Jiang An moved a chair and Zhu Yunwen sat on the side."Zhan Qingtan, let's start with you."
Zhan Qingtan took a deep look at Zhu Yunwen. Under Zhu Yunwen's encouragement, she walked to Wang Jin's table and looked back at Zhu Yunwen before saying,"Zhan Qingtan, eighteen years old, native of Suzhou Prefecture…a female member of the royal family.”Wang Jin had no choice but to work.
Zhan Qingtan looked at the new household register and walked in front of Zhu Yunwen. She knelt down and said,"Thank you, Your Majesty!"
"Thank you, Your Majesty!"
The women of the Education Bureau all knelt down.
The voice came one after another, from the front of the group to the back of the group. Countless people were somewhat moved when they saw this scene.
After Ma Fuyan heard the commotion outside the palace, he was silent for a while. Then, he led a group of maids out of the palace and arranged for eunuchs and palace maids to set up a boiler outside the palace gate to boil some hot tea. He also ordered the Needlework Bureau and the Turban Hat Bureau to send a batch of warm clothes outside the palace.
Although the autumn night was not cold, it was still slightly cool.
Some adults were fine, but the older and younger ones were not cold.
As His Majesty's wife, how could she not consider things that His Majesty had not considered?
Ma Fuyan asked the internal palace supervisors to vacate more than 300 rooms and temporarily arranged for the women who entered the palace to enter. As for those who entered the other household registration, they were temporarily arranged to stay in the Jiaofang Department. Tomorrow morning, they would give the dismissal payment and leave.
All of a sudden, the citizens of Nanjing were moved. The names of the "Saint Emperor" and "Saint Empress" entered the hearts of the people along with the cheers of the citizens.
Chang 'an Palace.
Ma Fuyan sat at the table and kept rolling her eyes at Zhu Yunwen. When the maid asked what she wanted to eat for lunch, Ma Fuyan said with a bitter face,"What else can I eat? I'll just take a nest today and barely eat two mouthfuls.”
Zhu Yunwen was depressed and arranged for the maid to be as usual. She said to Ma Fuyan,"Is it necessary?"
Ma Fuyan snorted and said,"Your Majesty, you really don't know how expensive rice is."?Now that there were so many more art troupes, what should he do with this expenditure?”
"This is a problem." Zhu Yunwen frowned, looked at Ma Fuyan and said seriously,"Why don't we have a nest for lunch?"
“……”
Ma Fuyan was speechless. Money was a huge problem.
The current Ministry of Revenue was actually not too difficult. The Minister of Revenue, Huang Zicheng, the Right Assistant Minister, Zhuo Jing, and the others were relatively relaxed. The foundation that Zhu Yuanzhang had laid down was worthy of recognition. At least the court did not lack money and food.
Thinking about it, Emperor Jianwen and Zhu Di had been fighting for four years, and their money and food could keep up. It didn't make sense that they would run out of money just because they made some reforms.
However, just relying on the system of Zhu Yuanzhang was not a solution. The fate of the Ming Dynasty could not be changed, and the suffering imposed on the people of the Ming Dynasty would still appear.
This was not the result that Zhu Yunwen wanted to see. Therefore, confirming the status of merchants, changing Zhu Yuanzhang's policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, and vigorously developing industry and commerce would become Zhu Yunwen's inevitable choice.
However, the development of industry and commerce required abundant resources and free movement of people.
According to Zhu Yuanzhang's military, agricultural, and craftsman records, all his descendants needed to do this.
Even if your family died, you still had to find someone to replace you as a soldier. As for whether the person you found was your nephew or not, it didn't matter.
If the household registration system was not reformed, it would be impossible to promote business reform.
The reform of the household registration system also involved land reform and land tax system.
There were many problems. It was not that the economy would develop, the market would prosper, and he would be able to enjoy taxes just by loosening the restrictions on merchants.
"In the end, we still need to free up the labor force first.”
If the peasants were not liberated, the problems at the bottom would continue to appear.
If the peasants were not liberated, there would be no surplus labor force in the city.
If the farmers were not liberated, the business would not be able to develop…
Behind the chain of events was the problem of land.
Zhu Yunwen turned his attention to the land tax system.
In the Ming Dynasty, the agricultural tax was mainly land tax.
The land tax system adopted a two-tier tax system, namely, the summer tax was levied in August of the lunar calendar, and the autumn grain tax was levied in the second month after the autumn harvest.
The tax rate was roughly five to ten percent of the total harvest.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the summer tax and autumn grain tax were paid by grain, which was to pay taxes in kind. During tax collection, everyone pushed the grain on their shoulders to pay taxes. The government sent the grain received to Nanjing in various ways.
The imperial court used these grains to pay the salaries of the imperial relatives, civil and military officials, and the soldiers.
When the salary was paid, the number of bags of rice given to the first-grade officials and the number of rice given to the ninth-grade sesame officials were all fixed. Everyone just had to take the sacks to get it. In the early Ming Dynasty, the basic unit of salary for officials was often not the unit of money, but the unit of grain, stone.
Of course, this method of using grain as wages was not because His Majesty was stingy, but because grain was a hard currency at that time.
To put it bluntly, if you carried grains to the streets to buy vegetables and tofu, people would sell them to you.
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, silver gradually became a hard currency. Some people could no longer pay grain and convert it into silver.
Of course, this did not form a unified system, and the implementation was rather chaotic.
Other than land taxes, there were also taxes for servants and corvee.
If Zhu Yunwen wanted to change all this, he had to change the agricultural tax.
In the early days of the Ming Dynasty, agricultural taxes occupied the absolute majority of the central finances. Business taxes were basically just a fraction, the kind that would not hurt even if they were erased.
Changing the agricultural tax system was not something that could be done with just a few words.
How?
The later generations had paid public grain for decades to support the development of urban industry and commerce. Later on, the cities compensated the rural areas. When the time was ripe, the agricultural tax was abolished. There was no such tax anymore.
Can Zhu Yunwen cancel the agricultural tax?
Do you dare to cancel it?
After it was abolished, the foundation of the entire Great Ming Dynasty would be lost. It would be strange if it did not perish.
But what method could be used to untie the farmers?
Zhu Yunwen thought of the Ming Dynasty's greatest politician and reformist, Zhang Juzheng. This Ming Dynasty's most powerful chief assistant, the "One Whip Law" implemented in the reform, had a very high evaluation in later history books.
And this evaluation had a distinct word:
Epoch-making!
After the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty continued a whip method, which was later developed into the method of sharing the land.
"Summon the cabinet ministers, the Minister of Revenue, and the assistant minister.”
Zhu Yunwen made up his mind to bring the "One Whip Law" 183 years ahead of schedule to the stage of history.
The core of the whip law was to combine the land tax, corvee, and other miscellaneous taxes of the provinces and counties into one, combining them with silver and paying them according to the mu.
When a whip was placed in front of the cabinet, the Minister of Revenue, Huang Zicheng, and the Right Assistant Minister, Zhuo Jing, everyone remained silent for a long time.
"Your Majesty, such a system seems to have a profound mystery. However, this subject does not recommend it to be implemented.”
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