They fought back and forth for hundreds of years. Until the Zhengtong period, the officials got tired of the quarrel and simply started over again and established a treasury, Taicang, that was independent of the inner treasury and directly managed by the Ministry of Household Affairs.
From then on, part of the annual fiscal revenue went to Taicang and part went to the internal treasury, and some spoils were divided between the two parties. For example, the income from issuing currency is split 50-50 between the two sides. Another example is the income from banknotes. In the past, the internal treasury kept it all, but now it had to give 30% to Taicang.
During the Chenghua period, Taipu Temple also found an excuse to establish the Changying Treasury to store the profits of Ma Zheng separately. It was neither directly managed by the emperor nor allowed to have the Ministry of Revenue intervene. It was considered independent from Taicang and Nei Treasury. The third treasury component.
A few decades later, Emperor Jiajing's Minister of Industry saw that Taipu Temple had its own small treasury and was living an extremely comfortable life. He also found out that the emperor had given him some ecstasy soup, and he had set up a treasury independent of Taicang, Neiku and In addition to the Changying Treasury and the Jieshen Treasury, the Ming Dynasty's treasury was divided into four independent parts.
No, if there are only four parts, it can't be called chaos. In addition to Taicang, Neiku, Changyingku and Jieshenku in the two capitals, each province also has its own treasury.
The grain and grass money collected from the people in various places must first be put into the treasury, and then the part specified by the court should be handed over, and the rest should be kept in the treasury for emergencies. Keep your own accounts and spend your own money. Don’t be too comfortable in this little life.
However, the portion turned over to the national treasury is sometimes calculated in kind, and sometimes it is converted into currency. The process is messy and cumbersome, and there are no specialized personnel to manage it. The accounts are in a mess and it is difficult to completely clarify them.
After talking about the treasury system, we have to talk about the tax system. Without revenue, no matter how well-organized the treasury is, it will be in vain.
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, wars and wars broke out all over the country. It took 15 years from Zhu Yuanzhang joining the rebel army to overthrowing the Yuan Dynasty and establishing a new regime.
What is the concept of fighting for 15 years? The Anti-Japanese War and the War of Liberation in later generations only lasted 12 years. After the founding of New China, it was basically destitute.
This was basically the same situation in the early Ming Dynasty. There was a lot of internal waste waiting for improvement, and external threats still existed. It was impossible to devote all its energy to internal affairs, and it was necessary to maintain a large army.
In order to reduce the financial burden, Zhu Yuanzhang adopted a wide range of military settlements, also known as guard systems. He wanted to imitate the northern nomads to achieve an integration of military and civilians. When he needed to fight, he put on armor and became a soldier. After the battle, he put down his sword and gun and picked up a hoe and became a farmer. .
How to evaluate it? It is too idealistic and lacks a long-term vision. It is just a headache and a pain in the neck, and it has not considered the future of the military households. Zhu Yuanzhang, who claimed to be a peasant, had betrayed his class by this time, and most of the policies he formulated did not favor the peasants, but instead harmed them.
The reason may be that he is not very smart, but he is unambiguous in his political struggle. It may also be for power. After all, he conquered the country and must pass it on to the old Zhu family for thousands of years. At this time, you don't care about the life and death of the farmers, so you can do whatever suits you best.
A country founded by peasant uprisings, the number and scale of domestic peasant uprisings is actually among the best in history. Judging from this aspect alone, Lao Zhu did not really think about the farmers, at least not thoughtfully.
On the contrary, he thought very carefully about future generations, and he wished he could take out all the treasury without feeling sad. Some people say that when he formulated the policy, he did not expect that his descendants would be so fertile... This is very clever. He is not a monster born from parthenogenesis. How could he not have thought that his descendants would have offspring!
The health system was indeed effective at the beginning, but unfortunately it did not last long. In the early 100s, the income from farming dropped rapidly from more than 8 million shi in the Yongle year to 1.04 million shi in the first year of Zhengde.
At this time, the guard system could no longer reduce the financial burden on the court, but instead became a burden. Military expenditures soared rapidly from 400,000 taels in the early years of Zhengde to more than 4 million taels in the third year of Jingyang. This was without any medium-to-large-scale wars. If there were, military expenditures would have to increase.
Is just spending more money enough? Definitely not. A bad policy often brings undue losses and will also cause chain reactions. The chain reaction caused by the guard system is to significantly reduce the overall quality and combat effectiveness of the army. To make up for it, more money and food must be spent to recruit soldiers again.
Since Zhengde, it has become a common practice for most armies in the north to recruit soldiers to fill vacancies. The price at that time was 6 taels of silver a year. Three years after arriving in Jingyang, the price had risen to 16 taels of silver. The navy recruited by Yuan Keli in the name of the Governor of Water Transport was even more expensive, costing 18 taels of silver a year.
From this time on, various wars suddenly became more frequent. In the 29th year of Jiajing's reign, the Tatar leader Ada Khan led his troops to break into the vicinity of the capital and plunder for eight days, which was known as the Gengxu Incident in history.
In the 32nd year of Jiajing's reign, Japanese pirates invaded the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang on a large scale. The imperial court mobilized a large number of manpower and material resources, and it took more than ten years to barely quell them. The coastal areas suffered countless losses.
