Zuo Guangxian looked worried when he spoke, as if a disaster was about to happen.
Zhu Cixiang, who was listening to him, was smiling and looking nonchalant.
The mutiny in Jiangnan didn't matter to him, so what else was there to be afraid of? At least Zhu Cihong was not afraid of civil uprisings among the serfs and tenants in Jiangnan. If it were an armed uprising by workers in Shanghai, it would still be a bit of a headache.
However, the Shanghai port has not yet opened, and it is unlikely that a large group of industrial workers will be formed within a hundred or two hundred years...
Zuo Guang glanced at the young prince first, and suddenly felt helpless in his heart. As a prince, why are you not afraid of civil unrest? How terrible the civil uprising is! Aren't rogue bandits the result of a civil unrest? If chaos breaks out in Jiangnan, the Ming Dynasty will be doomed!
Thinking of this, Zuo Guangxian decided to add a little more code. He said to Zhu Cihong: "Your Highness, during the rebellion of Xu thieves in Zhejiang last year, the Zhejiang rebels issued the Yongchang reign name. In Hangzhou, Ningbo and other places, there were also posters to welcome the intruders. The king's notice caused people to panic. The reason why the situation was stable was because the scholar-officials in the southeast were still united with the imperial court. If the imperial court took away their tax exemptions, many scholar-officials would be unable to suppress the local areas for the imperial court.
In addition...the bad rules of surrender and deceitful mail also made the wealthy gentry families in the southeast many slaves. These slaves joined wealthy families in order to escape the taxes and corvee imposed by the court. Nowadays, on the one hand, the imperial court promotes the unified payment of taxes by officials and gentry, and on the other hand, it exempts them from taxes and servitude. It will definitely make the hearts of those who have surrendered themselves as slaves and tenants fluctuate! I'm afraid that the day when the unified taxation policy is promulgated, the slave rebellion in Jiangnan will break out! "
"Zuo Xunxian (Zuo Guang was the Zhejiang Xunxian first)," Zhu Cixiang smiled, "If there are unscrupulous people colluding with bandits in the south of the Yangtze River, it will indeed be a serious problem."
Zuo Guangxian breathed a sigh of relief and glanced at Qian Qianyi and Hou Xun who were sitting upright. Although he was not a Jinshi and could not be the Three Lords of Donglin, he was much better than the two of you when it came to his ability to scare the prince with scaremongering. !
However, Qian Qianyi and Hou Xun just shook their heads slightly, this matter is not that easy...
Sure enough, what Zhu Cihong said next immediately made Zuo Guangxian a little dumbfounded.
"That's why I want to clear the villages and clear the fields...Only by completing the clearing of the villages and clearing the fields, the imperial court can control enough land. With the land, the land can be equalized. And equalizing the land can allow the imperial court to firmly control a large amount of land." population! With enough land and population, the imperial court will not be afraid of rogue bandits, civil unrest and Tartars!"
What? You want equal land... Zuo Guang was stunned for a moment, thinking to himself, is your father Emperor Chongzhen or Li Zicheng?
Li Zicheng did not really equalize the land, so he clamored to be exempted from taxes for three years. Now that you have arrived, you have gone a step further. Not only will you be exempted from paying taxes for five years, but you will also be able to equalize the land!
Well, I'm not afraid of being a thief anymore... You are a fucking thief!
At this time, Wei Zaode, who was about to be elected as the Three Lords of Donglin, interjected: "According to the estimates of the Ministry of Household Affairs and Juntunwei, in the southeastern provinces of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Fujian alone, the total number of Juntuns, official fields, and hidden fields is No less than 10,000,000 acres! These fields are owned by the imperial court and can be used to equalize the land and grant them to households for farming, so that they can pay land rent. Based on 10,000,000 acres, the average rent per acre is five dou, of which One bucket is used to collect rent and transport grain, and the rest is stored in the warehouse. The annual income of the imperial court can also be 40 million stones, rice and noodles.
In addition, it is already the limit for one household to cultivate 20 to 30 acres. Ten thousand acres can be granted to at least 4 million households, almost 20 million households... These households will be under the jurisdiction of the imperial military garrison and become tenants of the emperor. The country can recruit soldiers and conscripts from them, without having to use the efforts of ordinary households.
