Chapter 1560: Jiajing

Wang Yan being the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue and in charge of the Ministry of Revenue was not to let him calculate accounts step by step.

It was to make money.

To make money, one had to act on a large scale, and one had to touch the interests of others, so naturally, it became a reform.

Reform is long-lasting; it doesn't appear suddenly, but has been continuously carried out throughout the dynasties, always changing and always reforming. But a magnificent era always has a beginning. Like Sarajevo to World War I, like Louis XVI's head to the French Revolution.

If the Great Ming's great reform were to be dug out from the paper pile, and historians were to draw a clear boundary for this Great Ming reform, it must start from Wang Yan's promotion to Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue and being in charge of the Ministry of Revenue.

The direction of reform had long existed, and the prominent problems of the Great Ming could be seen by people of insight, and some people were indeed seeking solutions, but they couldn't stop more people from ignoring the overall situation and still frantically grabbing benefits for themselves.

This reform started from the various problems and solutions found by people of insight in the Great Ming over the past few decades, and sprouted until Wang Yan spent silver to buy the official position of Chun'an Registrar, which became a major turning point.

At the same time, this turning point also connected the "changing rice for mulberry," indicating the financial dilemma of the Great Ming at that time, and connected the political event of overthrowing Yan Song, indicating the political ecology at that time, highlighting the bloody political struggle under the short lines of historical text.

Afterwards, Wang Yan brought the Chun'an model to Daxing, and then to the entire Shuntian Prefecture, very counter-intuitively moving the knife first in the heart of the Great Ming. It was this move that introduced the Great Ming from the agricultural era to the transition stage of the industrial production era, with productivity greatly improved, market economy prosperous, and the first batch of clear capitalist classes stepping onto the historical stage.

He also led the construction of the Great Ming navy, suppressed the Japanese pirates, although there were sporadic sea bandits, those were true sea pirates, men licking blood on the edge of a knife, but for the overall situation, it was almost equal to nothing.

After all, those who couldn't make a big deal couldn't cause big trouble. In the vast ocean, it was not easy to catch them even if the army went over. Those who became a big climate were dispersed by a wave of offensive by the navy, and the captured leaders were all killed to sacrifice to the Sea Dragon King to protect the peace of the sea.

At the same time, the most important thing was to suppress the rising Southeast magnates, preventing them from wreaking havoc in the Southeast, causing the Southeast to drift away from the center, and ensuring that the central government's power could reach the Southeast regions.

He also re-established the Shipping Bureau, re-opened the sea ban, and conducted sea trade in a standardized and large-scale manner, and also actively joined the journey of ocean development and discovery of the New World.

All these things had set off a great reform in the Great Ming, but in the end, Wang Yan's policies were not fully implemented in the entire Great Ming. Although there was already a magnificent momentum, it was not fully unfolded in the end.

Now Wang Yan had reached the peak of power and was in charge of the Ministry of Revenue, which was to set off a great reform in the entire territory of the Great Ming...

After taking office, Wang Yan invested in work in a very short time. The first thing was to establish a special statistical Yamen in the Ministry of Revenue, expand personnel, and start various data statistics on the areas actually controlled by the Great Ming, and also shared many data from the Imperial Bank. However, the Imperial Yamen mainly counted economic data, while the Ministry of Revenue Yamen counted data on productivity, means of production, and various assets in all aspects.

So in order to cooperate with the statistics, the action of clearing fields and checking households in the entire Great Ming range, which had long been expected, was brought up. At the same time, Wang Yan also let his subordinates write very formal official documents to discuss re-establishing the tax law, and proposed to classify the cleaning fee as commercial tax, and proposed to re-verify commercial tax, re-determine commodity catalogs, and other matters.

This matter was led by the Grand Secretariat to hold an expanded meeting, with the Grand Secretariat, the Directorate of Ceremonial, and the heads of the Six Ministries and Nine Ministers all present. After a day of discussion, the Grand Secretariat voted to agree, the Directorate of Ceremonial approved it on the spot, and it was fully passed, starting the formal nationwide clearing fields and checking households action.

This was not really just checking numbers, but like Shuntian Prefecture and Jiliao region, those found had to pay taxes, slaves in the family also had to be registered, those who resisted the review would be investigated and dealt with, and those who had too many connections and bad influence would be "cleared out."

This was just the stage of checking; the stage of collecting taxes hadn't started yet.

