Chengdu Imperial City, Chengyun Hall.

The atmosphere was extremely depressing. All the ministers, including the military chief counselor Gao Hongtu, Hanlin scholar Hou Xun, and eunuch Bingbi Gao Qiqian, all looked surprised and said nothing. Because the three of them did not expect it.

Zhu Youjian suddenly made a request to inventory the land in Sichuan Province!

Sichuan is a large province, and it is also known as Tianfu. The cultivated land area cannot be small. According to later measurements, the area of ​​​​the bottom of the Sichuan Basin (excluding surrounding mountains) is 160,000 square kilometers, and the core of the Sichuan Basin, Chengdu Pingding, is 160,000 square kilometers.

It is 1.88 square kilometers. For such a large basin, the registered acres are only 13.48 million acres. In the early Ming Dynasty, it could be compared to the Mongolian Massacre - the Mongols killed Sichuan into a white land, and the entire Sichuan area fell to red.

There were only more than 60 years between the great uprising of the Jin Army, and the population did not have time to recover, so it was normal that not much cultivated land was opened. However, after the Ming Dynasty ruled Sichuan for more than 200 years, there were only 13.48 million acres. Sichuan people collectively bullied the emperor.

!How is this possible?

What's even more hateful is that Zhu Youjian really believed it in his last life. It wasn't until the bandits entered Sichuan that they cleared out 50 to 60 million acres of land. This made Chongzhen feel insulted. These Sichuan people are too evil. You have 60 million acres.

If you hide 10 million acres, you can just report 50 million acres. How can you only report more than 13 million acres? This tax evasion is too happy, right?

In fact, Heicheng's behavior is not good for the Sichuan people themselves. If they pay taxes according to the standard of 50 million acres, they will have a tax of 4 million a year, which is 3 million more than the original tax amount.

Three million dollars of food and wages a year can support 100,000 soldiers!

If this money and food were given to Qin Liangyu, Sun Chuanting, and Lu Xiangsheng, and they trained an additional 100,000 troops like the Baigan Army, Qin Army, and Tianxiong Army, would the rogue bandits still be able to invade Sichuan? Could they turn all Sichuan people into serfs and oppress them?

Therefore, after Zhu Youjian rectified the eight prefectures of Beizhili in his life, the second place he wanted to rectify was Sichuan!

Didn’t you Sichuan people say there are only 13.48 million acres?

good!

Check it out now!

The officials of Sichuan Province who were present certainly knew that there was a lot of hidden land in Sichuan. Although they were not good officials, they were not so confused that they did not know how much land there was in their jurisdiction.

However, the problem of Sichuan Hidden Field is not just a year or two ago. It has been a bad government for more than a hundred years, and it has reached the point of "bad government inherited from ancestors". How can it be changed just by saying it is changed?

"Qin Yipeng!" Zhu Youjian called the name of the newly appointed Sichuan Governor Zuo at this time.

"Long live my Lord, I'm here!" Qin Yipeng stood up bravely. He is from Shaanxi. Of course he knows what his hometown has been through in recent years!

Farming is a business that depends on the weather. There has been a drought in Shaanxi for several years. Although it has eased this year, it is still very difficult overall. Moreover, floods are easy to occur after a continuous drought, and people will not be able to make a living at that time.

People who cannot make a living must either rebel or go elsewhere to make a living. As a bureaucratic landlord class in Shaanxi Province, Qin Yipeng certainly does not want the hungry people in his hometown to become one, so he hopes that the hungry people in Shaanxi will go as far as they can.

of......

And Sichuan seems to be a good place to go! Due to the scourge of the two thieves of She'an, the population in many places in Sichuan has indeed decreased a lot, and there is also a lot of abandoned land. If you include Guizhou, which has suffered an equally serious population loss, it will absorb one or two million people.

There is no problem for the hungry people in Shaanxi.

But Sichuan's absorption of hungry people from Shaanxi does not mean that it can distribute Sichuan's land to Shaanxi people!

"You are the governor of the left," Zhu Youjian said, "and you are from Shaanxi. Tell me, how much wasteland is there in Sichuan? Can it accommodate another 200,000 households of hungry people from Shaanxi?"

This is actually Zhu Youjian's "demand" for land. For a hungry family, 20 acres of "wasteland" is enough for a family of five (of course, rent must be paid for these lands), so the total is 4 million acres.

.Less than one-tenth of the actual cultivated land area of ​​the Sichuan Basin.

As long as the Sichuan landlord class can come up with this amount of "wasteland", Zhu Youjian will not ask how much land there is in Sichuan for the time being.

After all, this Sichuan is not yet Beizhili, and Zhu Youjian's control ability is not that strong.

