Chapter 282: Inside and Outside the Palace (Bajiu) Wang Jiapings Purpose
"The problem of salt administration in Huai'an and Huai'an is far from limited to Huai'an. None of the three places can escape... However, I originally planned to report it later."
Gao Pragmatic's answer is not to refute, he does know that there are serious problems with the salt administration of the Huaihe River, or it should be said that he knows that the salt administration of the entire Ming Dynasty has major problems.
He did have some thoughts on salt policy reform, but he originally planned to deal with this matter after completely overwhelming the Xin School in politics - otherwise it would most likely not be possible.
What he doesn't understand now is why Wang Jiaping suddenly brought the topic to Yan Zheng. Shouldn't today's topic be about the emperor's dragon body and when the emperor's legitimate son will be crowned prince? These two things
You can't even fight with Yanzheng!
However, at this time, Wang Jiaping did not seem to notice that Gao Pragmatic had a hint that he did not want to talk about the salt policy issue now. Instead, he asked with great interest: "Rixin is better at financial management and reform. The country's salt policy has been suffering for a long time. For many years,
It has been criticized by the world for a long time, and it often affects the country's major plans. Its restructuring has become a top priority. Since Rixin has outstanding insights, why not share it with me, so as to clear the clouds and see the sun."
When he asked this question, Gao Pragmatic became even more strange. The Salt Policy was indeed a major event, but as Wang Jiaping himself said, the Ming Salt Policy was indeed a long-standing problem - anyway, the problem had been dragged on for a long time, and it would not be short of this day.
Two days! What are you trying to pursue now? Picture 160?
Gao Pragmatic Intuition There is something wrong here. In connection with Wang Jiaping's sudden mention of Wu Chongli's impeachment of Zhao Zhigao's son Zhao Fengwei for corruption, it seems that Wang Jiaping intends to use my idea of salt policy reform to intensify the conflict between the Practical School and the Heart School.
Meaning.
But the problem is that this is not necessary at all! The current conflict between the Practical School and the Heart School is already intense enough, so why add another fire?
If it's not against a faction, it should be against an individual. Does Wang Jiaping want me to have a fight with Zhao Zhigao? But what's the point of me doing this?
Although Zhao Zhigao is senior enough in the Xin School and has a high enough nominal status, his physical condition is very bad and his official position is not very public. Although he is currently the most senior official in the Xin School, he is relatively unknown.
In comparison, his sense of presence is not as good as Shen Yiguan, who ranks behind him.
Shen Yiguan was not only a sinister man and well versed in political intrigue, but judging from his historical performance, he could probably be defined as the biggest black hand that pushed the party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty to the high c.
Therefore, even if I, being highly pragmatic, want to launch a targeted crackdown on the Heart School, it should be directed at Shen Yiguan. As for the issue of Zhao Zhigao, I can leave it alone for now.
Everyone, please go and try it soon.]
Anyway, the most Zhao Zhigao can do in matters like party struggle is to play along, do some icing on the cake, and expect him to become a mainstay, or to do some business to help the Xin School in times of crisis, which is probably not possible.
To put it simply, this person is not a big threat. Not to mention that he can't be the main tank, and he doesn't have the ability to be the main c. He can only play support, or even the kind of support that may be disconnected at any time. To be honest, unless this kind of opponent has residual health,
If someone jumps in front of him, he can be dealt with with just one stroke, otherwise Gao Pragmatic will not pay attention to him at all.
However, the current doubt is that not only Gao Zhigao understands Zhao Zhigao's situation, but Wang Jiaping also understands it. So why does Wang Jiaping suddenly have the intention to direct Gao Pragmatic's firepower towards Zhao Zhigao? Although Wang Jiaping and Zhao Zhigao are not from the same faction
I am a human being, but after all, I have been a colleague in the Hanlin Academy for many years, so there is no need to do this.
What's more, Wang Jiaping will retire soon. At this time, there is no need to offend a cabinet minister who seems not to bow down and step down just yet.
There was no answer to this question for a while, so Gao Pragmatic could only perfunctoryly say: "Since Longwan, especially since Wanli, some people have always said that the successive new policies of the country are an attempt to change the ancestral system. Pragmatic has long understood this.
The argument is that this is the original intention of 'respecting the ancestors, but not necessarily implementing the old system of the ancestors'.
Heaven and earth do not change from time to time, and so do national affairs and people's conditions. Therefore, politicians should follow the trend and adjust major policies at any time, in order to adapt to the current situation and lead the people towards well-being.
The system established by our ancestors at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China was in line with the current situation at that time. However, the situation two hundred years later has been very different from that of the time. The originally excellent system may not still be applicable today. Moreover, the system has been in use for a long time, and there are many disadvantages in it.
