Zhu Jingyuan arranged work for Lin Zexu and Zheng Xingyang and asked them to further investigate the local situation in Suzhou.
Then Zhu Jingyuan sat at his desk and started thinking about a problem again.
If there is really nothing illegal about the marriage between Suzhou Liu Yudong and Songjiang Wang Baoqing, the betrothal gifts and dowry worth tens of thousands of gold coins provided by the two families are really just the foundation for the new couple's future life.
So how should you view this matter?
There may be some cases of tax evasion through betrothal gifts and dowries, but there are definitely large betrothal gifts and dowries.
The marriage between wealthy families and the combination of private capital are completely logical things.
Even if there is no external interference at all, things will happen naturally.
The second industrial revolution was originally an era of monopoly capitalism.
What's more, in recent years, the Ming court has begun to vigorously promote the construction of government-owned manufacturers.
Private capital feels the dual pressure of the royal family and the court, and will definitely accelerate the speed of alliances between them.
If there is a completely free market, private capital may continue to merge and move towards the form of monopoly capitalism.
Just like land annexation in the agricultural era, it cannot be completely avoided.
The process of capital moving towards monopoly can be regarded as a process of "capital merger" in some sense.
Excessive land annexation is the most important reason for the collapse of traditional dynasties.
On the one hand, it reduces the fault tolerance rate of dynasty governance schemes.
There are fewer and fewer self-sufficient farmers, and most farmers have become tenant farmers. The ability of tenant farmers to withstand natural and man-made disasters is obviously lower than that of owner farmers.
If the imperial government's policies deviate even slightly, the tenant farmers who are on the poverty line may be forced to rebel.
On the one hand, it reduced the dominance of dynastic rulers.
There are more and more big landowners in the local area, and big landowners are often from scholarly families. Members of such families are often the source of fresh blood for the traditional dynastic bureaucracy.
If the imperial court proposes any policy that harms the interests of their own families, the bureaucrats themselves will instinctively find ways to delay or even resist.
Under such internal and external erosion, once a large-scale natural disaster broke out, the imperial court had no power to rescue them, and the tenant farmers were forced to the edge of a life-and-death crisis.
So the peasant uprising war broke out in the last years of the dynasty.
The results of capital mergers in the industrial era are actually very similar to the effects of land mergers in the agricultural era.
It will also reduce the error tolerance of the court's policies.
When an industry is monopolized by one or a few large companies, small and medium-sized enterprises may even disappear completely, and everyone becomes proletarian workers in nature.
When workers have no means of production and no valuable assets, and may even have completely negative equity, their ability to withstand risks will of course be very low.
At the same time, capital mergers will also reduce the court's ability to rule.
The small "court" will certainly not be able to control monopoly capital. Monopoly capital's favorite court is the "night watchman". It is hoped that the court will be a pure "security guard" and it will be enough.
These two aspects of the problem continue to worsen. If there is another large-scale natural or man-made disaster, the workers will be forced to the death line, and they will have to rebel and overthrow this useless court.
However, after the industrial era, social productivity has been greatly improved compared to the agricultural era.
The entire society's ability to withstand natural and man-made disasters has also increased significantly.
Even in times of large-scale economic crisis, society as a whole has actually very abundant supplies.
After all, the intuitive response to an economic crisis is "overproduction", but it is a lack of circulation, not a lack of materials.
As long as the bourgeoisie unites and distributes certain relief to unemployed workers through the court institutions they control so that unemployed workers do not starve to death, the entire country and the court will not completely collapse.
The United States during the Great Depression was a very typical example of the bourgeoisie completely controlling the court.
Although there was massive unemployment in the United States at that time, the U.S. government had sufficient resources for relief.
In addition, the New World is already rich in products, and there is basically no direct starvation to death.
Therefore, even in the United States during the Great Depression, no proletarian revolution broke out.
But the premise of all this is that the property is rich and the bourgeoisie replaces the traditional aristocracy and truly controls the state machinery.
After the independence of the United States, there was no traditional aristocracy. The entire country was a bourgeois regime from the beginning.
However, the countries in Europe and the West are completely different. Traditional aristocrats have existed in society for a long time.
Basically, in the era of the second industrial revolution, the bourgeoisie of various countries in Europe and the West gradually seized the control of the traditional aristocrats over the court while their own power expanded rapidly.
