In the next few minutes. He slandered Chen Minggang -- strictly speaking, it was not slander, but just telling the truth. It can be seen that the bookstore of this house has not complemented Master Wang in recent years.

Unbeknownst to Wang Zhaomin, his words were recorded - and he certainly did not have the awareness of this - the General Administration of Political Protection was very interested in this kind of inter-natively revealing material. Sometimes a few words, a sentence, can bring out a lot of useful information.

Wu De listened carefully for a while before he said in a very embarrassed tone: "It's true that Master Wang said this, it's just that we are unfamiliar with the Lingao veins, and if we don't rely on such people, I'm afraid we won't be able to stay......

Wang Zhaomin wants to have so many "Han jian" to help you work and fight, you will definitely not be able to stay. But I had to say this in my stomach, but the thief was really cunning, and the meaning of this speech was obviously to ask myself to make the conditions first.

Wang Zhaomin put forward the conditions for discussing with Wu Mingjin: when the crossing people began to collect autumn grain, in the name of Bairen Village, they took the initiative to pay grain and taxes to the county government, and the tax area was 500 mu of paddy fields. The money is 300 wen per person, and it is levied according to the household registration of about 50 people registered in Bairen Village.

In return. Wang Zhaomin promised that one stone of autumn grain would be attached to the "consumption of rice" with one bucket and two liters and five he, and all this income would be handed over to the crossing group. That's about 1,000 stone of grain. As for the "reasonable burden" collected by the crossing group itself, the county government does not interfere with it, and they can collect it as they want -- in fact, even if they want to, they cannot interfere.

Wu De calculated, according to this condition, after deducting the taxes paid, their actual income is about seven or eight hundred stone meters, which is basically a net income that can be obtained without any effort.

However, this is different from their purpose: this bit of rice is not rare in the crossing group now - not counting the warehouses in Lingao, only in the granaries of Vietnam, they still have seven or eight thousand stone of brown rice that have not been shipped, and it is a trivial matter to buy a few thousand more stones.

The crossing group is preparing to take this opportunity to break the chaotic and ill tax system of the Ming Dynasty for hundreds of years, and establish an efficient and orderly tax system, so as to infiltrate and control the county government of Lingao, in other words, to treat Lingao as a shiyan field under the new administrative system. For this purpose, the crossing group is prepared to spend a lot of money, where is a mere 1,000 stone meters can be passed.

Wu De didn't answer, but asked: "Master Wang, we really don't know anything about the way of collecting autumn grain, can you explain it to us?" ”

Wang Zhaomin said: "What's so difficult about this? It's just that there are tricks and drawbacks, and I can't talk about it for three days and three nights. ”

"Please advise!"

Anyway, there is nothing to do, looking at the meaning of this Chief Wu, there is no feeling of rejecting people thousands of miles away. Things still have to be discussed. In order to gain the trust of Australians. Wang Zhaomin picked out all kinds of malpractices and tricks in the grain requisition and told Wu De to listen.

"Actually, I was born in a criminal name." Wang Zhaomin said, "However, I have also learned money and grain, and the money and grain of ordinary small counties can also cope with it." ”

But whenever the county order takes office, the two masters of the criminal name and money and food are the most important. The former assists the county magistrate in adjudicating criminal cases. The latter specializes in cooperating with the proprietor to handle such businesses as money and grain sales, land population, house number inventory, field measurement, warehouse relief, and miscellaneous tax collection. The specialty is not only familiar with all kinds of doors in this area, but also good at calligraphy.

Wang Zhaomin's profession is a criminal name, but his learning skills are not proficient, and he has never been able to get along with the haode proprietors - most of them are some old men or "fellow jinshi" who are circling in remote counties. The population of the small county town is small, and there are naturally few lawsuits, so it is a bit of a waste to invite two masters, so I learned money and food, although I am not very proficient, but one person has two positions, not only has one more income, but the owner also has one less person's expenses, and they are all happy.

In addition to the abacus, Master Qianliang's ability also lies in being able to understand the situation and be good at dealing with books. This is because the amount of money and grain is levied, and the household department only asks about the total amount, not the details. Who has how many fields and how many lands in the local area, where is it located, and how many departments are there? Only the clerk's office in the county government is clear. What they relied on was a secret book that had been passed down from generation to generation, called the "Book of Fish Scales". Without this booklet, I would not be able to levy money and food.

The Yulin Book is a public property, which was drawn and revised under the auspices of the government, but as the years go by, the county's archives have been annihilated or lost, and they have long been lost, and the "official book" revised by the government has become the private property of the bookstore. Whether it is the county order or the money and grain master, if you want to smoothly handle the official affairs of the summer and autumn every year, you will often be held hostage by the book office.

Generally speaking, after the county magistrate takes office, the master of money and grain will go to negotiate the conditions with the secretary office of the household, talk about catties and two, form a tacit understanding, and collude to take what they need. Between Wang Zhaomin and Chen Minggang, there have always been some pimples. The reason is that Lingao is a very remote place, the emperor is far away, and the secretary office is much less afraid of officials.

