The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the fifth year of Chongzhen reign in the Ming Dynasty.
For the hundreds of thousands of gentry and common people in Xiangyang Prefecture, the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival this year is particularly round, the mooncakes are particularly sweet, and life is particularly beautiful!
Because just a few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, people's peace notices were finally posted inside and outside the gates of the counties under Xiangyang Prefecture, announcing that 950,000 of the million begging soldiers who had eaten in Xiangyang Prefecture would be transferred from the On the 15th day of the lunar month, the Mid-Autumn Festival, people began to evacuate Xiangyang one after another - in fact, there were not even a million beggars, and only five or six hundred thousand including their families. Now more than 500,000 have been evacuated, leaving 20,000 to 30,000 resettled in Xiangyang. . The young and strong among them will become Xiangyang Prefecture soldiers (the army under the command of the prefect), while the old and weak will get some slopes that are looked down upon by Xiangyang locals.
Although not all of them were evacuated, the vast majority of them were able to evacuate. For the gentry and common people in Xiangyang, it was already a great favor from the emperor.
Of course, the hundreds of thousands of begging soldiers will not leave in vain... As for the begging soldiers, of course they will not leave until after the meal.
Therefore, in addition to announcing the departure of the begging soldiers, the notice posted on the peace of the people also announced another great news - the Emperor of Heaven finally granted favor to the highly respected Xiang Wang Zhu Yiming and the Shilin leaders of the seven prefectures and counties under the Xiangyang Prefecture. The taxation method they proposed!
Starting from the sixth year of Chongzhen, the land tax in Xiangyang will increase from less than one liter per mu to six liters per mu! One of the buckets will be sent to the Xiangyang treasury for safe keeping. The remaining six liters were divided between the Xiangyang Prefectural Government and the newly established Hubei Governor's Yamen after the division of Huguang. Xiangyang Prefecture got seven, and Hubei Governor's Yamen got three.
In addition to this six-liter dou, no additional fees and miscellaneous expenses are allowed - according to the edict issued by Zhu Youjian, the prefecture's Yamen of Xiangyang Prefecture and the prefectures and counties under its control can only pay tax according to the tax discussion meeting hosted by the Governor of Hubei. The agreed tax amount will be levied and no additional taxes will be levied.
Otherwise, the local tax collector can file a complaint with the governor's yamen, and after the governor's yamen finds out the truth, he can report to the court and impeach the prefect who imposed extra taxes!
Of course, more levies are not allowed, and less levies are also not allowed. Local land taxes are reviewed once a year. If there is a famine or war, they can be reduced or reduced after discussion between the tax negotiator and the governor. However, the prefect has no right to reduce or reduce local taxes - and tax reductions are not free! Regardless of the reason, as long as the tax is reduced or reduced, the government's admission quota will be reduced accordingly. The amount of taxes a province pays to the court is related to the amount of Jinshi quota.
This is what is called no taxes and no imperial examinations!
On the Beiguan Pier in Xiangyang, a long line of official ships and royal boats were ready to sail eastward.
On the pier, the officers and soldiers of the brigade and the families of the begging soldiers were quietly boarding the ship. Those begging soldiers who were left behind in Xiangyang gathered in the distance to bid farewell to their fellow Shaanxi residents.
Chongzhen had more rainfall in the past five years. Floods occurred everywhere in Shaanxi and Henan. The situation in Huguang was better, but after autumn, it still rained from time to time. The day Zhu Youjian left Xiangyang was also a rainy day. The autumn wind and autumn rain came with him and blew them away, diluting the joy in Zhu Youjian's heart... He knew that he had not yet succeeded in begging, and the emperor still had to work hard. !
The newly appointed governor of Xiangyang is Zhang Haogu, a Jinshi in the first year of Chongzhen. He was originally the prefect of Yan'an Prefecture. He was a little older than the county magistrate, but far inferior to the prefect. This time he was promoted to the "big mansion" in Xiangyang, which was really an exceptional promotion.
He was now boarding Zhu Youjian's royal boat, full of joy, listening to the holy words - there were more than 150 mansions in the Ming Dynasty. But there are only twelve "big mansions", among which the prefect of Xiangyang is "the largest mansion in Huguang". If you can do this well, your future will be limitless!
"Prefect Zhang, your Xiangyang Mansion is the first 'big mansion' in the two lakes, so it can only succeed, not fail!" Zhu Youjian warned, "I have left you three thousand Shaanxi soldiers... I will allocate you 20,000 taels of silver from the Prince of Chu's palace for operating expenses. You must make good use of these 3,000 Shaanxi soldiers and 20,000 military expenses, and don't let me down!"
