The reform methods mentioned by Zhu Shuren, honestly speaking, are very relevant to the current shortcomings of the late Ming Dynasty.
Further promoting the collection of lijin and expanding commercial taxes to support the military, this was a miracle that has been verified by later generations of history. The Qing Dynasty relied on this move to destroy the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
If it were not for Lijin, the Qing Dynasty might not have survived as well as the Ming Dynasty, which was attacked by Li Zicheng, under the attack of Hong Xiuquan.
The only problem with Lijin was the decentralization of local financial power and the separatism of warlords. As a result, although the later Qing Dynasty exterminated Hong Xiuquan, it also prevented Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang from being defeated.
But it doesn't matter if Zhu Shuren puts it here, because he can replace the combined status of Zeng, Li, and Zuo in later generations. This is equivalent to making a pure profit on both front and backhand. If he hadn't caught up with his father-in-law, Wang Jianguo, there would be no one.
The son is not afraid of being usurped by the vassal king who takes over the family property, but he really does not have the right time, place, and people needed to deepen this reform.
And what Zhu Shuren mentioned later was "high salary to support integrity and get rid of bad rules", which was also a proven good method of the Qing Dynasty in later generations. Although it was not completely clean, it at least suppressed corruption to the extent that it could not openly become a rule. It also changed the rule of law from the late Ming Dynasty to the Kangxi period.
of filth.
Only after these problems are solved can we talk about the solution to the evil problems of the troops eating empty pay, drinking soldiers' blood, and more than half of the military expenditures allocated by the Ministry of Household Affairs being deducted as soon as they leave the bank and before they leave the capital.
Otherwise, no matter how good the fiscal reform is and the financial resources are more, if more than half of the money is not actually spent on the military and armament, it will be in vain, and there will be no talk of combat effectiveness.
After Shi Kefa understood these principles, he would naturally give his full support out of public concern.
…
Of course, Zhu Shuren still has no reasonable status to interfere in politics. This kind of arduous reform also requires time to coordinate interests. So after he helped Zhu Changzhen and Shi Kefa come up with ideas in late March, he left in a hurry at the end of March
He went to Nanjing to avoid suspicion.
Shi Kefa continued to be busy with the work of other ministers, and also contacted and appeased local governors to support King Lu's new policies, becoming the external spokesperson of the reform.
The specific details of the above-mentioned reforms were finally released from Nanjing in early April and distributed to all provinces. Judging from the time, this was basically issued ten days after Zhu Shuren left Beijing, which blocked the world.
According to the public opinion, there is no clue that "the surnamed man of the country, as the son-in-law of the country, has overstepped his authority and interfered in politics."
The tortuous and complicated compromise of interests here cannot be underestimated. Shi Kefa has done a lot of work for this. Zhu Shuren is still too young, and he is indeed not very good at this kind of official exchange of interests.
Even so, after Shi Kefa implemented the financial part of the new policy of supervising the country, there were still some small voices of resistance at the local level.
But fortunately, Shi Kefa has explicitly or covertly emphasized that "these are the three fires that are necessary for the new supervisory state to take office. Once they are burned, it will end here." In addition, he also abolished the "three rates" that were deeply hated by the Chongzhen Dynasty, which can be regarded as
It gave the people a big sigh of relief.
Therefore, those victims whose conflicts were not too intense just pinched their noses and endured it for the time being, deciding to wait and see again and not be the first to show off.
On the other hand, Shen Tingyang, the Secretary of the Ministry of Household Affairs, was also very helpful. He took the initiative to ask his family members to expand their business in the near future and made a pretext. Then he obeyed the New Deal and took the lead in paying a large amount of New Deal Lijin (actually it should be called "shared gold").
The wealthy businessmen in the south looked down on the Shen family and the Zheng family, and they lost their will to resist.
There are still some subordinate officials in the household department under the control of Shen Tingyang. They think they understand the thoughts of their immediate superiors. They secretly think that the current prison prince has no son, and the minister and the prison prince are still relatives. They feel that the minister
Sir, you want to "turn your family into a country", so you are so willing to spend money.
