Chapter 1178 1269 Collecting Taxes From the Imperial Estate

Zhang Juzheng came out of Wei Guangde's duty room and returned to his own room. The more he thought about it, the more frightened he became.

Because Zhang Juzheng thought that the royal family had always been very wary of the royal family, the Imperial Household Department sent spies to the princes' and county princes' mansions in various places.

Moreover, because the tax revenues in various places were as tight as the Ministry of Revenue, the rice allocated to the royal family had always been insufficient, so he had never considered moving the fields of the princes' mansions.

But now Wei Guangde's proposal forced him to think deeply about this problem he had ignored.

If things go wrong, the princes will once again annex land on a large scale after the implementation of the new policy.

Unless taxes are levied on the fields annexed by the princes' mansions.

However, the Ming Dynasty has never levied taxes on the princes' mansions. If he rashly proposed it, this matter would definitely not be small. I am afraid that the impeachment memorials from more than 30 princes' mansions and hundreds of county princes' mansions would fly into the Imperial Household Department like snowflakes.

The royal family can directly submit memorials to the emperor. If they really submit memorials together, even the palace will not be able to withstand the royal family's gossip and will have to compromise.

He must think of a proper solution during this period of time. He must not only impose taxes on the royal family's self-owned land to prevent them from continuing to annex land, but also find a way to appease them.

Zhang Juzheng no longer has the heart to handle official business, and sits on a chair to start thinking.

And Wei Guangde, like him, has no heart to work after Zhang Juzheng left.

In fact, the land survey and the implementation of the "One Whip Law" were conspired by him and Zhang Juzheng.

It's just that he didn't have the courage to propose it himself, and he didn't have the ability to complete such a big project, so he could only rely on Zhang Juzheng.

All Wei Guangde could rely on were the group of Yu Ju and their disciples who were given to him by Emperor Longqing, and the officials in Jiangxi, his base camp, which were far from being a match for Zhang Juzheng's huge political resources inherited from Xu Jie.

Moreover, Zhang Juzheng, through cooperation with Yang Bo and others, also brought in Shanxi and Yangzhou salt merchants, and actually had stronger business power than Wei Guangde.

However, in Wei Guangde's eyes, this force should be behind Zhang Siwei, because Zhang Siwei's family was originally part of this huge business group.

"Lu Bu, ask someone to go to Wenyuan Pavilion and move all the documents related to the vassal kings here."

Wei Guangde was unwilling to abandon the study of mind or come up with a half-baked project. He must figure out whether the right of the vassal kings not to pay taxes was determined by Zhu Yuanzhang, and what happened in the beginning.

You must know that the rumors that gentry did not pay taxes in later generations were actually just stories deliberately guided and made up by officials.

According to the court regulations, gentry's fields had to pay taxes, but there were exemptions, that is, exemptions from certain miscellaneous taxes and apportionments, and there were also several to dozens of people in the Ding tax, which did not mean that gentry did not pay taxes at all.

But in fact, it was difficult to collect taxes from gentry, and the officialdom was complicated, so over time even some uneducated officials thought they could really be exempted from taxes.

It is estimated that the rumor of not paying taxes spread in this way.

And now Wei Guangde wants to see the documents involving the princes because after Zhang Juzheng left, Wei Guangde suddenly realized that there was a big trick.

It is said that the ancestral system gives people the feeling that everything is determined by Zhu Yuanzhang, but when Zhu Yuanzhang was alive, he did not give the princes' mansions any land. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang only gave the princes fiefs.

What does the prince's fief mean? That is the so-called fiefdom. The prince's mansion will ask for tribute from the fiefdom every year, which is the living needs of the prince's mansion.

The princes not only get rice from the fiefdom, but also a variety of items such as banknotes, brocade, ramie silk, yarn, gauze, silk, winter and summer cloth, cotton, salt, flowers, etc. These are all to guarantee the daily living expenses of the prince's mansion, and are also used to maintain the operation of the prince's mansion and the social activities of the prince.

That is a fiefdom, not a gift of land.

The granting of land to the royal palaces in the Ming Dynasty actually started with Emperor Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji, who granted 80 hectares of land to the King of Zhao as a royal estate. The royal palaces in various places followed suit and requested the emperor to grant land to establish royal estates.

And the land of these royal estates seemed to have never paid taxes to the court.

Suddenly, Wei Guangde thought of this and suddenly realized something was wrong.

The land of the royal estates would indeed not pay taxes to the Ministry of Households, because in Wei Guangde's impression, it seemed that the fiefdom was only nominally allocated to the princes for food and salary, operated by local officials, taxed, and then the prince's salary was allocated from the royal land tax revenue, with more refunds and less supplements.

