Updated: 2011-12-14

On 20 March, Lin Xuwen and Liu Shidu submitted the salt catty price reduction and the reduction of one ding service tax, which were to be approved by the Empress Dowager of the Governor through the collegial discussion of the Political Affairs Hall.

The price increase of salt catties has been sharply reduced by ninety percent, and the tax is reduced by one ding, and the two are added up, and the annual income of the household department is likely to drop sharply by more than 2 million taels, which is not a trivial move.

Although some people have the mentality of watching Huaidong's good drama and deliberately connive, some officials strongly oppose it - when Cheng Yuqian, Yu Xinyuan, Shen Rong, Yuan Guizheng and others remained silent, Zuo Chengmu tried his best to oppose these two folds.

Zuo Chengmu was in the second phase, only under Cheng Yuqian, he tried his best to oppose it, and the queen mother could only convene ministers above the fourth rank in Chongwen Hall to discuss the matter.

"The annual income is used to support the officers and soldiers, and the officers and soldiers are used to defend the country; Reducing salt profits and taxes has made the people gain temporary benefits, but the officers and soldiers do not support them, and the country does not defend the country, resulting in chaos and the enemy invades the land, and the people are displaced, and they really suffer greatly because ......of small profits.

Lin Xuwen nodded desperately in his heart, but at this time he had to stand up and refute Zuo Chengmu, and said: "Ordinary people say: Jiangnan Zhufu, rich since ancient times, is the land of fish and rice. However, since the East China Sea became a trend, it has been repeatedly invaded, the former harm has not been appeased, Zhejiang County has fallen again, and it is difficult to flow all over the land; Since the Dingding of Jiangning, the people's livelihood has not been recuperated, and the people have been repeatedly levied, and the people are overwhelmed, from last year to this spring, there have been many riots - this spring, the counties have deported to the household department to reduce the letter, as many as snowflakes. If there is a civil unrest, the momentum is like that of Huaisi back then, and if we do not wait for the invasion of foreign enemies, the current situation that is barely maintained will also collapse......"

Not only are the people overwhelmed, but the pressure to collect taxes is in the local governments and counties, and the additional levies have always been resisted by the local governments, and the reduction of taxes has always been welcomed by the local governments.

Most of the officials in the world have made a name for themselves because of reading Confucianism, and officials who are really familiar with finance are very rare.

In the eyes of ordinary people, it is naturally a great thing for the household department to reduce the burden on the people, not to mention Zhang Yan, who intends to watch the good drama of Huaidong, those officials who are not named, have also written to support the reduction of the burden and "ask for life for the people".

Although this time it was only to convene officials above the fourth grade for court discussions, there were many supporters and few opponents, and Zuo Chengmu's voice became extremely faint - Lin tied his hand and pressed the ritual knife, and he was given a seat and Cheng Yuqian, the first assistant, sat under the emperor and the queen mother, and quietly watched the ministers in the court discuss.

Although Emperor Yongxing was still sitting on the dragon chair, his face was pale, and the taste of taking power was not good. At present, there are already officials discussing the matter of establishing a reserve at the bottom.

This kind of thing, Lin Jian saw it in his eyes, but he didn't move.

Zuo Chengmu's voice was naturally weak, and it was difficult to change the result of the court discussion.

After the court discussion, Lin Jian planned to go back directly by car, and Zuo Chengmu chased him out of Chongwen Palace: "Chongguo Gong, Chongguo Gong ......"

Lin Jian lifted the curtain of the car, saw Zuo Chengmu and Zhang Yubo chasing out of the palace one after another, and asked with a smile: "Zuo Xiang hurriedly chased after him, what is the matter with each other?" ”

"Chongguo Gong, the people have not been looking forward to it for a long time, and I hope that Chongguo Gong will take the overall situation in mind and remove these two folds!" Zuo Chengmu said. He also knew directly, knowing that behind these two folds of the household was Lin Bin's idea to take it directly, and if he wanted to save it, he could only say that Lin Bind could be moved.

Zhang Yubo wanted to speak and stopped, he didn't have the intention to chase after Zuo Chengmu; Lin Jian asked him, "What does Uncle Yu think?" ”

"Jiangning, Chizhou, and Huizhou want to recuperate, and it will be difficult to lose taxes to the household department within three years," Zhang Yubo said, "Reducing the burden on the people is also a top priority, but the household income has to be reduced so much at once, and it is difficult to maintain it; In case of a natural disaster**, there are loopholes everywhere......"

