As soon as he heard the emperor ask positively, whether it was Zhang Pu or Wu Changshi, he couldn't help but be humble, and at the same time naturally hinted that this was indeed the case!

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he seemed to be even more happy, so he praised the two of them again, saying that the two of them were really models of a hundred officials. With officials like them teaching the prince, he was also relieved.

Anyway, they talked a lot, and they talked about the reputations that Zhang Pu and Wu Chang usually deliberately managed, which tickled their itch, not to mention, it was the current emperor who spoke. Coupled with their original worries, they didn't find out at all, and the emperor didn't mention that they were suspected of forming a party or manipulating the imperial examination, so Zhang Pu and Wu Changshi were excited, and slowly, they became less restrained and talked more.

"Your Majesty, the minister has been reading the books of the sages since he was a child, and he thinks that one day he will share the worries of the country and benefit the people. Zhang Pu's face showed a serious demeanor, and he played to Emperor Chongzhen.

Wu Changshi didn't think that the manuscript in his heart was preempted by Zhang Pu, and he couldn't help but feel a little depressed. In fact, he has been unhappy with Zhang Pu for a long time in his heart!

Speaking of which, he founded the Fushe with Zhang Pu, Zhang Cai and others back then, and was one of the first eleven people; However, the world only knows Zhang Pu and Zhang Cai, and his reputation in Wu Chang is far less resounding than Zhang Pu and Zhang Cai. What made him most dissatisfied was that the power of the resumption of the society was controlled in the hands of Zhang Pu, which made him even more indignant.

Now that the prelude to the palace is right, the emperor boasts, but he was taken the lead by Zhang Pu again, and there is even more dissatisfaction in his heart.

Of course, he also knew the occasion, this was in front of the emperor, in order to show his broad mind, of course he couldn't say anything to Zhang Pu. Therefore, he also hurriedly played to Emperor Chongzhen: "Weichen had a determination when he was young, loyal to the monarch and serving the country, doing his best, and then dying, at any cost!" ”

When Emperor Chongzhen heard these words, he seemed to be very emotional and said: "If there were more officials like Qing and others, the situation in the Ming Dynasty would not be so grim!" ”

Hearing this, this time, Wu Changshi took the lead and asked, "Your Majesty has annihilated the Hetao Tartars and encircled and suppressed all the thieves. Thanks to His Majesty, the situation is already very good! ”

The implication, Your Majesty, you are humble, this is all your credit! This is also a sycophant, and it was sent out.

This time, Zhang Pu held his identity, but he didn't say much, but just echoed.

Emperor Chongzhen listened, but he smiled, shook his head and sighed, and then asked Lan Tianbao to transfer a stack of pieces on the imperial case to the two of them, and at the same time said with a little worry: "I'm not just talking, Qing and the other two can take a look first, the disaster situation is serious in various places, and they are waiting for the imperial court to relieve the disaster!" ”

After finishing speaking, when he saw Zhang Pu and Wu Changshi reading the recital, he said again: "Although I have exterminated the thieves, if the root of the trouble is not gone, he will definitely have new thieves one day." With Qing and other talents, they should know what the root cause of what I am referring to, right? ”

The two of them, while watching the recital, naturally also paid attention to Emperor Chongzhen's movements. Therefore, as soon as Emperor Chongzhen finished speaking, Zhang Pu and Wu Changshi played each other almost at the same time: "Famine!" ”

"Yes, famine!" Emperor Chongzhen nodded, and said with a little sadness on his face, "The flood in the south and the drought in the north all need disaster relief, but the imperial court can't come up with so much money and grain for disaster relief!" Sometimes, I think ......"

Speaking of this, he glanced at the two people below, and said in a somewhat stern tone: "Mo Ruo can find some rich people to raid the house, so that the court will be able to provide disaster relief if it has money!" ”

Upon hearing this, Zhang Pu and Wu Changshi were suddenly startled, and they unanimously played: "Your Majesty, don't do it!" ”

After saying that, the two looked at each other and shut up in unison.

As soon as Emperor Chongzhen saw it, he immediately asked: "The money and grain copied in the previous rebellion case have been almost used, but the disasters in various places, Qing and the other two should have seen it, where did the money and grain come from?" ”

If he asks about the disaster situation in various places, what should he do? Then these two will definitely say tax exemption. However, this was not the answer he wanted, so he directly said where did the disaster relief money come from?

Among Wu Changshi and Zhang Pu, relatively speaking, Zhang Pu wanted the city to be deeper, so when he heard the emperor's question, he wanted to answer that the princes of the court had their own judgment on this matter.

