Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 166 Iron-fisted reforms, the powerful and wealthy must pay a large amount of back taxes!
Xiangcheng Earl Li Quanli seemed to feel that he was being mocked and ridiculed because Guo Xun had exposed his inner ignorance and greed, and he immediately became furious.

"You mean to say that I am disloyal to His Majesty?"

Xiangcheng Bo even asked in a cold voice.

Guo Xun just laughed: "It's up to you what you think, that's all I have to say."

Xiangcheng Bo clenched his fists.

"No clearing!"

"Damn it, whoever tries to clear it up again will kill me first!"

When Li Quanli, the Earl of Xiangcheng, saw that the stewards of the Weiwu Camp had already started to take out measuring tapes to prepare to go down to the fields for measurement, he immediately stopped them and said no more to Guo Xun.

and.

Li Quanli also acted like a rogue.

because……

He was actually sitting on the ground at this moment, blocking the intersection to his paddy fields.

at the same time.

Li Quanli also shouted to his servant Liu Hong: "Liu Hong, prepare a petition and go to the Censorate to file a complaint. The Weiwu Camp has given the nobles of the Qing Dynasty a farmland granted by the emperor, and has killed the heroes who have made great contributions to the Jingnan Rebellion!"

The stewards of the Mighty Camp couldn't help but look at Guo Xun.

Guo Xun gritted his teeth and walked towards Xiangcheng Earl Li Quanli.

He knew the character of Li Quanli, the Earl of Xiangcheng, and knew that this man had always been domineering and unreasonable. Otherwise, he would not have been impeached by the censors for extorting money from the officers of the garrison under his charge and seizing the fertile land of the military households of the garrison many times. He was even dismissed from his post as the Governor of Caojiang because he forced the commander Ge Fu to death.

He did not find it strange about the current behavior of Xiangcheng Earl Li Quanli.

However, before Zhu Houcong left Beijing, he told him that he could give him military power or take it away from him, and he also made it clear that the Jiajing Dynasty also needed a duke who had made outstanding contributions and would die with the country.

Therefore, Guo Xun knew that whether he could keep his wealth and honor, or even go further and become a duke, depended on whether he was willing to break with the civil officials for the sake of the emperor, and also dare to draw a clear line with the corrupt and decadent old nobles.

Just as Guo Xun was walking towards Li Quanli, the Earl of Xiangcheng, he suddenly pulled out the sword from his guard's waist and stabbed it into Li Quanli's chest with lightning speed.

"you!"

Li Quanli looked down in shock at the knife that had pierced his chest.

His face was full of disbelief.

"Old Li! Don't blame me in your grave. I did this for the sake of our ancestors' country!"

"After all, it was not easy for our ancestors to follow our great ancestors and conquer this country."

Guo Xun spoke at this time.

Li Quanli fell to the ground without saying anything else.

His servants Liu Hong and others also looked at the scene in shock.

At this time, Guo Xun shouted at the deacons of Qingtian:
"What are you standing there for? Hurry up and clear the fields! You are scared of doing anything by a noble who has no regard for the imperial court. You have really received the great favor from His Majesty in vain!"

"Yes!"

then.

The field clearing work continues.

None of Xiangcheng Earl's servants and farmhands dared to say anything. They just carried their master's body back and left the surveyors to do the surveying here.

Many of the tenants here cried with joy.

Because they were not tenants originally, but owners of the land that the garrisons in this area had cultivated.

However, Li Quanli seized their land and turned them into tenants.

Therefore, they were happy because Li Quanli, a nobleman who relied on his power to harm others, was finally executed.

Ge Fu's wife, Wu, also burst into tears because she happened to see this scene at that moment.

Because these were hidden fields whose yellow books had been destroyed, Zhu Xizhou returned the surveyed fields to the military households who had become tenants and created a new book for them.

This made Wu and other tenants even happier.

Wu even brought her son Ge Lian to the grave of her husband Ge Fu and cried:

"My child's father, you can rest in peace in heaven! The court has returned our land to us, and the evil Xiangcheng Bo was killed for obstructing the court's national policy. Woohoo!"

Xu Shen and Huang Cong, who were involved in this matter, couldn't help but smile at each other.

