Liu Jin and Qian Ning discussed finding a place outside the palace as Zhu Houzhao's place of happiness, and this was to prepare to build a leopard house.

The leopard house had a special significance in the Ming Dynasty. From then on, the emperor did not live in the forbidden palace, but regarded the outside of the palace as a place to linger, and even opened up a precedent for the emperor to eat, drink and have fun among the people.

Liu Jin was good at catering to and pleasing the emperor, while Qian Ning was a treacherous person who sought every opportunity to climb up. The two hit it off and began to discuss.

Qian Ning said: "...Dadfather-in-law, if you opened such a place outside the palace, it is afraid that the mansion you had before was not enough. If the money was not supplemented, it would be difficult to maintain such a place with the filial piety of the people below..."

"Um."

Liu Jin nodded in agreement.

Qian Ning pondered for a moment and asked, "I don't know what my father-in-law thinks this is. We will open several more teahouses and restaurants in the capital to make money by doing business and solve the problem of insufficient funds?"

Liu Jin shook his head: "You think things too simple. You can make profits and lose money when doing business, and you need capital. Do you have so much money to do business?"

"this……"

Qian Ning thought about it and realized that his thoughts were a bit naive. In his original idea, since he had an emperor as his backer, he would definitely make a profit and not lose money in business. But if he thought about it carefully, the capital problem alone was a headache. He had never had enough money and the bribes he accepted were always in and out with his left hand and he had not accumulated much. If he did business, he might not see any results within a year or two.

Liu Jin said: "There are people behind these teahouses and restaurants in the capital. If you rashly get involved, you will only get bleeding and will be extremely slow to take effect. But if you open a royal farm around the capital and use the land for profit, the situation will be completely different."

Qian Ning widened his eyes: "My father-in-law said, go buy land? Then... don't you also need silver?"

Liu Jin smiled in a silence and said, "You are a thousand households in the Jinyiwei and have been favored by His Majesty. How difficult is it to open up several imperial villages around the capital? If someone doesn't know what he knows, he will put them in the imperial prison. Our family can cooperate to issue a document to thoroughly investigate the tax arrears of all land around the capital. If you deal with it well, you will get more than a dozen imperial villages out of thin air within one or two months. At that time, you don't have to do business, just wait in the mansion, and the silver can be collected into your hands like flowing water."

Liu Jin was inspired by the establishment of a royal farm for Zhu Houzhao when he was the eunuch in charge of the Imperial Horse Supervision Office to obtain huge profits, which allowed Qian Ning to expand his efforts to open the imperial farm.

Qian Ning was amazed: "Eunuch Liu is still smart, villain is stupid, even if you want to break your head, you can't think of such a good idea..."

Liu Jin waved his hand: "I'll give you a compliment. You must do this matter by you. After all, our family is the Sili Supervisor, and every move is watched by someone. If our family comes forward, it may cause a big upheaval in the court and the country..."

Seeing a look of fear appearing on Qian Ning's face, Liu Jin encouraged: "Don't be afraid of anything. Remember, what we are seeking now is not self-interest, but to raise money for His Majesty to set up a place of pleasure, openly and honestly. Think about it, if those gentry are fine, what can we do with them? In the final analysis, they have committed the matter..."

"That's right, we do things for Your Majesty, and behave well and sit upright, so we will naturally be fearless. The emperor is rich all over the world, and Your Majesty's affairs are our affairs. How can it be considered personal gain? Eunuch Liu, please rest assured, villains in both silver will never dare to be greedy for ink." Qian Ning expressed his opinion.

Liu Jin seemed a little impatient and waved his hand again: "Okay, go and arrange the staff and get things done as soon as possible. After the Lantern Festival, let Your Majesty linger outside the palace and be happy... Cough cough, you are at home, do you understand?"

...

...

Liu Jin and Qian Ning agreed on a plan to add the imperial village, so they took action separately.

The Ming Dynasty imperial village system has a long history and was not proposed by Liu Jin. Before the Zhengde Dynasty, there were many lands around the capital under direct jurisdiction of the royal family, and the rent collected was owned by the royal family.

In this era of extremely low productivity, land is the greatest resource.

Promotion and wealth are certainly the goal of the world, but whether it is promotion or wealth, you need to use land to lock in wealth after achieving your wish.

In order to increase the extra income of the imperial court's finances, the royal family opened a convenient door on the issue of imperial villages. By the early years of Hongzhi, there were 13,000 hectares of imperial villages alone.

Before, when Liu Jian and Li Dongyang were in power, Liu Jin made money by invading the land of the garrison to establish imperial villages. Now there is no much oil or water to squeeze out in the garrisons in the capital, so he focused on the gentry and added imperial villages. Instead of purchasing them through normal methods, he obtained land by plundering.

