On Jinming Pond, several painted boats cruise around the lake.
The concubines in the Imperial Palace and the East Palace chatted lively with the officials and their families, asking questions and not even listening to music.
After a long time of excitement, Zhu Ming waved to Bai Chongyan, and the two strolled to the bow of the ship.
The spring breeze made the lake water sparkle. Zhu Ming threw some steamed bun crumbs to feed the fish and asked, "Do you know what I want you to do in Henan Province?"
"Spread a small amount into an acre." Bai Chongyan said.
Ju Ming said: "Hunan and Hubei were the first to push back the land for small tenants because of the large amount of land. The problems encountered were relatively few but enough to cause headaches for local officials. Then came Gyeonggi, Huainan, Shandong, Hebei, and so on.
All places have experienced famines and wars, so the resistance was originally relatively small, but it still couldn't be fully rolled out."
Bai Chongyan worriedly said: "There is no chaos or famine in Henan, but I'm afraid there are many obstacles."
Ju Ming said: "I will give you some official documents later, all related to the diversion of land into acres. Resistance comes not only from landlords, but even from some small farmers who have more land but less land."
Bai Chongyan said in surprise: "Since there are many people but little land, it should be beneficial to them to divide the people into acres."
Zhu Ming shook his head: "It depends on the actual situation of each province. Due to construction of water conservancy projects or other reasons, some counties temporarily have less grain and more food. In the past, even the poor and landless people had to share the labor. Now it is all divided into acres, and the land is more than the land.
On the contrary, the small people suffered a loss, and the landowners with more land, such as Shao Ding, suffered even more losses. Therefore, as long as they have land in their name, both big households and small people will make trouble together to oppose it."
"There are also issues left over from the previous dynasty. Many of the land is not private land, so less taxes need to be paid. After the land is divided into acres, even if you only have a small amount of land in your hand, the total amount of taxes you need to pay will increase."
"There are also prefectures where some prefectures and counties have more dings and less fields, and some prefectures and counties have more dings and less fields. When the prefects allocate dings to acres, they use rich counties to help poor counties, which leads to opposition not only from the people in the rich counties, but also from the county magistrates in the rich counties.
None of them cooperate. But if we don’t do this, it will put a heavy burden on poor counties.”
"Last year, the chief envoy of Huainan tried to implement equal apportionment across the province, which almost led to a civil commotion, which agitated the people in the rich counties. More than 20 county magistrates from many rich counties came forward one after another to impeach the chief for being unkind to the people.
"Equal sharing across the provinces is very good, and the imperial court is very supportive of it, but many wealthy county officials are not cooperating. Even if they are forced to implement the decree, they all obey and disobey it."
"There are people who make trouble evenly in a county, there are people who make trouble evenly in the prefecture, and there are still people who make trouble evenly across the province. Moreover, the people who make trouble are different every time. The central court and local officials continue to sum up experience and make adjustments, and they can make adjustments every time
Later, there will always be another group of people whose interests will be harmed."
"The actual implementation is more difficult than you think, especially in provinces like Henan and Jiangxi."
"As for Shaanxi, I dare not touch it for the time being. Because Shaanxi has a large number of barren border areas, and guarding the border requires a large number of soldiers every year. The Ming Dynasty is indeed not afraid of Xixia, and many Shaanxi border troops are also transferred to other provinces, but there are a large number of villages in the Xihe and Hengshan areas
Fortresses, these fortresses have to be maintained by collecting labor money from the whole province."
"Shaanxi has little land and a lot of poverty. Once the land is divided into acres, the burden on the people will be heavy, and civil unrest will inevitably occur. The imperial court is asking the cabinet to come up with a plan. The central government will allocate more money and food every year to reduce the number of land in Shaanxi Province. After the arrangements are made,
Only then do you dare to spread your own land."
"Of course, the biggest problem when allocating acres to land is to thoroughly check the fields in various places. This is also the reason for the most troubles. The fish scale book must be re-drawn and the messy land ownership must be sorted out.
The skin must be straightened out. Otherwise, countless land disputes and lawsuits will tire the county officials to death."