They had to admit that Guo Xun and Zhu Xizhou were really serious about implementing the court's land survey policy.

As the land survey began, it wasn't just the families of military households like the Wu family who were happy.

Many ordinary people were also very happy.

Because the taxes on them were also drastically reduced.

"Master Xu, please understand that the 300 acres of land that was surveyed are not mine. They are the land that the Hou family has secretly entrusted to my house. The tenants here all pay rent directly to the Hou family, but I have to bear all the taxes and labor service."

"I am angry but dare not speak out!"

"Now that the government has determined the land, please register it back under the name of the Hou family."

A rich peasant named Feng Tingce knelt before Xu Shen and asked him to re-register. Xu Shen brought Feng Tingce to ask Hou Wenzheng, the second son of Hou Shaozhi, the former director of the Imperial College:

"Master Hou, is what he said true?" As a family of scholars, the Hou family could not openly say that they had colluded with the clerks to tamper with the yellow book and falsely transferred 300 acres of land to the name of Feng.

Therefore, Hou Wen just smiled and said, "This is all because of the illegal behavior of the grain-managing servants, who colluded with the illegal officials and illegally entrusted my family's fields to the villagers. If it weren't for the imperial court's land survey, I wouldn't know about this."

After hearing this, Xu Shen said, "In that case, I will become your servant instead."

Hou Wen nodded, bowed to Feng Tingce and apologized, "I am truly sorry. If Ambassador Xu had not come to explain, I would not have known that I had offended the villagers in this way. This really makes our Hou family ashamed!"

"It's all the fault of the lawless servants and corrupt officials! They have ruined the reputation of our Hou family!"

After Hou Wen apologized, he gritted his teeth and said to Feng Tingce, "I will double the taxes and labor service that your Feng family has paid for my Hou family over the years to show my humility."

Feng Tingce said he didn't dare, but he was relieved in his heart.

For a middle-class family like his, the extra 300 acres of tax and labor service expenses were not small. Now that they are all gone, he feels a lot more relieved.

As a result, he also had a little more respect for the Emperor of Ming Dynasty. After returning home, he touched his son's head and said to his wife Lei:
"Your Majesty, we are in a good time. We can save more money to send our two children to school. One of them will eventually become famous, and they will be less bullied."

Lei smiled slightly: "I also heard from the neighbors that this time it is a real land reclamation. The emperor sent his own imperial guards to watch, and also sent a great official, Master Zhu, to re-clear the land and make a new yellow book. Master Zhu is also from Nanzhi."

"Yes, those gentlemen all say that Master Zhu is a traitor, but I don't think so. They are obviously talking nonsense because their hidden fields have been cleared out and they have to pay a lot of taxes."

"Moreover, what's even more hateful is that they don't even have a few good words for the emperor. They insist that the current emperor messed up the etiquette. When I heard about this etiquette, I didn't think the emperor was wrong. It's not like he was really adopted in advance, so how can he change his biological father?"

"Now that I've seen the emperor clear the fields and rebuild the Yellow Book, I'm even more convinced that our emperor is the true reincarnation of our great grandfather, who has come to give us common people a way to live."

Feng Tingce then said to his second son Gou Wa: "Now that we have such a good emperor, life will get better and better, so second son, if you go to school, you must study hard!"

Gou Wa nodded obediently: "Okay, Dad!"

Feng Tingce and his wife Lei couldn't help but smile at each other.

Feng Tingce couldn't help but move closer to Lei and put his hand on Lei's waist: "Life is getting better and better now, let's have another child!"

Lei blushed.

Zhu Xizhou also presided over a village drinking ceremony during the land survey in Yingtian Prefecture.

The so-called village drinking ceremony is to publicize policies and unify will in the name of a banquet.

Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang explained it in more detail in "Imperial Edict".

【Therefore, the village drinking ceremony is to distinguish the old from the young, to discuss the virtuous and good, to distinguish the treacherous and stubborn, and to distinguish the criminals. Among those who sit at the table, the older and more virtuous sit at the top, and the older and more honest sit together, in order of seniority... The wealthy families in each city lead the scholars and people to read the law and precepts in the Shenming Pavilion, and then perform the rituals as usual... so that the village is peaceful, the neighbors are harmonious, the elders and the young are in order, and there is endless joy. What else can be said? I am now making it clear, and those who follow will prosper, and those who do not will perish.】

In other words, the village drinking ceremony was a form of communication at the local grassroots level in this era.

