Chapter 287 The Crux of Prime Minister (Seventeen) (Part 1)
Gao Pragmatic has always insisted that reform should be done step by step. This is not because he does not know which production methods are more suitable for social productivity in this period, but because he knows that the system of the Ming Dynasty has problems and is a deformity right from the mother's womb.
Son, when reforming it, we cannot use strong medicine at the beginning, because that is more likely to lead to the result that although the disease seems to be cured, the life will be lost before the disease is cured.
When Zhu Yuanzhang founded the People's Republic of China, he established the following national mobilization system: first, the households managed by the Ministry of Household Affairs, which provided tax revenue for the country. The tax revenue from the Ministry of Household Affairs was mainly used to support the royal family and the civil service system; the second one was managed by the Ministry of War and the Guard System.
Military households do not need to pay taxes to the civil service system, but they need to fight for the country for free and hand over grain to the guards officers as military rations; the third is the craftsmen households managed by the Ministry of Industry. In theory, craftsmen households are also tax-free, but they need to
Working for the country for free, the military duty is to manufacture weapons and various military equipment for the country for free, and build city walls and other military facilities for free.
Zhu Yuanzhang once proudly said: "I raise millions of troops without costing the people a grain of rice." In other words, from the beginning, Zhu Yuanzhang never thought of relying on tax revenue to support the army. The military power in the early Ming Dynasty mainly relied on the income of military households and craftsmen households.
Corvee maintenance - the cost of raising troops and military rations were mainly met by military camps, and then relied on the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry to produce military equipment and military facilities for free.
Ideally, this would eliminate the need for tax revenue to be used for military expenditures. However, the military mobilization system with the military household system and the craftsman household system as its core could no longer be maintained by the mid-Ming Dynasty.
In terms of military households, starting from the mid-Ming Dynasty, a large number of low-level guard military households went bankrupt and fled. Even if there were no escaped military households, most of them did not have enough to eat and basically had no fighting capacity.
One thing must be emphasized here: the Wei system established by Zhu Yuanzhang was not destroyed by civilian officials, but by the continuous proliferation and growth of hereditary military attaches and the "Wu Zhuan Wen" military-registered scholar-bureaucrats.
For example, during the Hongwu period, Weihaiwei had only one commander, one Tongzhi, and two Qiansi. As a result, by the middle and late Ming Dynasty, there were as many as eighteen families eligible for hereditary command! In addition, one could be a hereditary officer.
There are many talented people in the family who hold the position, and there may even be a Jinshi Master!
How much land does one Weihaiwei have that can be divided among so many "renshangren"? A group of hereditary military attachés and military officials can't allocate enough. How can there be any extra land to distribute to military households? After all, how old was Weihaiwei during the Hongwu period?
, won’t it still be that big by the end of Ming Dynasty?
The guard system of the Ming Dynasty and the land equalization system of the Han and Tang dynasties were the aforementioned military service system based on land enfeoffment. They were the main foundations of social mobilization in the early Han, Tang, and Ming dynasties.
The obvious objective reality is that with the expansion of population and the annexation of land, the land military service system gradually collapsed. The Han, Tang, and Ming dynasties were all forced to choose the recruitment system in the late Han, Tang, and Ming dynasties. Since soldiers were recruited, they could no longer count on corvee service, so the Ming Dynasty
The cost of raising troops in the dynasty began to shift from corvee to taxation.
This is the inevitable law of population expansion and land annexation in China's unified feudal dynasty in a long-term peaceful environment. The Ming Dynasty's guard system, the Han Dynasty's conscription system, and the Tang Dynasty's military system all declined in this way, and it is inevitable
Avoided.
As for craftsmen, in the early Ming Dynasty, after years of war and destruction by the Mongols, the strength of industry and commerce had not recovered, so it was appropriate for craftsmen to serve in the military and add government-run handicrafts. But by the middle of the Ming Dynasty, there was no real meaning.
As early as the 41st year of Jiajing, the craftsmen no longer worked shifts, but instead collected silver, and the court hired workers in silver.
In the same way, the production of military equipment and the construction of military facilities have also changed from a corvee to a "tax-employed" model, which is also inevitable for the development of the commodity economy. This situation is even more prominent in places like Jiangnan, where industry and commerce are very prosperous.
, a large number of craftsmen households transformed into industrial and commercial businesses, while the government-run handicraft industry in the imperial court gradually declined due to the lack of good craftsmen.
To sum up, it will be found that the military power of the Ming Dynasty was mainly maintained by two types of people. One was the military households and craftsmen who were required to perform military service and mostly performed corvee service but were theoretically tax-free.
Households that pay taxes. It should be said that the principle of "taxation" in the early Ming Dynasty was relatively fair - it basically belonged to "if you have money, pay and have the ability to contribute", you can either be a soldier and work more, or not be a soldier but pay more
Tax.
This principle also applies to officials and gentry in the early Ming Dynasty - unlike the "Ming Dynasty history" that many modern people hear and hear, the Ming Dynasty did not theoretically have a "tax-free" policy for officials and gentry.
