The fifteenth day of the eighth month of the fifth year of Chongzhen reign in the Ming Dynasty is the Mid-Autumn Festival.

For the hundreds of thousands of gentry and common people in Xiangyang Prefecture, the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival this year is particularly round, the mooncakes are particularly sweet, and life is particularly beautiful!

Because just a few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, people's peace notices were finally posted inside and outside the gates of the counties under Xiangyang Prefecture, announcing that 950,000 of the million begging soldiers who had eaten in Xiangyang Prefecture would be transferred from the

On the 15th day of the lunar month, the Mid-Autumn Festival, people began to evacuate Xiangyang one after another - in fact, there were not even a million beggars, and only five or six million including their families. Now more than 500,000 have been evacuated, and 20,000 to 30,000 have been resettled in Xiangyang.

.The young and strong among them will become Xiangyang Prefecture soldiers (the army under the command of the prefect), while the old and weak will get some slopes that are looked down upon by Xiangyang locals.

Although not all of them were evacuated, the vast majority of them were able to evacuate. For the gentry and common people in Xiangyang, it was already a great favor from the emperor.

Of course, the hundreds of thousands of begging soldiers will not leave in vain... As for the begging soldiers, of course they will not leave until after the meal.

Therefore, in addition to announcing the departure of the begging soldiers, the notice posted on the peace of the people also announced another great news - the Emperor of Heaven finally granted favor to the highly respected Xiang Wang Zhu Yiming and the Shilin leaders of the seven prefectures and counties under the Xiangyang Prefecture.

The taxation method they proposed!

Starting from the sixth year of Chongzhen, the field tax in Xiangyang will increase from less than one liter per mu to six liters per mu! One dou of it will be sent to the Xiangyang treasury for safekeeping. The remaining six liters will be

Then the Xiangyang Prefecture and the newly established Hubei Governor's Yamen after the division of Huguang divided the money into seven and three points. Xiangyang Prefecture took seven and the Hubei Governor's Yamen took three.

In addition to this six-liter dou, no additional fees and miscellaneous expenses are allowed - according to the edict issued by Zhu Youjian, the prefecture's Yamen of Xiangyang Prefecture and the prefectures and counties under its control can only be paid according to the tax negotiation meeting hosted by the Governor of Hubei.

The agreed tax amount will be levied and no additional taxes will be levied.

Otherwise, the local tax collector can file a complaint with the governor's yamen, and after finding out the truth, the governor's yamen can report to the court and impeach the prefect who imposed extra taxes!

Of course, over-levying is not allowed, and under-levying is not acceptable. Local land taxes are reviewed once a year. If there is a famine or military disaster, they can be reduced or reduced after discussion between the tax negotiator and the governor. However, the prefect has no power to reduce or reduce local taxes -

—And tax reductions and exemptions are not free! No matter what the reason is, as long as taxes are reduced or exempted, the government's admission quota will be reduced accordingly. And the amount of taxes a province pays to the court is related to the amount of Jinshi quota.

This is what is called no taxes and no imperial examinations!

On the Beiguan Pier in Xiangyang, a long line of official ships and royal boats were ready to sail eastward.

On the pier, the officers and soldiers of the brigade and the families of the begging soldiers were quietly boarding the ship. The begging soldiers who had been left behind in Xiangyang gathered in the distance to bid farewell to their fellow Shaanxi residents.

Chongzhen had more rainfall in the past five years. Floods occurred everywhere in Shaanxi and Henan. The situation in Huguang was better, but it still rained from time to time after autumn. The day when Zhu Youjian left Xiangyang was also a rainy day, accompanied by autumn wind and autumn rain.

, blew away and diluted the joy in Zhu Youjian's heart... He knew that he had not yet succeeded in begging, and the emperor still had to work hard!

The new governor of Xiangyang is Zhang Haogu, who was a Jinshi in the first year of Chongzhen. He was originally the prefecture magistrate of Yan'an Prefecture. He was a little older than the county magistrate, but far inferior to the magistrate. This time he was promoted to the "big mansion" of Xiangyang, which is really a big deal.

It was an exceptional promotion.

He was now boarding Zhu Youjian's royal boat, full of joy, listening to the holy words - there were more than 150 prefectures in the Ming Dynasty. But there were only twelve "big prefectures", among which the prefect of Xiangyang was "the number one in Huguang"

"Grand Mansion". If you can do this, your future will be limitless!

"Prefect Zhang, your Xiangyang Mansion is the first 'big mansion' in the two lakes, so it can only succeed, not fail!" Zhu Youjian warned, "I have left you three thousand Shaanxi soldiers...

