The Faculty of Physics was very wealthy and not only received donations from society, but also had shares in the machine-building plant.

Steam minting machine, steam spinning machine, steam loom, steam wool spinning machine, with these four things are making money every day.

The minting machine requires an official document from the imperial court, which is ordered by the official and cannot be made privately at will.

The other three machines were sold to businessmen, accounting for 99% of the market share. The remaining 1% of the market share is imitated by Guangdong, and the performance of the machine is relatively backward.

In today's machine manufacturing factory, Wang Yuan accounts for 55% of the shares as the main investor. Another 30% of the shares are invested by students involved in the research and development of the machine. The last 15% of the shares belong to the School of Physics, and the benefits are collectively owned by the School.

Students who have graduated from the Faculty of Physics and are released to work as magistrates can apply for travel expenses at the Faculty and provide assistance depending on the distance of their position. While receiving the subsidy for the travel expenses, the student must swear that he will not be corrupt as an official in the future, and must have a benevolent government and love for the people.

Weng Wanda had applied for travel expenses, and he went all the way south to Huizhou, and he had plenty of money.

The farther south he went, the more he felt that something was wrong, and after crossing the Zhenjiang River, there were dried fields everywhere.

He inquired about the merchants from the south along the way, and learned that the drought in several provinces south of the Yangtze River was serious, so he immediately wrote to Wang Yuan, asking the imperial court to order the governor and the imperial history, and quickly check the positions of Chang Ping in various places. The empty granary should be filled as soon as possible, and at the same time, the grain must be stolen and sold, and the rising grain prices must be suppressed.

In fact, without Weng Wanda writing a letter, the imperial court had already received the news.

Wenyuan Pavilion.

Because the clansmen were involved in the Lianghuai private salt case, Yang Yiqing's resignation was not approved, and he stayed at home for a while and said that he was sick.

Mao Ji said anxiously: "Since the beginning of summer, there has been a severe drought in several provinces in the south of the Yangtze River, and various localities have requested a reduction in spring grain taxes. Due to the severe drought and the difficulty of sowing summer grain, the summer grain harvest in some prefectures and counties may be extinct. Nanzhili, Huguang, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, a total of eight provinces have a large area of drought! There are signs of locust plagues in Jiangxi and Zhejiang. ”

Everyone was speechless and didn't know how to respond.

More than half of the country's major grain-producing areas have experienced drought, where can we get the grain to help?

"I am afraid that this year's grain will not be able to reach the capital in full," Yang Tinghe said to Wang Yuan, "Wang Shangshu, please urge Jinyi Haiwei to transport more grain from Nanyang to Beijing." ”

specially invited Wang Yuan to the cabinet to discuss politics, I am afraid that this is the purpose. Wang Yuan didn't dare to pack the ticket, so he could only say: "Try your best." ”

Wang Qiong said: "The eight provinces that have experienced drought should not only reduce or exempt spring grain, but also exempt summer grain from taxation. Even counties and counties that do not have drought should be exempted, so that the localities can keep more food, and perhaps the price of food can be eased a little. ”

Jiang Mian said worriedly: "The Ming Dynasty has a total of two capitals and thirteen provinces, and eight provinces are free of summer grain, how can the imperial court support it?" ”

Wang Yuan said: "There were no border troubles last year, and there was no big war after the Guangxi Rebellion was pacified, and it is estimated that there is still a lot of surplus grain in Taipei. Everyone is frugal, don't do ceremonies and sacrifices, and don't give monks and Taoist priests the new year, they can always survive this year. ”

When Zhu Houzhao was young, he believed in Buddhism for a while, believed in Taoism for a while, and believed in Green Religion for a while. Not only did they recruit a large number of monks, but they also built temples for them, which had no temple fields (on the surface) and were all supported by the central government.

Jiang Mian said: "The fertile land on the outskirts of Beijing has been invaded and occupied by eunuchs, and it can be taken back completely. ”

Yang Tinghe said: "This matter will be handled quickly. ”

Wang Yuan said: "The temples in Beijing that have been built in the past 20 years can all be destroyed!" The temple in the West Garden will no longer give a grain of food, and they will leave if they are dying of hunger. ”

Wang Qiong added: "If there is a person who seizes the people's land for the temple field, the field will be recovered, the grain will be confiscated, and the order will be returned!" ”

The grain could not be transported in full, and the summer grain of the eight provinces had to be exempted, and the central government had to ensure the supply of grain in the Gyeonggi region.

When Gu Dayong left Beijing, he walked simply, and his land, real estate, and shops were donated or sold, and all his relatives and clansmen were brought back to his hometown. However, because of Jang Yong's serious illness, his younger brother and nephew are disobedient, and there are still a large number of Gyeonggi industries that have not moved.

If all of Zhang Yong's relatives who stayed in Beijing were raided and questioned, a large amount of money and food would inevitably be obtained.

There are also the emperor's two uncles, who have been out of favor for more than ten years. You will definitely not dare to raid your home, but you can confiscate the grange and get a lot of grain.