As a result, one of his subordinates, a lieutenant, took advantage of him and proposed a new financial reform plan alone at the court meeting, saying:
"In this autumn of national crisis, military resources are abundant but not provided. Since all localities enthusiastically support the abolition of the three salaries and the increase of lijin, it is better to give more opportunities to the patriotic wealthy businessmen and gentry. The Ministry of Household Affairs should introduce a system to allow business gentry to pay lijin in advance.
In exchange for a tax payment certificate, when you actually do business across provinces in the future, you can use the tax payment certificate to deduct it. The court can also provide interest discounts to merchants who prepay the fee in advance."
To put it bluntly, this idea is somewhat similar to the issuance of national bonds. When Shen Tingyang heard it at first, he secretly thought that he had capable people under his command. He even wondered if his son secretly taught Bai Glove to say this.
But then he thought about it, he also trusted the father-son relationship in his family very much, and knew that his son did not need to hide this trick from him, so he did not judge this petition with colored glasses.
Shi Kefa, when he first heard about this trick, he thought it was a bit novel, but fortunately, Shi Kefa was knowledgeable and well-informed. He also consulted with Xu Guangqi and other seniors who were involved in Western learning, so he finally thought about it.
:
In the Ming Dynasty, it is not surprising that some financial officials thought of issuing "advance tax offset bonds". In fact, in the Western world, the Venetians had already done this two hundred years ago.
Even if there is no news about the Ming Dynasty, considering that the Dutch also learned this trick more than a hundred years after the Venetians pioneered it, and the Ming Dynasty has been dealing with the Dutch Red Mao Yi people for so long, it is not surprising to have heard of this trick.
.
If a Han Chinese in the Han and Tang dynasties thought of this trick, he might be said to be a time traveler. He did not think of this until the end of the Ming Dynasty, so he could not be considered a time traveler. At most, he could be said to have learned both Chinese and Western skills.
After calming down and carefully considering the pros and cons of this request, Shen Tingyang still very sincerely advised Zhu Changzhi at the court meeting not to accept such a petition.
Zhu Changzhen was a little surprised at first, because he also felt that the appointment of the doctor from the Ministry of Finance to go alone was reasonable. It could indeed expand financial resources and make people eat more food. Why did his father-in-law disagree?
Faced with this question, Shen Tingyang said righteously: "Once this law is implemented, the wind of local looting will be difficult to suppress. It is difficult to imagine how officials who have obtained the authority to collect fees in advance will abuse this power.
Local officials in the Ming Dynasty might have changed jurisdictions every few years. Who wouldn't want to collect more taxes during their term? In this way, the old officials made great achievements and achieved outstanding results. However, when the new officials took over, they found that the local commercial taxes had been prepaid.
After several years of tax collection, wealthy businessmen already have a bunch of tax deduction certificates in their hands. How can the new successor start his work?
Considering the current difficulties in the administration of the Ming Dynasty, these powers must not be delegated casually, otherwise the people will definitely not be able to survive!"
Zhu Changzhen had a weak ear and had never learned how to govern a country. When he heard this, he thought it made sense and asked other courtiers for their opinions.
Therefore, a few courtiers who didn't know much about finance but were really loyal and patriotic (those who were not patriotic and had selfish motives were eager that this suggestion could not be implemented, so they would not speak) followed Shen Tingyang's line of thinking and asked:
"Shen Butang, since delegating the power to levy preliminaries and provide interest deduction vouchers will lead to so many opportunities for corruption, isn't it okay not to decentralize it?
If the recruitment is unified by the Ministry of Household Affairs, given the strict enforcement of the law by the Ministry of Household Affairs and your high integrity, Shen Butang, we should be able to plug these loopholes, right?"
At this moment, everyone in the court still has a high degree of trust in Shen Tingyang's non-corruption, because Shen Tingyang has taken the lead in supporting the increase in business taxes. Many people estimate that according to the scale of Shen Tingyang's payment, the Shen family is afraid that this year
I can pay two million taels of business tax.
