Chapter 287 Prime Minister (Fourteen) Who will be killed first?
Li Zhizao's understanding of the emperor was naturally not as good as Gao Pragmatic's. In Gao Pragmatic's view, it was actually very simple to convince the emperor, because to this day, Zhu Yijun only cares about two issues: first, whether it will help make money; second, whether it will help make money;
Is there any damage to reputation?
If we have to go deeper into the discussion, it is about making a trade-off between making money and losing reputation.
To put it simply, if you both make money and gain fame, you don’t have to think too much about this good thing and just agree immediately; if you make a lot of money but your reputation will be somewhat lost, that’s not a big problem and you can still agree; if the money you make is limited,
But the loss to reputation is huge, so we need to think twice before taking action. After all, I am about to be granted the title of Zen, so it is not cost-effective to do something that will damage my reputation too much now... How about waiting until the end of the title?
Therefore, when Gao Pragmatic wants to convince the emperor, in the final analysis, he must grasp these two points: not only to make the emperor feel that the matter is profitable, but also to make the emperor feel that he will not be scolded - at least he will not be scolded too harshly.
Profitability is Gao Pragmatic's consistent principle in doing things, and he will always work hard to ensure that it is not only profitable for himself, but that everyone who can cooperate with him can share the benefits.
Cooperation must be profitable for both parties in order for it to be long-lasting. Otherwise, wouldn’t it be on the same level as Ah San, who is so short-sighted that he only knows how to kill pigs?
Cooperation with the emperor is also cooperation. The emperor can make money without affecting his reputation. He is pragmatic and can not only consolidate power, but also promote political ideals throughout the country. This is win-win cooperation.
So, how can adding an "arithmetic elective" item to the current imperial examination system make the emperor profitable? It's simple, because Gao Pragmatic will tell the emperor that after these talents who are proficient in arithmetic slowly enter the political arena, the court will
The efficiency of tax collection will be greatly improved, making it possible to collect many taxes that were previously uncollectible.
Isn't it true that no matter how much tax the court collects, it is all spent by the court? Is it directly related to the emperor himself? Of course it is, and it has a great relationship.
As mentioned before, a large amount of the emperor's internal funds is called gold and silver. This gold and silver system is very complicated, but if you summarize it, you can roughly extract this: In fact, the gold and silver income
It is positively correlated with the amount of the court's grain tax.
To put it bluntly, the higher the court tax, the more gold and silver the emperor will collect at a relatively fixed ratio. Note that the "relative fixed ratio" mentioned here, that is, the ratio of the "emperor's commission" can indeed be adjusted, but in general
It is still relatively fixed and will not be adjusted at any time.
As mentioned not long ago, the amount of gold and silver that the Wanli Dynasty entered into the internal funds was "about one million taels a year, but it was basically earmarked for the expenses of the concubines, eunuchs and maidens, including rewards, and there was usually no balance."
"No balance" is very telling: this money has always been in a state of "only less but not more". Considering the concubines, the expenses of the eunuchs and maids are themselves a flexible expenditure, and even the number of concubines and eunuchs is very flexible
, so for the emperor, even if this gold flower and silver was already a million taels, it was still an income that was never too much.
After explaining this, the problem is very clear: as long as the "arithmetic elective test" is greatly beneficial to tax collection, and the extra tax collected is not an additional tax, but just plugs the holes of previous tax evasion.
, the taxes were returned to the court, and the emperor's gold and silver income would also be greatly increased.
Isn't this "profitable"? Based on Gao's pragmatic understanding of Zhu Yijun, this emperor who believed in the original history that as long as businessmen were willing to pay taxes was not a bad idea, he was absolutely willing to support the "arithmetic test".
So, now that the profitable problem seems to be solved, it's time to consider the question of reputation: Will this matter affect the emperor's reputation?
Gao Pragmatic believes that it is generally not possible, because one of the most critical points is that the nominal ultimate purpose of the arithmetic test is only to collect the taxes that should have been collected in the first place, and does not involve any
Additional levies were imposed, so scholars both inside and outside the court could not find any reasonable reason to criticize this.
Of course, the stated reasons are always superficial issues. If Gao Yuanfu could only see this, then his years in officialdom would have been in vain. The real root of the problem has never been the rhetoric in name, but rather
The attribution of interests and distribution of interests behind it.
Where did these taxes that were supposed to be collected actually go? Of course, they went to the hands of the powerful and the gentry.
