After hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen couldn't help but smile and said: "No, no, no, you better say it, I'll listen!"
What if I am wrong? I am the emperor, so I have to save face, right?
When Liu Weichao heard this, he didn't insist and said to him: "That's what I think. I haven't checked the specific information. Do you think this is okay?"
Having said this, he paused and said with a slightly more serious expression: "The officials and gentry of your Ming Dynasty should have land concessions and exemptions, right? In this way, you can determine them in reverse based on their tax payment situation.
How many grain fields are there in total!”
As Liu Weichao spoke, he laughed for a moment, looking a little gloomy, and continued: "As for the others, they definitely don't belong to them. They belong to the ownerless land and can be returned to the government, right? They can still do it.
Can we make a fuss? How can we make a fuss?"
"Are you suffering from being dumb?" Emperor Chongzhen heard this and said with great joy, "Wonderful!"
After hearing this, Liu Weichao laughed, but still reminded Emperor Chongzhen: "No matter what, you have military power in your hands. This is the prerequisite. Otherwise, it will be useless no matter how reasonable you are!"
"That's true!" Emperor Chongzhen nodded in agreement after hearing this.
Seeing him nodding, Liu Weichao reminded him again: "I just thought this based on my impression. If you really want to do this, it's best to check the information first to see what the specific situation is? Also note that it's best not to get the news first.
Leak, otherwise there may be unnecessary setbacks!”
When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he became serious and replied seriously: "Okay, I understand. I will let the Supervisor of Ceremonies do this and take charge personally!"
Compared with the civil servants of the outer court, he trusted the inner court more.
When Liu Weichao saw it, he smiled and said, "Okay, let's do it. I'll check the information for you, and we'll meet again later!"
"Okay, then it's settled!" Emperor Chongzhen was anxious to do this, so he said to Liu Weichao, "Should I hang up first?"
"Hang up, hang up!" After hearing this, Liu Weichao naturally had no objection and hung up the phone on his own initiative.
Then, he thought about it and started to search for information online.
Unexpectedly, after the investigation, Liu Weichao's expression became very serious. He did not expect that this matter of exemption would be so involved. It can even be said that the demise of the Ming Dynasty was related to this!
Feeling that the matter was of great importance, Liu Weichao did not rush to a conclusion and continued to search for information and digest and absorb the information found.
……………………
Emperor Chongzhen also immediately sent an order to Wang Chengen, the eunuch in charge of the rites and eunuchs, and solemnly told him to find him all the information about the privileges and exemptions of officials and gentry, and also asked for information on the taxes paid in the south of the Yangtze River in recent years.
He personally sat in charge and watched as the eunuch Bingbi, who was in charge of the ceremony, led their servants to do this work.
In addition, he also sent a decree to the outer court to inquire about the museum and monument to the loyal martyrs of the Ming Dynasty, and ordered that preparations must be completed before March 17. On March 18, he would personally lead hundreds of civil and military officials to pay homage to the loyal martyrs of the Ming Dynasty.
Two days later, Emperor Chongzhen initiated a video communication with Liu Weichao. As soon as the connection was connected, he said with a serious expression: "I have thoroughly sorted out the matter of privileges and exemptions for officials and gentry, and found that there are huge discrepancies."
Hearing this, Liu Weichao was not surprised at all. He nodded and asked, "Have you found that there is a big gap between exemptions and taxes?"
Emperor Chongzhen was startled when he heard this, then nodded and said with a very serious expression: "Exactly, do you have any news over there?"
Since he came to the throne, the situation in the world has been corrupt. He can only treat headaches and foot pains. He will not have the opportunity to sort out all aspects of the entire dynasty. Therefore, there are many things that he will not investigate at all if he does not investigate them specifically.
Know the specific situation.
Nowadays, it seems to be an ordinary matter about the privileges of officials and gentry, but when I really investigate, I find that there is something strange in it.
Liu Weichao listened and said with the same serious expression: "I did find some information. From the information I collected, it seems that the exemptions for officials and gentry have been changing since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. To be precise, it is the limit of exemptions for officials and gentry.
And the scope is expanding. If that's the case, it's actually fine. However, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, don't mind it. Once you get used to this word, it's completely rotten. It's no longer a quota of exemptions and exemptions, but an unlimited amount of exemptions and exemptions."
Emperor Chongzhen's thoughts at this time were not at all on the word "late Ming Dynasty". He nodded with a stern expression and said: "I found that there were few gentry in the south of the Yangtze River who paid taxes, and the majority of those who paid taxes were ordinary people who did not have much food.
!If you say that, then you are right!"
Afterwards, the two began to check the information they had.
There are privileges and exemptions for officials and gentry, no matter which dynasty they are, which reflects the privileges of officials and gentry.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the regulations regarding the preferential exemptions for officials and gentry were as follows: In addition to taxes and grain and regular servants in the inner circle, officials in the capital were exempted from miscellaneous errands; foreign officials were reduced according to their grades.
What does this mean?
That is to say, all officials and gentry must pay taxes on grain fields and serve as regular servants. Except for these two things, other miscellaneous servants are exempted from the duties of officials in the capital. Officials who are not in the capital will be reduced according to the official grade.
