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

"Stop the flow." Hai Zhongzhong said two words without even raising his head.

Among the Ming Dynasty officials, all those who knew a little about the officialdom understood this, but Zhang Shikang, who basically stayed in the military camp all the time, was the only one who didn't know.

"Can't you tell me more details?" Zhang Shikang didn't care about being despised, and his face showed that he was asking questions without any shame.

Perhaps worried that Hai Zhongqi would get mad, the Minister of Rites Cai Guoyong replied:

"My Lord, the money collected in original and discounted amounts from various places must be used to cover the expenses of the local royal family. This is the bulk of the expenses. In addition, the local garrisons also need to pay a portion of the expenses.

The other part is the miscellaneous items, which are the expenses of the local government offices. After deducting these, there are also losses on the way to the capital."

Zhang Shikang was stunned by what he heard. He knew that there was no Internet at that time to transfer money directly, but the loss was too high.

wrong……

"I have been struggling for a whole year to finally get a lot of money and grain from the royal family, but your Ministry of Revenue has distributed it again???"

Zhang Shikang immediately got furious.

He first arrested Prince Lu, and later even arrested Chongzhen's brother's uncle, in order to force those princes to hand over money and grain.

After all this effort, the Ministry of Revenue just sent it back. Who can stand this?

"The princes of the royal family are supported by the imperial court. This is the ancestral system among the ancestral systems." Hai Zhongqi replied.

Zhang Shikang's words actually made Emperor Chongzhen quite embarrassed, after all, those royal family members were all blood relatives of the Zhu family.

But Emperor Chongzhen was not angry. After all, the treatment of the royal family was tacitly approved by him.

During the entire "fundraising" process, Zhang Shikang did not even kill a member of the royal family, which made him somewhat grateful.

After all, no one wants to be blamed for harming their own people.

"Shikang, we have taken away the land of the royal family this year, which is already a punishment for them. You can't just not pay them their salaries."

Emperor Chongzhen was aware of this. There were several boxes of memorials from clan members all over the country impeaching Zhang Shikang, and some even threatened to commit suicide.

They said that Zhang Shikang had robbed them of their food, leaving them with no way to survive.

"But Your Majesty, over the years the royal family's expenses have accounted for more than 30% of the annual revenue. Is this reasonable?" Zhang Shikang retorted.

“Speaking of royal family members, when I was leading troops outside, I once encountered a group of beggars, all of whom claimed to be descendants of royal family members.

I have also verified their identities, and they are indeed members of the royal family.

So, the imperial court has only given it to those princes and dukes over the years?

Princes and dukes had high salaries and could also invest in shops privately. However, those with lower titles had no food to feed themselves and no clothes to keep them warm, and they all became beggars.

Don’t you know all this?”

Zhang Shikang only knew that there were many royal families in the Ming Dynasty, and that the lower-level royal families did not live well, but he did not expect it to be like that.

Those royal family members are really pitiful. They have Zhu family blood, but they can't take the imperial examinations, can't farm, and can't do business. The imperial court doesn't even give them money. Isn't this just forcing them to die?

However, these guys were quite patient. It seemed that they had never rebelled like Li Zicheng until the end of the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, everyone present understood what Zhang Shikang said. Emperor Chongzhen also knew it, but there were too many members of the royal family.

If all the income were distributed according to the Ming Dynasty's ancestral teachings, it would not be enough even if all the income for the whole year was given to the royal family.

"Forget it, let's talk about the financial issue first and we can talk about this later." Zhang Shikang said casually.

The reform of the Ming Dynasty's household registration system is also his plan for next year, but if he talks about it at this time, it would be a bit off topic.

Hai Zhongzhong continued to flip through the documents and said:

"In addition to the land tax, this year's new commercial tax revenue is 6.46 million taels.

This is mainly commercial taxes in northern Jiangsu. As the war in southern Jiangsu has just ended, it has not yet been implemented. However, according to my estimation, if the commercial taxes in southern Jiangsu can be collected according to actual situation next year, it will exceed 10 million taels.

However, because the tax system reform has just been implemented, many problems have been encountered in the process. I will report this matter later."

The issue of commercial taxation is one of the rare reforms that Hai Zhongqi and other clear-minded people agree with wholeheartedly.

The Donglin Party members not only annexed land, but also ran shops on a large scale and even engaged in maritime smuggling. After Zhang Shikang's liquidation this year, these people have basically been killed.

Those clean officials who stayed behind were basically honest officials. Not only did they not collude with merchants, many of them could not even afford to eat meat.

In any case, the commercial tax reform was a great thing for the imperial court, and the amount of tax collected under the new system was almost the same as the land tax in previous years.

This is equivalent to the imperial court receiving two years' worth of land taxes in one year.

Emperor Chongzhen was actually very satisfied. He was tired of being poor. Now the court's annual income was about to double, so Emperor Chongzhen was still very satisfied.

"Even if we collect all of it, it would only be over 10 million taels." Zhang Shikang muttered.

Zhang Shikang remembered that more than 500 years ago, the weak Song Dynasty could collect 50 million strings of cash in commercial taxes a year, accounting for 70% of the total annual revenue.

This damn thing has been developing for more than 500 years, but its business income is less than half of others. He still has the nerve to say that. It's shameful.

However, Zhang Shikang roughly understood why there were so few of them. A small part of the reason was that Zhang Shikang had killed almost all the bosses of the merchants.

In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, not only land was being annexed, but business was also being merged.

It is extremely difficult for some small traders to expand without any background, but once they reach a certain scale, local officials, royal family members or gentry will always come to them.

Most of them are in the name of investing, but in fact they are just making money out of nothing. If those small merchants don’t agree, their business will not be able to continue.

Zhang Shikang started killing people as soon as he came to power. The bosses were killed, which caused chaos. First, prices soared, and then they simply rebelled, which affected the collection of commercial taxes.

But this is actually only a small part of the reason. The biggest reason is the Ming Dynasty’s household registration system and the idea of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce.

The imperial court does not encourage it and even suppresses it, not even allowing us to go out to sea. It would be strange if this could get any good.

Emperor Chongzhen shook his head helplessly and signaled Hai Zhongqi to continue reporting.

At this time, Hai Zhongqi took out another extra-thick account book. The book looked very new and it was obvious that it had been used for a short time.

But perhaps because they were flipped too often, many of the papers were curled.

"The biggest income this year is still from confiscations."

Everyone looked at Zhang Shikang. They all knew that this was the property that Zhang Shikang had confiscated after killing people for a year.

"I and my colleagues at the Ministry of Revenue have checked three times, and now summarize the specific findings as follows:

This year, a total of 12,686 households of criminal officials were searched and confiscated, and a total of silver was seized..." Hai Zhongqi paused and coughed lightly.

"One hundred and sixty-three million, eight hundred and seventy-five thousand, seven hundred and forty-three taels."

……