conquests for the time being."
"As for Daishan who is entrenched in North Korea, as the governor of North Korea, I will naturally mobilize the Ming army stationed in North Korea to fight, and leave the general's salary to the King of North Korea!"
At this time, Li Ruhua said to Li Xianzhong: "The Ministry of Revenue is grateful to the Liao Kingdom for the fair decision to establish a state, which allowed the court to save a large sum of military pay. However, Liaodong Town still has an army of 100,000, and the annual salary of the soldiers is as high as 1.8 million taels of silver. In addition, the cost of food and grass is still a huge amount. In the past, it could only be paid by relying on the 'Liao salary'. Now that it has been canceled rashly, it will be difficult for the Ministry of Revenue to ensure that the salaries of Liaodong soldiers are paid on time!"
Li Xianzhong said: "Since my father-in-law took charge of Liaodong's economic strategy, the garrison in Liaodong Town has become less and less. Now Liaodong Town has the territory of the former Haixi Jurchen Hada tribe, as well as a large area of Jianzhou Jurchen territory. However, the military strength has increased from The previous 130,000 has been reduced to 100,000.”
"Furthermore, the copper ore that Hongtoushan Copper Mine submits to the court every year is worth 600,000 taels of silver. Coupled with the taxes from Liaodong, the burden caused by Liaodong to the Ming Dynasty is getting less and less!"
Zhu Youxiao said: "I have long heard that the Duke of Liao is good at managing money. I wonder if there is any way to reduce Liaodong's expenses."
Li Xianzhong thought to himself: Zhu Youxiao is planning to trick him again. It seems that it would be better to just ask for leave in the morning.
Forget it, for the sake of him just being promoted to Duke, I might as well make some concessions so that he can feel at ease!
Li Xianzhong said: "The only way to save money is to increase revenue and reduce expenditure!"
"Previously, in order to prevent Mongolian ministries from secretly communicating with Jianzhou, the horse market was cancelled. Now that Jianzhou has been pacified, the horse market can be restored. I request that the horse markets in Guangning and Kaiyuan be restored. In this way, the court can increase the number of horses every year An income of more than 100,000 taels."
"Now that the threat of statehood has been basically resolved, the Ningyuan Road in western Liaoning can be cancelled. I suggest using the Xiaoling River as the boundary, and dividing the original Ningyuan Road's territory into Shanhaiguan and Guangning respectively. In this way, Liaodong can reduce the garrison of 5,000 troops."
Although the recovery of the horse market has a certain impact on Li Xianzhong, it is not significant. Now that he has 200,000 acres of land in Yanzhou, as well as a large number of immigrants from Liaodong and the development of Taiwan, he can give up the little food provided by the "Open China Law".
As for the abolition, after all, there are still some generals and troops in Liaodong who do not listen to their orders, so they just take this opportunity to drive them out of Liaodong.
After Li Xianzhong expressed his position, Zhu Youxiao was very satisfied and said on the spot: "It was the public method of the Liao State that solved the substantive problem immediately. Dear friends, you have been arguing for a long time. Can you reduce the expenditure of Ming Dynasty by one tael or increase it by one tael?" Money income?"
Then he said: "I have decided to completely ban the 'Liao pay' to reduce the burden on the people of the world. However, the court still needs to increase revenue and reduce expenditure. My dear friends, please don't talk so much useless nonsense. Next, we are only allowed to discuss 'increase revenue' and 'reduction of expenditure' These two topics.”
Zhu Youxiao's words left Donglin Party members speechless. After all, what they have been saying is "cannot compete with the people for profit", and His Majesty has made it clear that this is nonsense.
Especially for the honorable nobles, if you want to save money, it is natural to check for "empty pay". There are 170,000 people in the Beijing camp, and the number of "empty pay" is as high as more than 110,000.
They definitely don't support "reducing expenditures", so they can only settle for the next best thing and support "open source", which means paying a little commercial tax. Anyway, Ming Dynasty's commercial tax rate is not high.
Wei Zhongxian soon took over Zhu Youxiao's words and said: "The total fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty last year was 7.55 million taels of silver, and various expenditures were as high as 11.3 million taels."