Lin Jian raised his head and looked at the eaves of the Chongwen Hall in the palace wall, and then turned his face sideways and said to Zuo Chengmu: "Others can't wait to watch this court mess things up, and Zuo Xiang will stop it, so they won't be afraid of causing resentment?" ”

Zuo Chengmu was stunned, and he couldn't figure out the city government bound by the forest for a while, and reluctantly smiled bitterly: "For the sake of the society, how dare you spare your life?" ”

"The matter has come to this point, and this hospital will inevitably return, if there is really any regret, then find a way to remedy it!" Lin Jian watched other officials also come out of the palace one after another, and he had no intention of saying too much to Zuo Chengmu in front of the palace, so he left and left.

Zuo Chengmu was full of disappointment, stood in front of the hall, and watched Lin Jian go in the car.

Lin Jian sat in the car, Zhou Pu rode a horse in armor to escort the car, and said to Lin Jian through the window: "This old man Zuo is not bad. ”

Lin Lian smiled and said, "Zuo Chengmu can hold on to the middle, and he has never liked either side in the court, but he won't go the same way with us at this time......

*************

At the end of March, the official decree was issued to the world.

Not to mention the arrest and imprisonment of the five current salt merchants for smuggling salt, the salt shops and salt stacks in various prefectures and counties were also directly dispatched by the Salt and Iron Division to various places to take over and turn them into official camps.

The price increase of salt is reduced to 20 yuan, and the price of salt collected from salt households is not changed by 10 yuan, and the price of salt in each prefecture and county is limited to 50 yuan to 70 yuan according to the distance of the road.

The salt affairs are both official and private, and the salt and iron division salt catties are salt taxes, and the income of the household department is the annual income; The local government-run salt stacks and salt shops are retained by the prefecture and county.

The income of the government-run salt shops is to be transferred to the prefectures and counties, first, to further reduce the burden of local taxes and make the local governments and counties pay attention to the investigation of illicit salt, and on the other hand, it is necessary to integrate the more than 100 salt officials sent to the prefectures and counties into the local authorities through this - these more than 100 salt officials are all officials drawn from Huai'an and Hailing.

At present, we can't directly do anything big about the seven prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River, and taking advantage of the salt matter that has no conflict with local interests to press the people down first is also a means to save the country.

When the price of salt was reduced to less than 70 yuan, the people's boiling grievances soon subsided, and together with the reduction and exemption of the Ding tax, the feedback from the local government and county was praise, and the biggest resistance to the investigation of the salt matter was eliminated.

In early April, the interrogation of Zuo Huyan Lieutenant Mao Wenjing and the raid of his home also yielded preliminary results.

Mao Wenjing inherited his father's position, and the father and son lived in the left salt school for 22 years, protecting private salt and salt merchants to share huge profits, and accumulating huge family assets. Uncle Tang En, who supervised the review of this case, confiscated 19 Mao's mansions and more than 320,000 taels of silver in Weiyang Mansion, confiscated more than 1,200 hectares of grain fields in Xinghua, Hailing, Weiyang and other places, and confiscated more than 800 hectares of privately reclaimed grain fields in the area under the jurisdiction of Huainan Salt Field.

The Mao Wenjing case is given that the iron case is difficult to overturn, and the officials of Weiyang are more or less subject to the grievances of the salt merchants, but the officials and gentry of Jiangning are completely different.

Before Emperor Yongxing ascended the throne, except for a few who held real power in the six departments of Jiangning, most of them were mausoleum guards who sat on cold benches, and they had nothing to fish, and their lives were extremely hard. After Emperor Yongxing ascended the throne in Jiangning, the supervisors of the six temples in Jiangning only grasped the real power, but the wars were still frequent, the financial resources were tight, and there was no way to get it up, so that from the nest back to Jiangning, there were many officials who fell into the dilemma of starvation because the household department delayed and did not pay the money.

The gentry in Jiangning City are also the most concentrated, but due to the destruction of Jiangning City, the gentry suffered the heaviest losses - when the imperial camp army and the government army were in turmoil, the first to plunder were the gentry and wealthy households in the city. Later, the Zhejiang-Fujian army entered the city and controlled Jiangning for a short time, but it was also concentrated on looting the gentry in the city.

