Today is Wangwang Day, which is the day set by the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang to "Wangwang Changchao". 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 dressed in a leather bean suit and sat on a high dragon chair in the north. After the ministers took their places at Danqi at the foot of the steps, they stood up from the leading group to the north, and then they all bowed and sang: "Your Majesty, Holy Bow
Hail!"
"Pingsheng!" A eunuch sang the answer for the emperor. Then all the officials thanked the emperor together, then turned around, the civil and military ranks were separated, and the two groups faced off. The scene was orderly and solemn.
Lao Zhu is actually very tired. He has spent several days with Mr. Li and Mr. Liu these days. 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, they will have no food to eat...
"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, distinguished officials, etc., who were exempted from service."
As soon as these words came out, some of the officials below him looked unnatural.
There was no joy or sadness on Lao Zhu's face, and there was no change at all. He only asked: "Then, how can we ensure that you officials can not be unconscionable and not embezzle the people's land?"
I didn't expect that today, the emperor would tell the truth!
"What's 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?"
"oh?"
Not to mention land annexation, there is still so much wasteland, why bother grabbing the land of poor farmers?
"Ha." Zhu Yuanzhang glanced coldly at the ministers below, and couldn't help but sneered. What kind of scholar, what kind of gentleman, king, minister, etiquette, integrity and shame.
"We have thought about it these days and feel it is inappropriate."
"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."
However, no matter how many tricks they tried, they still could not come up with a way to make the world instantly grow billions of fertile fields and be filled with food instantly: the land policy in the early Ming Dynasty was already very complete. As early as a few years ago, Liu and Li Er
People and Zhu Yuanzhang combined the farming methods of past dynasties and came up with policies that fit the current situation.
"It can also make the scholars all over the world be forever grateful to Your Majesty!"
Although I think it only scratches the surface, doing it is better than not doing it, and it is better than nothing.
But how can Lao Zhu be satisfied with this? The climate will become colder and colder, and the small glacier will last for nearly three hundred years. His people will rise up in the future. His descendants will keep their heads down just like he did in his later days.
, begging for alms from the ministers, but only got an almost humiliating 120,000!
How can Lao Zhu not be anxious? Time waits for no one!
But no matter how anxious he was, he couldn't think of any other way to make this land grow more food.
Among the hundreds of officials, many people couldn't help but nod their heads. As expected of Prime Minister Wang, he is really a man of experience in planning for the country!
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 also similar regulations, such as "16 acres of land granted to Ding" in Taicang, Suzhou Prefecture. In fact, this also changed the over-concentration of land in the late Yuan Dynasty, which caused the land ownership to be decentralized by the vast number of farmers.
replaced.
"Therefore, we have decided to abolish this exemption!"
"There are countless battles in a place. If the officials and officials' families are exempted from the labor rations, they will inevitably be distributed to the common people."
Wang Guangyang flattered him by the way, and then he bowed and only secretly observed Lao Zhu's face with his peripheral vision.
"Since my ministers and ministers have nothing to report, we have an important matter here that I would like to leave to you to discuss carefully."
Seeing that none of the ministers had anything important to report, Zhu Yuanzhang first rubbed his brows to cheer up, and then said:
"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."
It just so happens that today is the Wangri Dynasty, and it is just right to make the newly drafted articles public to the public so that they can be passed down to future generations.
Therefore, knowing that his descendants would be short of food in the future, the first reaction of Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born as an old farmer, was to stock up on grain! Stock up as much as you can, and it is best to leave your descendants with a large granary that cannot be eaten in a thousand or ten thousand years!
These measures greatly restored the land of China that had been desolated due to war, and added countless cultivated land to the Ming Dynasty. As a result, "the mountains and fields were gradually populated." Compared with the founding of other dynasties in history,
It's already done extremely well.
"Being an official means a lot of hard work. How can you pay for it? Only with this kind of government can we show the nobility of scholars as officials, so that the people of our Ming Dynasty can yearn for the books of sages, and this can ensure the prosperity of our Ming Dynasty's literature!"
At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Lao Zhu established that "those who take land and houses by force shall belong to the owners." At that time, a large number of landowners who were attached to Yuanting were eliminated, and many landowners were destroyed and moved due to war. The land they left behind
, everything that has been cultivated by farmers will be directly owned by farmers. Lao Zhu also encouraged farmers to vigorously reclaim wasteland by offering to be exempted from tax and service for three years, or even never to be re-employed.
Most of these people come from the south of the Yangtze River. There are many families in the south of the Yangtze River, and there are fewer wastelands than in the north. They originally planned to use this privilege to earn more for the family when the vacant fertile land is almost gone.
Come back from familiarity!
After working hard for several days, he could only manage to draft some innocuous terms. 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.
As soon as these words came out, there was an uproar among the officials, and all the officials could not help but whisper, and many people's faces turned pale and looked sad.
Lao Zhu's eyes narrowed, "Why?"
Sorry, what kind of good people are you?
The prince and general Xiang Ning have the guts!
Wang Guangyang, who was Zuo Cheng at the time, immediately went out to report: "I think this is not possible!"
Who wants to give up 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?
"His Majesty."
"Preferring them from military 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."
As for restricting land annexation...the current Ming Dynasty has experienced wars in the late Yuan Dynasty, and there are many people but few people in the land.
Therefore, I could only negotiate the terms during the day, and stay up late at night to correct them, which was a lot more work.
"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 for a long time will naturally know that the king and his ministers are polite and honest, so they will not do this.
Things that harm the Ming Dynasty."
"Then those honest people who have not contributed anything have increased their corvee out of thin air?"
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 the officials in the Chongzhen Dynasty who failed to ring the bell and embezzled 70 million, and Qian Qianyi, who "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 still 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!