The dignitaries here generally refer to the two noble groups of Zhu Ming’s clan and the Founding of the People’s Republic of China and Jingnan. Of course, it also includes other families who have received sporadic titles - Gao Wuzhen is now one of them; the gentry and squires actually refer to them in general.
People who gain fame through studying and their families are a group.
However, as mentioned before, many people think that the Ming Dynasty did not collect commercial taxes at all, which is not true. The Ming Dynasty actually collected commercial taxes, but firstly, there were very few items collected, and secondly, the proportion collected was too low.
In fact, in many places, officials are allowed to adjust the tax rate on their own, so the final result is that although the tax rate is levied, it is not much better than no levy. The most typical example is the "Jiangnan tea tax of 2 yuan per year" that became a joke in later generations.
"Fourteen taels of silver" - why did you keep these twenty-four taels? Are you planning to make the emperor angry to death?
This is the Jiangnan area, where the cultivation of cash crops far exceeds the cultivation of food! The tea tax only collects twenty-four taels of silver a year? It’s better to avoid it altogether, at least it can create a good reputation!
However, there is another misunderstanding here, that is, nobles and nobles (here and below generally refer to scholars with meritorious status) are exempt from tax. In fact, this is not the case. According to Ming law, only those nobles who are earl or above are exempt from tax.
In other words, the earl (or marquis, or duke) himself is exempt from tax, but the earl's family is not exempt from tax - for example, your father is a certain uncle, but you are not the eldest son, and you have not been mixed into the title (this is normal, because
There were no barons and viscounts in the Ming Dynasty), and now that you are married, you have received part of the land that your father gave you. So sorry, your land is not tax-free.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Due to the high pragmatism in the past few years, the salary problem of the Zhu Ming clan has been basically solved by opening the vassal ban (it has not been completely solved, but only two levels of salary have been issued to the prince and the county king)
rice, the burden is greatly reduced), but the problem of feudal kings occupying fertile land has not been greatly improved, which is also the target of Gao pragmatism.
Some people may say that the vassal king Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated not to pay taxes, so what reason did Gao Pragmatic have to target them?
Of course, Gao Pragmatic has no way to touch their "legal property", but it doesn't matter, they have a lot of illegal property in their hands, and these are the bulk of their real infringement of people's interests.
If all the vassal kings in the world only have the land given to them during the enfeoffment, the impact on the local economy can actually be controlled. The real trouble is that they rely on their power and position to obtain black property in their names through various means.
However, Gao Pragmatic will not let the emperor know about the vassal king's illegal production for the time being. Zhu Yijun is still very fond of his relatives, even though many of these vassal kings have been with him for a long time, but
With the Confucian concept of kinship in mind, the emperor would never want to casually inspect the illegal property of the vassal kings in the world.
The key to this matter is that it is different from the ban on vassals. Although the ban on vassals changed the ancestral system, the miserable situation of the lower class clans is there, and the income of the court is also there. If you can't support them, you can't support them.
This is an objective reality, and you can't pretend to be dead even if you want to.
Therefore, when Gao Pragmatic presided over the opening of the vassal ban, on the one hand, he could use his own prestige and the force of the court to suppress the vassal kings. On the other hand, he indeed gave the middle and low-level clan members a way to survive, so he was able to establish a vassal state within a few years.
Push forward internally and accomplish great feats.
However, if you want to investigate the vassal king's illegal wealth, it is different. Although this is definitely a fair and righteous thing on the surface, the emperor will definitely refuse it directly in the name of protecting his clan - the truth has been said before
, "kissing", "ruling the world with filial piety", and so on.
Therefore, Gao Jingshi did not plan to tell Zhu Yijun now. Instead, he first cultivated a team of talents and investigated other things that were easy to investigate first. He even quietly investigated the vassal king's illegal properties but did not tell them about it, and finally found an opportunity for a showdown.
In short, reform must be carried out step by step, with easy steps first and then difficult ones.
This is no different from some battles where it is possible to achieve an "overwhelming" momentum by first getting difficult and then getting easier. If the enemy's core force is defeated in one fell swoop, the more numerous weak soldiers or servants may collapse directly.
This is not the case with reforms most of the time. Only by starting with the easier and then the harder can we get positive feedback from the beginning. For example, in the early stage of reform, everyone is waiting to see the results. If you pick the most difficult thing to change first, it will not move forward, and everyone will see that there is no hope.
