Late Ming Dynasty: So what if Emperor Chongzhen was inactive?!

Chapter 313 Was the Great Ming Dynasty's Pig Prince ultimately someone else's pig?

During his stay in Taiyuan, Zhu Youjian resided at the Prince of Jin's residence. The Prince of Jin gave him a strange impression, a feeling of being both poor and rich. The Prince of Jin's residence covered over 400 mu (approximately 26.7 hectares), equivalent to half the area of ​​the Forbidden City, which was undeniably large.

The Ministry of Revenue records that the estates of the Jin princes numbered 720,000 mu, but the Shanxi Provincial Administration records that the estates of the Jin princes numbered 7.6 million mu, a difference of tenfold.

Zhu Youjian asked Zhu Qiugui, "Do you know how much land you own?"

Zhu Qiugui looked bewildered and said, "It must be several hundred thousand mu. Last year, I received 43,000 taels of land rent."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Youjian nearly choked, unable to catch his breath. He asked, "Is this enough money?"

Zhu Qiugui said, "Doing business can earn quite a bit, about seven or eight thousand taels!"

Zhu Youjian gave his fat uncle a pitying look and tossed him the land register from the Shanxi Provincial Administration. The Shanxi vassal state owned over 7.6 million mu of land, with an average rent of five dou per mu. Shanxi supported two major military garrisons and bordered its poor relatives in northern Shaanxi. The price of grain there was equal to or higher than one shi per tael of silver, so theoretically, the Shanxi vassal state should have an annual income of over three million taels.

Regarding the matter of establishing an heir, Zhu Youjian extorted three thousand taels of silver from the Prince of Jin. At the time, it was thought that the Prince of Jin was just stingy, but now it seems that he really had no savings. As one of the nine princes of the frontier, the Prince of Jin was once more prestigious than Zhu Di, and his ancestors were once wealthy. However, by this time, many of the main halls in the Prince of Jin's mansion had fallen into disrepair, and the Prince of Jin had no money to repair them.

There were also differences among the princes. In the last few years of the Ming Dynasty, Prince Zhou spent 500,000 taels of silver to reward his army and defended Kaifeng for half a year. Li Zicheng attacked Kaifeng three times, but was defeated and died. Finally, he flooded Kaifeng with the Yellow River and took it.

The Prince of Jin fared much worse. He used three thousand taels of silver to recruit loyal soldiers to defend Taiyuan, but the taels were embezzled by Li Zhisheng, the provincial education commissioner of Shanxi. Li Zhisheng exchanged the silver for "merit commemorative paper tickets," which caused the defending troops to completely collapse. After the city fell, Li Zicheng did not kill the Prince of Jin. In the second year of the reign of Emperor Fulin, he was killed by Dorgon, the regent of the Manchu Qing dynasty, on the pretext of treason.

Zhu Youjian immediately arrested all the chief clerks and clerks of the Jin princely family and asked Zhu Qiugui if he wanted them executed.

Zhu Qiugui was shocked and instead pleaded for his chief secretary. The chief secretary of the Jin Prince's residence also began to protest, saying that he was aware of the local officials concealing land and intercepting rent, and that he had appealed to the Ministry of Revenue and the Emperor many times, but to no avail. He insisted that it was not that he, as the chief secretary of the Prince's residence, had colluded with the Prince to bully him!
The fact that he can now maintain this annual rent of tens of thousands of taels is already the result of his hard work in dealing with local officials.

The path to promotion for a prince's chief secretary was very narrow; they mostly served in the prince's residence for a long time until their death in office. They were generally referred to as the prince's head steward, so this was considered a family matter of the Jin princes. Zhu Youjian confirmed that Zhu Qiugui greatly valued this chief secretary of his household, so he released him.

Zhu Youjian was deep in thought about the potential tax revenue from just one declining Jin princely state—several million acres of fertile land and several million taels of silver. It was true that princes and their families had encroached on the tax base, and that most of the fertile land in the country had become princely estates; but it was also true that if you really lifted up a prince and shook him, you would find that only a few coins would fall out of his pocket.

Actually, this makes the most sense. If even the emperor, the head of the Zhu family, couldn't collect taxes, and the princes had neither troops nor power, were impeached every few days, and wished they could stay at home forever and avoid meeting those damned civil officials, how could such incompetent people possibly collect taxes?!
The Ming Dynasty's tax revenue was a murky affair, and Zhu Youjian dared not calculate it, for each calculation left him questioning his very existence. The entire Ming Dynasty possessed 700 million mu of land; logically, there should have been hundreds of millions of taels of tax revenue, right? Zhu Youjian felt a tickle in his neck; even with several thousand soldiers under his command, he felt no sense of security.