As the chief seal of the Sili Supervisor, Liu Jin proposed to thoroughly investigate the tax acres around the capital, and none of the big landlords could escape.

Since the commercial tax revenue is almost negligible these days, there are many taxes on the land. The landlords avoid paying taxes by relying on nobles and Jinshi. By the end of Hongzhi, six or seven mu of the ten mu of land around the capital did not have to pay taxes, and the remaining three or four mu of land also had tax evasion. Sending people to investigate would inevitably lead to many problems.

Although tax evasion should be recovered, Liu Jin used the method that Qian Ning confiscated all the landlords' land under the name of the emperor and changed it to a royal village. Even the landlord's family would be confiscated, and the benefits generated were included in the small treasury to provide Zhu Houzhao with continuous financial support for eating, drinking and having fun outside the palace.

When he returned home, Liu Jin immediately wrote a memorial to investigate tax evasion in the land surrounding the capital.

He would not submit this memorial in person, but would hand it over to his subordinates to submit it. In addition to the Cabinet Grand Secretary Jiao Fang, there are Liu Yu, the Minister of War.

On the last day of the end of the 18th year of Hongzhi, Liu Yu's memorial was submitted to the cabinet and was placed in front of Xie Qian.

...

...

The Ministry of War proposed to investigate the tax evasion of gentry around the capital, but Xie Qiandao was unwilling to do so.

The most important class in the Ming Dynasty was not merchants, but landlords.

Speaking of which, Xie Qian is a big landlord. He doesn’t have to pay taxes for tens of thousands of acres of land in his hometown. Now someone asks to investigate the situation of these lands that do not need to pay taxes, but Xie Qian can’t stand it at all.

It was the end of the year and many yamen in the court had already rested. Xie Qian could not find anyone to discuss it, so he could only ask Jiao Fang, who was taking the same revolving service.

Jiao Fang didn't know that this matter was led by Liu Jin, and he did not agree with the comments he made.

Like Xie Qian, Jiao Fang is now a big landlord. Since he was a Jinshi, he has purchased thousands of acres of land in his hometown of Biyang, half of which are landlords of all sizes and farmers who bring their own land to surrender.

Xie Qian sighed: "Now I am just looking at the land around the capital. As far as I know, there are seven or eight out of ten lands around the capital without paying taxes, including more than a dozen imperial villages, which are very involved. If this matter continues to spread across the country, it may cause huge turmoil..."

In this matter, Xie Qian took the lead in considering the interests of the royal family.

After all, the imperial village was one of the bad policies of the Ming Dynasty. The essence was that the royal family took the lead in carrying out land annexation and competing for profit with the people. The fewer people knew about this secret, the better.

Jiao Fang nodded, "What the young master said is. But the Ministry of War suddenly mentioned the land tax issue around the capital, which was not aimless... In the first year, the construction of the imperial tombs and repairing the Cining Palace cost a lot of money, and even the Ministry of War lacked money and food, so the local area needed to find compensation. But if the capital land was profitable, it would be really inappropriate to compete with the people for profit."

In the eyes of the gentry, he is the master of the Ming Dynasty. His interests cannot be violated. He is unwilling to pay taxes on his own land. This is a waste of money. No matter how the changes are made, he must give priority to ensuring that their interests are not damaged.

Xie Qian and Jiao Fang reached a consensus and began to prepare for the drafting of the vote.

Xie Qian became the chief minister of the cabinet and only needed to make decisions. The matter of writing the votes fell on Jiao Fang. Since it was lunch time, both of them had to leave the palace for dinner.

In the past, Wenyuan Pavilion provided three meals, but because it was the end of the year, and Liu Jin was interested in causing trouble for the cabinet, saying that it was convenient for the cabinet ministers to have a meal and lunch break, so he could leave the palace at noon.

In this way, the cabinet ministers had to leave the palace at noon and return to their yard on Chang'an Street. They only returned for more than an hour before continuing their work.

In this way, the time for the cabinet ministers to handle the work will naturally be shortened, which will have many benefits for the Sili Supervisor who holds the power of the Yuan Criticism.

Xie Qian left the palace gate, returned to the courtyard for lunch, rested for another half an hour, and returned to Wenyuan Pavilion at four o'clock.

When he entered the office room, Xie Qian was still thinking about the family reunion in the evening. He found that Jiao Fang had completed the ticket and was reviewing it. So he walked over and asked, "Why, did you rush back early to complete the ticket?"

Jiao Fang looked a little nervous, put away the promissory note in front of her and said with a forced smile: "It turns out to be Mr. Shaofu. Who did I think it was... I'm thinking about official business and want to draft the tickets early in the afternoon and go home early..."

Although Xie Qian felt that there was something wrong, he didn't think about it carefully. After all, Jiao Fang, who was also a member of the gentry, had a firm attitude towards opposition. He was too lazy to care about the promissory note that had already made a decision.
Chapter completed!