The highlight of this time was the re-determination of the tax law, which was the foundation of the country. Land tax, poll tax, labor service, city gate tax, cattle, sheep, and horse tax, and even the tax for cutting firewood in the mountains—of course, it also included commercial tax, which was a sub-category of tax law.

And among these, the most important were naturally land tax, poll tax, labor service, and other miscellaneous taxes. Wang Yan proposed to exempt some miscellaneous taxes, exempt labor services, and in land tax and poll tax, simply come to a "spreading the poll tax into the land tax," paying taxes according to the land.

At the same time, in order to maximize fairness and justice, it was also necessary to balance the people who had land and the people who didn't have land but had jobs. After all, farmers and workers were the two largest groups, and their income could not be unbalanced. And it could be foreseen that with the development of the Great Ming, workers would definitely earn more and more, so early preparations had to be made.

On the other hand, it was to re-plan the tax exemption policy for scholars, including officials. After all, the overall taxes were reduced, and the cost of studying was also constantly decreasing. Preferential treatment was preferential treatment, but there had to be limits.

In addition, there were a series of tax laws targeting powerful and great families. For example, Wang Yan came up with property tax, inheritance tax, and many additional taxes on high-end products. He even wanted to target nobles and the imperial family, wanting to know how much silver it would cost to inherit a title—this wasn't denied, but it wasn't passed either, and Wang Yan was scolded quite a bit.

There was even more scolding, because Wang Yan proposed to significantly reduce the expenses of the imperial clan and restrict the descendants of the Zhu family. This was truly a significant expense, and the annual expense of supporting the imperial clan was more than what the Jiajing Emperor spent. If this silver was brought out, the Great Ming's financial situation could be even better.

Under such circumstances, it was no wonder he was scolded. That is, Wang Yan now had a fierce record and a great reputation; otherwise, the imperial clan might have produced a few people who wanted to kill him. It was just that they were afraid of being copied and exiled to the northeast and grasslands to work until they died, so they all woke up and just scolded a few words...

The imperial clan was also complex. Some were hugely wealthy, and they didn't care about this little money. At the same time, they must have been dealt with by Wang Yan in the previous series of activities such as clearing fields, checking households, overturning old cases, and collecting cleaning fees, so they didn't care.

On the contrary, it was those imperial clans who weren't doing well who were truly relying on this silver to live. It was just that such groups were a bit too many. After all, not everyone called "imperial clan" could be hugely wealthy, and not everyone could accomplish things...

So their opposition was also very intense. Before it was said whether it was passed or not, they had already made a big scene.

For this matter, the Jiajing Emperor didn't care. He didn't even pay much attention to his own sons, let alone those relatives. But he was impatient with the noise of these relatives and didn't like their confrontation.

And Xu Jie and the others were purely bad. Wang Yan submitted the memorial, and Xu Jie and the others passed it unanimously, and at the same time, they all agreed that since it was proposed by Wang Yan, this matter should be presided over by Wang Yan...

Wang Yan didn't resist this. It was nothing more than scolding Xu Jie again during the meeting, and then he honestly moved against the imperial clan.

In three years, the entire Great Ming completed a clearing of fields and checking of households, and land and population directly increased by more than thirty percent. The re-determined tax law was also implemented throughout the world, the Great Ming operated normally, and once again released huge vitality.

The main reason was naturally that the burden on all the people of the Great Ming was reduced, and they all had more possibilities, so they naturally started to operate positively.

During this period, besides doing these things, Wang Yan really wrote a book, summarizing his principles of governance and military governance, mainly telling the importance of wealth circulation. And encouraged people to innovate, invent, and research more fresh things.

His examples were also very simple, that is, crops like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn. After so long of research and cultivation, the yield had already come up, and it was about to exceed the yield of local crops. New records of yield per mu were created every year, and even the Jiajing Emperor was very concerned. Every year when it was time to harvest, he would ask about it.

In addition, there were many novel things that emerged in the Great Ming in the past ten years. And at the same time, he put forward some views on other thoughts and started academic debates.

For this reason, he finally requested the Emperor to open a newspaper for Great Ming current affairs, specifically to engage in debates with various great Confucian scholars in the world, further helping to push the collision and development of thoughts.

It was also during this period that Hu Zongxian, who took over Wang Yan's position as Governor-General of Jiliao and was in charge of the war and managing Liaodong, continued to cooperate well with Qi Jiguang, advancing steadily, not only collapsing the Tatar regime but also driving away the Oirats. The grasslands and Mobei were all peaceful.

