The river is gentle and flows slowly. Perhaps due to the drought and lack of rain since the beginning of autumn, the water level of the Huangpu River flowing past Shanghai County is a bit shallow, exposing a large swath of river beach.
Outside a village called Lujiazui on the east bank of the Huangpu River, a bearded man wearing a gorgeous silk robe was walking along the Huangpu River with a group of butlers, bodyguards, and concubines. By the way, he was accompanied by a short, fat man wearing a brand new silk robe.
It is already the autumn harvest season. The large paddy fields on the east bank of the Huangpu River are covered with golden rice, and it looks like a good harvest is around the corner. Farmers in Shanghai are busy in the fields, trying to harvest all the rice this season before the autumn rains may fall at any time.
Seeing the slightly skinny and tanned farmers busy in the rice fields, the bearded man spoke up and asked in Mandarin with Teochew colloquialism: "Lu Xiucai, is this land on the east bank of the Huangpu River your family's land? Do you want to sell it or not? Make a price!"
This bearded man who wants to buy land is none other than Zhu Heji, the current Ming Dynasty supervisor. He is now using the pseudonym He Shen and conducting private interviews in various places in the south of the Yangtze River... This is He Shen's private interview record in private!
The person who was looking at the land with him was Lu Xiaowen, the largest landowner in the Lujiazui area. He was also a big cloth merchant and ran the largest cloth shop in Songjiang Prefecture. She was from the same hometown as Ni Honghua, the secretary of Weaver Girl Palace, and she once wanted to buy Ni Niang back home as a concubine. Unexpectedly, after being sold into the palace by her husband's family, Lady Ni would have great luck and be given a "Master He" from Chaozhou as his wife by the Grand Noble Concubine of Zhinu Palace. .
And this "Master He" is incredible. Not only is he a hero in the restoration of the Ming Dynasty, but his family has been collecting tolls in the South China Sea for generations. He is super rich!
But my eyesight is not very good... I actually said that the river view in Lujiazui is very good and suitable for building a villa. I want to buy a large piece of land to build a villa and live in it.
This is really funny. What kind of river view is there in Lujiazui? There is just the Huangpu River, and then there are fields... There are not even any places of interest. Who would want to build a villa to live here?
Lu Xiucai said in his heart: "This guy with the same surname is not really the same as Mrs. Ni. A stupid person has a lot of money, right? But although this guy is stupid, he looks very fierce and he is a hero. He is probably a military general and cannot be offended. !”
"Master He," Lu Xiaowen and Lu Xiucai also figured out what kind of official this "He Ji" was, so they called him "Master He." "To be honest, the area around Lujiazui is a remote and remote area. Apart from some paddy fields, there is nothing." No more. Although the port has been opened recently, the port is not in Lujiazui, but downstream near the mouth of the Yangtze River.
In addition...the imperial court is still trying to equalize land! You spent money to buy my land, but if you give it to me later, you will suffer a huge loss! "
Zhu Heji was happy when he heard this, "Lu Xiucai, you are still an honest scholar! Then tell me, is this land equalization policy good or not?"
"How can the equalization of land be improved?" Lu Xiucai heard Zhu Heji's question, and his fat face fell. "Who is willing to give away the land handed down from the ancestors for free? The Jin gentry here in Songjiang are almost worried these days. He's dead. We all asked Mr. Zhou, the consultant, to pay the discount, but it seems to be useless... Everyone is relying on this year's spring tax, and they don't want to pay the autumn tax, but the court doesn't seem to care at all. It's really It’s so frustrating!”
Zhu Heji laughed loudly when he heard this: "Of course the court doesn't care... The court is very determined to equalize the land. The land is going to be equalized. Can't the tax be relaxed? Besides, now the people in Jiangnan are Passage tax, vehicle and vessel tax, industrial and commercial business tax, interest tax, and salt tax are collected more and more, but why do you still care about a few farm taxes? It doesn’t matter if you don’t pay.”
If the industrial and commercial tax is really collected, the land tax will indeed become a small amount. The reason is simple, because most agricultural products still need to be exchanged.
And once these agricultural products enter the market, how much can be collected if the 5% pass tax, 100% vehicle and vessel tax, and 10% business tax can be collected?
