Chapter 580 579 Returning the Land to the People
Emperor Jiajing divided the Yan family's wealth and silver into two parts, with half going to the border areas as military pay, and the remaining half going to the internal treasury. Naturally, the emperor wanted it.
Just leaving the land and real estate to the local mediators can be regarded as giving the local officials a little sweetness. After all, he has already taken the bulk of it.
However, the major government offices, civil and military officials in the court did not receive any benefit at all. Is this okay?
Huang Jin was a little frightened. He didn't know how the government and the public would be shocked after this decree was spread.
At this time, Wei Guangde had already left Prince Yu's Mansion, and the carriage had arrived in front of the gate of Wei Mansion.
After the carriage stopped, Wei Guangde got out of the car, held the slightly crooked Wusha, and stepped into his yard.
He and Zhang Juzheng had gone to great lengths to finally get Prince Yu to calm down, but Zhang Juzheng was bold enough to encourage Prince Yu to go back to the backyard to find a beauty to vent his anger without fearing that Prince Yu would die on his bed.
"Master, there is a letter from home."
Wei Guangde was about to walk to the backyard when housekeeper Zhang Ji came over and delivered a letter to him.
"When did you arrive?"
Wei Guangde took it casually and asked.
"The messenger will arrive at noon."
Zhang Ji replied.
Wei Guangde took the letter and returned to the backyard first. He visited his mother, his wife and children, changed his clothes, and then went to the study. He tore open the envelope and took out the letter paper and read it.
"Hey, they have such a big appetite."
Wei Guangde had to marvel.
He had read the copy of Cheng Shouchie's memorial, and he naturally remembered that the memorial mentioned that the Yan family's farmland was more than 20,000 acres. However, in this family letter, Wei's father told him that the Yan family's farmland was at least 100,000 acres, and most of it was hidden land. Not paying taxes.
There is no doubt that Cheng Shoujie and the others have divided these things privately.
The more than 20,000 acres reported are fields registered under the Yan family's name and registered with the government.
All the officials in the capital knew about Hidden Field, but they all had a tacit understanding and never made it clear.
Naturally, Cheng Shoujie dared to share the Yan family's hidden land with others, because he knew very well that if the truth was exposed, the officials in the capital would try their best to cover it up for him.
What's more, perhaps some of the officials in the capital also participated in the feast, just like himself.
Wei Guangde is not greedy. He is satisfied if he can get the land near Jiujiang, not to mention a few more houses and shops. He also understands the ins and outs of the Yan family's two million taels of silver.
It was different from what he originally expected, or Zhang Juzheng didn't understand the actual situation.
It is true that the Yan family found more than 30,000 taels of gold, but only a few hundred thousand taels of silver. The extra million taels were all in the account.
The Yan family is not only a heirloom of poems and books, but also has extensive land accumulation. They also have businesses all over the south of the Yangtze River. They not only collect various resources, but also participate in trade, including maritime trade, which Luo Longwen is responsible for.
There are more than one million taels of silver, which is the money recorded in the accounts of various shops. Now Cheng Shoujie is recovering the dirty silver from various places, but it seems that the progress is not going well.
The stalemate this time was also related to this matter.
For local officials, it was a good thing that fell from the sky. When they inspected the Yan family's property, they confiscated the money and the goods in the warehouse.
However, after Cheng Shoujie issued the official document, he found various reasons to avoid the delay, just because he did not want to hand over the confiscated money and goods.
Two million taels of silver seem to be just flowers in the mirror and moon in the water.
Wei Guangde had to lament that today's civil servants are really ruthless, and they are not afraid of the butcher's knife in the emperor's hand.
After holding his chin and thinking for a long time, Wei Guangde felt that he finally figured out what was going on.
Cheng Shoujie naturally never thought about becoming an upright official, but after all, he had only been in office for a short time and spent most of his time in the capital, so he still underestimated the dangers of officialdom.
When the land was divided, I guess everyone made a good point, but when it came time to pay the money, they were tempted again when faced with the money.
However, Cheng Shoujie is more conservative, and he is unwilling to touch the things in the Yan family's accounts, because the account books will eventually be sent to the capital, and he can't guarantee a good death if he deals with these things.
In fact, in the eyes of those people, Cheng Shoujie was just the final scapegoat.
As long as Cheng Shoujie couldn't insist on dividing the money, he would only blame him if anything happened in the future, and he would be completely cut off from the matter.
Cheng Shoujie must have noticed their sinister intentions, so he took action first and reported the contents of the account to the capital.
As for the end, whether the money can be recovered is one thing, but it also leaves oneself clean.
"Cheng Shoujie is also a smart person."
Wei Guangde sighed again.
