Chastity Layman

Back in Chang'an, Li Shimin brought Qin Lang back to Tai Chi Palace.

In the Palace of Liangyi, the emperor took out a booklet and threw it in front of Qin Lang, showing off, "Look."

Qin Lang picked it up, flipped through it, and found that it was a ledger, and the numbers recorded were a bit astonishing.

"Since you eliminated Chang'an monks and Taoists last year, over the past year, more than 4,600 temples have been demolished in the world, more than 40,000 temples have been recruited, and more than 40,000 temples have been recruited, more than 300,000 monks and nuns have been returned, and more than 200,000 slaves and maidservants have been released. More than 500,000 benefactors were used by the temple's Afutai, and hundreds of thousands of hectares of the temple's land were confiscated."

"Monasteries, bronze statues, bells and chimes were dismantled and abandoned in various places, and the gold, silver, and copper obtained were delivered to the transshipment department. The gold and silver were converted into millions of guan, and the copper materials were obtained to make five million guan coins. The iron wares obtained were delivered to the transshipment department. Casting iron into agricultural tools..."

Li Shimin stood there very proudly and recited the great achievement of the eliminated monk.

The transshipment department plus the township department, coupled with the joint action of local states and counties, the action is fast and the efficiency is extremely high. The emperor's account book does not record Taoism, so it can be seen that Li Shimin is also selective in this action, although at the beginning It is said that it is the way of killing monks and Taoists, but Taoism is not very powerful at this time, so Li Shimin is the master of killing monks, and he is much more gentle with Taoism.

Zhaoti and Lanruo privately built temples. There are more than 40,000 privately built temples, and nearly 5,000 official temples have been demolished.

There are more than 300,000 monks and nuns who have been ordered to return to the secular life to become a monk, and this does not count those who have cultivated better moral character or are older, but have not been ordered to return to the secular world.

According to what the emperor said, there are only three temples left in Chang'an, and a newly built nunnery was authorized not long ago. There are a total of 360 monks and nuns in Chang'an. As for the rest of the world, 30 people will be left in the upper state and 20 in the lower state. In big cities such as Yangzhou, Taiyuan, Yizhou, and Jingzhou, 50 people will be allowed to stay.

There are more than 300 states in the world, counting, the emperor retained more than 7,000 monks, less than 8,000 people, all of whom passed the exam and received official ordination certificates. Each person returned 20 mu of land, 10 mu for temple property, and 10 mu for public distribution, which were recovered after death, and these fields were to be rented and adjusted like other common people's fields.

The three monasteries in Chang'an are special because they are all famous eminent monks, so the emperor gave each of them 50 mu.

"More than 300,000 monks and nuns, more than 200,000 slaves, and more than 500,000 monastery tenants, adding up to a population of more than one million." Li Shimin almost said through gritted teeth.

A population of one million is a very large number for Li Shimin, and the official household registration in the ninth year of Wude in the Tang Dynasty was only less than three million.

"This is not counting those who privately ordained ordained to escape taxation."

Those people mentioned by the emperor are mainly rich and powerful households in those places. The powerful and wealthy households have three households, and they must order one to be shaved. Even many so-called shavings are simply shaving privately. Donate some money to the temple, and then shave off their hair. If you have become a monk, you can report to the government as a monk, exempt from taxation, and do not perform hard labor.

But in fact, these so-called monks don't practice in the temple at all, they still live at home, even get married and have children as usual, and some of them don't shave their hair.

Most of the privately built Zhaoti and Lan Ruoli were built by these fake monks.

This kind of situation is extremely common in localities. The so-called monks are actually tax evaders from the state, and the number is extremely alarming.

Those people were not included among the 300,000 monks and nuns who returned to secular life this time. They were specially investigated and all ordered to return.

Not to mention hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, that is tens of millions of acres of land.

One tenth of the land in the world was actually controlled by these temples before.

This time Li Shimin really beat up a big local tyrant. He went to the temple and the court was full. It was even more than when the Li family captured Chang'an, captured Guanzhong, and obtained more money left over from the Sui Dynasty.

At the beginning, Li Yuan first started his business with Sui Dynasty money and silk from the Taiyuan Palace, and then after he invaded Chang'an, he took the wealth from the treasury to make a fortune, so that he could fight for hegemony and win the world.

The Sui Dynasty's money has been used up in recent years, and now Li Shimin has found a pig that is fatter than the Sui Dynasty.

In addition, those bronze statues that were dismantled in the temple, the bronze wares obtained were melted into copper material, and handed over to the coin miner, they could cast five million guan coins. Now the imperial court can only cast coins in a year with one hundred coin furnaces. About 500,000 guan, which means that this batch of copper materials can cast money for ten years.

Gold and silver also won millions of coins.

But the emperor still didn’t write down this, and there were many temple properties that went directly into the imperial inner workshop, mainly the workshops and quality warehouses that those big temples originally controlled. This was also a large sum of money, all of which were embezzled by the emperor.

Of course, Qin Lang has reasons to believe that the numbers on the ledger are definitely not complete. The local states and counties, and even the transshipment department, the town and the Fusi, etc. must have intercepted some of them. As long as it doesn't go into personal pockets, they are not afraid According to the above check, they are all in the public treasury anyway.

It's nice to have money.

That's why Li Shimin wanted to beat Master Liang so impatiently, he had money to burn.