For many years, the collection of money and grain has been a mess, and those who have paid for the grain have not necessarily been able to receive the "grain strings" collected by the government, but those who do not pay the grain have the voucher for paying the grain. There are those who have no place to stand on the cone, but they have to pay for their grain. Some people sit on thousands of hectares of fertile land but do not need to pay grains of rice, anyway, as long as the "top" levy is enough, how to put on a crown and wear it, it doesn't matter at all.

As for the patterns, there are many names. Wang Zhaomin said that there are two kinds of tricks: "trickery" and "production and grain storage". The latter, Wu De knew it from Zhang Xingjiao, and as for the "trickery", he also knew a little about it.

"Speaking of the court's preferential exemption, hasn't there always been a quota?" Wu De "sold" a little bit of the knowledge he had heard, lest Wang Zhaomin really think that they knew nothing and talk nonsense.

Wang Zhaomin was really stunned, thinking that most of this Chen Minggang said, so he explained: "The preferential exemption of the imperial court originally had a quota. This quota was stipulated in the Hongwu period, and generally the first product of Beijing officials can be exempted from 30 stones, and the second product is 24 stones, and so on. The preferential exemption of foreign officials is half that of Beijing officials. As for the prisoners, lifters, and talents, 2 stones can be exempted as usual. In addition to the share of free grain, all other self-owned acres of land must be reported to the official for grain payment.

"Actually? Those who can be exempted from two stones, and those who are exempt from dozens of stones. When Zhang was in power, he first checked his own acres of land, and it was rated as more than 80 stones. In fact, nearly 900 stone was exempted. ”

Wu De listened very carefully, and he guessed that Zhang Xiang was probably talking about Zhang Juzheng. When Yu Eshui was lecturing on the Tian Fu system in the Ming Dynasty, he specifically mentioned that Zhang Juzheng had engaged in Zhangtian during his reign -- it is not too far away.

"In addition to the preferential exemption of the imperial court," Wang Zhaomin said with a wry smile, "there is another type of person, and there is also the so-called 'trick mail'. In every county, there are a group of "special people" who are domineering and difficult to deal with, either powerful landlords or rural scoundrels. It must be perfunctory. The portion is insufficient, and the beige is poor, so it must be taken correctly. Sometimes, they even give false "grain strings" -- vouchers for paying grain -- to buy a peaceful ground. Many small civilian households are trying to pay less food. will "bring the land to give". This is one of them.

The second is that some people will ask them to "pay the fee", and over time the so-called "contract households" will be formed, and this kind of contract households will either be "poor in grain" and collude with the officials, or the local powerful can hold the officials hostage, and if the small households ask them to "pay the money", the "floating income" part is indispensable, but it is much cheaper than paying it themselves

"The two Gou brothers you killed were originally the two largest contractors in the county." Wang Zhaomin said, "But if it weren't for the collusion with Chen Minggang and the 'poor grain', they wouldn't have been able to do this." ”

Wu De nodded, this "contractor" is a bit of a "tax contractor".

The "contractors" are naturally not working in vain, and they have to scrape the skin from them as usual, and those who are bold and reckless in the "contractors" simply only collect grain, do not pay grain, and blindly default on it, just waiting for the Zuihou court to "exempt" the matter. This situation was very popular in the Jiangnan region at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty.

Some people pay less, some people pay more, and the county's taxes still have to be paid by the county people. In addition, all kinds of exploitation costs, plus the benefits of the county officials, are all on the heads of the small people, which is called "consuming grain piles", which is also the so-called "floating harvest".

"Grain consumption pile tip" is not "indiscriminate charge", is the Ming tax system has a clear provision, in some places, each stone additional rice and sharp rice 7 buckets of 6 liters, more than half of the positive amount. This additional income is the largest and most expensive "gray income" of local officials. Compared with the black money made by corruption and bending the law, it is much safer.

"Grain consumption pile" is nominally to pay the freight and loss of tax grain, but in fact, there is no standard at all, and it is very arbitrary. Wang Zhaomin dared to propose that each stone was attached to 1 bucket and 2 liters for the crossing group, which was also to exploit this loophole.

Wang Zhaomin was vague about the "floating income", saying only that it was used to pay for the freight and loss of grain. Of course, he didn't want Australians to know too much about this gain.

Wu De thought to himself: No wonder Luo Duo said at that time that the real tax burden of Lingao County was more than 15,000 stones. In this way, it is entirely possible.

"How much rice is consumed in this county?"

Wang Zhaomin was taken aback. Hurriedly said: "This, you only need to pay a positive amount of food, and the floating income is exempted." ”

Wu De thought it didn't matter if you didn't say this, we would naturally investigate it.

"It's probably very difficult in Liaojiapai County, right?" Wu De asked

"Difficult." Wang Zhaomin was worried about this matter, and nodded involuntarily.

"What's the difficulty?!" Wu De grasped this problem and did not let go,

Wang Zhaomin hesitated for a moment and said, "Yingui." ”(！ )

[зZcｎ.]