Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 140: Discussion on Reform and Tax Increase in the South
Zhu Houcong understood what Liang Chu meant.

It was nothing more than forcing the Southern School of Confucius to split into two branches.

then.

If any of them is not honest again, we can deal with another one.

At the same time, it also made the two factions stay alert at all times, knowing that if they acted recklessly, the imperial court would destroy them at any time and support the other faction.

"allow!"

This kind of suggestion.

There was no way Zhu Houcong would not agree.

There was no way Kong Chengxian would refuse, so he just kowtowed to express his gratitude.

Liang Chu closed his eyes slightly.

He knew that the emperor would not fail to think of this, and the reason he did not bring it up was probably because he hoped that the villain would be a minister.

Therefore, Liang Chu took the initiative to propose it at this time.

Everyone was unaware of the tacit understanding between the monarch and his subjects, and they only secretly thought that Liang Chu was cunning.

Kong Chengxian also thought so, and secretly vowed that even if he wanted to marry a scholar-official in the future, he would never marry a girl from the Liang family.

Confucianism still has a very high status in the Ming Dynasty today.

Whether they were the ones who advocated rituals or those who defended rituals, whether they were the School of Principle or the School of Mind, they all regarded Confucianism as the orthodoxy.

It's not even just the Ming Dynasty.

Throughout East Asia, many vassal states also regarded Confucianism as the orthodox doctrine and submitted to the Ming Dynasty because of Confucianism.

Therefore, even though Zhu Houcong dealt with the Northern School of Confucius, he still chose to support the Southern School of Confucius as the new Duke of Yansheng, in order to show that the Ming Dynasty still used Confucianism as the orthodox way to govern the country.

It is impossible for Zhu Houcong to abandon Confucianism at this time, or even lower his status.

After all, productivity determines this situation.

Zhu Houcong's forcible abandonment of Confucianism now is equivalent to cutting off the legs of his own throne with a knife instead of reattaching them.

Of course he wouldn't do that.

Next.

Zhu Houcong officially issued an edict based on the results of the court discussion to define the nature of this incident, confirming that it was the disloyalty and immorality of Yang He and others that led to this incident, and that the Marquis of Jianchang and others had done nothing wrong, but on the contrary were benefiting the people and helping farmers.

After this, there was finally no greater resistance to the reshaping of the currency system in Shuntian Prefecture.

The price of grain in the capital began to decline steadily, gradually approaching the price before the increase.

The new currency also circulated faster because a large number of people borrowed it.

Plus.

The construction of such a large project in the outer city of the capital gathered a lot of labor in the suburbs of Beijing, so more and more people took out loans to open shops in this area.

Because many people borrow money to do business or for spring ploughing, they are all very actively engaged in production and management.

The huge amount of wealth they generated through their labor and business was also used to repay loans.

A lot of this wealth flowed back to the Xingming Bank owned by Zhu Houcong in the form of interest.

Zhu Houcong was naturally very satisfied when he saw the growing profits of Xingming Bank.

Lu Huai, who participated in the construction of the outer city, is becoming more and more satisfied with his current life.

Although food prices have begun to decline steadily.

However, Lu Huai's personal salary income has been steadily increasing due to the piece-rate system and his increasingly proficient workmanship skills.

Therefore, he now has more spare money to satisfy his desires other than food.

For example, he visited all the newly opened brothels, gambling houses, cockfighting halls and massage parlors in the suburbs of Beijing.

He also bought some new cloth, thinking that if he found his daughter in the future, he could ask someone to make a few thick new cotton-padded clothes for her.

However, Lu Huai also found that it was becoming increasingly difficult to save the money he earned, so his plan to save some money and return to Lianghuai to find his daughter was repeatedly put on hold.

Lü Huai had recently learned from others that the court was going to build many brick and tile houses outside the capital for sale, allowing scholars and civilians to take out loans to buy the houses, and the interest rates would be set very low, so they would only need to pay a certain amount of down payment.

This made Lu Huai look forward to saving money to buy a house, start a family, and pass on his descendants.

Whether it was finding his daughter or passing on the family line, this forced Lu Huai to work harder and rush to work every day.

It’s just that there are too many temptations in the capital.

