After Ma Mingyuan finished talking about the currency reform, he asked: "Elder Wang Ge, do you have any suggestions among the people?" ”

Nonsense, can there be no advice? After the implementation of the silver dollar, the central government is convenient, and there is no longer any need to fold the silver transported from the provinces in two, but at the same time, convenience means that the fire consumption can not be collected.

Fire consumption was one of the additional taxes in the Ming Dynasty. Originally, it refers to the natural wear and tear in the process of casting two pieces of silver into silver ingots. In the Ming Dynasty, the fine broken silver collected was re-melted into a certain weight of silver ingots, which were deposited in the treasury and called Kuping silver, and the loss of the cast was called fire consumption, also known as fire consumption silver, which was borne by the taxpayer. In the Ming Dynasty, the fire consumption varied from place to place, with as much as 50 percent, and even the cost of transportation and round-trip transportation was apportioned into it.

This is a big entry for local officials, and the annual fire consumption of a county ranges from 200 taels to 1,000 taels, and the more taxes your county collects, the more fire consumption will naturally be. Although the emperor had already raised the salary for all officials in Guangzhou, and it was also clearly stipulated that it was strictly forbidden to collect fire consumption, there were policies and countermeasures, and the local governments were still secretly collecting fire consumption for their own interests.

At this time, the whole country uses silver dollars to settle accounts, collect tax silver dollars, and hand over silver dollars to the treasury, so naturally it is impossible to collect fire consumption, which is like smashing the jobs of all officials in the country.

Wang Yunchang and Chen Zilong both came up step by step from the grassroots level, so they naturally knew what the situation was, and when they heard Shoufu ask about any suggestions, they all lowered their eyelids and didn't say a word. They know that if they say anything, they will immediately be hated by officials all over the world, and this is not a trivial matter.

Ma Mingyuan didn't want to offend people, but the currency reform was what he was implementing, and it was also the basis for him to become the first assistant again, so if he didn't work now, he could only bite the bullet.

"Okay, if you two don't speak, you will agree to it, and this excerpt of the implementation of the silver dollar and the abolition of the silver tael will be made known to the world, and Wang Ge Lao and Chen Shangshu will all sign their names!" Ma Mingyuan played even more, didn't you not speak? Just when you acquiesce, I will directly ask you to sign the letter, and then let you accompany the old man to carry this black pot together.

Wang Yunchang and Chen Zilong had no choice but to sigh and sign their names on Ma Mingyuan's recital.

After the work report of the Ministry of Finance is completed, the next step is the Ministry of Taxation, which is in charge of the whole world's taxation, and is naturally also an important department.

Fang Fengnian, as the supervisor, stood up and bowed down and said, "Yuan Fu, Wang Ge Lao, colleagues! Everyone knows that Xia Guan has just taken over the work of the Ministry of Taxation for less than half a month, and the previous work was managed by Xue Shilang and Ren Shilang, and all the work was completed by the two Shilang, and this official is just repeating it here! ”

Fang Fengnian is also an old fritter and is proficient in the way of being an official. He knew that he had just arrived in a unit and had to maintain his subordinates, after all, his eyes were black, if his subordinates gave you some medicine at this time, it must be you who were unlucky in the end, so Fang Fengnian attributed all the credit to the two waiters.

And Xue and Ren, the two waiters, were overjoyed when they heard Shangshu say this, this is a tribute in front of Shoufu, it seems that this new Shangshu is not very annoying.

As a newly established ministry, the Ministry of Taxation is a separate ministry that separates the functions of the former household department such as taxation and land, and is mainly responsible for the collection of taxes, the measurement of land, and the management of local taxes and customs throughout the country. After four or five years of construction, the entire Ministry of Taxation has set up a total of 15 provincial clearance departments, two land clearance divisions, five customs and municipal shipping departments, and one banknote customs department. There are a total of 2,789 officials in the whole country, and this is still funded by the central government, and the rest are self-supporting soap clothes, that is, there are more than 5,600 temporary workers, which is really a huge department.

Of course, this is still incomparable with the hundreds of thousands of civil servants in the tax department in later generations, but the taxes in the Ming Dynasty were not as complicated as those in later generations. In the Ming Dynasty, because of a whip law implemented by Zhang Juzheng, all forced labor, poll tax, and land tax were changed to regular taxes, that is, they were all folded into the land and only one kind of tax was levied. However, in the Wanli period, for the war in Liaodong, Liao salaries began to be levied, as well as the increase in salaries and training salaries during the Chongzhen period. These have to be charged for land, and seventy percent of the harvest of one acre of land has to be taxed when the tax is heaviest.

However, Zhu Hongsan implemented a new policy in Guangdong, abolished the three major salaries, and only levied a positive tax according to the land yellow book in the early years of Wanli, and at the same time reduced the positive tax from 30% to 10%, that is, 10 taxes and 1. In the fourth year of Shenwu, the whole of South China was only collected by 190,000 taels of silver, which is one-fifth of the three years of Chongzhen.

The reduction of positive taxes is also the main reason for Zhu Hongsan's anger, such a big country only collects 190,000 taels of silver, is the country poor? Is it that officials don't work? Is it that the Chinese are not industrious? Of course not, because a large area of land is the property of scholars, and these people either have fame or support, so they do not have to pay taxes, and the 190,000 taels of silver are paid by those yeoman farmers who have no power and no power.

Zhu Hongsan can live now without land tax, but seeing that the tax that can be collected has gone into the pockets of the big landlords, this really makes Zhu Hongsan angry. Therefore, Zhu Hongsan dismissed Ma Jiyuan and replaced him with Ma Mingyuan to prepare for the reopening of the new policy.

