Song Nan suddenly understood a question that he had thought about many times, obviously the land of the Ming Dynasty was precious, there were many people and little land, why the people were still stuck in cultivating the land, and did not find a way to get rich in business, I am afraid that one of the reasons is that this strict regional household registration system restricts their freedom and makes it difficult to go out to do business freely.

The famous merchant gangs of this dynasty are all confined to the local area and rarely carry out different activities. The operation of the land, strict zhòng limits the scale and influence of the business; In other words, even if some of the big businessmen have accumulated huge wealth, these gold and silver treasures are rarely used for other purposes, except for the purchase of properties in their home countries. land, drive the economy, so that the entire Ming Dynasty will benefit.

Song Nan couldn't answer the questions raised by the businessmen, Song Nan had to entertain them and send them out of the house, Song Nan understood that if this problem could not be solved, then the real estate development of this white paper workshop would be a failure, and he and Zhu Fengtong's millions of taels of silver would be lost.

After the guests left, Zhu Fengtong looked at Song Nan quietly and said, "I should have reminded you of this matter, but I thought you must have a countermeasure, so I didn't say it; You don't have to be in a hurry, maybe there will be a solution; The owners of the merchant gang left in three days, and before that, they would see if there was any turnaround. Even if it can't be solved, it's just a loss of money, so buy a lesson. ”

Song Nan shook his head and said: "That's not possible, how can I let those guys see jokes, they forbid local merchants to buy my shop, isn't it just to see me in a predicament?" Besides, this matter seems to be only related to my interests, but in fact, it is a restriction on the entire Ming Dynasty's merchants, originally I didn't want to be more involved in the affairs of the imperial court, but this time I have to go into the palace to talk to the emperor about this matter. ”

Zhu Fengtong said: "What are you going to do?" ”

Song Nan said in a deep voice: "Breaking this unreasonable rule is beneficial to both public and private. ”

Zhu Fengtong said in surprise: "How can this be done?" ”

Song Nan smiled and said: "Don't worry, it's man-made, please go and keep the owners for a few days, take them to Beijing City, and leave the rest to me." ”

……

On the morning of the fourteenth day of the first month, the drowsy Zhengde squinted and listened to a recital as if he was asleep, the emperor was not in good spirits, and many ministers in the palace were also standing and dozing off.

Starting from the seventh day of the first month, the content of the court meeting for several consecutive days is the summary of the work of the various yamen and departments of the inner and outer courts, which is almost the practice of the Zhengde Dynasty, and the court meeting of these days from the year to the Shangyuan Festival is like last year's work report, so the court meeting of these days is both boring and lengthy, which makes people unable to lift their spirits.

Finally, the officials of the six ministries have finished their discussions, and many officials who have nothing to do with themselves have already fallen asleep, waiting for the emperor to speak and retreat. Virtue is also beauty. The beauty yawned, lazily owes a bow, and plans to get up and retreat from the court, at this time, Song Nan walked out of the ranks of the ministers and came to the stairs to salute.

"Song Nan, do you have a recital?" Zhengde asked, rubbing his dry eyes.

Song Nan said: "Start playing the emperor, and the minister has a book." ”

"Oh, let's talk about it." Zhengde sat back on the dragon chair, boredly fiddling with a mutton fat longan gem inlaid in the armrest.

"Your Majesty, just now the minister listened to the report of last year's fiscal and tax revenue reported by the Ministry of Households, and last year, my Ming Dynasty's fiscal and tax revenue was 17 million taels, nearly 4 million taels more than the previous year, which shows that the cabinet's policy is very effective."

"Then you still have to say? Could it be that Yang Shoufu will still do useless things? Someone muttered.

Song Nan ignored the ridicule and continued: "However, even if the fiscal and tax growth is considerable, the expenditure of the imperial court last year was as high as 23 million taels, and the fiscal and tax deficit was as high as 6 million taels, and these 6 million taels all came from the treasury balance, plus the deficit of silver taels in previous years, I am afraid that the treasury has been empty; It's not a problem that we always eat like this. ”

The ministers were in an uproar, Song Nan said that wouldn't this make the emperor unhappy? It is true that in the past few years, he has been eating the old treasury book saved by the emperor every year, but everyone only talks about these things in their hearts, and if they are brought up so directly, Song Nan doesn't know if he is stupid.

