In the palace in Nanjing, Zhu Houzhao stood up straight with an expressionless face, reached out and took the towel from Liu Jin's hand, wiped his sweat, and then threw it to Liu Jin, while glancing at Yang Lian, who was standing not far away, and stretched out his hand to greet him.

This time when he came to Nanjing, Zhu Houzhao, the biggest spy leader beside him, naturally followed.

Seeing Zhu Houzhao greeting herself, Yang Lian hurriedly walked over, bowed down and stood up, waiting for Zhu Houzhao to ask.

"Are all the manpower arranged?" Zhu Hou looked at Yang Lian and asked softly.

Zhu Houzhao's tone was very flat, as if he was talking about a very small matter, but in fact this matter was not small, because this time he was going to do something big in the south, so Zhu Houzhao asked Yang Lian to transfer a lot of manpower.

Some of these manpower were brought from Beijing, and some were drawn from the surrounding areas, so it can be said that this was a major operation.

These people have now dispersed, and they have joined the people in the south before, ready to wait for Zhu Houzhao's fate at any time.

It was for this reason that Zhu Houzhao called Yang Lian over.

"Back to His Royal Highness the Prince, everything has been arranged." Yang Lian hurriedly said.

This time the matter was so big that Yang Lian didn't dare to slack off at all, and she didn't dare to make the slightest mistake. If something goes wrong on her side, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince will definitely not let him go, Yang Lian knows this very well.

Zhu Houzhao nodded and said, "Come with me to meet the people from the Tax Department." ”

This time, the main actors are the people from the tax department, and they are the key to the matter. In the south these years, they have also been arranging, although there is a report to Beijing every year, but the report must not be in person, Zhu Houzhao still wants to ask them about many things.

Soon Zhu Houzhao came to the front hall, where there were already several people waiting.

These people are the main figures of the Taxation Department in Nanjing, and there is also Mao Huan, the commander of the Jinyi Guard of the Nanjing Government Department. They are all the main characters in this operation, so Zhu Houzhao wants to meet them.

When everyone saw Zhu Houzhao walking in, they hurriedly bowed and saluted, "The ministers will see His Royal Highness the Prince." ”

Zhu Houzhao waved his hand and motioned for them to be exempt.

Glancing at the person at the head, Zhu Houzhao found that this person was actually an acquaintance.

When he was handling the case of illegal salt in Yangzhou, in addition to Liu Qi, there was another person in Yangzhou's officialdom who was very conspicuous, and this person was Qi Huan, the prefect of Yangzhou.

Qi Huan just wanted Liu Qi's position at the beginning, so he set out to fall into Liu Qi's ground.

What Zhu Houzhao didn't expect was that Qi Huan had now run to the Taxation Division, and he was also the head of the Nanjing Taxation Division. Life's opportunities are truly wonderful.

Zhu Houzhao looked Qi Huan up and down, and the expression on his face was very playful.

Qi Huan naturally couldn't run to the tax department by himself, so naturally someone transferred him over. So who transferred him?

You don't have to think about it to know that it is Liu Qi, what surprised Zhu Houzhao was that Liu Qi transferred Qi Huan not to take revenge, but to reuse him and make him the big boss of the Tax Department in Nanjing.

Whether it is Qi Huan's surrender to Liu Qi, or Liu Qi subduing him, there are stories between these two people.

But one thing is certain, that is, Qi Huan is a capable person, otherwise he would have been swallowed by Liu Qi a long time ago, how could he sit in this position?

Qi Huan can sit in this position, which must be deeply trusted by Liu Qi, which is interesting.

"Qi Aiqing, this palace remembers that you were the prefect of Yangzhou before?" Zhu Hou looked at Qi Huan and asked.

"Back to His Royal Highness the Prince, the minister was indeed the prefect of Yangzhou before, and later transferred to the Nanjing household servant. After the establishment of the Department of Taxation, the minister was appointed as the secretary in charge of the Department of Taxation in Nanjing. Qi Huan said respectfully.

Zhu Houzhao nodded, he didn't expect such an experience here.

But this Qi Huan is quite interesting, it seems that he is also a person with someone in the court, otherwise he would not have reached this step.

But these are not important, the relationship in the court is complicated, even if Zhu Houzhao is the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty, it is impossible to straighten out this relationship.

