In the inner hall, Zhang Juzheng was wearing a crown of loyalty and a swallow suit, and the expression on his face was already upright and serious, and he did not have the slightest sense of alcohol.

Even if Qin Lin was usually used to smiling with Lao Taishan, when he saw Zhang Juzheng's appearance, he suddenly felt that the invisible pressure was as high as the mountains and as deep as the abyssal sea.

Good Ming Dynasty 300 years of the first minister, Zhang Taishi Kuang Zheng Dynasty, strategizing, if you compare with chess, others are worried about the square inch, he is to thousands of miles of rivers and mountains as a chessboard, the world is a chess piece, if you take the way of the sword compared, others are holding a sword in the face of a hundred enemies, but he has no sword in his hand and a sword in his heart, with the national fortune as the sword, the people's heart as the sword, the power as the hilt, the upper decision of the floating clouds, the lower Jedi Ji, the law of heaven and earth, invincible.

"Nephew Qin Xian, please take a seat!" Zhang Juzheng pointed to a rosewood chair opposite, Qin Lin sat down respectfully, but he didn't dare to only pull his butt like others, but sat with his back straight, his hands pressed on the armrests, and he looked at Taishi Zhang with blazing eyes.

"I can still be so calm in front of the old man, Zixuan is not wrong!" Zhang Juzheng thought so in his heart, and his serious expression softened a little.

Qin Lin suddenly felt that the pressure was a lot lighter, and Shi Li asked, "I don't know if the master sees the move, what do you have to say?" ”

Do you still have to play with the old man at this time? Zhang Juzheng looked at Qin Lin with a smile, and did not break it first, but said in a deep voice: "Qin Xian's nephew, in the past, the old man heard your name countless times, and wisely solved the case of seizing the heirs of the Jing Wangfu, the floating corpse case caused by Qingzhang Tianmu in Xingguo Prefecture, and appeased the Wufeng maritime merchants, and after arriving in Beijing, he repeatedly performed miraculous feats, such as saving the driver, investigating Yang Zhao, the governor of Jiliao, and Pan Jitao's cultivation of the Yellow River, you also contributed to it, and also helped Qi Shuai train his troops to strengthen his armaments, which subdued the millions of people in Tumut and made immortal miraculous achievements......"

"Taishi praised, praised," Qin Lin smiled and hurriedly humbly, knowing that Lao Taishan's words were not to praise himself a few words, the more he praised in the front, the more difficult it would be for those who were to take the school exam later.

Zhang Juzheng waved his hand, and really changed his words: "However, you once said that the old man's new policy is wrong in the general direction, and the old man wants to hear from you, what is right?" ”

It turned out that the old gentleman never forgot this, the new policy of strengthening the country and enriching the people and supporting the society, was said to be wrong from the root, he was not convinced no matter what, before he only thought that Qin Lin was young and shallow and deliberately said big things, but recently he felt more and more that although this person was young, his knowledge and means were extraordinary, so Zhang Taishi had this question.

Qin Lin smiled, Zhang Juzheng asked about poetry and songs, asked about the party struggle of the imperial court, asked about the allusions of the past dynasties, and asked about the local government, he was afraid that he was immediately dumbfounded, but he asked this, it was he who experienced the Xingguozhou, Cao Gang, Yang Zhao, Wenxiangjiao and other cases, and witnessed the shortcomings exposed in the land of Qingzhang, the official gentry and the bullies coerced and lured the people to donate the land and population, as well as the developed commercial and trade economy in the Jiangnan region, and the problems that Xu Wenchang discussed for a long time.

Slowly straightening out his thoughts, Qin Lin said without hesitation: "There are many aspects of Taishi's new policy, there are advantages and disadvantages, gains and losses, let the boy come together one by one." ”

Zhang Juzheng put on a posture of listening to his ears, the sycophant of "Quartet Song Taiyue Xianggong" heard too much, but he sincerely wanted to hear something different from the mouths of the younger generation, and he even warned himself in advance: If there is a change, if there is none, it will be encouraged, even if Qin Lin is not right, don't worry about the younger generations; If there are one or two merits in what Qin Lin said, then this conversation will be considered to have achieved its goal.

Qin Lin was unequivocal, first of all, he said: "It is difficult to rise in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty, and the atmosphere of procrastination and prevarication prevails, and the comparison of faint officials, mediocre officials, lazy officials, corrupt officials, and redundant officials is visible, and it is difficult to understand the government decrees. If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools, and if you want to implement the new policy, you will first implement the "Examination Law", set standards for promotion and deposition, and mercilessly spur these officials, so that the decree will be smooth, and the kid admires it very much. ”

Zhang Juzheng twisted his beard and smiled, and said in his heart, you kid also know the benefits of taking the test, if not, how can the implementation of the new deal be so easy? Most of the officials in the world are old-fashioned, and they are very lazy without whipping.

Qin Lin said: "The safety of the country is related to the military, and in addition to the frequent wars, the country is bound to weaken. Taishi appointed famous generals to quell the troubles, ordered Zeng Xingwu and Liu Xian to suppress the rebellion of the servants, realized the tribute, and transferred Qi Shuai to train the new army in Jizhen to guard the north, so the world was stable and had the basis for the implementation of the new policy. ”

Zhang Juzheng smiled, but there was a trace of doubt in his heart, why did Qin Lin say this...... Qin Lin saw that Taishi Zhang was a little impatient, and deliberately said slowly: "Nowadays, the local tyrants control the government, often hiding the land and not reporting it, or relying on power to force the small people to donate the land, and transfer the taxes payable to the ordinary people. Taishi cleared acres of fields on a large scale across the country, "measured all the mountains and paddy fields, leaving only the sea and the blue sky," so the strong and fearful, the people cheered, and the government wealth was fully collected. ”

Zhang Juzheng frowned, picked up the tea bowl and took a sip of water, his lips moved, and when he saw that Qin Lin was about to go on, he finally didn't interrupt him.