"Among them, His Majesty's internal funds supported 2 million taels, and the remaining 1.75 million taels are still in arrears."
"The increase in the court's revenue last year was mainly due to Cui Chengxiu's appointment as governor of Huaiyang and his vigorous promotion of Yuan Shizhen's reform of the Salt Law and the implementation of the Gang Salt Law. As a result, the court's salt tax revenue reached 2.5 million taels, the highest record in the history of the Ming Dynasty. Previously, the corrupt official Li When Sancai was in office, the highest salt tax in Lianghuai did not exceed 600,000 taels, and sometimes it was as low as only 200,000 taels."
"But this year's natural disasters will be more serious. Taxes in various places will definitely drop sharply, and the salt tax will definitely be affected! If there is no increase in commercial taxes, then the court's income will definitely drop significantly this year."
The reason why Eunuch Wei said to increase taxes was because the Ming Dynasty originally had commercial taxes.
The main taxes in the Ming Dynasty were agricultural taxes and salt taxes, but there were still commercial taxes.
The first is the banknote checkpoint, which is mainly set up on the Yangtze River and canals. It taxes the load of ships passing through. This tax generates more revenue.
Other similar ones include industrial taxes, gate taxes, dam crossing taxes, and ship taxes (which are different from ship bills and are taxed on goods). There are extremely many types and tax rates. For example, the industrial taxes can be as high as three draws because of the construction of the palace. two.
In the first year of Tianqi, under the urging of Wei Zhongxian, the tax amount reached 439,000 taels.
There is also the customs tax. The agency that managed the customs in the Ming Dynasty was the Municipal Shipping Department. Its main objects were tributes and private goods in the tribute trade. The tributes were not taxed when they were delivered to the royal family, but the "private goods" carried by tribute ships were not taxed.
In the early stage, "price purchase" was implemented, and in the middle and late stages, "point extraction" was implemented. "Point extraction" involves drawing physical objects, and the tax rate for the points is 2 out of 10. Involving customs duties are items such as the Commercial Introduction Law, rates collection, and rate increases.
However, due to the Ming Dynasty's maritime ban, customs tax revenue was not high, only about 60,000 taels in previous years.
In the first year of Tianqi, under the intensive surveillance of the Eunuch Party, it only increased to 79,000 taels.
The above two are actually commercial taxes in a broad sense.
The commercial tax in the narrow sense of the Ming Dynasty covers food, fruits, vegetables, livestock and other general merchandise. This type of tax is a thirty-one tax, which is collected by the local tax department.
Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty was relatively resistant to commercial taxes (actually, this thing did not collect much money, but it was more likely to harm the people), so he reduced the tax departments with smaller tax amounts and did not impose sanctions on tax departments that failed to meet the targets. Moreover, all items for personal use are tax-free.
In addition to the levy on department stores, there are four other items.
The first is the wine and vinegar tax. The Ming Dynasty originally implemented a wine ban, but the ban continued repeatedly. Later, the wine and vinegar tax was imposed, and it was levied twice on koji and wine.
The second is the market stall tax, which was levied in the Hongxi Dynasty. This tax is similar to the later business tax and is also collected by the Tax Department.
The three deed taxes mainly focus on contracts and are divided into two parts: labor cost and tax silver. The former has a labor cost of 40 cents, and the latter is three cents for every two taels of silver.
The Four Fishing Classes were collected through Hebo Stations. In the early Ming Dynasty, there were more than 320 Hebo Stations. Some provinces had so many that the taxes collected could not cover the expenses.
Among them, the fishing class simply cannot make ends meet, so this tax has been abandoned.
Due to the collusion between government and businessmen, the other three items basically do not collect much tax, and the total amount nationwide is only tens of thousands taels.
So this time Wei Zhongxian proposed that commercial tax mainly covers three aspects:
The first is Chaoguan, which mainly targets merchant ships on the Yangtze River canal. For example, Xushuguan near Suzhou has hundreds of thousands of taels at each pass every year.
Obviously, the main target is the Jiangnan gentry.
