In the study outside the Xu Mansion, Zhu Gaochi, who was dressed in regular clothes, said worriedly: "In just four years, the cultivated land has been sharply reduced to more than 7 million hectares, and the people are more than 7 million households, more than 50 million people, and the population of Hongwu in the 26th year has been incredibly reduced by more than 10 million. ”

Xia Yuanji wanted to speak and stopped, and quietly glanced at Xu Hao, Xu Hao was silent for a while, and then said slowly: "In fact, the root is from ourselves, although Emperor Gao gave the land to the official, but my family has more than a dozen hectares of land in the south, and the Mu family has forty-two acres and eighty acres of land in Wujiang County, Suzhou Prefecture alone, I am not accusing anything, this is human nature, why can't you buy land if you have money?"

At the same time, the palaces in various places are less than 100 hectares and more than hundreds of hectares, everyone is having a hard time this year, and the kings and royal relatives have played too much to beg for the land, and what seems to be asking for is the idle land, but in fact it is to encroach and want to take it for themselves. ”

Zhu Gaochi was shocked and hurriedly asked, "You said it carefully." ”

Xu Hao glanced at Xia Yuanji, and said in his heart that I can't come alone if you offend people, Lao Xia, you have to sit idly by, then don't blame me for not playing with you.

Seeing this, Xia Yuanji said in a low voice: "Your Majesty, due to the compulsion of the people's lives, they had to sell their land. The tenants of the farms are called villagers, commonly known as tenants, and the tenants have to pay rent to the royal government or the rich nobles. Therefore, Zhuang Tian and Zhuang people are not subordinate to the division register, so the number of acres of Zhuang Tian and Zhuang people is not known, because the royal government and meritorious relatives enjoy the right to be exempted from land endowment. As a result, the common people either became aristocratic tenant farmers, or because they did not have permanent property in their hands, they were uprooted by land annexation. Exile everywhere. ”

Zhu Gaochi smiled bitterly and was speechless, his expression was quite embarrassed, there have been too many policies on land since ancient times, and the emperors with a little talent probably know the truth, not to mention Zhu Gaochi, a high-achieving student who was taught by Zhu Yuanzhang, but the fact is that he often knows the Tao and returns to the Tao, so it is inevitable to do that. After all, everyone has a self-interest.

Xu Hao also scratched his head and said: "Speaking of which, the culprits have become our brothers." Don't hide it from Lord Xia, in the past few years, in order to prepare a dowry and family business for my younger brothers and sisters, Your Majesty and I have been ordered by the first emperor and the queen mother. Renshou and other imperial villages were purchased, with about 914 hectares of land, 980 hectares of water berth land, and 1,322 hectares of reed land. Well! Lord Xia, you can watch it. ”

Xia Yuanji suddenly embarrassed, and said in his heart, no matter how bold I am, I don't dare to take care of the emperor's private affairs, don't die?

Zhu Gaochi glared at the thief who came out of the seller's background. Busy said: "This is the daily needs of the royal family. Please also ask Aiqing to open up the net. ”

If Xia Yuanji didn't understand Xu Hao's deep meaning at this time, then he would have become the most competent household secretary in the Ming Dynasty in vain.

Xia Yuanji said: "Your Majesty, the Son of Heaven takes the four seas as his home, and the whole world leads the land, so why bother to set up a village to compare the benefits of the poor with the poor?" At present, the scale of Huangzhuang seems to be small, but I am afraid of setting a precedent, as the saying goes, if you run out of money, you will complain. If you are exhausted, you will be scared. In the long run, the endowment is several times more than the public land, resulting in an empty treasury. The people are trapped like this, either they die or migrate, and if they don't migrate, they steal, and they are the first to open the world to rebellion! ”

Xu Hao also sighed: "In fact, such a little Huangzhuang is not worth mentioning at all, and it has not encroached on good fields, but recently I have been thinking about it day and night, and I am afraid that I will set an example." If we want the royal population to multiply day by day, let's buy a family business for our relatives today, so won't our relatives follow suit in the future? If there are signs of such a thing, if there are signs and do not hurry up and strictly stop them, then the land will definitely be highly annexed in the future, and if they do not act today, then who will dare to touch the huge interest groups headed by the imperial family in the future, and the government will force the people to rebel in the near future. ”

Xia Yuanji heard the four words of interest groups, and immediately nodded with affection, he has been acting in charge of the household department for many years, and he is very disgusted by many royal families and nobles, officials and officials protect each other, and officials and businessmen collude and other phenomena, and he said that Xu Hao is really not simple, and every sentence can be thought-provoking.

