In these days, Wu Jie's home can be said to be the most lively place in the Dong'anmen area, and according to later generations, the whole community knows that there is a new science solution here. When it comes to Wu Festival, people in this area will proudly say: Do you know Wu Shizhen Master Wu, who is the first place in this year's township test, and the first talent in Yanjing City.

In fact, Wu Jie's ancestral home is Sichuan, born in Nanjing, whether it is his living habits or speech and demeanor, he has the temperament of a southern scholar. But he transferred his household registration to Shuntian Mansion, and the neighbors couldn't manage so much, and in their hearts they already regarded him as the lord of the Nine Cities.

When his name is mentioned, there will be a pride in the roots of the imperial city.

Invisibly, Wu Jie is in this area, but it is a bit like the taste of entertainment stars in later generations.

In fact, not only Yanjing, but also other places, as long as there is a Xie Yuan, it is an object that makes everyone's face shine and is enthusiastically pursued. This craze will continue until the next township test, until another solution appears.

Although it has entered winter these days, it can be seen that the sun is big, but it is hot. At noon, there were a few old and young masters holding purple clay pots and grinding their teeth in the sun on the side of the street.

"I heard that this master who can lift people is a man who can lift people, but they are all Wenqu stars in the sky. At the beginning, when this Wu Shizhen first moved here, I felt that he was extraordinary, and I knew that this was a character. ”

"Boss, when people first bought a yard, didn't you still grind your teeth in the back, saying that this family doesn't know anything, and when you first arrive, you are very arrogant, and you don't know how to set a table and invite the neighbors to drink a few cups. I think that if you hadn't taken into account that this house was bought from Beiya, you would have been uncomfortable looking for someone long ago. ”

A few idlers next to him also laughed.

Someone else joked: "Boss, don't you watch the eldest sister of the moth be born with water and go to climb the wall in the middle of the night." As a result, he was splashed with a basin of footwater, not to mention, and was punched down by Lao Lian, lay on the street for half an hour, and went home. What else do you say, Master Wu is not a mortal, he is clearly coaxing us. ”

Everyone laughed louder when they thought of his embarrassment.

The man named Lao Qi scratched his head embarrassedly, took a breath of cold air and said, "You don't know, what a punch, that's a finger." Lao Lian didn't know what kind of magic he could do, but when he saw me pulling on the wall, he suddenly poked a finger under my armpit. It doesn't hurt, but I can't catch my breath, and my whole body is so soft that I can't get it. When I got home, I lay down for several days to recover. However, it was not in vain to pick up the wall that night, but I saw something unusual. ”

Everyone waved their hands again and again: "It won't be to see Sister Mozi change clothes, don't say it, with her temper, wait for the third child to find it, we don't know how to die." ”

The old man shook his head again and again and spat out: "What's more, don't hurt me, I want to live for two more years." In other words, I was lying on the wall and saw Master Wu reading. This read, my mother, that's really true. But when I saw the golden light shining in the house, there were flowers falling from the sky, and there were celestial maidens dancing. My eyes were opened, and then I realized that this master is a Wenqu star, and he is no longer a mortal. ”

He said it solemnly, and the others listened dumbfounded. Du Tu said: "Sure enough, a few days ago, when Master Wu invited everyone to drink, he personally toasted me with a glass of wine." What a blessing we are! ”

When everyone was talking about foaming at the mouth, they heard someone next to them "Poof! A laugh burst out: "When did this Wu Shizhen become so good, and he didn't practice immortal arts?" However, this Lian Lao San can actually point a person out of breath with one finger, and his martial arts are much stronger than before, so he has to compete with him again. ”

Hearing this ridicule, the old man and the others turned their heads, only to see an old man with a bare chin standing in front of them with a smile.

Everyone was idler, grinding their skin and rubbing itchy, for fear that they wouldn't find the excitement, and they suddenly became noisy.

