Zhu Hao set out from the capital, passed through Hebei, Henan, and then entered the territory of Jiangnan, the entire Jiangnan region, called Nanzhili in the Ming Dynasty.

You must know that the Ming Dynasty, since the change of Chengzu Jingkang, has set up two capitals in the north and south, Nanjing in the south and Beijing in the north, and this Jiangnan region is under the jurisdiction of Nanjing, the southern capital.

Its geographical location is roughly equivalent to the whole territory of Jiangsu Province in later generations, plus the whole territory of Anhui Province, as well as Wuyuan County of Jiangxi Province and Shengsi Islands of Zhejiang Province.

Its geographical location is superior, in ancient times has always been an economically developed area, in the reign of the Ming Dynasty, is no exception, the basic one-third of the national taxes, it comes from Jiangnan, and Jiangnan students, before Wei Zhongxian's eunuch party, the high position is more than half of the Ming officialdom.

Therefore, there are changes in Jiangnan, and Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Haocai attach so much importance to it.

If Daming is a skyscraper, it is not an exaggeration to say that Jiangnan is a load-bearing foundation, just imagine, if the Baizhang building, the foundation is damaged, what will be the end, maybe you can understand Zhu Hao's anxious mood at this moment.

As soon as Zhu Hao entered the Jiangnan region, he felt the wealth and prosperity of the Jiangnan region, which was absolutely natural different from his previous places in Liaodong and Gansu.

Zhu Hao's first stop was not, to the southern capital of Nanjing, but to the hinterland of the south of the Yangtze River, Jiangning Mansion, which was the administrative center of Jiangnan Province after the Qing army entered the customs.

Zhu Hao wants to be here, inspect the customs and people, learn more about the situation in Jiangnan, and then eliminate the evils, otherwise he doesn't know anything, and he will reform when he comes up, and I am afraid that he will only return in vain.

After Zhu Hao arrived in Jiangning, he disguised himself and brought only Wei Xiaobao into Jiangning City, and as for the Qincha team, he was left outside the city.

After Zhu Hao entered the city, he was attracted by the wealth of Jiangning, and the pedestrians in the entire city, everyone had a lot of silk and satin, which he could not see in other areas in the past.

In this case, Jiangnan is rich for a while, and Jiangnan is the hometown of silk, rich in silk, so the price of silk is much cheaper than other places.

In order to explore the customs and customs of Jiangnan, Zhu Hao entered the city and chose to sit in the lobby of a teahouse.

The reason why Zhu Hao chose to go to this teahouse is because in this teahouse, there are people of all kinds of people from the three religions and nine streams, and they are the only choice to find out the news.

Zhu Hao found a seat and sat down, ordered a pot of tea and two plates of snacks, and listened to the conversation of the people around him.

While the two were talking, they were talking about each other's business experience, Zhu Hao listened to it with relish, just when Zhu Hao was listening to the conversation between the two and was distracted, he only heard one of them, and sighed:

"Boss Zhang, I heard that the imperial court sent King Xin to come to Jiangnan, I'm afraid that the good life of you and me is coming to an end!"

The man known as Boss Zhang, hearing this, immediately asked suspiciously:

"If the king comes to Jiangnan, he will come to Jiangnan!"

"What does this have to do with you and me?"

"We do our own business in peace, pay taxes in our own right, and do not violate the laws and disciplines of the court, not to mention that the king is here, even if the emperor comes, we can't do anything with you and me!"

"Boss Li, this statement is too unfounded!"

Boss Li listened to Boss Zhang's words, sighed again and said:

"A few days ago, you weren't there in the Chamber of Commerce, you don't know yet!"

"President Zhao said that King Xin came to Jiangnan this time to increase taxes on Jiangnan, saying that the imperial court is short of money now, and only Jiangnan has money, so he wants to do something to Jiangnan!"

"President Zhao said, let us unite as one, and we can't let the imperial court increase taxes, otherwise our families will not have a good time in the future!"

Boss Zhang listened to Boss Li's words, and immediately said with some anger:

"How can this be, the taxes in Jiangnan are already higher than those in other places, although we still have some family property, but this is also us, going south and north, wind and rain to earn, how can we say that the court is short of money, so reach out to our pockets to take our hard-earned money!"