Zhengde licked his lips and said, "Song Nan, I know what you said that the court is already trying its best to solve this matter, haven't you also seen it?" The cabinet introduced various policies to increase tax revenue, and last year it had an additional revenue of 6 million, and in time, it will definitely make up for the shortfall. ”

Song Nan said in a deep voice: "Your Majesty, these things are not the duties of the ministers, but as the ministers of the Ming Dynasty, participating in politics and discussing politics is also a matter of responsibility. This growth was insufficient to compensate for the consumption, and as far as the minister knew, the reconstruction and relief of the Shandong prefectures alone would be enough to consume all the fiscal and tax revenues for the next two years, and in the long run, the treasury would be depleted, and if there was a war, it would be extremely bad. ”

Everyone understands what Song Nan said, the treasury has no reserves, and if Yin eats grain, if the border town of Tatars attacks or there is another big uprising like Liu Liu and Liu Qi in the territory, the imperial court will send troops to suppress the war without money and grain, which is a very terrible thing.

However, Song Nan's worries are not prescient, everyone in the court knows this, but they can't solve this matter, what can they do?

Zhengde was a little irritable, he didn't want to hear these words, Song Nan's words were all clichés, and the ministers had discussed this matter no less than 100 times in the past year, but what could Zhengde do? The money that should be spent still has to be spent, and the things that should be given to help and rebuild still need to be done, otherwise the people's instability will cause a vicious circle.

Last year, homeless people in the Weishan Lake area of Shandong Province had already gathered into bandits, and these were all warnings. If someone else said these words, Zhengde would have already reprimanded him with a black face, but when Song Nan said it, Zhengde just didn't reply, in fact, he didn't know how to answer.

"Lord Song, what you said, the officials of the court are well aware of this, but there is no need for Lord Song to repeat it; The outer court has already actively formulated a countermeasure, and if there should be a change in a few years, it is impossible to rush it. Yang Tinghe faintly felt that Song Nan said these words as a disguised accusation against the cabinet, so he came out of the ranks.

Song Nan said: "The cabinet's policy of vigorously cultivating land and pioneering land has indeed achieved great results, but I always feel that the results are slower, and we should think of more ways." ”

Fei Hong, a university scholar, finally couldn't help but sneer: "Could it be that Lord Song has some earth-shattering plan?" I'd like to hear it. ”

Someone among the civil officials whispered: "Does Lord Song want to enter the cabinet?" Nosy to the extreme. ”

"It's not impossible for him to enter the cabinet, but he has to go through the imperial examination to high school first."

There was a snickering among the officials, no matter how important Song Nan's status is now, the civil officials always listen to him as a joke about his failure to pass the imperial examination, and at the party, this is also one of the most classic jokes about Song Nan.

Song Nan heard it in his ears, but a smile appeared on his face: "Scholar Fei, if you are willing to listen, I don't care about putting forward my ideas; As a courtier of the Ming Dynasty, everyone actually has the right to put forward a policy for the country, but not only the outer court. As the saying goes: three stinkers beat Zhuge Liang, maybe we laymen can also have good ideas. ”

Fei Hong smiled and said, "I want to ask Lord Song for a clever plan." ”

Song Nan bowed his hand to Zhengde and said: "Your Majesty, the minister does have some ideas, which may be beneficial to the increase of the court's finances and taxes, can the minister speak freely?" ”

Zhengde was also interested, holding his cheeks and saying, "Accurate." ”

Song Nan thanked him, turned to the ministers and said, "My lords, who can tell me, where did my Ming Dynasty's finance and taxes come from?" ”

He Jian, the head of the household, said in a deep voice: "Lord Song, do you still need to ask?" The tax is taken from the people, the tax of the acre, the tax of the Ding household, the tax of the city trade, etc., if Lord Song is interested, you can take the time to come to my household department, and the official can order someone to talk to Lord Song for three days and three nights. ”

The officials laughed, Song Nan didn't care, and said with a straight face: "Lord He is like a few treasures, I'm afraid I really need to talk about three days and three nights, but in my opinion, the main taxes of the imperial court are nothing more than three ways, one is agriculture, the second is labor, and the third is business. These three words of agriculture and industry can summarize all the tax channels in the population, yes and no? ”

He Jian opened his mouth and nodded: "It's not bad, Lord Song's summary is accurate." ”