Someone shouted loudly in the courtyard of Wu Jie: "Lian Laosan, Lian Laosan, your enemy has come to the door, come out quickly." ”

Lian Laosan heard a commotion outside, so he pushed the door and walked out, but saw Old Eunuch Huang standing in the crowd calmly. He knew that this old man had a special identity, so he hurriedly greeted him: "Huang Gong said how can I come here today, the old man happened to be writing an article in the study, and the villain will lead you over." ”

Huang Jin nodded: "Wu Shizhen is diligent, and what the old man told him has not been delayed." ”

When I entered the bookstore, I saw Wu Jie carrying a pencil and writing something on the paper, and saw Huang Jin, Wu Jie: "Don't rush, this manuscript will be ready soon, I am revising it now." In addition to this article, a new chapter of "The Stone Record" has been written, you will wait next to it first. ”

Huang Jin: "Okay, just wait, Daojun is already impatient." I'll see how well you wrote this article first," he sat next to him and picked up the draft written by Wu Jie and read it slowly.

When I read it, I was taken aback in my heart, this thing is too related, if I really hand it over, I don't know what the Lord will think, maybe it really has to be decided by the cabinet and the celebrant together.

This Wu Festival, if you don't get it, you won't get it, and you will make a big one as soon as you get it.

Wu Jie is indeed a little busy these days, in addition to entertaining neighbors, he also has to receive visitors in the same year, and he has made several literary meetings with the people of the same period, which can be regarded as the initial establishment of contacts in the future officialdom.

Finally, I waited for this side to stop, and in a few days, I had to participate in the Luming Banquet, and then I had to go to Lu Mansion to thank Shien.

is so busy that even Lu Chang can't take care of it.

Fortunately, Lu Fatzi brought a letter and said that as soon as his fever subsided, the people were completely cured. It's just that I can't get meat anymore, I'm a little depressed, and I see Azure Vegetable Tofu, like a monk.

As for the situation of the Lu family, it seems that there is no change in him winning this second place. His father had never been to the yard, and he didn't know what his attitude was towards him.

However, Grandpa sent someone to send a lot of commonly used utensils, which made Mrs. Guan very happy.

It is estimated that grandpa will arrange a way out for him, it is better to be released as an official, and he will not participate in the Jinshi department, and it is estimated that he will not be able to pass the exam even if he goes to the exam.

Everything, wait for the deer feast.

Wu Jie was relieved to hear that the dead fat man was fine.

He has been thinking about this article for several days, and the name of the article is "Jiangnan Suppression of Kou Military Salary Collection Interim Article Chen Book". The Wako Rebellion began in the Yuan Dynasty and began with the looting of Goryeo, and then gradually spread to the Gangnam region. In the second year of Jiajing, the Ningbo Rebellion broke out, and from that time on, the Japanese pirates colluded with the Ming pirates and began to carry out large-scale military activities in the Jiangnan region.

And the Ming Dynasty's guard system has been completely eroded by now, and it is powerless to resist at all. In view of the fact that the Japanese forces were already large enough to attack cities and plunder land, the imperial court had no choice but to send a large army to conquer and suppress them.

Up to now, it has been more than 30 years since the Japanese rebellion, and military spending has also risen geometrically from the small knocks and small fights at the beginning to the confrontation between thousands of troops and horses on the battlefield today.

Every year, Hu Zongxian will take out five million taels of silver from the pocket of the household, and Yan Song will deliberately increase the amount of three million in order to support his proud protégé.

It's a pity that the total annual financial income of the entire Ming Dynasty is only about 4 million, and the military expenditure is 8 million, plus other beginnings, there will be a deficit of 7 or 8 million taels every year.

It can be said that the treasury of the entire Ming Dynasty was emptied by this battle. In order to make money, in order to make the entire Ming Dynasty political axe run smoothly, Emperor Jiajing also thought of countless ways to make money. But because the Ming Dynasty did not pay attention to the commercial tax at all, or the vision was only limited to the agricultural tax, if you want to find other ways to make money, it is nothing more than to levy it. As a result, the small folk yeoman farmers continued to go bankrupt, and this is why there is a saying of "Jiajing and Jiajing, every family is clean".

It's not that the emperor doesn't know that sooner or later there will be chaos if this continues, but in order to fight this war, he has to grit his teeth and persevere.

According to Wu Jie's knowledge from real history, the central government in the last years of Jiajing had completely bankrupted, and if the old routine continued, the country would be out of control. Therefore, after the death of Jiajing, Emperor Longqing, who succeeded to the throne, had no choice but to vigorously implement Zhang Juzheng's whip method and adopt the silver standard, which allowed the treasury to slowly have a surplus. It can be said that Zhang Juzheng's reforms allowed the Ming Dynasty to continue for nearly sixty years.

