On May 12, the 19th year of Chongzhen's reign in the Ming Dynasty, inside the yamen of the Cabinet Office (Ministry of Staff) outside Fengtian Gate of the Imperial City of Nanjing, and above the nave, were filled with senior civil and military officials of the Ming Dynasty who had stayed in Nanjing.

The leader of the Marshal's Mansion), as well as the prince who talked things over in the clan's manor, as well as Li Mingrui, the governor of Yingtian Mansion, as well as the top shopkeepers of the ten imperial merchants in Nanjing, and even the two chief ministers of the Li Supervisor and the Royal Horse Supervisor

Huang Dabao and Qiu Zhizhong all squeezed in. The main hall of the Cabinet Office, which was not spacious at first, was almost full. But when the matter came to a close, these civil and military officials who crowded in to discuss matters were all speechless. Except for

Fanning one's fan means drinking cup after cup of tea.

The thing that made all these officials mute was naturally the rice robbing incident in Longjiang Rice Alley that happened yesterday morning!

Tens of thousands of "volunteers" and military dependents living in Nanjing robbed twelve rice shops in Longjiang Rice Alley, taking away about four to five thousand shi of white rice, brown rice and flour, and also took away tens of thousands of taels worth of rice.

Other property was destroyed, dozens of houses were destroyed, and hundreds of people were injured. Fortunately, no one died.

After receiving the report, Yingtianfu Yamen immediately dispatched three teams of Yamen servants to Longjiang Mixiang to pick up the person, and reported it to the Cabinet Office at the same time.

After Zhu Cihong came to power in Nanjing, he began a series of reforms, one of which focused on the reform of local governments (Zhili prefectures) and counties (affiliated prefectures). The focus of local government reforms was "decentralization", "

"Clear responsibility", "interest linkage" and "last elimination".

The so-called "delegation of power" is to strengthen the administrative and financial power of the government (Zhili prefecture) and county (affiliated prefecture) levels. It determines the principle of dividing local and central finances! In other words, all the people's wealth collected by local governments does not have to be turned over to the Ministry of Household Affairs.

, but can intercept the flow proportionally.

In principle, public land can be divided into 20%, commercial tax (excluding customs tax, salt tax), mining tax, tea tax, wine tax, etc., and up to 80% can be divided into the government (Zhili Prefecture), county (prefecture)

) two levels, the land tax has not been levied for the time being, so I won’t mention it.

And Yingtian Mansion is a fat and rich mansion. The amount of commercial tax, tea tax, and wine tax is huge. Even if you pay 50% (these tax areas can keep at least half), the amount left in your hands can still be quite considerable. So you should

The number of Tianfu's third squadron of yamen servants is quite considerable, as many as three to four thousand, almost all of whom are natives of Nanjing for several generations. Many of them are related to the declining Nanjing Xunchen and hereditary military attache families.

Needless to say, these people usually get angry when they see people from the north, but in order to keep their jobs, they don't dare to let out their anger casually, so they have to hold it in.

This time when they encountered the "rice thieves" from the north making trouble, how could they be polite? They immediately went out in large numbers. When they got there, they smashed their heads and faces with sticks, beating many of the "rice thieves" with bloody heads and bleeding, and even arrested some people.

Hundreds of people.

Originally, the matter was over here, but Wei Zaode, the chief minister of the cabinet who had received the notification from below, was afraid that Yingtian Mansion would not be able to solve the problem. After discussing with Wu Xiang and Cao Youyi, they jointly issued an order to mobilize the Xiaoling Guards' new army to Longjiang Mixiang.

Martial law.

Xiaolingwei Xinjun is now a "origin" for the descendants of Luo Zongzi and Kenan Xunxun. They must first go to Xiaolingwei Xinjun to be trained as soldiers, and then go to the Martial Arts School or the Tax Official School.

These eldest sons and noble disciples of Kenan Xun may not all be Northerners, but there are basically no Jinling natives, Jinling honorable ministers and military attachés who are in trouble. They are also more sympathetic to Northern refugees. These people are basically "refugees".

"They all came to Nanjing empty-handed!"

I don’t know if that bastard was the one who picked the fight, but after the Xiaoling Guards’ new army arrived at Longjiang Mixiang, they got into a fight with the Yingtianfu government officials.

The two sides fought each other with wooden sticks (the New Army did not bring killers, only sticks), and actually killed someone!

