A few days later, Fengtian Palace.
Today is Wangwang Day, which is the day set by the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang to "Wang Wang Dynasty". As the morning bell rang, all civil and military officials, all dressed in official uniforms, were divided into two classes and entered in sequence.
Zhu Yuanzhang was wearing a leather bean suit and sitting on a high dragon chair in the north. After the ministers took their places at the Danqi at the foot of the steps, they stood up from the leading banquet to the north, and then they all bowed and sang: "Your Majesty, may the Holy Bow be blessed!"
"Peace!" A eunuch sang the answer for the emperor. So all the officials bowed together to express their gratitude, and then turned around. The civil and military ranks were divided into two groups, and the two groups faced each other. The scene was orderly and solemn.
Lao Zhu is actually very tired. These days, I spent several days with Mr. Li and Mr. Liu. Both gentlemen are the top wise men in the world, and he prides himself on being a hero of his generation.
However, facing the chaos more than two hundred years later, I couldn't think of any immediate solution.
However, he also found the key to the problem: the two "magic curses" mentioned by Lao Wu, one is land annexation, and the other is natural disasters. To put it bluntly, they actually point to the same problem: lack of food!
Landlords and gentry annexed land → the people lost their land and were unable to be self-sufficient → lacked food
Frequent natural disasters and falling temperatures → Reduced or even no harvests in fertile fields → Food shortage
As long as there is enough food and a mouthful of food for the common people, no matter how big a mess it is, it can be suppressed!
Lao Zhu himself is a farmer, and he knows very well the obsession of the people on this land with food: as long as they are given a piece of land to grow food, they will be the most simple and good people.
Even if they are exposed to the sun and wind every day, go out early and come back late, they are still enjoying it.
Instead of giving them land to grow, forcing them to have no food to eat...
Sorry, what kind of good people are you?
The prince and general Xiang Ning have the guts!
Therefore, knowing that his descendants would be short of food in the future, Zhu Yuanzhang's first reaction was to stock up on food! Store as much as you can, it is best to leave your descendants with a big granary that cannot be eaten in a thousand or ten thousand years!
However, no matter how many tricks they tried, they still could not come up with a way to make the world instantly grow hundreds of millions of fertile fields and be filled with food instantly: the land policy in the early Ming Dynasty was already very complete. A few years ago, Liu, Li and Zhu Yuanzhang combined the farming methods of past dynasties and came up with policies that fit the current situation.
At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Lao Zhu established that "those who take over the land and houses by force shall belong to the owners." At that time, a large number of landowners who were attached to Yuanting were wiped out, and many landowners were destroyed and moved due to war. The land they left behind, which had been cultivated by farmers, was directly owned by the farmers. Lao Zhu also encouraged farmers to vigorously reclaim wasteland by offering to be exempted from taxes and servitude for three years, or even never to start school again.
In the third year of Hongwu's reign, he also ordered that the wasteland in the suburbs of northern counties be allocated to the people for farming. "The household rate is fifteen acres, and two acres of land are given to grow vegetables. Those who have spare capacity are not limited to acres, and they are exempted from rent and tax for three years." In the south, there are similar regulations, such as "Seeing Ding grant sixteen acres of land" in Taicang, Suzhou Prefecture. In fact, this also changed the over-concentration of land in the late Yuan Dynasty, so that land ownership was replaced by the decentralized management of the vast number of homesteaders.
These measures have greatly restored the desolation of the land of China due to war, and added countless arable land to Mingting. It made "the mountains and fields gradually become populated." Compared with the founding of other dynasties in history, this was already done extremely well.
But how can Lao Zhu be satisfied with this now? The climate will become colder and colder, and small glaciers will last for nearly three hundred years. His people will rise up in the future. In the future, his descendants will lower their heads like he did in his later days, asking for alms from ministers, but only received an almost humiliating 120,000!
How can Lao Zhu not be anxious? Time waits not for us!
But no matter how anxious he was, he couldn't think of any other way to make this land grow more food.
As for restricting land annexation...the current Ming Dynasty was in chaos due to war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and there were many people but few people in the land.
Not to mention land annexation, there is still so much wasteland, why bother grabbing the land of poor farmers?
Who wants to waste that effort?
This made Lao Zhu feel like he was "drawing his sword and looking around at a loss": land annexation has not even happened yet, where can he attack it?