The three of them discussed for a whole night, and the next day a number of ministers joined in, in fact, it was not difficult to persuade Zhu Gaochi, Xu Hao knew in his heart, throughout history, the Hongwu Dynasty until Xuanzong had always adhered to a strict attitude towards restraining the annexation of land.

The era of Zhu Yuanzhang is undoubtedly the best period, but Zhu Yuanzhang's idea of forever solidifying the peasants' cultivation of the fields from generation to generation is very unrealistic, and the flow of land and people is an inevitable trend, which is a natural economic law, that is, it is necessary to prevent land from being highly annexed, but also not to completely restrict the circulation of land sales.

The Yongle period and Zhu Gaochi and his son did relatively well, but it was inevitable that personal factors would open up endless troubles, Huangzhuang is the most obvious example, even Xu Hao is not exempt from vulgarity, and the result of running his own family is more and more farmland.

In the first year of Hongxi, the top priority was to recuperate with the people, and the problem of land annexation was not serious, after Zhu Yuanzhang had several large-scale migrations of the world's wealthy people into Beijing, and the officials were relatively honest and honest, the resistance encountered in doing things was undoubtedly the least era.

The real land was annexed on a large scale from the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor grew up in the palace since he was a child, had no courage and did not know the suffering of the people, the successive rise of civil officials and eunuch groups, the expansion of the number of royal families and nobles, and the extravagant life of all classes, etc., all made the land annexation reach a level that can be called madness.

Regardless of whether the land is private or state-owned, whether it is imperial power or republic, whether it is capital or communism, there is no fundamental solution to the fact that the power groups use natural rights to plunder the wealth of land.

All Xu Hao can do now is to delay the process, and if he is not careful, he will offend his relatives and friends, which is a purely thankless move.

How can we solve China's land problem, which has plagued China for thousands of years? Xu Hao didn't know what to do, and he didn't have the ability to carry out land reform, but he was doing things with his heart.

To put it bluntly, no matter what kind of land policy, the core purpose is completely different, which is to make the country "have its own land".

After that, Xu Hao told Xia Yuanji in a very abstract and general way what he knew about the officials and gentry who paid for the grain, the fire consumption was returned to the public and the land was apportioned into the mu.

In line with the attitude of "never responsible", Xu Hao also talked about land policies that he didn't know much about, such as land tax. Actually, in his opinion. The root cause of a country's rise and fall is always corruption, and as long as large-scale official corruption cannot be curbed, then no matter how good and advanced policies are, they are just a dead letter.

Because the current Hong Xichao has an incomparable advantage in the future. Zhu Yuanzhang laid a good foundation, and there was no need for Xu Hao to vigorously promote reforms, and Zhu Gaochi, who was deeply inspired, quickly decided to implement a series of Hongxi reforms, and he became a virtuous monarch who will be famous through the ages.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the emperor ordered the household department to start the inventory of land, and the land will be re-measured throughout the country, and the land and property that have been evaded taxes will be checked.

Xu Hao's suggestion was adopted. The introduction of the "Ming Farming Law" reduced the upper limit of each household's land from half to 30%, laying the groundwork for encouraging commerce to expand tax sources in the future.

Under the impetus of Xia Yuanji and Xu Hao. The Ministry of Household Affairs gathered hundreds of officials to study land reform, and soon enacted legislation to severely crack down on irrational phenomena such as accompaniment and empty allowances that had begun to occur since the Hongwu period.

launched the "test method" that imitated Zhang Juzheng's change of law, and at the same time paid close attention to the rule of officials, and began to study how to improve the salary, Xu Hao didn't care about the consequences at all. Whether the Ming Dynasty finished early or postponed is none of his business.

Xia Yuanji and other ministers carefully scrutinized Xu Hao's words. and Xu Hao based on the various social contradictions in the middle of the Ming Dynasty that evolved from memory, and finally came to a sharp conclusion.

