The whole book "Long Wen Whip Shadow" has a total of more than 4,200 words, which is not too much or too little. Although writing with calligraphy is a little slow, it can be written in one afternoon and half an evening in a pragmatic way.
Gao Pragmatic, who wrote the entire book silently, handed the book to Chen Ju overnight, and then had a good night's sleep. It has to be said that after Emperor Longqing personally confessed that Gao Pragmatic should not be neglected, his resting place was improvised but comfortable enough. However, Gao Jingshi was surrounded by only eunuchs and not a single palace maid throughout the night. Naturally, there would not be any chance encounters with princesses or concubines in the palace, and then some unspeakable legends would happen.
Early on the next morning, Gao Jinggang left the palace and headed for Gao Mansion under the escort of Chen Ju - he estimated that he might be very busy today. In addition to collecting the identity certificate that was expected to be delivered to his house this morning, he might also I still had to go to the Hanlin Academy to visit the Shangguan, and then I had to go to the palace again to meet the prince, so I hurriedly hurried all the way. When I returned to the Gaofu, it was only dark.
As soon as he entered the house, a doorman came forward to report that the master had been waiting in the study for a while, and asked the young master to come over quickly.
Gao Pingshi smiled inwardly. It seemed that the third uncle still valued the fact that he was the prince's companion.
But when he entered Gao Gong's study, he realized that Gao Gong was not just waiting for him. This workaholic was holding a few pages of official documents in his hand and was reading them carefully. He didn't even notice that he had entered the door.
"Third uncle, my nephew is back." Gao pragmatic had to say something to "wake up" Gao Gong.
"Yes." Gao Gong responded, reluctantly moved his eyes away, glanced at Gao Pingshi, and said, "I already know how you behaved in the palace, so there's no need to go into details. Come here, I'll I’ll show you a few case files, they’re very interesting.”
Gao pragmatic was a little surprised, but he still walked over and reached out to take the paper handed over by Gao Gong.
Gao Gong handed over the document and said with a chuckle, "Huizhou is really interesting. A mere clerk with a sharp pen actually brought the case to the cabinet."
Gao pragmatic was also stunned when he heard this, he thought to himself that he is a small official with a knife and a pen? How could he, who is even lower than a low-class official like himself, be able to bring a lawsuit to the cabinet? So I started reading the resulting paper out of curiosity. You don’t know if you don’t see it, but it’s really amazing at first glance. The things mentioned in the case file are indeed interesting.
Huizhou Prefecture has always had outstanding people and famous people. It is a famous hometown with prosperous culture and education. For example, Yin Zhengmao, who is about to go to governor Guangxi, is from She County, Huizhou. Huizhou Prefecture has six counties under its jurisdiction: She, Yi, Xiuning, Wuyuan, Qimen, and Jixi. Among them, She County is the largest, and it is a Fukuo County—that is to say, Huizhou government is located in the county and operates in the same city as the She County government office.
Many prefecture-level documents and files in the same city are naturally stored in the county cabinet for easy retrieval at any time. These documents about tax and grain household registration are very important, related to the rise and fall of a county. Of course, these documents are also very boring, and they are all lists of boring numbers. Therefore, it has been kept in a high cabinet for many years, and no one except the tax collectors in the household cares about it.
The cause of the incident was that in the third year of Longqing's reign, a newly appointed official named Shuai Jiamo in charge of money and food in She County, Huizhou discovered that among the annual taxes Huizhou paid to Nanjing, there was a section of "human ding silk silk" in the six counties under Huizhou's jurisdiction. Among them, only She County is responsible for it. The other five counties are not responsible for taxes in this section.
This Shuai Jiamo was originally a scholar, but his performance in moral articles was average, and he was destined to have no hope of career. But he is very talented in mathematics. Unfortunately, in Ming Dynasty, only liberal arts students have the best employment prospects, while the future of science students is very worrying. Talents like him can only work in the field of money and food. Scribe or master.
But Shuai Jiamo, who loves what he does, doesn't mind. He is very professional and sets his sights on Huizhou Prefecture's tax and grain account books over the years, striving to make extraordinary achievements in ordinary positions - anyway, these data are stored in She county.
The tax structure of the Ming Dynasty has always been complicated, and Huizhou is a large taxpayer. The account books involve the conversion and equalization of a large number of subjects. It is an excellent application example and suits Master Shuai's taste.
