Facing Jin Xuan and Du Yinxi, Chongzhen said: "In short, the Ming Dynasty can no longer win over the Jin gentry in Guide Prefecture, Kaifeng Prefecture, even the entire Henan Jin gentry, and even all the Jin gentry in the north."
When Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan heard this, their expressions became solemn.
From the very beginning, Du Yinxi saw that this was a double-edged sword.
Pursuing the Northern gentry who had colluded with bandits and seizing their land for sale would certainly raise a huge amount of money and thus greatly alleviate the Ming court's shortage of state supplies. However, the consequences of doing so would also be extremely severe.
If it is serious, it will inevitably arouse the hostility of the entire Jin gentry group in the north.
And it's still the kind of hostility that leaves no room for reconciliation.
In other words, the enemies that Ming Dynasty will face will not only be slaves.
If we just guard the Huanghuai defense line and govern across the river from Jiannu, there will be no problem.
Because the interests of the Jin gentry group south of the Yellow River have not been harmed, facing the brutal Jiannu, the Jiangnan Jin gentry will definitely go all out to support the imperial court in adhering to the Huanghuai defense line.
But in the future during the Northern Expedition, the difficulty will increase exponentially.
Even so, Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan still believed that this matter was correct, because Ming Dynasty had no choice.
Without doing this, the Ming Dynasty would not even be able to pay the border troops, let alone a grain of grain to recruit rural warriors. Without the border troops and rural warriors to defend the Huanghuai defense line, what would the Ming Dynasty do to stop the establishment of slaves?
At that moment, Du Yinxi sighed and said: "Your Majesty, you don't have to feel guilty about this. In everything, there are gains and losses. In order to raise money, there is nothing we can do about it."
Chongzhen waved his hand and said, "I don't feel guilty when I say this."
Not guilty? Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan were stunned for a moment, what do you mean?
Chongzhen said: "What I want to tell you is that in the entire north, no, the entire world, in addition to the Jin gentry and people, there are also craftsmen, merchants, farmers and other common people."
"Huh?" Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan vaguely felt that they had caught something.
But when the two of them thought about it carefully, they found that they didn't catch anything.
Chongzhen snorted coldly and said: "In the past seventeen years, I have tried every means to please the northern people. Even if the bandits have reached the capital and cannot even get out ten thousand taels of silver, I have never forced them.
Donate and lose, but what will happen in the end? In the end, I almost hanged Meishan, and almost lost my ancestors!"
"It was the disaster at Meishan that made me truly understand."
"Taizong of the Tang Dynasty said that water can carry a boat or capsize it. The water he mentioned did not refer only to the people, but to the common people including craftsmen, merchants, and farmers. The common people were even more important than the people!"
"Normally, the common people seem to have no aggression at all. When faced with harsh government and injustice, they will just accept it."
"But once they are really pushed into a hurry, the energy that the common people can unleash far exceeds that of the civilians, and their destructiveness and aggressiveness are also far greater than that of the civilians!"
"Because the numbers of both sides are not on the same plane at all."
"Why can Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong succeed?"
"It's because they have billions of people supporting them."
"So, my national policy should also be changed. I can't just please the scholars and the people."
"Since the scholars and people in the north already regard me as a bandit and the Ming Dynasty as a bandit, there is no need for me to redeem myself. I will simply leave them alone and fight for the billions of common people in the north. I will equalize the land in the north!"
At this point, the basic national policies that Chongzhen will implement in the future are actually ready to be revealed.
Chongzhen's national policy can be summarized in two sentences: in the area south of the Yellow River, he implemented the policy of courting the gentry and civil servant groups and vigorously supporting industry and commerce; in the area north of the Yellow River, he attacked the gentry and gentry groups with an iron fist and promoted the policy of equalizing land.
This is to win the support of the general public!
Needless to say, this move is definitely a good move.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the biggest deadlock was that the interests of the scholars and the common people could no longer be balanced.
The Ming Dynasty chose to protect the interests of the people and adopted the most cruel policy of oppression against the common people. As a result, the Ming Dynasty perished under the attack of successive peasant uprisings.
So, can we protect the interests of the common people and brutally attack the civilians?
The answer is no, because this is what Li Zicheng's rebel army did, but in the end this approach led to a crazy counterattack by the northern landowners, the Jin gentry, and ultimately allowed the Jiannu to take advantage.
Therefore, if the Ming Dynasty also adopts this approach, it will only perish faster.
This is basically an unsolvable proposition, but now Chongzhen has solved it.
Chongzhen's solution was to divide the north and the south. The south would please the scholars and the people, while the north would try its best to win the support of the common people.
The advantage of doing this is that it can not only stabilize the basic base of the south, but also win the hearts and minds of the people in the north. To put it bluntly, this is actually the Ming Dynasty version of one country, two systems.
"Is this a plan to divide the north and the south?!"
A thunder sounded in the minds of Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan at the same time.
Although the two of them were also members of the scholar-people, their perspectives of thinking about issues had jumped out of their own class. Both of them could consider issues from the standpoint of the Ming court.
Before that, they had actually wanted to solve this problem.
But in the end, neither of them thought of a suitable plan.
But today, this problem was actually solved by the Holy One?
After listening to Chongzhen's answer, the two of them felt suddenly enlightened.