Monk, Taoist, Green Sect ...... The monks recruited by these emperors, plus their disciples and grandchildren, numbered tens of thousands. All the orders were returned to customs, and the grain and temple fields were confiscated, and countless grains could be saved.

There was also a temple near the leopard house, and it was built in the imperial city, Wang Yuan did not dare to move it for the time being, but he had the right to stop the monthly food for the monks (these grains were provided by Guanglu Temple). Well, it's not a suspension, it's just a delinquency. After all, the country is in difficulty, and the monks are compassionate, so they should contribute to the country and the people.

Yang Tinghe said: "Your Majesty, you should go to ventilate first." ”

"I'll take care of that." Wang Yuan took the errand.

Yang Tinghe, Mao Ji, Jiang Mian, and Wang Qiong all gave up their hands: "It's annoying Wang Shangshu." ”

The drought in eight provinces is a big matter.

If it is not handled properly, not to mention starvation, it may also lead to civil unrest.

In the face of such a situation, the cabinet first became harmonious, and Yang Tinghe and Wang Yuan also temporarily put aside their contradictions and worked together to tide over the difficulties.

Why didn't Wang Yuan arrest Yang Tinghe in the Sichuan smuggling salt case?

With Zhu Houzhao's current thoughts, he just wants to live for a few more years, and it is impossible to let Yang Tinghe return to his hometown. If Wang Yuan cannot kill him with one blow, the political contradiction is likely to escalate into a party dispute, and it will be difficult to deal with major national affairs normally.

Wang Yuan left three points for doing things, and Yang Tinghe knew that the two had already reached a tacit understanding.

Therefore, in the face of the major drought in the eight provinces, the two sides can cooperate closely. This was impossible in the Jiajing Dynasty, the political struggle was too fierce, and they did not leave each other a way to live, and they dragged each other back, and in the end it was the common people who were unlucky.

Wang Yuan suddenly said: "I just take this opportunity to promote the tax reform." ”

Yang Tinghe frowned: "Even if you want to reform, you should talk about it next year, and now you must stabilize the place." ”

Wang Yuan explained: "I didn't want to be general, but to change the tax in kind to collect money. At present, silver dollars and copper coins have been circulated in various provinces, but only part of the tax is paid in silver, and the rest is mainly in kind. It is better to take advantage of the drought in the eight provinces, starting next year, all local taxes will be converted into new money (silver dollars, new copper coins), so that the local governments will have more breathing room. ”

Jiang Mian asked: "If the grain tax is all changed to collect silver money, where will the annual grain come from?" ”

Wang Yuan said: "Retain the canal, along the Yangtze River, and the true colors of some grain-producing areas. The grain in these places is enough to support 4 million shicao rice every year. ”

The four ministers didn't speak for the time being, and they were all carefully considering the pros and cons.

If only the banks of the Yangtze River and the canal are retained, the in-kind tax revenue of some grain-producing areas. That will definitely save countless transportation costs, which is a great thing for the country and the people, but it will hurt the interests of the officials and soldiers of Caoyun.

Mao Ji asked: "Once the reform is completed, there will be at least 200,000 vacant soldiers and workers, how will the livelihood of these people be arranged?" ”

Wang Yuan said with a smile: "Most of the soldiers and workers, I'm afraid life will be better." ”

The crowd was silent.

The truth is as Wang Yuan said, Cao Bing and Cao Gong seem to have iron rice bowls, but their lives are very hard. Even when there is no transportation task, he will be used by the military attache of Caoyun to do private work, and he will be tired all year but have no salary to get, so he can only live on meager rations. It is a good thing that they can work and make money by themselves, which is a kind of liberation of human resources.

But what if you can't find a job?

Moreover, before looking for a job, they have to solve the problem of their household registration, and the household registration of Cao Bing and Cao Gong is a separate register.

This is the point, and it is also the original meaning of what the officials said about "the food and clothing of millions of workers".

Wang Yuan continued: "In the areas where grain is turned into money, a small number of cao soldiers and cao laborers will continue to retain the transportation tax silver, and all the rest will be transferred to private households!" ”

"No," Jiang Mian reminded, "all the conversion to private households is just a matter of one sentence for Wang Shangshu." But for those soldiers and workers, they only have household registration, but they can't get land, and they will all become displaced people. There are 200,000 more displaced people at once, if there is a small Xiao Xiao who raises his arms and shouts, what should he do about Chen Sheng and Wu Guang? ”

Wang Yuan smiled and said: "The government no longer restricts household registration, and homeless people can naturally become homeless." ”

"Nonsense," Yang Tinghe resolutely opposed, "If the household registration is no longer suppressed, how will the grain in the world be collected?" ”

Wang Yuan said: "The most reasonable way should be to 'spread the land into the mu'. But it will definitely not be possible to implement the apportionment, so it will not be implemented for the time being. How to collect the grain, the magistrate will solve it himself, you keep an eye on the household registration, and the grain will be collected? ”

Yang Tinghe was speechless.

Ding grain, that is, the poll tax.

Kangxi said that "in the prosperous world, never increase the endowment", not that the state will not raise taxes, but that with a certain year as the quota, the number of new people in the future will no longer need to pay the poll tax.

