The real purpose of Wang Xijue's tour of the world is actually to follow Zhu Yijun's suggestion to talk to the governors and inspectors who hold the real power in the world about increasing commercial taxes. manner.
Those who are willing to cooperate will naturally stay and continue to serve as frontier officials in the future.
Those who are unwilling to cooperate will naturally be dismissed.
Valuable comments may be reused.
During the Zhang Juzheng period, because Zhang Juzheng wanted to reorganize the government, when he wanted to contact governors all over the world, he always communicated through private messages in the name of enhancing personal relationships.
As a result, although some people were willing to reform the system, they did not dare to take a stand for fear of being impeached by officials for being suspected of having a private relationship with Zhang Juzheng.
The officials who were unwilling would either directly announce the private letter to the public, saying that Zhang Juzheng was trying to curry favor with him and win over him. In order to show that he was not afraid of the powerful, he decided to make Zhang Juzheng's letter public.
Some officials who were unwilling to undergo restructuring simply "read it without replying" and did not let Zhang Juzheng know their attitude.
It's different now. Wang Xijue took the initiative to meet the major governors according to the order, and he went to meet the major governors legitimately. He even had the power to nominate whether these governors could become ministers in the future.
Therefore, there is no reason why these governors should not express their opinions, and they should not try to play tricks like "having read it and not being able to read it back" or "not flattering the powerful".
After all, anyone who does not see Yuan Fu is unwilling to accept inspections from superior leaders, is not active in political affairs, and is a lazy official.
Because of this.
Wang Xijue went out of the capital to inspect the country, which caused many governors to have headaches.
"What should I do? If I don't express my position, I will be accused of being a charlatan and unwilling to cooperate with the Prime Minister's political affairs. If I express my position, I will be suspected of cooperating with powerful officials, and then I will be mistaken for a member of the royal party."
The first governor Wang Xijue wanted to see when he left the capital was not the governor of Beizhi, but the governor of Jiliao, Gu Yangqian.
Because goods coming from the north basically pass through the jurisdiction of Governor Ji Liao, and it is best to set up checkpoints and collect taxes in the jurisdiction of Governor Ji Liao, so Wang Xijue came to Jizhou first.
When Gu Yangqian, the governor of Jiliao, also went out of the city to greet Wang Xijue, he sighed at the deputy envoy Yan Mingtai who also came to greet Wang Xijue.
Yan Mingtai echoed: "Yes, the emperor is forcing all the scholar-bureaucrats in the world to wear nose rings, and let Wang Taicang cling to this nose ring to cultivate the world for him, renovating and weeding out the old."
While the two were talking, Wang Xijue got off the sedan and came over.
Gu Yangqian and others bowed their hands and said, "Yuan Fu."
"There is no need to be polite in Chong'an! What's the relationship between you and me? It's better not to see anyone outside."
Wang Xijue smiled and helped Gu Yangqian up, and said: "This time I asked for an order to leave the capital, and it was for nothing else. I just asked for an order to inquire about the affairs of the people of the world, not just empty talk! It's equivalent to saying that I came to ask you These ministers from the feudal territory have come to ask for advice, and they are here as students, so Chong'an can rest assured."
"How dare I serve as Yuan Fu's teacher?"
"If Yuan Fu has anything to ask, please just ask."
Gu Yangqian replied with a smile.
Wang Xijue did not respond directly to Gu Yangqian's words, but just looked at the streets of Jizhou City:
"There are indeed a lot of shops here. Just like the towns I passed along the way, markets have been everywhere in recent years."
"Why is it that the commercial tax levied by the imperial court is far less than the land tax?"
"This is naturally because the imperial court cherishes the people's strength and our emperor is benevolent."
Gu Yangqian replied like this, which immediately blocked what Wang Xijue was going to say next, leaving Wang Xijue unable to say anything. It couldn't be said that he had no intention of letting His Majesty continue to be benevolent?
This also made Wang Xijue understand Gu Yangqian's attitude and said:
"What Chong'an said is true, but I'm not here to talk about business taxes this time. I'm here to talk about railway construction. I want to see which prefectures and counties in the world need railways the most."
"You know, the imperial court has always wanted to build more railways, but the country is so big, and I don't know where it would be better to open the railway first in the next few years."
"Motosuke!"
After hearing this, Gu Yangqian hurriedly handed over to Wang Xijue, and then, as a native of Tongzhou, Nanzhi, he said:
"There must be no doubt that there is no place that needs rail more than the Southern Strait State."
"Yeah?"
Wang Xijue asked with a smile.
Gu Yangqian hurriedly said: "Yuan Fu, you should know that South Tongzhou is very busy with cargo farming. If there is no railway, it will be really detrimental to the people and business."
Wang Xijue said: "Shenwu County wants to connect to Suzhou first, because Suzhou's business is busier."
"Yuanfu, after all, Suzhou is across the river and the construction cost is very high. It is better to connect the railway between Tongzhou and Yangzhou first. In this way, whether Suzhou's goods go to Yangzhou through Tongzhou or to Nandu, they can be transferred in only one place. By setting up checkpoints in these two places, we can achieve the purpose of increasing commercial taxes!"
Gu Yangqian pondered for a while, and then decisively stated the reason why he wanted the court to first give his hometown Nantong a railway for future generations.
Gu Yangqian knew what Wang Xijue meant, which was that if he supported commercial tax, he could first go to Nantong for a railway.
