Chapter 32                                                             �

Zhou Mengchen sneered after hearing this.

Waiting? It is definitely impossible to wait.

First of all, Zhou Mengchen could not wait. He only had five years of office. He would not break his rules. Five years later, even if he did not resign, he would give up his position as chief minister. Of course, he had a tacit understanding with Zhang Juzheng.

He will give up the position of chief minister to Zhang Juzheng so that the reform plan can continue.

When Zhou Mengchen and Zhang Juzheng both retired, twenty years, a generation of people will take many things for granted and cannot be changed. Moreover, Zhou Mengchen also knew Zhang Juzheng's ability.

Zhou Mengchen arranged for Zhang Juzheng.

How do you know that Zhang Juzheng will not arrange for others?

But Zhou Mengchen and Zhang Juzheng are two people, and many of the two have different ideas. Zhang Juzheng will not understand Zhou Mengchen's desire for industrialization and modernization. Zhou Mengchen will not understand the future direction that Zhang Juzheng envisions.

How could Zhou Mengchen pretend to behave like this?

Even if you are your closest comrades, it won’t work.

Secondly, doing things is always done in one go, two goes down, and three goes down.

It is a dream to think about this matter today, and it is simply a dream to expect it to be able to pass in the future.

Therefore, Zhou Mengchen must not compromise.

Moreover, Zhou Mengchen understood the thoughts of these people. Before that, Zhou Mengchen had been making a big cake and using new and additional benefits to replace the concessions of vested interest groups in all parties.

But this thing cannot continue.

First of all, no matter how big Zhou Mengchen made a cake, it would not be possible to completely satisfy these people's appetites.

Secondly, it is also a cost issue.

Some people have a growing appetite, and Zhou Mengchen feels that it is not cost-effective to do this.

Third, the issue of strength comparison.

Zhou Mengchen's previous strength was a little worse than these interest groups. No, even if Zhou Mengchen was the chief minister, Zhou Mengchen's power alone may not be able to compare with these interest groups.

But these interest groups are not monolithic.

Zhou Mengchen did not deal with a whole vested interest group, but was divided into civil officials, nobles, schools, village party, etc. Although they were inseparable from each other, they were clearly divided. If they could really unite, let alone Zhou Mengchen was no match, how could Jiajing be an opponent?

But, can they connect?

Of course it cannot be.

If they could be connected, they would have been connected long ago. You should know that Jiajing was much more than Zhou Mengchen when he dealt with them.

Moreover, Zhou Mengchen knew the ideas of these people very well. In their opinion, the Ming Dynasty is now strong and there are no external troubles. Life is better every day, and it is best to live like this forever. What Zhou Mengchen did is simply troubled by mediocre people.

But Zhou Mengchen understood very well that if these problems were not resolved, the first economic crisis in the Ming Dynasty would be likely to come.

It’s just that these people don’t understand the concept of an economic crisis at all.

In recent years, the popularity of the Ming Dynasty steam engines has led to the rise in the production of various commodities. The most typical example is cloth. Now, almost all the workshops are from Songjiang to the Wusong River in Suzhou.

Countless cloths are produced here, some are overseas, and a large part are sold in China. It is also because of the lack of domestic cotton. Even large areas of cotton fields are opened in Jiangbei, but they are still not enough. The cotton from India continues to enter the country.

In this way, Zhou Mengchen, no, or many people in the Ming Dynasty did not feel that the Tianzhu cotton spinning industry was already destroying.

It is also because of the bottlenecks in sea transportation these days that there has been no big trouble in Tianzhu. For the same reason, the overseas market of Daming was limited after all. Therefore, the ability to withstand goods was limited. With the accumulation of various reasons, the problem of overproduction can easily break out.

Zhou Mengchen's reforms cleared the obstacles to the industrialization of the Ming Dynasty, and also reduced the burden on the lower-level people. They provided a new market for these workshops.

Zhou Mengchen actually had several big merchants who had said these words to Zhou Mengchen's disciples and grandchildren. As mentioned in the previous article, Zhou Mengchen did not make more money for himself during the entire industrialization process. The Zhou family's industry was mainly to collect rent in Beijing and Beijing. However, Zhou Mengchen's disciples made a lot of money in it, and the most of them were the Yin family.