It is inevitable that if you want to reverse the disadvantage, such as scraping the bones to treat the poison, it will inevitably cause temporary pain.
However, the most important thing in governing a country is to be cautious. How big the impact of this pain will be, and how deep the pain will be. Those in charge must be careful and not overly cautious. Pi Rixiu wrote a poem: "This river died in the Sui Dynasty, and I have relied on Tongbo for thousands of miles to this day."
If there was no dragon boat incident in the Water Palace, there would not be much merit in the discussion between Yu and Yu.' I think there are lines in this poem that can be modified.
"Thousands of Miles Lai Tongbo" naturally "shared Yu's merits" but was it really because of the "Water Palace Dragon Boat Incident" that the Sui Dynasty collapsed? I'm afraid not. There was more than one reason for the Sui Dynasty's collapse, and it was related to the canal.
The problem is that it was dug too fast. If the canal was dug slowly according to the original plan, how could it cause millions of casualties and shake the foundation of the country and the expectations of the people?
Since His Majesty ascended the throne, many new policies involving finance have indeed been introduced, but these new policies have clear steps. They are introduced one by one and implemented one by one. We always strive to benefit the court and the people as soon as possible after the reform, so as to
This reduces the discomfort caused by the pain of reform.
So according to this idea, when it comes to the specific issue of salt administration, we and other ministers must ask themselves one or two questions before acting:
Once the salt policy is reformed, whose interests will be affected? Are these interests reasonable and legitimate? If they are reasonable and legitimate interests, how will the court compensate after being touched by the reform? Is the court capable of compensating?
If it is not a reasonable and legitimate interest, then the court naturally does not have to compensate, but a large number of illegal interests have gathered together for a long time and will definitely form interest groups. If these interest groups oppose the reform through various means, and even dare to do some vicious things, then
How should the court respond?
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! In addition, we naturally have to make detailed calculations first to understand the benefits that will be brought by the implementation of these reform measures. For example, whether the imperial court can solve the border areas as a result
Will the national treasury be able to increase its annual revenue as a result? Can some lawless people in the relevant yamen still take the opportunity to oppress good people? Will the local people and even the people of the world no longer have to worry about salt?
In short, 'virtue is good governance, and government is about nourishing the people'. Government officials use thousands of means and various measures, but they must not forget their original intention: to nourish the people. As I said in "Qi Yong Shu": They are tax collectors, both
It does not belong to the imperial court, nor does it belong to His Majesty. This wealth is taken from the people and used for the people."
Gao Pragmatic said so much eloquently, but in fact the central idea was very unclear. Even if all the ministers were old foxes, they probably only heard some ideas that they were not sure about.
Without taking away some of the official clichés they considered, Gao Pragmatic's subtext is probably: the salt policy reform in his mind may involve a huge interest group, and this reform will definitely poach their flesh and bleed their blood, so it is necessary to
Think about how to deal with these people's counterattack first, so you can't launch it immediately and execute it immediately.
Of course, different people have different understandings after hearing these words. For example, Shen Yiguan is very wary, Zhao Zhigao is very nervous, Liang Menglong is very calm, Zhou Yong is very indifferent, and Wang Jiaping... well, he seems to be very emotional.
interest.
Shen has always been very vigilant, because he felt that Gao Pragmatic might use this salt policy reform to crack down on dissidents, which might implicate his old disciples and former officials of Mr. Shen Ge;
Zhao Zhigao was very nervous because he felt that Gao Jingshi might have been eyeing his old Zhao family. After all, Wang Jiaping just said that his son Zhao Fengwei was impeached. Gao Jingshi also said just now that "no one can escape from Huai'an, Taizhou, and Tongzhou."
, that means that Gao pragmatism also knows that there is a problem;
Liang Menglong was very uneasy because his family had nothing to do with the salt industry and he was about to retire. No matter how big the matter was, it was none of his business. This was a matter of high pragmatism, and he had always had confidence in Gao pragmatism;
Zhou Yong is indifferent because his family has no salt-related industries or business. He has always been in charge of military affairs and is regarded by the outside world as a highly pragmatic yes-man. And judging from his age, it seems that he, Mr. Zhou Ge, will not be involved in finance in the future.
.
Only Wang Jiaping's performance is unreasonable: he is also about to retire, and he has never seemed to pay special attention to finance in the past. Today, Zhao Fengwei suddenly mentioned the salt policy. What is his intention?
At this moment, even Gao Pragmatic had to doubt that Wang Jiaping would not start to reflect on the problems with the Ming Dynasty's fiscal policy until he was old, right? Ah... what have you been doing for decades?
