Ming Dynasty: Ask Zhu Yuanzhang to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 256: Roundabout land reform, unexpected reaction!

The imperial land is managed by the Ministry of Revenue, and this matter has been proposed many times by ministers in the court.

Old Zhu also agreed early on.

But when it comes to actually carrying out the order, there is always someone from the palace who comes to say hello.

There is no other reason.

The emperor is also a human being and needs private money.

It is really difficult to explain to the ministers the purpose of some money.

It can be very annoying when Confucian scholars give advice.

As the royal private property, the income from the imperial fields went directly into the emperor's own treasury.

If it were really handed over to the Ministry of Revenue, it would not be so convenient when the emperor needed to use the money.

Therefore, even though the ministers proposed it again and again and Zhu Yuanzhang agreed, it was not actually implemented.

At this moment, Zhu Yunhuan suddenly brought it up, which naturally made the three of them feel strange.

Especially since this matter involved the emperor's private money.

Even if Zhu Yunhuan was the Crown Prince and Regent, it would not be easy for him to intervene.

"Let the Ministry of Revenue sort out all the rent and tax revenues from the imperial lands, and collect them separately from now on, instead of mixing them together."

Before anyone could ask, Zhu Yunhuan continued, "The imperial fields are like the fields of the common people. The taxes prescribed by the state are paid and deposited into the Ministry of Revenue's treasury."

"The remaining land rent will go into the inner treasury."

Several people suddenly realized.

According to the previous regulations of the imperial court, the taxes on imperial land were much higher than those on private land.

Because the imperial land was rented out by the royal family to the people for cultivation, the taxes paid also included a part of "land rent". When the two were collected together, the taxes would naturally be high.

Zhu Yunhuan’s meaning was very clear.

In the future, the tax on imperial land will be tax, and the rent will be rent, and they will be calculated separately.

Taxes went into the national treasury, and rent went into the royal treasury.

But in this way, the income of the inner treasury will be reduced significantly compared to before.

Because when they were mixed together in the past, the rent and taxes of the imperial land actually all went into the emperor's private treasury.

This is also the reason why ministers repeatedly wrote letters requesting that the imperial land be managed by the Ministry of Revenue.

To put it bluntly, it means that the emperor's private treasury is taking too much public money.

But we can’t say it directly, so we have to use the name of unified management.

Now, Zhu Yunhuan simply separated the two. In the future, ministers would no longer have any reason to bring up the imperial land, which would save a lot of trouble.

After all the fields of the princes were converted into imperial fields, the amount of imperial fields increased greatly, which just made up for the decrease in income caused by collecting only rent from the imperial fields.

After figuring out the key points, Yang Shiqi and the others couldn't help but applaud and said, "Your Highness, this is a great move. I think His Majesty will be very satisfied."

Zhu Yunhuan smiled and said, "This is the case for the imperial fields, and all other official fields should be treated the same way."

"Rents are rents, taxes are taxes. All official fields, such as marriage fields, meritorious fields, and salary fields, should be managed by the court like the imperial fields. Princesses, meritorious officials, and court ministers only receive the title, but do not actually manage it."

"The Ministry of Revenue will distribute the land rent income to each person according to the number and grade of land owned by him."

This sentence immediately changed the expressions of Yang Shiqi and Xia Yuanji.

Yao Guangxiao stroked his beard and said, "Your Highness the Crown Prince's idea is not bad."

"Even if the emperor's relatives, nobles and meritorious officials were given a piece of land, it was just to support their families and pass on the legacy to their descendants."

"If the descendants are unfilial, do not know how to run the family, or sell off the ancestral property, the family will fall into decline."

"It would be a good thing for them to let the imperial court manage it and convert the rent they deserve into silver and rice for distribution."

Yang Shiqi said: "Those fields are in their own hands. They rent them out and collect very high rents, ranging from 30% to 50%."

"But if it is taken back under the management of the imperial court, the imperial court will rent it out as a permanent tenancy, and the rent collected will be no more than 10%."

"This will lead to a significant reduction in their income, and these people will definitely not agree to it."

The previous commercial tax reform has already infringed the interests of many people.

Although it was eventually implemented, it encountered tremendous resistance.

Although tax evasion in business can bring high profits, it is something done secretly after all and cannot be brought out in the open.

The fields are different.

In the eyes of royal relatives, meritorious officials and even many court ministers, land is the foundation of their family.

The Chinese have a long tradition of passing on farming and studying from generation to generation.

In the eyes of many people, as long as their family has a piece of family land, they can ensure worry-free generations.