The Zheng family also has to pay about that much, and all the merchants in other southern provinces doing inter-provincial trade have to pay a total of 10 million taels. Together, the total income of the Ming Dynasty this year can exceed 15 million taels.
.
This is more than 4 million from the Shen family and the Zheng family, and they have obtained more than 10 million from half of the world in the south. However, Shen Tingyang has a good relationship and will not engage in the kind of "after the matter is completed, Mr. Huang's 180
One hundred thousand will be returned in full, and we will use the tricks of the two big families in the south of the city to "strike with a knife". Mr. Shen, the money he paid was real money.
Therefore, everyone now believes that Shen Tingyang will strictly enforce the law and will not waste his time.
But Shen Tingyang still shook his head impartially, and reminded him with some understanding: "This is not a question of whether we can stop eating and fishing after the power is collected from the Ministry of Household Affairs.
You may still remember that the reason why the Lijin method was effective in the past was to gain the support of the people and strengthen the military preparations of the southern provinces. The key point is that the commercial taxes paid by local governments are only spent locally and are only used to protect the defense of the province.
'. This prevented the wealthy gentry in the southern provinces from worrying that their money would be subsidized by the court to other provinces and thus become stingy.
Human nature in the world has been like this since ancient times. In order to protect their hometown, the squires are still willing to pay, but in order to protect the world and protect things far away, people in the world do not have such a high level. If you want to pay the prepayment today, you will pay the prepayment.
If the power is transferred to the Ministry of Household Affairs, how can the people of local and provincial governments be willing to respond enthusiastically? Isn’t that just going the same old way?
The imperial court should keep its word. When Lijin was born, it was agreed that each province would have separate accounts. The money of the province would only support the province's military expenditure, and it must not be changed, at least not until the world is restored to stability."
After saying these words, most of the officials who had opinions on the discussion shut up. Some people felt ashamed. Confucius supposedly talked about benevolence, justice, etiquette, wisdom, and trust for so many years, but in fact Confucian scholars also talked about benevolence, justice, etiquette, wisdom, and trust more.
Just saying the word "trust" on your lips is not as important as someone from the business class who knows more about the importance of credit.
However, in the end, this discussion was not completely fruitless. Everyone continued to discuss the situation in detail, and Shen Tingyang actually found a method that could be piloted:
Although allowing prepayment of tax in all provinces across the country will result in depleting the lake, and transferring all the money to the Ministry of Household Affairs will lead to local distrust of earmarked funds, then, only in the southern Zhili area will the trial be conducted to allow prepayment of business tax to be deducted, and to provide
Interest can perfectly avoid the above problems.
Because in the Ming Dynasty, the Southern Zhili region did not have its own financial officer system. The financial affairs of Southern Zhili have always been managed by the Nanjing Department of Household Affairs. Now in special times, the Nanjing Department of Household Affairs has been upgraded to the official Department of Household Affairs, but the original authority has also been changed.
Also doing both.
In addition, this place is under the supervision of the Supervisory State, with hundreds of officials watching, and the official environment is more transparent. Shen Tingyang is indeed a strong and fair financial officer. He will not be greedy for his own money. So in the final discussion, Zhu Changzhen allowed this opening
For special matters, this year, in the southern Zhili area, under the direct management of the Ministry of Household Affairs, a pilot program will be conducted to deduct overpayment of commercial tax in advance and deduct interest payments.
Starting next year, if there are wealthy businessmen and gentry from other provinces who are envious of this meager interest rate and are willing to share the worries of the court, they can apply again and have them reviewed individually.
In this way, the initial fluctuation period of fiscal reform can be regarded as overcoming, and we will not do things too hastily and cause trouble.
It involves millions and tens of millions of dollars, so of course we can't act too hastily. We must pilot it locally and then promote it.
After this law was passed, relatives of the Shen family who ran the merchant fleet (Shen Tingyang stopped running the family business personally after becoming an official in the Ministry of Household Affairs, and let relatives hold it on his behalf) also subscribed a large amount of money to save face.
