In the secret room, the three monarchs and ministers began to discuss the future of the national policy after the Ming Dynasty. Outside the cabin, Wu Mengming, the governor of Beijing, personally stood guard and strictly forbade anyone to approach.

Although there are many high-ranking and powerful people in the fleet, Chen Yue, Marquis of Pingnan, has the responsibility of commanding the fleet, and is bothering about how to defeat Huang Degong, who is stationed in Yizhen, and Chongzhen does not want him to be distracted.

Wu Mengming and Chen Jianghe are both marquises, and they are both high-ranking and powerful, but they are much worse in terms of knowledge from martial arts, and they will not have any good opinions. Therefore, Chongzhen just asked Lu Zhenfei and Wang Yin to discuss together.

Lu Zhenfei has been very effective in serving as the governor of Huaiyang, and he is a rare capable official. Although Wang Yin was not an official before, he had a reputation for being a person, and his knowledge was not bad at all, plus he had served in the Zhou Yanru shogunate, and he followed Chen Vietnam to fight in the north this year, and he was familiar with military strategy and had good strategies. Chongzhen really wanted to hear from the two of them what to do in the future.

"Your Majesty, Weichen thinks that the first thing in governance is to clean up the rule of officials and rectify the dynasty, as long as the monarchs and ministers are united, and the civil ministers and military generals perform their duties, then the Ming Dynasty will be able to extend the country."

After thinking about it for a while, Lu Zhenfei took the lead.

Chongzhen nodded, although what Lu Zhenfei said was a general talk, it was an inevitable way to govern the country. But if you want to clean up the rule of the officials, and if you want the monarch and the ministers to work together, where is it so easy!

In Daming, the party fights for the dynasty are everywhere, where is there a day of peaceful coexistence?

"What Lu Qing said is very true, but now I want to know more, what problems do I have at the moment, and how to solve them?" Chongzhen Road.

Does Daming have a problem? Lu Zhenfei smiled bitterly, there are really many, many of them, and many of them are stubborn diseases, involving the interests of too many people, and they can't be solved at all, and many people don't even dare to mention it.

Since His Majesty asked, Wei Chen didn't dare to say anything. But I have a lot of problems, and Weichen doesn't know where to start. Lu Zhenfei smiled bitterly and said.

"Lu Qing, but it doesn't hurt to say it!" Chongzhen encouraged, why did he work hard to deal with the government, no one can match the emperors of the previous dynasties in terms of diligence, but the Ming Dynasty is getting worse, if this problem is not clear, Chongzhen is difficult to sleep.

"Then Weichen will start with the field." Lu Zhenfei sorted out his thoughts and said slowly: "After all, the people live on food, and only enough land can feed the people. If all the people have land to plant and food to eat, then no one will take risks, and my Ming dynasty will be as stable as Mount Tai. ”

"During the Hongwu period, Emperor Taizu once ordered to measure and inventory the land of the whole country, and the result of the measurement was that I had a total of 8 million hectares of arable land in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, I had just established the Ming Dynasty, and after the turmoil at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the population of the whole country decreased sharply, and there were a large number of barren fields in the provinces.

Later, with the continuous reproduction of the population, a large amount of land was reclaimed, and the amount of cultivated land should continue to increase. But this is not the case. During the Yongle period, the result of measuring the cultivated fields again was that there were only 7 million hectares of cultivated land in the country. After that, the number of cultivated fields registered in the household department decreased year by year, and in the Zhengde period, there were only 3.8 million hectares of cultivated land registered in the household department.

In the Wanli Dynasty, Zhang Gongju was trying his best to change the law, and found out that there were 7 million acres of cultivated land, but since the death of Zhang Gong, the number of cultivated fields has decreased year by year.

The population continues to multiply, more and more people of the Ming Dynasty, but the cultivated land is gradually decreasing, less and less cultivated land feeds more and more people, the tax revenue of the imperial court has been reduced year after year, the people are hungry, and then the rod rises, coupled with the rise of the Manchu Tartars in Liaodong, in order to clear them to spend a lot of national and financial resources, the Ming Dynasty has reached today's embarrassing situation. ”

Lu Zhenfei spoke slowly, although there were not many words, but he exhausted the biggest stubborn disease of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen listened with an extremely dignified expression.

"Where did my Daming's cultivated fields go?" Chongzhen asked softly, he was asking Lu Zhenfei and Wang Yin, but also himself.

Although Chongzhen was also aware of the land problem before, no one in the Manchu Dynasty took the initiative to mention it to him.