Boss Li listened to Boss Zhang's words, sighed and echoed:

"Brother Zhang said yes!"

"The imperial court is indeed unfair to my Jiangnan gentry, so President Zhao has asked us, the people of the Chamber of Commerce, to unite and plead to the imperial court, hoping that the imperial court will take back our fate!"

"However, President Zhao said that in order for the imperial court to take back his fate, he must also let the imperial court know that we Jiangnan gentry are not easy to bully!"

"We must let King Xin return in vain, so that we have the capital to plead to the court!"

Boss Zhang listened to Boss Li's words, nodded and said:

"What Brother Li said makes sense, we must unite and let that King of Faith return in vain!"

Zhu Hao, who originally saw the wealth of Jiangnan and was in a good mood, after hearing the conversation between the two, all his good moods disappeared, he stood up, snorted heavily, and then brushed his sleeves away.

The reason why Zhu Hao didn't clean up these two businessmen was because Zhu Hao was listening to these two people, knowing these two people, and not knowing the purpose of his coming to Jiangnan, but listening to the meaning of his words, all this was President Zhao of the Chamber of Commerce, who was making trouble behind his back.

Although Zhu Hao was very angry when he heard that the two of them wanted to jointly resist him, he did not distinguish between right and wrong, and he made a move against the two, he knew that what he wanted to clean up was not these two deceived businessmen, but the chairman Zhao who was secretly making trouble.

Zhu Hao walked out of the teahouse with a stomach full of resentment, and did not speak for a long time, followed by Wei Xiaobao, seeing that his master was so angry, he said:

"Your Highness, do you want the minions to send Jinyi Guards to arrest those two daring businessmen?"

When Wei Xiaobao said this, he had already begun to plan all kinds of torture in his heart to clean up these two unscrupulous businessmen, but he didn't expect that after Zhu Hao heard his words, he shook his head and said:

"Forget it, they don't know the purpose of this king's coming to Jiangnan!"

"They think that it is common sense that this king wants to move their money bags and unite to resist this king!"

"However, President Zhao of the Chamber of Commerce, secretly united people to resist this king, presumably it has nothing to do with this Jiangnan tax case, this person is the one you should arrest!"

Wei Xiaobao listened to Zhu Hao's words, and hurriedly said:

"The slave knows what to do, please rest assured, the slave will arrest that, Chairman Zhao, who spread rumors, and torture his comrades with words and deeds!"

Zhu Hao listened to Wei Xiaobao's words, bowed his head slightly, and didn't say anything, which can be regarded as acquiescing to Wei Xiaobao's words.

Seeing this, Wei Xiaobao immediately ordered all the members of the Jiangnan Jinyi Wei Thousand Households to go out to arrest President Zhao, but to Wei Xiaobao's surprise, that President Zhao was no longer at home, nor was he in the Chamber of Commerce, and he was nowhere to be found.

At the same time, a news came out that King Xin had arrived in Jiangning, first let people kill President Zhao of the Chamber of Commerce, and then kill all the rich gentry in Jiangnan, confiscate their family property, and flood the treasury.

As soon as this news came out, the entire Jiangnan on the bright side was talking about the change of the king's color, and everyone was in danger, but in fact, everyone was cursing Zhu Hao behind their backs, and they couldn't die well.

Zhu Hao didn't expect that after he was micro-convinced this time, he would make it difficult for him to move an inch in the entire Jiangnan.

However, Zhu Hao is not the character who is obedient, since his identity has been resisted by the Jiangnan clan, he will simply show his identity, and he is ready to fight with these Jiangnan clans.

Zhu Hao first transferred Cheng Yanjin, the 50,000 soldiers and horses stationed in Guizhou, to Jiangnan, and at the same time ordered Jinyi Wei to arrest people with bad intentions, didn't that President Zhao run away? Then arrest everyone who has been in contact with Chairman Zhao and review them one by one.

Zhu Hao now has soldiers in his hands, and the imperial court has the emperor as a backer, he will no longer want to peel off the cocoon like the imperial examination case, don't these Jiangnan clans resist him, he wants to let these Jiangnan clans know what hegemonism is.