"Long live Lord, don't worry," Zhang Haogu's face was full of confidence. "I will definitely manage Xiangyang's taxation for Lord Long live...not a penny less, and not a penny more."
A minimum of one penny is required, and if you don’t charge an extra penny, it won’t be so strict...but it’s definitely not okay to exceed it by too much.
Because according to the rules formulated by Zhu Youjian, the tax negotiator in Xiangyang will not discuss taxes with the prefect of Xiangyang, but will directly negotiate with the governor of Hubei.
This system is designed to limit the development space of the "big government".
Because although the "big government" has control over the military, government, and finance, the armed forces it can control are extremely limited. Xiangyang Prefecture can have 3,000 soldiers, mainly because Xiangyang Prefecture is a "pilot prefecture" and is also the location of the future Huguang Warehouse - Zhu Youjian does not want to exchange silver now, only grain, and the grain collected from Huguang is not It was transported to the north, but all existed in Xiangyang Prefecture and Nanyang Prefecture.
These grains are the "life-saving grains" in the future. Of course, they must be guarded carefully, so the number of soldiers in Xiangyang Mansion is 3,000. In addition, Zhu Youjian will also send special officials to Xiangyang and Nanyang warehouses to guard the warehouses.
For the other dozen prefectures (Zhili prefectures) in the Lianghu area, Zhu Youjian only gave them a quota of 1,000-2,000 troops. Moreover, the money and food at the disposal of these state capitals is also very limited. In addition to the land tax share, there are also very gray "commercial taxes" - it is actually inaccurate to say that there were no commercial taxes in the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty's commercial taxes just could not be collected by the emperor. The pockets were distributed by local officials in the name of various "regular silver".
Now Zhu Youjian is actually an old fox who is more than a hundred years old. Of course he will not block the way for officials all over the world to make money "without breaking the law" (it is actually illegal, but it has become a common practice for more than 200 years). However, the customs duties in the two lakes will be restored later - but Zhu Youjian will not take the money. Instead, he will let the governor of Hubei and the political officials discuss how to collect and distribute it... The governor cannot be without money. Discussing politics cannot be without oil and water.
In addition, since the governor wants to bargain with the gentry over the imperial examination quota, then of course the power of academic affairs must be delegated to the governor. Otherwise, what will the governor use to negotiate? Therefore, the expenses for running official schools and imperial examinations have to be raised by the governor's yamen.
In addition, the military power of the governor must still be retained. Because the prefect's soldiers can only move within their own prefecture, if they want to move across prefectures, they have to be commanded by the governor and the general soldier. Therefore, the general soldiers of the two provinces of Hunan and Hubei still need to be retained. The two general soldiers also have troops with tens of thousands of troops on hand, and the governors also have two to three thousand patrol tags on hand.
The governor was also in charge of the food and salary of the general soldiers. In fact, the governor was in charge of the general soldiers' line of using culture to control military affairs. Therefore, Zhu Youjian must leave enough financial resources for the governor's office, otherwise once the provincial level is completely eliminated, the prefectures below will be difficult to manage.
Now the first governor of the two provinces after the division of Huguang is also sitting on the same boat as Zhu Youjian. Among them, the governor of Hubei was General Counselor Gao Hongtu who followed Zhu Youjian to the south, while the governor of Hunan was Fu Zonglong who was transferred from Guizhou.
After Zhang Haogu resigned, Zhu Youjian talked to these two capable ministers about tax negotiations and the establishment of two provincial government offices - these were all new things.
This method of "governor discussing taxes" has never been used by even a traitor. It was extracted by Zhu Youjian from all kinds of weird local governance methods he had seen in his previous life - at least in his opinion, it is the most suitable.
The "provincial government yamen" is actually a new thing, and it is not the same as the governor's yamen in the past. In the past, provincial local governance in the Ming Dynasty still retained the system of three departments coexisting, and did not allow the governor to centralize power. Now that Zhu Youjian has implemented the "centralization of power in the government" at the government level, it is natural for the provincial level to implement "centralization of power by governor" - it is not that the governor has centralized power over a province, but that all provincial yamen have to listen to the governor. , including the General Garrison Office (equivalent to the provincial military region).
This series of reforms is the key to whether Zhu Youjian can "successfully beg for food" and the key to whether the Ming Dynasty can be revived in his hands.
