My Daming New Empire

After the Northern Expedition, he taught Zhu Zhanji military knowledge for two years, and Zhu Zhanji saw his overall planning ability in marching and combat.

During the second Northern Expedition, he served as Zhu Di's confidential secretary. He was responsible for the basic necessities of the entire army, and he handled it in an orderly manner.

After Hu Guangyongle passed away in 16 years, he was promoted to the chief assistant of the cabinet.

But because he was valued by Zhu Di, he was not liked by civil servants, and all the ministers recommended him to serve as the sacrificial wine of the Imperial College.

Zhu Di's nostrils were burning with anger, and he scolded the ministers: "I know that he is more than enough to serve as sacrificial wine, but who of you can take over his position as the chief minister of the cabinet?"

The ministers were speechless at what they said, and they still let Yang Rong take the position of the chief assistant of the cabinet.

However, the chief minister of the cabinet has no administrative power now, so he is a big secretary, but he is the emperor's closest secretary.

Zhu Zhanji still recognizes Yang Rong's ability, but he will not give the cabinet too much power in the future. It is still very appropriate for Yang Rong, the chief assistant of the cabinet, to be the Minister of the Ministry of War in the future.

Seeing Zhu Zhanji coming, Zhu Di ordered someone to prepare a meal, and then asked him: "Why didn't you go to the Maqiao today, but went to meet some Shandong people, is there anything unusual?"

Zhu Zhanji has no intention of hiding it. Yang Rong and Zhao Yan present here have no deep relationship with Shandong, and he doesn't mind telling it about it.

"The grandson suspects that they are the sinners of the White Lotus Sect, so we have to meet them face to face."

Zhu Di was shocked, "In this case, why not detain them and find out!"

Zhu Zhanji smiled and said: "Even if they are real, grandson is not going to arrest them. Grandson has promised them today that as long as they can set up camp in Xi'an, Mobei, and open up the territory for my Ming Dynasty, grandson will promise them A count."

Zhu Di frowned and pondered for a while before saying: "It's reasonable to let such a suspicious person expand the territory of Ming Dynasty for me, but Earl Xu Yi... what do you think?"

There is a globe in Jinshen Hall, Zhu Zhanji led them to the front of the globe, turned the globe, pointed to the direction of the southern foot of the Ural Mountains and said: "Grandfather, this place is [-] miles away from my Ming Dynasty, and it is impossible to pass the boat. Is it really possible to control such a distant area?"

Before Zhu Di could reply, Yang Rong nodded and said, "Your Majesty, your Highness's move is very clever. If they are the remnants of the White Lotus Sect, sending them to this place in the far west is already the greatest punishment. Daming only needs to provide some weapons, and they will be sent to the far west." If we can let them settle down there, decades later, it will become the territory of my Ming Dynasty. Even if it fails, my Ming Dynasty will not lose anything."

Zhao Yan also supported Yang Rong's idea, but he also said: "It's just that these people don't care about righteousness, and Xu's position as an earl is too preferential treatment."

Zhu Di said with a smile: "If the position of an earl really makes me, Daming, a heel, it's nothing..."

Zhu Zhanji added: "The reason why these people came to the capital was because of a major case. Since last year, the hundreds of thousands of stones of relief food shipped by the imperial court to Shandong have not been distributed to the people. Today, my grandson is doing it for This matter has been delayed until now."

Grain prices in Daming are extremely low now, a stone of rice is only two cents and a half silver, and one silver dollar can buy 480 catties of rice.

But hundreds of thousands of shi grains can also be worth 10 taels of silver, and it’s not just a matter of money, the people can’t live without grain, but there will be big troubles.

Several people are smart people, thinking about the problems behind this, the smile on their faces disappeared.

(The phone is broken, and now I have to repair the phone. I will update a chapter today, and Chapter 2 is not sure)

Thanks Qihei Buddha, see people with lights, spit on you, by chance 123456, bamboo stick, book friend 20181103202216774 for the reward, thank you for your support

Chapter 26 Gains and Losses

People in this era have a hard time, mainly because of the excessive and miscellaneous taxes of Ming Dynasty.