So Zhu Houzhao nodded, and then said, "You all know everything, right?" ”

"Back to His Royal Highness the Prince, the minister already knows." Qi Huan hurriedly replied: "After getting the news, the minister has already formulated a strategy, which is a strategy formulated by the minister and his colleagues in the Nanjing Taxation Department, please take a look at His Royal Highness the Prince." ”

As he spoke, Qi Huan presented a strategy

Zhu Houzhao nodded.

Liu Jin hurriedly went over and took this recital and respectfully handed it to Zhu Houzhao.

After Zhu Houzhao took the fold, he quickly flipped through it.

There is not much content in the recital, no nonsense, very concise. This is also Zhu Houzhao's request. As long as you can reach out to the place, the author is required to be concise, and all are not allowed to say a lot of nonsense.

In this strategy, Qi Huan explained things very clearly, and he believed that the first step to do things was to take over the tax account books of all local yamen, and then verify them.

All local fraudsters will be held accountable. And in the process of tracing, one is found and one is punished. In fact, this is also a backhand, the purpose is to clean up those disobedient local officials.

If any local officials neglect their duties or refuse to cooperate, then use this article to clean them up.

After reading this, Zhu Houzhao raised his head and glanced at Qi Huan,

Now Zhu Houzhao understands why Liu Qi uses Qi Huan, and at the same time understands why he has been able to get to a position today.

This is a very mature bureaucrat who sees things very accurately.

The difficulty of this matter lies in the opposition of the local government. And in the midst of local opposition, local officials will play a key role.

Therefore, Qi Huan's first step is to target the local officials, and if he is obedient, it will be fine; If they don't obey, then clean them up. It's a good strategy to look at the problem from an accurate angle and find a good way.

Zhu Houzhao was very satisfied, so he turned his head to look at the second one.

In the second article, Qi Huan mentioned the second difficulty in this matter, that is, the problem of land concealment.

Qi Huan discussed this issue from two directions, one was to make a sacrifice, and the other was to deliberately conceal it. Although it is two directions, it can be blamed on one problem, and that is the tax exemption policy of the imperial court.

This policy was formulated by the grandfather, so Qi Huan did not point fingers at this policy, but instead thought of a solution to the problem, that is, to inventory the fields, recompile a fish scale book, and then tax according to the new fish scale book.

Zhu Houzhao knew that this matter had been done by Zhang Juzheng in the back, and a lot of land was indeed found that time, but because it was done by civilian officials, that is, they checked themselves, so there were many loopholes.

But this policy is indeed good from the point of view of those in power; But from another point of view, it's definitely problematic.

Because in this way, the landlord will increase the rent, and will pass on the pressure to the people below, that is, the tenants. Their lives will be more and more difficult, and this is also a big problem, and the people will be sad.

After all, the landlords do not bear the taxes themselves, and all the taxes are transferred to the poor people. They no longer have their own land, and when they rent and plant, the rent is lower than the tax, so they will make contributions. If there were no hidden part of the land, all the land would be taxed, and their lives would be even worse.

This requires increasing food production and then freeing the surplus from the land.

This is crucial, otherwise it will definitely lead to a civil uprising.

Because the pressure of their production and life is too great, it has reached the point where it is unbearable, and a large number of displaced people will be generated, and the slightest carelessness will lead to rebellion.

So this is also a problem that needs to be solved, but the people present can't see it, maybe they can't see it, and maybe they won't say it.

But Zhu Houzhao is well aware of the danger here, and the slightest carelessness will cause big trouble. This is also the reason why Zhu Houzhao came to Nanjing, he needs to solve this problem.

If this problem is not solved, the policy will be in the air. No matter how good you think, you will become a tool for exploiting and oppressing the people.

But this has nothing to do with Qi Huan and the others, they just need to do things well, so Zhu Houzhao began to look down.

Qi Huan also laid a foreshadowing behind this article, that is, if it is found that there is a lot of hidden land in any place, the local officials can be directly held responsible. Even if collusion between officials and local governments is discovered, severe punishment can be imposed.

In a word, use all kinds of ropes to trap officials, and once they dare to take action, then directly take them down in various names.

The two in a row have been foreshadowed, which shows that Qi Huan is not optimistic about these people.

Zhu Houzhao is very pleased, this is an official who can do things for himself. If you get things done well this time, you can promote Qi Huan.