After hearing these words, Bai Chongyan suddenly felt his head was as big as a bucket.
Zhu Ming smiled and said: "I have asked Lu Benzhong to clear the way for you, and asked the Lu family to investigate the big families in Luoyang. Last year, we split up and moved a group. Otherwise, after you go to Henan, you will have a hard time in Luoyang."
Bai Chongyan raised his hand and said, "I will do my best to handle it well."
Ju Ming said: "Don't worry, if it doesn't work in three years, then six years. When you step down from Henan, you will at least be a minister."
Henan has a very serious problem, that is, in a few prefectures and counties such as Luoyang, the current situation is that there is less land and more people, and land annexation is very serious. However, there are many prefectures and counties, with few people and land, and even large areas of land are abandoned.
If the land is directly divided into acres, it must be shared equally across the provinces, resulting in a heavy burden on the people of wealthy prefectures and counties.
If it is not shared equally among provinces, poor counties with fewer people and more land will also bear a heavy burden.
Therefore, Bai Chongyan needed to arrange for intra-provincial immigration first, and move people from densely populated rich counties in batches to poor counties with fewer people and less land. During the migration process, each county had to cooperate with each other, take the opportunity to inventory the land, and smooth out the land.
Land ownership is a mess.
It is more difficult to spread the land between people in Henan than in Jiangxi, because it combines all the problems encountered in various provinces.
On the contrary, Jiangxi is relatively simple, as long as you have a strong head, courage, and an iron fist to attack the gentry!
Ju Ming patted Bai Chongyan on the shoulder: "After you open up the situation in Henan, I can safely move the capital here. From now on, the surrounding areas of Luoyang will be changed to Gyeonggi and Kaifeng will become the capital of Henan Province."
"Really moving the capital?" Bai Chongyan was shocked. He felt that the burden on his shoulders was heavier. This was laying the foundation for the imperial court to move the capital.
Zhu Ming smiled and said: "Huang Guinian is very capable and does not come from a wealthy family. I will ask him to go to Henan to be your deputy."
"That's okay." Bai Chongyan knew Huang Yaoshi.
The Qing Dynasty's method of spreading people into acres was a continuation of the Ming Dynasty's one-whip method.
In fact, in some areas in the Ming Dynasty, some officials had already done this. When the one-piece whipping law was reformed, the money of Ding's servants was also whipped. At that time, it was called "Ding Suitian Office" and "Send Ding with Grain".
Ju Ming's current system of selling a tenant to an acre is not linked to silver, but can also be paid in copper coins or grain.
In addition, Zhu Ming, a merchant and craftsman's corvee, did not dare to directly sell the goods in the field.
This stems from the abnormal urbanization development in the Song Dynasty, which led to an excessively high urbanization rate. If the labor money of merchants and craftsmen was spread into land taxes, it would inevitably become unbearable for farmers.
The Ming and Qing dynasties were different. Due to the rapid development of productivity, a large number of towns outside the city emerged. With each small town as the center, China's unique rural economic model was nurtured. Farmers could obtain daily necessities by going to the town market.
Let’s look at the data and it will be clear. In the Jiangnan region during the heyday of the Southern Song Dynasty, the number of small towns was only one-quarter of that in the Ming Dynasty.
In the Song Dynasty, landless peasants all ran to the city without forming so many small towns. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, most of the small town residents became urban residents. So how could the urbanization rate not be high?
This phenomenon is caused by insufficient development of productivity and also by the government's excessive oppression of farmers.
Even though Zhu Guoxiang and Ju Ming and his sons abolished a large number of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, the heavy tax tradition left over from the Song Dynasty resulted in the actual taxation of the Ming Dynasty being still very heavy compared to previous dynasties.
Bai Chongyan held up a pile of information on how to pay for tenants, all of which were typical cases implemented in various provinces.
Ju Ming was afraid that local officials would have their hands tied. As long as those officials who caused a civil uprising were not too outrageous, they would not be severely punished, but would only be given a symbolic fine of one or two months. Then, he would find an opportunity to reward them.
