After Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou read the documents in their hands, their faces became very solemn, and after the two exchanged glances in private, Guo Yunhou opened his mouth and said to Chongzhen.

"Your Majesty, the annual military budget in this plan is as high as 36.4 million yuan, but this year's various revenues of the imperial court are only about 45 million yuan, which is already the best year in the last two or three decades.

After deducting military spending, the fiscal revenue was only about 9 million yuan, of which more than 4 million yuan was paid to the court officials, which is still the data without the full implementation of the wage reform. If the reform of officials' salaries is continued in accordance with His Majesty's request, the annual income of officials will exceed 7.5 million yuan.

Your Majesty, after deducting the military expenses and the officials' salaries, what else can we do with the remaining money? At present, most of the funds used by the imperial court to repair water conservancy and roads come from loans from banks. But how long can this borrowing relationship last? If the bank can't make money in the future, will these merchants still lend money to the court for various expenses? ”

Zhu Youzhen nodded at Guo Yunhou and said: "What Mr. Guo said is right, if it is implemented according to this plan, then with the current financial income of the Ming Dynasty, it will not be able to support it for a long time."

Moreover, the imperial court has so much money on hand that it is not realistic to expect to borrow from the bank every year, after all, even if we borrow money, we still have to pay additional interest.

Therefore, I feel that there are only two ways to solve the current financial predicament of the imperial court, one is to open up the source, and the other is to reduce expenditure. Doesn't Mr. Guo think that the current tax collection method of the imperial court is too inefficient? ”

Guo Yunhou said with some doubts: "Open source and reduce expenditure? This throttle, the minister knows. His Majesty ordered the unified purchase and distribution of paper and ink and other materials used in daily use by the six ministries, thus reducing a lot of waste, which is one of the measures to reduce expenditure.

But is this open source? Since the founding of Emperor Taizu Gao, the types of taxes in my Ming Dynasty have basically covered all aspects. Chen really doesn't know how to open source. Moreover, the wealth of the world is constant, and the imperial court collects more, and the people are less. In the past few years, because of the increase in taxes, the people in various places have caused several incidents. ”

Zhu Youzhen shook his head and said: "The wealth of the world has never been constant, and Yenching University has discussed this issue very clearly, and I don't want to argue with Mr. Guo about this issue here." According to Yenching University's research on the number of people and the scale of land reclamation over the years, it is clear that wealth is growing with population growth and land utilization.

As for open source, it is not simply to increase taxes to the people. Moreover, according to the investigation and comparison of the tax revenue of Shunyi County and several other counties in the past year, we can also easily find out.

In Shunyi County, where the power of the imperial court directly arrived in the village, its tax revenue this year is almost more than double that of several counties with similar conditions, but the people of Shunyi County still feel that the burden has been reduced compared with previous years.

However, in several counties with Shunyi County as a reference, not only is the tax revenue only half of that of Shunyi County, but the people in these counties are still very dissatisfied, feeling that the tax is getting heavier and heavier year by year. But in fact, three of these counties have less than 10 percent of their tax revenues in previous years, two more have the same amount as in the past, and only one county has increased by less than 10 percent. ”

Guo Yunhou looked up at Chongzhen and said with some suspicion: "Where did Your Majesty get this investigation report?" How come the minister has never seen this investigation report? ”

Zhu Youzhen looked at him and smiled and said, "This is when I commissioned the Daming Times to conduct a continuous social survey of several counties at the beginning of the year, and they carefully investigated for a year before completing a rough report. Of course, this report will be sent to the cabinet gentlemen later.

I have also ordered that the investigation report of the Daming Times on certain local social malpractices will be sent to the cabinet and me in the future as the basis for policy discussions in the ruling power. ”

Hearing that Chongzhen was willing to share the information investigated by the Daming Times with the cabinet, Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone knows that Daming Times is the East Factory. But in the past year, the shadow of Dongchang on the Daming Times began to fade slowly, and the color as the mouthpiece of the emperor's public opinion became stronger.

For senior bureaucrats like Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou, the Daming Times is really a more troublesome existence than Dongchang. Dongchang's investigation of the bureaucracy's selfishness is at most embarrassing for them, after all, at their level, some handles fall into the hands of the emperor, so that the emperor can sleep peacefully.

However, the last thing they wanted was that whenever they talked to the emperor, they would hear something from the emperor that even they did not know.

As the rulers of the Ming Dynasty, they have always been accustomed to it, and the development of things is under their control. When talking to the emperor, accidents often arise, making it difficult for them to make the right response, which is the most troublesome thing for them.

Seeing that the two cabinet ministers had a tacit agreement not to pursue the investigation report, Zhu Youzhen continued: "In fact, based on these investigation reports, I have come to a conclusion.