The second is the store tax. This tax was almost useless before.
When the previous tax was collected, it was stipulated that shops in various places should pay rent according to the size of the shop and the industry. The annual tax ranged from 5 taels to 200 taels.
The maximum annual levy for some hugely profitable industries, such as brothels and pawnshops, has reached 1,000 taels.
As long as this tax is implemented in various places, it will not be a problem for the court to increase its income by millions of taels.
Mainly the capital and big cities such as Yangzhou, Nanjing and Suzhou.
The third is deed tax.
The deed tax reform increased the cost of production to 50 yuan, while the tax rate remained at 3%, or three cents for every two silvers.
It was obvious that Eunuch Wei must have been guided by an expert behind this.
Even Li Ruhua, the Minister of Household Affairs, was shocked. After the shock, he expressed his full support for Wei Eunuch's commercial tax policy.
Naturally, the eunuchs under Wei Zhongxian also agreed one after another.
This actually affected Li Xianzhong's commercial tax in Liaodong, because it overlapped with the commercial tax he collected privately.
But the problem is not big. When the time comes, he will come forward to deal with the tax inspectors who go to Liaodong to collect taxes, and directly collect taxes at the lowest rate of 5-10 taels per year. Those merchants should not have much objection. At most, the court's shops and stalls will be exempted from their own taxes. Just taxes.
In the end, Li Xianzhong had no choice but to grit his teeth and agree. After all, compared with the profits from silk going to Japan, he really looked down upon these small amounts of money.
Quan should support Eunuch Wei’s reform!
Although the nobles in the capital are unwilling to pay more taxes, these are just a small expense compared to checking the wages.
Chengguo Gong Zhu Chunchen said: "I fully support this tax policy and said that Jubaozhai under my name directly pays the industry's highest tax of 200 taels per year!"
Then some Qingliu members of the Donglin Party also began to support the imperial court's increase in commercial taxes.
The Donglin bosses had no choice but to follow the crowd and agree.
Anyway, it is one thing for the court to levy it, but how much it can actually collect is another matter.
The capital is under the emperor's feet, and these commercial taxes will definitely not be able to escape. At most, the tax officials can be bribed to collect less.
But Jiangnan has always been armed to resist taxes. This time the eunuchs have imposed multiple tariff increases, they will definitely rise up to resist!
In the end, the plan to increase the commercial tax was passed. Let’s call it the “Apocalypse Commercial Tax” for the time being.
Zhu Youxiao was very happy. This solved a big trouble for the court.
I just wanted to announce my resignation.
But at this time, Li Xianzhong said: "Li Xianzhong, the Duke of Liao, please reinstate the command and envoys of Nu'ergandu!"
Nurgan Dusi was established in the seventh year of Yongle (1409).
During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, the posts of Dusi were generally held by Han people, and there were also local officials.
Although the Ming Dynasty did not officially abolish Nuergandusi, due to the establishment of floating officials, transportation of grain was very costly. Therefore, it was almost in a state of abandonment during the Xuande period.
Emperor Tianqi said: "I am very pleased that the Duke of Liao intends to open up territory for the Ming Dynasty. However, the restoration of Nurgan Dusi has almost no output and requires a lot of extra money and food. At present, the court may not be able to do it. !”
Li Xianzhong said: "Now that the Jianzhou Jurchen threat has been eliminated, the imperial court naturally took the opportunity to expand its power to the Heilongjiang Basin."
"As for money and food, Your Majesty does not need to worry. You can place Nurgan Dusi under the jurisdiction of Liaodong Economic Strategy. I will gradually develop the stronghold in the form of a garrison to ensure that it is self-sufficient and does not require the court to spend additional money and food."
Expanding territory is definitely what every emperor wants to see. Since there is no need to spend money, Zhu Youxiao has no worries.
After all, Li Xianzhong opened a horse market and reduced his military strength, so this face should be given to him.
So he said: "From now on, the Ming Dynasty will restore Nuerqiandu to command the envoys department, and it will be under the command of Li Xianzhong, the Liaodong governor!"
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(End of chapter)
