Regarding Yuan Keli's surprise, Zhu Youzhen didn't care. With only 25 million taels of silver, how could the wealthy family in Jiangnan not be able to take it out. After Li Zicheng broke through the city of Beijing, he plundered more than 70 million taels of silver from the hands of the city's nobles, bureaucrats, eunuchs, and merchants, which was still handed over to Li Zicheng's public property.

Zhu Youzhen did not believe that in an army with corrupt military discipline, soldiers would pay all the looted civilian property to the public. Even in the process of the Red Army's fight against local tyrants and the division of land, it went through countless disciplinary purgies before turning a peasant armed force into a well-disciplined revolutionary army.

And this is still a great result achieved by the ** people in the way of Puritan self-discipline. After Li Zicheng and other leaders of the peasant rebel army entered Beijing, they quickly became corrupt and degenerate, and the subordinates who could still be restrained there filled their pockets with gold and silver.

Therefore, Li Zicheng's rebel army plundered more than 70 million taels of silver from the hands of the wealthy gentry in Beijing, and at least one-third of the property fell into the hands of the rebel soldiers. Therefore, the city of Beijing alone has at least more than 90 million taels of gold and silver.

The Jiangnan region, which is claimed to have gathered one-third of the wealth of the Ming Dynasty, could not take out 25 million taels of silver. Although there are only more than 30 officials outside, they have at least in-laws with hundreds of wealthy families in the south of the Yangtze River. If you really want to be more serious, copy it and go home, it's not that you can't get together the 25 million taels of silver.

However, the 35 million yuan treasury bonds were prepared for the additional issuance of banknotes, not for the atonement of these Jiangnan gentry. Second, if we want to carry out an industrial revolution, we need a stable social environment and a market with sufficient consumption power.

Compared with the overseas foreign trade market, which is full of uncertain risks, a mature and stable domestic market is obviously the most needed existence in the early stage of the industrial revolution.

The rated tax grain in Suzhou is about 2.5 million stones, Songjiang is about 960,000 stones, Changzhou is about 760,000 stones, Jiaxing is about 620,000 stones, and Huzhou is about 470,000 stones, and the total rated tax grain in the above five areas is about 5.31 million stones, accounting for about one-fifth of the country's rated tax grain revenue.

By the first year of Chongzhen, the tax grain payable in Suzhou Prefecture had grown to 3.5 million stones, and Songjiang Mansion had also developed to 1.03 million stones. Although there are arrears in these two regions, the combined tax revenue of the two places has reached one-sixth of the total amount of Daming Tianfu, which is enough to prove that the tax completion of these two regions is enough to affect the expenditure of Daming's finances.

This is also why Su Song can refer to the Jiangnan region, and the influence of the Jiangnan gentry on the imperial court will be so great. After all, in the eyes of the Jiangnan gentry, the Ming court was completely supported by Jiangnan's taxes, so didn't they allow them to put forward their own political claims to the court?

As the first and second largest tax grain in the country, Suzhou has three buckets and eight liters per mu of tax grain, and Songjiang has two buckets and four liters per mu of tax grain. This fixed tax system made the land taxes in Suzhou and Songjiang much higher than in other regions, and it is no wonder that these Jiangnan gentry were able to stir up the dissatisfaction of the common people.

Although Chongzhen had a headache about the tax evasion of the Jiangnan gentry, and the shamelessness of arrears. But he also clearly realized that the Jiangnan region was the most commoditized society in the Ming Dynasty, and the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy in this region had almost begun to disintegrate.

Based on the tax of the five prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River, it is estimated that the scale of the commodity economy in the Jiangnan region is about 160 million taels to 250 million taels, accounting for about half of the scale of the commodity economy of the Ming Dynasty.

According to the survey and collection of economic data in various places in the past year, the Ministry of Household Affairs and the School of Mathematics estimated that the GDP of Chongzhen in the first year was about 850 million taels of silver. If calculated with a population of 150 million, the average Ming person created 567 taels of silver.

Maybe this figure is not very accurate, after all, the current Ming Dynasty has not established a statistical bureau all over the country, but this number is not very different from the level of per capita food and clothing in the Ming Dynasty, so both the officials of the household department and Chongzhen have recognized this number.

However, in order to turn the Jiangnan region into a real commodity economy, it is first necessary to abolish all kinds of personal dependency relationships. Without the right to personal freedom, there can be no independent power over private property. And without the independent power of private property, there can be no real capitalist relations of production.

Regarding Yuan Keli's question, Zhu Youzhen's originally stiff face suddenly eased, and he calmly said to the criminal department secretary: "I am not a robber, and they are not meat tickets, can I do anything to redeem the crime with money?"

How to deal with them is a matter of law, and as a great tomorrow, I will only monitor whether anyone bends the law for personal gain, and whether the judge's sentence is too severe. As for the provisions of the law itself, they are set up for the people of the world, not just for a certain person. Therefore, Yuan Shangshu does not need to be too pessimistic, as the secretary of the criminal department, shouldn't you believe in the law more? ”

As Chongzhen spoke, Yuan Keli seemed to hear the sound of several colleagues around him relaxing their breathing, but he didn't have the same wide heart as these colleagues, thinking that he would be able to get rid of the Qingliu officials outside by obeying the law.

When the Emperor said this, he was merely discarding his own tendencies in the matter. However, wouldn't Huang Liji and Wu Chunfu, these eunuchs, take this opportunity to fall into the trap of the Donglin Party?