There is a problem with the Ming Dynasty's fiscal policy. Gao Xiang has been thinking about this matter for 20 to 30 years. If we look at it from a certain level, in addition to the issues such as commercial taxation, sea opening, and vassal prohibition that have been discussed many times, then
There are mainly three issues:
The first is that it does not pay attention to technical means. Specifically, it includes specialized economic knowledge and legal systems. The establishment of a fixed tax system makes many technical details irrelevant. A good tax system and local tax amounts should be flexible, but the fixed tax system
But it makes these no longer exist.
The second is the divergence between financial theory and practice. In the financial management of the Ming Dynasty, there were ideological biases, a rigid sense of responsibility, segmented scope of action, low official salaries, insufficient understanding of the actual situation, and insufficient public investment... All these reasons made the country fundamentally powerless.
Mobilizing all the financial resources of the empire, the resources it can control are only a very small part of them.
The low official tax rate in the Ming Dynasty caused the people's tax burden to continue to rise. At the same time, the court did not get the money, and all the money was seized by the bureaucrats and gentry in the middle. In turn, the nominal tax rate in the Ming Dynasty was too low, resulting in very low public investment.
It was so small that apart from maintaining a grand canal and repairing palaces, the imperial court had almost no other public infrastructure.
In addition, the tight fiscal revenue has caused officials' salaries to be too low, so that officials are rampant in corruption and levy arbitrary taxes in addition to taxes. Zhu Yuanzhang adopted cruel policies to punish corruption, but still could not prevent the occurrence of the problem. It has to be said that corruption is not only a
It is an ethical and moral issue, and it has its institutional reasons.
Third, the finances of the Ming Dynasty were obviously negative. The main concern of the court was its own stability, so the finances of the Ming Dynasty were never considered from the perspective of promoting economic and social development.
The financial systems of the Tang and Song dynasties were actually more developed than those of the Ming dynasty, so the economic capabilities of the Tang and Song dynasties were much stronger than those of the Ming dynasty. But the biggest revelation from the Tang and Song dynasties to the Ming dynasty was that too much local power would affect the central court.
stability, so the Ming Dynasty adopted a negative fiscal policy from the very beginning, making it impossible for local governments to have sufficient financial resources to resist the central court.
However, while the Ming Dynasty solved the problem of the separatist tendencies of the local courts through the weakness of local finances and the high centralization of power, it also caused the central court's own financial mobilization capabilities to be weak. Therefore, once it encountered a foreign invasion, it was easy for it to be unable to fight a war.
And perished.
Just when Gao Pragmatic began to wonder whether Wang Jiaping was suddenly interested in studying the fundamental problems of the Ming Dynasty's financial system, Wang Jiaping personally broke his illusion.
After Wang Yuanfu praised Gao Pragmatic's "prudent governance" with a look of relief, he suddenly changed the topic and said: "I said that Rixin is good at managing finances. It really hit the nail on the head... You just said that if a large number of illegal interests gather together, there will definitely be
Forming interest groups'. I completely agree with this statement, and I also know that this matter has now begun to take shape."
Everyone was startled when they heard this, including Gao Pingshi, and everyone began to figure out what Wang Jiaping meant.
However, Wang Jiaping was still the Wang Jiaping who spoke directly. He did not keep the cabinet ministers waiting for long, and already said to himself: "Didn't I just say that Wu Chongli impeached Zhao Fengwei... He not only impeached Zhao Fengwei
One person, but used this to talk about the complete corruption of the Lianghuai Salt Administration. Many honorable ministers and officials from the south of the Yangtze River had their hands involved in the Lianghuai Salt Administration.
Nowadays, there are many salt merchants in Huaiyang, big and small, and almost all of them who are named have someone secretly supporting or controlling them."
Oh, you are talking about this... Everyone looked like they suddenly understood.
This is indeed a big deal, but the problem is that everyone has known about it for a long time! This is nothing new. You didn’t just learn about this situation today, right?
Of course Wang Jiaping had known about it for a long time, but the focus of his discussion today was not on the matter itself. Wang Jiaping looked around at the crowd, snorted and said: "More than a month ago, many salt officials and salt merchants in the Lianghuai area
As if they had received some kind of decree, they all took action to manipulate the price of salt to make huge profits.
Then Wu Chongli discovered that these people had transferred a large amount of money collected through this operation to the capital through various means. Colleagues, who can tell me that such a huge amount of money suddenly poured into the capital... What these people have to do What?"
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ps: I’m so busy that I even missed nucleic acid today and have to find another place to do it tomorrow.