Because the local government directly connected with the royal palace, it naturally did not go through the Ministry of Households, saving the middle link.

But in the actual operation, Wei Guangde also heard a lot of news that the prince's palace was harmed by local officials.

Before Emperor Xuanzong issued an order to grant land to the princes, the management rights of those fiefdoms were actually not in the hands of the princes but in the hands of local officials, that is, the right to collect rent.

In this process, local officials appropriated the output of the manor, withheld it and concealed it from the palace.

As a result, the princely palaces could only get very little rent each year, so they cried poor to Emperor Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji, and then they were granted land.

After the land was granted, the management of the manor fell into the hands of the palace, and they did not allow local officials to interfere.

Whenever local officials wanted to check the manor, their subordinates, that is, eunuchs and slaves, would rush forward under the order of the princes, and use force to prevent local officials from approaching the manor, so that all the income from the manor went to the palace.

Now it seems that those manors are controlled by the palaces of various places, and local officials can't intervene at all.

Since then, taxes can no longer be collected.

This is what Wei Guangde had heard before, but he just laughed it off.

Anyway, the Ministry of Revenue is not his territory, so he naturally doesn't bother to care.

But now it's different. If those princes' palaces are not controlled, it will be hard to say in the future.

Soon, Lu Bu came in with a pile of documents.

"Master, I asked someone to check over there, but there are a lot of documents, and they are all picked up The earliest ones are moved back.

After you finish reading this, I will bring you the rest."

Lu Bu put down the documents in his hand and said respectfully to Wei Guangde.

"Okay, you go down first, I'll call you if there's anything."

Wei Guangde nodded, picked up the documents on it and started to look through them.

After Lu Bu went out, Wei Guangde began to look through the documents on the desk one by one, and he would think about it for a long time from time to time.

After all, the things recorded in words are more or less different from the actual situation.

But after reading a few documents, Wei Guangde noticed something wrong.

There is no other reason. It seems that no matter whether it is a fiefdom or a royal estate, or the land granted later, it is the same as the land of scholars, and there is no tax exemption at all.

Yes, according to the rules set by Zhu Yuanzhang, the fief of the vassal king provides the vassal king with the items needed by the palace, but taxes still need to be paid.

As for the land granted later, the same rules apply.

The reason why Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty granted land to the vassal king was actually because the officials below were too outrageous and actually put the idea of ​​corruption on the heads of the vassal kings.

Here, we have to make it clear about the land system of the Ming Dynasty.

The land in the Ming Dynasty was generally divided into official land and private land. Needless to say, private land is private property. In the words of later generations, it is land with land ownership and use rights.

Then there is official land. In fact, there are quite a lot of them. How they came about is actually very simple. One is confiscation, and the other is reclamation.

In the early Ming Dynasty, people were allowed to reclaim wasteland. The wasteland reclaimed by farmers automatically activated the right to use the land, but the ownership belonged to the government.

After a few years of tax exemption, it is natural to start paying rent and taxes.

The land rent and taxes set by Zhu Yuanzhang were very low, the lowest in all dynasties, because he became an orphan and lived in fear for many years, so he had a deep understanding of this.

From Zhu Yuanzhang to Zhu Zhanji, and other emperors later, the fiefs and land granted to the princes' palaces all came from official land.

In addition to the output of the fiefs to compensate for the rice salary of the royal family, who owned the rest?

In fact, according to the system, part of the land output should be the income of farmers, and the other part should be the taxes and land rent collected by the court.

This part of the income from the court should be supplied to the princes' palaces first, and if there is any surplus, it should be handed over to the Ministry of Households as tax income.

However, the food and salary land of these princes is operated by local officials, who collect taxes and then allocate the princes' salaries from the royal land tax revenue. There is a lot of room for operation. As long as you do something with the harvest, then let alone the Ministry of Households wanting to collect taxes, even the salaries of the princes will not be enough.

Since Yongle, the royal family has been very wary of the royal family, so when the royal family and local officials go to court, they usually openly favor the royal family, but in fact, the royal family is the one who suffers.

After all, the emperor will not restrict the rights of civil officials, and the emperor also needs these local officials to help keep an eye on these princes.

Zhu Zhanji may also be worried about his children, worried that they will be bullied and hungry, so he came up with the grant of land and let the princes build their own manors.

But what he didn't expect was that his beloved descendants were only resentful of the fiefdom, and the manors were controlled by the princes and local officials were not allowed to set foot in them.

They also saw the emperor's attitude, so they directly used force to deal with the officials who came to the door, from verbal insults to fists and feet. Anyway, as long as they didn't beat them to death, they would be scolded at most if they were beaten to death or disabled.

If they really failed, they might just go to the high wall themselves and let their children inherit the title.