While Yuan Keli was still thinking, Zhu Youzhen continued: "I asked Mr. Guo to take out this budget book in advance, mainly because there is one more thing to discuss with you.

First of all, the establishment of 12 industrial cities will inevitably require the surplus population from the countryside to concentrate in these cities. We all know very well that the rules handed down from the beginning of the country, except for the scholars, all the people need to go out.

If we follow the old rules, I am afraid that these industrial cities will not be able to recruit workers even after they are built. Moreover, now the Ming Dynasty has few fields and many people, and the number of displaced people in various places is increasing day by day. The inability of these displaced people to settle down in the local area and to return to their places of origin often leads to chaos in local society.

Although there are few homeless people in the Jiangnan area, there are many idle people in the market, and these evil young people are bullying and dominating the market on the streets, which not only disrupts the market economy, but also makes it difficult for the good people to live a normal life.

Therefore, I hope that, first, the current household registration system will be reformed, and the peasants will be allowed to leave the land and work in the cities; Second, it is necessary to manage the displaced people in various localities, and those who keep to themselves must be registered, and some criminals must be severely punished;

Third, starting next year, all localities in the south of the Yangtze River will comprehensively implement the patrol police system and resolutely crack down on some criminal gangs that endanger the people's livelihood. In particular, people in the government who collude with these criminal gangs, as well as local gentry, must be dealt with in a severe and severe manner.

Eventually, I wanted to reform the current slave system, and I demanded the abolition of slavery and the replacement of slavery with wage labor. In the future, the Ming people shall not be slaves, and those who dare to take the Ming people as slaves will be punished for the crime of treason. ”

Except for Huang Liji, Xu Guangqi, Guo Yunhou and a few other officials who did not show a big change in expression, the other officials were really a little surprised by Chongzhen's words.

In this era, the distinction between good and low was still very strict, and all slaves who violated their masters were to be beaten and scolded or sent to the government for punishment, and slaves who had conflicts with their masters were to be punished doubly. Moreover, it is basically difficult for the children and grandchildren of slaves to leave their nationality, and they cannot obtain the right to participate in the imperial examinations.

In the eyes of the gentry, these slaves were private property like horses and cattle. Freeing slaves and maidservants is no different from seizing their property in their eyes.

However, officials of northern origin are slightly calmer than those of southern origin on this issue. After all, there are many fields and few people in the north, and the output of land is not high. It is more profitable to keep slaves to cultivate the fields than to rent the land to tenant farmers.

This is also because the slaves are not highly motivated to work, and the income from a year's cultivation is not enough for them to eat, and the master's family cannot starve them to death, which is also against the law. On the contrary, after renting to tenant farmers, they take away the fixed land rent, and do not need to care about the life and death of the tenant farmers, so the income is more stable.

As for the south, because of the relatively high income of the land and the developed commodity economy, the rich gentry in the south preferred to keep slaves for farming and weaving.

For the northern officials, Chongzhen's request for the release of the slaves was nothing more than the loss of some of the slaves who served in the family. Although there is a loss, it is not unacceptable. Compared with this loss, what they value more is that 9 of the 12 industrial cities that Guo Yunhou mentioned are in the north.

Most of the 1,800,000,000 or 9,000,000 yuan of investment was related to the hometowns of these officials, and they only had to pass through it a little, and they would have gained tens of thousands, which could not be compared with the losses of a few slaves and maids.

And several leaders of the Donglin Party all looked at Yuan Keli with blank eyes, obviously they had lost their minds a little. agreed to Chongzhen's conditions, not only did his family suffer losses, but also offended the Jiangnan gentry. But if you don't agree, I'm afraid that the Donglin Party will be purged today.

Yuan Keli is a native of Henan, and he has a large number of slaves in his family, and to be honest, if he has a choice, he doesn't want to take Chongzhen's words.

As one of the few politically capable officials in the Donglin Party, he knew very well that what Chongzhen said was very good, and these conditions had nothing to do with the handling of those officials outside, and everything depended on the law.

However, Chongzhen can choose him, the secretary of the criminal department, to deal with this matter, so that the big things will be small and the small things will be nothing. The matter can also be handed over to the Dali Temple and the procuratorate, which have always been controlled by officials loyal to Chongzhen.

What's more, even if they don't accept this condition now, after Chongzhen establishes a patrol system in the Jiangnan area, will he not use the Donglin Party case to purge the Jiangnan gentry who oppose the release of slaves?

Yuan Keli thought about it for a long time, but still chose to give in. He said to Chongzhen: "Releasing the slaves is enough to witness Your Majesty's benevolence. However, the system of keeping slaves has existed since the Sui and Tang dynasties, and if it is hastily abolished, I am afraid that it will cause the world to be in an uproar. The old minister implored His Majesty to take a long-term view and formulate a proper plan first, and then issue an edict for the release of the slaves. ”

Although Yuan Keli's suggestion still has the meaning of delaying time, Zhu Youzhen does not take it so seriously. With the approval of these Donglin Party members, not only the voices of the Jiangnan gentry against the release of slaves will be reduced, but even the gentry in the north will have a lot less voice.

He smiled and replied: "Yuan Shangshu is really the words of Lao Cheng to seek the country, so the country is the meeting will make a decision first and announce it to the world." First of all, the slave system of the Ming Dynasty did not conform to the sage's description of the Datong world, so it would have to be abolished sooner or later. I thought that the time for this complete abolition was set in 10 years.

But how to abolish this slave system, and how to abolish it in several steps, still needs to be discussed..."