The original plan was to spend three years accumulating reserve wars, and then destroy Liang Shidu, but now the emperor is rich, very rich, very rich, and he can't wait until he is rich.

But Qin Lang was not very excited.

Anyway, no matter how much money there is, it doesn't matter to him.

Although the nobles and dignitaries in Chang’an have long been on the move after smelling the smell, they attacked everywhere to plunder these temple properties. Although no one dared to rob them openly, but such a large amount of temple properties suddenly appeared in various places, and the imperial court wanted to realize it. Good time.

Grab the land, grab the money, grab the fields.

Qin Lang didn't join in the fun.

"Your Majesty, how will Your Majesty arrange the newly added one million monks and nuns, temple slaves, and temple tenants?"

Although tens of millions of acres of land have been confiscated, it will be distributed as soon as it is confiscated. How can there be any remaining land to house these people?

Sure enough, Li Shimin is not a kind person.

After the more than 300,000 monks and nuns returned to secular life, the government acted as a matchmaker, matching the monks and nuns to get married, and then they were either resettled on the spot, or moved to the frontier to grant land for farming.

As for the slaves, there is no messiah either.

They used to be slaves of temples, but now they have changed their status and become slaves of the government, and then they were either sold to private individuals as slaves, or sent to various official workshops or Huangzhuang to continue to serve as slaves.

As for the more than half a million temple tenants, they had little influence. Anyway, although the temple fields were confiscated, the fields took root. If the fields changed owners, the tenants would change to landlords.

"Your Majesty, after the elimination of monks, the imperial court did get a lot of money, but the money has not been used yet. The money can only be converted into national strength after the imperial court spends it. For example, the bronze statue was cast into Money, the money is then bought into grain and stored in the warehouse, or traded into salt, tea, wine, cloth, etc., and then turned into money, and then exchanged into rice cloth, war horses, ordnance, etc., is strength."

"After the catastrophe last year, not only was there no food in the country's warehouses, but the people's tanks were also out of food. Now that there is a war, food will still become a big problem. If the war is only maintained in the Shuofang area, of course it can be supported, but if it becomes big, If the Turks get involved, the situation will get out of control, and the current fragile situation will collapse, and it will be even more difficult to turn around when the time comes.”

"Three years of abundance will lead to prosperity, six years of abundance will lead to peace, and nine years of abundance will lead to peace. I dare not ask Your Majesty to wait another nine years until the world is peaceful before fighting wars. But please wait for three years of abundance until the people's faces are no longer pale. Wait until the common people have some food in their homes, and wait until my Datang has a certain risk defense capability before doing it."

"Your Majesty, after all these years of waiting, why not wait?"

Li Shimin's enthusiasm was extinguished.

Originally, he thought that his son-in-law would support him and understand him, but he didn't expect that Qin Lang, who was always used to being reckless, also started to shout to hold on.

Originally, he even wanted Qin Lang to be in charge of the military supplies, and then took Li Jing as the vanguard, personally marched by himself, and wiped out Liang Shidu in one fell swoop.

Seeing that Li Shimin's evil fire was blocked, Qin Lang also left.

"I want to take half a month's leave to go back to the countryside to harvest wheat."

Li Shimin looked at him angrily, "You have a lot of land, but you don't need to harvest wheat, do you?"

Qin Lang thought to himself, don't you want to hold a summer harvest ceremony, your majestic emperor? As a big landowner with 100,000 mu of fertile land, of course I have to make a scene. Although I definitely won’t go to the field to harvest the wheat in person, I also have to be in charge of the logistics supply and demand, right? I have to reward those who harvest the grain. ah.

"Today's two poems about pity the peasants were actually made by you, right?" Li Shimin threw the ledger back to the corner of the desk. He sat on the couch with a playful smile on his lips.

In fact, how could Li Shimin not understand his son, who is only nine years old, although he read poems and rites with Lu Deming and Kong Yingda since he was a child, he would never be able to write this poem of pity for farmers.

Especially for a crown prince like Chengqian, who was raised in a deep palace when he was young, how could he really experience the sufferings of the people and know the preciousness of food?

"Your Majesty, I dare not snatch the prince's poems!"

Li Shimin snorted, "In front of me, you don't have to pretend, and I won't blame you for this matter."

As a father, even though he knew that Chengqian's poems were written by Qin Lang, he was still very happy that everyone praised Chengqian's scene.

"You go to the countryside and bring Chengqian with you. The Chongxian Museum is also on holiday anyway. You, the prince's young teacher, take Chengqian, a student, to learn about the folk affairs in the countryside and let him see how hard every grain is. of."

Qin Lang smacked his lips. He was not very willing to take the crown prince to the countryside. After all, if the crown prince of a country made a slight mistake while going out, he couldn't bear it.

"I will send a team of troops to you from the six armies under Baiqi Division, Dianqian Division, and Zhenfu Division."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Take good care of Chengqian, but if there is a problem, you are the only one to ask."

"The minister obeys the order."

"Is the 100,000 yuan given to Donggong earlier enough? Do you want to give you some more principal?"

"If Your Majesty is willing, why not transfer the Kaiyuan Bank to the East Palace!"

Qin Lang pushed his limits a little bit.

As a result, Li Shimin couldn't be fooled anymore. He had already seen Kaiyuan Bank's ability to make money, so he refused politely.

"I'll draw another one hundred thousand guan for you."