The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 566: Land Merger: A Chronic Problem
This period of time can be described as a series of good things.

The wasteland in Nurgandusi will be turned into fertile farmland.

The food problem will soon be solved.

Yongnianbo Wang Wei and Wang Zheng developed the steam engine.

It was only a matter of time before steamships were built.

Bi Maokang also developed a repeating revolver.

Once the Ming cavalry is equipped, it will surely become invincible in field battles.

The Ministry of Justice is still cleaning up corrupt officials, and the provincial examination is about to be held.

After so many years, the Ming Dynasty officialdom will be completely renewed and the trend of corruption will be curbed.

Everything seems to be moving in the right direction.

The prosperity of the Ming Dynasty seemed to be just around the corner.

However, all this is just superficial. The Ming Dynasty actually still has many chronic diseases hidden.

It was about noon that day, the sun was shining brightly in the sky, and it was as hot as a steamer outside.

As usual, Wanli carried little Zhu Changxun to the main hall of Ciqing Palace to check the progress of the purge of corrupt officials.

There are not many secret guards in the hall now, and they don't need to do too much accounting. They only investigate a dozen corrupt officials a day, and ten secret guards are enough to settle the accounts.

The provincial examination has not been held yet, replacing officials is not enough, and the Ministry of Justice does not need to conduct intensive interrogations. Yuan Keli has time to come over.

He seemed to be discussing something with Li Hualong and Luo Sigong.

When the three saw Wanli coming in holding little Zhu Changxun, they quickly stood up and saluted.

Wanli raised his hand and asked them to sit down together, then asked with a hint of curiosity: "What are you discussing?"

Who can say this?
The three of them looked at each other, and finally Yuan Keli spoke up, "Your Majesty, we are talking about the land deeds.

Most of the money embezzled by local corrupt officials, including many in the capital, was used to buy land.

The money seized from their homes was not much, but the number of land deeds was frightening.

In addition, many corrupt officials confessed, and most of their land was donated to local princes.

Your Majesty, this is a big problem. Most of the land in Shanxi, Shaanxi and Henan is in the hands of vassal kings, and a lot of land in Huguang, Shandong and Sichuan is also in the hands of vassal kings.

By punishing corrupt officials, it seems we are actually helping the local feudal lords. Those lands are now in their names. As long as we deal with the corrupt officials who donated the lands, those lands will be theirs."

The princes and royal family, the princes and royal family again!
When Wanli heard this, he frowned.

Now they are cracking down on corrupt officials, and the political situation is already in turmoil.

If they start to deal with the princes and royal family as well, there will probably be big problems.

The corrupt officials at the local level certainly don't want to sit and wait for death, but they are helpless now. Without sufficient force, they can't resist.

It would be different if they dealt with the princes and royal family together. The princes and royal family had a certain amount of military power, and these guys had money, food and people, so they could develop their military power very quickly.

In this situation, corrupt local officials are very likely to instigate or even join forces with princes and royal family members to rebel!
He frowned and thought for a while, then asked, "How much land have been confiscated so far?"

There are too many of them, I didn’t count them, I just reviewed them.

Yuan Keli simply looked at Li Hualong.

Li Hualong said carefully: "Your Majesty, we divided the confiscated land into two categories. One category is those who signed the surrender letter but do not have the land deeds.

There are already more than 20 million mu of this category, but this is just a number and it is hard to say whether it can be recovered.

The other category is those with land deeds, and this category is even larger, already exceeding 30 million mu.”

These guys are so cruel.

The number of corrupt officials they have seized is less than five or six thousand, but the farmland these guys have annexed is already fifty or sixty million acres!

In other words, on average, each corrupt official annexed at least tens of thousands of acres of land.

This land annexation is a chronic disease that has existed throughout the dynasties.

As each dynasty developed, the annexation of land became more serious.

The situation was particularly serious during the Ming Dynasty. In order to save officials' salaries, Emperor Hongwu even established a bizarre law: Jinshi were exempt from tax on 2,000 acres, Juren were exempt from tax on 400 acres, and Xiucai were exempt from tax on 80 acres!

Isn't this a disguised way of encouraging corrupt officials to annex land?
Jinshi are exempt from tax on 2,000 acres of land, so why don’t they try their best to annex 2,000 acres of land?
People's greed will only grow bigger and bigger. After merging two thousand acres of land and tasting the sweetness, they will definitely want to annex more.

The current situation is that every corrupt official who is a Jinshi has annexed at least thousands or tens of thousands of acres of land, and some have annexed tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of acres.

Xu Jie is a clear example. That guy pretended to be a leader of the Qingliu movement, but his family had annexed hundreds of thousands of acres of land!
How to solve this chronic disease?

No, he is still recruiting a large number of scholars at this moment!

This year he has selected thousands of Jinshi candidates, and next he will select four to five thousand Juren candidates, and next year he will select thousands more Jinshi candidates.

This means there are more than two thousand Jinshi and three to four thousand Juren. How much tax-free land do these people have?
Each Jinshi is entitled to 2,000 mu of land, and each Juren is entitled to 400 mu of land. The total amount of tax-free land for more than 2,000 Jinshi and 3,000 to 4,000 Juren is 500,000 to 600,000 mu of land!
This is assuming that these people are not corrupt and do not engage in frantic land acquisition.

