Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

Increase the population and never increase taxes.

Originally, it was a big move made by Kang Mazi to stabilize the people's hearts after Manqing entered the customs.

This means that with a fixed population size, the taxes and labor service will also be fixed at a certain number. From then on, when the common people have new members in their families, they will no longer have to bear additional taxes and labor service.

It is a major reform of the tax and corvée system in history and an important symbol of the transformation of corvée into taxation in Chinese feudal society.

The equalization of land tax and land use tax was a further deepening and development of this reform.

In the Ming Dynasty, Dingyin was an important source of income for local governments. Together with the four types of silver, namely Lijia, Junyao, etc., they were all collected by local officials and not handed over to the court.

But in fact, most of this income fell into the pockets of local officials. Although the Ming Dynasty had a Ministry of Revenue, there were no statistical figures on the national adult silver, only the total number of adults in each household, which was actually a confusing account.

Moreover, this system had a great drawback, that is, the rich families owned vast tracts of fertile land, but did not have to bear corvée and labor service, while the ordinary people had no place to live, but had to pay corvée and labor service.

To put it bluntly, the rich do not pay taxes and can reasonably avoid taxes, but the landless people still have to pay taxes, pay more taxes, and on top of that they have to perform corvee labor for the rich.

This is also the most serious of the many bad policies of the Ming Dynasty. The reason why there are so many bandits is directly related to this drawback.

I have lost all my land, and they still want me to do corvee labor and pay the tax. Fuck you, I’m going to leave. So I packed up my bags and ran away on the spot.

In short, the so-called "equalizing the ding silver into land tax" means to evenly distribute the ding silver into the land tax, and to levy a unified land ding silver based on a fixed amount and the actual acreage of land, instead of levying ding tax on a per capita basis.

In simple terms, the tax on capitation should be tied to land rather than to the number of people, thus abolishing the head tax that had existed for more than a thousand years.

This reform will greatly reduce the economic burden on the landless and land-poor people.

Now that the common people can take a breath, who the hell would rebel?

Emperor Chongzhen pondered for a long time before he understood the true meaning of these eight words after Zhang Shikang's explanation.

He stared at Zhang Shikang as if he were a monster and said:

"Shikang, sometimes I really want to open your head and see how your brain is different from that of ordinary people and why you always have such wonderful ideas."

"Hehe, if Your Majesty peels off my head, then no one will help Your Majesty with the hard work." Zhang Shikang joked.

“Although doing so will affect the court’s annual revenue, if these two reforms can really be implemented, it will indeed greatly ease the burden on the people of the world.

But why didn't I listen to you before?" Emperor Chongzhen wondered.

"Please! Our court was extremely poor before, so how could we be qualified to act rich in front of the people?

Besides, which of the gentry and landlords in Jiangnan is easy to mess with? A tax reform would cause them to rebel collectively, not to mention touching their land. "Zhang Shikang explained helplessly.

"So, you can take advantage of their trouble this time and just clean them all up. Although it's risky and troublesome, if you succeed, you can eliminate most of the obstacles at once?"

Emperor Chongzhen speculated along the lines of Zhang Shikang's meaning.

"Yeah! Your Majesty is wise." Zhang Shikang said casually, but the compliment was as perfunctory as it could be.

"Humph, no one is so flattering as you." Emperor Chongzhen was very unhappy, but at this time his mind was full of reform, so he said:

"Then you will have a lot to do on this expedition. Not only will you have to suppress the rebellion, but you will also have to comfort the people, confiscate their property, and implement new policies."

"Who says it's not true? This expedition must be hard and tiring, and Your Majesty didn't even mention increasing our wages." Zhang Shikang complained.

"Salary? That's easy. Just increase it by yourself if you want. I have no objection." Emperor Chongzhen said seriously.

During this period, houses in the capital were searched and hundreds of thousands or even millions of taels of silver passed through Zhang Shikang's hands every day. All kinds of jewelry, calligraphy and paintings, antique jades were transported to the national treasury in carts, and the Taicang warehouse was almost full.