I will allocate you 20,000 taels of silver from the Prince of Chu's palace for operating expenses. You must make good use of these 3,000 Shaanxi soldiers and 20,000 military expenses, and don't let me down!"

"Long live Lord, don't worry." Zhang Haogu's face was full of confidence. "I will definitely take care of Xiangyang's taxation for Lord Long live...not a penny less, and not a penny more."

A minimum of one penny is required, and if you don’t charge an extra penny, it won’t be so strict...but it’s definitely not okay to exceed it by too much.

Because according to the rules formulated by Zhu Youjian, the tax negotiator in Xiangyang will not discuss taxes with the Xiangyang prefect, but will directly negotiate with the Hubei governor.

This system is designed to limit the development space of the "big government".

Because although the "big government" has control over the military, government, and finance, the armed forces it can control are extremely limited. Xiangyang Prefecture can have 3,000 soldiers, mainly because Xiangyang Prefecture is a "pilot prefecture" and is also where the future Hubei Grand Warehouse will be located.

-Zhu Youjian doesn't want to exchange silver now, he just wants grain, and the grain collected from Huguang will not be transported to the north, but will all be stored in Xiangyang Prefecture and Nanyang Prefecture.

These grains are the "life-saving grains" in the future. Of course, they must be guarded carefully, so the number of soldiers in Xiangyang Prefecture will be 3,000. In addition, Zhu Youjian will also send special officials to Xiangyang and Nanyang to guard the treasury.

warehouse.

As for the other dozen prefectures (Zhili prefectures) in the Lianghu area, Zhu Youjian only gave them a quota of 1,000-2,000 troops. Moreover, the money and grain that these prefectures can control are also very limited. In addition to the land tax share, those who are very

The gray "commercial tax" - it is actually inaccurate to say that there was no commercial tax in the Ming Dynasty. The commercial tax in the Ming Dynasty was not collected in the emperor's pocket, but was distributed by local officials in the name of various "regular silver".

Now Zhu Youjian is actually an old fox who is more than a hundred years old. Of course he will not block the way for officials all over the world to make money "without breaking the law" (actually it is illegal, but it has become a common practice for more than 200 years). However, within the borders of the two lakes

The customs duties will also be restored later - but Zhu Youjian will not take the money. Instead, he will let the governor of Hubei and the political officials discuss how to collect it and how to distribute it... The governor cannot be without money, and neither can the political officials.

No oil or water.

In addition, since the governor wants to bargain with the gentry for the number of places in the imperial examination, then of course the power of academic administration must be delegated to the governor. Otherwise, what will the governor have to discuss? Therefore, the expenses for running official schools and imperial examinations have to be raised by the governor's yamen.

In addition, the military power of the governor must still be retained. Because the prefect’s soldiers can only move within the prefecture, and if they want to move across prefectures, they must be commanded by the governor or the general soldier. Therefore, the general soldiers of the two provinces of Hunan and Hubei are still

To keep it, the two commander-in-chiefs also have tens of thousands of troops on hand, and the governor also has two to three thousand patrol tags on hand.

The governor is also in charge of the food and salary of the general soldiers. In fact, the governor is in charge of the general soldiers' civil and military line. Therefore, Zhu Youjian must leave enough financial resources for the governor's yamen, otherwise the provincial level will be completely empty.

If it is transformed, then the lower prefectures will be difficult to manage.

Now the first governors of the two provinces after the division of Huguang are also sitting on the same boat as Zhu Youjian. The governor of Hubei is Gao Hongtu, the general counselor who followed Zhu Youjian to the south, while the governor of Hunan is Fu Zonglong who was transferred from Guizhou.

After Zhang Haogu resigned, Zhu Youjian talked to these two capable ministers about tax negotiations and the establishment of two provincial government offices - these were all new things.

This method of "governor discussing taxes" has never been used by even a traitor. It was extracted by Zhu Youjian from various bizarre local governance methods he had seen in his previous life - at least in his opinion, it is the most appropriate.

The "provincial government yamen" is actually a new thing, and it is not the same as the governor's yamen in the past. In the past, provincial local governance in the Ming Dynasty still retained the way of three departments co-existing, and did not allow the governor to centralize power. But now Zhu You

After the procuratorate implemented the "centralization of power in the general office" at the prefectural level, it was natural for the provincial level to implement "centralization of power by governors" - it was not that the governor concentrated power in a province, but that all provincial yamen had to listen to the governor, including the garrison chief.

Bingyamen (equivalent to the provincial military region).
Chapter completed!