Zhu Youjian proposed a deal with the Prince of Jin: he would help the Prince reclaim the 70,000 hectares of farmland recorded in the land register, and after collecting the rent, they would split the spoils 50/50. Zhu Qiugui, with a mournful face, said, "Your Majesty, don't think I'm stupid, I'm afraid!" Zhu Youjian, exasperated, scolded, "I already said I allowed you to reinstate the three guards system for the princes, and look at the hundred or so worthless scoundrels you keep in your residence!"

Zhu Qiugui said frankly that these were all his relatives, and the leader was his younger brother. The General Zhenguo had ten subordinates, while the Assistant General was a lone commander. He did not recognize anyone further away and could only let them find their own way.
Zhu Youjian had no choice but to continue to deceive him, saying, "Just because you don't have money now doesn't mean you won't have money in the future. You have so much land, how much money can you make just by renting it out? Tens of thousands of acres of land can support a garrison, and three garrisons can be managed with hundreds of thousands of acres."

"Then you'll have an army of 20,000. Who would dare bully you then? If anyone defaults on your rent or seizes your land, you can just lead your troops to fight them, right?"

Zhu Qiugui shook his head vigorously, weakly saying, "I dare not dream of 20,000 troops; I would be content with 3,000 guards. Um, Your Majesty, could you lend me some Imperial Guards for protection?!"

Zhu Youjian was speechless. He pointed at Zhu Qiugui and scolded, "You incompetent Liu Shan, how come you're more afraid of death than I am?"

Zhu Qiugui said with an extremely melancholy look in his eyes, "Your Majesty, you don't understand..."

Zhu Youjian didn't have deep feelings for his relatives whom he hadn't seen for decades or even his entire life. He had considered redistributing land to the people, but he had heard stories of the local militias. If the land were directly distributed to the people, given their limited strength, they probably wouldn't be able to hold onto it for even three years; giving it to the princes, at least, would offer them a stronger chance of resistance.

Furthermore, these lands nominally belonged to the Jin princes, making the procedures easier to follow. The policy of limiting tax exemptions for princes has been in effect for three years, but it's hard to say what the actual effect has been or how much additional tax revenue has been collected.

Zhu Youjian was starting to regret his trip. He felt that the Ming Dynasty was paved with gold, and at his current pace, he could easily extract tens of millions of taels of silver from Shanxi alone. After touring the whole country, he could amass hundreds of millions of taels of silver. By then, the Jurchens would be nothing more than a roadside nuisance.

The problem is, he felt uneasy taking the money. If he were an official in the Ming Dynasty, he would want to kill himself!
Zhu Youjian showed the account to Zhu Xieyuan and asked him what he thought. The old man only said four words: "Shocking." When asked what to do, Zhu Xieyuan dodged the question, which angered Zhu Youjian so much that he wanted to tie the old man up and beat him.

With Yu Qian dead, Zhang Juzheng's family ruined and exterminated, and Qi Jiguang dying in despair, perhaps in many people's eyes, the Ming Dynasty was not worth saving!

Zhu Qiugui had four sons and two daughters. His wife, Lady Wan, was elegant, dignified, well-educated, and very fertile; all four sons were legitimate sons. Therefore, Zhu Qiugui actually lived a quite comfortable life. Zhu Youjian didn't know if it was appropriate to drag him into this mess, but in reality, he himself was also living a very good life.

He'd given the Ming Dynasty a second chance at life; surely it wouldn't be in danger of collapsing for decades. Wouldn't it have been perfectly fine for him to stay in the palace, playing with his children and women? To run away under immense pressure and risk, he felt like a complete lunatic!
He couldn't care less about that now. Why was he, the emperor, the only one constantly worried about being killed? Zhu Youjian even felt a pang of jealousy towards Zhu Qiugui's life. He too wanted to be a carefree prince, with a time-traveling emperor fighting for him and taking the blame. Zhu Youjian felt it was too unfair. Why could the Prince of Jin enjoy such a life without effort?!
So he forced Zhu Qiugui into a position, leaving him a small squad of about a dozen men from the Guan Ning Army as the backbone. Three thousand it was fine; the people of Shanxi were known for their fierceness, and he wasn't worried about not being able to recruit enough able-bodied men. These new recruits weren't up to the task of fighting the northern barbarians, but they were enough to fight the servants of local powerful gentry and wealthy families. Officially, Zhu Youjian could simply give them some leeway.

The princes of the Ming Dynasty had to stand up, otherwise Zhu Youjian would be too lonely, always feeling like he was facing the ages alone. He needed to set up a few targets to share the firepower!
(End of this chapter)