In terms of fiscal reform, it is completely different from the previous rulers who were ashamed to speak for profit, and the concept of righteousness and benefit was the first time that it was not shy about proposing, gathering people to say wealth, financial management and righteousness, and the concept of public interest. Officials at all levels are required to distinguish between public interests and private interests, and if they create wealth for the country, then profit is righteousness.

Under the pulse of this thought. Gao Gong believed that making money was a useful learning for the sages. "Husband's "Hong Fan" eight politics, the first food; The three things of "Yu Talk" finally gave birth to a good life. , so financial management is the top priority of the king's government!

This is not only a vigorous criticism of the non-utilitarianism of the Song and Ming dynasties, but also its real purpose is to call on the government at all levels to pay attention to the practical knowledge of economic life and do practical work for the economic recovery and financial relief of the Longqing Dynasty.

So how do you do that?

It is different from the rulers of the past who thought of making money, that is, they took more from the people. Gao Gong believes that if you want to make money, you can't just rely on squeezing your surname to accumulate money, but you should open up the source of wealth, and save money.

Let's talk about throttling first, Gao Gong believes that there is "throttling, and" savings, composition. The so-called "saving use" means that the imperial court calculates the annual income before spending it. All worthless works, nameless rewards, and unwarranted usefulness have been saved. This will not only reduce the burden on the people, but also use the savings for disaster relief and military spending in a timely manner.

As for "savings", it has been raised to the height of a major national event, so what method should be used to save and how should the country's annual income be distributed to be reasonable? Gao Gong proposed the method of "three and one", that is, the annual income is divided into four, consumption expenditure accounts for three-quarters, and a quarter of the surplus is used for savings. In this way, if you accumulate savings for three years, you can reach three-quarters of your annual income, which is exactly enough to feed you for one more year.

By analogy, you can get a balance for three years of expenditure in nine years, so that even if one year does not go well or there is a famine, you can be prepared for any trouble.

So how can we "open up the source of wealth?" In addition to the traditional construction of water conservancy, restriction of annexation, and cultivation of the people, the high arch also gave an unprecedented position to the industrial and commercial and financial industries. Previously, "emphasizing the basics and suppressing the last has always been the basic economic policy pursued by all dynasties and generations, and has always been respected by rulers." Although there have been many calls for attaching importance to business since Chenghua, it is Gao Gong who can really stand in the ruling position and transform the "business-oriented" view into a national economic policy. He believes that agriculture is related to the national economy and the people's livelihood, and it is appropriate to pay attention to it, but on the other hand, we cannot ignore the development of industry and commerce.

Of course, in Gao Gong's view, agriculture is the foundation of the country, as long as everyone has land, "everyone works hard, the country can have a steady stream of wealth." He saw the fundamental relationship between agriculture and commerce, that is, commerce has been an industry that communicates with each other since ancient times, and if agriculture achieves a bumper harvest, but there is no intermediary between merchants to put agricultural products on the market, then farmers will not get benefits" A good year is no different from a disaster year: if it is a disaster year, you can also use merchants to sell grain from other places, and farmers can buy it with the profits of the good year. In this way, the relationship between agriculture and commerce is interdependent, and the development of industry and commerce can further promote the development of agriculture.

How to develop industry and commerce" Gao Gong proposed that the first thing to do was to improve the status of merchants. Shang Shu asked the emperor to get rid of the old evils, no longer set up names, indiscriminately add records, arbitrarily oppress merchants, and no longer secretly ask merchants for some fees, and not make it difficult to oppress merchants. For buying and selling with merchants, the imperial court should "purchase at the market price" according to the value of the goods, and should not default on the payment of goods, even if there is no silver in the treasury for a while, and should move it from other places to protect the interests of the merchants. He also issued an edict to all yamen to "check how the officials and the people of the first dynasty were in good faith, and their laws were safe, and they were requested."

Of course, the merchants referred to by Gao Gong are actually small merchants, hawkers and small handicraftsmen, and he did not give an evaluation of those big merchants and big factory owners in the southeast, and there was no policy for xìng.

In fact, since Jiajing took charge of the household department in the last years, he has been vigorously implementing, but because his law was regarded as an advance by Xu Jie, Ge Shouli, Zhao Zhenji, and other old ministers in power, and obstructed it everywhere, it was difficult. But over the years, there has been a lot of progress in all aspects, and at this moment, under the banner of comprehensive grass reform in the high arch, it has naturally been able to be laid out.

Zhang Juzheng's plan to reform the grass consists of three parts, cutting expenses, changing taxes to grass, and changing the currency system to grass.

First of all, the first reduction of expenditures, in addition to those mentioned by Gao Gong, useless works, nameless rewards, and unwarranted use, all cuts, his starting point is on, the clan and the family, and "redundant officials and redundant personnel, on."

