Chapter 1188: Finding a Different Way
As for why the little emperor insisted on keeping a large amount of public land, Ying Jieyan knew the inside story very well, and it can also be said that he was influenced by himself. He was instructed to teach the little emperor, the way to govern the country, and the study of kings, and the far-reaching political changes in history were naturally an important part of the teaching, in order to gain inspiration and learn lessons from it.
At the beginning, it was still strictly explained, and the little emperor listened, but soon it became a dispute between the master and the apprentice, and later it became a discussion between the master and the apprentice, and they made progress together. Because he found that the little emperor had his own unique views on the changes in history, and even overturned the consensus in history, and his arguments made Ying Jieyan's eyes shine.
The 'Gongtian Law' was originally a reform implemented by Prime Minister Jia Nidao in the late Southern Song Dynasty to solve financial difficulties, but it attracted opposition from the government and the opposition, and was regarded as a maladministration, and was considered to be one of the important reasons for the destruction of the Song Dynasty. However, the little emperor did not agree with this, believing that the public land law had a certain feasibility for stabilizing the country's finances, solving the supply of military rations and reducing the burden of the people, but it was only due to the wrong timing and method of introduction that the result was counterproductive.
First of all, at that time, the finances of the imperial court had tended to collapse due to years of war, and there were only two ways to deal with it: one was to drink water to quench thirst, and the other was to rely on and fight for fish. As a result, paper money has depreciated, prices have risen, military spending has been in short supply, and fiscal revenue has reached the point of exhaustion. However, Jia Rudao's idea of implementing the public land law is based on the system of restricting land, and first of all, one-third of the part of the official household land that exceeds the standard will be withdrawn, and the state will buy back the official land and then lease it out.
However, a large amount of money is required to redeem the land, and when the financial resources are exhausted, the only funds needed can only rely on the issuance of additional paper money, which is a completely capitalless transaction. However, the purchase of public land by the Canadian Indian Society has exacerbated inflation. It is inevitable that the "dung will not enter" the depreciation of Huizi, but now it will be put into circulation every day by adding 150,000 yuan to the market, and prices will soar and paper money will depreciate.
The little emperor thought that Jia Yidao's henchmen boasted about the so-called "affordable prices" of the Gongtian Law, which violated the laws of the economy and did not conform to objective facts. The fact is that not long after the implementation of Gongtian, it triggered a new round of ferocious Huizi crisis, forcing Jia Rudao to abolish Huizi and switch to gold and silver guanzi, transferring the financial crisis to the heads of the ordinary people, triggering widespread dissatisfaction among the grassroots people and affecting the foundation of the rule.
Secondly, the object of redemption under the public land law is the land of the official households exceeding the standard, and the standard set is that the first product is limited to 50 hectares of land, and each of the following products is reduced by 5 hectares, to 5 hectares for the ninth product. This was actually a coercive method of equalizing land to restrain the large landowners from concealing tax evasion and ensuring military supplies. However, this law directly involved the interests of the bureaucratic landlords, and offended those scholars and big landlords very much, so the public land law was persistently and desperately opposed by the government and the opposition. As a result, the big landlord class, the small and medium-sized landlord class, the upper peasants, and a small number of landless tenant farmers were all involved, and the support of the people was lost in all aspects.
Thirdly, in the implementation of the Public Land Law, the operation of the employment of personnel is not clear, and the method is inappropriate, and in fact, the implementation of the Public Land Law has turned into a disguised administrative means to forcibly change the ownership of land, so it is called buyback, but it is actually a forcible seizure. At that time, the land price of the high-grade fertile land in western Zhejiang was 400 guan per mu, and when the public land was first introduced, it was stipulated that the rent of one stone per mu of fertile land should be compensated by 200 guan, which was only half of the market price. However, in actual implementation, only 40 guan is often given, and they are all degrees that no one buys, and they are like waste paper.
All public land that has been bought back will be nominally given economic compensation according to the amount of rent: if the rent amount is more than one stone, it will be 200 yuan per mu; for nine buckets, one hundred and eighty; Eight buckets are one hundred and sixty, and so on. But the compensation is not cash, those who buy more than 5,000 acres of public land will be given half percent of silver, 50% of the official lawsuit, 20% of the degree, and 20% of the Huizi; Those below 5,000 acres will be given half percent of silver, three percent of each of the official notice and degree, and three and a half percent of the Huizi; Those who are less than 1,000 acres will not be given silver, but 50% of the degree and 50% of the huizi; Those who are less than 500 acres will only be given useless for depreciation.
In addition, the collection of rent in the official field will lead to class conflicts. In the process of buying back public land, although the landless or landless peasants were less implicated, they also suffered greatly from the public land law in the later management of official land. In order to receive a reward for meritorious service, the official in charge either overreported the number of fields bought, or overreported the rank of the public land. When the official land is actually put into operation, the shortfall in the books caused by these hands can only be made up by the peasants who lease and undertake the tenants.
However, although the implementation time of the Gongtian Law was short, it also achieved certain results, and won a trace of capital for the Great Song Dynasty. Even though Emperor Chunyou announced the abolition of the Gongtian Law and the return of Gongtian to the original landowners, he hoped that these powerful people would be grateful to Dade and help the imperial court resist the Mongols. However, due to the critical military situation and financial difficulties, the "military was anxious" and planned to collect the tax for another year and then pay it back, but the result was that it was not returned.