The county magistrate even sent officers out of the city to arrest the troublemaking people. The people were so frightened that they fled for their lives and scrambled to cross the bridge at the moat. More than 80 people fell into the water and drowned. The court only fined them three months' salary.
The county magistrate did nothing wrong, but was a rioter. His whole family was sent to Youzhou to farm.
The political signal was very clear, and many officials who wanted to climb up the ranks went to great lengths to promote the idea of dividing the land into an area.
When Bai Chongyan came to Luoyang, Huang Guinian led the officials out of the city to greet him.
Bai Chongyan, the chief envoy on the left, Huang Guinian, the right chief envoy, Zhang Yi, the general commander, Zhang Jin, the prefect of Luoyang, Lu Benzhong, the prefect of Luoyang, and some political officials, general magistrates, county magistrates, etc. These are the three-level yamen in Luoyang
officials.
Zhang Yi is a descendant of Zhang Dun. He seems to be a good person at ordinary times, but he can make quick decisions at critical moments.
Historically, he was promoted to the position of Minister of Household Affairs by Zhao Gou for solving money and food problems many times. He also made reasonable suggestions during the Miao and Liu rebellions, and he also knew how to attract investment and farmland. He was a hard-working official in the Southern Song Dynasty.
During this time and space, Zhang Yi was promoted by Zhu Guoxiang to the post of Inspector General of Henan because of his effectiveness in promoting the idea of dividing households into households.
Zhang Jin was an old man who followed Ju Ming in the Jinzhou army. When he was a general, he was good at killing disobedient lieutenants, which seriously affected his normal promotion later. Because he broke a finger in battle, he was thrown into the inspection system by Ju Ming. He was sent to the inspection system many times.
After the military reform, he was promoted to the commander of Henan Province.
All the officials in Luoyang came to support Bai Chongyan, and they talked happily and harmoniously.
The next day, Bai Chongyan asked Huang Guinian: "Brother Deshao came to take office first and knows Henan better. Which officials can work together?"
Huang Guinian smiled and said, "Anything is fine."
Bai Chongyan suddenly realized that the prince had made arrangements, and he immediately summoned Zhang Yi, Zhang Jin, and Lu Benzhong to discuss the matter.
Lu Benzhong was the most active. He was tricked by Ju Ming into Luoyang, and as the son of the Lu family, he was responsible for investigating the Lu family. Although they had lived in two places for a long time, they had the same origin. The Lu family in Luoyang hated Lu Benzhong so much that his reputation in Luoyang was completely ruined.
.
Unable to do anything else, Lu Benzhong simply went all out and devoted himself to cleaning up the big clans in Luoyang. He was sent to Shaanxi, where there were nearly a hundred people from all ethnic groups in Youzhou. Last year, he split up the big clans and moved more than 2,000 people to the northern counties.
"The people in the counties of Luoyang Prefecture still have more people and less land. They must move south within the province and reclaim all the wasteland in the southern counties and counties!" Lu Benzhong became more and more iron-fisted.
Huang Guinian said: "Brother Yisou (Zhang Yi) is good at managing money. The money, grain, seeds, cattle, and farm tools needed to move the people need to be planned by Brother Yisou."
Zhang Yi said: "I am just on duty and have no right to do these things."
Bai Chongyan said: "Then we will make a temporary assignment and Mr. Zhang will take the lead."
Huang Guinian said: "General Yang and I are keeping an eye on the immigration issue to prevent any trouble."
Zhang Jin cupped his hands and said, "If there is a disturbance in Xiaoxiao, I will mobilize my troops to suppress it!"
Zhang Yi reminded: "It is the powerful county magistrates and gentry in various places who need to be comforted more. If it is not possible, force will be used."
Bai Chongyan said: "I will set off in a few days to inspect various prefectures and counties in the province and talk to local officials and gentry face to face. I will understand their thoughts and demands and comfort them if I can. If I can't, I will use strong methods! The prince said no.
In a hurry, it took six years to spread the land in Henan, but how can we, as ministers, procrastinate? We will set a date today to complete the matter within three years!"