If they don’t support it anymore, won’t this reform fail?
It won't be like this if it's easy first and then hard. First pick a soft persimmon and give it to everyone to eat. When everyone sees it, it's really sweet, so they cheer up and follow you. This reform has become a trend and formed
If you understand the general trend, you can continue to implement it.
So now the situation is very clear. The first step of reform cannot be to kill the feudal king, because to kill the feudal king is to indirectly kill the emperor. In the same way, it is not possible to kill the nobles, because as mentioned before, the nobles are not only the face of the court, but also the emperor.
He is the staunchest supporter of the imperial power on the surface, but to kill the nobles is still the same as to kill the emperor.
In the original history, Chongzhen was able to easily kill the powerful Wei Zhongxian as soon as he came to power. What was the reason? It was because Wei Zhongxian could not take away the power of Jingying and Jinyiwei from the hands of the Xungui Group, and the Xungui Group only recognized the emperor.
of the imperial edict.
Therefore, it can be said that the emperor of the Ming Dynasty has always been under the protection of the Xungui Group, and in turn, the Xungui Group also knows that the source of its power is and only the emperor himself. The emperor and the Xungui are truly both prosperous and disadvantaged.
It is impossible for the emperor to turn a blind eye to the situation where a sword is struck at the noble group.
Even if the high-pragmatic military reform created the Praetorian Guards, and the Praetorian Guards were not directly controlled by the Xungui Group in name, in fact the emperor and the Xungui Group did not lose control of the Praetorian Guards - the pay and weapons of the Praetorian Guards were all
It is provided by the Production and Construction Corps controlled by Xungui Group, and its arsenal and arsenal are also controlled by the Production and Construction Corps. As for the mobilization of the Imperial Guard, it has been said long ago that there must be half of the Tiger Talisman from the palace.
So who will be struck first? It seems that only the scholars are left.
However, as we all know, the gentry scholars are actually the strongest - the civil service group can even check and balance the imperial power, how can it not be strong?
Therefore, we cannot stupidly slash the first sword at the civil servant group. The high and pragmatic reform principle has always been to "unite the majority and attack a small group", rather than to open up a posture and make it look like it is the first move.
It's like breaking up with the civil service clique - Gao Pragmatic himself is also a member of the civil service clique, so he can't do that.
So having said that, the question focuses on one thing: Who are the first batch to be attacked?
As I said just now, the general principle is to "unite the majority and attack the small group." However, the "majority" and "small group" here do not necessarily depend on the number of people, but on the strength of the absolute power.
The civil servant group is currently difficult to move, at least not in the first batch, because whether Gao Pragmatic likes it or not, he has to admit that without the cooperation of the civil service group, the imperial court's decrees will not be able to inform the capital, or even the cabinet.
Can't get out.
The first group of people that can be attacked are the unlucky military generals group. Or to put it more bluntly, they are to attack the Weishu military general family group that has embezzled military fields.
Why are members of the Weisu military general family the best candidates for surgery? There are several reasons:
First, their behavior of embezzling military fields directly caused the Ming Dynasty's nominal military base-the guard system to be almost useless. This is the main reason why Gao Pragmatic wants to move them, because if they are not moved, further military reforms in the Ming Dynasty will be impossible.
rise;
Secondly, the Weisuo military generals’ family is not loud enough in the court, and almost all of the most prolific families have served under Gao Jingshi, and are even simply Gao Jingshi’s “direct descendants” in the military. Therefore, Gao Jingshi
The deterrent effect on them is strong enough, and conversely, being pragmatic and gentle towards them will be more effective;
Third, highly pragmatic next-step military reform measures can make up for a lot of their losses, thereby achieving a state of "beat them up and give them a date", which can better control subsequent risks.
Fourth, once the group of generals at the garrison is solved, the next step of military reform can be carried out. When the "A Army", "B Army", "C Army" and other forces are clearly organized in the future, the military power in the world will be further consolidated, and each army will
With the combat power further strengthened, things will be much easier to deal with when we go back to deal with the gentry scholars - Mr. So-and-so, those Qiu Ba outside are just waiting for a word from you. Do you think we have sent a letter or come here to do this?
Martial?
To sum up, the first sword must be struck on the head of a family of military generals in the guards, but it does not need to be hacked to death. If it is hacked to death, it will be difficult to deal with the subsequent matters.
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