Zhu Yunhuan said that all government land would be handed over to the court for unified management, which was equivalent to taking away all the land they currently held. How could they agree to this?
Yang Shiqi only mentioned the reduction of land rent, but in fact there was another important reason, which was that they were not at ease with the money being paid by the imperial court.

If one day the Ministry of Revenue delays paying the money on the grounds that the treasury is short of money and grain, we would have no place to cry.

The timely and full payment of officials' salaries was not achieved until Zhu Yunhuan took power as regent.

Before this, it was common for the money to be delayed for several months, or to be replaced with other materials, or to be distributed using the worthless Ming treasure notes.

Why should we make them believe that after the land is taken over by the court for unified management, the court will keep its promise and pay the money in full and on time?

"The court cannot ignore the landlords' collection of rent, and the government cannot ignore it either."

Zhu Yunxun said: "I want to formulate a law on land rent collection, set an upper limit for rent collection, and restrict subletting, etc. What do you think?"

Yang Shiqi pondered and said, "This is a solution."

Previously, the imperial court had always had certain management and restrictions on private land leasing and money borrowing.

It’s just that in actual implementation, there is no in-depth intervention and the relevant laws and regulations have not been implemented.

But with the precedent, when Zhu Yunhuan brought it up again, the ministers had no reason to object.

Yang Shiqi, Xia Yuanji and others all expressed their approval.

This is the art of ruling and politics.

The thoughts in the minds of those in higher positions cannot be thrown out at will.

Instead, we need to test it step by step.

See how the people below react before making further plans and decisions.

If the reaction is very intense, the original plan must be modified, either withdrawn or coordinated in a roundabout way, broken down into many steps and implemented slowly.

On the contrary, if the people below have no objection, then all the plans can be put forward.

The most taboo thing is to give orders forcefully or randomly without considering the consequences.

The result of doing so would inevitably be to arouse opposition from the entire court and nothing would be accomplished.

Thinking that you have power and can do whatever you want is basically a fantasy.

Power is certainly useful, but in practice, power should be used more in the planning stage of things.

It relies on the method of "silent and gentle spring rain".

Despite all the tough orders, this can only be done occasionally and in specific circumstances.

Seeing that they had no objection, Zhu Yunhuan proposed the plan he had prepared long ago. First, the rent of cultivated land cannot exceed one-third of the annual output of crops. If the rent is less than one-third, it shall be implemented according to the original agreement and shall not be increased; if the rent exceeds one-third, it shall be reduced to one-third.

2. Order the Ministry of Revenue to formulate a model lease agreement, and each province, prefecture, and county will establish a special agency to manage tenancy matters, and the local chief official will be responsible for it. The court will implement a system of accountability for this.

3. The minimum lease term for all farmland is six years. Landlords are not allowed to change the lease year after year, renting it to one owner this year and to another owner next year, in order to threaten tenants.

Fourth, the court encourages the perpetual tenancy system. All government-owned land shall be subject to perpetual tenancy. The land shall be registered with the government office and submitted to the Ministry of Revenue. Once it is properly filed, it will never be changed. Landlords who are willing to take the initiative to implement the perpetual tenancy system will be commended by the court.

5. Landlords may not collect rent in advance or a deposit for rent for any reason, nor may they force tenants to assume any obligations other than paying rent. Apart from paying rent, landlords and tenants are equal.

6. Landlords are not allowed to terminate the lease before the expiration of the lease. In extremely special circumstances, if the lease must be terminated, it must be reported to the government for approval and the landlord must compensate the tenant for the loss.

7. When the crop yield of cultivated land is poor due to disasters or other force majeure, the landlord shall reduce the rent for the tenant. The amount of rent reduction shall be determined by the local government tenancy management agency and reported to the court for approval. When the crop yield of cultivated land is less than 40% of that in normal years due to disasters, the rent shall be exempted for that year.

8. The court encouraged landlords to hand over their rented land to the government for unified management and receive annual rent. Anyone who was willing to voluntarily hand over his land would receive additional subsidies from the court in addition to the normal land rent income.

9. If someone is willing to sell his land, the local government will purchase it at a fair price. The purchased land will be managed by the tenancy management agency and rented out as permanent tenancy land.

10. All perpetually leased land must be cultivated by the owner and may not be sublet to others. If there are too many perpetually leased lands under one's name and one has to sublet them to others, the land should be taken back and rented to another household by the original owner. If the original owner cannot find someone to rent the land, the land should be transferred to the tenancy management agency for handling. If the perpetually leased land tenants do not want to rent and cultivate it anymore, the land should also be taken back to the public and handled by the tenancy management agency.