"That's because there are a lot of people who don't have to pay taxes, and the lost farmland is in their hands. Clans, nobles, and even gentry. ”

Lu Zhenfei said softly, when he talked about the gentry, his voice couldn't help but lower, he himself is a member of the gentry, and he is also a vested interest!

The clan, the nobles, the gentry, Chongzhen muttered in his mouth, his brows furrowed deeper and deeper. These three are the foundation of the Ming Dynasty, the clan is their own relatives, and raising the clan is the national policy set by Emperor Taizu, if he takes food from their mouths, he will inevitably be scolded for being unkind.

During the Jiajing period, Yushi Linrun once played a twist and turn, and it was very clear. During the Jiajing period, the world supplied the grain to the capital with 4 million stone per year, but the food consumed by the royal palaces was 8 million stone per year.

Specifically, Shanxi Province, an important military town, stores 1.9 million stone of grain every year, but the local royal government consumes more than 3 million stone of grain. Henan Province has 940,000 stone of grain, but the local vassal kings consume more than 1.9 million grains. In other words, the taxes and grain of the whole country added up to the mouth of the vassal king.

The vassal king is like this, not to mention the countless generals and lieutenants of the county kings, with the establishment of the Ming Dynasty for more than 200 years, the descendants of Taizu have multiplied to nearly one million people, and everyone needs the Ming Dynasty to provide for them, and the food of the Ming Dynasty is too much to support these useless clans.

As for the nobles, although the land property does not pay taxes, because of the practice that the Ming Dynasty cannot be knighted without military merits, the number of nobles in the country is so much, and the land occupied is far from being comparable with the clan.

It is the gentry who can be compared with the clan, but in the Ming Dynasty, the king and the scholar share the world, as long as it is a scholar with a meritorious name, he has the privilege of not paying taxes. Although there are not many jinshi in the country, the number of lifters is very large, and the whole family does not need to pay taxes. Moreover, in order to avoid taxes, too many people took the initiative to invest their fields in the squires with meritorious reputations.

More than half of the country's arable land was encroached upon by the clan gentry, and only a small half of the land was used to pay taxes to support the whole country and support 100,000 troops.

"If you want to prosper in the Ming Dynasty, you must solve the stubborn problem of land encroachment, but how difficult it is. At present, the internal and external troubles of the Ming Dynasty are the critical moment of life and death, and it is not easy to make a big move, Your Majesty Xu is cautious. Lu Zhenfei finally persuaded helplessly.

It is painful to know what the problem is, but you can't solve it.

As long as we follow Zhang Juzheng's old wisdom and send capable officials to check the acres of land across the country and find out the hidden land one by one, the grain tax will inevitably surge, and with the financial resources and grain, we will naturally be able to recruit soldiers and horses, and resist the Tartars on the outside and the thieves on the inside.

However, it is not a simple matter, when Zhang Juzheng was in charge of the country, the Japanese were destroyed, Mongolia was in decline, the old slave Nurhachi was just born, and the entire Ming Haiyan River was clear. But just like that, Zhang Juzheng's change was still full of resistance, and finally failed. Because the change of the law blocked the financial path of too many vested interests, the gentry, the clan, the nobles, and almost the entire upper echelons of the Ming Dynasty were the enemies of the new law.

The current internal and external troubles of Daming are not a good time to change at all.

"The stubborn disease of cultivated land has been around for a long time, and it cannot be solved in a short period of time." Chongzhen said with difficulty, knowing what the problem is, but there is no way, even if he is the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, this feeling is too embarrassing.

"Wang Qing, I don't know what you think?" Chongzhen turned to Wang Yin. Seeing this situation, Lu Zhenfei sighed deeply, knowing that Chongzhen did not have the courage to go against the entire gentry class.

"Lord Lu's opinion is acupuncture, and it hits the biggest drawback of my Ming Dynasty, and he is reckless, and he can't say anything more." Wang Yin was humble for a moment, and said, "Weichen agrees with His Majesty's point of view, and the solution to the matter of cultivating and merging can only be done slowly, for the current Ming Dynasty, how to solve the current crisis is the key." ”

Chongzhen's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he hurriedly asked, "How to solve it?" ”

"The thieves have broken through Beijing, the northern territory has fallen, and the most important task of my Ming Dynasty at the moment is to regroup, rely on the Jianghuai defense line, block the strong enemy in the north, and protect half of my Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, what needs to be done now is not to change the law and take the gentry and clans, but to build a strong army.

At present, there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses in Wuchang, the general Zuo Liangyu, who can barely resist the thieves, but the Jianghuai region is empty, and there is no strong army at all.