The clan Shilu was one of the main reasons for the financial crisis of the Ming Dynasty, and this was already the consensus of the government and the opposition. In Henan, Huguang, Sichuan, and many other places where the clan is concentrated, the money and grain collected every year are not even enough to pay for the clan's Shilu. The vampire and parasite of the clan is finally going to suck the host's blood dry.

Since the beginning of Jiajing, the Ministry of Rites has proposed to make the prince the king of the county, and the prince to be the general of the town, which is a method of reducing the title to reduce expenses. However, it was mostly abandoned because of the strong opposition of the clan. It was not until the last years of Jiajing that the "Zong Fan Regulations" were promulgated, which restricted the royal privileges in the form of regulations, one was to reduce the Zonglu, and the other was to stipulate that if the prince had no queen, then the same clan could not inherit the title, but the royal family and nobles still enjoyed many privileges.

During the reign of Longqing, the ministers repeatedly demanded that the "Ordinance of the Clans and Domains" be amended to take stronger measures to curb the privileges of the royal family, but in the end they all came to naught. Now that Gao Gong is coming back and the time is ripe, Zhang Juzheng made a decisive move, instructing Qi Yuanzuo Shu in the Ministry of Rites and Ceremonial Silang to say: At the beginning of the country, there were only forty-nine princes, county kings, and generals, and now there are 29,492 survivors, which is not less than a thousand times compared with the beginning of the country, and the total income supply this year is less than half of what is needed. Therefore, please 1. Limit the number of knights. The eldest son of the prince attacked the prince, the second son of the prince Xu Feng was the third, the eldest son of the county king attacked the county king, and the second son of the prince Xu Feng was the second; The general of Zhenguo promised to seal one of them, and there was no grandson to ask for a concubine; The lieutenant of his town assistant Fengguo is only allowed to have one son regardless of his concubine. Those who are not allowed to be sealed will be given a measure of money and a medal and a uniform.

2. Qualifications for the heirs of Yan. If the clan has no heir, it is not allowed to help the elder brother and the younger brother, nor can it be the heir of the disciple. If the prince or the prince of the county has an heir, "one person shall be stopped from managing the affairs of the government", and he shall not pretend to ask for the reinstatement of the prince.

3. Don't neglect your subordinates. The seventh king of the state system was reduced to the rank of lieutenant of the country. In the future, the lieutenant of Fengguo will pass on the need not to give the seal, and he will give the first son to 500 taels of silver, and the rest will be at his own convenience.

Fourth, the sovereign. The daughter of the prince is only awarded the third, the daughter of the county king is only the second, the daughter of the general and the lieutenant is only one, and the county lord and the county and township monarch are given to Luwai, and their selection is exempted from Dai. Each son-in-law does not have to give another crown to marry, and he is at his own convenience.

5. Negotiation fees. The children of the presumptuous people, the children of the grass, and the children of the unmarried people, the children born from now on are at their own mercy.

His children who marry without permission will henceforth be given only their names, and they will no longer be given rations.

In fact, according to Zhang Juzheng's idea, it is best for the prince and his son to be crowned the king of the county, and the rest of the sons to be the general of the Zhenguo, so as to reduce the expansion of the clan Shilu with this kind of demotion and title, but Longqing couldn't bear it, and the cabinet was also worried that it would be shaken by the clan and used as an excuse to oppose the new policy, so it had to be done step by step. But even so, it is enough to give a sigh of relief to the embarrassment of the Ming Dynasty............ Through the re-inventory and verification of the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Households, it was found that the clan had falsely reported the population of 17,761 people, and although most of them were low-level lords, they could save 2 million taels of silver and 5 million stone of grain for the provinces, which greatly reduced the burden on the provinces of many feudal domains.

For redundant officials and redundant personnel, Zhang Juzheng is not so polite. At this time, the main redundant personnel of the Ming Dynasty did not come from the government, but from the middle officials, brocade clothes and hereditary noble generals, and he formulated a plan in the "Discussion of Redundant Personnel", ready to use five years to complete the elimination in three batches, so that its number was reduced to the level of the beginning of the country.

As for the reform of finance and taxation, the main thing is to implement a whip law and implement the conversion of rent into silver, but before that, it is necessary to carry out a nationwide clearing of mu, find out the discrepancies between the actual number of mu and the fish scale book, and clarify the ownership of each mu of land in order to talk about the tax and silver conversion.

