There are only two reasons. The first is that the money from Duke Wei every year is cut off.
Article 2: After Chongzhen came to power, he launched a campaign to eliminate eunuchs. After a year of hard work, one-third of the officials in the country were affected, resulting in the failure to collect land taxes normally in the first year of Chongzhen.
If taxes are confiscated, there will naturally be no money to pay wages.
After the political struggle intensified, all the officials stopped doing their work. At this time, the political struggle overcame everything else. If you were not careful, you could lose your official position, or you could be jailed. Whoever has the mind to do this, they all threw themselves into the raging struggle.
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In fact, many officials have different views on this. It is enough to overthrow Duke Wei, and it is not appropriate to escalate the situation. If Chongzhen was not in a hurry, dealt with it slowly, and settled things slowly, there would never be such serious consequences. In the imperial court,
There were many people who understood, but no one gave Chongzhen advice. Some of them did not dare. Some were wise to protect themselves, or even had ulterior motives.
Donglin was aware of this, but they did not try their best to stop it. They were just unwilling to come forward to liquidate it according to Chongzhen's wishes. After all, the power of the eunuchs was still there, and it might be easy for both the jade and the stone to perish.
However, they are willing to see the emperor embarrassed. Their ideal is for the emperor to return to the harem and create villains so as not to cause trouble to the cabinet. They like an emperor who has little prestige and presence. Therefore, they clearly know that the young emperor is so
Something will happen if they are impatient, but they pretend to be deaf and dumb.
Wang Yingzhi had no choice but to report the actual situation to Li Banghua. He hoped that the Ministry of War would see the seriousness of the problem and find a way to solve the problem of unpaid wages first, rather than disarmament at this time.
The reason why Chongzhen looked ugly was because he had just received a letter from Li Banghua.
"I would like to refer to the number of entries and exits in Taicang and read it in the imperial concise book. The annual income of the provincial direct field tax and miscellaneous subjects is more than 3.1 million taels. If you add some examples, you can get more than 100,000 taels of silver. In addition, the old Liaodong salary of 200,000 taels will be cut off.
With two foreigners, the annual income is only 3 million taels."
"The nine-border army pays taels of silver, which provides official salary, Beijing branch, Beijing management, rice and cloth flowers, and rewards from each town. A total of taels of silver. Four more towns are added to the salt and vegetable taels. The total total is taels of silver. Four towns are excluded.
We have eliminated nearly all the salt and vegetables, and reduced the amount of rice by two months, which is equivalent to 240,000 taels of silver. Based on the income compared with the expenditure, we actually owe the remaining taels of silver."
Jiubian actually owed so much money that the emperor almost fainted. More than twelve million taels!
How the hell do you owe so much!
Li Banghua's intention was to scare the emperor and make him decide to disarm. Ming Dynasty's fiscal revenue of more than 4 million yuan a year could no longer support these Qiu Ba.
The emperor felt his heart ached. He had melted all the gold utensils accumulated in the palace and exchanged them for silver at Yang Fan's Xinghe Bank. In addition, the empress had made money from investing in Yang Fan's business in the past two years, and the inner treasury was finally saved.
Ten million pieces of silver.
But now it seems that even the payment of back wages to Jiubian is not enough.
Looking at the shocking situation in Jizhen, no matter how slow he was, he could see that the resentment of the officers and soldiers in Jizhen was about to reach an uncontrollable level.
Chongzhen closed his eyes, suppressed his irritation, and his face returned to normal.
He thought in his mind that there were only two ways to go about the current plan. If the layoffs were to be made suddenly, the wages would have to be paid. Otherwise, driving people away like this would probably cause chaos. He could only cut wages first, so that he could spend less. The other thing is
Continue to follow Sun Chengzong's method and send more troops to the people.
In this way, the people will suffer a little more, share my worries, and endure a few years of hard times to get through this. At the same time, let the soldiers at the border also be patient. Press on both sides, and maintain it first.
"Wang Cheng'en, draft the decree!"
