"Taxes will be levied on merchants in coastal provinces, and customs duties will be increased by 10%, and factories in various places will be charged by 10%."

In the Forbidden City, in the military room of the Qianqing Palace, the emperor was writing while talking to himself, and in the surprised eyes of King Lu, who was fiddling with the sails on the side, he retracted the golden mouth with his fingers: "No, no, no, the customs tariff increase seems to be too much, and the factories in various places have no profits after the increase, and the loss of money is small, and the people's anger is big." ”

"Then the imperial brother only collects 10% of the profits." King Lu straightened the sail of the model, rubbed his hands and sat beside the emperor, and frowned: "In fact, more routes can be handed over to merchants, and the imperial court supports more people to go to sea to Asia, the South Seas, and the West, and they can bring back more goods." ”

The emperor took a deep breath between his nose and did not speak, and after thinking for a moment, he slowly turned his head, squinted his eyes at King Lu, and asked, "Come, tell me, who taught you this?" ”

"Huh?"

King Lu paused his hand playing with the Beiyang cavalry terracotta figurines on the table, blinked, and then smiled: "This, the younger brother thinks it is good for the imperial brother." ”

"Yes, it is beneficial for merchants and the court to be able to go out more ships, bring back more goods, and drive the production of craftsmen, and the court can collect more taxes."

Wanli muttered these words.

He is becoming more and more majestic as a true king, he just turned sideways slightly and raised his eyes to look at King Lu, if it weren't for the tiger warrior pajamas, this should be a very threatening look.

After a few quiet pauses, he spoke, "But this is contrary to my core interests. ”

King Lu shook his head: "Brother is stupid, isn't this beneficial to Brother Huang?" ”

Wanli raised his two fingers and tapped twice on the side of the table, and asked, "Do you know how many boat guides the imperial court issues in a year?" And how many people go to sea? ”

"This year, there are 400 in Guangzhou, Guangdong, 400 in Quanzhou, Fujian, 200 in Songjiang in Nanzhili, 870 in Hejian in Beizhili, and 960 in Shuntian.

"There are not only people in the world who lead the way to the sea, and even if you count only these 3,000 boats, do you know how many people there are?"

Wanli said heavily: "If there are 60 people per ship, this is more than 150,000 people, but these sea ships often carry nearly 100 people, because the imperial court's ship guidance system stipulates the number of ships, even the common people try to make the ship bigger, and now the coastal merchants have 200 people and 500,000 goods in their hands. ”

"Maritime trade will bring prosperity and gold and silver, but two or three hundred thousand people go to sea every year, and come back six or seven out of ten after a year, but there will still be two or three hundred thousand people going to sea in the next year. Some died in the sea and became lonely ghosts; The world is so big, nearly a million people are engaged in maritime affairs, how many people do they need to produce what they buy and sell? ”

Wanli treasured these data, and said to King Lu: "Do you know what will happen if you send more ships to lead it down?" ”

"Field, no one ploughs the field, the richest land in the southeast is now difficult to find enough people who are willing to be tenant farmers, there is no other way they can only buy ploughing horses, since Songjiang Kaifu, Xu Ge's hometown in the field do you know how to plow?"

Wanli said with a smile: "His son asked Zhang Ge Lao about Huo De Xingjun's strength, and their family's land was sold for 100,000 mu, and the left field was used by eighty Huo De Xingjun to cultivate his 40,000 mu of grain land, because the charcoal that Huo De Xingjun ate was more cost-effective than hiring tenant farmers. ”

King Lu's eyes widened: "Xu Ge's old family has 140,000 acres of land? ”

Wan Li Ye raised his fingers covering the claws of the Zhangrong Tiger and waved them in front of his eyes: "No, no, no, his family has 240,000 mu, and the remaining 100,000 mu are mulberry fields and cotton fields, yes, the five-year plan says that these are called cash crops." ”

"Maritime power." Wanli said with emotion: "It is far better to suppress land annexation than Hai Rui. ”

In fact, there are many things here that also puzzle Wanli, and he doesn't understand why the trend of land annexation at the beginning of industry is obviously developing according to a stronger momentum, but suddenly everything seems to have changed, and the big landlords have spit out the land one after another.

Xu Jie is not an exception, there is such a phenomenon everywhere, but the scale of the land owned by Xu Jie makes him the biggest example of it.

Even if 100,000 acres of fertile land are released, he is still the world's leading landowner.

This should not be the power of industry, in the book that Chen Mu left to the emperor, it is clearly written that industry has no ability to inhibit land annexation, and can only give the poor people who have lost their land due to annexation a way out, so that even if they have no land, they will not be without food and clothing.

It may even exacerbate the emergence of large landlords, because in an uncontrollable disaster year, as soon as the local officials open the gates, the poor people will sell their only land on the road for a bite to eat.

This is completely different from the past, when the common people had no other way but to sell their fields and be hired by the big landlords on the spot in order to get a living meal, and then they became hired farmers instead of yeoman farmers, so even if the squires and powerful did not think of other means to carry out the forcible seizure of land, with the occurrence of disaster years, the land in their hands will gradually increase.

This is because in the same disaster year, the ability of ordinary yeoman farmers to resist disasters is different from that of large landowners.

But now the landlords do still have access to land, but it is difficult to get manpower to cultivate the land for him.

There are legends about the commissions of the coastal provinces and the North and South Ordnance Bureaus all over the world, some people say that the coastal textile mills have two taels of silver a month, and some people say that the porters of the Ordnance Bureau have three cents of silver a day.

There is also a mining team from Shanxi, two mule carts full of coal mines, two horsemen and four lifu, fifty miles of travel twice a month, you can earn three taels of silver.

Who will give you the land?

"If no one farms, what will my people eat?"

"There's something to eat." King Lu listened to it for a long time, and he could be regarded as hearing something he understood: "Then Nanyang Jingyun has more than 6 million stones a year, which is more than the summer tax." ”

Wanli: "! That's a tax, and you make the people eat the tax? Moreover, even if there is more grain by sea, it will fill the mouths of 60 million of my people? ”

As a matter of fact, he was skeptical about the number of people who were registered in the household department, which was 60,692,856 last year.

In recent years, 280 million mu of land has been cleared, which is more than half of the previous total land.

What about the people who are set to hide the land that will not move, and who run around with their legs and feet?

"I am not short of money, and the imperial court is not short of money now, any more is just icing on the cake, this is no longer my core interest, overseas trade can develop naturally."

Wanli raised his hand and pointed to his heart as he spoke, "I have to feed the people and strike a balance between encouraging agriculture and encouraging commerce." Even if there is enough rice and grain by sea, how can I eat overseas in my world? ”

"In this world, those who do business and become officials are not terrible, their wealth and authority can be recovered if I want to, they are unhappy and come to block me; Only those who farm, work, and wield knives are my core interests, and I have decided. ”

"Levy taxes on merchants in coastal provinces, add two cents to the customs tariff, and one cent to the factories in various places, and these three cents should be 100,000 taels of silver every year, and be used to repair toilets, build pharmacies, and set standards for factory dormitories for our workers.

The little emperor snorted and raised his head proudly: "I don't believe it, Jing Haibo said in the book that the matter of businessmen chasing profits and oppressing workers will appear in my world, who would dare?" ”