The three major conquests of the Wanli period, the Jurchen tribes in Liaodong that gradually showed their fangs, and the one after another local peasant and handicraft riots, almost exhausted the wealth accumulated through Zhang Juzheng's reforms.
Looking back at the people, if Lao Zhu's family was really good to the farmers, how could the people be so cold-blooded and try all kinds of tricks to evade and even use force to resist the court's taxes.
The Ming Dynasty implemented a progressive taxation system. The more land there was, the higher the tax rate. The starting point of recruiting the rich and helping the poor was very good, but like many policies at that time, the implementability was too poor, and there were loopholes everywhere wider than the city gates.
So, good intentions do not necessarily lead to good results. This is true for ordinary people. If you want to be a competent emperor, you must have great wisdom beyond ordinary people and jump out of the ordinary people's pattern to be successful.
Specifically, for farmers with no more than 30 acres of land, the tax burden only accounts for about 5%. When the area reaches 300 acres, the tax rate is close to 10%. By analogy, the tax rate doubles as the land increases.
Does that mean no one is willing to annex land? At this time, we have to use Comrade Ma’s famous saying: As long as the profits are large enough, capital dares to trample all morals and laws in the world. Bureaucrats and gentry are more powerful than pure capital, because they have another big weapon in their hands, power.
In order to evade taxes, the bureaucrats and gentry came up with several effective ways to resist imperial decrees. For example, if you purchase land in a scattered manner and the amount of land purchased in each state or county does not exceed 300 acres, you can legitimately pay only 5% tax. This practice is called flying.
If your family doesn’t have enough manpower and doesn’t want to buy land elsewhere, but just wants to live in your own home, can you pay less tax? It must be possible. The same effect can be achieved by putting your own land in the name of a landless refugee, commonly known as guile.
Seeing that wealthy families are living so economically, small landowners and ordinary wealthy households must not be left behind. So they also thought of a way to donate land to local clans or temples that had tax-free rights, and paid a tax rate lower than the prescribed rate. They would take advantage of both sides, but they would only lose out to the court.
What should we do if there are no clan merits and temples in the local area, and we don’t know how to play Feisha and Guiji? It doesn't matter, there are other ways, such as defaulting. They make various excuses to pay less taxes and food, and promise to make up for it next year. Then find a homeless man who has nothing but a miserable life, and let him take the beating on his behalf. It doesn't cost much either.
What’s even more cruel is that since they can’t pay taxes anyway, they simply give up their fields and take their whole family into the valleys to become refugees, finding suitable arable land and cultivating slash-and-burn farming to be self-sufficient. In later generations, many small villages hidden in ravines were established by refugees fleeing war or evading taxes.
It's not the end if you can't find it. You can still wander around and find big cities. It's better to beg for food than to work hard for a year with your back turned to the sky, only to be hungry after paying taxes.
Faced with this kind of situation, local officials usually will not risk their lives to pursue the case. They are evaluated every three years and there is no guarantee of where they will be assigned to the next one. If they are too serious, it will easily lead to a civil commotion, which will not only affect their reputation, but also cause disasters. Cause trouble to the superior officer.
The local officials have nothing to do, and the court also has nothing to do. No matter who is in charge of governance, as long as the tax laws cannot be changed, the fundamental problem cannot be solved, so they can only turn a blind eye and pretend not to see it.
When successive emperors ascended the throne, gave birth to a prince, or enthroned a prince, they would pretentiously issue a pardon, exempting part of the previously owed taxes and grains, in the hope that the farmers who had become refugees could lighten their burden and return to their hometowns as soon as possible to continue farming and pay for grain when the leeks were harvested. , but the trick of the weasel giving New Year greetings to the rooster loses its deception effect if played too many times, and has little effect.
The deficit in the agricultural tax is getting bigger and bigger, and it is difficult to make ends meet. It is even more difficult to fundamentally change the current system. Another way of thinking is, can we increase fiscal revenue from other aspects to make up for the deficit?
For example, when it comes to commercial taxes, the answer is no! The Ming Dynasty's governing philosophy was to emphasize agriculture and suppress business. It had not encouraged people to engage in business for hundreds of years. It was not easy to suddenly transform to commercialization.
Besides, throughout Chinese history, 99% of things that are not encouraged by the imperial court are extremely profitable. Ordinary people can't get involved, but it doesn't mean that the rich and powerful can't do it either.
In fact, since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, bureaucratic capital has entered the commercial field on a large scale. The emperor and the court were all aware of it, but no one could tell clearly, and they had to continue to talk nonsense about farming.
Taxing bureaucratic capital? This is probably more dangerous than the imperial commander's personal expedition to wipe out all the Tatar tribes in Monan and Mobei in one fell swoop. No matter how ferocious the enemy is, they can still see it. The main body of bureaucratic capital is court officials, clans and nobles, and they have to be anxious to charge even a penny more.
Provoking public outrage, the emperor would die in a matter of minutes because of taking a nap in the wrong posture, falling into the water, catching a cold, taking the wrong medicine, or going to the toilet carelessly. If not, he would be beaten to death by the palace maids and eunuchs. Anyway, whoever touched their cake would be the winner. Gotta die.
(End of chapter)