The taxes in Ming Dynasty seem to be not high, the annual total amount is less than 3000 million taels of silver, and on average, each commoner only has five taels of silver, which is less than one tael of silver.

However, if the privileged class is removed, literati are exempt from tax, officials are exempt from tax, and clansmen and nobles are exempt from tax. Each person must pay at least two more coins in tax.

Moreover, the accounts cannot be calculated in this way, because of the inefficient tax collection system, coupled with layers of exploitation, the tax borne by each person is almost a tael of silver.

A tael of silver seems to be very little, and many people don't care about it, but according to the production efficiency of Daming today, this tael of silver is enough to be regarded as a heavy tax for the common people.

Because this tael of silver is nearly [-] catties of grain, and a family of three can share [-] catties of grain, which is the harvest of five mu of land.

In the southeast of Daming, many families of three do not even have five acres of land.

Even if two seasons of grain are planted a year, women still need to do some manual work at home, raise chickens and pigs for some money to subsidize, so that they don't have to sell rations to pay taxes.

In the era of completely manual agriculture, these taxes are like a mountain, pressing on every common people.

And the strict household registration system makes it impossible for everyone to change their situation.

You are a farmer who cultivates the land. In addition to farming and selling some of your own products in the city, you cannot leave your own land to work.

In addition to this, there is another most terrible obligation, that is, to perform hard labor.

According to the law of the Ming Dynasty, every household has to send a laborer to serve the Ming Dynasty free of charge for one to two months every year.

And during his service, Daming didn't care about anything, even your own rations were brought from home by yourself.

Because of such regulations, Zhu Yuanzhang is vigorously attacking big families, because a family of three is assigned a labor force, and a family of ten is also assigned a labor force.

These exorbitant taxes, as well as military service, have brought a heavy burden on the lives of ordinary people.

Every family has to pay taxes on almost half of their income, and then they have to serve in the military...

In the era of Zhu Yuanzhang, big families were vigorously cracked down, widowhood was prohibited, and birth was encouraged.

Population represents taxes and national power.

But for ordinary people, having more children means that they can't afford to have children...can't afford to have children, can't afford to support, can't afford to live, can't afford to die.

Until Zhu Di's era, benefiting from the stability of the society, the increase in commercial taxes, and the reduction of exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes from farmers, the lives of the people were better.

And because there is not so much infrastructure construction nowadays, the common people who serve are allowed to use money to buy themselves not to serve, and use silver to do their work.

The exempt money paid is not too much, only about two sen per person, which is affordable for most ordinary people.

However, the preparations for this Western Expedition have placed a heavy burden on countless ordinary people.

Especially for the few ordinary people in the north of the Ming Dynasty, the task of transporting grain to the northwest became a tyranny more fierce than a tiger.

The main grain production area of ​​Ming Dynasty is south of the Yellow River, and it is more than five thousand miles to transport grain to Jiayuguan.

In later generations, this is only a one-day distance by car, but in this era, it takes a three-person food transport team to cover the road in about three months.

Fortunately, Daming has built a cement road directly to Jiayuguan. If it was before, it would not be able to reach Jiayuguan in three months.

For every shi of grain transported by Daming to the northwest, two shi of grain were consumed.

This is also because Daming now has a large amount of food from Nanyang, so he dared to do so.In the original era, why did the Ming Dynasty implement the military household system and the Weisuo system? The key is that they did not have the ability to transport grain.

However, transporting food from Nanyang increased the national power of Ming Dynasty, and for the common people, it did not improve their own situation.

In this day and age, it is impossible to expect the emperor and officials to be kind to the common people.

In the eyes of these great figures, being able to protect the common people from bloody disasters and live a good life is a great kindness.

As a member of the privileged class, Zhu Zhanji will not shake the stability of society rashly even if he has sympathy for the common people.

Because not only the emperor and officials, but also the common people themselves think that they can survive well now.There is food to eat, clothes to wear, and occasional snacks for the children. This kind of life is already very satisfying.