In addition to the large expense of the mausoleum, the annual salary of the vassal nobles also accounted for a large proportion.
People in later generations said that the reason why the Ming Dynasty collapsed was because the court spent a lot of money to raise a herd of pigs.
These pigs refer to those clan kings who do nothing but live in extravagance and wealth, and their salaries are only a drop in the bucket.
There is a certain truth to this statement. It is indeed an important reason for dragging down the country's economic development and emptying the national treasury.
This is not to say that the annual salary of the clan vassal is extremely high. In fact, the salary of the clan vassal in the Ming Dynasty was not very high among the previous dynasties.
If compared with the Manchu and Qing dynasties, the annual salary of the vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty was only half of theirs.
What really brought down the Ming Dynasty was not their wages, but the vassal system. This was the root cause.
In history, there was a statistics in the fourth year of the Apocalypse, and the number of royal clan members was as high as hundreds of thousands.
These are only those on the register. Counting those with older bloodlines and those with lower-level titles, it is estimated that there will be tens of thousands more.
With so many people supported by the state treasury, the financial expenditure is naturally a huge amount.
A rough calculation shows that the combined salaries of these clan members account for more than 30% of the agricultural tax.
The Ming Dynasty relied on agricultural taxes to barely maintain the country's basic operations.
People like your royal family have taken up so much money and food. How can the country not be dragged down? Where will the money come from the national treasury to carry out new projects?
Especially projects such as armament expansion and Yellow River management are equally costly.
The landowners have no food left at home, so who cares whether you mud-legged people live or die?
Once a drought or flood occurs, if there is no capable minister to come up with a charter plan in time, it will be a disaster for the imperial court.
In the 14th year of Orthodoxy, the Tumu Fort was defeated, causing the country to be shaken. Two wars depleted the country's savings and financial resources.
Before the monarchs and ministers who had just finished the battle to defend the capital could breathe a sigh of relief, the people in the Jingxiang area encountered another large-scale disaster during the Jingtai period.
No one could care about it at this time. Even the famous minister Yu Qian advocated stabilizing the north and the capital first, and then let him go in the south.
Therefore, in ancient feudal dynasties, any trivial matter could trigger great turmoil and shake the emperor's ruling status and the foundation of the country.
Isn't this the endless cycle we faced at the end of the Ming Dynasty?
A large amount of money and food are given to those useless people, and the fiscal revenue is getting less and less year by year, so we can only endlessly plunder the people.
Zhu Di's pig-raising vassal system is really harmful to people and harms future generations.
"If the chief minister hadn't made this report to me, I wouldn't have known that the members of the royal family need so much money a year to support them!"
"We can't go on like this. We must find a way to improve it. How serious are internal and external troubles now?"
"If this continues, the country's finances will face a crisis of collapse in the near future. By then, the Ming Dynasty may really be overthrown!"
Several ministers were silent after listening. It was a matter within the royal family, and they did not dare to behave as usual. The best option was to be mute.
They also agreed very much with the emperor's words.
Although what he said is a bit serious, it is also true. The annual salary of the clan king is indeed a bit too much. If it is not stopped, sooner or later, the court will have no money or food to use.
In fact, Cheng Guoxiang had wanted to give advice for a long time, but he was not sure of the emperor's path. If the emperor protected his shortcomings and valued blood relations, he would not get much benefit.
When Zhu Youxiao saw that the ministers were all silent, he certainly knew their inner thoughts and concerns. It seemed that the bad reputation belonged to him again.
He tapped the table gently, closed his eyes and thought.
After a long while, he finally opened his eyelids and said slowly:
"I have a temporary solution here, but the specific implementation depends on you!"
Several ministers looked at each other with confusion on their faces, but no one asked the emperor what the method was.
Zhu Youxiao immediately informed several ministers of his thoughts.
His method was to stop paying the annual salary to the vassals throughout the year.
Of course, this is only for clan members whose titles are above General Fengguo. Those who are Lieutenant of the State, Lieutenant of the State, etc. will still be paid as usual.
The lives of the clan members of the Ming Dynasty were completely at two extremes.
Needless to say, the upper-class princes and princes had high status and distinguished status. They also had family property to inherit and could spend money at will.
As for the lieutenants at the lower levels, their lives were miserable.
Just like Lieutenant Feng Guo, his annual salary is only 200 shi, and 200 shi of grain and rice are enough to ensure that his family will not starve to death, but he can't do anything else.
In Lao Zhu's view, the people of the Zhu family are born noble, and noble people naturally do not need to do anything. They just need to receive food and rice stipends on time and in accordance with the amount every month. pace]
After all, there is a country that supports you, so there is nothing to worry about.
Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestral training system also cost them their lives. They were not allowed to take part in the imperial examinations, do business, or join the army.
Even if they want to farm, they have no land to farm.
Although each sect has its own fertile land, these lands are only passed on to the person who inherits the position.
Other people, according to the system, will inherit whatever title they are awarded, and the court will build a new house for you and reward you with fertile land.
These unpopular clans with extremely eccentric bloodlines are the most embarrassing existence. The emperor cannot remember them, the ministers ignore them, and they do not even have the right to speak.
If you want to work hard to make money, that's not impossible, but if you are sued by someone who is interested, it will be completely over.
Either he went to Fengyang High Wall to guard the mausoleum of Zhu Wusi, or he went to the Xiaoling Mausoleum to mow the grass and sweep the floor of Taizu. The freedom of life was definitely gone.
So sometimes, you really have to put yourself in someone else's shoes. After all, no one wants to live a mediocre life, being raised like a pig and waiting to die.
Under this rigid system, they really can't do anything.
As long as you do something that goes beyond the rules, once you are discovered, you will be severely punished immediately and will never be forgiven.
Under such background conditions, who dares to challenge the imperial court, unless it is the kind of person who thinks his life is too long.
Zhu Youxiao also had to complain about Lao Zhu, "Children and grandchildren will have their own blessings. Why do you impose so many regulations to restrict development? He is incapable of starving to death."
However, these two hundred stones of grain and rice, which could only support their family, could not be distributed to them in sufficient quantity.
How could the officials responsible for issuing registrations not be greedy?
For members of the clan who were at the lowest level and had no status, the civil servants did not take them seriously at all, which was quite contemptuous.