Zhu Yuanzhang was full of pride and pride, and showed the place where the yellow book was stored to Liu Chun, the household registration, which is not just as simple as a name and number, but a real national strength.

The amount of land that can be collected, the amount of tax collected, and the number of people used each year all depend on these yellow books. The head of the family knows how many family members there are, and as an emperor, he naturally has to know how many people he can have.

Zhu Yuanzhang decided to immediately put the yellow book on the small island in the middle of Xuanwu Lake, surrounded by water, and carefully collected it as the basis for taxation by the Ming court forever.

"From now on, the world will be settled, and I will not have to worry about it!"

Lao Zhu laughed loudly, but Liu Chun subconsciously shook his head, if he really did this thing, it would not be that the world would be stable, but that trouble would come.

Lao Zhu glared at him viciously, "Stinky boy, what do you have to say quickly!" If you hide it, be careful, you're welcome! ”

"Your Majesty, to tell you the truth, I'm afraid that Your Majesty will be angry!" Liu Chun is embarrassed.

"I'm not so careful, I can't even tolerate the truth, haven't I become a faint king!" Zhu Yuanzhang said angrily: "Speak, hurry up!" ”

Liu Chun groaned: "Your Majesty, according to what the ministers have seen, this yellow book can only be used as a reference, and the actual effect is not great!" ”

"What?"

Old Zhu snorted angrily: "I have spent twenty years of hard work, and you actually say that it is useless? "The angry Lao Zhu almost wanted to pull Liu Chun over and punch him a few times to get angry!

Liu Chun has been with Lao Zhu for a long time, and he looks panicked on the surface, but in fact he doesn't care much.

"Your Majesty, it is precisely because it has been used for twenty years that it has lost its effect."

Zhu Yuanzhang blew his beard and glared, "Stinky boy, you have to tell the truth, otherwise I will never be polite!" ”

"The minister has the courage to ask for advice, how many princes and princesses has Your Majesty added in the past twenty years?"

Zhu Yuanzhang hesitated for a moment, "There are more than a dozen princes, and there are more than a dozen princesses, I can't remember clearly...... Why, do you want to say that I am a faint king? ”

Liu Chun hurriedly waved his hand, "The minister doesn't dare, the minister just wants to say that it is a good thing that the prosperous world is prosperous and the royal people are prosperous." It's just that the same is true for the people, twenty years is enough for a young man to hold his grandson, so it takes 20 years for this yellow book to be repaired one after another, and the people have passed through the times, and it is of little significance. After Liu Chun finished speaking, he quickly lowered his head.

Lao Zhu took a breath, twenty years ago, he had just become the emperor, and at that time, a teenager, like Liu Chun, had just become a ding, married a daughter-in-law, gave birth to a baby, and the child was seventeen or eighteen years old, so he could be a father......

"Stinky boy, you speak carefully!" Zhu Yuanzhang found a chair and sat down, pressed his thigh, and listened with great eyes.

Liu Chun didn't have a place to sit, so he could only say: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that people are fluid and constantly changing. For example, after the Great War, at the beginning of the founding of the country, a large number of men died in battle, and when the yellow books were counted, there would be a problem of scarcity of Ding mouths and a large number of household registrations. Now that the country has been established for more than 20 years, the people enjoy peace, the most important thing is that His Majesty pursues Juntian, the people can eat enough, and they will naturally try their best to have children, three or five is less, most couples can have more than a dozen children, assuming that half of them are boys, it is five. A man who founded the country, up to now, there are as many as six fathers and sons combined. ”

Zhu Biao beside him was a good cheerman, and he was puzzled: "Too many dings?" Isn't it good? ”

"Your Highness, there is a lot of strength in numbers, and it is indeed good. But the question is, how to collect this tax and forced labor? ”

"This ...... It is better to levy less than to exploit the people, according to this yellow book, it should be much easier for only one father to be levied, and six people to bear the tax of one person. ”

Liu Chun said: "What His Royal Highness said is extremely true, but the problem is that my father will be old and will die!" In the end, it will fall on the sons. ”

At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang said: "The father dies and the son succeeds, just let the eldest son be responsible." ”

"Your Majesty, this is indeed a solution, but the problem is that the population is increasing, and the increase in land is far less than the growth of people, and the population will not continue to swell......" Liu Chun felt that it was necessary to popularize basic population knowledge to Lao Zhu.

The so-called post-war baby boom has existed in all the past.

To put it simply, if you have fought enough, the world is peaceful, there is empty wasteland everywhere, and the common people will naturally work hard to have babies...... At present, the Ming Dynasty is in the harvest period of the baby boom after the war.

However, with the division of land, grain production has reached a bottleneck, wealth is unevenly distributed, and land annexation is serious.

At this stage, there will be many men who cannot find a daughter-in-law, and in addition, there will be many rich people with three wives and four concubines, and the family will hire a large number of servants and servants.