The prepayment further stabilized the financial gap facing Zhu Changzhen's supervisory regime.
With such a leader, the voices of resistance in various places were suppressed even weaker.
…
The fiscal reform decree was first promulgated in early April and took a month or two to be implemented in various places. During this period, there are various fine-tunings that need to be announced.
Therefore, in the two months of April and May, there will be no new actions in civil affairs for the time being. The court basically revolves around these three things that King Lu oversees the country.
No matter what the final result was, most of the officials, gentry, and generals in the south saw a supervisory prince who was light on government, did not do too much work, and only did what was necessary. They also fully realized the completely different styles of King Lu and the late emperor.
The governing tone of "let bygones be bygones and not dwell on historical merits and demerits" has also been fully demonstrated, making people feel more at ease.
In addition, the words are divided into two parts. Before the three fires of King Lu's new policy, as early as mid-March, the decree to summon the kings to South Zhili had already been issued. This work originally took a month or two to be effective.
, so now it happens to be promoted in parallel with the new policy of supervising the country.
In mid-April, the first batch of vassal kings who came to Beijing obediently after receiving the order arrived in southern Zhili.
If nothing unexpected happens and they do not disobey orders, other vassal kings can also come to Nanzhili later in April, or June at the latest, to accept closer control from the imperial court.
In the 2670 years of the Ming Dynasty, the thirteen generations of emperors have created more than 200 princes. Of course, a small number of them have not been passed down due to the lack of heirs and the expulsion of the country due to crimes.
There were only more than a hundred princes who could be passed down to the Tianqi period. In the early years of Chongzhen, because the war had begun, bandits began to kill the vassal kings in the occupied areas. Therefore, at the beginning of Chongzhen's accession to the throne, the number of princes had dropped to one.
Below one hundred and fifty.
Now, after nearly twenty years of bloody civil war, the number of princes has continued to decline sharply. After all, all the princes in the northern provinces have basically been killed, either at the hands of Li Zicheng and other bandits, or by the Tatars.
killed.
Even in the south, all the princes from Hunan and Sichuan were taken away by Zhang Xianzhong's wave, and a total of more than a dozen families were taken away.
Therefore, there are currently less than fifty princes in the world. The only one whose bloodline is closer to the late emperor than Zhu Changzhi is Fu Wang Zhu Yousong, and there is no one else as close as Zhu Changzhen (Wanli also
Not that many children and grandchildren survive to this day)
Now that Zhu Changzhen's edict has been received, the first and most active responders are those vassal kings living in the border areas between Shandong and Nanzhili. Because their vassal territory is already on the edge of the southward march of Li Zicheng and the Tatars.
If they didn't run away, they would have died. I wish the imperial court would issue an edict to allow them to escape from the fiefdom.
From Zhu Shuren's point of view, he actually didn't want to save those Shandong princes at first. He wished that those pig-raising wastes would be killed directly by Li Zicheng or Dorgon, so that he could live in peace. The court could also reduce expenses and save the money.
More money is spent on the people and the military.
However, Zhu Shuren also knew that he must use these Shandong princes as a guide to draw out other princes from stable and prosperous places in the south to show that the court treats everyone equally.
Otherwise, they would only forcefully recruit the princes from the prosperous areas in the south, but not call or rescue the princes of Shandong. No matter how stupid you are, you can see that there is a trick of "weakening the clan and dominating King Lu".
As a result, some minor accidents inevitably happened to these Shandong princes on their way south - two or three of them were not accustomed to the environment because they had always been pampered, lacked exercise, and had never traveled far in their lives.
If you can take it easy and rest, you can recover, but because some troops from Liu Fangliang and even Dorgon have penetrated and harassed the Shandong area, especially the Tatar cavalry can cross the fortified city to burn, kill and loot in the non-combat areas behind.
How could these princes dare to rest in the middle of the war when the war was in turmoil?
So after a lot of troubles, among the dozens of princes from Shandong and Henan who went south, two died from the Tatars' infiltration and looting rebels, three died from the acclimatization and disease, and of the fourteen princes from the north, only nine were alive.