Land tax and other taxes. Moreover, land tax is collected based on the amount of land owned by the officials and gentry, which is in line with the principle of "if you don't do corvee, you pay more tax".
But the problem is that later the corvee turned into paying people (to the government) to hire people to serve on their behalf, which became a de facto "capital tax". Therefore, the exemption of corvee for officials and gentry gave people the illusion of "tax exemption". This is why later
Yongzheng's "official and gentry integrated grain payment" was carried out by promoting the "dividing a small person into an acre" model.
Because some officials abused their privileges and protected their seven aunts and eight aunts from doing corvee work, the Ming Dynasty formulated rules for exemptions and exemptions. The general idea was that which grade you are in and how much exemption you can get are all set for you. You cannot exceed it. Of course.
, I have said many times before in this book that the longer the system is implemented, the looser it will be. In the end, although the system still exists, it only exists on paper, and the implementation level is almost nonexistent.
Let’s talk about land tax. In the early Ming Dynasty, only a small group of Beijing officials could be exempted from tax. The purpose was to offset the meager salaries of Beijing officials. It also had a limit and could not exempt much tax. Its nature was to use the limited tax exemption amount to offset the underpayment of wages.
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Later, the exemption limit gradually expanded. In the Zhengde period, the exemption limit for first-grade officials was 400 acres. In the Wanli period, it became even more powerful, and the exemption limit reached 10,000 acres. But there is still a limit. Most officials and gentry theory
No matter how much you pay, you have to pay some tax.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Of course, those like Gao Gong who "have self-stored to the Jun axis, and the land and house have not increased in size for thirty years" may not be able to meet the tax limit.
, but such people are really in the minority. After all, even Gao Pragmatic has far more than 10,000 acres of land under his name - although the fields he bought are all used for testing new crops, if it is exceeded, it is exceeded.
He also has to pay taxes...but he pays taxes to set an example. According to the current environment, there are many ways for him to avoid paying taxes.
Some people in later generations have calculated based on research (Note: "Estimation of Tax Exemptions for Famous Persons in the Ming Dynasty and Discussion on Taxation in the Ming Dynasty") that the legally tax-free cultivated land of the Ming Dynasty gentry was less than 2% of the total area of cultivated land in the country.
How much impact did it have on the government's finances? Judging from the agricultural tax of the Ming Dynasty, the agricultural tax of the Ming Dynasty during the Xuande period was about 27 million shi, and the agricultural tax in the sixth year of Wanli was about 26.7 million shi, which was similar to the early Ming Dynasty.
But again, the problem is that the provisions are one thing, and the actual operation is another. The tax-free privileges of the landlords and gentry were abused in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and the quota became a decoration. In addition, "arrears" of tax and deceitful payment were added, and the money was spent.
, bullying and other methods of exploiting loopholes, the officials and gentry of the Ming Dynasty actually did not pay much tax. Not only those with official positions and imperial examinations were exempted from taxes, but even powerful local factions without any official positions or imperial examinations were also exempted from taxes.
But no matter how you put it, according to the law, the tax exemptions of most Ming Dynasty gentry are not legal, and their nature is to use their power to "evade taxes." What the Gao Wuzhi wants to do now cannot be said to be a complete overhaul of the Ming Dynasty land tax system, but
The purpose is to plug the gap of "tax evasion", and this matter is not intended to be accomplished overnight, but to start from the military and farmland.
As for why officials and gentry can evade taxes? Because "the imperial power does not extend to the county", tax collection is handled by local gentry. Since the gentry and local powerful factions are allowed to "collect taxes for free" for the court, then the gentry and local powerful factions can only reap the benefits.
It's inevitable.
During the Tatar Qing Dynasty, the eunuchs who bought eggs for the emperor were able to increase the price of eggs from three cents to thirty taels even if they were paid. The gentry and local powerful people who collected taxes for "free" in the Ming Dynasty did not pay for tax evasion.
Isn’t it a matter of course? There is no free lunch in this world - anyone who has played online games knows that free is the most expensive!
Some people may ask, since the officials and gentry have been evading taxes, why could they receive taxes before the Ming Dynasty? Why was the tax evasion and evasion of the gentry and local powerful groups not so serious in the past? Because several major events happened in the late Ming Dynasty.
The first major event was the massive bankruptcy of the "middle class" of the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty, like the unified feudal dynasties such as the Han and Tang dynasties, had a large "middle class" composed mainly of self-cultivators in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. These people bore the main tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty. However, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, with the "middle class" composed mainly of self-cultivators,
The "middle class" went bankrupt in large numbers, and the officials and gentry responsible for actual tax collection could no longer find enough "middle class" to bear the taxes for the court. Not only did farmers go bankrupt in large numbers and had no money to pay agricultural taxes, but also ordinary industrial and commercial people and urban civilians without official or gentry backgrounds
There were also a lot of bankruptcies.
Farmers went bankrupt due to land annexation, while industrialists, merchants and urban civilians were bankrupted by the Ming Dynasty's deceptive "comprador" system. In the Ming Dynasty, "compradors" specifically referred to merchants who supplied supplies to the palace and government, and were compulsory
"Business service" is a type of corvee service.
