Chapter 236: Overcoming centuries-old disadvantages
"Shi Xiu..."
"Uncle..."
Chen Cao and Song Che hugged each other tightly, and Chen Cao laughed loudly: "Your boy seems to have had a very comfortable life in Japan, but he didn't even get a tan?"
Song Che laughed and said, "Although the sun is not too hot, the Japanese country seems to be cursed. In summer, sea water pours into the interior. In winter, before October, the mountains are covered with heavy snow. If it weren't for the Satsuma clan, If the weather is fine, I will probably run away early..."
"Hahaha..."
The two clapped their shoulders and laughed.
"Let's go home first..."
In the Duke's Mansion, there were only three people, Chen Cao, Li Xiang and Li Waner, accompanying Song Che and Chen Qing's family. Song Che was holding his big fat boy and smiling from ear to ear...
This was considered a family banquet. Song Che had stayed in Japan for three years. His son was already three years old. At this moment, he was babbling in his father's arms and calling him daddy, making everyone laugh.
After the family dinner, Chen Cao took Song Che to the governor's Yamen.
"Toyotomi Hideyoshi, with the help of many people, has now divided the entire Japanese country equally with the Tokugawa shogunate. The Iwami Kingdom is now in our hands. The Toyotomi clan handed over Iwami Ginzan in accordance with the previous agreement with us. It was given to us; the silver ship is now transported by the Haitrade Group;
In addition, the domestic ports of the Satsuma Domain and the various coastal domains are basically under the control of our army. According to the previous instructions of the Lord, only one port was left for them. All the merchant ships of the foreign trade group are now docked at Fangjin Village, and all foreign trade is under our control. Under control. "
Chen Cao nodded: "Did you provoke civil strife?"
Song Che nodded: "Because the Tokugawa clan was dissatisfied with the succession of the third generation of shoguns and the three Gossip families did not support it, a war broke out between the two sides, allowing the Toyotomi clan to take advantage of the situation. Osaka Castle has become the frontline;
According to the previous plan, the two sides must maintain a balance of strength and not let one side dominate. "
"Okay..." Chen Cao was very satisfied: "The Japanese country will be my province in the Ming Dynasty in the future. When the opportunity comes, the army will immediately conquer the Japanese country;
At this stage, I have something big to tell you. "
Song Che sat upright and looked at Chen Cao: "My father-in-law just gave me the order."
Chen Cao pointed to the map on the big round table, and then drew it towards Nanjing: "You take your fleet, plus the warships under Chen Yongsu, to block Zhao Tianlin's way out."
Song Che had already heard about Zhao Tianlin, and immediately expressed his intention to kill this rip-off.
Chen Cao stopped him: "Now Zhao Tianlin has surrendered to the emperor. After the fall of Wei Zhongxian, he is just a sheep to be slaughtered. It is not a big problem, but the matter of blocking Zhenjiang's seaport must be implemented. This kind of villain has to Be on guard.”
"Okay, leave this matter to me..."
.
Chen Cao's focus today is to go to Huating County. Huang Shijing and Liu Wenzheng have been waiting for a long time after receiving the news.
In the magistrate's office, Qingpu Magistrate Tan Wenhua, who had received the news in advance, saluted Chen Cao as he walked into the lobby: "I have seen the Duke..."
After Chen Cao took his seat, he directly asked Tan Wenhua: "Does Magistrate Tan know my intentions?"
Tan Wenhua just wanted to do this for this important event: "The lower officials already know."
Tan Wenhua's mentor was Fang Congzhe, who belonged to the Zhejiang Party. However, as the saying goes, do as the Romans do, Tan Wenhua also became a corrupt member of the Ming Dynasty. Songjiang Prefecture had enough oil and water, and Qingpu County had enough oil and water. He was greedy for five dollars a year. Sixty thousand taels of silver is not a big problem.
However, Chen Cao's major task today is to integrate the fields of Songjiang Prefecture. This kind of thing, let alone Chen Cao, even if Zhang Juzheng wants to implement a whip method when he is in power, it is even more difficult. Zhang Juzheng is even more difficult because of This event caused his downfall.
Huang Shijing and Liu Wenzheng are now Chen Cao's people, and people like Chen Cao who call themselves Songjiang Prefecture can use people who are completely responsible for their own affairs.
Therefore, there are only two paths before Tan Wenhua, either to follow Chen Cao's footsteps honestly, or to be replaced by Chen Cao.
Unless Tan Wenhua has a lot of substantive evidence of Chen Cao's rebellion, judging from the number of unruly people in Qingpu County, it is no big deal whether Tan Wenhua has these things.
"Songjiang Prefecture has a total of 630,000 and 5,400 acres of land, including 110,000 official land, 200,000 private land, and the rest is private land."
Chen Cao threw the field register on the table as he spoke: "Before I get down to business, I would like to talk to you about the ancestral system of our Ming Dynasty...
Mr. Huang, what happened to Emperor Taizu's exemption from taxation for scholars? "
Of course Huang Shijing knew this and quickly handed it over: "Hui Gongye, in the early days of the Han Dynasty, the status of the Han people was low, and the treatment of scholars was very low. The life of scholars who became officials was difficult. In order to reduce the burden of scholars, Emperor Taizu made a Scholars do not have to pay land tax after passing the scholar examination, in order to prevent those who study seriously from farming and paying tax..."
"Well," Chen Cao nodded with satisfaction: "But this situation changed after Emperor Yingzong. Those big serf landowners all learned a skill and gave their fields to this scholar to flatter him. It's called dedication...