Wang Chengen immediately stepped forward, took out a pen and paper, and prepared to listen to His Majesty's dictation and then record it.
"The first is that the Dongjiang salary quota is reduced from 1 million taels to 240,000 taels. The second is that Jimiyong Sanxie will eliminate the new army. The third is that Guanning Jindenjin's military expenditure is reduced from more than 6 million to 4.8 million.
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Wang Chengen's brows jumped, his hand shook, and the pen and paper almost fell to the ground.
"Long live, abolishing military pay is not a trivial matter. You must think twice." Wang Chengen said anxiously.
Even though His Majesty has now secured the throne and established a firm foothold. However, the abolition of five million taels of military pay may cause serious problems. Of the twelve million taels owed, only seven million have been repaid. The people below
Can you do it?
Chongzhen sighed and said: "Although I still have some internal money, it is emergency money and cannot be touched no matter what. The current situation can only make the border army suffer a little loss. It is better to give less than
Don't force it. I also know that this matter cannot be dragged on like this."
"Your Majesty, even if it is reduced by five million, where will the remaining money come from? Rather than not being able to pay, it is better not to abolish the system. It is a day to delay. There is no need to cause trouble in vain." Wang Chengen persuaded.
"In the 46th year of Wanli, the Ming Dynasty increased the payment of Liao taxes and land tax by 3 cents and 5 cents per mu, adding up to a total of more than 2 million taels of silver. By the end of the 48th year of the Ming Dynasty, except for a few areas such as Guizhou, the average land tax per mu of land in the country was increased by 3.5 cents.
Nine cents, totaling 5.2 million and 62 taels. I plan to follow the old rules and settle more than 5 million taels first. The Ministry of Household Affairs wants to cut off the recruits from the third town of Jimiyong. I can save hundreds of thousands more taels. I will try again.
Give some subsidies and solve the problem first.”
Wang Chengen thought for a long time and finally mustered up the courage to ask: "I wonder what the local governor's opinion is."
Chongzhen sighed and said: "There is no unified opinion in Ji Town. Wang Yingzhi, the governor of Shuntian, assured the Ministry of War that after careful verification, he had found a large number of vacant soldiers in Ji Town, enough to save 500,000 taels of military pay. But Ji Town
The Governor of Liao, Wang Zhichen, has different opinions. Yuan Chonghuan, the Governor of Jiliao, has not replied, and I don’t know what he thinks."
Wang Chengen knew about the disbandment of the New Army. In fact, the idea of disbanding the Ji Miyong New Army did not come up after Chongzhen came to power. It was proposed by the Ministry of Husbandry at the end of December in the fifth year of Tianqi. The Minister of the Ministry of Husbandry at that time was Li Qiyuan.
Li Qiyuan was both an upright official and a talented person. After serving as the Minister of Household Affairs for the fourth year of Tianqi, he played a great role in the financial operation of the imperial court. Appointing him also showed that Wei Zhongxian considered the overall interests of the Ming Dynasty in major matters.
After Li Qiyuan took charge of the Ministry of Household Affairs, he convened a meeting of the Nine Qing Dynasty and the Thirteen Kedao, and made thirteen reform measures to deal with the Tianqi Dynasty's financial chaos, serious tax arrears and unreasonable taxation.
Without his financial management, Tianqi Dynasty would not have stable finances. Bi Zisu, who later took over the household department, was also a talented person in financial management. The hard support of these two people was an important reason why Tianqi Dynasty and Chongzhen Dynasty could still maintain their finances in the early stage.
Wang Chengen said: "Ji Town is located in the suburbs of Gyeonggi Province. Uncle Dingyuan has also eliminated the tribes of Haraqin and Duoyan, so he is not afraid of their resentment and communicating with foreign enemies. Governor Yuan can probably suppress Guan Ningjin.
However, Dongjiang Town is isolated overseas, and if Mao Wenlong is dissatisfied and colludes with Jiannu, it may cause serious problems."