The impact of the highly pragmatic "Taxers take from the people and use it to the people" is huge. This is not a pebble dropped on a calm lake, but an atomic bomb dropped into the sea - it
What was set off was by no means a mere ripple, but a world-shaking tidal wave, a huge wave.
Our Ming Dynasty has always been known for its light corvee and low taxes and its pursuit of people's livelihood since Emperor Taizu Gao. Why don't you learn from the pragmatism and good deeds of the Song Dynasty?
How famous was the "harsh government" of the former Song Dynasty? When people in the Ming Dynasty mentioned it, they often said that its exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes were ten times that of the Han Dynasty and five times that of the Tang Dynasty, so that "not raising children" was widespread.
To raise is to raise. If you don’t raise children, you are unwilling to raise your own children. This may be too polite, but you might as well put it more straightforwardly: Not raising children is also called “giving birth to a child but not raising it”, that is, giving birth to a child.
Children are not nurtured and babies are drowned or thrown away.
The heavy tax burden in the Song Dynasty was one of the main reasons for widespread infanticide and infanticide customs.
It stands to reason that phenomena such as "not raising a child" generally only occur in a very small number of extremely poor families, or during periods of natural disasters and war turmoil when people are struggling to make ends meet.
However, in the Song Dynasty, which was "famous for its wealth", even in a period without disasters and wars, there was still a widespread phenomenon of "not raising a child" and even evolved into a social custom - infanticide.
Su Shi said in "A Letter to Zhu Ezhou": Jinghu North Road, "Yue, a little man from the fields in Ezhou, only raised two boys and one girl, and he would kill them all the time." He was demoted to Huangzhou, and saw "Huang"
Among the small people in the state, the poor have many children but do not raise them, and they are easily killed by immersing them in a basin of water when they are born." (from "Dongpo Zhilin").
Su Shi was not the only one to record this. Zhu Xi's father, Zhu Song, also said in "Weizhai Collection·Jie Xie Zi Wen" that in Wuyuan, Jiangxi, people "mostly stopped raising two sons, but regardless of whether they were male or female, they often threw themselves into the basin to kill them."
Of."
However, the place where the custom of killing and drowning infants is most popular is probably in Fujian. Zhu Song was an official in Fujian. "I heard that the Fujian people don't like to have many children, and killing is a common practice... Although there is a method, they can't win." Wang Dechen's "History of Husbands"
"Customs" states that under normal circumstances, "if Fujian gives birth to many children, they will not give birth to the fourth child." "If a woman is a woman, she will not wait for the third son. She will often give birth and store water in a vessel, and she will be drowned immediately after giving birth.
It’s called Xi’er.”
At that time, some scholar-bureaucrats severely denounced this trend, saying that "the custom of not raising a son in the southeast is outrageous to humanity" ("History of the Song Dynasty: Fan Rugui Biography"), and asked the court to impose strict penalties. The government indeed took various measures in an attempt to stop it.
, however, the custom of not raising a child has not improved. It is not only banned but is even getting worse in some places.
Records of similar situations are by no means sporadic. There are countless examples. It can be seen that the tax burden in the Song Dynasty was so heavy that people could not even care about human ethics. In fact, not to mention moral standards, even harsh punishments could not curb it.
.
When Zhu Yuanzhang founded the country, he focused on eliminating the harsh rule of the Song Dynasty, but Gao Jingshi was still not afraid to take the Song Dynasty as an example and make comparisons in his essays. It was not that he was impatient, but that some simple data were already very powerful.
Explain the current problems.
Since the "productivity" of the Song Dynasty was not as good as that of the Ming Dynasty, its real wealth was naturally not as rich as that of the Ming Dynasty. However, even in areas where the trend of "not raising children" was prevalent in the Song Dynasty, people still had "two sons and one daughter" first.
After that, infanticide began. What does this mean?
This means that although the levies and miscellaneous taxes are heavy, the three children can still be barely supported.
Then the question arises: the income of the Song Dynasty was nearly ten times that of the Ming Dynasty, and the tax burden was also ten times heavier than that of the Ming Dynasty. But even so, a poor family could still feed three children. So, by extension, the Ming Dynasty
Isn't a poor family capable of supporting thirty children? Is this still called a poor person? Is this... is it true?
The above inference is definitely not true. Not to mention other things, are the many people in the Ming Dynasty who sought to be eunuchs from the palace just unlucky guys who fell from the sky?
Of course not. Most of them are landless peasants and have been severely exploited. Once any natural or man-made disaster occurs, they will have no choice but to resort to this strategy.
But there is a slight difference here, that is, the people who could not survive in the Ming Dynasty were mainly farmers, with some military households in the guards. In the Song Dynasty, the people who could not survive were almost irrespective of their occupational attributes. Except for court officials,
Except for a very small number of people, including the royal family members, no one may survive.