Moreover, when big landowners like Lu Xiucai sell agricultural products in exchange for money, they have to deposit it in a bank account or bank... Otherwise, if you take the money home and bury it, 5% will be deducted when you go through customs. !
After depositing into a bank or bank, the interest tax comes again!
Compared with these numerous industrial and commercial taxes, how much is the agricultural tax? In the Ming Dynasty, Southern Zhili was known to be heavily taxed. The average land tax was only more than ten kilograms per acre. How come the land in Southern Zhili had to collect several hundred kilograms of grain, right?
Now that Zhu Heji has slowly put the industrial and commercial tax and financial systems in order, it is not difficult for Zhu Heji to have a large amount of land tax arrears in several southeastern provinces.
However, Zhu Heji's words still made Lady Ni on the side a little dumbfounded when she heard this. It was probably the only time that a person who wanted to be the emperor didn't care at all about the unruly people below who resisted taxes.
Just as she thought of this, Zhu Heji spoke again, "Lu Xiucai, if you don't pay taxes now, when the court pays compensation for land equalization later, it will be deducted from you and you will also be fined!"
"What? Compensation for equalizing land? And fines?" Lu Xiucai was startled, "If you don't pay taxes, you will be fined?"
"Of course we will be punished!" Zhu Heji said with a smile, "Qingyao will be punished, and more than 10,000 people will be exempted from their reputation at one time. How can this dynasty not punish you? So you can sell me some land, so that you can It’s time for Shaojun to go out a little bit.”
Lu Xiucai looked at Zhu Heji, "Master He, aren't you afraid of Jun Tian?"
"Me?" Zhu Heji smiled, "My family has a large population...and my family has not been assigned to Juntian Village in Guangdong, and my family has not settled in a rural area.
The land granted by the court is all in the official and private land area, so I can buy several thousand acres of land. From now on, I will settle down in Shanghai and become a Shanghainese. "
Of course Zhu Heji was deceiving Lu Xiucai!
Because how could the land beside the Huangpu River in Shanghai be classified as Juntian District? It must be a government-private land area...that is, land that can be bought, sold and developed freely. That is to say, it is not among the equal fields!
However, local landowners cannot take advantage of the rising land value. Therefore, during this period, Zhu Heji had taken advantage of the landowners in the southeast area's fear of equalizing land and sent people to acquire land around key cities under various names.
In addition, the new Ming Dynasty's "land equalization" does not indiscriminately deprive landlords of their excess land without compensation, but there will be a corresponding compensation plan... It will be based on whether the landlord participates in the resistance to the Qing Dynasty. Determine the level of compensation exchange price.
Only the property owned by Manchu officials and the captured flag property would be confiscated.
...
"It turns out that there is compensation for equal land..."
"Haha, nine out of ten are not enough..."
"That's true...but this newspaper seems to be pretty good!"
"How is it good?"
"You can use it as the mouthpiece of our Confucianism!"
"But this is Zhu Heji's newspaper!"
"I know, what I mean is that we can also have one ourselves."
While Zhu Heji was still searching for land in the future Shanghai, the two rebels Zhou Peigong and Li Guangdi had quietly sneaked into Nanjing. They rented a house near Nanjing Gongyuan and planned to settle down first and then return to Nanjing. Started to travel to Shilin.
But before they could take action, Zhou Peigong bought a copy of the "Confucian Sect Xunbao" - this Confucian sect's official newspaper only published one every ten days, so it was called the Xunbao.
This made the eyes of the two rebels shine again! They were still worried about how to publicize their ideas, but Zhu Heji helped them solve the problem - they could publish newspapers!
"But how do we distribute our Confucian newspapers in Nanjing?" Li Guangdi was relatively honest. He thought of publishing newspapers in the name of Confucianism.
But Zhou Peigong laughed: "Why are you publishing Confucianism? We can publish the "Confucian Sect Xunbao". This newspaper seems to be very popular... There must be a lot of privately printed ones, right? Let's buy one Can we go to a book engraving workshop and then privately print the Confucian Xunbao? When printing, we can just remove a few articles and replace them with ours?"
