"Master Chitose, do you think this is okay?"

The person who asked the question was Li Jizhou, the eunuch in charge of the Shrine Palace Supervisor. After Zhu Cihong took control of Nanjing City, he became Xiaoling and returned to the Shrine Palace Supervisor. Li Jizhou was also ordered to recruit 1,400 people from the original Xiaoling Guards.

, plus 200 Jingjun soldiers, formed a new mausoleum guarding association, with Xu Jingmi, a Qianhu family in the Marshal's Mansion, who was a eunuch of the Jingjun army, as the association leader.

The mausoleum guarding army is no longer a squadron, but a paid recruit. However, in principle, they will not go to the front line, so they have to work hard to get land. However, the training is not so strict, there is no need to "697", and the military pay is newer than other soldiers.

The military salary is 50% higher. No matter how you look at it, it is a very generous treatment!

The original Xiaolingwei military households are now exempted from military registration and have become ordinary civilian households. It is impossible to distribute the land of Xiaolingwei to them, but they can continue to rent the land that originally belonged to Xiaolingwei.

In fact, it can greatly improve their lives!

Because the land rented by the Zhongjun garrison requires a very low rent. Taking the high-quality paddy fields under the jurisdiction of Xiaolingwei as an example, the annual rent for one acre of paddy fields is only seven bushels of rice.

The annual rice output of an acre of high-quality paddy fields will never be less than three shi. If you pay seven dou for three shi, even after deducting miscellaneous costs, you can still make a net profit of two shi per acre. If a household rents ten acres, it will earn two dan per year.

You can make a net profit of twenty taels. With the price of rice in Nanjing, after deducting the rations required by the family, you can still have an income of 30 taels of silver.

If we plant one or two acres of vegetable fields and raise some livestock and poultry, our life will still be very passable!

Of course, the proportion of land rent collected from three to seven dou per acre is actually greatly increased compared to the amount of land rent collected from official land in the previous military villages!

In the past, the total land tax of the Ming Dynasty included official land rent! Including land rent, during the Hongwu period when the Ming Dynasty collected the most land tax, it was only 33 million shi. According to the average number of private land and official land at that time, it was approximately

One bushel per acre.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the registered land amounted to more than 700 million acres, a significant increase from the Hongwu period, but the land tax was only a little over 20 million, and sometimes it was not enough!

At the same time, the common people felt that the burden was extremely heavy, and they wanted to rebel. The reason was, of course, that the country had lost direct control over the land and population, and could only beg for food with the scholar-bureaucrats!

Not only did the land tax depend on the gifts of the scholar-bureaucrats, but the rent of the official land in the military garrison also had to be paid by the gentry. No matter how little the country harvested, it had nothing to do with the farmers who cultivated the land.

After Zhu Cihong confiscated the homes of Nanjing nobles and hereditary military attachés, and seized the guardhouses they had controlled for generations, he classified all the land he obtained (including official fields, private fields, hidden fields, and military fields) as military land.

It was classified as a military garrison, and then the garrison under the military garrison signed a contract directly with the tenants who rented the land.

In Yingtian, Taiping Prefecture, Zhenjiang Prefecture, Chuzhou and Yangzhou Prefecture, where the land of Juntun, nobles and salt merchants are concentrated, by the end of the 17th Chongzhen Emperor, 10 million acres of land had been "directly governed by Juntun", and there were also

More than 5 million acres of land were allocated to middle- and lower-level officers and soldiers of the New Army to overcome difficulties.

Just for these 10 million acres, we can receive more than 6 million shi in rent every year (the quality of the land in this area is relatively good). After deducting the "management fee", it can be handed over to the Generalissimo's military garrison warehouse.

Rice can still cost more than 5 million koku

If 40 million acres of the 50 million acres that have not been received (including cleared military villages and official fields) can be signed (most of the rest will be distributed), then the income will reach 20 million shi, even if the deduction is

Even if you drop 20% of the "fee", you can still have 16 million stones in the treasury.

The number of official fields, military villages, and hidden fields in the entire southeast (excluding Shandong and Henan, which are frontline provinces) can exceed 100 million. If you can hold them in your hands, you won’t need to collect any land tax.

The rent is 40 million yuan!

The total farmland in the Ming Dynasty was more than 700 million on paper, but in fact it was more than 1 billion. Among them, the official farmland and farmland were neither 300 million nor less than 200 million!

With so many fields, we can only receive more than 20 million shi in taxes, and because of the extra tax of several million taels, the people are in dire straits and the whole country is in rebellion. Whose fault is this?

It's time to clarify this matter and make it clear.

"Master Qiansui, do you think this place is too crude?" Li Jizhou looked at Zhu Cixiang who was deep in thought, and raised his voice again, "Do you want to expand it?"

"Do you want to expand it?" Zhu Cixiang was stunned, then looked back at Li Jizhou, "It's just a Siguo Palace, how grandiose do you want it to be?"

Li Jizhou frowned and wanted to continue persuading him, but he saw two Jingjun soldiers approaching on horseback, shouting from a distance: "The Emperor is here, hurry up and prepare to greet him!"

The officials and generals who were waiting quietly in the courtyard of Siguo Palace immediately got into a fuss and lined up in different classes. The civilian officials were led by Wei Zaode, the chief assistant of the cabinet, and the military generals were led by Wu Xiang, the commander of the military, government and security forces of the Generalissimo's Mansion.

Walk towards the palace gate.

Zhu Cihong looked back at Li Jizhou and asked, "How are the preparations at Xiaolingwei Old City?"

Li Jizhou said: "Everything has been arranged, and it is enough for the officials who come with them to live. In addition, the Linggu Temple has also been tidied up, and it can also accommodate many people."

"Where is Xiangdian?" Zhu Cihong asked again.

“It has been renovated.”

"Okay!" Zhu Cixi nodded, "Let's go and meet him."

At this moment, outside the dismounting square, all the carriages and horses stopped moving forward. Under the gaze of everyone, Emperor Chongzhen jumped off the horse vigorously. Although he was "addicted to women" in the past few months, he did not ignore it.

While exercising and resting, he also thought about one day leading an army to the northern expedition to Yandu! Of course, he couldn't lose his ability in horseback riding and archery. In addition, he got enough sleep, and he didn't have so many worries anymore. After a few months,

This fatuous man who was addicted to wine and sex actually looked radiant, looking several years younger and much stronger.

When Chongzhen got his horse, he didn't even wait for Zhu Cixiang to lead the people to greet him. He walked vigorously, led the thirty-three kings and a group of palace ladies and concubines behind him, strode forward, and headed for Siguo Palace. He knew

Outside Xiamafang, there was a palace for the imperial officials who visited Xiaoling Mausoleum to rest and change clothes. However, they did not know that this place had been repaired and expanded, and was also named "Siguo Palace". He walked as fast as flying, leading a group of eunuchs and maids in front.

After walking for a while, they arrived outside Siguo Palace. Officials who had arrived in advance had already come out and knelt down and kowtowed to him.
Chapter completed!