If you look back, you will find that the businessmen, craftsmen, etc. of the Ming Dynasty were definitely in a much better situation than the farmers. Although their "theoretical social status" was worse than that of the farmers, they actually lived much better than the farmers.
Is this reasonable? It’s obviously not reasonable!
In this way, coupled with the "ten-fold theory" deliberately exaggerated by Gao pragmatism, anyone who calculates this account will feel that this kind of "light corvee and low endowment" in the Ming Dynasty does not seem to be of great help to the farmers. On the contrary, it is
For craftsmen and merchants, that's too much - they have almost no tax burden.
In this way, we don’t need to tax according to the former Song Dynasty, which was as harsh as a tiger. At least I tax it eleven (one-tenth) of the former Song Dynasty. Isn’t this an exaggeration?
The miscellaneous taxes in the former Song Dynasty totaled 70 million guan. Even if only 11% of them were levied, it would still be 7 million guan!
Okay, even if our taxes are not as high as those of the previous Song Dynasty, and we just discount it in half, it will still be 3.5 million yuan!
(Note: The two dynasties have always been equal to one tael of silver, but the purchasing power of one tael of silver was not equal in the Song Dynasty and in the Ming Dynasty. There were even considerable differences in different periods of the Ming Dynasty [refer to Wanli Accounting Records].
It’s just that this is too complicated. If I were to write it like this, it would probably be written as a financial history, which is unnecessary.)
If the Ming Dynasty abruptly increased its annual income by 3.5 million taels of silver every year, what would that mean? It almost means that even the issue of opening the vassal ban could not be considered for the time being! And now it is impossible to suddenly stop the opening of the vassal ban.
, means...
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Officials who had little to do with the "possible increase in commercial taxes" suddenly became excited, while officials who in all likelihood were likely to be affected by the increase in commercial taxes were
Out of anger.
Although Gao Jingshi specifically pointed out the issue of court expenses in "Qi Yong Shu" and said that supervision should be strengthened, officials knew that no matter how hard you strengthen supervision, it would be great if you could not be corrupt. But at least, the richer the court is.
, which means that the officials who control the money are more powerful, which is always an irrefutable truth.
What's more, once the imperial court gets rich, at least it won't give us any more discounts. Isn't it due? Maybe some more "allowances" can be added!
As a result, some officials who were "not afraid of paying business taxes" began to support Gao Pragmatism, while another group of officials who were "fearful of paying business taxes" began to strongly oppose Gao Pragmatism.
Of course, there are always people who make mistakes in the world, not only among the keyboard warriors of later generations, but also in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, some officials also appealed to the public. Some said that the implementation of commercial tax has "mixed benefits and disadvantages", and some said that the success or failure of this matter is unpredictable.
”, some said, “The matter is serious now, so it’s better to slow down the process,” and some said, “It still needs to be studied in detail before making further calculations.”
All in all, it's either making peace with mud or doing Tai Chi.
However, these reasonable nonsense cannot become the mainstream. At the moment when the Practical School and the Heart School are competing against each other, the attitudes of officials from these two schools are the most important.
There are two types of styles of inscriptions from the Practical School. Although Gao pragmatism has a high arch, so generally speaking, it seems that they all support Gao pragmatism, but in fact there are still differences.
One type is considered to be the die-hard supporters of Gao pragmatism. These people fully agree with Gao pragmatism's opinions. In their words, they almost can't wait for tomorrow - no, they can't wait to start comprehensively collecting commercial taxes today, and immediately establish an "Audit Office" and a "Customs Office".
”.
The other category is the officials who originally disagreed or were hesitant to do so. They had to agree against their will just because Gao Pragmatic was claiming to inherit Gao Gong's legacy. Therefore, after they expressed their agreement, they acted as expected.
They just said a few words to "ease the atmosphere", which basically meant that we should conduct a pilot implementation first, or that we are old enough to seek the country, so we should not easily roll it out in an all-round way.
Even so, at least this time the overall performance of the Practical School was much more united than before, and at least no one jumped out to express their opposition.
However, things are different for the side of the Heart School. Their performance is more united - they are all strongly opposed. The fierceness of their words is almost a curse. In the essay, Gao Pragmatism is compared to Sang Hongyang, Cai Jing and other sycophants.
, there are a lot of people there.
In this way, Gao Pragmatic set a record for himself: he was "impeached by the Manchu Dynasty" on the fourth day after taking office.
If he was only being impeached for his administrative methods, Gao Pragmatic could ignore it for the time being and wait for the emperor to express his stance. But now that he is being accused of being a traitor, according to the habits of Ming officials, he can only stay behind closed doors and refuse to turn a blind eye.
It's over.
Shen Shixing was the highest official who took a clear-cut stance against Gao Jingshi's "Qi Yong Shu". However, as the first assistant, he was very particular about the wording of the inscriptions and essays. He would never arbitrarily exalt Gao Jingshi and call Gao Jingshi a "treacherous sycophant".
Flaws in Gao pragmatic essays.