After working hard for several days, I could only manage to come up with some innocuous provisions. In addition, memorials continued to come out on weekdays, and he did not want to backlog, lest he miss some important family and national affairs.
Therefore, we can only negotiate the terms during the day, and stay up late at night to correct them, which is a lot more work.
It just so happens that today is the Wangri Dynasty, and it is just right to make the newly drafted articles public so that they can be passed down to future generations.
Although thinking about it, it only scratches the surface, but doing it is better than not doing it, and it is better than nothing.
Seeing that none of the ministers had anything important to report, Zhu Yuanzhang first rubbed his brows to cheer up, and then said:
"Since my ministers have nothing to report, we have an important matter here that I would like to leave to you to discuss carefully."
"In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, we followed the old practices of previous dynasties and established dynasty officials and distinguished officials to be exempted from service."
"We have thought about it these days and feel it is inappropriate."
"There are countless battles in one place. If the officials and officials' families are exempted from the labor rations, then they will inevitably be distributed to the common people."
"If an official abuses the country's favorable policies in the future and accepts donations from the villagers, the villagers will be short-sighted and unaware of the harm. They will donate land to large households just to avoid immediate taxes and servitude."
"Then those honest people who have never contributed have increased their corvee out of thin air?"
As soon as these words came out, some of the officials below the rank looked unnatural.
Most of these people come from the south of the Yangtze River. There are many tribes in the south of the Yangtze River, and there are fewer wastelands than in the north. They had originally planned to wait until the vacant farmland was almost gone, and then use this privilege to find more farmland for the family!
I didn't expect that today, the emperor would tell the truth!
"More." Lao Zhu continued. "If there are shameless people who use their power for personal gain and gain the people's land and then turn their backs and disown them after a while, wouldn't the people become refugees without land and property?"
"And those who accept donations can repeat their old tricks and annex the land. Over time, it will become a big cancer that harms the people."
"Therefore, we have decided to abolish this exemption!"
As soon as these words came out, there was an uproar among the officials. All the officials couldn't help but whisper. Many people's faces turned pale and looked sad.
"His Majesty."
Wang Guangyang, who was Zuo Cheng at the time, immediately went out to report: "I think this is not possible!"
Lao Zhu's eyes narrowed, "Why?"
"Preferring them from service is a great good governance of the country. When we established the Ming Dynasty in the early days, it was the time to treat the scholars well and make them effective."
"Being an official means a lot of hard work. How can we pay taxes and servitude? With this kind of government, we can show the nobility of scholars as officials, make the people of our Ming Dynasty yearn for the books of sages, and ensure the prosperity of our Ming Dynasty!"
"It will also make all the scholars in the world forever grateful to Your Majesty!"
Wang Guangyang flattered him by the way, then bowed his head and only secretly observed Lao Zhu's expression with his peripheral vision.
"oh?"
There was no joy or sadness on Lao Zhu's face, and there was no change at all. He just asked: "Then, how can we ensure that you officials will not be unconscionable and not embezzle people's land?"
"I think that we only need to pay attention to the imperial examinations and select truly talented scholars as officials." Wang Guangyang talked eloquently. "Scholars who have read poetry and books for a long time will naturally know the rules, etiquette, justice and integrity of the king and his ministers, so they will not do anything that harms the Ming Dynasty."
Among the officials, many people could not help but nod. He is worthy of being Prime Minister Wang, and he is really a mature man who plans for the country!
"Ha." Zhu Yuanzhang glanced at the ministers coldly and couldn't help but sneered. What kind of scholars, what kind of monarchs and ministers are polite, righteous and honest.
Instead of believing that all these scholars know etiquette, justice and integrity, it is better to believe that a certain descendant of the Zhu family will help the Tartars open the border fortress in the future!
He had not forgotten what Zhu Su said about those officials in the Chongzhen Dynasty who failed to ring the bell and embezzled 70 million, as well as Qian Qianyi, who said "the water is too cold and his scalp is itchy".
Qian Qianyi is also the leader of the Donglin Party who is famous for his "loyalty" and "virtue"!
"But all the officials have misunderstood me." Chongzhen's sad voice full of resentment before his death echoed in the mind of his ancestor!
How could Zhu Yuanzhang forget the bloody lessons learned by future generations?
He would never place his country's life or death on these scholars!