In the third article of this booklet, Qi Huan wrote about the problem of fire consumption. He said one thing above, that is, to return the fire to the public, which Zhu Houzhao also thought of.

Generally speaking, after the implementation of these three articles, the tax department has completely become a tax agency.

After putting down the booklet, Zhu Hou looked at Qi Huan and said, "It's a good job, just do it according to this." ”

"Yes, His Royal Highness the Prince." Qi Huan hurriedly agreed.

He was afraid that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would not be satisfied, so although these three seemed simple this time, he thought about it for a long time, and at the same time, he didn't care about anything, and directly dug out the root of the matter.

Fortunately, the effect is good, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is very satisfied, and this is enough.

Zhu Houzhao's face was expressionless, he turned his head to look at Mao Huan, the commander of Nanjing Jinyiwei, and then said: "Jinyiwei is trying his best to cooperate, you have to listen to Lord Qi." If there is anything, report it in time. In addition, the palace will transfer a thousand households from Nanjing to you, so that there is no one in your hands if something happens. ”

Zhu Houzhao can be said to be very worried, you must know that the tax inspectors sent out in the future were killed a lot at that time, who knows if anyone will do such a thing now? Wantonly coercing public opinion and creating a posture of not holding the public accountable to the law must be curbed from the beginning.

Wherever something goes wrong, the magistrate must deal with it directly. It's just that if the other side has the upper hand in public opinion, it will provoke a popular uprising, and this point must also be done in advance. But this is a matter in the shadows, and Zhu Houzhao is ready to hand it over to Yang Lian to do.

"Okay, you guys go and get things done." Zhu Houzhao said.

"Yes, His Royal Highness the Prince." Everyone hurriedly bowed down and agreed, turned around and retreated.

After everyone went out, Zhu Houzhao turned his head to look at Yang Lian, and then asked, "Have you found out all the things that the palace here in Nanjing asked you to check?" ”

Hearing Zhu Houzhao's words, Yang Lian hurriedly stood up, the expression on her face became serious, and her expression was also very solemn.

He knew that the key to the matter this time was reached, and the matter that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had explained before was too big, and once it was set off, countless people would go bankrupt and perish.

"Back to His Royal Highness the Prince, the slave maid has already found out." Yang Lian said.

"Let's talk about it!" Zhu Houzhao nodded and said.

"His Royal Highness the Crown Prince asked the slaves and maids to check the widows, and there is indeed a problem. It's just that it goes back to a very early time, and it already existed in the Yuan Dynasty, and they had already detained Suzhou, Huai'an, Shandong and other places when they were Taizu. In the second year of Taizu's Hongwu, Taizu took the opportunity of informing the Yuan and Ming dynasties to the Wa State, that is, he ordered the Wa State to exterminate the Wako. Compared with the late Yuan Dynasty and the Hongwu period, the scale of the Yongle Dynasty has increased significantly. ”

"After Zheng and Zheng Gonggong went to the West, the imperial court implemented a policy of sea ban and only opened up exploration and trade. Originally, it was peaceful, but a few years ago, the war between the Japanese and the war, the Japanese people who had a survey took the survey to trade, and those who did not have a survey plundered on the sea and the coast of the Ming Dynasty. ”

Zhu Houzhao nodded, he probably understood, he also knew about this matter, and he had checked the information before leaving Beijing, or he had learned about it earlier.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty's Japanese invaders were not serious, because the destruction of the military towns along the coast was not serious, the tuntian had not been completely destroyed, and the military households could barely be transferred, and they still had the ability to fight.

It's just that at this time, it has begun to collapse, and the local big families have already extended their hands to the tuntian of the military households, and local officers at all levels have also begun to loot money on a large scale. So that many places have gone bankrupt.

Many of the displaced people in Jingxiang are actually military households.

But these are not the key, Zhu Houzhao is not concerned about the Japanese cowards, he is concerned about the internal problems of the Ming Dynasty.

"The slave and maid investigation found that the merchants along the coast are basically related to overseas smuggling, and in fact, the coastal sea ban has been completely destroyed by them. Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other places, there are many big businessmen who do this. ”

Zhu Houzhao nodded, he also guessed this, and this was also the purpose of his coming here.

"Go on." Zhu Houzhao said expressionlessly.

"Most of their trade is concentrated in people who have surveys, but there are also many people who go to sea without permission, and load goods to the sea in small boats and transport them away by large ships."

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