Shen Yuanfu felt that the biggest flaw in Gao Pragmatic Essays was the new fiscal system he established to collect business taxes.
First of all, if these systems are to be realized, more officials must be added. For example, Gao Pragmatic said, "It takes more than one person to enter and exit accounts; it takes more than one person to control the entry and exit of treasury."
This means that everyone in charge of accounts throughout the country must set up a "left-right official system", in which the left-hand official manages the accounts and the right-hand official checks the accounts. Not to mention whether this will cause the left-right officials to be hostile to each other and cause discord.
There was even internal fighting. Just talking about the number of additional officials that the imperial court would send was by no means a small number.
According to the idea of "small government" that people in the Ming Dynasty were accustomed to, you are artificially increasing redundant officials and increasing court expenses. In other words, you are increasing the burden on the people in disguise.
The same is true for those who manage accounts, and the same is true for those who are in charge of various warehouses. And Shen Shixing knew very well that there were many "treasury managers" in the Ming Dynasty - because there were various warehouses built everywhere, including grain, grass, weapons, cloth, etc.
Contributions, honors, etc., to name a few.
In this way, the number of warehouse management personnel will also be doubled. How much financial waste will this cause?
Not to mention whether pragmatic and strengthened supervision can eliminate corruption, that is uncertain.
Shen Shixing, who is well versed in the ways of officialdom, is very aware of the tricks involved. If nothing else, let me just say that your right-hand officer can supervise the left-hand officer, but if the left and right officers conspire to share the spoils, what will you do?
manage?
Oh, you said you still have an Audit Office? Okay, then let me ask you, how big is your Audit Office’s establishment to be able to supervise such a huge number of accounts, warehouses and other institutions in the world? I will give you a Metropolitan Procuratorate, I’m afraid
You can't help it!
When Shen Shixing's memorial was written here, he began to introduce the "Taoist-level argument" of their school of thought: managing officials still depends on education, and cannot just rely on these means of "adding more people for no reason". Only everyone can be a gentleman and have outstanding morals.
, Self-discipline is rigorous, only in this way can official administration be clear and clear, and only in this way can we truly be light on corvee and pay little in taxes, and make a living for the people.
After Shen Shixing's memorial was submitted to the Supervisor of Ceremonies, he saw the officials' impeachment of Gao Pragmatic. This was incredible, and he realized that something might be going on.
Some impeachments similar to his are just "discussing the matter on a case-by-case basis". The key is that there are many pragmatic impeachments mixed into the impeachment, such as "treacherous and sycophantic", "legacy" and even "slander of the emperor".
Among them, the one that made Shen Shixing break into a cold sweat was the impeachment of Gao Pragmatic for "slandering the emperor".
Slander you? How come Gao Pragmatic slanders you?
Indeed, these memorials all seized on a passage in Gao Pragmatic's "Qi Yong Shu" and began to denounce:
"It may be said: In ancient times, there were Tang and Chang, and there were also Jies and Zhou. My emperor, the emperor, was a man of the sacred, civilized, and martial arts. How could he know that all his descendants would be virtuous? If there are only one or two unworthy men, there is a limit to the meager taxation. Wouldn't heavy taxation be an abuse of the people?"
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Some people say: In ancient times, there were wise kings like Shang Tang and Zhou Wen (Ji Chang), as well as tyrants like Xia Jie and Shang Zhou. Although my emperor is wise
The martial prowess is at its peak, but how do you know that the emperor's descendants will all be as perfect as the emperor? If there are one or two unworthy descendants, then if our system is light on corvee and low on endowment, it will not have much impact, because those unworthy descendants
There is also a limit to how much money the emperor can waste; but if he has already begun to collect heavy taxes, wouldn't this unscrupulous emperor be squandering the people's blood and sweat? That is cruelty to the people!
From a writing point of view, Gao Pragmatic's passage is a "question" because he has a "self-answer" at the end. From a logical point of view, there seems to be no problem, because this is a very normal assumption-who still
Can you guarantee that your family will never produce unworthy descendants?
However, the problem is that it doesn’t matter whose family you assume may have unworthy descendants, but how can you assume that the Tian family may have unworthy descendants!
Why can't we assume this? Because even if the Tian family really has an unworthy descendant, when this unworthy descendant becomes the emperor, he will still be your emperor. If you say he is unworthy, it will still be "slandering the emperor"!
Therefore, "slandering the emperor" here does not mean that he has slandered the current emperor, but that he has slandered the future emperor(s)!
Is this what you should and can do as a minister?
As a result, many impeachments put the charge of Gao pragmatism at the top of the list, but Chief Assistant Shen Shixing was the only one who broke into a cold sweat after seeing it.
broken……
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PS: I have something to do tonight, so I will update in advance.
Another PS: I don’t know why, but the book review I replied to cannot seem to be displayed. Could it be that I can be banned or deleted by the system in my own book review area? What the hell, this is all, I typed the reply on my mobile phone