With Zhu Hao's needle-to-wheat way, the major clans in Jiangnan were frightened, but they did not sit still, during this period, they instigated the entire Jiangnan and dozens of mutinies, but they were all led by Cheng Yanjin and bloodily suppressed.

The major clans in Jiangnan only then understood that it was unrealistic to fight against Zhu Hao by force, this trick did not work, they had another plan, they instigated public opinion, saying that King Xin was in Jiangnan, so that Jiangnan would be a miasma, if King Xin stayed in Jiangnan again, the taxes of the Ming army in Jiangnan would inevitably be reduced.

When Zhu Hao heard the news, he immediately sneered:

"These bastards, this is a plan, another plan!"

"Martial arts can't work, I'm fighting with this king Wen instead!"

"This king is here, I want to see what these big clans who have lived in Jiangnan for a long time can do something, Wendou will fight Wendou, and this king can still be afraid of you?"

"It's good to dare to talk about taxes!"

"This king is here to pay taxes, and this king wants to see how you dare to pay less taxes to the court!"

Thinking like this, Zhu Hao ordered Zhang Liang, the household official he accompanied this time, to recalculate the acres of land in the south of the Yangtze River, and he wanted to change the tax.

This time, the household officials who accompanied Zhu Hao to Jiangnan were Zhang Liang, who exposed the problem of taxation in Jiangnan, because he found out about the matter, so Zhu Hao did not re-elect people in the household department, and directly brought him to Jiangnan.

After Zhang Liang listened to Zhu Hao's order, he hurriedly led people to get busy, and Zhu Hao was also promulgating a new tax law, Zhu Hao ordered that the Jiangnan region, according to the amount of property, levy a property surcharge of 2% every year, and at the same time Zhu Hao set a standard line of 100,000 yuan, and if the family property is less than 100,000 yuan, there is no need to levy this tax.

The purpose of Zhu Hao's promulgation of this tax law is that you rich people are living under the protection of the Ming Dynasty, and of course you have to pay protection fees, so if you have more property, you will have to pay more protection fees.

However, Zhu Hao's tax law, as soon as it was promulgated, the major clans in Jiangnan panicked, these people's family property is in the millions, according to Zhu Hao's tax law, they need to hand over the tax silver to the imperial court every year, which is an astronomical amount.

If it is said that according to the previous tax situation in Jiangnan, Jiangnan tax can account for one-third of Daming's tax revenue, then according to Zhu Haoxin's tax law, Jiangnan's tax will be higher than the sum of Daming's annual taxes.

These Jiangnan clans can't beat Zhu Hao, and Wendou has made no progress now, in the face of Zhu Hao, with such a harsh tax policy, they can only hide their family property.

However, Zhu Hao had already arranged for Zhang Liang to check the situation of each family, and if they wanted to hide their property, it would naturally not work.

After Zhang Liang counted the property of the major families, Zhu Hao ordered people to go to various prefectures to collect taxes.

At this time, the governments realized that Zhu Hao had already figured out their situation, and it would not work if they wanted to hide their property and try to evade taxes.

However, these people were unwilling to hand over their huge wealth to the imperial court, and they chose an alternative way to preserve the family property, that is, to divide the family.

A large family is divided into several small families, so that these people each hold a wealth of about 100,000 yuan, so that even if they are taxed, it is a very small part.

In the face of such a situation, Zhu Hao did not do anything more, but adopted a tacit approach, the reason why Zhu Hao acquiesced to such a way is because at this moment, all the major clans in the south of the Yangtze River are the "Tui En Order" adopted during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

Zhu Hao was happy to see it, so he naturally would not stop them, which was also one of the purposes of this method of taxation that he adopted.

Let's talk about it in detail here, Zhu Hao's purpose, in fact, after Zhu Hao came into contact with the Jiangnan clan, he found that it was powerful and terrible, among these families, it was to ask for money and money, and to have people, if there was a different heart, it could completely shake the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

In order to avoid such a thing, Zhu Hao nominally levied property tax, but in fact, he forced these big families to separate.

Zhu Hao knows very well that this person is selfish, maybe in the early days of the separation, the original head of the family still has binding force on the various small families that are separated, but after a long time, these small families also have their own interests, and they will inevitably drift away from the original family, and finally become strangers.