Yes, who stipulated that the Ming Dynasty must adopt a national policy that unified the whole country?
Why can't the south adopt one set of national policies and the north adopt another set of national policies?
In this way, wouldn't all the problems be solved? This method is simply perfect!
Thinking of this, Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan couldn't help but have first-class respect for Chongzhen.
When he decided to hold the Northern Jin gentry accountable for confiscating their land and selling it in Nanjing, the Holy Spirit probably thought of this section. In other words, the Holy Spirit had already planned the overall plan from the beginning, and it was not just for the purpose of raising wages. It was so meticulous.
His thoughts and far-reaching plans are truly the result of an unparalleled hero through the ages!
At this moment, Du Yinxi and Jin Xuan were truly convinced of Chongzhen.
Chongzhen said to Du Yinxi again: "Qing Du, let's start with Guide for land equalization. Once you have figured out a complete set of mature plans in Guide, we can then fully implement it in Henan and Shandong provinces."
"Yes." Du Yinxi stood up quickly, bowed his head and said, "But the specific details of the equalization of acres of land have to be revealed by the Holy Spirit."
"I have no detailed rules here." Chongzhen waved his hand and said, "You can discuss the specific details with Chen Qianfu, the governor of Henan. I only have a few principles here. Regardless of whether you are a big or small child or a woman, one bite will be counted as equal land, even if you are a newborn.
As long as the baby cries once, it must be included in the equal field."
"Considering that Henan is currently sparsely populated, we will first implement the policy of giving 5 acres of land per acre."
[Note: A family of five with three strong laborers can cultivate 25 acres, which is the limit. Any more can only be farmed by tenants. The goal of equalizing acres is to mass-produce farmers, not landlords, so 5 acres per person is an extreme limit.
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"Since Henan is now a border town and may be invaded by slaves at any time, all taxes will be exempted for five years."
"Another one is to give priority to the arable land in the states and counties on the north and south sides of the Yellow River, and retain the land in the other states and counties for the second tranche of bonds."
Chongzhen had many ideas about equalizing land.
For example, there is a complete ban on the sale and purchase of farmland, etc.
But these ideas are not very mature.
And there is no need to think about this now.
At this stage, land equalization and five-year tax exemption are enough to win the hearts and minds of the people in the north.
After the news spread, unless the Jiannu and bandits followed up, people from Beizhi, Shanxi and Shaanxi would inevitably flee towards Henan and Shandong in an endless stream.
It is not even ruled out that the common people in Jiangnan fled north.
Chongzhen was certainly happy to see this result.
At this stage, in order to stabilize the basic base of Jiangnan, we will not lightly touch the Jin Gentry group in Jiangnan. However, after the Northern Expedition is successful in the future and the bandits are wiped out, the cancer of Jiangnan Jin Gentry will definitely be eradicated.
Du Yinxi wrote down what Chongzhen said, and then stood up: "Your Majesty, I will leave first."
"Hey, wait a minute." Chongzhen said urgently, "Qing Du, have you forgotten something?"
"Ah? Oh, hi." Du Yinxi patted his head and said with a bitter smile, "I was so dizzy that I forgot about this."
After a pause, Du Yinxi continued: "This year's harvest has been returned to the warehouse. The harvest is not good, but it is definitely not bad. The total harvest is more than 7.2 million shi!"
"Okay!" Chongzhen was overjoyed when he heard this, and now military rations were no longer a problem.
The 7.2 million shi gained from Xuzhou's farming operations left at least 3.6 million shi left.
Originally, grain had to be used to repay the Jin gentry in nearby states and counties for their seeds and farm tools, but now that the Jin gentry in nearby states and counties had been basically suppressed, this grain was saved.
In addition, Lu Zhenfei still had more than 1 million shi left in the grain shipment he sent to Xuzhou.
In addition to the 5 million shi of grain that Kang Wanwan and the others bought at a low price from Jiangnan, Chongzhen now had 9.6 million shi of grain that could be used at any time!
Of course, there will definitely be losses when the 5 million shi of grain from Jiangnan is shipped to Xuzhou.
If you leave it to the imperial merchants to transport grain, things like floating and sinking will no longer happen, but real floating and sinking is unavoidable, because there is a real risk of capsizing on ships transporting grain.
But this loss will be borne by Huangshang.
When the time comes, the royal merchant will have to make up for it with money.
Therefore, the final amount of grain mobilized to Xuzhou should be about 9 million shi.
But this is enough. Even if calculated at 4 dan per person per year, it is enough to feed an army of 2.25 million for one year, or an army of 400,000 for five and a half years.
The total number of frontier troops on the Xuzhou Defense Line is now 170,000.
[Note: The original 28 towns had 140,000 people, plus 20,000 people from Zuo Menggeng and Jin Shenghuan, 6,000 people from Shiziying and a small number of supplementary border troops, a total of 170,000 people]
Huai'an Prefecture will recruit about 200,000 Xiangyong.
The rural warriors of Huai'an Prefecture are not paid, but their rations must be provided by the government.
Therefore, the total number of soldiers that need to be supported on the Huanghuai Defense Line is now 370,000.
Therefore, there is really no need to worry about military rations. More than 9 million dan of grain is more than enough to feed 370,000 people. There is no need to worry about military rations within five years.