Seeing Lao Zhu silent for so long, Chongzhen felt as if he had said the wrong thing.

He thought about it for a moment in his heart, and soon understood where the rest of the fields had gone.

And the feudal system of the vassal king was set by Lao Zhu, and he asked this at the moment, obviously some suspicion of exposing Lao Zhu's shortcomings, so looking at the silent Lao Zhu, Chongzhen suddenly felt empty.

"What's that...... Grandpa, my Daming is now hard to return. ”

Chongzhen changed the subject very stiffly and said, "Now how are you going to solve this problem?" ”

Lao Zhu knew very well that Chongzhen was changing the topic, but he snorted coldly and didn't say anything else.

Since he is here, he will make up for the mistakes he made, a group of children and grandchildren who don't know how many generations have passed, there is no emotion at all, since he has raised so fat, when the situation is more stable, it is simply more appropriate to use them to subsidize the deficit of the Ming Dynasty.

It's just that when he thought of Chongzhen's question about how to solve Daming's current problem, Lao Zhu couldn't help frowning.

"Normally, it is inevitable that the dynasty will accumulate evils."

"As a dynasty grows, it will inevitably become more and more powerful."

"In this way, there will be a phenomenon that ninety percent of the resources of the entire dynasty are in the hands of this small number of people."

"Relying on the remaining 10%, or even less than 10% of the resources, it is obviously an extremely reluctant thing to feed the people."

"At this time, the people will have no livelihood, even if they can survive, there will be no food at home, and if they encounter some natural disasters, they will have no way to live, and even be starved to death, which is a common thing."

Throughout the history of the Ming Dynasty, Lao Zhu has long jumped out of the limitations of the feudal emperor, during this time, in addition to thinking about how to solve the current predicament of the Ming Dynasty, the rest of the time is thinking about these problems.

So when Chongzhen asked, he explained very thoroughly, "Generally, after reaching this point, if you want to renew the life of the dynasty, the only way is to change the law." ”

"A whip law like the one Zhang Juzheng once promoted, although there are some drawbacks, is a good solution."

Zhang Juzheng's implementation of a whip law, its content can be summarized in three main contents, the first is to clear the land, the second is unified service, and the third is to count the mu and levy silver.

Although the means of tax evasion by these powerful landlords emerge in endlessly, in the final analysis, there are only three means, that is, sprinkling, trickery, and flying hanging, and as for the others, they are all derived from these three means.

Flying refers to sprinkling the ground, some powerful buy the Yamen officials, count their own land on the heads of others, let others pay taxes for themselves, and the people who are sprinkled by the flying, they don't even know who is cheating themselves, this means is undoubtedly the most lacking in virtue.

It is relatively better to send a trick, that is, to record one's land on those who are exempt from taxation, such as those who have meritorious fame, and for example, some high-status clans, so that there is no need to pay taxes, this method is the most common, and the land that is encroached upon is also the most.

As for the false hanging, it is to turn the land upside down in the hands of several people, and in the end, no one knows to whom the land belongs, and naturally there is no need to pay taxes.

When Zhang Juzheng implemented a whip law, only part of the inventory results increased the land by 280 million mu, which shows how serious the land annexation is.

In addition to the normal taxes, there are also a lot of additional levies, and as soon as there are many names, there will naturally be more opportunities for those low-level officials to get their hands on it.

In order to put an end to this phenomenon, a whip law unified the enslavement and simplified the conscription, making it difficult for officials at all levels to use their names skillfully, so that the people who had been exploited had a chance to breathe.

As for the last one of the acres of silver, this one is also very simple.

Before a whip law, the Ming Dynasty implemented the same two-tax law as the Tang and Song dynasties, the so-called two-tax law refers to the land tax and household tax, which are collected twice a year, once in summer, and once in autumn.

The tax is not very high, but there is a key problem in this, and that is the kind of tax it collects.

What is in kind, that is, if you grow wheat, then you pay taxes and pay wheat, if you raise ducks, then you have to pay taxes to ducks.

Paying these things is not only a large number and troublesome statistics, but the most important thing is that these taxes are not collected by the imperial court for you, you have to find someone to send them yourself.

In this way, this kind of tax law is not only troublesome, but also consumes a lot of manpower and material resources, and some of the gains outweigh the losses.

Therefore, a whip law directly reformed the payment of taxes in kind, converted the goods into silver taels, and did not need to be sent by the people below, but changed to let the officials go down to collect them, which was not only much more convenient, but also reduced the matter of favoritism and fraud by the people below to a certain extent.

After the implementation of a whip law, the treasury was in deficit every year, and the court had no money to use, but after the implementation of a whip law, in just a few years, the treasury had 4 million taels of silver, which shows that the road of a whip law is indeed feasible.

But the problem is that no matter how good the system is, it needs people to implement it.

After Zhang Juzheng's death, Wanli began to liquidate Zhang Juzheng, and even Zhang Juzheng's grave was dug up, not to mention the people he left behind to implement the policy.

Therefore, the changes presided over by Zhang Juzheng basically died after his death.

Later, the officials, in addition to a whip law, wantonly increased the harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, so that the people, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, were burdened with endless burdens again.

This change was a complete failure.

"Change?"

Chongzhen heard Lao Zhu say that he would change the law, and asked with some hesitation: "Grandpa, is it a little inappropriate to change the law now?" ”

"What we're talking about is that the law should be changed under normal circumstances, do you call it a general situation?"

Lao Zhu didn't raise his eyelids, and directly said mockingly: "Internal and external troubles, natural disasters continue, Da Ming is about to die in your hands, and you still want to change the law?" Now the more it dies, the faster it dies. ”

The essence of changing the law is to strike at the powerful and supply the people.

No matter who chooses to change the law, they must stand on the opposite side of the hundred officials and the powerful.

And now Da Ming, just rely on those officials and Haoqiang to support it, now that the law is changed, those Hao Qiang are unhappy and directly oppose, and at that time, Da Ming may not even be able to hold on for two years.

"If you want to change the law, you must have absolute strength in your hands, you don't even have a decent army in your hands now, what do you use to change the law?"

Listening to Lao Zhu's disgusted tone, Chongzhen was very helpless in his heart, didn't you say that the old man said to change the law, and I didn't say that I wanted to change the law.

But it was obviously not a good choice to go against the grumpy old Zhu, so Chongzhen wisely changed the topic again and asked:

"Then grandpa, how should I save it?"