Emperor Chongzhen had never been as rich as he was now, and he looked very wealthy when he said this.

"Your Majesty is really boring. Haven't you heard that a wife is not as good as a concubine and a concubine is not as good as a mistress? You just let me add the title myself. It's really boring." Zhang Shikang rolled his eyes at Emperor Chongzhen.

People without money enjoy money, but in the eyes of Zhang Shikang, who has plenty of money and is extremely powerful, money is nothing more than a number.

He had the support of the Duke of England, so he had no worries about food and drink, he could do whatever he wanted, and he could afford whatever he wanted, without even having to buy anything.

There is no use for so much silver except to be thrown in the cellar and rot.

Zhang Shikang's complaints were just complaints. He just wanted to let Brother Chongzhen know how tired and hard-working he was. But Brother Chongzhen didn't understand at all.

What an attempted humor.

"Then...how about Shikang, you are corrupt yourself? You are corrupt behind my back. Wouldn't that be better?" Emperor Chongzhen scratched his head, thinking that he had discovered his blind spot.

Zhang Shikang's eyes lit up when he heard this.

"That makes sense. No, Your Majesty, you are actually setting a trap for me?"

Zhang Shikang took a gulp of the cold noodles. If he was greedy, and this old man was unhappy one day, he would chop people to pieces. That would be too scary.

"Shikang, you are joking, there is no such thing as a set.

I allow you to be greedy, as long as you don't go too far." Emperor Chongzhen said seriously.

If an outsider heard the conversation between the two, I wonder what their expression would be.

But Emperor Chongzhen was indeed very serious. In fact, he had always been worried about this matter.

He had ways to keep every civil and military official loyal to him, simply by promoting them to higher positions, rewarding them with money and property, and so on.

This is a method that has been tried and tested by emperors of all dynasties.

But this method seemed to have no effect on Zhang Shikang, and even had a counterproductive effect.

Zhang Shikang was very opposed to giving him a higher official title, and it was not an act. Later, Emperor Chongzhen found out and realized that this guy was just lazy.

The more official positions you hold, the greater your power will be, but correspondingly, the more things you will do and the more responsibilities you will bear.

Ordinary people can do anything for power, but this guy seems to be willing to do anything to be lazy.

If the Ming Dynasty was not in a precarious situation, Emperor Chongzhen would have been really worried that this kid would just give up.

Since ancient times, the way to win people over is to please their preferences, but it seems that Zhang Shikang has no other hobbies except being lazy.

You can't really let him be lazy, right? That's absolutely impossible! Emperor Chongzhen shouted in his heart.

"Most of the mansions in the capital are empty. If you like any of them, you don't need to tell me. The Ministry of Revenue will adopt them into your name.

If you like the jewelry and antiques found in the homes of Donglin Party members, you can pocket them. I will just pretend that I didn't see them.

The maids and concubines in the officials' homes..."

"Stop it! Stop it! Can't I just stop complaining?"

Zhang Shikang became increasingly paralyzed as he listened to Emperor Chongzhen's increasingly outrageous remarks.

I thought to myself, how can you be an emperor like this? You actively let your ministers enrich yourself and are the one who is in power.

“This time when I go to Jiangnan, in addition to bringing along officials from the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Personnel, I will also deal with the land held by the royal family.

Your Majesty has promised me, and you cannot go back on your word." Zhang Shikang said seriously.

Since we are carrying out reform, there should be no privileges. There is no better time than now to measure the land and redistribute it.

Making trouble once is a trouble, making trouble twice is also a trouble. It is better to take advantage of the chaos and solve it once and for all to avoid more trouble in the future.

Emperor Chongzhen hesitated for a moment, but finally agreed for the sake of his country.

"It's all up to you, but... they are my relatives after all, so you should show some mercy and don't kill them too much."

……