If these guys were to continue their rampant corruption and annexation of land, they would at least annex hundreds of millions of acres of farmland! Moreover, each subsequent session would select four to five thousand Juren and thousands of Jinshi.

If this continues, the Juren and Jinshi will definitely annex all the land in the world!

How will the common people survive then?
Emperor Hongwu's reckless approach is truly fatal!
This was true for the princes and royal family members, as well as for the Jinshi and Juren. Emperor Hongwu was implicitly encouraging these people to frantically annex land.

No, you have to go to this place where Jinshi, Juren, and even Xiucai are exempt from tax!

The problem is that the political situation is already extremely turbulent at the moment. If he takes away all the tax-free lands of Jinshi, Juren, and even Xiucai, I am afraid there will be chaos in the world.

The princes and royal family members cannot move at this moment.

The tax-free land of Jinshi, Juren and Xiucai cannot be moved at this moment.

When will this chronic problem of land annexation be resolved?
Wanli frowned and pondered for a while, then asked, "Are these tens of millions of acres of farmland that were confiscated cultivated by anyone?"

How do you say this?

Li Hualong thought for a moment, then said carefully, "Your Majesty, I haven't sent anyone to actually check it out.

I guess that these lands should be cultivated by someone. After all, corrupt officials annexed the land in order to grow crops and make money. It is unlikely that they would let the land go to waste.

As for who is planting the crops, I cannot say for sure. It could be farmers who already have some land, or it could be unregistered slaves.”

These fields need to be dealt with quickly.

Wanli thought for a moment and then asked, "Yuye, is it okay for you to send an official from each of the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty to take care of these fields?"

This is of course no problem, as the Ministry of Revenue has the most people in charge.

Li Hualong nodded repeatedly and said, "No problem."

Wanli nodded slightly, then gave detailed instructions: "Then you will send fifteen officials with the Yellow Book of Taxes and Labor Service and the Fish Scale Atlas of each province.

The land seized this time that was annexed by corrupt officials and that has land deeds should be distributed to the common people nearby.

However, this land is not given away for free. For every acre we give them, they have to plant one more acre of land from the Ministry of Household Affairs.

The land of the Ministry of Households, that is, the land that was not distributed to the common people among the annexed lands this time, was first managed by the Ministry of Households.

The common people in these lands had to pay one dan of land rent per mu every year. The Ministry of Households first used this rent to replenish the granary, and then used the remaining rent as military rations.

Also, you should have the household slaves of officials who did not have household registration included in the "Yellow Book of Taxes and Services".

We will first ensure that each person has five mu of land, and the extra land will be divided equally among all localities according to local conditions, and all farmers who are willing to cultivate more land will receive an equal share."

This seems a bit complicated.

Li Hualong thought about it carefully after hearing this, and then said carefully: "Your Majesty, do you mean that if there are originally landless slaves, a family of four, and we give them 20 mu of land, they must cultivate 20 mu of land for the Ministry of Households?

If they already have land, for example, a family of four owns ten mu of land, we will give them ten mu of land and then let them cultivate it for the Ministry of Revenue."

This seems a bit unfair. If a slave who originally had no land wanted to have twenty acres of land of his own, he would have to give twenty acres of land to the Ministry of Households to cultivate, which means he would have to cultivate a total of forty acres of land.

The more land a farmer originally had, the less land he would give to the Ministry of Households for cultivation. If he originally had ten acres of land and wanted to make up for it with twenty acres, he would only need to plant ten acres for the Ministry of Households, which would add up to thirty acres.

The same family of four, the slaves who originally had no land, had to plant ten more acres of land.

However, the domestic slaves who originally had no land or even freedom could ensure food and clothing by having their own twenty acres of land.

Moreover, the land of the Ministry of Households was not cultivated for free. Each acre of land had to pay one stone of grain every year, and the rest was theirs. They could even live a well-fed and well-clothed life with the extra grain.

Wanli thought about it again, then nodded slightly and said, "Yes, that's what I mean.

It's almost August now, and the autumn harvest is not far away. We have to quickly divide up the land with title deeds.

This way, many civilians will be able to have enough food and clothing after the autumn harvest this year. More than 30 million mu of land is enough to ensure that 5 to 6 million civilians have enough food and clothing.

This is indeed very important, five or six million civilians.

Li Hualong nodded repeatedly and said, "I understand."

There are also those lands that were donated to the princes and royal families.

Wanli thought for a moment, then sighed and said, "As for the lands that were offered to the princes and royal families, we can only pretend we don't know about them for now.

You should keep track of all the accounts first. I will make those princes and royal family members pay for everything one day."

You don't want to purge the corrupt officials and then purge the princes and royal family, do you?
If the vassal kings rebelled, it would be a big trouble.

Forget it, this is the royal family’s own business, we can’t interfere, and there is no way we can interfere.

Li Hualong nodded repeatedly and said, "I understand."

The chronic problem of land annexation cannot be completely solved now.

He can only consider this issue after the corrupt officials are purged.

When Wanli looked at the list of land donated to the princes, he couldn't help but sigh.

The princes and royal family members also had tax-free land for Jinshi, Juren and Xiucai. Emperor Hongwu left them with a lot of problems.

(End of this chapter)