The extraordinary achievements soon became apparent: after taking stock of various tax items, he noticed that in the taxes and grains paid by the Huizhou government to the Nanjing Shipping Depot every year, in addition to the regular taxes, there was also an item called "Human silk silk" must be paid in kind, and the amount is very large, 8,780 pieces of raw silk must be paid every year.
Shuai Jiamo felt that something was not right, so he went to check the accounts of the counties under Huizhou Prefecture, and found a surprising phenomenon: Huizhou Prefecture had six counties under its jurisdiction, and the other five counties did not have such a tax as "Ren Ding Silk Silk", only She There is an expenditure on the county's account book, and the number is also 8,780 pieces of raw silk. However, the account does not match up, because it is called "summer tax raw silk".
In other words, the Huizhou Prefecture’s annual tax of 8,780 bolts of raw silk is all borne by She County, and the other five counties have no money.
Shuai Jiamo was immediately shocked, because this was not a small amount, but a huge sum of money. In order to ensure that he did not make a mistake or misunderstanding, he also checked the "Da Ming Huidian".
The "Da Ming Huidian" contains the evolution of the Ming Dynasty's laws and regulations since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, as well as tax information and administrative regulations of governments at all levels. It has been revised every generation since the Hongzhi Dynasty, and can basically be used as a yearbook.
Shuai Jiamo found the same tax records under the Huizhou Prefecture entry in the "Da Ming Huidian". More importantly, the "Huidian" only mentions that Huizhou Prefecture is responsible for the "Ren Ding Silk Silk", and there is no word indicating that She County is responsible for it alone. This shows that the Huizhou Prefecture's tax on "people's silk silk" should be shared equally among the six counties. How can it be taxed only in She County?
No, this matter is related to the people's livelihood of a county, we can't continue to be so confused! We have to dig to get to the bottom of it!
Like all people who strive to achieve extraordinary achievements in ordinary positions, Shuai Jiamo was not surprised when faced with the difficulties before him, and continued to dig deeper with great interest. Finally, he found an ancient clue in "Huizhou Prefecture Chronicles".
Huizhou was attached to Taizu very early. After Zhu Yuanzhang became the King of Wu in the 24th year of Yuan Zhizheng, the first thing he implemented in Huizhou was to modify the Yuan tax, which was called the "Jiachen Legal System". As a result, during the end-of-year inspection, the Zhongshu Ministry found that there was something wrong with the figures, so in the 25th year of the Zhizheng Period, a "Yisi restructuring" was carried out, and the tax amounts on many subjects had to be readjusted.
As a result, Shuai Jiamo checked and found that compared with the summer wheat paid before, She County had a year-on-year difference of 9,700 shi. Therefore, the imperial court levied an additional "summer tax on raw silk" of four yuan per mu on the 3,646 hectares of lightly leased land in She County to make up for the shortfall - this is the origin of the "summer tax on raw silk" in She County.
It's just that this "making up for summer grain arrears" is too old and seems to have nothing to do with "human ding silk silk". With his genius-like intuition, Shuai Jiamo felt that there must be some connection between the two, so he picked up his pen and did some rough calculations.
According to the current official conversion rate, the 9,700 shi of summer wheat paid by She County is converted into three qian of silver per shi, and the 9,700 shi of grain is converted into silver, which is Liang Qian's 901 taels. The raw silk replenished by "Ren Ding Silk" every year is converted into silver at seven cents per piece, so the discount is six thousand one hundred and forty-six taels of silver - well, looking at it this way, the two numbers don't seem to have anything to do with each other.
But Shuai Jiamo is a mathematical talent after all, and his brain works very quickly. He quickly thought that the six counties in Huizhou were adjacent to each other. If one county had a summer wheat harvest failure, the other five counties would not be spared. So he investigated again and found that at the same time, the five counties of Yi, Xiuning, Wuyuan, Qimen and Jixi also owed Xia grain, a total of 10,780 shi, which can be converted into 3,234 taels of silver. .
Two thousand nine hundred and one taels plus three thousand two hundred and thirty-four taels, a total of six thousand one hundred and forty-four taels!
This number is only two taels of silver different from "Ren Ding Silk"!
