In the Forbidden City, Emperor Zhu has been a lot more diligent recently, and there will be a small court meeting at the end of three days in the palace.

People who are officials in the Ming court know that Zhu Jishi's temper is very good, he is very polite to the officials, he rarely loses his temper in the court, and he is very generous, basically a "good" emperor. Unexpectedly, today, Zhu Jishi's face seemed to have a layer of paste, and he was ugly to death, and the atmosphere in the hall became cold and damp. The emperor not only had an ugly face, but also did not speak, it seemed that he was angry about something, and the ministers did not dare to speak, so they waited quietly. It wasn't until the coughing sound of Wang Zhenghong, the king of Yanping, that the silence was broken.

Zheng Hong is the head of the heroes, not a Confucian minister, and he is more open-minded, and he has become the minister with the most common language with Zhu Jishi in the court, so it is time for him to come out and speak.

Zheng Hong stood up and walked to the center of the main hall, waved at Emperor Zhu, and said in a somewhat indignant tone: "Your Majesty, there are newspapers such as "Ta Kung Pao" and "Daming Times" that expose a lot of bad rules in Jiangnan Tianfu. Large households pay at a reduced price, which is called 'short price', and small households are charged at double the price to make up for the deficit of large households, which is called 'long price'. ”

This is going to poke a hornet's nest! All the ministers took a breath in their hearts, and a few of them even cast unkind glances at Prince Zheng. Zhu Jishi asked Zuo Zongtang with a hesitant face: "Zuo Xiang, do you know about the 'long price' and 'short price'?" ”

Zuo Zongtang sighed and went to the center of the main hall: "The minister knows that there is such an ugly rule. ”

Zhu Jishi asked calmly: "Why don't you report it to me?" ”

Zuo Zongtang said quietly: "The time has not yet come. At the beginning of the Longxing of His Majesty, he was a scholar who competed with the Manchu Qing Dynasty for the world, and the scholar Xiang Ming could achieve the great cause of His Majesty. Shizi Zhongqing. Then the Manchu Qing Dynasty can extend the national Zuo. Therefore, we should not be too demanding of the gentry of the world. ”

This remark is actually telling Emperor Zhu how his world came about, and now the demanding gentry are suspected of unloading the mill and killing the donkey!

Zhu Jishi's face suddenly darkened, and he asked in a deep voice: "If the overall situation is decided today, can I treat the scholar harshly?" ”

Zuo Zongtang bowed down again, raised his voice and said: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that the dispute between 'long price' and 'short price' is really for a reason, and the scholar lives in the countryside. Bear the responsibility of maintaining education, so there is no time to plough the land, so you can only rent the land for a small profit, and if you collect the land at a 'parity' price, I am afraid that the world's corporal doctors will not know how many people will go bankrupt. If there are no scholars to maintain the education of the people in the countryside, the world will inevitably fall into chaos again. ”

As soon as Zuo Zongtang's words came out, someone in the hall immediately echoed him.

"What the left minister said is extremely true!"

"Scholars are the foundation of the imperial court, and they should not be moved lightly."

"The responsibility of the scholar is great, and the imperial court should treat him well......"

A while ago, Emperor Zhu made a move with "delay". It has already caused many ministers in the palace to lose a fortune. Unexpectedly, the work of clearing Tian Fu had not officially begun, and Emperor Zhu made a fuss about the issue of "long price" and "short price" again. Go on like this. The gentry of the world are going to drink the northwest wind!

Zhu Jishi snorted coldly, his eyes swept in the main hall with a heavy gaze, and suddenly no one dared to speak. Emperor Zhu is the founding emperor no matter what he says, and his throne was obtained from the sea of corpses and blood, although he is usually kind, but no one thinks that this emperor is easy to deceive.

