Although the Salt Division's actions of smuggling salt made a lot of money and provided considerable help to the Ming Dynasty, it was not appropriate to maintain the old salt price in Jiangnan when the Ming Dynasty had decided to go south to destroy the Jiangnan Kingdom. .
Su Yonglin severely criticized the ideas of some Ministry of Finance officials and criticized them openly. He believed that they had taken the wrong path in terms of economic work and revolutionary goals, and asked them to make a profound review.
The people of Jiangnan are also citizens of the Ming Dynasty and must be treated equally.
"Don't cry like the world is ending just because a money-making point is gone. What the court should do is to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, not to exploit! Isn't it very satisfying to make money from the dead and bully the people?
This is something that only the old feudal dynasty would do, and this is something that only the Zhao Dynasty would do! We are not old dynasties and old bureaucrats. If we do this kind of thing, it is a serious nature issue! "
Su Yonglin was very angry and spoke very seriously. At that time, this wave had a huge impact on the Ministry of Finance.
A finance minister, Wai Lang, was dismissed from his post, and more than a dozen officials with Renaissance status were punished internally by the Renaissance. Criticisms were circulated throughout the National Renaissance organization, and the Salt Department of the Ministry of Finance was also publicly criticized.
It can only be said that Su Yonglin is still an indispensable presence and absolute authority in this country, so his influence is unparalleled.
This directly determines that the people of Hangzhou can buy very cheap salt, ending their painful history of buying salt at high prices.
After a series of twists and turns, the price of salt finally returned to the position it should have returned to. The exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes imposed on salt were completely canceled by Su Yonglin. This necessity related to people's livelihood ended the criminal mission of exploitation.
However, Su Yonglin is still not satisfied with all this. He still has many, many things he wants to do.
Just wait for the Ming army to sweep across Jiangnan.
When two-thirds of the reorganization of the Ming army was completed, and it was almost the middle of August in the eighth year of Hongwu, the people of Hangzhou finally realized that they could not buy enough salt. No matter how much they bought, the Hangzhou government could always bring more salt. fill vacancy.
Therefore, I am afraid that the price of salt has really dropped to a certain level and will not be changed easily.
Regarding this fact, the people of Hangzhou have very complicated emotions.
The citizens in Hangzhou and the farmers outside Hangzhou had different perceptions of the Ming Dynasty during this period.
Because under the leadership of the Fuxing members, the farmers overthrew the landlords, obtained land, and established their own peasant associations, their favorability towards the Ming Dynasty soared, and they almost regarded themselves as Ming people rather than Song people on the spot.
By granting land, the Ming Dynasty quickly gained the recognition of the farmers in the south of the Yangtze River, and then quickly established grassroots organizations and established communication channels with each other. It established a foothold at the grassroots level at an extremely fast speed and completed the grand strategy of surrounding the cities from the countryside.
But for a considerable number of citizens, they did not receive direct benefits from the land reform.
They are citizens, practitioners of handicrafts and commerce, and have little to do with the land. Although they have benefited greatly from the salt, this is not enough to reassure them.
They are now both worried and want to believe in the Ming Dynasty, which has newly occupied Hangzhou but has made no mistakes and directly pushed the price of salt down into the abyss. They also have more expectations for them.
They didn't know how the Ming Dynasty planned to rule them.
The previous great trial in which the people sued the officials brought them happiness, excitement, and some benefits, but these were all temporary.
The citizens of Hangzhou, who have been at the emperor's feet for a long time and have been tested for a long time, know all this very well.
And soon, Ming Guo gave the answer.
In addition to a series of policies for resuming the market and recruiting workers, the most influential and impactful policy for Hangzhou citizens is the "resumption of agriculture policy".
As the name suggests, it is a policy to restore the identity of the agricultural population and return to production and life in the countryside.
Because after the completion of the land reform to allocate land to the local tyrants, the Ming Dynasty had a huge amount of [public land] in hand. After allocating it to the original farmers, there was still a large surplus. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty announced the policy of returning to agriculture and allowed cities to Residents dragged their families back to the countryside to settle down.
The citizens of the Southern Song Dynasty were not active citizens, but mostly passive citizens.
Because their families were too poor to support the extra labor force or lost their land and other passive reasons, they were forced to leave the land and the countryside and come to the city to make a living, passively becoming citizens and proletarians.
Now the Ming Dynasty has given a resumption of agriculture policy. If they are willing to settle in Hangzhou Prefecture nearby, they can obtain land in Hangzhou Prefecture and settle nearby. If they are willing to return to their place of origin and settle down again, they can come to the government to register and wait for the government's approval. Unified arrangement.
Because their hometown may not have been captured by the Ming army and they have not yet had time to implement land reform, but they are assured that the destruction of the Song Dynasty is the established plan, and the Ming army will sweep across the south of the Yangtze River and completely eliminate the remaining forces of the Song Dynasty.
Their hometown will definitely be recaptured by the Ming army, and then land reform will be carried out. They can return to their hometown to regain land and continue to live an agricultural life.
The promulgation of this policy can be said to be far more effective than the price reduction of salt.
Compared with this policy, the price reduction of salt becomes the icing on the cake rather than a timely help.
One stone caused thousands of waves, and the more than 700,000 permanent residents in Hangzhou began a large-scale movement. Large numbers of people reported to the government that they wanted to return to their hometowns of origin or simply settle nearby.
They want to be farmers again.
So the Ming government also began to make large-scale arrangements.
Those who have settled nearby can be arranged directly, which can also have a publicity effect that stabilizes people's hearts. Su Yonglin has specially assigned personnel to help them settle in rural areas around Hangzhou.
Real land, houses, farm tools, seeds, and a three-year tax-free policy were given to them as a gift package for settling down. They felt that their souls had been sublimated.
If there was no land to cultivate, how could these people come to the city to settle and survive?
The ancients who settled down and relocated have always preferred their own land, and the Ming Dynasty gave them land, allowing them to return to the life style of their ancestors for thousands of years. Therefore, less than a month after the Ming army occupied Hangzhou, the hearts of the people of Hangzhou He completely surrendered to the Ming Dynasty.
As long as you give them land, give them peace, they don't care who rules them, that's obvious.
This set of policy procedures has been running in the northern land for several years. Ming officials are already very familiar with this matter and can operate it with ease.
This policy allowed more than 60% of the citizens of the Ming Dynasty to return to the land and become farmers again. Now, this process is being repeated in the land of Jiangnan.
The false urbanization process brought about by the mythical operation of not restraining land annexation in the Southern and Northern Song Dynasties embarked on a "retrograde" process with the Ming Dynasty's attack and its own disintegration.
From a certain perspective of historical development, the Ming Dynasty reversed history.
But from the perspective of economic development, the Ming Dynasty completed the transformation of the economy from weakness to reality, bursting the economic bubbles of the Southern and Northern Song Dynasties, or that the Ming Dynasty severely cleaned up the economy of the Southern and Northern Song Dynasty, which was like a sponge full of water. For a moment.
All the water that should be squeezed out was squeezed out, and the original appearance of the Chinese economy in the medieval era was revealed. Only then was the original appearance of the most normal commercial economy under the current level of productivity revealed.
An economic model based on agriculture and supplemented by handicrafts and commerce is the healthiest and most realistic economic model under the current state of productivity.
If commercial income is unusually high and agricultural taxes do not account for a major share of the imperial government's fiscal revenue, then the dynasty's fate will soon be over.
