When Zhang Siwei said eight taxes and one tax, his heart was bleeding - since the Great Reform, taking advantage of the great prosperity of industry and commerce in the world and the rise of Zhang Siwei's political status, the Shanxi Merchant Group headed by Wang Chonggu made a big move into industry and commerce and gained a lot of achievements.
A large market share.
After seven or eight years of hard work, Shanxi merchants, like the traditional Huai merchants, Fujian merchants, Hui merchants, Qin merchants, Lu merchants, Su merchants, Jiangyou merchant gangs and other large merchant gangs, have become the backbone of the world's industry and commerce.
strength.
These large merchant gangs originally came from traditional industries. For example, Huai merchants were mainly in the salt industry; Fujian merchants were mainly in shipping; Qin merchants were mainly in tea and horse; Hui merchants and Su merchants were mainly in pawn and silk production and sales; Jiangyou merchants were mainly in the production and sales of pawns and silk.
Business gangs mainly focus on chain hotels and so on.
As for Shanxi merchants, they made their fortune through "policy" and have developed mainly in the financial industry and the salt industry. The so-called policy industry is actually the "official and businessman" gene that Shanxi merchants carry in their bones - "I answer tribute"
"The most typical example is that the Shanxi Merchants Group made the first pot of gold to make a fortune by monopolizing the Han-Mongolia trade.
After the Saihanba Meeting, the imperial court fully opened up the trade between Han and Mongolia, and large merchant gangs such as Qin merchants and Huai merchants also entered this market. Shanxi merchants suddenly fell from their monopoly position and suffered a lot of losses. Under Wang Chonggu's dispatch
On the one hand, they consolidated their traditional positions, and on the other hand, they made aggressive inroads into inland industry and commerce, seizing the territory of Huai merchants and Hui merchants, and developing a financial industry based on bill numbers—now upgraded to the banking industry.
It should be pointed out that although these big business gangs are famous, compared with the industrial and commercial groups founded by Zhu Yijun, they are like ants compared to elephants. Before the Great Reform, some business gangs, such as Lu Businessmen, Fujian Businessmen and Jiangyou Business Group,
Industrial and commercial groups actively attached themselves to the royal family, providing them with raw materials and logistics services, and their scale was greatly expanded.
After the Great Reform, these merchant gangs that were previously attached to the royal family were first-come-first-served, and the technology and market they obtained were much better than those of Shanxi merchants and Qin merchants. Therefore, the development of Shanxi merchants in recent years was not as good as during the Anda tribute period - Shanxi merchants
He is good at "keeping money" but lacks the risk-taking gene. This is something Wang Chonggu and others have long discovered and are trying to reverse.
Despite the lack of risk-taking genes, Shanxi merchants have still made great progress in the financial industry, mining industry, wood processing and transportation industry, salt industry and other directions in recent years. Especially after Zhang Siwei ascended to the top of the Political Hall, the Shanxi merchant group was like a snowball.
Rapidly growing.
But now that the emperor wants to change the tax system, Zhang Siwei is secretly complaining. This is bad news for any big business gang, especially Shanxi merchants.
Since the Hongwu Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty, the industrial and commercial taxes collected have been extremely low. Although the taxation methods vary depending on the objects of taxation, ad valorem taxation has always been used for various handicrafts, and the tax rate is generally one-thirtieth, and
The scope of tax exemption is very wide, including items for weddings and funerals, self-woven fabrics, farm equipment, food and taxable items, items transported by cars and ships, as well as fish, vegetables and fruits not sold in the market.
However, for industrial and commercial people who are not members of the merchant gang, the so-called low tax rate is actually not low - it is the same as the tax for homesteaders. Before the Tiao whip law, the so-called "land tax" collected by the court was extremely low. In the early years of Wanli, the whole country
The average is 4 liters per mu. What is this concept? Calculated based on rice fields, it is about 2%; calculated based on wheat fields, it is about 4%. Compared with the one-half ratio in Japan during the Warring States Period, it is simply low.
Pitiful.
But these regular taxes plus Ding Fu, equal taxes, poor power, miscellaneous - these are actually considered "regular taxes". The key is the corruption and inefficiency in the collection process and layer upon layer of exploitation. The average tax per mu of farmers has suddenly dropped.
It has increased sharply to one-third of the yield per mu, which is about ten times the so-called "regular land tax". Therefore, in disaster years, large-scale mergers are inevitable.
The same goes for commercial taxes. As the imperial court became increasingly bloated and inefficient, governments at all levels with insufficient finances and taxes began to set up banknotes on a large scale to collect "shipping materials fees" and "carriage and horse taxes"; cities set up "door stall taxes" and various other
"Zapai" and "Zapai", the first one is regarded as a local tax, while the latter "Zapai" and "Zapai" are almost extortion by local officials. In addition, the exploitation of tax collection is the same as the land tax. In fact, the Ming Dynasty
Business taxes are not low.
Nowadays, the actual tax rate for industry and commerce is about one for ten taxes, which is close to the "eight taxes for one" proposed by Zhu Yijun. But for Shanxi merchants and other big officials and businessmen, no one dares to collect miscellaneous taxes and apportionments.