As a result, a strange phenomenon occurred in Jiangning, that is, grain prices soared and land prices plummeted. Many gentry and wealthy knew that there was even more chaos outside the city, but in order to maintain the family's livelihood in the city after the sack, they had to take out the title deed and sell it cheaply.

Speaking of corrupt officials and corrupt officials, the people hate them, but the most hated corrupt officials are a large group of gentry officials who want to be corrupt but have not yet been corrupted and are in trouble - after the case of Mao Wenjing was largely revealed, there was a shout of killing in Jiangning City.

Zhang Yan could not shirk the blame for negligence, so he wrote a letter to ask for guilt and resign from the inner prison.

Empress Dowager Liang, Emperor Yongxing, Cheng Yuqian, Yu Xinyuan and others, of course, did not want Zhang Yan to leave, and finally fined them for one year to fill the treasury, which also made them realize that as long as the military power is in Huaidong's hands, what Huaidong wants to do, they will be difficult to stop, whether overt or dark.

Due to the fact that there are also a large number of salt households and salt pawns involved in illegal salt, in order to stabilize the production and transportation of the two Huai salt farms, they can only deliberately relax when punishing the crime, instead of getting to the bottom of the matter, delaying the production of salt.

Mao Wenjing was finally sentenced to beheading, and the eleven children were sentenced to exile and confiscation of family property, and the punishment was the most severe.

Of the five salt merchants involved in the case, two of them led a fierce resistance with private force when they banned the illegal salt, but only the main culprit and the accomplice who had a murder case in hand were sentenced to beheading, and the other three main culprits were only sentenced to exile, and the accomplices were not prosecuted; In addition, these five families were fined and confiscated ranging from 100,000 taels of silver to 300,000 taels of silver, and did not carry out the most severe raids.

During the period of smuggling, the merchant salt households who were not involved in the case, regardless of whether they were involved in smuggling before, will be pardoned for the previous crime.

Mao Wenjing and other criminals were finally escorted to the execution ground with Wang Xueshan's father and son, as well as Xie Chaozhong. Wang Xueshan, as the former head of the household department and Xie Chaozhong, was of a higher rank, and the sentencing procedure was more complicated than Mao Wenjing's, so it has been delayed until now.

Wang Xueshan used the punishment, and the Xingbu, Dali Temple, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate all sent officials to supervise the sentence - Lin Tingli came back from prison, and went to Chen Yuan and Lin Jian and said: "Before Wang Xueshan is sentenced, I want to thank you......

"Thank you what, thank you for not destroying his three clans?" Lin Lian smiled, looked sideways at Sun Jingxuan next to him, and asked with a smile, "Is there a saying that 'woe to your wife and children' is not good for those who run the rivers and lakes?" ”

Sun Jingxuan was stunned, and he didn't understand what Lin Lian's words meant.

Emperor Yongxing hated Wang Xueshan to the core, and he couldn't wait to take all his nine clans to the execution ground and die in Lingchi. Cheng Yuqian and others put the responsibility for the defeat on the heads of Wang Xueshan and Xie Chaozhong, and naturally they will not be soft - the initial conviction of Wang Xueshan, Xie Chaozhong and others was to raze three generations of relatives, confiscate family property, and use their wives and daughters as prostitutes.

Still at the insistence of Lin Bin, Wang Xueshan was finally sentenced to beheading and confiscating family property for the crime of treason against the enemy. In Wang Xueshan's relatives, except for the three adult concubines who were sentenced to exile and emigrated to Yizhou, the other minor children under the age of 16 were not punished, adopted by their relatives, and did not involve wives and concubines, which was much lighter than the original punishment.

Wang Xueshan only thought that Lin Jian was merciful to his Wang family's subordinates, but he didn't know that Lin Jian couldn't do the behavior of the three tribes and his wife and daughter as prostitutes.

In addition, Han Bin confessed to dozens of people hiding in the secret piles and secret rooms of the luxurious family in Jiangning, and the crime was commuted and sentenced to exile; Chen Ruyi had a backbone, and he didn't confess to anyone, and the torturers saw that she was so beautiful, and they didn't extort a confession too harshly, and finally hanged her.