There are also huge loopholes in the agricultural tax compared with the salt tax, taking the ten provinces in the south of the Yangtze River and Huaijiang River that are still under the rule of the Ming Dynasty as an example, the ten provinces together have a population of about 70 million and nearly 400 million mu of fertile land.

Ten provinces because of the climate is mild land, fertile land can harvest two seasons a year, although more than half of the land is not high yield barren thin land, but on average, the annual yield per mu is at least one and a half stones, 400 million mu is at least 600 million stone grain, the price of grain in the Ming Dynasty is an average of one stone of grain one or two silver, of course, this price is the price of the Taiping period, the current chaos in the world, especially in the north, drought for several years, many places have no harvest, resulting in a lot of grain in the south of the Yangtze River.

However, even if the cash is collected according to the price of grain in the Taiping period, it stands to reason that the tax revenue generated by 600 million stone of grain per year should be extremely considerable.

Although the agricultural tax of the Ming Dynasty is the lowest in all dynasties, even if the Chongzhen Dynasty has increased the tax several times, it is only 20 taxes and one, according to this calculation, the ten provinces of the Jiangnan and Huaihuai of the Ming Dynasty should pay the tax of 30 million stone grain every year, that is, 30 million taels of silver, but the agricultural tax of the ten provinces of the Jiangnan of the Daming Jianghuai River last year was only 6 million taels, almost only one-fifth.

Of course, because of the tax exemption policy of the Ming Dynasty for some scholar clans, it is impossible to collect the full amount of 30 million taels no matter what, but why is the gap so big.

You know, the Ming Dynasty can only be called scholars if they have more than one person's fame, Zhu Cihong has checked, and now the Ming Dynasty has only 20,000 people who have the merit of raising people or above, as for the clan, there were about 200,000 people in the early years of Chongzhen, after Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other homeless people raged, killed a lot, and almost all the rest fled to Jiangnan, and now the registered clan population is about 150,000.

That is to say, there are only 170,000 people in the Ming Dynasty plus the clan, is it possible that only one-fifth of the land in the Ming Dynasty is in the hands of ordinary people, and these 170,000 scholars and clans account for four-fifths of the land in the Ming Dynasty?

In fact, it is true that these 170,000 scholar clans really occupy more than four-fifths of the land of the Ming Dynasty.

Take the Fu King of that year as an example, he alone accounted for 50,000 hectares of high-grade fertile land in the Ming Dynasty, although there was a reason for the Wanli Emperor to mess around, other vassal kings were far less than the Fu King, but these hundreds of thousands of people in the Ming Dynasty, if you really want to count, also accounted for at least more than 4 million hectares of fertile land in the Ming Dynasty, and the 20,000 scholars who have the fame of raising people also accounted for more than 2 million hectares, adding up to nearly 7 million hectares, and the Ming Dynasty is 50 acres.

Less than one percent of the people actually occupy four-fifths of the land, why such a ridiculous situation occurs, it is really too difficult for people to understand, too unimaginable, but if you really want to understand, in fact, it is not difficult for people to understand.

Take a small town as an example, an ordinary poor family with only ten acres of fertile land at home, but one day there is a descendant in this family who suddenly competes for anger and obtains the fame of lifting people, according to the law of the Ming Dynasty, this lifting person until he dies, the land under his name is not subject to paying taxes, and immediately many relatives, friends or neighbors, in order to avoid paying taxes, voluntarily sell their fields to this person at a low price, and sign a lease contract with this person, become a tenant under the name of this person, and are exempt from paying taxes. Even if it is only in name, only a small amount of nominal money needs to be paid to this person every year, of course, this nominal money must be to resist the field tax formulated by the Ming Dynasty.

The same is true for the clans, because they do not have to pay taxes, they have a large amount of surplus silver every year, and almost all of this money is used to annex land.

In a small town, there were originally 10,000 acres of tax-paying fertile land, but it is very likely that because of a person or a family with a register in the government, the tax-paying fertile land in this town will be sharply reduced by half or even half in a short period of time, and such a merger will become more and more serious over time, resulting in the current only 0.3 percent of the 70 million population of the 10 million provinces in the south of the Ming Jianghuai River, but the scholar clan owns four-fifths of the land of the Ming Dynasty.

It's so terrifying that Zhu Cihong can't tolerate it.

In fact, most of the so-called squires are composed of these people, and they rely on the tax exemption policy of the imperial court and the selfishness of many ordinary people to annex land at a very convenient time.

Scholars are just that, in the end, most of them are in official positions, doing things for the imperial court, but those clans, but they are real parasites, due to identity reasons, they can't engage in business, can't take the imperial examination, can't be craftsmen, and even do their own farming will be ridiculed by other clans, they don't have any skills, they are almost raised as pigs by the imperial court, and they only live on the rice issued by the imperial court and the land rent tax under the name of the fief every month.

Not counting the land annexed by the clan itself, the imperial court definitely spent more than an elite army of the same number every year to support them, and the burden was extremely heavy.