, door stall taxes, etc., they also only pay a small amount of fixed amounts. Compared with small industrial and commercial enterprises, the tax burden of these large business gangs is only about 15% tax or even lower.
Therefore, it is natural for Zhang Siwei to feel deeply pained by the tax rate proposed by the emperor - which is equivalent to more than doubling the regular tax rate.
For Zhu Yijun, he was a tax worker before time travel - the loophole-filled tax policy of the Ming Dynasty held no secrets in his eyes. After all, this was his profession.
Gu Ting
Zhu Yijun has been studying the tax issues of the Ming Dynasty since the first year of Wanli. However, he did not take any action until the fourteenth year of Wanli because he knew the fundamentals of fiscal and taxation policies: the first thing is to conserve tax sources.
Before the reform, the largest tax source in the country, in addition to agricultural taxes such as land taxes, was the industrial and commercial consortium established by Zhu Yijun. It was meaningless to increase the industrial and commercial tax at this time, because the profits of this consortium were used by him for research and development and new innovation.
Junhe helped the court go through various painful periods.
In the first few years after the reform, although various industrial and commercial enterprises were supported by capital, taxes could not be increased during the start-up stage. What Zhu Yijun needed was for them to grow wildly and create jobs, thus promoting the transformation of the entire society.
Now that it has been six years since the Great Reform was fully launched, Zhu Yijun needs to use tax reform to put a new rein on the rapid growth of capital. Therefore, tax reform is at the right time.
The world at this time is a mixture of capital and feudalism. Zhu Yijun's judgment is that it is a semi-capital and semi-feudal society. In major cities, industry and commerce with textile industry, cement manufacturing, steel smelting, mining, and primary chemical industry as the main body have been cultivated
A sizable market has emerged; in the vast rural areas, the superstructure based on productivity and clan ties, which are mainly farming and weaving, has hardly changed.
The socialized production of primary industrial products has completely destroyed the original handicraft industry in the city. The Zhangzhou civil uprising is a typical example. Zhu Yijun, who suppressed the crisis through various policies, understood that the new capital urgently needs to expand the market.
Regardless of whether the emperor is willing or not, the tentacles of capital will extend to the countryside, absorbing new labor and expanding the consumer market. However, the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy cannot provide these. This is because this requires a substantial increase in the consumption of farmers, mainly self-cultivators.
level.
When it comes to such macro-economic policy adjustments, later generations of small department directors can't help but feel as if they are walking on thin ice. But in later generations, China has a ready-made experience that Zhu Yijun can directly copy - large-scale infrastructure construction. This kind of "one force reduces ten problems"
"" type of capital-directed flood irrigation policy will quickly spawn cities and immediately improve farmers' living standards.
Infrastructure construction requires a huge amount of funds, but capitalists are unlikely to take the initiative to spend it. This leads to Zhu Yijun's second motivation for tax reform - to increase taxes to provide funds for infrastructure construction.
The third motivation is to solve the problem of land annexation. Zhu Yijun put tax reform and "land reform" together, and what he wants is the mutual promotion between the two. Because infrastructure construction requires not only funds, but also land. Without a land foundation
The cost of facility construction is extremely high. For details, see the California High-Speed Rail Project - what Zhu Yijun learned in the party school.
This was the origin of the Second Wanli Reform, which was triggered by the confrontation between the emperors and ministers of the Yangxin Hall. The entire top-level design was extremely grand - Zhu Yijun planned to launch a national discussion and widely gather public opinion. Zhang Siwei's study talk was nothing more than a strong wind
It started at the end of Qingping.
There is also a very necessary prerequisite for the realization of this top-level design, which is that the emperor has absolute control over the national economy. Before the Great Reform, the Ming Dynasty did not have a large-scale industrial and commercial complex, and control was not a problem, but there was no way to realize this top-level design.
Conditions: After the Great Reform, a large number of new capitalists have been born - the large merchant gangs with a large number of remnants of feudal guilds are a clear example.
Therefore, Zhu Yijun could not tolerate Heshengyuan, the Jinshang Bank, being out of control. The confrontation with the prime minister was not that he cared about interests, but that he did not allow the financial industry to escape from the emperor's control.
The banking industry, which is close to the financial operation model of later generations, has been born under Zhu Yijun's encouragement. Unlike the independent exploration of financial capital without the guidance of time travellers, Zhu Yijun first brought the financial industry into modernization in order to better serve the development of industry and commerce. This is exactly what happened.
He made an extremely important decision after careful consideration - because the banking industry is closely related to economic development, and it is an industry that can be matured in advance, because this industry does not involve industrial production, and the strictness of the system and the maturity of management are only
This will allow Zhu Yijun to control the real economy more freely.
Although the direct modernization of the financial industry has deprived capital of necessary training, Zhu Yijun's original intention was not to make capital strong and invincible in the struggle with feudal production relations. He needed to use the largest financial capital to control the country, not the other way around.
Controlled by capital - the time traveler Zhu Yijun has left the unilateral and transparent map and entered a new historical fog with the whole world.