As a result, fewer men and women have the opportunity to have biological children, and population growth has reached a bottleneck.

Therefore, throughout the rise and fall of all dynasties, they are inseparable from population and land.

However, due to the lack of statistics and the lack of population knowledge, there are many drawbacks that are difficult to overcome in the taxation of past dynasties. This point is especially serious in the Ming Dynasty, and unfortunately, Lao Zhu has to bear the main responsibility.

"Your Majesty, taking the previous example as an example, if the eldest son inherits his father's obligation to pay taxes, will he also inherit his father's land? If he does not pass on his father's land to him, what will he do to pay taxes? Do you want to divide the land? How do you support your family? ”

"This ...... It's still not good to be separated, can't brothers be together? ”

"Of course, but the question is, can an ordinary farmer, relying on a small field, support the weddings of several brothers? Can they afford to marry a daughter-in-law? Are these brothers willing to stay at home? ”

Liu Chun said calmly: "According to the minister's observation, in recent years, there have been more and more strong men in the capital to make a living, and workshops in Suzhou and other places have also hired many workers...... There is no way, the land that their fathers have allocated cannot make them live a prosperous life at all, and many people have no land to live on since they were born. If you are poor, you will think about change, and it has become an inevitable choice to work in the city. ”

"Some people succeed and live better than their brothers who stay in the country, but the brothers who stay in the country have to pay taxes, and their lives are getting more and more difficult, and if they encounter natural or man-made disasters, they have to sell their land, and once they can't survive. Either he became a tenant farmer who no longer paid taxes, or he followed in the footsteps of his brother and went to the city to work, and from then on, he did not have to pay taxes...... In this way, the foundation of the imperial court's tax source will be destroyed. The minister has already seen the signs, at most ten or twenty years, and the Dingkou recorded in the yellow book may not even be half. Did the imperial court continue to tax according to the Yellow Book? Doubled the burden on the people, or directly give up half of the tax revenue, causing a shortage of state use? ”

"Ahh

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao took a breath of cold air at the same time, especially Lao Zhu, his face became extremely ugly!

"Liu Chun, is there any basis for what you say?"

Liu Chun nodded confidently, "Your Majesty doesn't believe it, you can arrange for someone to visit around, and you will know whether what the minister said is true or false." ”

Although Lao Zhu was still hesitating, he had already believed eight points, after all, what Liu Chun said was not a difficult truth, it was very simple and straightforward.

Zhu Yuanzhang made a yellow book for Dingkou and a fish scale book for the field, all of which were used as the basis for expropriation.

He regarded these two booklets as the treasure of the town and the foundation of the Ming Dynasty!

put it in an unparalleled position, but he thought very simply, the world is peaceful, the people live and work in peace and contentment, live and multiply, and there are more and more children and grandchildren. He levied taxes according to the Yellow Book, and as long as it was not increased, the burden on the common people would only get lighter and lighter, so there was no need to worry.

But in fact, Zhu Yuanzhang, or the monarchs and ministers who formulated the tax law in previous dynasties, made a serious mistake, even if the population is still increasing, the structure of the population will undergo earth-shaking changes.

In some places, the population will increase dramatically, while in others, the population will not increase, but will also decrease due to age.

To put it bluntly, just like many rural areas, young people continue to go out to work and enter the city, and there are still so many people who stay, but they are getting older and older every year...... It would be very unfair to let these old people bear the original taxes.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang tried his best to suppress commerce and maintain the small-scale peasant economy, they all enjoyed certain tax-free privileges due to the huge group of nobles and the gradually forming group of officials and gentry.

The rural economy, which is a large taxpayer, is in the process of disintegrating.

Fortunately, Zhu Yuanzhang has never been soft on hundreds of officials, if he hadn't killed so many officials, more than 20 years would be enough for them to swallow all the land around the capital.

Don't look at anything else, just take the Zhenguan rule of the Tang Dynasty as an example, Li Er is tolerant of the gate valve family, but in his later years, in the land of Guanzhong, the annexation is already very serious. The foundation of the prosperous Tang Dynasty has been shaken, and the government military system has also collapsed.

From this point of view, Zhu Yuanzhang actually did better than Li Er!

But Lao Zhu was very dissatisfied, he listened to what Liu Chun said, and immediately asked Jinyiwei to go down to investigate, and three days later, the reports were sent one after another.

Lao Zhu took it in his hand, and the more he looked at it, the more worried he became, almost all of what Liu Chun said had been fulfilled, and it was even more serious!

"Alas! How can this be! ”

Lao Zhu snorted and slapped the table, and he said to the crown prince Zhu Biao: "You prepare immediately, follow me to the private visit below!" ”

"Huh? Father, are you going for a private visit? ”

"Well, if you don't see it with your own eyes, it's not enough to just listen to them!" Lao Zhu is addicted to private interviews in micro-service, and he doesn't know what he can see......