……

These clauses have several purposes.

First, it prohibits landlords from collecting rent or increasing rent at will, and protects the interests of tenant farmers.

Second, the imperial court could slowly nationalize the land through redemption.

If the land in the hands of the landlords is transferred to the management of the so-called "tenant management agency", then the nationalization of the land will be realized in reality.

This is equivalent to redistributing land across the country.

The advantage of doing this is that land reform can be completed without causing any damage.

If all the people in the world rent and cultivate land from the state, then the farmers only need to pay taxes to the state.

As for the annual rent that the state pays to landlords, it is just the right amount to serve as start-up capital for private capital.

Let them use this money to set up factories, start businesses, and expand overseas markets.

Although capital is bloody, it is full of evil from beginning to end.

But it depends on who you compare with.

Compared with feudal bullies and serf owners, capital that allows workers to work freely, change jobs freely, does not restrict personal freedom, and pays wages on time is simply a great kind person.

The lesser of two evils.

The same is true of national policy.

There is no absolutely good policy, only policies that are better than the original ones.

Another point is that the stage of primitive accumulation of capital is the most difficult and bloody.

The state's distribution of this money is equivalent to allowing these people to complete their initial primitive accumulation.

Landlords who sold their land to the state had the capital to go directly overseas.

It is impossible for the imperial court to offer a very high price to acquire the land.

But as long as this rule is opened, there will always be landlords willing to sell their land.

There are unfilial descendants who squander their wealth, there are those who lose money in gambling, and there are those who have to sell their land to survive due to natural disasters and man-made calamities.

Or maybe they want to do big business and sell land to raise money and capital.

After all, land is an asset with very low liquidity.

It looks very valuable, but when you actually want to sell it, not everyone may be willing to buy it.

There is often no demand for it.

At this time, the imperial court would guarantee the purchase, which would naturally be something the land sellers would love to have.

Over time, as time goes by, the fields will slowly come into the hands of the imperial court.

Tenants with permanent tenancy cannot sublease, which is also an extremely critical measure.

In fact, ordinary tenants from landlords would not sublet the land they rented.

Subletting mainly occurred among tenants of imperial or royal fields, as well as the homes of high-ranking officials, nobles, or wealthy businessmen.

Because the area of land they held was large and inconvenient to manage directly, they often sublet it to their own slaves or managers for management.

For example, the Prince of Jin's mansion owns 300,000 acres of land. It is certainly impossible for the Prince of Jin to collect rent from every acre of land.

The King of Jin divided it into ten farms and rented them to ten farm owners.

These landowners then sublet the land to others.

Through layers of subletting, the King of Jin only collected less than 10% of the rent, but in the end the farmers who actually cultivated the land may have paid 50% or even more in rent.

All these land rents were eaten up by middlemen.

This phenomenon is very common in the Ming Dynasty today!

The people cursed the King of Jin as a blood-sucking devil who killed people without shedding blood.

The King of Jin felt that he was very wronged. I only collected less than 10% of the land rent. Am I not kind enough and not compassionate enough for the people?

This is the key reason why Zhu Yunhuan wanted to restrict the sublease of permanent tenancy land.

Those landowners themselves were not landlords, not owners of the land.

But when it comes to sucking blood, they are much more cruel than the landlords!

When Zhu Yunhuan finished explaining all his measures in detail, Xia Yuanji fell to his knees with a plop.

"Your Highness, these measures are all aimed at addressing the problems that are causing the disease. Once implemented, the people of the world will surely benefit greatly."

"Xia Yuanji would like to thank His Royal Highness the Crown Prince for his kindness on behalf of the people of the world!"

After saying this, he kowtowed several times.

Zhu Yunhuan hurriedly helped him up, but saw that he was already in tears.

He turned to look at Yang Shiqi and Yao Guangxiao.

The old monk looked calm, and he just kept stroking his beard and smiling.

Yang Shiqi's face was filled with excitement.

"Can these measures be implemented?" Zhu Yunhuan expressed his doubts.

In his estimation, it would not be an easy task to get landlords to reduce rents and restrict their power in various aspects.

After all, this society is still a society ruled by the landlord class.

How could they give up their power?
unexpectedly.

Yang Shiqi said firmly: "Yes!"

“If it were in the past, we might have worried that it would be difficult to implement and manage.”

“But now, the situation has changed.”

"Please rest assured, Your Highness, the good policies formulated by Your Highness will surely be implemented throughout the country."

Zhu Yunhuan was a little curious and asked with a smile: "Many court officials are big landowners. Won't they object?"

……

(End of this chapter)