Compared with in-kind tribute, "comprador" was originally a progressive way to adapt to the development of market economy. However, because the Ming Dynasty officials may pay less or even not pay when "purchasing" materials, this created a problem for the merchant class in the late Ming Dynasty.
and brought serious disasters to urban civilians.
During the Longqing period, Gao Gong, a bachelor, once said that he witnessed with his own eyes the "merchants and compradors" in the alleys.
Those who fled and hid there again, some dispersed in all directions and moved into ravines, some lost their homes and cried in the Tao, some had their heads shaved and became monks, some had plans and no way out, and they were hanged in wells and died, and the rich houses were no longer there.
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During the Wanli period, the imperial court implemented a completely compulsory "comrades-for-comrades" policy for merchants, and then there were "people who escaped one after another, even shaving their heads, breaking their necks, and cutting their daughters in the market"; "some hanged themselves and threw themselves into the river"; "the rich each threw themselves into the river"
It is necessary to seek refuge in every possible way, and the remaining people who are unable to find help will be killed for several generations."
During the Chongzhen period, these situations not only did not improve, but even worsened. Due to the war, the imperial court continued to implement "comrades" for grain and grass while sending more troops to farmers, which caused countless businessmen, big and small, to "strike their vertebrae and marrow, seize the land and scream at the sky."
The losses were heavy and the suffering was extremely short-lived. The result was a decline in business, which brought the entire economy to a standstill and further intensified social conflicts.
In the late Ming Dynasty in the original history, in addition to "equalizing land and freeing grain", the most popular slogan of Li Zicheng's Dashun regime was "buying and selling on equal terms" and "fair trade" for merchants and urban civilians. The more sober officials in the court such as
Sun Chuanting also realized that "to suppress the bandits, we must first stabilize the people", and when rectifying the administration of officials, he required "comrades for daily necessities, and no loss-making households are allowed".
The industry and commerce under the name of the gentry paid no taxes or paid less tax, and the industry and commerce without the protection of the gentry generally went bankrupt under the plunder of the Ming Dynasty officials. At this time, it would be strange if Chongzhen could receive a large amount of business taxes!
In other words, in the Ming Dynasty, there had always been "compradors", a kind of bad "commercial tax" that was similar to "property raids". Finally, in the Chongzhen Dynasty, almost all industries and commerce that could receive taxes without the protection of officials and gentry were squeezed out.
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The most typical case in this regard is that in 1643, Chongzhen tried to save the Ming Dynasty's finances by printing new banknotes. However, at that time, the Ming Dynasty could not even collect the "banknote paper" needed to print new banknotes - 50 million ingots of new banknotes were printed.
It was estimated that 2 million kilograms of mulberry were needed, but at that time, there were frequent floods and droughts in the south and north of the Yangtze River, and so many raw materials could not be provided. When they heard that so many raw materials were required, people from paper households and umbrella shops in the south of the Yangtze River fled one after another.
"The whole family was shocked". In the end, Chongzhen's "money printing and finance" had not yet been implemented, and the Ming Dynasty perished.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Until the early years of the Qing Dynasty, with the massive death of the population, the contradiction between man and land was alleviated, and a new class of self-cultivators emerged. At the same time, with the deceptive "comprador" system,
Along with the demise of the Ming Dynasty, the industrial, commercial and urban "middle" classes also recovered. As a result, new tax-paying leeks grew again.
However, Gao Wuchen no longer has to worry about this issue, because he has abolished this comprador system in his previous commercial tax reform. The reason is simple: all business people have paid commercial taxes in accordance with the new law, so of course the court cannot impose repeated taxes.
Therefore, the comprador tax that originally existed as local tribute must be abolished.
Therefore, no matter whether it is the court or the palace, if you want to buy something, you can no longer lower the price like before, or you can't pay for it at all. Instead, you must buy it at the market price. The court's purchases need to be reviewed by the Audit Office of the Ministry of Household Affairs.
, in the palace...
Well, Gao Jingjing has no control over the affairs in the palace in name, but the Audit Office will conduct spot checks on merchants and allow merchants to report. If the purchasing personnel in the palace profit from it, Gao Jingjing will not tolerate them, and the emperor will not do it because of this.
Making small profits does not give high pragmatism face. As for the subsequent institutionalization of fair procurement in the palace, this matter still needs to wait for a suitable opportunity. At present, it is more important to establish the "Audit Office's supervision of palace procurement" as a routine.
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So, since this major event has little impact on the Ming Dynasty, which has been changed by Gao pragmatism, what else has a big impact? This has to do with military honors and general groups.
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PS: This year has been really troubled. I was infected with COVID-19 at the beginning of the year. I was infected with mycoplasma not long ago. Just a few days ago, I got influenza A again this time... Influenza A is very strange. The symptoms of the three people in the family are different. The child has a runny nose.
But I am in good spirits. My wife has nothing else but is weak and lacks energy and is afraid of the cold. I have a cough with thick phlegm and is hot and cold at times. Good guy, what kind of virus is this like Variety Star King?