Knowing that his son had won a great victory and was promoted to the prefect of Huangzhou by the emperor himself, Shen Tingyang was dizzy.

When he returned to his residence in the capital that night, his wife and concubine came to serve, and he was still a little distraught.

"Sir, what's wrong with you? Don't scare us. His wife, Xu, asked worriedly.

"Lin Er's victory in Huangzhou, Your Majesty is overjoyed, and he has been promoted to the prefect of Huangzhou, and the edict has been taken to wait for the cabinet vote, and it will be issued after the meeting of the court the day after tomorrow."

Shen Tingyang was rubbed his chest for a while before he gasped and said,

"Set the wine! Set up eight tables out of ten! I'm going to have a banquet for my fellow households! Hmph, those guys who originally wanted to discuss marriage with my family at the beginning of the year, but later saw Lin Er go to the place where thieves were rampant to become officials, and they were busy retreating, now they regret it.

He is only in his early twenties and has become a five-grade prefect, and his future is limitless. Sure enough, heroes are born in troubled times, this is all the credit earned by licking blood with a knife, and promotion is fast. ”

Xu and several aunts and wives were also overjoyed when they heard it. Although Shen Shuren was not born to the Xu family, she is just a stepmother, but it is always good for her family to have a good income, and she is not worried about fighting for this family property.

Xu couldn't help but say: "It's really a great joy, master, you have to rest and relax these days, and leave the rest to the next person to worry about." However, you mentioned Lin Er's family affairs, shouldn't you expedite the discussion?

At the beginning, your colleagues were afraid that he was in danger and wanted to wait and see, but we don't remember villains. This time, since it is said that Huangzhou has been completely pacified and the local area has been safe, I believe that the old man of the Chaozhong Pavilion has a granddaughter, and he will not hinder the marriage with our family. ”

Xu doesn't understand national affairs, and this is the gossip that can be worried, just now I heard her husband talk about her son's marriage, which immediately made her as excited as chicken blood, as if everyone in the world can pick and choose like she sells vegetables.

Shen Tingyang was relatively calm, and he also felt that his wife was a little too rampant, so he coughed lightly:

"Don't get carried away, the five-grade prefect who has never married a wife is not without the whole world, let's do our duty, don't climb high, it's enough to climb a little high.

Speaking of this, I remembered that when Jiang Shilang interrogated me the day before yesterday, he asked if my family had a deep relationship with the family of Fang Kongzhi, the governor of Huguang, and suspected that Governor Fang and my family secretly discussed and conspired to be in-laws, otherwise Governor Fang rejected Zuo Liangyu and Yuan Jixian's complaints in order to cover up for Lin Er.

Alas, it would be nice if this thing was true, and the Tongcheng Fang family is also a famous family in the three generations of scholars and literature. At that time, Governor Fang's three younger sisters and cousins all had the name of being talented and righteous, and they were all able to keep their hearts and widows after losing their husbands.

I heard that Huang Yan's nephew had married Governor Fang's niece, that is, the daughter of his widowed cousin, and he was very peaceful. If you want to come to Governor Fang's daughter, the tutor will definitely be better.

After going to Huguang to visit Lin Er, he sent him to Jingzhou Mansion and went to Governor Fang to find out the style, saying that he was grateful for his righteousness and fairness. Lin Er is also the same year as Fang Yizhi, and with this friendship, maybe Governor Fang will consider it. ”

Xu listened to her husband's leisurely fascination, and she felt the same way at first. But later, when I heard my husband mention Governor Fang's three younger sisters and cousins, I was a little unhappy, and I was faintly jealous.

After all, these are all people of the same generation as them, and her husband's words reveal the unwillingness of "a rich businessman is not bad at money, so he wants to marry a family of literary leaders", which made her quite unhappy.

She thought for a moment and tried her best to dissuade her:

"What is wrong with women being talented and righteous? Peace and security are bliss! The three sisters and sons of the previous generation of the Fang family are all widowed, maybe the women of the Fang family are all dead! No matter what scholarly family you are, you can't marry like this! Our family still lacks the archway of chastity! ”

Shen Tingyang was a little scared by this, so he temporarily accepted this idea.

In the next few days, the Shen family feasted guests, and Shen Tingyang also received a lot of compliments from his colleagues.