Moreover, he has now obtained the Wangzhuang of the King of Shu. If he can obtain another 4 million acres of "wasteland" to distribute to the hungry people of Shaanxi. In the future, these two parts of land will be able to pay at least 3 million taels (stone) in rent.

To Zhu Youjian - Of course, the "wasteland" is not as fertile as the paddy fields in the Chengdu plains. It is good to get two and a half buckets of rent per acre. In addition to the original land tax of 1.08 million, it can be more than 4 million a year. Nan

Zhili only has over 6 million people!

"Long live my lord," Qin Yipeng shook his head, "The registered acres of land in Sichuan are only over 13 million acres. I'm afraid there is no land that can accommodate 200,000 Shaanxi households!"

"Zhang Lun, what do you think?" Zhu Youjian kicked the ball to the Sichuan governor again.

Zhang Lun is from Guangzhou, Henan. Although Henan suffered a severe drought last year, the situation has improved this year. Moreover, Guangzhou is located in the Huaihe River Basin. Flooding in the Huaihe River has become more and more serious in the past few decades, so less rain would be beneficial.

In addition, the danger of peasant uprisings in Shaanxi has been largely eliminated by Zhu Youjian, which makes Zhang Lun, who is a bureaucratic landlord in Henan, more reassured.

"Long live my lord, although Sichuan is known as Tianfu, it has many mountains and few flat lands..."

"Zhang Heming, what do you think?"

"Your Majesty," Zhang Heming said, "I am old. If the overall situation in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan has been decided, it is time to retire and return home."

Zhu Youjian looked at Zhang Heming. He was indeed old! He was born in Jiajing 30 years ago. He is 81 years old this year. It is indeed time for him to go home and take care of himself.

"I allow you to sue," Zhu Youjian paused, "but you have to tell me the truth. Can I find 40 to 50 million acres of land in Sichuan?"

"What? Forty to fifty million acres..." Zhang Heming looked at Zhu Youjian in surprise.

Zhu Youjian said: "I know how big Sichuan is! Old sir, since you are going to retire, tell me the truth one last time. I will ensure that you will be safe and happy after your retirement."

Zhang Heming smiled bitterly: "Long live my Lord, I am old, what joy can a dying person have? However, I have been an official for more than 40 years since I was a high school Jinshi in the 18th year of Wanli. I am also a very popular minister, and I have received great kindness.

You should tell everything you know. The hidden fields in Sichuan are well known to the officials, but it is indeed not easy to find out. Unless His Majesty sits in Sichuan for a year or two and personally supervises the matter, or sends the prince to investigate in the future.

Otherwise, Sichuan has high mountains and long roads, which are beyond the reach of the imperial court, and the official is unwilling to offend the local sages and be hated by the scholars, so it is better to delay as long as possible. Didn't Mencius say: It is not difficult to be in government, and don't offend a wealthy family!

In many places in the Ming Dynasty, it seems that the officials of the imperial court are in charge, but in fact they are still ruled by wealthy families! The officials only have a few followers, so what can they do with these wealthy families?"

The old man did tell the truth!

The Ming Dynasty shared the world with the scholar-bureaucrats!

And this kind of "sharing the world" is actually a helpless choice.

Because it is really impossible for the imperial power to be completely sent to the countryside! In the eight prefectures of North Zhili, Zhu Youjian's imperial power seems to be very powerful, but it does not work here in Sichuan.

Of course, Zhu Youjian is now in Sichuan, so he can certainly accomplish something. But he can't be Liu Bei in Sichuan!

And once he left, how could it be possible for those civil servants who took office with a few subordinates to find out clearly?

Even if the officials are willing to investigate, what about the subordinates below? They are all lackeys of wealthy families, and they will help the officials to investigate?

If you want officials to have the ability to control subordinate staff and local officials, you must grant heavy powers—for example, grant local officials considerable military and personnel power, allowing them to open government offices, appoint their own staff, and control the army.

But can Zhu Youjian rest assured that such a local official is in charge of Sichuan?

Zhu Youjian nodded and sighed: "It seems that it was not unreasonable for Emperor Taizu Gao to use Saijun to control the four directions in the past. Emperor Taizu Gao did not trust military generals and did not trust civil servants, so he could only rely on his sons to supervise the place.

"

This is a very real problem!

The places that imperial power can effectively control are limited. Usually, the further away from the center of power, the less effective the imperial power becomes.

The worse the imperial power's control, the less the emperor could delegate great authority to local governors and let them become a center of power that could effectively control local areas. Otherwise, separatism and civil war would easily occur.

This is a dilemma!
Chapter completed!