"Isn't it kind to the gentry of the world? It has always been said that those who have won the official examination from the imperial examination have at least to raise the fame of others, and it is easier to get an official to have the fame of the Jinshi. And the Jinshi people, on average, are only 100 people a year! Now I can be an official if I am a showman, and there are more than 160,000 officials in the eight southeastern provinces alone, and there are more than 20,000 officials in an average province, which is almost the same as the civil officials in the whole country during the Manchu Qing Dynasty. It is ten times easier for those scholars to get officials from me than from Daoguang! Isn't that thick? ”

Emperor Zhu raised his voice and said, "Isn't the land I levied in the eight southeastern provinces used to support these gentry and officials? Moreover, the land endowment alone is not enough to support them, and a lot of commercial taxes have to be posted. I am truly with the scholars, but what are they doing? A little bit of land is a 'slowdown' and a 'short price', probably I can't wait to pay nothing, right? ”

This is really not good, but no one wants to touch Emperor Zhu's dragon power, so they all lowered their heads and pretended not to hear. Anyway, most of these Ming officials in the palace have listened to the investment advice of the Ming emperor and the richest man in the world, and have transferred some industries from rural farmland to big city land. Now why bother to stand up for irrelevant people?

Seeing that everyone was silent, Zhu Jishi said in a deep voice: "This time, the entire eight provinces of Tianfu, I want to finish my work in one battle, not only to put an end to the bad rule of 'slowing down', but also to get rid of the absurd rules of 'long price' and 'short price'. In the future, regardless of the gentry, the land paid should be standardized, without any length! I use 160,000 officials, can't I even do such a trivial thing? From now on, all Ming officials are required to report to the yamen where they are located the fields in their names, their parents, their wives and concubines, and their children and grandchildren, so that they can be randomly inspected by the Supervision Yuan and local public bureaus, and accept the supervision of newspapers and public opinion. If there is any false report and failure to pay the full amount of the due tax in time, he will be dismissed immediately, take away his fame, and never use it! ”

What is this? Declaration of Assets!? In the main hall, a bunch of high-ranking officials of the Ming Dynasty looked at each other. Declaring land property is not a joke, who doesn't know the truth of "being an official for a thousand miles is wealth"? And after getting rich, of course, you will buy land and pass it on to your children and grandchildren. But if the official's land property must be declared for the record...... Who the hell would dare to buy tens of thousands of acres of land for their children and grandchildren? How many people are there to be officials for Emperor Zhu? Such a master is a big corrupt official without investigation!

Most of the officials under Zhu Jishi knew that the officials under Lu Dao were not very clean, and the history of China's bureaucracy was probably a history of corruption, and Emperor Zhu did not believe that because he was a traveler, his officials were not corrupt. However, Zhu Jishi is not as intolerant of corruption as Zhu Yuanzhang, he believes in the truth that "if the water is clear, there will be no fish, and if people are inspected, there will be no disciples".

Therefore, on the one hand, he tried to reduce the possibility of corruption in the system, for example, he imitated the methods of Western corporate governance to establish a set of central financial revenue and expenditure management system, and his own HSBC bank managed the financial funds from the central to the local government. The government was supervised by the local public bureaus and the central Constituent Assembly, and a system of freedom of the press (not absolutely, of course) was introduced.

Under the multiple supervision of various systems, Emperor Zhu knew that the current Ming court was of course still very corrupt! Corruption has long been a deep-rooted problem in China, and it cannot be completely eliminated by a small reform by Emperor Zhu. The effect of Zhu Jishi's reforms was to ensure that his own imperial court would not collapse financially due to corruption.

Seeing everyone's expressions, Emperor Zhu's tone softened a little: "I know that Daoqing and others have quite a lot of family property, but the family property of Qing and others together will not be more than 30% of my own, so what is there to worry about?" Are you afraid that I will be the puppet emperor of Jiaqing? I haven't done that yet, I just have to declare, no matter how much land I have, I don't care. Moreover, this registration involves rural land, urban real estate, shops, stocks, deposits, and bonds. ”

That's right, Emperor Zhu didn't want to fight corruption, he just couldn't get along with the landlord class! What country doesn't have corruption in this era? This is not a big problem, but the high enthusiasm of the gentry to invest in land is detrimental to the development of capitalism.

In Zhu Jishi's view, the reason why the gentry's enthusiasm for investing in land is completely caused by the safety and rate of return of land investment. That's right, the rate of return on land investment is definitely not as good as Emperor Zhu's four foreign banks, and even the thirteen foreign banks in Guangdong are far worse. However, the security of investing in land is very high, and the gentry will only make money when buying and selling, and they don't need to use too much brains to take care of it, and the rate of return is not too low! Of course, the main reason for the rate of return is that the fields of the gentry have been evading taxes! If the land levies, cao levies, and miscellaneous pies they paid were the same as those of ordinary people, the return on the fields would be very meager. (To be continued......)