But Wu Changshi, who was next to him, didn't think about it, so he immediately played: "Your Majesty, the imperial court has its own laws, and if it collects taxes, or sends more taxes, it will naturally have money and grain for disaster relief." ”

This Wu Changshi is really on the road, Emperor Chongzhen thought in his heart, and said: "This matter is easy to say, but if you really want to do it, it will be difficult!" The two Aiqing, are you willing to share your worries and relieve the people's difficulties? ”

He had praised the two of them before, and both of them responded. The most important thing is that this is in front of the emperor, the emperor asked them if they were willing to share their worries for the monarch, and which courtier dared to say that they didn't want to share their worries for the monarch?

Therefore, no matter what they thought in their hearts, the two of them responded. At the same time, they also felt that this was probably the real purpose of the emperor summoning the two of them.

In fact, they are not resistant. Doing things for the emperor, and this kind of thing was originally done by the princes of the court, which shows that the emperor attaches importance to the two of them, and if they don't do it well, they can be promoted because of this.

Before this, they had actually seen Emperor Chongzhen promote a number of people to become feudal officials, and even Song Yingxing and others, who wrote a miscellaneous book, and the emperor specially set up a new yamen for him. It would be impossible to say that they were indifferent to the situation.

The two of them are still from Jinshi, and now they are just boiling up their qualifications. The best errand is to teach the prince. If one day in the future, the crown prince ascends the throne as emperor, they will definitely be reused. But the key problem is that the crown prince is still young, and the emperor is so young, if he wants to wait for the day when the prince ascends the throne as the emperor, he doesn't know what year of the monkey he will have to wait!

Therefore, now that the emperor seems to be giving a chance, the two of them are still a little looking forward to it. If you think you want to do it well, you will definitely be promoted.

Emperor Chongzhen saw that both of them had expressed their positions, so he asked his personal servant Lan Tianbao to take a few other pieces of the imperial case and show them to the two of them.

Zhang Pu and Wu Changshi were a little puzzled in their hearts, and they didn't know what kind of piece of music this was? When they opened it and browsed it for a while, the faces of the two of them suddenly changed, and they seemed to be a little frightened.

It turned out that the contents of these recitals were the tax arrears of the counties over the years, as well as the tax payment registration of local officials.

The reason why the two of them were scared after seeing it was because they had guessed what Emperor Chongzhen wanted them to do.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, tax arrears were already very common.

If it was an ordinary person who was in arrears, the magistrate would not be merciful, and would probably arrest, whip, or even beat him to death. According to historical records, there are many ordinary people in Shandong and Shaanxi who committed suicide because they could not complete the deadline for paying taxes.

But these are actually only a small part of the tax arrears, and most of the tax arrears are actually from the wealthy. They have the money and donate their personal belongings to avoid possible corporal punishment and arrest by magistrates. For these people, the magistrate can only report, and reporting will not solve the problem. And if the magistrate reports too much, it will appear very incompetent, which in turn forces the magistrate not to report too much. In this way, the wealthy are the main force in arrears of taxes.

These rich people who are in arrears of paying taxes are actually very cunning. First, they have power, and second, they will not really have to pay a penny, but only pay a small part, and then they will rely on it, year after year, and for a few years, the imperial court will see that this kind of accumulated tax arrears will become a difficult point in the latest tax collection, so they can only pardon the taxes that have been in arrears for many years.

In addition, according to the custom, such as the birth of the prince, the establishment of the crown prince, or the new emperor's accession to the throne and other universal celebrations, it is often necessary to pardon tax arrears. As long as this happens, the arrears of taxes can often be repaid.

In fact, all kinds of things are vicious circles, encouraging those who are in arrears of paying taxes, and as for those who pay taxes normally, they can rely on them at a glance, and there is no benefit in paying taxes normally, so they will naturally follow the same example.

Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen showed them the amount of tax arrears in this recital, which can be said to be shocking.

The other type of music is the record of the payment of taxes by officials.

In the Ming Dynasty, officials were never fully tax-exempt. It's not that as long as you are promoted, you will no longer have to pay taxes and do not have to serve hard labor.

There are provisions in the Ming Law that the gentry can indeed be exempted from a certain amount of forced labor. This has been happening since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, it was stipulated that in addition to the tax grain and the regular service of the Lijia, the home of the Beijing officials was exempted from miscellaneous errand service, and the foreign officials were reduced according to their quality. Later, with the continuous efforts of these officials and gentry, this regulation was changed to give preferential exemption to ding, grain or dingtian according to the grade limit.

For example, during the Zhengde period, the regulations were that Beijing officials were exempted from 4 hectares of fields above the third grade, 3 hectares of fields above the fifth grade, 2 hectares of fields above the seventh grade, and one hectare of fields above the ninth grade, and the number of foreign officials decreased.

