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Volume 1 521 The Angel is Coming (Part 1)

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    521 Angel is coming (Part 1)

    "It's easy to live, easy to live, but not easy to live."  Just when the common people were lamenting the low price of grain and hurting farmers, were planning or had already embarked on a sailing ship to Australia, and were looking forward to a life full of gold, the parents and officials of the Ming Dynasty were also lamenting.

    ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? On a cold day, fine snowflakes were floating in the sky. Magistrate Luo put his hands behind his back and looked up at the sky at a 45-degree angle. His face was full of misery and helplessness, and he would sigh from time to time.  I lamented that it was becoming increasingly difficult to become an official in the Ming Dynasty.

    In the game and changes in the central government, a seventh-grade sesame official like Luo County Magistrate has neither the power to express his position nor the possibility of participating.  He could only look at the Di newspaper eagerly, study it carefully, and find out new policies that were beneficial or detrimental to him.

    Apart from anything else, as a seventh-rank magistrate, Magistrate Luo is most concerned about the salaries of officials who had been making a fuss a while ago and were finally settled.  A salary increase is a good thing, but the problem is that Magistrate Luo is not making as much as before!

    Logically speaking, the monthly salary of Luozhi County is 7.5 shi lumi.  This was the rule set by Emperor Hongwu at the beginning. Later, it varied from place to place. Some were given part of the money and part of the food.  Food includes rice and flour.  This Shanghai County is located in the south of the Yangtze River. Except for a small amount of silver, all the food received was naturally white rice.

    But the imperial court is famous for its calculations.  Not only are they plotting against the common people, but they are also plotting against officials like them.  When rice prices are high, the salary issued by the court is definitely more money than food. On the contrary, when rice prices are low, all you get is worthless brown rice without any money at all.

    Magistrate Luo once did some calculations and found that the salary he received last year totaled just over one hundred and ten taels.  And Magistrate Luo has four masters and two long-term attendants, and the total expenditure is a small five hundred taels.  In addition to a wife, two concubines, three maids, two mothers-in-law, and a daughter and a son, this is still 500 taels.  That's not all, the Shangguan's birthday gift, Cheng Yi passing by the official Well, in general, the deficit of Magistrate Luo is thousands of taels every year.

    ???????????????????????? It would be fine if you were from a wealthy family. If you become an official, for the sake of your career and the sake of your family, your family will pay for all your expenses.  However, Han Chuang, the magistrate of Luo County, had studied hard for twenty years. His family only had twenty acres of thin farmland, and his family's financial situation was really pitiful.  Later, he passed the imperial examination and became the father and mother of the county.

    The little farmland at home suddenly turned into hundreds of acres after several donations.  But not long after, there was a break-in in his hometown in Henan. When his wife saw that it was not good, she hurriedly got rid of Xiruan, gave up the land, and went straight to the Magistrate of Luo County.  The income from the real estate was gone, so the whole family's expenses fell on Magistrate Luo.

    The land is gone and the funding gap is so big every year. What should we do?  The only thing to focus on is this fire.

    Speaking from conscience, Magistrate Luo still has some conscience.  Every time he collected taxes, Magistrate Luo asked his master to calculate carefully and calculate how much fire consumption would be needed to break even.  It's not easy for ordinary people either. As long as they don't die of hunger, they don't want to get rich.  Even so, the annual fire consumption has reached 20% of the regular tax.

    But starting from this year, such good things will never happen again!

    The imperial court issued a decree and returned the fire to the public, which was equivalent to directly cutting off most of Luo County Magistrate's sources of income.  The rest of the country was fine. Fire consumption was divided 50-50 between the imperial court and local governments.  As for the four Jiangnan provinces that Ma Shiying can control, the ratio becomes 30-70.  The local government withheld 30%, and the court collected 40%.

    The 30% fire consumption, although the loss of melting silver is not included, how much does it add up to?  The state capital must be filial, and what is left in the hands of a small magistrate like him is nothing more than a fly's leg.  As for the new salary standards set by the imperial court, Magistrate Luo didn't believe it at all!

    Maybe the starting point is good, but a county magistrate¡¯s annual salary is only one thousand two hundred taels, is it possible?  After the fall of the North, even the remaining South, all kinds of officials combined, according to the new salary standards, will have to spend at least four million taels a year!  Four million taels, which is equal to the total tax revenue of the imperial court during the Chongzhen period.

    With another sigh, Magistrate Luo made up his mind to dismiss the two businesses if it didn't work out.  Then he sent Laifu to bring down a piece of shop. He still had some connections, so he could get some salt and sell it.

    Of course, there are policies from above and countermeasures from below.  The magistrate of Taluo County could hide it from the court and collect more in a clever way to enrich his pockets.  But the problem is that firstly, this is a bit unconscionable, and secondly, the lives of the people in each township are really extremely embarrassing. If more taxes are added, it will probably trigger a civil uprising.  As a reasonably conscientious parent officer, I really can't bear to do this.

    Although this decision was not easy for Magistrate Luo to make, there was still some wavering in the process.  But then the imperial newspaper published another explosive news.  In order to urge and supervise variousIn order to implement the situation of returning land and fire consumption to the public, the imperial court decided to send inspection censors to every county!  Until the taxes arrived in the capital, these censors were always stationed there.  Not only overt and covert inspections, but also cross-examination.

    It¡¯s not just one censor¡¯s inspection, there are two groups of censors who are not under each other¡¯s supervision.  The results of these verifications are reported directly to the court.  Once the three censors come to the same conclusion, if the fire consumption is collected correctly, I'm sorry, not only will your county magistrate be in trouble, but you will also have to suffer if you don't keep it all.  Since the Ming Dynasty moved south, there has been no shortage of anything else, except officials with two legs.  For example, in Nanjing's civil service department, there are hundreds of people who come to inquire about vacancies every day.

    If there are differences in the results of the cross-examination of the three censors, the imperial court will send a special investigation team to conduct repeated verifications until satisfactory results are found.  This cross-examination not only involves the evaluation of local officials, but also involves the evaluation of censors.  Seeing how the imperial court was working so hard, I thought it would be a hard time to come here.

    Thanks to the fact that Magistrate Luo did not increase the fire fee privately, as soon as half of the tax was collected, a censor named Liu stationed in the county government office.  He said hello with a cold face, and went to visit around with his men the next day.  Looking at Liu Yushi's scarlet eyes, Magistrate Luo felt a chill in his heart.  This guy has no good intentions at all. As long as he finds out the slightest mistake, this guy will definitely solve a major case!

    As soon as Liu Yushi left, Magistrate Luo was so frightened that he quickly mobilized his subordinates to check for any deficiencies and held a briefing meeting with the county magistrate and chief secretary.  The meaning behind the words is that the good will not come and the good will not come. Now everyone is in the same boat and must work together to help each other.  Let¡¯s put aside the sordid past and wait until we get through this difficulty.

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