Chapter 291 The most anticipated natural disaster

Author: Potato Sweet Potato Pie

Chapter 291 The most anticipated natural disaster

They made a big fuss in Taicang, beating the superior officials, and forced the palace officials to leave. The dogs barked at the sun.

Even a mad dog jumping over a wall is not enough to describe it. It can only be described as a death. These hundreds of people were driven to a dead end in a state of madness and turned against tens of thousands of bureaucrats in the world.

Isolate myself from official circles and isolate myself from the world.

If Emperor Hongzhi had taken these people to the prison of the Ministry of Punishment and waited for a period of time to ferment what happened today, officials from the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty, from the feudal officials to the various prefectures and counties, would have to come to the rescue one after another.

Tens of thousands of memorials were sent to the imperial court, just asking for the death of these hundreds of people.

At that time, the world will be shaken and the palace will be shaken. At that time, even if the emperor tried his best to save these hundreds of people, he would not be able to do it.

The final result will definitely be a joint trial by the three judges, and hundreds of people will go to the Naxi Fourth Archway to experience it.

However, he was imprisoned in the imperial edict, which was the imperial edict's prison, and the Three Law Departments had no right to interfere with the edict's trial.

Just like the Ming Dynasty, there were two highest places of execution for the execution of criminals. One was the Xisi Pailou in the capital, where prisoners who had been tried by the Three Justices were publicly executed; the other was the imperial prison.

In other words, one is the judicial department of the imperial court and the other is the judicial department of the emperor.

For example, if the emperor wants to kill a person, but the officials want to save this person, then the emperor will directly bypass the Ministry of Punishment, Dali Temple, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate and throw the person into imperial prison.

He was not in a hurry to kill him, so he locked him up inside. Then the emperor delayed the opportunity under the pressure of the officials. When the time was almost up, he compromised, listened to the loyal advice of the officials, pardoned him, and sent that person from prison.

Release it.

As for whether the person being released will come out vertically or horizontally, only God knows.

Everything has two sides. And if the officials want to kill a person, but the emperor wants to save this person, he can also be thrown into prison.

Now it depends on whether Emperor Hongzhi can withstand the subsequent pressure.

"Your Majesty, you may not want to hear this, I have more corrupt officials in the Ming Dynasty than in the previous dynasties.

One of the reasons is that the salary set by the state is too meager. These salaries are enough to support a family. But as officials, especially local officials, they have to hire staff, hire clerks, and maintain so-called officials.

All expenses are at one's own expense.

As a result, those salaries that seemed sufficient were no longer enough. Therefore, many people reached out to the people at the bottom to exploit the people under their rule, and officials and businessmen colluded to squeeze the people."

"Your Majesty knows that there is such a thing as exploiting people, but maybe he doesn't know how exactly he exploits people. I wonder if your Majesty has ever heard of Linjian Kihu?"

"..Lin Jian Ki Hu?"

Xia Yuan hummed, and then continued: "When local officials collect tax grains, the tax grains need to be piled full in the dendrobium, and they have to stand out. The person responsible for collecting tax grains will run over and hit them hard.

After kicking the dendrobium, the grain poured onto the ground. Then they ordered the people to fill the dendrobium until it came to the top, and then handed it over to the transportation department.

And the grain kicked out is their legal income."

Hearing such a harsh word, especially the word "legal", made Emperor Hongzhi instantly angry and said in a low voice: "There has never been such a law in the country."

"The country does not have it, but the people dare not argue about it. If the officials say it does, then it means it does."

Upon hearing this, Emperor Hongzhi hesitated for a moment and was blocked again.

Xia Yuan seemed to be lost in memories, his voice was a little weak and erratic,

"In addition to the taxes set by the imperial court, those officials also invented many names on their own: rice consumption tax, monthly silver, water foot silver, opening money, dumping basket money, free sieving money, extra sieving money."

"Ah"

At this point, Xia Yuan let out a sigh, "Your Majesty may not have imagined that you can still make money by passing through a sieve. Such a large sieve has big eyes and big holes."

He gestured with his hands, and his voice became hollower, as if coming from all directions, both far and near.

"Those county officials were holding sieves and shaking and shaking, and all the good wheat fell through those eyes. In their mouths, these were bad grains and could not enter the government treasury. They asked the people to no longer

to fetch new wheat grains, and the 'bad grain' that falls is their legitimate income."

"But how can wheat grains pass through such a large sieve? The common people do not have such large wheat grains, so even if they take all the wheat grains, it will not help. They will all become bad grain and become the legitimate income of the gentlemen.

Fortunately, the gentlemen were kind enough to come up with the free money and additional money for sifting. If you give enough money, you don't need to sift the grain. If you don't give enough money, then you can change the eyes or the grain according to the amount of money given.

Large or small sieve.”

Having said this, Xia Yuan raised his eyes and said, "Your Majesty may think that these things are far away. They should be in places where the sky is high and the emperor is far away, but it is not far at all. It is right at the foot of the capital, right in Daxing County, right here.

My hometown."

"When it comes time to collect taxes, the prefectures and counties are like hungry tigers coming out of the forest, the officials are like poisonous snakes, and the servants are like vicious dogs barking at the village."

When Xia Yuan said this, his voice became lower again, "The patriarch of my village is a very old-fashioned and pedantic old man. Logically speaking, he is the most disgusted with this kind of thing, but every time he collects taxes, he

It was he who organized the whole village to pool money together and pay these so-called nominal taxes to the government."

"Your Majesty, do you know what the people of my clan are looking forward to most?"

".What?" Emperor Hongzhi's throat was a little dry, and it took him a long time to ask these two words.

"What we most look forward to are natural disasters, locust plagues, droughts, and freezing disasters. But don't let it be a major disaster. If a major disaster kills people, just treat it with minor disasters.

As long as we can hope for these small disasters that are not too big, the benevolent Emperor will give us tax exemptions, and the government will not come to collect taxes. There are not so many ways to make money, and we can still carry a broken bowl.

Go get a bowl of porridge."

Your Majesty the benevolent Emperor.

This was a compliment, a sincere compliment, but Zhu Youtang didn't feel the slightest bit happy.

Natural disasters are the most awaited.

Hearing these four words in his ears, he felt an indescribable sadness in his heart, as if a ball of condensed depression had accumulated in his heart and turned into a huge stone, which made his chest tremble.

Stifling and uncomfortable.

However, Xia Yuan did not stop, but his voice became even lower, "I was admitted to the Yuan Dynasty examination last year, and my uncle was admitted to the Juren Examination. We held a banquet in Xiajia Village for three days, and the villagers pooled their money to host it. Even those

The money sent to the messengers was also paid by the villagers.

Why they did this is not because my uncle and I passed the examination to bring honor to our ancestors, but because we were awarded the title of Juren. According to the laws of our Ming Dynasty, we can be exempted from taxes on land."

"I now have thousands of acres of land in my name. Most of the land in Xiajiazhuang is in my name, but only four acres belong to my family. The rest of the land belongs to the Chen family. They sent the land to

In this way, I wanted to avoid the imperial court and avoid government taxes."

"But the taxes set by the imperial court are not high. If we pay according to the real taxes and combine all the taxes, the common people will only pay two or three bushels per acre of land. Not to mention two or three bushels.

So what if there are ten buckets or eight buckets? But why do people still try their best to evade taxes?"
Chapter completed!