Song Nan said: "Now that I have a Ming tax, how much share of the tax of Nongsang Tianding occupies, may Lord He say a rough idea?" ”

He Jian said: "About seventy percent." ”

Song Nan nodded and said, "What is the tax on salt tea in the mine?" ”

He Jian said: "About two percent." ”

Song Nan said: "However, the commercial trade tax is also occupied, and this is the problem." ”

Fei Hong frowned and asked, "What does Lord Song want to say?" ”

Song Nan said: "Don't worry, listen to me slowly; My Ming Dynasty tax is relied on is the agricultural and mulberry tax, accounting for seventy percent of the annual income, the industrial and commercial industries combined is less than half of it, and my Ming Dynasty can cultivate acres of acres but not much, the output is not large, the many labor is limited to the acres of land, the income is also very limited. It's good to go one step further, but the amount of effort is huge, so why not start with the easy business industry? ”

Yang Tinghe said lightly: "Lord Song, the truth is not as simple as you think, it is not that you can start if you want to, although the affairs of industry and mining are all profitable, but iron, copper, gold, silverstone, carbon, fire, oil, salt wells and other God-given minerals are not everywhere, it is not just a casual talk." ”

Song Nan said: "What I said is that although there are resource limitations on these, such as a big gold mine under our feet, it is in vain that we can't see it and can't find it, but these things can be tried, and it is not necessary to cultivate a limited number of acres of land to come faster." ”

Yang Tinghe said: "You still need to say that the outer court has a division that is looking for mines all the time, and you have already been executing it, but the result is unknown." ”

Song Nan said: "That's good, it's better to do your best than not to do it, but this is not the point I want to say, what I want to talk about is business, there is a saying I don't know if you have heard of it, it is called 'no agriculture, no stability, no business, no wealth'." More than 100 years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the matter of agriculture and mulberry has become its own scale, and it is evident that it occupies seventy percent of the imperial court's fiscal and tax revenue, and it is precisely the easiest business to implement, but it only occupies one percent of my Ming Dynasty taxes, which has to be said to be a pity. During the Tang and Song dynasties, the country was rich and the people were strong, and a large part of it relied on commercial development. If the trade in the markets in various parts of our country is prosperous, and the merchants travel all over the Ming Dynasty, it will not only increase the large tax revenue of the imperial court, but also drive changes in various places. My plan today is to ask the imperial court to vigorously encourage idle people to engage in commerce, so that the output of agriculture and mulberry will not change, and the tax revenue for business will be greatly increased, which will have an immediate effect. ”

The hall was silent, and everyone was thinking about Song Nan's words, considering the prospect that Song Nan depicted.

I heard Yang Tinghe say quietly: "I don't deny that Lord Song's idea is good, but I'm afraid it's just a fantasy." Who doesn't know that encouraging merchants to operate will bring benefits to the imperial court, from the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the Taizu Dynasty encouraged merchants; In the previous dynasty, the status of merchants was low, and even merchants were not allowed to participate in the imperial examination after that, and they were despised by others, but in my Ming Dynasty, there have never been so many restrictions. But what about the facts? My Ming Dynasty commerce is still so sluggish, this is not because the court does not encourage, I think it is probably the inherent idea of Shinong industry and commerce that makes the people reluctant to engage in business, after all, businessmen are bent on profit, and they will be discriminated against in their hearts, and no one wants to do this. ”

Song Nan laughed and said, "Does Lord Yang think so?" I don't see it that way. It is the duty of merchants to pursue profits, and if merchants do not pursue profits, where can the imperial court get taxes? I only ask, are the people willing to starve to death with the idea of despising business, or are they willing to live in a high house and live a free life? ”

Yang Tinghe frowned and said: "For some people, I'm afraid I'd rather starve to death than engage in business, but for ordinary people, I'm afraid they still choose the latter." ”

"That's it, the people are ordinary people, they don't care about their status like the adults who have read the books of the sages, they just hope to be fed and clothed, and the family can live a stable life. Besides, even among the adults here, how many of them are willing to be willing to be poor? Therefore, I don't know if the people are reluctant to do business, there must be another reason. ”

"But I don't know what the reason Lord Song said?" Yang Tinghe asked.

"In my family's words, I think the problem comes from the imperial court's household registration policy." Song Nan is colorful.