If the army of thieves attacks from Jianghuai, there is no way to resist it with the current strength. So it was necessary to recruit an army of 100,000 men, but it took a lot of money to recruit an army. Clothing, clothing, food, weapons, all of that all require silver. The 100,000 troops are at least one million taels of silver a year, so after His Majesty arrives in Nanjing, it is imperative to requisition money and food to recruit troops. ”

"One million taels of silver!" Chongzhen couldn't help but smile bitterly, in previous years, the treasury income was only so much silver, and now Daming has lost the entire north.

"Therefore, the first problem that His Majesty will face after arriving in Nanjing in the future is to get money, as long as there is money and food, he can establish a solid defense line, and he can block the thieves in the north.

Now, although I don't know why the thieves didn't go south quickly, there is not much time left for Daming. ”

"Jianghuai's army needs a million taels of silver every year, but what about Zuo Liangyu's army in Wuchang? What about the army in Huguang Jiangxi? How much silver do you need? Lu Zhenfei couldn't help asking, in the final analysis, it's all about money, if Da Ming has money, everything can be solved.

"Let's find a way slowly, but we must not add more Tian Fu, most of the Tian Fu is on the heads of the small people, the north has been in chaos because of it, and the south of the Yangtze River can no longer be chaotic." Wang Yin reminded.

"How can I get money without Kada Fu?" Chongzhen couldn't help asking, he has been on the throne for more than ten years, and one of the things he does whenever he has no money is to increase the endowment, and he never thought that there was a second way.

"There are still ways to do it, such as levying a mining tax like Wan Liye, and then opening a market to exchange silk and porcelain from the Ming Dynasty for silver taels overseas, or collecting business taxes, and all those who do business will pay taxes and silver, and so on." Wang Yin said with a smile.

Chongzhen's eyes suddenly lit up, during the Wanli Apocalypse, the emperor had sent mine supervisors and tax envoys, but after Chongzhen ascended the throne, he was bewitched by the Donglin Party, saying that the royal family should not compete with the people for profit, and collected all the expatriate mine supervisors and tax envoys. Now it seems that he was completely deceived by the damned civil officials of the Donglin Party, and he no longer competed with the people for profit, but all the benefits were also encroached upon by these damned gentry.

What is competing with the people for profit, what is impeachment, these civil officials are full of moral articles, but they are full of male thieves and prostitutes! After experiencing the life-and-death crisis in Beijing, Chongzhen has thought a lot and summarized a lot in these days, and has gone through all the things in his heart for more than ten years since he ascended the throne, and found many wrong things he did before. Some of them are because they are too impatient, and many of them are deceived by these ministers.

After experiencing a life-and-death crisis, Chongzhen's personality has changed a lot, and now he is far more stable than before, and his understanding of things is much deeper.

Today, he summoned Wang Yin and Lu Zhenfei to talk, and asked about their views on the situation and countermeasures, the key is that he wants to find out Wang Yin and Lu Zhenfei, figure out the abilities and conduct of these two, and see if they are absolutely loyal to him.

Before the fall of Beijing, the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty pretended to be deaf and dumb in the face of themselves, that is, they refused to sacrifice their family wealth to share the worries of the country, let alone take the initiative to make suggestions. Even Wei Zaode, a scholar of the Shoufu University appointed by himself, pretended to be deaf and dumb about the state affairs and court situation, and was silent every time he asked for advice. After the thieves entered Beijing, these civil servants rushed to surrender to the new lord one by one.

This incident made Chongzhen cold to these ministers for a long time, and he had long disbelieved in their loyalty to the country.

However, if you want to control the Ming Dynasty and stabilize the situation, you can't do without these civil officials. However, even if you want to use it, you must use people who are truly loyal to you to establish your own team, so Chongzhen took the opportunity to observe the two of them.

The result of the observation is that these two are available!

Lu Zhenfei can take the initiative to say that the stubborn disease of Daming is the clan and the gentry, which shows that this person's loyalty to Daming must be above his own selfish interests, this is a pure minister.

Wang Yin's ability to accurately say what should be done shows that this person has clear thinking and outstanding ability, plus he is just a lifter and has not been an official before. There is no Zhongjinshi, there are not many colleagues in the same year, and it is not easy to form a party, only by relying on me, he can gain a foothold in the future court, so Chongzhen is also very relieved of Wang Yin.

Chongzhen already had a clear idea of the imperial court after arriving in Nanjing and the future administration, and was waiting to implement it immediately after arriving in Nanjing.

ps: Two chapters in one, December stuck to it again. Tomorrow is the new year, and the author wishes all book friends a happy and prosperous New Year! New year, new atmosphere, and I wish this book better and better results in the new year!