The chieftains in the southwest were also hammered, honestly listening to the Great Ming's orders, accepting more officials sent by the Great Ming, and listening to the orders of these officials. If they didn't listen, they would truly die.

Japan had no movement, and even before the navy took action, it had been harmed miserably by the Great Ming's sea merchants over the years.

As it looks now, the Three Great Expeditions of Wanli have been solved...

However, the little Wanli, who was already grown up, didn't understand these things.

"Vice Minister Wang, Imperial Grandfather..."

Wang Yan waved his hand, interrupting the little Wanli who looked very anxious: "Your Highness, Heir Apparent, this subordinate is truly powerless. I have already seen it; it's the same even if I look again."

"Then you prescribe some more medicine to make the Imperial Father feel more comfortable." Prince Yu sighed, showing great filial piety.

Wang Yan scanned the ministers who were waiting for the Jiajing Emperor to die, cupped his hands, got up, and followed Prince Yu into the main hall inside the Longevity Palace.

However, the now-grown Wanli Emperor did not understand these matters.

"Why? Come to see if I have breathed my last? Can't wait to be Emperor?" The Jiajing Emperor looked at his own son with a smile.

Prince Yu and little Wanli knelt down and kowtowed. Before they could speak, Wang Yan said: "Your Majesty, it was Prince Yu who asked this subordinate to come and see Your Majesty again and prescribe some medicine to make you feel more comfortable."

"No need. I know my own body best; it is already exhausted, and there is no way to save it."

The Jiajing Emperor looked at Wang Yan and said slowly, "The rolling Yangtze River flows east, and the waves wash away the heroes. Right and wrong, success and failure, all turn to empty. The green mountains are still there, how many times the sunset is red... All the things of the past and present are all paid for in laughter."

"Yang Shen still has talent; this lyric is well written."

"Your Majesty is a generation of holy masters and wise monarchs, suppressing Japanese pirates, destroying Tatars, driving away Oirats, reducing the burden on the people, the people living and working in peace, our Great Ming's prosperity is unprecedented in history. Your Majesty's civil and martial achievements shake the past and the present, truly a heroic master."

"Are you discussing the posthumous title for me?" The Jiajing Emperor glanced at Wang Yan.

"Your Majesty knows this subordinate best; this subordinate is speaking the truth." Wang Yan cupped his hands, his face full of loyalty.

Although Wang Yan did those things, and his key role was irreplaceable, on the other hand, the importance of the Jiajing Emperor as an emperor was also quite significant. Without the Jiajing Emperor's support, many things couldn't have been so smooth.

The Jiajing Emperor in history was an emperor who played with power, engaged in factional strife, practiced alchemy, and was extravagant. He couldn't be said to be very muddled, but the overall evaluation was definitely more negative.

But the current Jiajing Emperor was different. During his reign, the Great Ming achieved a historical turn, internally carrying out various reforms, suppressing great families, re-adjusting and balancing the distribution structure, greatly improving productivity, and externally beating the Japanese pirates, beating the Tatars and occupying the grasslands, gradually starting actual governance of the northeast, and further governing the various chieftains in the southwest, and gradually achieving actual governance.

Folk thoughts were surging, progressive thoughts with influence were constantly put forward, the people's lives began to relax, the economy was prosperous, the Age of Discovery was opened, the national treasury was full, the national strength was strong, and the country was prosperous, truly reaching the state of "the sun rising in the east, only I am invincible."

The Jiajing Emperor could be said to have both civil and martial achievements. In terms of various merits, among many emperors of the past, he was definitely in the front row. Even the various projects he built extravagantly became positive things because he didn't conscript labor but paid wages to the people.

Where can one reason with this?

The Jiajing Emperor waved his hand powerlessly: "You have also suffered these years, and I have not failed you. Everyone go out, let me talk to my son and grandson."

Wang Yan knelt down, kowtowed three times, turned around, and walked out.

Outside the Longevity Palace, the wind was strong, and it was snowing...

?? Daily thanks to the good brothers who tip, vote for monthly tickets, recommendation tickets, and silently read the book for their strong support! ===== CHAPTER 1561 =====

Where is one supposed to go to reason about this?

The Jiajing Emperor waved his hand weakly: "These years have been hard on you, and I have not let you down. Everyone go out; let me speak with my son and grandson."

Wang Yan knelt on the ground, kowtowed three times with a thud, then turned and walked out.

Outside the Wanshou Palace, the wind was strong, and it was snowing...

?? Daily thanks to the great brothers who tip, vote with monthly tickets, recommendation tickets, and silently read the book for their strong support!