He remembered the words in the memorial clearly, and there was no mention of the situation of the silver in the whole article. It was in the Yan family's shops in various places.
The advantage of doing this is that you can get rid of yourself without offending other officials.
What would happen if Cheng Shoujie said in the memorial that the money was in the hands of local officials and had been confiscated, but he could not recover it and the memorial fell into the hands of Emperor Jiajing?
The emperor would never let go easily. For the sake of more than one million taels of silver, he would definitely raise the butcher knife and order the local governments to hand over every penny of the money.
And he didn't mention this in the memorial, which was to save everyone's face and use the tactic of procrastination.
If you drag it out for a while, you can finally get through it. That's your ability. If you can't resist it, just spit out the money yourself.
Although he was offended, at least he was not cruel and gave them a chance to manipulate him.
There is no doubt that Wei Guangde does not think that the two million taels of silver can be fully deposited into the treasury. The one million taels that the court can actually get are considered conscientious by the officials below.
As for Emperor Jiajing and the emperors who come after him, it will be like squeezing toothpaste, and the truth will be revealed bit by bit, and everyone's silver will be handed over bit by bit.
Thinking of this, Wei Guangde suddenly realized that his father did not seem to tell him the truth, and this letter seemed to be pointing at him.
He also took over several shops of the Yan family in Jiujiang, which must have silver and goods.
The situation of these shops was not mentioned in his father's previous letters.
It is estimated that he saw that the situation was somewhat out of control and was worried that he was still in the dark, so he told him the truth in Jiangxi in this letter.
Thinking of this, Wei Guangde could not sit still, and he stood up and walked back and forth in the study, rubbing his hands constantly.
He was tricked.
This is what Wei Guangde could think of at this time.
When I wrote to my family, I only said that I wanted the land that was not registered with the Yan family, and only the land in Jiujiang Prefecture, but in the end, Father Wei took all the houses and shops of the Yan family in Jiujiang. Without encouragement, how could Father Wei know this?
That Master Lin is really a piece of shit.
Wei Guangde had a murderous intention at this time, and then sat back in his seat, spread out the paper and began to write a letter to his family. What he said was naturally that Father Wei must not show mercy to Master Lin after taking over all the assets of the Yan family, leaving behind troubles.
The murderous spirit was unconsciously revealed on the paper.
On the second day, news from the palace also came out that the edict of Emperor Jiajing was sent to the cabinet, which immediately caused an uproar in the court and the country.
The various government offices naturally continued to report their own difficulties, and only the Ministry of War took advantage of it and submitted a memorial to thank the emperor for his great grace on behalf of the border soldiers.
And cabinet ministers such as Xu Jie and Yan Ne were summoned to the West Garden. After they left the palace, they naturally dispersed to various places to appease the officials.
This is the test of the cabinet ministers by Emperor Jiajing. He will get what he wants, and then the cabinet will deal with the mess. If he handles it well, he will pass the test. If he handles it badly, he will be replaced.
At the beginning, Yan Song used various means to oppress the government offices at all levels, just to complete the orders of Emperor Jiajing, and now the executor has become Xu Jie.
Zhang Juzheng did not seem to get much advantage from the Yan family's fields. After all, most of the Yan family's assets are distributed in Jiangxi, Nanzhili and Zhejiang, and the fields, houses, and shops are all concentrated here.
Zhang Juzheng is from Huguang, and even if he has ideas, he is out of reach. Moreover, Wei Guangde found that Zhang Juzheng seemed to be a somewhat upright person and might not take the initiative to participate in it.
Of course, there are some things that Wei Guangde would not ask.
When he tested himself, dug a hole for himself, and asked him to participate in the division of the Yan family's property in Jiangxi, Wei Guangde had already had a gap with him.
The Yan family's silver had been distributed by Emperor Jiajing, and the officials in Beijing gradually lost interest in the silver when they saw that there was no hope, and no longer paid attention to it.
Such a change made Wei Guangde feel a little relieved.
What he feared most was that the officials in the capital would repeatedly appeal, keep this matter in mind, and keep pestering.
It can only be said that Xu Jie's methods were still a bit of Yan Song's true teachings, and he handled it very well this time.
In a few days, the capital had been calm. Even if there were still people who were obsessed with it, they were all low-ranking officials and could not cause any waves. Instead, the Princess of King Jing came to the capital and was settled in the suburbs of the capital.
Immediately afterwards, Xu Jie, the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, submitted a memorial requesting that the tens of thousands of hectares of land granted to King Jing be returned to the people of Chu, which was praised by the court and the people.
For these tricks, Wei Guangde just shook his head and said they were just a trick to fool people.
