In the months after Liu Jin's death, although there were occasional waves inside and outside the court, they basically maintained a calm posture due to mutual fear and constraints; After Song Nan reprimanded the outer court for not doing its job properly, Yang Tinghe also realized that after more than a year of turmoil in the Ming Dynasty, the top priority was to recuperate and recuperate as soon as possible.

According to the report of the Ministry of Households, last year, due to the rebellion of Liu Liu and Liu Qi, the financial and tax revenues of the imperial court were sharply reduced, and the prefectures of Shandong, Shanxi, and Hebei suffered heavy losses.

The whole court understood that this year would be a difficult one, and a sharp drop in income meant a sharp drop in expenditure, and many of the huge projects planned by the court were unsustainable; Fortunately, after the fall of King Anhua and Liu Jin, the imperial court successively harvested more than nine million taels of stolen silver, in addition to the consumption of the army mobilized during the suppression of the rebellion in Ningxia Town and the cost of pension reconstruction after the war, there was still a balance of six million taels into the warehouse, which solved the urgent need.

However, this qiē could not make up for the trauma suffered by the Ming Dynasty in the past year or so, and the Ministry of Household estimated that the cost of completing the reconstruction of the state capitals and the relief of the people amounted to 30 million taels of silver, which was even more dumbfounded by the officials of the imperial court. That is to say, in the next year or two, even if the wind and rain are good, all the financial revenues of the Ming Dynasty will be used for reconstruction, and it will only be able to restore the situation before the turmoil of Liu Liu and Liu Qi. That catastrophe actually caused a huge regression in the economy of the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, in addition to financial worries, people of insight also understand that the psychological trauma of the people is not less than the loss of money and housing, how to make the people can cheer up from the painful memories, recuperate, and rebuild their homes is the focus of the problem, but at this time, these things are naturally ignored, and the most prominent problem in the Ming Dynasty today is one word: poverty! How to increase fiscal revenue and let the imperial court have money to do things has become the top priority of the discussion of civil and military officials.

Yang Tinghe led the cabinet of six ministers and other officials can not be said to be careless, but it seems that there is no way to start, the best shortcut to increase taxes is to increase the tax rate of various taxes in the imperial court, but this is undoubtedly inappropriate, the Ming Dynasty's taxation has always adhered to the principle of light and light, rashly doing so, harsh taxes will lead to the occurrence of another turmoil, Liu Jin's land policy is a lesson from the past.

After several court discussions, officials reached a consensus from top to bottom that the restoration of national strength should be carried out slowly, and not only should taxes not be increased, but on the contrary, some symbolic reductions and reductions should be made for the sake of people's livelihood. Shandong, Shanxi, Ningxia and other places that have experienced war and chaos are also exempted from taxes to encourage these places to quickly recover.

In order to increase the overall income, the foreign court formulated policies to encourage the cultivation of sericulture and other policies, and at the same time, the Ministry of Industry stopped some of the major projects that cost a lot and used the limited financial resources to build and repair the farmland and water conservancy in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, not only to ensure the drought prevention and irrigation problems of the fields and acres in various places, but also to prevent the flooding of the big rivers, and at this time it absolutely could not withstand the occurrence of natural and man-made disasters.

Song Nan was very happy to see that the outer court finally started to do business, just like what he and Li Dongyang said in their conversation that day, if people don't offend me, I won't offend people, as long as the outer court doesn't toss around, he won't be idle and bored to provoke them.

But for the various measures of the outer court, Song Nan is disdainful, reclamation of land to encourage agriculture and mulberry to build water conservancy These things are good things, but this is not the Qin, Han, Song and Tang dynasties, nor the period of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, history has come to this day, relying on these agricultural means to make the Ming Dynasty how rich, it is unlikely.

As far as the current situation of the Ming Dynasty is concerned, the acres of land in the Ming Dynasty are not many, and the agricultural mulberry tea and salt are not underdeveloped, but the problem is that the most fertile land in the Ming Dynasty, the best tea mountain mulberry orchard, and the highest quality salt field mines are all in the hands of a few people; In the past 100 years since the founding of the country, there have been thousands of nobles and nobles, and the wealth in the hands of these people is greater than the wealth owned by all the people of the Ming Dynasty.

Even with these constraints, Song Nan still felt that there was a way to make the Ming Dynasty rich, and in an era of embryonic capitalism, the best shortcut out of poverty was to abandon the policy of enriching the country based on agriculture and establish a Ming Dynasty with developed commerce. However, in a country where the people are tied to the land, the government needs to approve the road guide to travel, and the Ming Dynasty needs to go to the official yamen to report to the Ming Dynasty to enter the territory of a certain state capital, and it is very difficult to develop commerce. Not to mention the stubborn notions of the low status of businessmen that are ingrained in people's hearts and minds.

Song Nan took these considerations to heart, and he would not bring them up because he didn't want to be the target of public criticism. Before he could speak out freely, even if Liu Jin was in power at the beginning, he was still careful not to touch the interests of the nobles when he came up with the so-called new land policy, because it would cause a catastrophe.