Therefore, the little emperor thought that Jia Yidao was doing the right thing at the wrong time, in the wrong way, and with the wrong person, and the end of failure was already doomed. The little emperor who learned the lesson was very clever, and after recovering Jiangnan, while implementing the practice of dictating the fields, he also forcefully suppressed the Mongols and traitors in the name of punishing the traitors and eliminating the murderers, and confiscated their family property and land.
It is very funny to say that after the capture of Jiangnan, Kublai Khan confiscated the public land of the Song Dynasty and forcibly occupied a large number of fertile land, which was directly given to many Mongolian nobles. After Zhao Yu recovered Jiangnan, these public fields returned to the hands of the imperial court in a circle, and they did not have to spend a penny to redeem them. This did not arouse opposition from the government and the opposition, after all, these lands were already enemy property, and the harvest was justified by the imperial court.
Zhao Hao thus took the opportunity of confiscating the enemy's property to skillfully avoid a 'thunder' on the road of Jia Nidao's reform, not only did not cause social unrest, but also leased these recovered public land to tenants through the method formulated by Jia Nidao, and then collected rents, and also solved the livelihood problem of landless farmers. After that, the rented grain collected was used for military purposes, and the rented silver was used as a supplement to the local government's financial expenditures, thus ensuring the basic situation of the state finances and greatly reducing the financial burden of the imperial court......
"Zhuang Boss!" The way to sell the public land has also been blocked by the little emperor, and now there is only one way to borrow money from His Majesty, Lu Xiufu looked at Zhuang Shilin Road.
"Lu Xiang, there is not much left in the inner treasury, and I can't take out tens of millions of silver coins!" Zhuang Shilin didn't wait for Lu Xiufu to finish speaking, he already knew what was going on, and immediately got up and said with a smile.
"Huh?!" Lu Xiufu raised his eyebrows when he heard this, his face sank, and he looked at Zhuang Shilin with a knife-like gaze.
"Lu Xiang, what the lower official said is absolutely true, and there are less than six million pieces left in the inner storehouse, but it still has to be used in the ordnance workshop to maintain production, so I really don't dare to do it!" Zhuang Shilin, as the emperor's chief butler, was not very afraid of Lu Xiufu, but he still felt a pang in his heart, and explained with a smile.
"Master Zhuang, the ship to the West has returned, and it should bring back a large amount of gold and silver, could it be that all this money has been secretly embezzled by you?" Liu Huang also turned his face to look at Zhuang Shilin and said in a slightly surprised way.
"Governor Liu, there are indeed sea ships calling at the port, but the trade with Zhufan is mostly barter, accompanied by gold and silver, and only after the goods are sold can the money be put into the account. And it is necessary to set aside part of the purchase of new goods, so it is really difficult to come up with a lot of money at the moment! Zhuang Shilin said.
"How many tens of millions are earned by the inner treasury every year, and where is all this money used?" The little emperor has a way to make money, which is a well-known thing in the court, and the royal family monopolizes the operation of post stations in the territory, and also extracts 30% of the salt tax and pit smelting, and there is a sea trade fleet that can lay golden eggs, and the conservative estimate can also reach 20 or 30 million, but now Zhuang Shilin is crying poor, which makes Liu Huang really hard to believe.
"Governor Liu, the income of the inner treasury is a lot, but the expenses are also huge." Zhuang Shilin said with a wry smile, "Now there are nearly 100,000 troops in the Imperial Front Guard, and their equipment and military salaries are all from the Inner Treasury; Moreover, the armory workshop also occupied a lot of funds, and Jiangdong used nearly 200,000 catties of gunpowder alone in the First World War, not to mention others, but the imperial court has been in arrears; In addition, there are some items in the storehouse, but they are all gold and silver utensils, jewelry and antiques, and cannot be used for circulation. Maritime trade can make money, but repairing old ships, building new ships, hiring sailors is also a huge expense, and customs duties and commercial taxes must be paid according to law, and the rest is not as much as imagined. ”
"In addition, the consumption of the inner palace, plus the annual reward for the ministers, is a huge expense, and the inner treasury can store this little thing, and it is also saved by His Majesty's frugality!" Zhuang Shilin kept talking to prove his 'incorruptibility', and he knew that the biggest source of funds in the treasury was actually smuggling smuggled salt to Mengyuan in addition to sea trade, but this money was not visible, so he skipped it.
"So what, if you can't borrow a lot of money from the vault?" Although several people did not know the specific amount of income from the inner treasury, what they said was true, and this also marked the dashing of their greatest hopes, Lu Xiufu said with disappointment.
"Lu Xiang and all the officials, in fact, it is not to the point of exhaustion!" Several people were worried, thinking hard about the channels to get money, but they had no idea about searching their intestines and scraping their stomachs, and at this time, Zhuang Shilin's eyes rolled and said leisurely.
"Oh, what else can I do, say it quickly!" Several people spoke almost in unison.
"According to the records of the lower officials, when the new banknotes were issued, the imperial court printed 200 million banknotes, but only 120 million banknotes were put on the market, and the household still had 80 million banknotes as reserves. If you use this money, all problems will be solved! Zhuang Shilin looked at everyone and said......