In later rural areas, there was also such a situation. The village committee wanted to publicize something, but it was inconvenient to go door to door, so they gathered everyone together for a banquet and talked about the matter while eating.

Zhu Xizhou also invited the wealthy families in Yingtian Prefecture who had been found to have hidden a large amount of land to gather together and said, "I'm sure you all know the reason for this land reclamation, because there is no evidence for collecting taxes and labor service!"

"Yingtian Prefecture had no proof of collection because the Jiage warehouse was burned down, and the tax and labor records kept by the subordinate counties were also lost or destroyed. Although the officials who should be punished have been punished, the taxes and labor had to be collected and the reform had to be carried out, so they had to directly conduct a survey."

"This time, we did find a lot of hidden fields, fake fields, and scattered fields, which resulted in a lot of taxable fields being added to the names of the gentlemen."

"The Duke of Wei has already found more than 200,000 acres of land that has been taxed."

"The Linhuai Marquis family has already increased taxable land by more than 170,000 mu."

"The family of Junior Imperial Secretary Fang Gong has already found that more than 150,000 acres of land have been taxed."

"The family of Shao Sima Hou has already found more than 200,000 acres of land that has been taxed."

"The original text shows that the Wang family, a minister of the Ministry of Selection, has increased the taxable land by more than 120,000 mu."

"You are all either nobles or local officials, so you are all from virtuous families. So, since so many acres of land have been surveyed and are yours, please take the initiative to pay the taxes and labor service owed, and pay according to the newly determined silver conversion ratio and fire consumption standard."

"Don't wait for the officials to come to your house, or even force His Majesty to send the tax soldiers from the National Tax Administration. That would be embarrassing for everyone."

After Zhu Xizhou said this, the young Duke of Wei, Xu Pengju, also stood up and said:

"Of course! My Xu family has been blessed by the country for generations. Now that we have discovered that the village head has been operating so many hidden fields in the name of my Xu family, we will pay the arrears taxes truthfully."

Fang Ning, a scholar who had served as the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites during the Zhengde reign but had never been reinstated due to his dismissal due to mourning, could only smile and nod his head and say:
"As Duke Wei said, we are either from wealthy families or families that are steeped in poetry, literature, and music. We have received the grace of the country for generations. How can we be like the ignorant common people and evade taxes and labor service?"

"There is no need to have the officials come to our door. We will pay the money on our own initiative without burdening the government!"

"So good!"

Zhu Xizhou replied with a smile.

After Zhu Xizhou presided over this village drinking ceremony, these nobles and gentry in Yingtian Prefecture, after being found to have hidden large amounts of land, indeed honestly paid the outstanding taxes and labor service money.

After Zhu Houcong completed the land survey in Yingtian Prefecture, he learned that Yingtian Prefecture had added more than one million acres of taxable land, and the amount of silver owed for taxes and fire consumption in previous years totaled more than six million taels.

Also.

Zhu Houcong also issued an edict to strip Li, the Earl of Xiangcheng, of his title and confiscate his property because he resisted land survey and was found to have seized a large amount of military land. He also ordered the confiscation of the property of Zhou Song, the president of the Nanjing Hanlin Academy.

This means that Zhu Houcong will also obtain two huge sums of money from the confiscation of property.

In short.

This allowed Zhu Houcong to increase his financial income by a lot, which was enough to offset the cost of sending troops to Nanzhi to suppress pirates and survey the land, and there was even a lot left over to mint new coins.

In particular, the public ownership of fire consumption revenue added a large amount of silver to the cabinet treasury.

However, this deposit was to be used to allocate to local expenditures, because originally, the fire consumption silver was to be retained in the local area as the main source of financial income for each local government.

If the imperial court did not allocate funds, the local governments would have to come up with additional taxes in addition to the fire consumption in order to maintain normal expenditure.

(End of this chapter)