【Quick Wear】My Years as a Mother-in-law

Chapter 158 The Queen Mother who picked up the bargain is very upset 4

Yun Xi seemed to be staring at the memorial, but in fact she was looking at the screen. "As expected, they're asking for money again. Is there a drought in the southwest? Is that true? System, get me a weather forecast for that area, including the past few months."

"it is good."

Yun Xi looked at the weather in the southwest and said, "It hasn't rained in about ten days. The officials are too impatient."

He then checked the southwest weather forecast and saw that it would rain heavily in two days. He felt relieved and found a few memorials from officials, writing words of comfort on them. The general idea was: "I understand your concerns. Heaven is merciful. Let's wait and see. If it doesn't rain in five days, the court will surely make a statement." (The following appears unrelated and likely comes from a different source.)

"These vassal states are trying to revolt again. Marshals and generals, please show some strength. Oh, being strong requires military funds."

"System, are the four simulation robots I bought earlier still available?"

It had been too long and there were too many things in the space, so Yun Xi had forgotten some of them.

"What are you doing?"

"I want them to deliver the military funds, but if I send them through officials, I don't know how much will be embezzled. It also takes a long time. The robots are highly skilled in martial arts and only obey my orders. I feel very reassured, but there are too few of them."

As Yun Xi was talking, her thoughts went astray again. The State of Liang was vast, and its annual tax revenue was 20 million shi. However, in the early days of the State of Liang, the annual tax revenue was more than 30 million shi. Land annexation had become increasingly serious, and the largest landlord was the royal family.

The problems faced by the Lianguo were very similar to those in the mid-Ming Dynasty, but the Lianguo Kingdom was not as large in area as the Ming Dynasty, nor did it have the Ming Dynasty's military strength.

If you want to solve the problem in the short term, you can use Zhang Juzheng's "One Whip Law", which combines the land tax, corvee and other miscellaneous taxes of each county into one, collects silver together, and pays it on a per-acre basis.

It means that a farmer used to have to pay grain, cloth, serve as a military household, do corvée labor, and so on. There were so many miscellaneous items. And when these things were transported to the capital, they would be lost. If the officials were a little greedy, who would suffer? The people would suffer.

The Single Whip System greatly simplified the tax system, making it easier to collect taxes while making it difficult for local officials to cheat, thereby increasing fiscal revenue.

However, there are also disadvantages. Additional dispatches, fire consumption problems, high silver prices and low grain prices and other problems have emerged one after another. These can only solve short-term problems but cannot solve the root causes.

To solve these problems, Emperor Yongzheng's policies of equalizing the land tax, returning the fire consumption to the public, and requiring officials and gentry to pay taxes and serve as officials were all good.

What does this mean? For example, if I have a large family but little land, but taxes are collected per head, my family will have high expenses and low income, resulting in a heavy burden. With no other options, we will gradually become unable to afford it, and our resilience to risks will become increasingly weak. If something were to happen, what would we do? Selling land and becoming tenants accelerates land consolidation.

The system of "sharing the land tax" means that taxes are not collected based on the number of people, but based on the area of ​​land. The amount of tax is determined by the amount of land. Those who have more land pay more, those who have less land pay less, and those who have no land pay nothing. This is very friendly to the farmers in feudal society. There are also two other policies, both of which are aimed at reducing the extra burden on the people.

But can this guarantee the long-term stability of a feudal country? No!

Many people have summarized the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. Some say it was due to land annexation, some say it was due to the exploitation of merchants, some say it was due to factional struggles among officials, some say it was due to the hollowing out of imperial power, and some say it was due to the Zhu family's absorption of the dynasty, or because of the legal predatory nature of the royal family...

Hai Rui tried to persuade his father and emperor to mend his ways and stop plundering, but to no avail. This would have forced Jiajing to give up his privileges, and who could be willing to give them up?

The bottom line is that with the development of society, the feudal system will be abandoned, so what can be achieved in one step is what the great man called revolution, the implementation of land nationalization, etc.

Yun Xi fell into deep thought. What would happen to the royal family after the revolution? What did this have to do with Yun Xi?

"You want revolution, but it's very difficult."

“It’s big, but with you here, the road ahead is not endless.”

……

Yun Xi didn't tell anyone about this matter. She reviewed the memorials silently. It was already past ten o'clock in the evening when she finished. She had a simple midnight snack and took a shower, and the day passed.

The next morning, Yun Xi received news that many officials had requested a grand court meeting. She rolled her eyes and asked, "What did the emperor say?"

"Your Majesty, His Majesty has refused."

"It's no use always refusing." Yun Xi muttered and sent someone down to bring the silver. "The military expenses for the east, south, west, and north are two million taels of silver each. Take my handwritten order to the national treasury to withdraw the silver. Have everyone bring it here."

"Here~"

Every time the Ministry of Revenue approved the silver, it would take a long time. When the silver arrived, Yun Xi had already finished reading the memorials. The silver filled the entire courtyard of Renshou Palace.

Eight million taels of silver was a lot and difficult to transport, so Yun Xi had the system convert it into gold while no one was paying attention.

The four robots summoned from the side and the fifty robots purchased this morning all fought in a row.

"Yun Yi, take this silver with me and send it to the border. Go to the most urgent and nearest northern border first. Every soldier's salary will be doubled."

The soldiers had just been paid their wages for the month before last. These were the wages from last month to the end of the year. The soldiers' wages were very low. The lowest-level soldiers only received a few hundred coins a month, less than one or two taels of silver. If the court still delayed paying them, it would be really heartless. This time, the palace laid off some people and saved a lot of money, so she paid them double the wages, hoping that they could resist foreign enemies.

The total number of troops on the border of Lian State is less than 800,000, so this gold should be enough.

"Yes!"

Fifty-four simulated robots strictly carried out her orders. Yun Xi had the silver loaded onto twenty carriages in total. She arranged fifty robots to transport it, leaving four to protect her.

A fully charged robot can last for two months. They don’t need to eat or drink, and driving at night is not affected. Two months is enough for them to return. Moreover, they can be charged with solar energy during the day, so Yun Xi is not worried.

A team quietly set out from the imperial city. No matter how many people were watching them, they would eventually be defeated.

After completing a major task, Yun Xi stretched and looked at the memorial again. The second major event was that there was a large tsunami at the seaside this year, there were many pirates, and the people suffered seriously.

The problem of pirates will be solved once the military pay arrives and General Feng Yan sees her secret letter. It's a disaster relief issue as well.

Yun Xi thought about it and decided to exempt taxes for three years first. After all, the tsunami was a natural disaster that was beyond the control of the government.

Then let local officials open their granaries to release grain to help the victims, and distribute grain seeds after the disaster is over so that the people can get out of their predicament as soon as possible.

"Huh? Why is there another case sent to me for judgment?"

Yun Xi became interested and looked at it carefully, then took a deep breath. "Is this a case of accidentally killing my stepfather?"

"Yes, the officials below are arguing endlessly about this case. Some say Zhang Li killed his father to protect his mother and that it was unintentional. Others ask, can you kill someone if you have a reason? It's difficult to judge whether it was intentional or not subjectively."