Many Beijing officials also handed over olive branches again, stuffed a bunch of their daughter's birthday eight characters, Shen Tingyang returned the gift, but they did not give the letter, first left the eight characters and slowly picked them up.

On the first day of December, after the regular court meeting, the cabinet voting process was completed, and the documents for promotion were officially issued.

Shen Tingyang also repaired a letter to his son, and prepared to let his family go south in a few days, which also mentioned the matter of proposing marriage to him, and secretly attached some information describing it, which can be regarded as giving his son a little choice.

The normal marriage in the Ming Dynasty was, of course, the words of the matchmaker at the behest of the parents, and it was not the turn of the young people to make their own decisions at all.

Shen Shuren was also promoted too quickly, and his official rank was almost the same as his father's, so Shen Tingyang had to spoil him a little. Give him a range and let him pick by himself, but the "shortlisted candidate list" still needs to be checked by his parents first.

……

After finishing this matter, the time was already Layue, and Shen Tingyang thought that he could be more leisurely.

But on the second day of the lunar month, he was summoned by Chongzhen on a whim, and he also found Jiang Dejing to play the right game.

Shen Tingyang muttered in his heart, and when he arrived at the place, he realized that it was Chongzhen who thought about it carefully after he went back, and was very interested in the "Lijin Reform" he mentioned that day, and wanted to talk about it in detail.

Shen Tingyang complained slightly in his heart, knowing that the policy mentioned to him in his son's family letter was actually not very ripe to be implemented now, and it would encounter a lot of resistance and backlash, but now, he had to bite the bullet.

That day, he only took the risk of proposing it in advance in order to ask for directions and find an excuse to see the emperor, and he didn't expect to be passed by the emperor at all.

After meeting the monarch again, Chongzhen first asked a few simple words, "How much money can be obtained if this new policy is implemented."

Shen Shuren could only answer truthfully: "Your Majesty, this measure of centijin is only nominally only for the merchants of the state capital bordering the thieves or Tartars, providing escort and inventory, and it can only be levied.

If it is rashly levied as a general commercial tax, it has no basis in the law of the ancestors, and it will also be resisted by the gentry and bureaucrats in the world - the annual commercial tax of our dynasty is only much, and the reason why it cannot be increased is because many businessmen have gentry backgrounds.

However, His Majesty's previous levy of the three salaries was mainly borne by the peasants and the poor, and these people had no one to complain for them in the court, so there was little resistance to the implementation of the three salaries at the official level.

His Majesty wants to estimate how much money can be collected after the implementation of the law of centigold, and the minister only dares to limit the waterway shipping business travel in the Yangtze River basin and the northern border passes, and estimate the number-

After the implementation of centigold in these two regions, according to the number of goods in transit in previous years, a centime (1 percent) inventory fee will be charged for each passing province, which will be about ...... per year Three or four million taels. If the tax rate continues to increase, or if the officers and military sailors provide escort and the fees increase in proportion to the same price, the income can also increase several times, but the cost of military spending will also skyrocket. ”

The number that Shen Tingyang said was basically not what he thought of himself, but Shen Shuren roughly calculated it when he chatted with his family book before.

In history, it was not until the late Qing Dynasty and Zeng Guofan that they came up with this source of money to train the Hunan army and the Huai army in order to deal with the Taiping army. In the end, he did rely on this money to kill the Taiping Army.

Therefore, purely from the aspect of "not offending the peasants and ensuring that sufficient military expenses are raised to meet the needs of the peasant army", Li Jin can indeed renew the life of a dynasty, but the side effects are also obvious.

After the Qing Dynasty implemented the Li Jin, to the later stage of the counter-offensive against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the total income of the Li Jin reached more than 20 million taels a year, which was about the same as the sum of the three salaries at the end of the Ming Dynasty. It was the merchants who exploited the gold, and the peasants who exploited the three salaries, and the Qing Dynasty succeeded in continuing its life, but the Ming Dynasty did not continue it.

However, in the late Qing Dynasty, the population was already more than 300 million, three times that of the Ming Dynasty today, and it was only after the tax rate of centigold was raised many times. Now the levy of centigold, divided by one-third and then cut in half, is almost the same, so the new commercial tax in the Yangtze River basin is only three or four million taels.

After Chongzhen heard this number, he was not too happy.