However, in most cases, the result of such treatment was good, because the emperor was also happy to see the princes and local officials fighting each other, and he was in the middle to mediate.

By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, although some fiefs were still managed by court officials, the right to collect rent had actually been taken back by the princes, also by force.

As for the granted land, Wei Guangde had actually seen the real situation behind a memorial personally approved by Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty during the Hongzhi period.

"It is said that the farmland of the kings and the farmland of the royal family, even if they are damaged by disasters, cannot be exempted from tax in the same amount as the land of the military and civilians.

From now on, please conduct a survey of the land of the military and civilians, separate the land of the royal family, etc., and decide on the exemption points and collect taxes together."

This paragraph says that the land of the princes and the royal family, even if they are damaged by disasters, cannot be specially taken care of, and they must pay taxes together with the land of the civilians and the land of the military according to the disaster exemption standards of the court.

Seeing this, Wei Guangde said in his heart, what a guy.

Obviously, he roughly understood why it was said that the scholars and royal family members of the Ming Dynasty did not pay taxes. The source was actually that the two groups joined forces to cause trouble and embezzled the taxes of the court.

No matter whether it was the royal estate or the land of the gentry, they had to pay taxes and labor service, but there were exemptions.

Obviously, everyone reached a tacit understanding. The royal family knew that the scholars evaded taxes, and announced to the outside world that the royal family sympathized with the scholars, so they were exempted from taxes.

As for the royal family, the scholars were not allowed to pursue it, otherwise everyone would break up and pay the taxes they owed.

The emperor's eyes and ears were on the officials and royal family. They might know what was going on among the people, but they were just afraid of trouble, so they pretended not to know.

It is also possible that they really didn't know and were kept in the dark by the royal family and officials.

Wei Guangde put the document aside, took out a piece of paper, copied it, noted the source, and then continued to look through other documents.

After lunch, while he was still looking at the documents in the check-in room, Zhang Juzheng came to find him again.

"Shandai, I heard that you sent people to Wenyuan Pavilion to move a lot of documents."

After Zhang Juzheng came in, he looked at the pile of documents on Wei Guangde's desk like a mountain and smiled.

It turned out that in the morning Wei Guangde arranged for Lu Bu to go to Wenyuan Pavilion to look for documents in the collection. Zhang Juzheng knew the news and also knew what Wei Guangde was looking for.

He immediately understood Wei Guangde's plan, so he delayed coming here to take a look and ask if he had discovered anything.

"Nothing can be hidden from my uncle."

Wei Guangde smiled bitterly, picked up the paper beside him and handed it over directly, and said, "Brother, let's take a look. We really found a lot of things. We all seem to be kept in the dark."

Zhang Juzheng reached out to take it and glanced at the paper casually. Then his eyes suddenly widened, and his left hand that was caressing his beautiful beard froze in mid-air.

There are some things that those local officials may have been aware of for a long time, but for those in the cabinet, because they have never held a local position, they really cannot detect some secrets.

After all, you can only see boring text, where you can understand more thoroughly by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

"Shan Lian, this matter is not a small matter."

After a long time, Zhang Juzheng said softly.

"In order for the court to have money, taxes and levies must be collected in full. Otherwise, the state will still come from ordinary people, and something will happen sooner or later."

Wei Guangde said calmly, "In my opinion, if the imperial court is to have long-term peace and stability, taxes and levies must be collected in full, and they must no longer be less than the people's land.

The land belonging to the clan, nobles, and gentry must all be taxed. I have an idea. "

"What can be done?"

Zhang Juzheng naturally understood that in a large country, if all taxes come from the common people, what will happen when the common people are wiped out?

Only by distributing it to everyone can the wealth of the common people be prevented from being wantonly plundered and the stability of the country be achieved.

"Collect taxes from the emperor's estate, clear the father's land at the same time, and finally go to the nobles and let them all call taxes.

In this way, after all provinces in the world began to clear their husbands, the gentry would have nothing to say. "

Wei Guangde said.

Zhang Juzheng was shocked when he heard this, but he quickly calmed down and began to walk back and forth in the room.

Suddenly, Zhang Juzheng stopped and asked, "Are the records on the paper true?"

Wei Guangde pointed to a pile of documents on the right and said: "Originally, they were all here. I left them here specifically for reference in the palace."

Wangzhuang and the land of honorable nobles all had to pay tribute, but the emperor's Zhuangzi did not see it.

Perhaps, only Huangzhuang never pays taxes.

However, in order to get the clan and nobles to pay money, the royal family still needs to make a gesture.

With the royal family as an example, those clans naturally have nothing to say.

"It's just a few cents of silver per mu, and a million acres is only tens of thousands of taels of silver." (End of Chapter)