Of course, it was the Yingtianfu government officials who were poorly organized and trained who suffered the loss. Six were killed and eighteen were seriously injured. However, the "rice thieves" who were arrested by the Yingtianfu government officials took the opportunity to escape and disappeared without a trace!

This is not over yet, because the trouble in Longjiang Rice Lane cannot be ended. Nowadays, the rice merchants in Yingtianfu City are afraid to open their doors to do business. What should they do if they are smashed? Every one of them has put up a sign saying "There is no rice in this store"

, out of business!

This is not the most troublesome thing, but the most troublesome thing for the big shots gathered in the Central Hall of the Cabinet Office today is that among the millions of northern refugees wandering in the southeast, at least half of them really have serious problems in life.

The main difficulty is not having food to eat!

At least two to three million people have no food to eat!

This does not take into account the food problem of the urban poor and slaves in the southeast!

After all, the farmers in the fields have a stutter, so they can either plant some sweet potatoes to save themselves from the crisis. At this time, sweet potatoes have been widely planted in the southeastern provinces;

However, urban handicraftsmen and some declining gentry were domestic slaves, but they faced the same plight of having no food as the refugees from the north!

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, many cities in the southeast had entered the embryonic stage of capitalism, so there were a large number of wage laborers. The rise in food prices would of course hit them hard.

In addition, the gentry and nobles of the Ming Dynasty liked to keep slaves, and most of them were domestic slaves. When the gentry and nobles were rich and powerful, although the domestic slaves had no human rights, they could have enough to eat. But now many nobles and nobles have fallen.

Shit, the treatment of domestic slaves will also decrease accordingly. Not only do they have no human rights, but even the right to live is in question. How can we not make a fuss?

These two types of people plus the refugees from the north who don’t have enough to eat, well, there are at least five to six million people without food!

What to do!

If this all breaks out, it will be another uprising! What if Li Zicheng takes advantage of it (Li Zicheng is still pretending to be a human being)?

The atmosphere in the central hall was getting lower and lower, but the temperature was getting higher and higher. Finally, a fat man, King Fu, couldn't bear it anymore. He coughed and said to Wei Zaode, the chief assistant: "Xiang Wei, the prince always wants you to compare with Zhuge Liang, so you can't stand it anymore."

Hurry up and think of a clever trick to solve the current predicament!"

Wei Zaode rolled his eyelids, why is it just Zhuge Liang? That is what the youth historians will say in the future. Isn't it time for him to become a youth historian? How can he be as awesome as Zhuge Liang?

However, since he was the chief assistant, he could not remain silent, so he glanced at Wu Xiang and asked, "Duke Protector, how much rice is left in the warehouse of the Military Field Department?"

Wu Xiang spread his hands and said, "If it's less than one million dan, we still have to hold on for several more months!"

"Why only so little?"

Wu Xiang smiled bitterly and said: "The Communist Party has only collected 16 million stones. It is military rations and relief. We also need to send food to those in the north. Isn't it all gone?"

"Hubu, where's the Hubu?" Wei Zaode asked, "How much more money can be squeezed out?"

"At most five million taels," said Chen Rui, the Minister of Household Affairs, "this is reserved for the prince to reward Huguang's military exploits and to march into Sichuan."

"Has it been shipped to Wuchang?"

Chen Rui said: "The Ministry of Accounts has written two lines, asking them to open a branch in Wuchang and prepare five million taels of cash for withdrawal."

Now there is no bank treasury in the household department, and all tax money is transferred to the two banks for storage to earn interest. Wherever money is needed, the two banks are also asked to open branches and prepare cash for backup.

In addition, the accounts of the Ministry of Household Affairs are much better than those of the Military and Field Division Grain Depot, because the salt taxes from Lianghuai, Zhejiang, Shandong, and Fujian can now be collected normally (all taxes are included), and the tariffs from Shanghai, Ningbo, and Guangzhou are also collected

If we can collect some, the tax package of Quanzhou Prefecture and Nanbeiyang can also be paid on time. We have also collected a lot of over-taxes from various tax cards in the southeast. There are also many cities that have paid tax sharing (commercial tax) to the Ministry of Household Affairs. Miscellaneous.

Together, we can earn an annual income of 17 to 8 million taels.

Compared with the years when Emperor Chongzhen was in power, the accounts of the Ministry of Revenue are much better!

However, Zhu Cixiang was now expanding his army, fighting wars, and building forts everywhere. By the way, he was also regulating the lower reaches of the Huaihe River and the Yellow River. He also had a profligate emperor Chongzhen to support, so the expenses were also very huge.
Chapter completed!