Eating, drinking and having fun are rich and interesting.

The key point is that there are many people in the capital who are particular about things, which makes him always unable to resist spending money and being particular about things, so he still doesn't have much money left.

But Lu Huai did not realize that the purpose of the emperor supporting nobles and relatives in law in lending at low interest rates and stimulating business development was to allow him to spend the money where he earned it.

He now feels that he may not have worked hard enough, and that he may not have been smart enough, so he has not saved much.

The person Lu Huai envies most now is Mr. Zhang Bin, who runs a shop near the shack where he lives.

Because he himself contributed a lot of money to Zhang Bin's store every day, so he thought Zhang Bin's hotel should be very profitable.

But Zhang Bin himself doesn't think so.

He hired people to run his hotel by taking out a loan in order to earn more income so that he could repay the loan he took out to build a house and marry a wife and concubines.

In addition, he was addicted to gambling, so he often had not much left after paying off his loans and gambling debts, which made him strive to be advanced in the inspection team in order to get more bonus money and accumulate more wealth.

Because Zhang Bin also wanted to buy the new house that was mentioned in the Yumin Daily and buy some more land.

Zhu Houcong was very satisfied with the model in which most of the money earned by the military and civilians in the capital was spent in the capital, and a lot of it even flowed back to him through loan repayment and consumption.

But he had to admit that not all, and not even most, of the new money was flowing back.

Most of the new coins he minted were not circulated in Shuntian Prefecture. Instead, they flowed out in large quantities and went to the south on the ships heading south.

Most of this new money even went into the cellars of the landlords in the south of the Yangtze River.

Because Shuntian Prefecture's main commodities all come from the south.

Especially from Jiangnan.

There's nothing we can do about it.

Places such as Suzhou, Songjiang and Yangzhou were the industrial and commercial centers of this era.

According to historical research, during this period, there were as many as 100,000 full-time skilled workers in Suzhou.

It can be said that Jiangnan in this era was not only the industrial and commercial center of the Ming Dynasty, but also the industrial and commercial center of the world in this era.

Therefore, there was a trade surplus between Jiangnan and Shuntian Prefecture, and a large amount of new money was earned by the Jiangnan gentry.

Shuntian Prefecture did not have any popular commercial goods for export.

Therefore, after selling their goods in Shuntian Prefecture, the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River often did not need to buy anything else in Shuntian Prefecture, but instead took the new money directly back to the south.

This caused a large amount of Zhu Houcong's new money to flow from Shuntian Prefecture to Jiangnan and into the cellars of the Jiangnan gentry.

If this goes on for a long time.

Even if his treasury had a mountain of gold, the new coins he minted would eventually flow away.

Fei Hong, the Grand Secretary in charge of the treasury and the issuance of new money, reported this problem to Zhu Houcong.

"His Majesty!"

"The new money is flowing out in large quantities. If we don't find a way to solve it, it will further empty the national treasury!"

Fei Hong made this statement to Zhu Houcong at a small court meeting chaired by Zhu Houcong and attended only by the nine ministers of the cabinet.

Zhu Houcong naturally had a plan to deal with it long ago.

But he did not intend to bring it up first, but chose to consult his ministers first to see if there was anyone who agreed with his opinion.

Therefore.

Zhu Houcong only asked the nine ministers at this time: "Do you have any solution to this problem?"

Fei Hong did not answer.

He is from Jiangxi.

Representative of the southern gentry.

His family even monopolized the papermaking industry in Qianshan County and was the one that benefited from the outflow of new money.

The reason he was able to respond to this problem was that as a ruler he had to consider the country. However, even if he was willing to think about it, he would not dare to propose measures to restrict the benefits of the southern gentry at this time.

It's not just Fei Hong.

Among the nine ministers present, except for the northern-born Grand Secretary Mao Ji, the Minister of Personnel Shi Yan, and the Right Censor-in-Chief Li Kun, none of them was willing to propose policy suggestions to limit the benefits of the southern gentry at this time.

After all, they are also afraid of being blamed by their fellow villagers in the future.