This regulation is actually nothing in the north, but if it is replaced by a large amount of land in the south, it will be more.

However, the people's hearts were not enough to swallow the elephant, and those officials and gentry were still not satisfied, so they continued to work hard, and when they waited until the Jiajing period, they said several times that the emperor would revise this preferential exemption.

By the twenty-fourth year of Jiajing, it became a Beijing official with 30 stone of free grain and 30 dings of people; The second grade is free of 24 stones, and the person is 24 dings; The following decreases, to nine products free of grain and six stones, and six dings per person; Foreign officials halved.

When it came to the Wanli period, it was changed again, from "on the product free of grain" to "on the product of free land". The content of preferential exemption has been changed from grain and ding to field and ding, and fields and ding can be folded with each other.

This back-and-forth change can be seen as a change brought about by the long-term and waning of the power of officials in the north and the south, because there is a big difference between the free grain and the free land for the north and the south.

The regulations of the fourteenth year of Wanli have been extended to the Chongzhen Dynasty, that is, the first grade of Jingguan is free of 10,000 mu, and the second grade is 8,000 mu, and the following decreases to 2,700 mu of the eighth grade; Foreign officials halved. Those who are not officials are exempt from 1,200 acres of land, 400 acres of land for tribute students, and 80 acres of land for supervisors and students; Those gentry who returned to their hometowns were exempted from six-tenths according to their rank.

It can be seen that for more than 200 years in the Ming Dynasty, the gentry have been working hard for their privileges.

Take the thirty-eighth year of Wanli and the sixteenth year of Zhengde, and the amount of preferential and exempted fields of Yipin Beijing officials has increased by twenty-five times; The amount of preferential and exempted fields for the eight Beijing officials has increased by as much as 27 times; In the 38th year of Wanli compared with the 14th year, the amount of preferential and exempted fields for foreign officials in Jiakejing increased tenfold, and the preferential exemption for officials who returned to their hometowns increased by six times;

It stands to reason that the gentry have so many preferential treatments, they are all children of saints, so they should be content, right?

But the fact is that although the law stipulates that the line of officials and gentry is quite rich, the scholars and doctors are tithes, and the violators are tithes; Most of the gentry can be exempted as much as they can, and it is best that all of them can be exempted.

There are many representatives of this idea, and the famous one is Xu Jie, the first assistant of the Jiajing Dynasty. He seems to be the representative of the Qing officials, the head of the clear stream; However, he was in fact a landlord who could not be bigger, and when he encountered the abuse of the right of preferential exemption, he demanded that the magistrate "mediate appropriately", which meant nothing more than turning a blind eye.

During the Wanli period, the Nanzhili Patrol proposed to exempt the gentry from the verification quota according to the Ganshi price, and Lu Shusheng, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, immediately strongly objected, and also opened his eyes and said nonsense, saying that "often the field is too much, and there is no need to be restricted." This kind of thing can be said, so it can be seen that in order to be able to be fully exempted, it is not necessary to have any face.

In fact, in the Wanli period, the land annexation was serious, and the official gentry wanted to be exempted from all the taxes, and all of them were pressed on the ordinary people, so the civil turmoil had reached the point where it was necessary to rectify the preferential exemption of the official gentry. If it is not rectified, it will be like in history, and the Ming Dynasty will go bankrupt and play out.

Therefore, some officials proposed that the preferential treatment of the gentry should be strictly in accordance with the law, among which the price of Ganshi is one; Although he was opposed, because it was a patrol on behalf of the emperor, it was okay, but he was spitted. As for the magistrates, they were not so lucky.

In the twenty-ninth year of Wanli, Zhu Guozhen, the capital of Huzhou, Zhejiang, saw that the gentry were exempted from military service, sat freely, and the villagers were enlisted. The people welcomed this very much, and even the four big characters of "Juntian Convenience for the People" in the big book were posted everywhere to express their support.

However, the final result was that those official and gentry families united, entangled more than 1,000 family members, and directly broke into the official office, wanted to arrest Zhu Guozhen, and burned Zhu's house.

There are also famous Shen Shixing, Qian Longxi and others in history, who also used various reasons to oppose the Juntian Uniform Service in addition to the preferential exemption.

In addition, the law of the Ming Dynasty stipulates that after the death of the gentry, he can continue to be exempted for three years; However, the reality is that after three years, it is often exempted, and the benefits of eating it are not too difficult for them to spit it out.

As a result, after more than two hundred years of accumulation, by the time of the Chongzhen Dynasty, it was only the disadvantages of this aspect, and one or two can be known; Because of this, the content written in this piece frightened Zhang Pu and Wu Changshi.