In addition to the Yin family, there are many people.

Even in the Ming Dynasty business circle, he can be called a top business. Perhaps he is not as good as the old merchants of Shanxi merchants and Hui merchants, but he has some confidence. With their presence, Zhou Mengchen also united a considerable amount of commercial capital.

This is also the reason why Zhou Mengchen dared to do these things openly.

But these things cannot be said on this occasion.

Zhou Mengchen said, "Mr. Zou's words are bad. To rest with the people, the first thing to do is to make the people feel at ease. If you have constant property, you will have perseverance. And what is going on today? Does Lord Zou really not know?"

"The yellow book is not useful, and the numbers above are still from the Yongle Dynasty. The court collected taxes according to the yellow book, and several layers of taxes cannot be collected every year. The average tax that has to be exempted every year has been as much as five or six million stones. In ten years, it is not a problem. This is still the case when this number does not grow on a large scale."

"The land tax is the foundation of the country, and the people are the innocent of the country. What exactly happened in the world makes the people unable to bear taxes, and it is getting bigger and bigger. Is this dynasty's taxes too much?"

"Taizu set the quota and the Ming Dynasty's taxes have not changed much in hundreds of years. Why did the people in the Yongle Dynasty of Hongwu actively collect the food, but now they cannot collect it many times. They even commit suicide or fugitives?"

"This is the foundation of the country, and I have to pay attention to it."

Zhou Mengchen's eyes swept across everyone, with a sharp look, as if he had seen through the hearts of many people.

Zou Yinglong is also a little unnatural.

Does he know why?

Once scholars pass the imperial examination, they will use their tax exemption quota and no longer pay taxes. There are still countless people who have entrusted them to their names. The collection of land taxes in the Ming Dynasty is not based on people, but on Lijia.

It sounds normal, too.

If the Ming Dynasty wanted to use one person as the collection unit, the grassroots level would need to pay a lot of extra work. Generally speaking, when taxes were collected, taxes were collected from each village. Let the village chief, the village chief, etc. collect the village chief.

The total amount remains unchanged. If some people are exempt from taxes, some people will have to increase their taxes.

In other words, the Ming Dynasty did not increase taxes, but there were so many people exempted from taxes, so the taxes were increased on those who could not be exempted from taxes.

There is no rich household that uses various means to bribe the yamen and various tax-free means.

In this way, for those who really bear taxes, taxes have been growing slowly, and with many heavy taxes, it is natural that the people cannot afford it.

The methods of grassroots clerks are like wolves and tigers. Anyone who cannot pay taxes cannot pay, and even the possibility of family destruction.

In fact, this phenomenon happened very early. During the Zhengtong period, tens of millions of grain taxes were written off. Even after a period of time, all the amounts arrears of grain taxes were exempted.

After all, the court really can't force people to death.

But is there no problem?

Of course there is something wrong.

The court exempted the taxes owed by the arrears, which is likely to be used by local forces. Instead of exempting those who should be exempted, they will exempt their taxes. It is like people who are under the minimum living allowance have a big background.

It can be said that the imperial court did not rectify the grassroots level, and no matter how it was done, it would not be able to penetrate into the grassroots level of the Ming Dynasty. Any means were useless.

And what is the most basic thing in the Ming Dynasty?

It is the land system, it is the yellow book.

But no one can wake up a person who pretends to be asleep.

Some officials were silent for a moment and began to refute Zhou Mengchen from all aspects. After all, the salary of the Ming Dynasty officials was only as high as the grey income of the court, and on the other hand, the land that relied on fame and fortune at home was annexed.

If everything shakes open.

What should they do?

For a time, in their words, Zhou Mengchen's policy was unforgivable, and it was a cholera dynasty. Some people even said that Zhou Mengchen's proposal of good and lowly was to confuse the superiors and inferiors, and might not have the Three Bonds and Five Constant Persons, and they were disloyal and unfilial people.
Chapter completed!