Not only the Ming Dynasty, every dynasty will encounter such a problem, this is a historical problem, these squires occupy too many resources, even the emperors of all dynasties did not dare to offend them casually, and the whole body was moved, and if one was not done well, it would shake the foundation of the imperial court's rule, plus those clans were relatives of the same blood of the old Zhu family, not looking at the face of the monk and looking at the face of the Buddha, even the most difficult time in the Chongzhen period, Emperor Chongzhen did not dare to make up his mind in this regard.

As a soul from later generations, Zhu Cihong is not a pure member of the old Zhu family, and he has no feelings for this group of huge parasite-like so-called relatives, but as the emperor of the Ming Dynasty and the recognized boss of the old Zhu family, he can't really cut off the hundreds of thousands of clans' Lu rice, but he plans to tax them like ordinary people.

Zhu Cihong's agricultural tax reform was nothing more than to exempt the imperial court from the privilege of not paying taxes to scholars and clans, and to bring them completely into the scope of the imperial court's tax collection, so that not only would they receive more than 20 million taels of tax and silver every year, but they would also be cut off from the convenience of land annexation at the root.

At the same time, Zhu also intends to impose a price limit on land leases.

The current agricultural tax in the Ming Dynasty is 20 taxes and 1, and the land leased by the landlord to the tenants often reaches the terrifying point of 2 taxes and 1, or even 3 taxes and 2, which leads to the landlord to buy the land, the land can produce huge value, which often makes the landlords more crazy to annex the land, which is also a vicious circle, and the reason why the price of land lease is forcibly limited is to break this vicious circle.

When the value of the land purchased is greatly discounted, the landlords' desire to annex the land will gradually cool.

At that time, the imperial court will loosen some restrictions on the clan and restrictions on the ranks of scholars, farmers, and industrialists, especially in the area of commerce, business is often the root cause of rapid wealth and development, and some people who have a difficult life and did not dare to engage in business because of the restrictions and discrimination of the imperial court on merchants will immediately plunge into commerce because of the temptation of sudden wealth.

In this way, it will inevitably trigger a wave of business fever, only the continuous emergence of successful business and rich people, will continue to inspire more people to engage in business, not only to accelerate the development of Ming commerce, but also to shift the attention of those who used to cling to the land of the clan landlords, the value of the land will slowly drop to the lowest point, and gradually return to the hands of ordinary people.

After listening to Zhu Cihong's analysis and explanation, Li Yan and Qian Buqian were so shocked that they couldn't speak.

Qian Bu swallowed his saliva with difficulty, the emperor actually had such an idea, it was true

After Li Yan came back to his senses, he suddenly felt that his blood was boiling, and the emperor had such courage to cancel the privilege of scholars and clans not to levy taxes, reduce the restrictions of the scholars, farmers, and industrial and commercial classes, and open up commerce.

These two things alone, there is no emperor of any dynasty can have this courage, the emperor is worthy of being the master of the world that he identifies, if the emperor's idea is really implemented, the strength of the Ming Dynasty will be doubled, and the people will gradually become stable and rich.

Although Li Yan used to be a scholar, he has participated in the rebellion for more than ten years, and he will not be bound by those rituals at all, coupled with his long-term vision, he does not have any prejudice against commerce, but can clearly see the benefits of commerce and trade to the Ming Dynasty.

"The emperor is shengming, and the minister Li Yan is obedient! I swore that I would wholeheartedly assist the emperor to complete this matter, even if I was broken by this, I would not complain! Similarly, Li Yan also knows the danger of offending the squires and heroes across the country, but he is not afraid, and even intends to take the lead in this matter, once there is really an irresistible crisis, resulting in the failure of the reform, he can also let the emperor get out of his body, and let him Li Yan bear the anger of all the squires.

"There is no shortage of money for Weichen, and he swears to be the emperor!" After Qian was stunned for a while, he also quickly knelt down to show his loyalty.

Qian Buqian was indeed so frightened that he couldn't speak, and he could clearly see the danger in the matter, but he knew even more that he could only stand with the emperor, otherwise he would only die without a place to be buried, and Qian Buxian's loyalty to Zhu Cihong was no less than Li Yan at this moment.

"If the emperor really accomplishes such a feat, then he has no shortage of money to participate in it, and he will definitely be able to leave a name in history!" There is no shortage of money, not only that, but he chose to believe in Zhu Cihong, he can only believe that Zhu Cihong followed Zhu Cihong and Li Yan all the way to the black.

"Okay, it's a blessing for me to have two Aiqing to assist, let us accomplish this great feat together!" Zhu Cihong said angrily.

Li Yan is also full of pride, there is no shortage of money, such people who are greedy for life and afraid of death have been affected, and they are even arrogant for a while.

It is indeed a feat, and it is an unprecedented feat, back then, whether it was Emperor Qin and Han Wu, or Tang Sect and Song Zu, they didn't think of this time, and they didn't know the benefits of this matter, but after all, none of them dared to risk offending the squires of the world to fight this idea, but Zhu Cihong dared, and he would do it!

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