In the eyes of most people in later generations, since Zhu Yuanzhang began to grant land to his sons during the Ming Dynasty, it was all a huge mistake to rob the private land for the royal land.
The main reason for this is the propaganda over the years. Everyone regards the past land system as a landlord with supreme power, seemingly able to completely control a piece of land and the tenants who live on it.
The land system of the Ming Dynasty actually originated from the Song and Yuan Dynasties, with only slight modifications, but most of the changes are not significant.
The land is mainly divided into two categories: official fields and private fields. There are also many sub-items, but they mainly belong to these two categories.
The fiefdoms and fields granted by the Ming Dynasty emperor to the princes did not actually involve private fields. After all, the Ming Dynasty protected private property, and the actual grants were official fields.
The fields granted by the princes of the Ming Dynasty ranged from several thousand hectares in the early Ming Dynasty to tens of thousands of hectares or even more in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. In fact, there was no major change in the ownership and use rights of the land.
Because no matter what, the princes could not farm, so the fields still needed farmers to take care of them, and the farmers could only get so much.
The princes had a huge amount of land, which was actually divided into many categories, but mainly into two categories, one was the fiefdom, and the other was the royal manor fields.
The fiefdom is the right to collect land rent granted by the emperor to his son. In the past, the output tax of these fields was collected by the court, but now it is transferred to the prince's palace.
The prince's manor fields are fields owned by the prince's palace, which can be understood as a kind of "people's fields". The prince has all the rights. These fields are official fields granted by the emperor, and the second is land obtained through various means after being canonized.
For example, the rent within the prince's fiefdom, the prince can force the people to sell their own land to the prince's palace by raising taxes, and there is also a direct request from the emperor, on the grounds that there is a large amount of wasteland in a certain place, to obtain this land from the emperor, and then hire people to open up the wasteland.
But most of these lands have actually been reclaimed by others, and the royal family used this as an excuse to seize the ownership of the land.
Of course, there are indeed problems with these lands, that is, they have not been recorded in the official land register, which can actually be understood as "hidden land".
Therefore, in addition to the return of the fief rights to the court, many of the original official lands obtained by King Jing also need to be returned.
And for the people of Chu, everything actually has no big impact at all, because the talents that should be paid cannot be reduced, it's just that the owner has changed.
In the past, it was handed over to the Jingwang Mansion, and now it is returned to the government. What Xu Jie said about returning the land to the people is actually a joke.
By this time, the number of official lands in the Ming Dynasty had actually been decreasing.
The rewards of the emperors of all dynasties, the official lands had been reduced by more than half by the Jiajing Dynasty.
During the Yongle period, nearly 40% of the land tax in the Ming Dynasty came from official lands, but by the Jiajing Dynasty it was less than 20%, and the remaining part was rewarded to the royal family, and even the emperor's own imperial farm.
Therefore, it is reasonable for later generations to say that the largest landlords in the Ming Dynasty were the royal family.
From the land tax alone, it can be seen that the land awarded by the emperor to his son accounted for 20% of the data on paper, and the land obtained by the royal palace in private was even more.
The Ming Dynasty's tax and service system stipulated that the gentry were exempted from service, but in fact they could only be exempted from service, but the Ming Dynasty's service law was to treat the people as service and to govern service by land.
Both the land and the population could be used as the objects of conscription. If "exempted land" was used to obtain "exempted grain", then tax evasion was implemented in the name of exemption.
Due to the laxity of the legal system, officials and gentry were corrupt and ignored the court regulations, which led to their private property not being taxed.
The root cause was actually because they envied the privilege of the royal relatives and nobles to not pay taxes on their permanent land, so they also tried to package their own land into tax-free land.
As a result, the taxable land decreased, and the remaining land could only continue to increase taxes until the landowners could no longer afford it and chose to sell the land to escape.
The basis of taxation in the Ming Dynasty was land and population. As the saying goes, "If you have land, you have rent, and if you have land, you have service." Since all taxation is based on land, you don't have to pay heavy taxes if you sell the land.
Therefore, many farmers sold their land to tax-free families, invested in the rich and powerful, and then rented the land back for cultivation.
Although the rent is also high, it is still acceptable compared to the increasingly heavy taxes.
This practice of avoiding the heavy and focusing on the light can be regarded as a way of survival for ancient Chinese farmers.
The land within the fiefdom of the prince's mansion can naturally only be sold by the prince's mansion. Who else dares to take over?
Therefore, the price of these lands sold to the prince's mansion is often suppressed to a very low level, allowing them to annex land on a large scale, and the Zhu family has become a large landlord in the north.
Wei Guangde doesn't care whether there is any trick behind the returned land of the Jingwang Mansion, but he knows that Zhang Juzheng seems very happy.