Zhu Hao saw this, and it was similar to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's "Tui En Order" to turn the big into small and eliminate hidden dangers, so he was naturally happy to see it.

Zhu Hao knew that as long as his property tax was continuously implemented for more than ten years, then these big families in Jiangnan would no longer exist, and there would be no more big families, because these people were unwilling to let them pay that huge amount of property tax.

Zhu Hao's seemingly undisciplined means are actually his cleverness, he knows that the chaos of taxation in Jiangnan comes from these big families, and now he has introduced a property tax, which has made these big families fall apart.

Let them lose the capital to influence the political situation and fight against the imperial court, and the taxes collected by the imperial court in the future will naturally not have problems again.

Zhu Hao just figured out all this, he did this, he is, tracing back to the source, fundamentally, solving the problem of chaotic taxation in Jiangnan, and also eliminating a potential hidden danger in the Ming Dynasty.

After cleaning up these big families in Jiangnan, Zhu Hao asked Zhang Liang to verify that in recent years, the amount of missing taxes in Jiangnan and where it came from, according to the content of the verification, went to recover it.

When Zhu Hao gave this order, he thought to himself:

"Don't think that if you run away, you will escape!"

"If you dare to owe money to the court, you can't lose a penny!"

As Zhang Liang checked, he found that the Wu family in Jiangnan owed the most taxes to the imperial court, which was more than 3 million silver, and Zhu Hao immediately ordered to take the Wu family under knife.

First of all, he first arrested the Wu family's family, and then ordered the Wu family to make up the arrears of taxes and silver within a time limit, otherwise the family would be wiped out.

When the Wu family saw that their head of the family was arrested, they immediately panicked, and hurriedly prepared silver, not daring to disobey Zhu Hao's intentions again.

The Wu family is very sensible, but the Wu family is very tough, after being arrested by Zhu Hao, not only did not cooperate, but scolded Zhu Hao every day, and at the same time, he also said ruthlessly:

"My Wu family, even if the family is ruined, you bastards, don't want to get a penny!"

Zhu Hao heard that the Wu family was so stubborn, and on this day, he came to the cell to see what kind of character this Wu family head was, and he was so stubborn.

When Zhu Hao arrived in the cell, he did not tell the head of the Wu family his identity, but asked the head of the Wu family:

"I heard that you, in prison, have been scolding King Xin?"

"I don't understand one thing, it's clear that it's your Wu family, who is in arrears with the court's taxes, and it's common sense for the court to ask you for it!"

"You evade taxes, you are at fault first, why are you now in prison, and you still don't cooperate with the court in order to get rid of the crime!"

"Do you have anything to rely on?"

The head of the Wu family didn't know who Zhu Hao was, looking at this young boy, he actually taught him a lesson, and immediately blew his beard dissatisfied, glared angrily and said:

"You yellow-mouthed child, the milk smell has not dried up, what do you know?"

"My Wu family has been inherited for nearly a thousand years, how can I be swayed by a declining imperial court!"

"If you say that I am tax evasion, why don't you say that the court is incompetent?"

"This Ming tax is collected year by year, and now it is said that the old man has underpaid in the past, so let the old man make up for it, why?"

"Although the old man paid less taxes, but at the beginning, those tax officials in the imperial court did not spend less money, and now let the old man pay again, and the old man will not agree to die!"

Zhu Hao listened to the words of the head of the Wu family, and almost lost his mood, the theory of the head of the Wu family is that paying taxes is like doing business, the money and goods are cleared in person, and the expiration date is not waiting.

This kind of thinking, to deal with the laws of the imperial court, is simply not so-called, you must know that the imperial court, but he is not doing business, if the image of the metaphor, the imperial court collects taxes, that is to ask him to collect protection money, if you dare not pay the protection fee, then you just don't want to be protected.

It's all about dying on your own.

Zhu Hao didn't bother to talk to this whimsical head of the Wu family, and immediately said something, and after being stubborn, he turned around and left the prison.

Zhu Hao originally thought that the Wu family was actively preparing to pay back taxes and silver, and this matter could be carried out smoothly, but he underestimated the control of the head of the Wu family over the Wu family.

The head of the Wu family was in prison, bought off the jailer, took his handwritten book, and handed it to the Wu family.