In the Ming Dynasty, there were three major types of corvee, namely Lijia, Zafan, and Jun corvee.
The battle of Lijia is based on households, with 110 neighboring households as one li, and the 10 households with more fields and more fields take turns to serve as the head of the li. The remaining 100 households are divided into 10 jias, with 10 households in each jia, and they take turns to serve as the head of the li. Every year, there are 10 households in the lijia.
A leader of 10 soldiers leads a group of 10 soldiers to serve, which is called "that year".
The battle of Lijia is actually a bit similar to the post of Bao Zhang or village chief in later generations. It is usually held by rich people, and poor households are exempted. This is why when the Ming Dynasty was founded, even the officials in the capital were not exempted from this position.
The reason why Li Jia is on active duty.
The li chief is responsible for the superior government, supervises the households he belongs to, collects statistics on the growth and decline of household property in the li, supervises household production matters, and mediates civil and criminal disputes within the li. Logically speaking, he is considered a local official who is not on the staff, and should be
Everyone grabbed it.
But in fact, it was a corvee that everyone feared. This became more obvious later on.
Why?
Because the government does not directly deal with ordinary people, all taxes, corvees, etc. are done by the village chief. If there is a flow of people in this village, moving to other places, or simply escaping, etc., in short, various
The reason is that if the district chief cannot complete the tasks assigned by the government, he will be imprisoned. What should I do?
You can only make up for the shortfall by yourself. If you need money or food, you can provide it yourself; if you need people, you can provide them yourself;
If it only happens occasionally, then it's okay. If you hold on, you might be able to get through it. However, by the middle and late Ming Dynasty, this was the norm. Whoever is the boss often has his family ruined, whoever can bear it
?
The equal corvee among the three major chores is to divide the regular and relatively heavy chores such as men, Zaoli, Kuzi, Doujie, grooms, bakers, archers, soldiers, guards, warehousemen, etc. According to the amount of ding grain (or ding field), a separate type of labor is compiled.
There are other types of labor that are either regular or miscellaneous.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the privileges of officials and gentry were not very obvious. After all, grain fields had to pay taxes, and Lijia officials also had to serve; only Junyao and Zafan could get some exemptions.
Of course, the officials and gentry were unwilling to do this, so they often discussed the matter.
At the beginning, we started to think of ways to expand the limit based on the regulations.
For example, in the 17th year of Hongzhi, the old system was reaffirmed. The current officials (chief envoys, etc.) were exempted from ten dings, the prefects were exempted from eight dings, the officials from Tongzhi to the county magistrate were exempted from three dings, and the eighth-rank officials were exempted from miscellaneous duties, provincial sacrifices, and elections. Furniture for officials and supervisors, candidates, students, and officials will be exempted from two items.
But during the Jiajing and Wanli years, the calculation was changed to land property. What does that mean?
That is, part of the grain fields of the officials and gentry were exempted, and the grain fields beyond this part of the quota were borne by Junyao and Zafan. This was called the land for service.
At this point, the officials and gentry were very dissatisfied and misinterpreted the law. This kind of thing was done by everyone from the chief minister to the scholar. It was said that even Junyao and Zafan should be spared.
Just like that, it changed from partial exemption to full exemption.
The taxes and labor that the officials and gentry were exempted from could not just disappear out of thin air. They could only be borne by those who were not officials and gentry!
This is just a general statement. In fact, the issue of the preferential treatment of officials and gentry has been repeated since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, and it is a very complicated process.
It is said that there are policies from above and countermeasures from below.
In order to evade taxes and not pay taxes, officials and gentry came up with countless ways. Among them, the most famous ones are undoubtedly the five ways of cheating, spending money, sending to the village, donating, and relying on grain.
Hidden land means that officials, gentry, in-laws, disciples, old friends and common people use forged certificates to illegally send their land to official households as a "cave for refuge". If they avoid service, they will still have to pay for it. Some people are sent to serve, so middle-class households, small households, friends, and even proletarian households are sent to serve!
This kind of situation was especially popular in the late Ming Dynasty. Even when Zhang Juzheng was working hard to reform, he found this situation when he asked his family to conduct an inventory: this household had 74 shi of grain free from the system, and 74 shi of grain was free from the special grain. The other one actually paid as much as 500 stones. Zhang Juzheng would definitely not agree, but his family would do it in his name.
Huafen refers to the use of illegal means to divide a household into several sub-households to avoid heavy labor. The reason for this trick is that the Ming Dynasty stipulated for a period of time that the number of acres of land owned by those who bear heavy labor should be divided. At the same time, it was stipulated that small households with little land would not be recruited. Therefore, the rich and powerful officials had the most grain fields, so they began to adopt this strategy.
"Send a farm" means purchasing a farm in another county. For officials and gentry, "sending a farm" is a way to obtain double benefits and exemptions.
To donate is to transfer one's grain fields to the names of officials and gentry in order to avoid heavy taxation and labor; among them, there are active and passive aspects.
There is also the last issue of not paying for food, which is easy to understand. The officials and gentry complained about natural disasters and man-made disasters, and the money and food could not be paid, so they relied on food. After a few years, some officials reported that the people were suffering so much, and the emperor's kindness was so great that they should be exempted. The food arrears. Just like that, the food arrears of the officials and gentry were also waived.