Zhang Juzheng's reform requires a top-down iron bowl policy, and the movement is too big, and it is not something that the current Wu Jie can control, and he also feels that there is no need to go deeper into this matter.

At present, it is imperative to gather enough military salaries as soon as possible to end the war against the Japanese, and this is not impossible.

Since there is no way to think of any way to pay for the agricultural tax, and with the further annexation of land, this tax will shrink, why not use some brains from the commercial tax, so that the Ming Dynasty political axe can realize that the big cake of commerce can come faster and more than agriculture. As long as the benefits are seen, with a little guidance, commerce will further develop and the germ of capitalism will grow and flourish.

Capitalism will be the mainstream of the world in the next 400 years!

As a small lifter, if you follow the normal eunuch path, you must first become a Jinshi, and then you have to do five to six years of editing in the Hanlin Academy. After the internship is completed, it will be sent to the local government to do official inspection. Only when he has made political achievements can he return to Beijing to listen to it. When they get into the cabinet, they are all seventy or eighty.

This is still the premise that everything is going well, Emperor Jiajing will die in four years, and when the time comes, the new monarch will be replaced, and people will definitely use their own team when they dived. At that time, Zhang Juzheng, Gao Gong, and Li Chunfang will have a large number of newcomers who will be high-spirited, and these Jinshi who have been in Jiajing for 26 years are the best figures of this era, and they are much more clever than Wu Jie in terms of talent and political skills.

At that time, I'm afraid that there will be nothing to do with Wu Jie.

That being the case, Wu Jie felt that he had just taken the lead in showing his economic talent in front of the world.

Time waits for me.

He also has this confidence, this idea, if it comes to the understanding of the beast of capital, no one has a deeper understanding than him, although he has not studied economics and trade seriously. But for the sake of this article, he turned out the economic history of the Ming Dynasty and read it through, and he had already figured out the economic operation rules of this world in his heart.

Isn't it just to collect a total of millions of military salaries for the front-line army in the short term? This matter is also simple, with the wealth of Jiangnan, you only need to use your brain a little.

Hu Zongxian held the military and political power of the five southern provinces, and the total economic output of the five southern provinces accounted for more than half of the entire Ming Dynasty.

As long as the military is allowed to set up its own card to collect commercial taxes, let alone 1 million, 10 million can be received in a year.

That's right, this is the centigold system in the last years of the Qing Dynasty.

The system began in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, when the Qing Dynasty did not care much about commercial taxes and felt that it would not be able to get a lot of money. Like the feudal dynasties of previous dynasties, the ruler's gaze was still limited by the field endowment.

But when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was in turmoil, the place was eroded, the rich Jiangnan region fell into the hands of the enemy, and the country's financial resources were cut off. If it is increasing the land endowment, I am afraid that the people will not be able to bear the suffering, and the thieves will cause more rebellion.

And the state could not afford to pay the military salaries for the bandits, so the surname Suo asked the army to set up checkpoints in various places to collect money.

At first, it was only 1 per 100, and then gradually increased to 20 per 100 as the war continued. That is, relying on Li Jin, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and others were able to defeat and fight again and again, and completely exterminated the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a behemoth composed of cultists.

Since the Green Forest and the Eight Banners withdrew from the battlefield, the entire war was basically covered by the Hunan army and the Huai army. From beginning to end, in this protracted battle, the central government did not spend a penny.

It is undeniable that it was from that time that the main fiscal revenue of the Qing government axe had been transformed from the traditional agricultural tax to the livelihood tax. It was also because of the knowledge of the benefits of industry and commerce that this was the beginning of the later Westernization Movement and national capital.

In a sense, the centigold system still has a certain progressive significance.

Of course, there are also many troubles.

However, it is something that Wu Jie should be concerned about, and the immediate task is to exterminate the Japanese Kou, stabilize his position in the eyes of the emperor, and win himself a reputation as a capable talent.

Wu Jie stopped his pen and looked at the yard, the moth was drying the freshly washed clothes, and even the third daughter's daughter was peeling a bundle of green onions early in the morning, and after Lian Guizhi took the medicine prescribed by Li Shizhen, his face became ruddy, and the whole person became bright.