Not only that, even the common people have learned to be smart and put their fields in the name of the scholar. They only need to pay a small half of the taxes paid to the imperial court by the scholar, and they can be exempted from the taxes for that year. You say, this kind of How to do it? "
Huang Shijing's current weather vane is good, so she quickly handed it over: "The national tax revenue has been greatly reduced, and various tax increases and assessments can only be extracted from the hands of farmers, so that the current national household department is in dire straits."
Chen Cao said and looked at Tan Wenhua: "How much land does Tan Zhixian have under his name?"
Tan Wenhua was so embarrassed that he didn't know what to say, so Huang Shijing took the initiative to speak: "My lord, generally after winning the election for magistrates like Tan Zhixian, local landowners with registered residence will give away at least fifty acres of land. The most important thing is to pave the way for the future. , I am ashamed to be a lower official, but I also had a hundred acres of land to my name back then."
"How many private lands does Mr. Huang have in Songjiang now?"
Huang Shijing replied: "Now there are 1,600 acres of private land."
When Tan Wenhua saw the prefect Huang Shijing and Chen Cao singing in harmony, he immediately had an ominous premonition, and sure enough.
"The lower official is willing to donate all his private land to be used as official land."
Hi...
Tan Wenhua's face turned green. Under his rule in Qingpu County, there were people who were serving as officials in the Nanzhili Department and some who retired and became officials. Now Huang Shijing cooperated with Chen Cao to do this, which made it clear that he wanted to coordinate the entire Songjiang Prefecture.
Tan Wenhua immediately handed over his hand and asked tentatively: "Is this move by the Lord to consolidate the entire Songjiang Prefecture's fields?"
Chen Cao did not directly answer Tan Wenhua's words, so he asked again: "Does the dynasty collect commercial taxes? Or, does Emperor Taizu have an ancestral system and cannot collect commercial taxes?"
These few questions made everyone confused immediately. It seems that Master Hong Wu didn't explicitly say that he would not accept it, right?
Seeing this, Chen Cao immediately winked at Zhao Xin, and then he saw an old man in his fifties walking in from the door.
Just when everyone was curious, the visitor bowed and said, "I have seen the master..."
Servant?
In the Ming Dynasty, if a man claimed to be a slave, he could only be one kind of person, eunuch...
There is no feudal lord in Songjiang Prefecture...
Chen Cao pointed to the person who came: "My lords, let me introduce you. This father-in-law is the former eunuch Bingbi, the former chief of etiquette, and the nine thousand-year-old Wei Zhongxian. Eunuch Wei..."
ah?
Everyone was shocked, Wei Zhongxian was actually here...
Who doesn't know that the imperial court went to sea to capture the fugitive Wei Zhongxian? More importantly, it was clear that this Wei Zhongxian was Chen Cao's old boss.
Who doesn't know that Chen Cao is where he is today because of Wei Zhongxian's contribution?
Huang Shijing quickly saluted Wei Zhongxian: "I have seen Eunuch Wei..."
After everyone paid their respects, Chen Cao asked: "Eunuch Wei, come and tell everyone, did Emperor Taizu have the ancestral system not to collect commercial taxes in the early days of the dynasty?"
Wei Zhongxian bowed: "Back to my lord, during the reign of Emperor Hongwu, the industry and commerce could not be restored because the world was not long after peace, and all commercial transactions at that time were monopolized by the imperial court, and all merchants were big merchants, so there was no Commercial taxes are collected on a large scale, but only on a small scale;
During the reign of Emperor Xiaozong, the imperial court collected a lot from commercial taxes. At that time, the imperial court's revenue from commercial taxes could be as huge as five million taels. "
"Then when did the imperial court stop collecting commercial taxes?"
Facing Chen Cao's inquiry, Wei Zhongxian replied again: "After Emperor Wuzong, Emperor Shizong succeeded to the throne, the lords, ministers and imperial estates of the country were involved in business in various fields, and the business tax gradually became unable to be collected."
Chen Cao chuckled and looked at everyone in the hall: "Have you heard that the country has been collecting commercial taxes from the beginning? It was only during the Jiajing Dynasty that this strange phenomenon of collecting commercial taxes to compete with the people for profit appeared. That is to say, Emperor Taizu Wu never said that commercial taxes were undesirable from the beginning, so there is no question of whether collecting commercial taxes in the future is competing with the people for profit."
Chen Cao asked Wei Zhongxian to stand beside him, then looked at Tan Wenming and said, "President Tan, do you think this business tax is advisable?"
Tan Wenhua broke out in cold sweat on his forehead. Liu Wenzheng had reminded him before, but the people in Qingpu were not so easy to deal with. If he wanted to collect commercial taxes in Qingpu, Tan Wenhua felt that the landlords and gentry in Qingpu would resist and trigger a riot: "The public Master, this matter is going to be lowered...it's really difficult to handle..."
"Is it because you find it difficult to handle it yourself, or is it because the wealthy officials in Qingpu are putting pressure on you?"
Chen Cao's words were heart-wrenching, and Tan Wenhua immediately stood up and handed them over: "My lord, I don't know. The governance of Qingpu County depends entirely on the local gentry. It's not that the lower officials have nothing to say, but they are given preferential treatment in taxes every year." , only in order to get praise for political achievements;
Besides, there are many retired senior officials from Nanzhili in the city. I really can’t afford to offend these people when they are demoted. I would like to ask you to take a closer look..."
"Confused..." Huang Shijing scolded: "Master Tan, you are the parent official of Qingpu. When did the county government of Qingpu turn to a group of landlords, common people and gentry officials to take charge?"