Everyone has the idea of benefiting the hometown and thus benefiting his own family, and Gu Yangqian is no exception. Therefore, after realizing that supporting the increase in commercial taxes will benefit the hometown, he decisively chose to express his support for the increase in commercial taxes. The world's merchants have the final say.
"Add commercial tax?"
"So, you are advocating increasing commercial taxes?"
Wang Xijue asked at this time.
Gu Yangqian said: "To be honest with Yuan Fu, my subordinates have already had this intention. Nowadays, commercial taxes are too low, and commerce is becoming more and more prosperous. Therefore, if we do not increase commercial taxes, it will not benefit farmers, and agriculture is the foundation of the country." !”
Wang Xijue nodded.
Then, Gu Yangqian added: "If we really want to increase commercial taxes, we can't rely on the support of a few subordinates and other officials. We must have the support of other local people. First of all, the police, the county officials, and their families." They have also been doing business locally or have married some merchants. At least we must ensure that they do not suffer any losses, so that they can seriously collect business taxes for the imperial court."
"I got you."
"How about this?"
"Not all of the additional commercial taxes will be paid to the court, but a certain proportion will be retained in your vassal treasury to be used as additional money for you to recruit more reliable officials and strengthen local construction."
Wang Xijue said.
After hearing this, Gu Yangqian immediately handed over to Wang Xijue: "If this is true, it will be a blessing to the people of the world!"
Wang Xijue smiled faintly.
Next, Wang Xijue met with Song Yingchang, the governor of Beizhi, and discussed with him the construction of a railway, but the matter of commercial taxation was also discussed during the discussion.
Song Yingchang also began to express his support for increasing commercial taxes, but also said that he could not support it on his own. In the end, it was Wang Xijue who could distribute the taxes to local governments, and Song Yingchang directly expressed his willingness.
In this way, Wang Xijue negotiated with one governor and one governor.
During this period, the governors who had reached an agreement with Wang Xijue began to prepare to assist the National Taxation Department in collecting commercial taxes. Those who did not reach an agreement soon received bullets and were dismissed from office.
Finally, starting from the first month of the thirty-seventh year of Wanli, the Ming Dynasty officially began to levy commercial taxes, adding checkpoints everywhere, and levying additional taxes on goods that reached a certain value. This significantly increased the original commercial tax of thirty-one tax. .
at the same time.
The Ming Dynasty no longer levied land tax, and no tax was levied on the import of agricultural products and the transportation of agricultural products at various checkpoints to ensure the interests of farmers and make more people willing to continue farming instead of choosing to work in cities in exchange for higher incomes. income.
It should be noted that since the Ming Dynasty started steam industrialization, commodity circulation capacity has been strengthened, and a large number of government-run and private factories have begun to appear. As a result, a large number of people have poured into towns and cities to work, because the income from working in cities has exceeded the income from land.
After all, for homesteaders, not only do they have to pay a higher tax rate for farming, but their income is also greatly affected by the weather. In particular, the increasingly obvious Little Glacier climate has led to an increase in the frequency of droughts, which further makes farming less effective than working in the city. After all, if you work in the city, you don't have to worry about drought or floods, and you don't have to pay land taxes.
The same goes for landowners. After discovering that investing in land is no longer as good as investing in national bonds, factories, and overseas mines, traditional landowners no longer actively acquire domestic fields, but only actively acquire foreign fields.
As a result, a large amount of domestic land has begun to be abandoned, and some cultivated land has begun to degrade.
Therefore, in order to avoid the serious degradation of local cultivated land in the future, which will lead to insufficient cultivated land and affect food production, leading to over-reliance on food brought by overseas steam-powered transportation, the Ming court has to start to feed back the farmers, and begins to increase commercial taxes and exempt land taxes. .
Anyway, for the imperial court, the current annual income of more than 20 million taels of silver from field taxes is far less than the hundreds of millions of customs revenue brought by government-run businesses from global colonization.
Therefore, exemption from land tax is nothing.
Especially after the increase in commercial tax, the sea has been completely opened to the sea, in Hirado, Nagasaki, Malacca (Malacca), Haojing (Macau), Donglai (Taiwan), Luzon, Mubang, Dhaka, etc. Ming Dynasty, which set up cards everywhere to collect cross-border commercial taxes, will undoubtedly see a further surge in commercial taxes. The increased commercial taxes can completely offset the exemption of local land taxes.
However, although starting from the first day of the first month of the thirty-seventh month of Wanli, in accordance with Zhu Yijun's imperial edict, the Ming Dynasty no longer collected land taxes in the mainland, there were still many local bureaucrats who secretly collected land taxes.
Many farmers who are honest but do not take the initiative to understand the policies or are too afraid of the government to speak out are still paying land taxes honestly.
It wasn't until some farmers learned about the policy, or learned from other areas that the court had long stopped collecting land tax, that they began to refuse to pay land tax to the local government. They also used official newspapers that issued the imperial edict to question the government and even used violent words to make a fuss. Only after the way of life began to object, many local governments began to reluctantly choose not to collect land taxes.
But in any case, local land tax is indeed gradually being abolished.
Because the central court no longer levied the tax, local bureaucrats did not dare to really fight with the farmers who knew the policy, so soon there was no more land tax in the world.
Wuxi.
Gao Panlong said to Xue Fu: "I didn't expect that one day the imperial court would even be able to waive the land tax. It's really very disappointing!"
"But the additional commercial tax will not be of much benefit to me in Jiangnan. It will only benefit the ordinary people who are pure farmers." (End of Chapter)