There are 4 million households. Even if 10 households send out one soldier, there will still be 400,000 available troops! With 400,000 soldiers, why are we afraid of bandits, civil unrest, and Tartars? "
See you in the picture! This is competing with the people for profit!
Zuo Guang took a breath first. It turned out that Zhu Cihong was worse than Li Zicheng. No wonder Li Zicheng suffered a lot after he came to power...
"Your Highness, the tens of thousands of acres of military villages, official fields, and hidden fields in the southeast actually all have owners! If the court wants to take them back, isn't it afraid that the officials will force the gentry to change?"
The person who raised the objection was an old man in his sixties, a little overweight, speaking with a southern Fujian accent and wearing a blue Buru suit.
Zhu Cixiang knew that this man was a great Confucian from Fujian, and he was called the "Two Zhou" Zodiac Zhou together with Liu Zongzhou, the master of Xinxue who founded the Jishan School.
"Mr. Shi Zhai," Zhu Cixiang was still very polite to Huang Daozhou and respectfully called him "Mr. Shi Zhai." However, he would not retreat at all from the position that he should stick to. "In my opinion, the biggest malpractice of this dynasty is There are three reasons: first, there are too many clans; second, the military attachés of the guard are hereditary; and third, the gentry has too much power.
Now the imperial court is vigorously rectifying the clan houses and health offices, and I don't know how many people have lost their hereditary official status. Are the southeastern gentry more noble than the clan and more adept at fighting than the hereditary military attachés? The clan and military officers can be reorganized and eliminated, the clan salary can be greatly reduced, and the land of the guard station can be recovered and divided heavily, but when it comes to the gentry, they can't be provoked and cannot be moved?
Moreover, I have exempted myself from the land tax for five years, and am also planning to exempt the people in the southeast from the corvee... In the next five years, the people will not have to pay grain for the land, and the people will not have to serve as errands, nor will they have to pay the money for exemption. Isn't such a policy of benefiting the people enough to appease the people of the southeast? "
Huang Daozhou shook his head and sighed: "I will not say what is right or wrong today, I will only talk about whether the people will turn into slaves! If we talk about right and wrong, the imperial court is indeed right... But now the rogue bandits and Tartars are attacking If the evil gentry and oppressed people in the southeast change externally, and the evil gentry and the people in the southeast change internally, I am afraid that the situation of the rejuvenation of the southeast will be destroyed in one day!"
Zhu Cixiang nodded and said with a smile: "I am indeed worried that the enemy will attack from outside and the gentry will be in chaos at home. That's why I convened this Donglin Conference... I hope that the Donglin Party will be in danger when the country is in danger and China is about to collapse. , can stand up and defend the country and the people. Mr. Shi Zhai, you are a great scholar in Fujian, and you are highly respected in the Fujian area. You said, how can we not only pacify the Fujian gentry, but also take back official and military fields? Can we also impose strict business taxes?”
"This..." This embarrassed Zodiac Zhou.
He, a great scholar, does not study this matter!
Zhu Cixiang's eyes swept across the lobby, taking in all the expressions on the faces of the important figures attending the Donglin Conference, and finally fell on Huang Zongxi and Grand Duke Luo, who were frowning.
The great Confucian Huang Daozhou studied the Book of Changes, while these two Confucian scholars studied society and politics - becoming a great Confucian cannot be achieved by virtue of high moral character or good writing of eight-part essays. A great Confucian must have made outstanding contributions to Confucianism!
Confucianism is a comprehensive system that includes natural philosophy and social philosophy. To put it more simply, it is the answer given by Confucianism to the world outlook, outlook on life, and values. In later generations, due to the collapse of the Confucian worldview, people mistakenly thought that Confucianism had no worldview and no content in natural philosophy. Some people also mistakenly thought that great Confucians were moral Confucians... In fact, this is not the case at all! It's just that Confucian natural philosophy has taken a wrong path - mistakes are not without value, because exploring the unknown itself is a process of trial and error.
As for Huang Zongxi and Luo Dagong's abilities in sociology and politics, they can provide advice to Zhu Cixiang!