Qin Lin had already taken a full view of Lao Taishan's reaction, and after talking eloquently, his confidence became more and more sufficient, so he changed the conversation: "However, these are just branches, and Taishi's new policy program is obvious, and in the end, it has to fall on a whip law." ”

Yes! Zhang Juzheng's eyes lit up, and he waited for Qin Lin to say this.

He once summed up the five major problems faced by the Ming Dynasty, "said that the clan was arrogant, said that the officials were unscrupulous, said that the officials were in accordance with the rules, said that the border preparations were not repaired, and said that the wealth was scarce", he was appointed to punish the Liao king who was rampant and domineering, and the crackdown on the illegal clan was aimed at the first article, the implementation of the examination law was aimed at the second and third articles, the refurbishment of military equipment and the training of the new army was aimed at the fourth article, and the implementation of a whip law was aimed at the fifth article, and even the clearing of land and the recovery of arrears were also to open the way for the implementation of a whip law.

As the first minister of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Juzheng had a clear understanding of the five major problems, the first four were trivial, and the fifth was the most serious problem of the empire's finances, and the whip method used to solve this problem was the core of the entire New Deal.

The development of history is just as Zhang Juzheng judged, the fall of the Ming Dynasty was not the inferiority of the army, not political corruption, nor the incompetence of the monarchs and ministers, but the total collapse of the imperial financial system.

In the later Wanli 20 years, the Ming army was still in Korea to just go through the Warring States period of war training, can conquer the habitual war of the invasion of the army to find teeth, to Wanli forty years later, but the Houjin repeatedly defeated, only because Zhang Juzheng's new policy has been spent, the army's food and salary can not be paid in full, the generals can only raise a small number of families to maintain combat effectiveness, most of the soldiers are not trained, the advanced firearms of the Ming army, but also because the imperial court can not pay enough wages, resulting in shoddy manufacturing, unusable on the battlefield...... Even directly destroyed the Ming Dynasty King Li Zicheng, originally a grassroots "postman" in the imperial court postal system, because of lack of finance, the imperial court abolished the postal system, laid-off worker Li Zicheng raised the banner of righteousness...... In this way, when Emperor Chongzhen couldn't even make up 50,000 taels of labor silver, the fall of the Ming Dynasty was difficult to reverse.

Although Zhang Juzheng was not a prophet and knew these things that would happen in later generations, he saw the shortcomings of the financial system with a keen eye, so he carried out reforms with a whip law.

In the Ming Dynasty, the original Lijia regular service, uniform service and miscellaneous miscellaneous service. Among them, Lijia is the main backbone, and the household is the basic unit, and the household is divided into three grades and nine rules according to the amount of grain, which is used as the basis for compiling the levy difference. Ding refers to men of appropriate age between the ages of 16 and 60, and grain refers to the field endowment. The amount of grain depends on the acreage of land, so a part of the acre tax is also included in the conscription.

In the Hongwu and Yongle periods, China was in the recovery period of liberation from the rule of the Mongol Yuan, and the development of the agricultural society was relatively slow.

However, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, during the Zhengde and Jiajing periods, the society was completely different, the land annexation was drastic, the land rights were highly concentrated, and the gentry were in charge, the large households were deceitful, the forced labor was heavy, and the peasants fled.

At the same time, commerce made great strides, and the commodity economy in the southeast was gaining momentum, to the point that it could not be blocked by the ban imposed by official forces, and a large amount of silver flowed into overseas, changing the embarrassing situation of the lack of silver in the early years of the empire, which had to use copper coins and paper money as currency.

Zhang Juzheng took advantage of the situation and implemented a whip method, which has two most important aspects.

First of all, it is necessary to unify the taxation and limit the harshness and make the tax more stable. Before the implementation of the whip law, the peasants had to pay taxes and also serve labor, and in addition to the servitude, there were a variety of additional assignments, such as prescriptions and tributes, and the officials and gentry took the opportunity to extort money. After the implementation of the whip law, all of them were simplified into one, and it was difficult for officials at all levels to collect additional fees in the name of a single item, so that the tax collection tended to be stable and the peasants were able to recuperate.

Then the silver will be levied on the mu, and the official will be closed, so that the collection method will be more complete. In the past dynasties, taxes were mainly collected in kind, and grain was levied in grain-producing areas and cloth in cotton-producing areas, except for a whip law, all of which were changed to silver. At the same time, the levy of conscription was no longer handled by the chief of the province and the chief of grain, but was directly collected by the local officials and paid into the treasury. Since then, the tax is not levied according to the kind, which saves the cost of transportation and storage; The collection and relief is not handled by the armor protection personnel, which eliminates the disadvantages of erosion and distribution, and makes the collection method more perfect.

The above two items, in a nutshell, are all the various taxes and levies into one, and at the same time, the collected silver, silk, cloth, grain, and other bits and pieces are also grouped into one, that is, silver, so it is called a whip law.

It is the core of the entire New Deal reform, and it is also Zhang Juzheng's proud work, when Qin Lin mentioned it, the first assistant Taishi immediately lifted his spirits, and his eyes were blazing looking forward to Qin Lin's continued comments.

"Wrong, very wrong!" Qin Lin said bluntly: "The unification of taxes and forced labor and the unification of the content of collection are both small and right, but big things are ridiculously wrong. ”

(To be continued)