The first to offer advice to Zhu Cihong was Huang Zongxi, who stroked his beard and talked eloquently: "His Royal Highness the Prince, in his later life, he thought that the root cause of the strong gentry and poor country was the crime of abolishing feudalism in Qin. The world is big and difficult to govern, and the Son of Heaven has limited care. Therefore, we cannot govern the people with officials, but can only use officials to appease the gentry, and govern the people of the world with the gentry. This is the so-called sharing the world with scholars! Since it is a world with scholars, it is natural for scholars to benefit from it. The amount of profit depends on the strength of the imperial court.

In the past, the imperial court took Beijing as its capital, the Son of Heaven guarded the border, and the rich land in the southeast as Yuanzhou. The politics of the southeast naturally rely on the gentry, and the benefits of the southeast naturally have to be shared with the gentry. Moreover, since the change of Tumubao, this dynasty has turned from prosperity to decline, the country is declining, and the monarchy is weakening. If the monarch is weak, the gentleman will be strong, and if the gentleman is strong, he will compete with the monarch for profit, and the world's taxes will of course be lost. Therefore, with 100,000 acres of land and a population of 10,000,000, only more than 20 million stones of grain and 2,300,000 taels of silver were paid.

The way to deal with it in later life is to strictly govern the near county, and to rule the town in the far state. With the tens of thousands of people of the new army, thousands of nobles and ministers from the north to the south, and tens of thousands of people from all over the country, are they still afraid that they will not be able to manage the dozens of state capitals in Nanzhili, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi? Therefore, students feel that the real need to pay attention to the remote states and counties and the northern country! ”

Insightful!

Huang Zongxi broke through the biggest difficulty of China's monarchical centralized politics - the country is too big! In these years, traffic basically relied on running, and communication basically relied on roaring. When a country is large, information transmission is slow. It is easy to control the places that are relatively close to the national capital, but it is easy to get out of control in the border counties of the far state.

In the early years, the Ming Dynasty built the capital of Nanjing, looking at the money bags. As a result, the border army rebelled under the leadership of Zhu Di, the king of Yan!

Later, Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing and personally watched the border army, and the southeast gentry rose again......

Now Zhu Cihong has run to Jiangnan with hundreds of thousands of northern troops, thousands of northern magnates, and tens of thousands of clansmen, so many people and such a strong strength, it is not a big problem to suppress the southeastern gentry. The real problem is the outlying counties and the northern front.

If there is no chaos in the remote states and counties, and the Tartars in the north do not come to intervene, what is the unevenness in the southeast?

"His Royal Highness the Prince, the students have a way to make the southeastern prefecture and county peaceful when the imperial court strictly levies commercial taxes and inventories the land."

This time it was Dagong Luo who spoke - this time Enke's champion Gong will look at his and Huang Zongxi's performance!

In a sense, today's Donglin Conference is also a champion interview! Dagong Luo dreams of being the champion, can he not behave well?

"The student's solution is to exchange the rich for the poor!" Luo Dagong launched his own "solution".

"How?" Zhu Cihong asked with interest.

Luo Dagong said: "The way of governance in this dynasty has always been to be rich and poor officials!" Gentlemen, talents, lifters, and officials. Taking the Song Dynasty as an example, civil officials were generous, and official households were exempt from tax and forced labor. However, what is the geometry of officials and official households? It is difficult to get a scholar, it is not easy to get an official, and between the whole country, it is only a few hundred in three years. There are tens of thousands of official households in the country, and although there are various preferential treatments, the cost is limited after all.

Since the beginning of Xiucai, this dynasty has had preferential treatment, tax exemption and forced labor, and can also use the method of sending, surrendering and sheltering merchants to discount the preferential treatment of scholars, which is actually to share the country's taxes. Therefore, the scholars of this dynasty, as long as there is a showman, he is not poor, if he is promoted, he will be a rich man in three or two months. can be honest and self-controlled, and there is no one in ten thousand! As for entering the official ...... If you are not greedy or corrupt at all, in fact, you are trying to make a name behind you, and you can't make a lot of money, and you may have to put money in it.

However, the preferential treatment given to official households in the local government is much higher than that of lifting people, so even those clean officials on the surface, the vast majority of them can still make a little bit of money through the profit sharing of national taxes. If this official comes from a rich place in the southeast, then he can become rich without being a corrupt official. It's just that this money does not come from the Son of Heaven, but from the local ...... The biggest failure in the rule of officials in this dynasty is here! ”

Officials work for the emperor's family, but the emperor's family's income is meager, accounting for a negligible proportion of the family income of most officials!

Even if he loses his official position, as long as he does not reduce his status, or if his reputation rises to a higher level after the reduction, he will not suffer economic losses.

This is the fundamental reason why the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty dared to resist the imperial power - their economic foundation was not the emperor's profit at all, but the right to share the profits of the country's taxes. This is not an official, but a gentleman's power!

Grand Duke Luo continued: "If His Royal Highness the Crown Prince wants to collect the power of the gentry in the southeast, he must raise officials with high salaries, so that the officials who are honest can share the benefits of the gentry power recovered by the imperial court. In this way, some gentry-born officials will take the financial power of other gentry for the imperial court. ”

"That makes sense!" Zhu Cihong laughed, this is a talent! In the future, I can be an old Luo Ge!

"Let's talk about it," Zhu Cihong smiled and asked again, "How should this palace raise officials with high salaries?" ”

Luo Dagong said: "Your Highness, the idea of a late life is to pay more taxes and pay more grain, and raise more officials!" The imperial court should take a part of the land rent and commercial tax from each state capital, such as two out of ten, as the capital for the maintenance of officials. The more money you have, the more officials you have! Taking Songjiang Prefecture, which is the subordinate of the minister, as an example, the land in Songjiang is fertile, and the total amount of land on the books is about 2 million mu, and the actual number should be around 3.3 million mu. Among them, nearly half of the officials, the military, and the hidden field. If the inventory can be completed, then 1.65 million mu of land can be subordinated to the military tunwei. The imperial court could take out 300,000 acres of it as the employment land of Songjiang officials.

Then, for the rent collection of vocational fields alone, Songjiang officials can get at least more than 200,000 stone white rice. Half of them were issued to Songjiang officials who served in the imperial court or foreign governments, and the other half were issued to low-level officials, officials, catchers, and township soldiers who served locally. With such generous treatment, it is natural to win over many Songjiang gentry who are willing to serve the imperial court and can do things. ”

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the price of rice was high, and more than 200,000 stone white rice was equivalent to four or five hundred thousand taels of silver, which was a great benefit! Grand Duke Luo, who proposed this price, was a little apprehensive in his heart - would it be too much?

"But how can two out of ten Guantian be enough?" Zhu Cihong's answer was beyond the expectations of Grand Duke Luo, "This palace is not short of hungry soldiers, and if you want people to work hard, of course you have to give enough money...... In addition to 20% of the officials, military, and hidden fields, the local business tax in Songjiang can also be divided! The customs duties and salt taxes in the commercial tax belong to the imperial court, but the taxes, residence taxes, wine taxes, and deed taxes are all divided between the local government and the imperial court! With the wealth of Songjiang, one hundred and twenty thousand taels of silver a year is not a problem!

In addition, Matsue officials who served in the court or in Beppu naturally had another share to take! ”

Zhu Cihong's eyes were scorching, and he looked at the Donglin gentlemen in the room, "Do you think that such conditions can find enough scholars and brave men in Songjiang Mansion to be used by the country?" ”