These eight words are pure nonsense, even if the state wants to increase the poll tax, it will be difficult to do, and the magistrate will not allow this to happen. The more the statutory poll tax, the more difficult it was for the magistrates to complete their tasks, so they took the initiative to conceal the population, and the number of people on the yellow register always struggled to grow.

Yongzheng made a "spread into acres", and the poll tax was abolished, and the population of the country suddenly grew explosively. This does not mean that the real population is rolling upward, but that the people and officials are willing to register the population truthfully.

There are three main types of poll taxes in the Ming Dynasty, namely: Lijia silver, Junyao silver and salt banknote silver (there are other taxes, but they are negligible).

Salt banknotes and silver are levied according to the number of people, and the salt consumption tax needs to be handed over to the central government.

Wang Yuan's new salt law actually abolished salt banknotes and silver, and directly included the consumption tax in the price of salt, which reduced the retail price of salt. The difference in this was previously earned by private salt interest groups.

Lijia silver and Junyao silver, which do not need to be handed over to the central government, belong to local fiscal revenue, and are also an important source of gray income for soap officials.

In order to evade the poll tax, a large number of black households were produced in the country, and the population of the Ming Dynasty did not increase much compared with the early years of the founding of the country. The magistrates and the head of Lijia were all arbitrarily apportioned, and they had long since not acted according to their household registration, and Yang Tinghe's worries were purely superfluous.

Hundreds of years later, a scholar named Ma Boyong discovered a strange case from historical materials, which perfectly showed how chaotic the poll tax was in the Ming Dynasty.

said that there was a man named Shuai Jiamo who worked as an accountant in Huizhou Mansion. He found that the people of the six counties of Huizhou were all counted on the people of She County, and the other five counties had not paid it for two hundred years.

Shuai Jiamo immediately went to the imperial court and stabbed the matter to the Metropolitan Procuratorate. After the news leaked, Shuai Jiamo was hunted down and killed, and he escaped for his life and returned to his hometown.

A few years later, Shuai Jiamo returned to Huizhou to be an official again, and the official position became bigger, of course, he had to be ashamed. The gentry and people of the five counties united to resist taxes, and also surrounded the Huizhou government, and the matter went all the way to the central government. The imperial court was forced to reduce taxes and let the six counties share the taxes equally, and in order to alleviate the grievances of the five counties, Shuai Jiamo, who provoked the matter, was dismissed from office and confiscated into the army.

The local government collects a poll tax like this, and no matter how well the household registration is formulated, it is useful!

Wang Yuan continued: "Regardless of the local states and counties, take Beijing City as an example, how many are homeless black households? It is better to relax the restrictions on household registration, allow the existence of homeless, and let the place where their household registration is located compile a register of nomads. Within the province, the nomadic document can be used as a guide. And as long as the household registration is proper, the children of the nomads can also participate in the imperial examination. ”

Due to the social and economic development of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of peasants poured into the cities. This kind of person was called blind stream in the early days of New China, and later changed to migrant workers, while Daming called them "wanderers" and "nomads".

Homeless people have no legal status, and even if they rent a house in the city, the landlord can squeeze them at will. The homeless people did not dare to report to the authorities, because they were black households, and even if they registered a proper household registration in the countryside, they still belonged to the black household in the city.

Yang Tinghe asked: "If the nomad register is determined, who will give Ding Liang to?" ”

Wang Yuan replied: "In the place where the hukou is located, you must have a proper hukou in order to register as a legal vagrant. ”

"That's fine," Mr. Yang said, "but it must not be compulsory, otherwise good government will become bad government." ”

Wang Yuan smiled: "Of course, reform must be done slowly, how can you reach the sky in one step?" However, in this tax reform, some of the soldiers and workers were converted into private households, and the local government must draw up a register of nomads for them to ensure their legal livelihood in the future, otherwise they will not be able to go to the city to work without land, and there will inevitably be a lot of chaos. ”

Wang Qiong suddenly reminded: "In the four provinces of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong, silver is cheap and (copper) money is expensive; In the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, (copper) money is cheap and silver is expensive. If the levy is all new money, how can the tax payable in various places be constant? Local officials will inevitably choose the nobles and levy them, and they are afraid that the people will also be harmed! ”

This issue is very crucial, and one of the purposes of taxation is to reduce the burden on the people. However, the price of silver and copper varies from place to place, and it is inevitable that there will be trouble.

For example, in Zhejiang, silver is cheap and copper is expensive, and officials must only need copper coins, but do not let the people use silver dollars to pay taxes, resulting in silver dollars being excluded from the tax currency.

Wang Yuan said: "The provincial political secretaries, governors, governors, and imperial historians will jointly negotiate the discount. According to the market price situation, the meeting is held every three years, and the whole province is told that state and county officials are not allowed to arbitrarily stipulate that the people must pay money or money. ”

"It's a way." Wang Qiong nodded and said.

There is no need to mention "fire consumption to the public", because the people pay taxes and pay silver dollars or copper coins directly, which are official legal tender, and there is no fire consumption without melting silver.