Yang Yiqing, who was recommended by Zhang Fujing to return to the court, also knew that Fei Hong and other southern officials had such doubts, so he decided to speak up for himself and said:
"Your Majesty, at this time, we can only speed up the promotion of color-discount tax payment in the south and increase the color-discount ratio!"

Yang Yiqing put it more tactfully.

The purpose of promoting the discount policy is to let people in the south pay taxes mainly in new silver dollars as soon as possible, and the discount ratio should be increased.

In essence, it is equivalent to increasing taxes on the South.

"I second the proposal!"

Liang Chu also replied.

From the moment the emperor wanted to reshape the monetary system, he knew that this step was inevitable.

Because money always flows to where the most money is.

Although Liang Chu had not studied economics as it was in later times, as he came from a prominent family in Guangdong, he was well aware of the rules governing money.

Liang Chu agreed now because as the Prime Minister, he needed to consider the interests of the court, and also because Zhu Houcong promised that in the future his family would become an official businessman who monopolized the interests of maritime trade for the court.

This also made him more confident in supporting the tax increase in the South, but he was not the first to propose it because he felt that Yang Yiqing would be more motivated to make progress than he was.

As he expected, Yang Yiqing spoke first.

After Liang Chu said this, Mao Cheng and others did not object.

Because they all know that even if taxes are increased in the South, a large amount of new money will still flow into the South.

After all, it is a fact that the South produces more grain, cloth and other commercial goods.

In short, the productivity in the south is developed, so as long as the imperial court does not increase taxes to a level that the south cannot bear, it will basically not change the law that wealth is concentrated in the south.

Naturally, the taxes imposed by the imperial court would still flow back to the south in the form of transactions and be earned by the wealthy people in the south.

So, they don’t object, they just won’t bring it up.

"Your Majesty, I think we can open the sea to increase the court's silver and copper revenues!"

Wang Yangming, who was from Zhejiang, was naturally familiar with the economic differences between the north and the south and the large influx of silver caused by maritime trade smuggling, so he proposed opening the sea to increase the influx of silver.

Zhu Houcong nodded.

then.

Wang Yangming said: "Your Majesty, before opening the sea, the court must have strong troops and horses!"

"Otherwise, the benefits of opening up the sea will only enrich the wealthy."

"Even if Yang Ge Lao wants to increase the discount rate, the court must be strong and powerful, otherwise, it will not be able to collect more."

"After all, the South is already seriously in arrears with its grain and silver taxes, let alone the additional taxes on top of those taxes?"

Zhu Houcong stood up at this time and smiled slightly: "We should strengthen our troops and horses first."

Zhu Houcong also planned to strengthen military construction, not only to increase military spending and boost northern industries, but also to prepare for future external expansion, directly exploit mineral resources outside, and solve the problem of insufficient minerals such as gold, silver, and copper in the court.

At present, the total amount of silver coins minted by Zhu Houcong's inner court is still more than 10 million taels of silver dollars, while the newly established treasury of the outer court cabinet only has more than 2 million taels of silver dollars after borrowing from the inner treasury.

Zhu Houcong lent the cabinet another 5 million taels of silver, allowing the cabinet to continue paying for the construction of the outer city and other expenses, and the inner court still had about 7 million taels of silver left.

However, in this case, the cabinet would have to borrow from the treasury again as it had not yet paid off its old debts.

For the cabinet officials, the pressure to repay their debts continues to increase.

But this is not something Zhu Houcong needs to consider.

What he now has to consider is how to use the existing income and deposits to build a strong central army to expand the results of the reform.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong instructed Wang Yangming: "Your Ministry of War should first calculate how many silver dollars will be needed to restore the Weiwu Camp and rebuild it on different scales, and how much silver dollars will be needed for training and maintaining the army every year."

Wang Yangming bowed and said yes.

While Zhu Houcong was planning to establish a more powerful central army, Hang Xiong and Liu Zhen also received the imperial reply from the Ministry of War.

"Your Majesty, are you frightened by the invaders and ask us to come to your aid?"

At this time, Hang Xiong also asked about Liu Zhenlai, who had read the letter first.

Liu Zhen said with a sullen face: "Your Majesty was not frightened. He did not ask us to serve the king, but only asked us to guard the pass strictly."

(End of this chapter)