Ma Mingyuan is not a fool, of course, he can't just come to power and carry out his new policy of "apportioning the land into the mu, and the officials and gentry pay the grain as an errand and errand". But although you can't do it openly, can you do it in advance behind your back?

Ma Mingyuan listened to Fang Fengnian's report on the specific situation of the tax department and said: "Brother Shutian, your tax department has a long way to go!" The current land yellow book was completed in the eighth year of Wanli, and now more than 70 years have passed, and the land situation in various places has changed a lot. Therefore, this official asks for a new measure of the country's land, and your tax department will bear the brunt! ”

As soon as Fang Fengnian heard Ma Mingyuan say this, he knew that this guy was beginning to prepare for the implementation of the new policy, and now it was just preliminary preparations.

"Yuanfu, but now the whole country is not unified, and the northern provinces are still in the hands of the Manchus, so the land of Qingzhang is not appropriate at this time!"

"This Shutian is not worried, Your Majesty also knows that Qingzhang land is difficult, so he is ready to carry out pilot work in Jiangsu Province first, and the specific situation is in charge of Shutian and Governor Zhang!"

When Fang Fengnian heard this, he found out that Ma Mingyuan had bad intentions in promoting himself to be the secretary of the Ministry of Taxation, and he was going to offend the scholars about Qingzhang land, and Ma Mingyuan did not use his cronie Chen Zilong to Qingzhang land, but used himself, precisely in the guise of eradicating dissidents.

Fang Fengnian and Zhang Guowei were good friends, and he didn't want to see Zhang Guowei also wading into this muddy water, so he pondered for a while and said: "Yuanfu, now that the Northern Expedition is imminent, Governor Zhang's military situation is busy, why don't you let the governor of Jiangsu cooperate with the next official?" ”

The governor of Jiangsu was Liu Tongsheng in the same year of Ma Mingyuan, who was the champion of Chongzhen for ten years, and was originally a bachelor of Hanlin of Emperor Yongli, and was promoted by Ma Mingyuan as the governor of Jiangsu after surrendering to Zhu Hongsan.

"Shutian is right, Governor Zhang is a little inconvenient, but Governor Liu is similar, so let's let the political envoy of Jiangsu cooperate with you?"

Jiangsu's political envoy? Isn't it a vacancy? Did someone choose one? Ma Mingyuan had already taken a step back, and Fang Fengnian had nothing to say, so he had to ask: "Xiaguan naturally obeys Yuanfu's arrangement!" But who is this political envoy of Jiangsu? ”

"This is Shutian's old acquaintance, Zhang Taiyue's great-grandson, Zhang Tongchang!"

Fang Fengnian is a native of Zhejiang, worked as a scholar and politician in Huguang, and has a good relationship with Zhang Tongchang, who was also born in Huguang, but he knows that now Zhang Tongchang is locked up in the edict because of the problem of Emperor Yongli, why did the emperor let him out?

Fang Fengnian thought about it and didn't ask Zhang Tongchang why he was released, he bowed and sat down again.

The following is a report by Liu Guangdou, the secretary of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Liu Guangdou is a jinshi in the fifth year of the Apocalypse, and he was still a eunuch of Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng, but he did not have the backbone of Ma Shiying, and after the Manchus occupied Nanjing, Liu Guangdou also surrendered to the Manchus with Qian Qianyi and others. Later, Zhu Hongsan came back, and Liu Guangdou surrendered to Zhu Hongsan again, and immediately took refuge in Ma Mingyuan after seeing the division of the DPRK and China.

Although Liu Guangdou's character is not very good, his level is still there, so this time he was promoted by Ma Mingyuan as the secretary of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which can be regarded as blending into the revolutionary team.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs is in charge of household registration and social affairs across the country, but now the world is in chaos, and all forces have no time to manage social affairs, so Liu Guangdou has lived a very idle life in recent years, so naturally there is nothing important for the Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ma Mingyuan didn't say anything after listening to it, so Ma Mingyuan ended his first economic work conference when he took office.

Ma Mingyuan watched the officials in the conference room leave, he held a teacup and pondered, just now he said that letting Zhang Tongchang serve as the political envoy was just a temporary idea. But now the more I think about this idea, the better, Zhang Tongchang is the descendant of Zhang Juzheng, Zhang Juzheng presided over the reform for the former Ming Dynasty to extend his life for decades, and now Zhang Juzheng's descendants come to Jiangsu to be responsible for measuring the land, and the local scholars can have much less resistance.

However, Qu Shiyun and Zhang Tongchang's master and apprentice are very stubborn, and they have been locked up in the imperial prison for three years, and they still refuse to be soft, which is very difficult to do.

Ma Mingyuan thought about this candidate to persuade but he had to choose a good candidate, originally Chen Zilong under him was a good candidate, born in Songjiang Mansion in Nanzhili, and Qu Shiyun is a fellow countryman, and he also has a good relationship with Zhang Tongchang. But Chen Zilong is too upright and not a good candidate to be a lobbyist.

Ma Mingyuan sorted out the officials in his hands, it is best to be born in Jiangsu Province, and if the Donglin Party is related to Qu Shiyun and Zhang Tongchang, it is really difficult to choose. There are a few people who were born in Nanzhili, but the Donglin Party has never dealt with themselves, and it is unrealistic for them to help them become lobbyists.

Qu Shiyun was born in Changshu, who is there in Changshu? Ma Mingyuan was talking to himself here, and suddenly remembered that the big landlord in Changshu was not Qian Qianyi? And Qian Qianyi is still Qu Shiyun's teacher, although Qian Qianyi is retired, but his son Qian Yiai is his own party, so it is better to let Qian Yiai do this difficult task.