After all, the salary for the levy last year was seven or eight million taels, which is equivalent to twice the centigold. Unless the tax rate is raised, there is no substitute for the three salaries.

As for the original commercial tax of the Ming Dynasty...... Several major banknotes range from tens of thousands of taels to hundreds of thousands of taels every year, and the total is less than one million, which can only be regarded as pocket money, and the Ming Dynasty does not rely on commercial taxes at all.

After thinking about it repeatedly, Chongzhen sighed: "Then let's talk about the disadvantages that may occur once the gold is implemented-let me guess, the first thing to bear the brunt of is that it will cause a lot of trouble in the south of the Yangtze River like the boycott of the mine supervisor and the tax supervisor back then?" ”

Chongzhen had seen his brother's last years, the rebellion against Wei Zhongxian's tax supervisor in Suzhou, the south, and also read the "Tombstone of Five People" written by Zhang Pu.

Although after he ascended the throne, because of the attack on Wei Zhongxian, those who resisted the tax supervisor back then were whitewashed. But after more than ten years of emperordom, he has actually been shaken many times in his heart, and many problems have been understood, and he misses the benefits of those tax supervisors and mine supervisors.

It's just that because of the emperor's face, he was kidnapped by Qingliu on the moral kidnapping of "the Son of Heaven cannot compete with the people", and he couldn't get off the stage.

However, Shen Tingyang's answer surprised him slightly:

"Your Majesty...... If it is implemented well and the scope of the pilot is properly controlled, the resistance to Lijin may be much smaller than that of the mine supervisors and tax supervisors sent during the Apocalypse. However, that will lead to other harms that have to be considered. ”

Chongzhen raised his eyebrows: "Oh? How can we make the gold less resistant? What are the other hazards? ”

Shen Tingyang gritted his teeth and picked out a few details that he had discussed with his son's family before:

"During the Apocalypse, the southern gentry resisted the mine supervisors and tax supervisors, on the one hand, those eunuchs did loot excessively and had no rules. Although it also expanded the financial resources of the imperial court, at least six or seven out of ten fell into the hands of traitors and their henchmen.

Moreover, the collection of commercial taxes has always been uniformly dispatched by the imperial court, and there was no thief rebellion in the south at that time, and the common people and gentry felt that they were subsidizing the northerners with their own silver, so they resented.

Now the situation is much more critical than during the Apocalypse, there are also thieves in the south, Lin Yangcheng is close to Anqing, Luzhou, that is already the boundary of Nanzhili, that is, the gentry of the six departments of Nanjing and the rich land of Suzhou and Hangzhou, can feel that their homes are threatened.

If His Majesty levies a new commercial tax, it can be earmarked for the purpose of encircling and suppressing the thieves in the south. And if the three salaries saved are used for the war in the north, then the resistance of the southern gentry will naturally be reduced, after all, the money is to defend their own homeland, and it is not so resistant.

However, the disadvantages of this measure are also obvious, since the Song Dynasty, the imperial court has to separate the local military and finance, to prevent the Tang Dynasty feudal town separation.

Although our dynasty has divided three envoys at the local level, and the military guards and financial power are in the hands of different feudal officials, when the war is really critical, I am afraid that there will still be strongmen who act arbitrarily. Among them, the stakes should not be careless. ”

These words were all analyzed by Shen Shuren and his father, and they were also based on his correct understanding of history-

The Qing Dynasty did not die in the peasant army after using the gold, but Li Hongzhang and Zuo Zongtang of the Zeng State Domain did not lose their tails after that, and became a mutual insurance in the southeast. In the end, the southern region formed its own sense of independence, and after 60 years of delay, the Qing Dynasty was buried.

As soon as the strategy came out, it was absolutely beneficial and harmless to the warlords who were fighting thieves in the south. In the future, there will definitely be "Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang" who protect the Ming Dynasty in Huguang.

But after the Ming Dynasty is saved, it is difficult to say whether he will listen to him Chongzhen or not.

It's just that Shen Tingyang is still so honest, he didn't hide it at all, Chongzhen can't blame him for harboring evil intentions.

"This thing...... Let's discuss it again, for now, I can only acquiesce to the Huangzhou side to continue to do it, and I will not blame if I don't praise it. As for whether Huguang can implement it, it depends on the situation next year. ”

After struggling again and again, Chongzhen finally closed his eyes painfully and temporarily chose a procrastination trick.