The sun shone down from the sky and fell on the two women, and a flock of pigeons flew through the air, sounding a melodious pigeon whistle. It's an ordinary morning, and everything seems quiet and relaxed.

This is an ordinary day in Jiajing's thirtieth year.

A.D. 1562.

Suddenly, Wu Jie thought that maybe it wouldn't take a year or two for him to save Miss Tang. When the time comes, it's time to marry her. Perhaps, after a year of marriage, they will have their own children.

Moth should also find time to collect the house, she will also have children.

Now it is 1562 AD, and the Ming Dynasty will fall in 1644, that is to say, there will be more than 70 years before the world is in chaos, and there will be a sea of corpses and blood.

I am only seventeen years old today, and if I am lucky, it is possible to live to be ten years old. But in any case, my children and grandchildren will surely experience those violent turbulent years.

Ming's death, died of financial collapse.

Perhaps, something can change slowly from now on.

The centigold system is viable, and even if there are troubles, it is better than doing nothing.

As soon as he thought of the matter of receiving the moth, Wu Jie smiled and said in his heart: It's early, wait another year, and when the little girl is one year older, you have to rescue Tang Mi first.

Seeing that Wu Jie stopped writing, Huang Jin took the rest of the manuscript and read it for a long time: "Shizhen, say something unpleasant." As soon as this Chen is on it, Long Live Lord is afraid that he will be allowed. He's ...... now."

let out a long sigh, and said: "The so-called rush to the doctor is a cup of poisonous wine, and you have to drink it." As soon as you open this proposal, I am afraid that in the future, if there is a war in the country, it will be handled accordingly. Long live the Lord, that is a person who can't see money in his eyes, and if he wants to make an idea from him, he will undoubtedly seek the skin of the tiger. However, there is a possibility that the local governor will sit down. Come to think of it, this discussion is very important, and the cabinet and the celebrant will meet for a while. In my opinion, Yan Song will make a comeback, after all, he has always presided over the government affairs of the five southern provinces. As for Xu Gelao, Gao Gong, and Zhang Juzheng, I am afraid that they will vigorously oppose it, which will not be conducive to your entry into the square in the future! ”

This has already been said very deeply, Wu Jie only said: "I just wrote a statement according to His Majesty's will, as for whether it can be done, it is not a long live Qiangang, it is too early to say this." Perhaps, as soon as you hand it in, you will directly reject it! ”

Huang Jin just smiled bitterly.

The two talked for a long time, and then Eunuch Huang accepted the note, saying that he was going to forward it to Emperor Jiajing: "Shizhen, it is estimated that as soon as you hand in this article, you will enter the Xiyuan edict, and wait for the Luming banquet to think carefully about what to say, what to say and what not to say." ”

"Thank you Huang Gong for mentioning it."

"That's right." Just as he was about to go out, Huang Jin suddenly stopped and looked at Wu Jie with a smile: "Since ancient times, talented people have been merry, but if you cause trouble in this kind of thing, it is not worth it, you should be a king." ”

Wu Jie was a little confused: "I can't understand what Huang Gong said, Wu Jie never goes in and out of Flower Street Willow Lane, and he never touches that thing." ”

Speaking of which, after Wu Jie came to the Ming Dynasty, he never entered the so-called Qinglou Jiyuan or anything. It's not that he doesn't want to or cares about his name, in fact, he is still very curious and yearning for the ancient entertainment industry. It's just that, as far as he knows, syphilis was introduced to China from the West in this era, and with the medical level of the Ming Dynasty at that time, this thing was an incurable diagnosis. If you accidentally get infected, if you can't wear it back to modern society, isn't it dead?

Huang Jin smiled: "Shizhen, I heard that you have made a private agreement with Lu Gong's granddaughter for life." Congratulations, congratulations! ”

Wu Jie was taken aback: "This is a rumor. ”

Huang Jin smiled even more happily: "This matter has been spread all over Yanjing, the Lu family hates you to the bone now, and people are looking for trouble with you!" Lu Gong's face, even the long live lord has to give. You have committed the affair yourself, and you will find a way to solve it yourself. However, there is only one, you can't marry a woman from the Lu family, otherwise there will be big trouble in the future. ”

(To be continued)