In fact, the taxes collected by the imperial court were not much, and even surprisingly small. However, because the imperial court did not directly collect taxes from the people, but collected taxes through the gentry from all over the country, there were too many injustices in the process of taxation, which made the people feel that the taxes of the imperial court were too high.

For example, in Shunyi County, because of the White Lotus Sect's instigation of civil unrest last year, after the imperial court suppressed the civil unrest, the gentry in the county were deprived of the right to collect taxes for the imperial court. In Shunyi County, we have established a four-level management system of villages, townships, towns, and counties, so as to realize the management channels for the county government to directly face the people.

Therefore, the actual tax revenue in Shunyi this year can exceed twice the tax amount of last year. Because Shunyi County has basically cleared the influence of the local gentry in the county-level tax collection process, and successfully taxed the local gentry.

In contrast, the other counties still adopt the governance system of the county government-gentry-common people, so there are problems in taxation. According to an investigation by the Daming Times, in the process of collecting taxes, these gentry not only wantonly embezzled taxes and grain, but also transferred the land taxes that should have been borne by themselves to small landlords and yeoman farmers who had no social connections.

We all know that according to the law of the Ming Dynasty, the tax amount in each county is fixed. If someone underpays the tax grain, then there must be someone who pays the tax more.

Moreover, with the drastic changes in the past two or three decades, abnormal weather has occurred frequently. Due to the continuous famine, many yeoman farmers went bankrupt one after another, and the wind of land annexation in various places also increased.

The amount of tax in these counties remained unchanged, and the decrease in the number of yeoman farmers who paid taxes was undoubtedly equivalent to an increase in taxes on taxpayers. Although the Liao salary levied after Wanli was claimed to be nine cents of silver per mu of land, the nine cents of silver were not distributed to the fields of each county, but were still borne by some people according to the old rules.

Therefore, the imperial court did not increase the tax by a few pennies, but the people below complained bitterly, and the gentry who occupied the greatest advantage led the people's dissatisfaction to the imperial court, saying that the imperial court was harsh in leviing taxes. They are teasing the masses against the court. ”

When Zhu Youzhen said to the end, he became fierce, and his face was full of resentment and knowledge of those local gentry. Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou looked at each other, not knowing how to respond to Chongzhen's words, after all, they were also members of the gentry in the emperor's mouth.

After being silent for a while, Huang Liji finally stubbornly persuaded Chongzhen: "Your Majesty, there may be some unscrupulous people among the gentry, but not all gentry are bad, they are also the main force in building roads and bridges in the local area, giving clothes and medicines, and providing relief to the victims."

What's more, there are only more than 70,000 officials and officials in our Ming Dynasty. According to the latest census report of the Ministry of Households, there are more than 70 million people in Daming who pay taxes, plus women and children, and each official has to manage an average of 2,000 people.

Your Majesty, without the assistance of the local gentry, the imperial court would not be able to manage this huge place at all, please think twice. ”

Zhu Youzhen nodded at Huang Liji and said, "I know what you just said. I've been reading a few Western books lately, and there's an interesting fable that I'll tell you about. ”

Huang Liji and Guo Yunhou looked at each other, then quieted down, wanting to hear what kind of fable Chongzhen was going to tell. Zhu Youzhen thought for a while and said: "In Western books, the king is compared to a shepherd, the official is a shepherd dog, and the people are sheep in captivity...

While I don't fully agree with this metaphor, I feel that some of them are true. For example, the tax of the imperial court is to shear the wool from the sheep, not to kill the sheep for meat.

If there are vicious dogs in the shepherd dogs that do not protect the flock, but treat the flock as their own food, then the shepherd should clean up these vicious dogs as soon as possible to ensure that the flock continues to reproduce.

The two gentlemen felt that the gentry from all over the country were a useful supplement to assist the imperial court in managing the people. But in my opinion, a part of the Ming gentry has become a vicious dog that endangers the sheep. In other words, the number of sheepdogs has exceeded the upper limit of what the flock can feed.

I knew that the two gentlemen thought they were part of the gentry. But what I want to tell the two gentlemen is that the time has come for the Ming Dynasty to abandon some of the gentry and let the other part live.

If we don't take the initiative to cut off this part of the gentry, then the people will make this decision for us. In the last days of the previous dynasties, how those peasant rebels dealt with the gentry and officials of the previous dynasty, the two gentlemen read more books than me, and I don't need to describe them again. ”

Regarding Chongzhen's words, Huang Liji was slightly better, after all, he had heard Chongzhen's remarks about this kind many times.

Guo Yunhou looked a little stunned, and he subconsciously replied to Chongzhen: "Your Majesty shouldn't be like this, right?" I think that we can still find a solution to the problem after all, and we don't have to take such an extreme step. Otherwise, the world will be in chaos. ”