The acres of land are Ding, the fields are more, the fields are less, the acres are calculated, there is no way to deceive, the benefits are one, and the people have no suffering. The second benefit is the year of the editor. Make a register as usual, no need to add audit, and its benefits are three; After each field is finished, there is no way to get up and down its hands, and its benefits are four".

For a time, the paving into the mu has been praised by many ministers, of course, some details have been created in line with the times, which can be regarded as a new version between a whip method and Yongzheng paving into the mu.

In any case, this will undoubtedly be a great leap forward in social productivity in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, delaying and curbing the annexation of land, so that a large number of yeoman farmers can survive.

Every reform in history has been fiercely opposed by vested interests, and Xu Hao encouraged Zhu Gaochi to inherit Zhu Yuanzhang's decisiveness and carry out another relocation strategy against the big landlords who dared to oppose it.

Xu Hao was deeply impressed by the Manchu Qing Dynasty's four words of 'never add endowment', and through the newspaper's public opinion propaganda, it was widely disseminated in the hearts of the people, hoping to influence Zhu Gaochi in this way.

After his own strong recommendation, Zhu Gaochi hesitated for a period of time and decreed the abolition of the poll tax that had been practiced for thousands of years.

Gradually, Xu Hao faintly felt that he had encountered some resistance, some of the local officials treated it negatively, and some of them provoked a civil uprising in the country, as the so-called bow did not turn back, Xu Hao insisted on reform at the same time, and secretly instructed Chen Ying and Xiao Wei to join forces to carry out large-scale impeachment of officials who opposed the change.

The abolition of the poll tax was a disguised relaxation of control over household registration, allowing peasants and craftsmen to move freely, and the military household system could not be easily changed for the next 30 years.

In short, it is not a perfect system, and it cannot completely solve the problem of displaced people that plagued the Ming Dynasty from beginning to end.

However, it was integrated and simplified according to various tax laws that had been inherited since ancient times, so that Ding Yin was incorporated into the field and levied a new tax system, which was an important reform of the feudal society to the servitude system, abolished the poll tax, and ensured the rapid growth of the population.

On the basis of the reality that the whole country had the largest base of yeoman farmers in the first year of Hongxi in the Ming Dynasty, the resistance of civil and military officials was naturally much less than that of the Manchu dynasty in the face of the inability of civil and military officials to collectively resist the reformers who represented the imperial power.

As for the so-called integrated payment of grain by the officials and gentry and the return of fire to the public, etc., it depends on the officials of the Ming Dynasty themselves, just like the imperial examination system, Xu Hao never had the luxury of expecting that it would change immediately.

After this incident, Xu Hao and Xia Yuanji established a political alliance. It is very interesting that Xia Yuanji actually advocated the abolition of scientific examinations, hoping to appear on the stage regardless of men and women and draw talented idealists.

In addition, Xu Hao is selfless in his heart, the world is wide, he acts above board, his words are straightforward, and he gradually enters the center of Xie Jin, Yang Shiqi, who has a lot of respect for him, and has a relationship with Xia Yuanji's new official Shangshu Jianyi.

During this period, a group of scholars began to emerge, among which Huang Huai, Hu Guang, Hu Yan, Jin Youzi, Yu Xin, Liu Guan and others began to pose a threat to the high-ranking Jianwen ministers and Beiping ministers with their profound knowledge and shrewd minds, and were more and more valued and loved by Zhu Gaochi.

Because of the imminent establishment of the cabinet, Xu Hao soon faintly sensed the undercurrent surging among the civil ministers, and also felt Zhu Gaochi's intention to borrow the civil ministers to suppress the meritorious military attachés, although the eunuchs were subjected to unprecedented blows, but the civil ministers have always been unscrupulous in the struggle for power and profit, and supporting the eunuchs is undoubtedly one of the means.

Xu Hao, who was very self-aware, knew the danger and soon returned home to enjoy the glory and wealth, ostensibly ignoring the court dispute, and the province was regarded as a thorn in the side of some people.

At the same time, Yao Guangxiao stepped forward in time with a tacit understanding, representing the interests of the heroes of the Jingnan, and continued to maintain his influence on Zhu Gaochi in the court.

Xu Hao's bottom line is that he must continue to promote Hong Xi's reforms, no matter who comes out to oppose and stop it, then whoever is his mortal enemy! (To be continued......)