Song Nan will not say any nonsense about restricting the nobles from enclosing land and collecting money, etc., and he will not say anything useless such as no business and no wealth, he has his own plans, within the scope of his ability, he wants to set an example, which is also something he has always wanted to do.

In July, the fire was steaming in the capital, and there were hardly a few people on the street; The white paper workshop in the southwest corner of the outer city was even more empty, and even the people who lived here could not bear the rancid and pungent smell of running all over the ground in such weather, and they tried their best to avoid the hot and smelly noon.

But there were more than a dozen figures walking in the scorching sun, on a foul-smelling sewage street full of messy water, they entered from Xuannanfang and passed through the street in You'anmen to enter the white paper workshop, all the way along the only street in the white paper square to the west and then to the north, until they reached the deserted grave forest in the north, where there was no way to go, and then they sat down to drink water and rest in the shade of a forest.

Li Daniu, who had a dark face, took away the mask he was holding next to his mouth, took a heavy breath, spat at the foam, handed the kettle on his waist to Song Nan who was sitting on the side, and said, "Brother, do you really plan to build a house and shop here?" This place is simply not a place for people, how can it have a future? ”

Song Nan took a sip of water, wiped the sweat on his face and said, "Yes, otherwise what are we doing here?" ”

"Brother, I still have to remind you, this is not a joke, this white paper workshop is a piece of psoriasis, others are not even willing to walk in, and the people living in it are all poor people, it can be said that it is worthless, is it a bit risky to do this."

Song Nan smiled and said, "What do you know? Every inch of land within the walls of the capital is gold, and the white paper workshop is definitely a priceless treasure, if it weren't for the dirty mess here, how would it be my turn to think? ”

Li Da Niu smacked his lips and said: "Okay, I can't guess what my brother is thinking, but what my brother wants to do is fully supported; It's just that this matter is too big, I'm afraid it's not easy to do, not to mention anything else, silver is a big problem, and whether the court allows it is also a problem. ”

Song Nan nodded slightly: "It's really difficult, but I believe in my own vision, maybe I will become the richest man in the Ming Dynasty in a few years, the current problem is the problem of funds and qualifications, the problem of money is not considered for the time being, I need to talk to the emperor about this matter first, if the emperor can agree, the capital under the Ministry of Industry will not dare to make it difficult after the completion of the repair, we will not take advantage of the imperial court, the taxation of the tax, the procedures that should be done have been done, and it is okay not to give people the truth." ”

Li Daniu muttered: "It's strange if the imperial court doesn't agree, someone spends their own money to renovate the dung-like place of the white paper mill, and the imperial court can still get taxes without spending a penny, it's really hell if you don't agree." ”

Song Nan got up and patted the grass on his buttocks and said, "Yes, I don't think it will be too difficult, I hope no one will get in the way." ”

A few days later, a small news circulated in the court that the bored Song Marquis actually wanted to buy the filthy land of the white paper workshop, saying that he wanted to transform the white paper workshop. The civil and military officials couldn't help but snicker while being stunned, is this Song Nan stupid, is that place a place for people to stay? Large and small paper mills are all over it, the foul-smelling sewage produced by papermaking flows everywhere, flies, mosquitoes and mice are everywhere, and the people who live there are some people and homeless people who have eaten the last meal, Song Nan actually wants to spend money to buy the land there, it is really crazy.

The outside world is boiling, but Song Nan is in a kind of excitement, he is a predator of the real estate company in later generations, and he doesn't know how many miracles he has created through his hands, this time it can be regarded as a familiar road; Although there are similarities and differences between ancient and modern, Song Nan is still familiar with some basic operating methods and steps.

After running between Zhengde and the relevant yamen for more than ten days, it was finally finalized, but although Zhengde agreed to Song Nan's request, he was worried that this matter would attract the opposition of the ministers, the reason is very simple, the law of the Ming Dynasty stipulates that private individuals cannot hoard a large number of homestead land, otherwise they will be punished.

But Song Nan was full of confidence, he knew that for the court officials, this was one thing they couldn't ask for, the white paper workshop had become a huge psoriasis in the capital, and some people even built a city wall to separate it from the outer city of the capital.

His reason is very good, it is to buy it in order to improve the dirty situation there, the court can get a large amount of silver for emergencies, and in the future, it will also be taxed to the household tax department, if the officials still want to oppose this, it is really unreasonable.

In fact, the outer court had no intention of objecting at all, although I didn't know what Song Nan was spending all this money for, and what he bought it for, but no matter what, could Song Nan still make the white paper workshop worse than before? In that case, there is no need for everyone to come forward, and the emperor will also reprimand Song Nan.

Of course, the more they didn't understand why Song Nan did this, the more careful Yang Tinghe became, and he didn't intend to make concessions on the price of land, and proposed to take the land price of Xuannanfang as a reference, six taels of silver per mu of land, and not a word less. Everyone thought that Song Nan would be annoyed, but Song Nan gladly accepted the price, which made the officials secretly snicker for many days.