Arrive in Yangzhou.
Zhu Changzhen would not allow them to cross the river to Nanjing. He also wanted to prevent careerists from appearing in Nanjing, so he placed all the princes from the north in Yangzhou, across the river.
While the nine northern princes arrived in Yangzhou one after another, there were still about thirty princes from the southern provinces with distant or close bloodlines, and six or seven princes arrived alive around Nanjing. And behind the arrival of these six or seven princes,
One person died of illness and the other died at the hands of thieves——
The south is not completely safe now. Some of the remnants of Zhang Xianzhong's army that was wiped out in southern Hunan two years ago fled westward to Jinggang, Luoxiao Mountain, and other major mountainous areas in the south after the Battle of Hengzhou.
It was quite chaotic. The two princes who were killed and died of fright and illness were from Jiangxi.
After this wave, of the more than forty princes who survived in the world, seven died and fifteen were completely controlled by Zhu Changzhen.
There are still more than a dozen companies in the pipeline, with only a few companies in single digits. For various reasons, they chose to choose Xuefu Wang and resisted because of his illness. This is not to say that those companies that resisted must be ambitious. It can only be said that people
Over a hundred, there are all kinds of people, there are so many princes in the Ming Dynasty, there are all kinds of people, those who are unclear, those who are stubborn, those who are timid and afraid of being harmed.
In any case, after this wave, all the vassal kings in the world have been plowed, and they have been completely classified and filed clearly. Anyone who wants to be a thorn will naturally be dealt with by the court.
In addition, during the process of escorting the vassal king across the border, the local officials involved in various places were also trembling with fear. Those local officials who caused the vassal king to be killed by Tatars and bandits in their own defense areas were all frightened at first, fearing that King Lu would follow him.
The late emperor also attached great importance to the crime of "trapping the vassal" and wanted to use their heads to commemorate the murdered prince.
However, Zhu Changzhen took the opportunity to extend an olive branch and expressed repeatedly: "In this autumn of national crisis, in this special period, it is difficult for northern officials to defend their territory. A small group of Tatars infiltrated and killed the vassal. It cannot be punished as trapping the vassal. As long as the city is not lost, it will not count."
"The goodwill of these officials was pardoned.
When the local officials and generals saw that "it turns out that if a vassal king is killed in the territory under his jurisdiction, he will no longer be questioned", they became bolder. They recalled the harsh punishments and laws of the Chongzhen Dynasty, how many governors, and the Ministry of War
The ministers were all executed by Chongzhen because of the death of the vassal king. After everyone remembered the bitterness and sweetness, they supported the kind King Lu even more.
Who made the Ming Dynasty develop to this day? Few people in the world like the feudal king! I heard that the feudal king is not responsible for everything after his death, but can analyze the specific situation in detail. Who doesn't feel relieved?
Of course, Zhu Changzhen's "generousness" would definitely leave excuses for the vassal kings. For example, King Fu secretly contacted other vassal kings many times to express that "Zhu Changzhen is weak and has now been controlled by Zhu Shuren. This is intentional to harm the clan."
Brothers and sisters, it was only then that we changed the good law of the late emperor's time to severely punish officials who had fallen into the vassal state, and changed it into the current state of collapse of the dynasty."
In the Guangdong and Guangxi areas where the Zhu Shu people were the weakest in the south, there were also some vassal kings who were quite ambitious in history and wanted to be emperor. Because they were afraid of going to Beijing and wanted to stay in Guangdong and Guangxi where the sky was high and the emperor was far away, they chose to stay with Zhu Yousong.
As time entered May, two months after King Fu Zhu Yousong first claimed that he was ill and refused to go south, Zhu Changzhi issued another edict specifically for him, asking whether Zhu Yousong's condition had improved and whether he could go south to state the previous "interference with Si"
Responsibility.
If he continues to complain of illness, Zhu Changzhen also said that several imperial doctors from Nanjing can be sent to Fengyang to help Zhu Yousong consult and confirm his condition. If he is sick, he should be treated early without delay.