Zhang Juzheng knew very well that this would inevitably touch the interests of the nobles, eunuchs, and gentry, and cause them to resist in groups, but he made up his mind and was determined to carry out the Qingzhang movement. He wrote to the governors of various places, encouraging them to let go and do it, "Qingzhang has been in charge for a hundred years, and it is appropriate for Xinzheng and his servants to be in power, and they should be done for a hundred things." If you do it hastily, it's a pity that it's in vain at this time. The department has been instructed not to investigate those who violate the limits, so that the public can do it cheaply. At the same time, he ordered severe punishment for the noble and powerful officials who hindered the Qingzhang and the officials who were ineffective in the Qingzhang. This is also the focus of Zhang Juzheng's next work.

In addition, he also strongly advocated the reform of the currency system, that is, Xi Rì and Shen Mo agreed that "authorized by the Bao Banknote Lifting Division, Huilian and Rì Yilong respectively issued new versions of Bao Banknotes in Jiangnan and Jiangbei, and were responsible for acceptance."

In fact, Zhang Juzheng did not want to give the right to issue banknotes to the two major ticket numbers, but the credit of the imperial court had long been bankrupt and the financial situation was extremely embarrassing, so he had to delegate this power. And whether he admits it or not, the silver stamps issued by the two major money banks have long been circulated throughout the country, and now the official recognition is actually to include them in the scope of supervision, so there is nothing unacceptable when thinking about it this way.

Jiang Yu is in charge of military reform, and Shen Mo is solely responsible. Similar to Zhang Juzheng, since he took charge of the military department, he has been promoting the reform of all aspects step by step, such as the system of one monk and four servants,、, the specialization of military and civilian officials,、, preferential treatment of border officials,、, the transfer of local military and civilian officials of the military department,、, the children of military generals to enroll in school, and so on, all of which have been discussed with Gao Gong before and are slowly implemented. Compared with Gao and Zhang who were in the whirlpool, his situation seemed much calmer.

The only thing that caused a lot of controversy was that he proposed that this year's internal supervision school review of the Beijing camp should be held by the emperor himself. The last time the parade was in the Wuzong Dynasty, and it has not been held for nearly 50 years. As soon as it was proposed, many ministers objected, saying that this was a bad idea to curry favor with the emperor, and that there could be enemies in the world who were frightened by your military parade? If you have money, it is better to help the families of the border guards.

However, soon, those guys who only knew how to talk about it fell into the bitter sea of Gao Gong's rectification of the officials, and they all had to rely on silence to help rescue them, who would dare to provoke him? So there was no more opposition. And Emperor Longqing, although he was indifferent to all kinds of grass reform strategies, was very interested in it............ On the one hand, the news of the capital for many years made the emperor have to pay attention to border defense, and on the other hand, it was too exciting for the emperor who was like being captive in the deep palace to have the opportunity to put on a battle robe, straddle a horse, and pretend to be a general......

So an edict was issued to hold a big parade in the autumn. When the edict spread, the generals from all walks of life were all excited, and they stepped up their training, striving to overwhelm the crowd in front of the emperor at that time, and show their faces greatly.

On the other hand, Shen Mo also began to step up preparations for military funds, and he asked Gao Gong to agree to add one Lang Zhong, two foreign langs, and four directors in the Arsenal Clearance Department of the Ministry of War, as Wu Dui's deputy, in charge of the production of the Ordnance General Factory. And gave a death order, we must complete the production tasks issued by the Ministry of War with quality and quantity.

At the production mobilization meeting, he made it clear to the officials and the person in charge of the arsenal that these armor and ordnance were going to go to the battlefield, and if something went wrong at that time, they would be severely punished. In order to ensure the quality, he also ordered another Lang Zhong of the Arsenal Clearance Division to conduct a strict inspection of all the ordnance in the warehouse, and not a single piece of ordnance that did not conform to the armor was allowed to enter the warehouse, otherwise he would be killed.

After listening to Shen Ge's murderous words, everyone knew that he was going to be serious, and no one dared to fool him anymore. Zhu Xixiao, the younger brother of Cheng Guogong, who attended the meeting as a representative of the producers, had to point out that the entire arsenal was willing to contribute to the expulsion of the prisoners, but if the production was carried out according to the highest standards, the cost would increase dramatically, and the original production funds allocated were far from sufficient.

"I've already calculated the difference" Shen Mo looked at Zhu Xixiao and said: "It's 800,000 taels, this money, the military department will pay it in three installments, within half a year." ”

Xu Wenbi wanted to open his mouth, but he didn't expect that Shen Mo had already figured out their production costs and profit margins, but in this way, the factory made too little money, and it really didn't make a head.

"As long as it can be completed on time and with quality," Shen Mo smiled faintly and said, "The military department will reward you with an additional 200,000 taels." "It's impossible for a horse to run fast and for a horse not to eat grass.

Hearing this, all the factory owners had no objections, and Zhu Xixiao sneered: "Although it is not enough, it is our duty to share worries for the country, and we will take this errand."