Hearing Lao Zhu's question, which seemed to come from the depths of his soul, Chongzhen couldn't help but be stunned, and subconsciously asked, "Yes, where does the money go?" ”

“……”

Lao Zhu took a deep breath, resisted the urge to beat the idiot in front of him to death, and said word by word: "The court has no money, and the people have no money. ”

"Then this money can only be in the hands of those powerful clans and court officials."

"The court collects taxes, and they collect three cents from the bottom, and they collect ten points from the people."

"And in this ten, seven points belong to them, and the remaining three points will not fall into the hands of the court until they have shared the profits."

"This very tax paid by the people, when it really falls into the hands of the imperial court, it would be good to have a point!"

Lao Zhu couldn't be more clear about the greed and routines of these officials and families, so he continued to speak: "It's not just silver taels, but also land that they are greedy for. ”

"That's the most serious problem!"

Speaking of this, Lao Zhu simply picked up the pen, drew a circle on the paper, and simply planned to explain it to Chongzhen in detail.

"Now, this circle represents the cultivated land of the Ming Dynasty."

"Under normal circumstances, except for some people engaged in other industries who do not farm, they should be nine adults who own ten percent of the arable land."

"The tax we set at the beginning was about half to one percent, that is, ninety percent of the grain harvested went to the people, and one percent went to the imperial court."

"The people can live and work in peace and contentment by relying on the nine-cent harvest, and the imperial court can also have sufficient grain reserves by relying on that one-cent tax, and if it catches up with the disaster year, the imperial court can rely on this percent of the tax to relieve the people who have been affected by the disaster."

"In this way, the people will be rich, the court will be stable, and the world will naturally be worry-free."

"But this is only in theory, in practice because there are people who have power, such as the royal family, such as nobles and officials, who have more land even though they do not work."

When Lao Zhu said this, he completely put aside his identity as an emperor, and stood from the perspective of a bystander, analyzing the details of the Hongwu period at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty with Chongzhen.

"At this time, seventy percent of the cultivated fields in the world should be in the hands of the people, and seventy percent of the fields should be more than enough to raise the entire Ming Dynasty."

"But human nature is greedy, as time goes by, those powerful people use their power to encroach on the fields, and as the generations accumulate, the fields that they occupy will only increase, and the ordinary people will naturally have less and less land."

Speaking of this, Lao Zhu's face was gloomy and he drew an ink blot on the white paper in the middle of the circle with a pen to represent the land occupied by these magnates.

As he smeared, the circle, which had been white, was soon covered with black ink, and by the end, less than a tenth of the circle was left blank.

"When it comes to your Chongzhen Dynasty, eighty percent of the cultivated land in the world has fallen into the hands of the powerful, and less than one percent of the land really owned by the people."

"And most importantly, after these lands fell into the hands of the magnates, they hid their fields and avoided taxes, not only did the people have no land to plant, but the court also did not collect taxes."

"In this way, the concentration of money and grain in the hands of these powerful and wealthy families will naturally cause the people to starve everywhere and the imperial treasury to be empty."

When Lao Zhu said this, his tone was extremely cold, obviously hating these moths that encroached on the imperial court.

As the emperor, Chongzhen naturally knew about these things, but he only had a hazy feeling before, and when he heard Lao Zhu say this at this moment, he suddenly felt very clear.

The court above has no money, and the people below have no money, so this money is naturally concentrated in the hands of those elites in the middle level.

And in the eyes of those magnates, all this wealth has been accumulated by their hard work for generations, and compared with their wealth, the imperial court is naturally nothing, so when the imperial court encounters difficulties, these powerful people who own the vast majority of the wealth in the world naturally have no intention of giving generously.

On the contrary, if the imperial court wants them to pay, they will resist fiercely more than everyone else, and they may even directly confront the imperial court.

It's just that after listening to Lao Zhu's words, Chongzhen was a little puzzled in his heart, because the data that Lao Zhu said was not right.

"Grandpa Tai, you just said that eighty percent of the fields in the world belong to the powerful and one percent to the people, so there should be one percent, where is the remaining one?"

Chongzhen's words immediately silenced Lao Zhu.

Eighty percent belongs to the powerful, one percent belongs to the people, and the remaining one percent is naturally in the hands of their Zhu family.

To tell the truth, Lao Zhu forcibly crowned his children and grandchildren the king despite the opposition of hundreds of officials, and at the same time, in order to prevent them from making trouble, Lao Zhu also forbade them to participate in any industry, but after the age of ten, they can receive a fixed salary, and all things for weddings and funerals are handled by the imperial court, in order to treat them like rice worms, let the imperial court raise them, and give them a wealth and wealth.

But Lao Zhu never thought that these grandsons were too capable of giving birth.

According to the historical records of Lao Zhukan, there was a ruthless person in the line of King Qingcheng, and he actually gave birth to more than 100 sons alone.

You must know that according to the policy set by Lao Zhu, these vassal kings will receive a salary after the age of ten, which is calculated according to the capitation, and if you give birth to one more, King Qingcheng will get an extra one for his son.

So, this bastard thing is completely doing the business of having a son.

More than a hundred sons, if you add a daughter, then you can't go to two or three hundred, Lao Zhu really can't figure out how this guy gave birth to so much.

The pig cub is not as exaggerated as him!!

And there are so many Ming clans, coupled with such a terrifying fertility efficiency, just raising them will occupy forty percent of the imperial court's financial income, which is obviously a burden that the imperial court cannot bear.

After discovering that if this continued, the imperial court would not be able to support these clans, the imperial court immediately began to reduce the treatment of the clans.

In the Jiajing period, Jiajing formulated the regulations of the clan, which directly limited the expenses of the clan, and slashed the treatment of these feudal kings and relatives.

This approach seems to alleviate the financial crisis of the imperial court, but in fact it is only a symptom rather than a cure.

And because the clan regulations are aimed at some middle and lower-class clan members, this leads to the polarization of the clan members during the Chongzhen period.

The upper-class clan, such as Zhu Changxun, the blessed king who was made into a blessing banquet by Li Zicheng, when he was a vassal king in Luoyang, Wanli gave him 40,000 hectares of fertile land, and Luoyang's land was not enough, and even used the land of Huguang in Shandong to give him.

Not only that, but even the salt tax of the canal, Wanli gave Zhu Changxun without hesitation.

As a result, Fu King Zhu Changxun was tyrannical in Luoyang, poor and extravagant, naturally rich and flowing, Li Zicheng's military expenses after capturing Luoyang, a large part of which came from the wealth copied from King Fu's family.

It can be said that Zhu Changxun alone can feed Li Zicheng's army of hundreds of thousands.

Compared with these top vassal kings, those low-level clans were much more miserable, the court did not allow them to work, and they lived on the little rice that had been cut, but the problem was that as soon as the imperial court's finances were tight, they owed them the rice.

And in the Chongzhen period, there was no time when the finances were not tight, so they almost never gave them Lu rice.

In this way, these low-level grandmasters, who have neither power nor means of making a living, are even worse than some homeless people, and there are not a few who are starved to death when they encounter some natural disasters.

Originally, Lao Zhu was divided into feudal kings, and he gave such good treatment to the feudal kings, just to make his descendants live a better life.

As a result, in the end, he almost dragged down Daming, not to mention, and many of his children and grandchildren were starved to death.

Although this matter has something to do with the policies revised by the later emperors, in the final analysis, it is because the treatment given by the feudal kings was too high.

Therefore, Chongzhen, who had no eyesight, asked like this, Lao Zhu was silent for a long time, and did not answer......