Specifically in the UK, this process began in the late nineteenth century and was not completely completed until the end of World War II.
The First World War was a turning point in the exchange of strength between the two sides.
Before World War I, the power of kings and nobles still exceeded the power of capital.
After the First World War, the situation was reversed.
Beginning in 1894, driven by the British House of Commons, the proportion of inheritance tax continued to rise.
It rose all the way from 8% to 65% during World War II!
Traditional aristocrats are usually not good at business and mainly rely on land and manors for income.
These lands and estates are the most important heritage.
If an old nobleman has 10,000 acres of land and passes it on to his son, he will have to pay inheritance tax on the land value of 6,500 acres.
The bourgeoisie does not allow traditional aristocrats to sit on their land and estates and live in a state of intoxication.
Coupled with the simultaneous increase in property taxes, the British bourgeoisie continued to extract money from the traditional aristocrats during this half-century, and eventually killed most of the aristocrats.
Finally, the British royal family began to marry commoners, because the aristocracy completely lost its power.
The current situation in the Ming Dynasty is that the royal family and nobles still control the country.
Including the royal family, most nobles are also bourgeois, and the pure bourgeoisie is very weak.
At the same time, Ming Dynasty did not charge inheritance tax at all.
Because this is not only completely contrary to the traditional Eastern culture, but also completely unacceptable to the nobles who still have the power to rule.
The Ming Dynasty not only did not charge inheritance tax, but also did not charge income tax at all on property gifts between parents and children.
Only when it comes to changes in ownership of fixed assets and renaming of bond assets such as securities and equity, you need to pay a small amount of stamp duty and deed tax when going through the procedures.
Before the second industrial revolution and before merchants' capital expanded rapidly, the impact of these systems was actually not great.
But now things are starting to change.
Zhu Jingyuan feels that the policy of no inheritance tax and tax exemption on property gifts between immediate family members is a growing tax loophole in an era of rapid expansion of capital power.
However, anyone who wants to collect taxes on these two situations is definitely risking the disdain of the world.
Do I still have to pay taxes if I inherit my ancestor’s family business? Is there any justice?
When parents give money to their children for expenses, or buy a house for their children to get married, do they also have to pay taxes?
If children give gifts to their parents, or give them money for expenses, or purchase facilities for their elderly care, do they still have to pay taxes?
Traditional Ming people simply cannot imagine and accept this situation.
The children of the royal family and nobles who are directly affected are definitely unacceptable.
Many people may naturally think, should the emperor pay taxes when he succeeds to the throne?
When the Supreme Emperor transfers the ownership of the royal consortium and imperial estate to the next emperor, does he also have to pay taxes to the court?
Zhu Jingyuan kept thinking in his mind, what should be done about this matter? When should it be done?
In the next few days, the secretaries sent by Zhu Jingyuan to other areas also returned one after another.
One report after another was sent to Zhu Jingyuan.
Zhu Jingyuan also listened and read these reports carefully with his own thoughts.
Local clan organizations are very common in Jianghuai Province.
Most families that have lived in a certain place for a long time will form a clan organization maintained by blood relations.
It is very common for a clan to have some people doing business, some seeking fame, and some going to sea at the same time.
At the same time, it is also very common for some people to work as officials in other places, and it is also very common for their children to work as grassroots officials in local yamen.
However, what Zhu Jingyuan is most worried about is the situation where one clan completely controls a place, but he has basically never seen it.
In most places, one family has people in all aspects, and it is far from a situation where one family controls a township or county.
In fact, in many places there are some clans that don't deal with each other very well and have conflicts in business or industry.
This morning, Zhu Jingyuan summoned Lin Zexu and the main secretaries and expressed some of his doubts:
"According to the information obtained through your investigation, there are basically no large-scale exclusive clan forces that dominate the sky in the counties and counties under the Jianghuai Province of the Ming Dynasty.
"Of course this can be considered a good thing. It shows that the place is relatively stable and there are fewer local tyrants and bullies.
"But I want to know why? Why did this happen."
Zhu Jingyuan was not questioning someone, but was discussing it as usual.
Discussions immediately started at the scene.
Not long after, Lin Zexu himself tried to analyze it and said:
"Your Highness, students believe that there are basically no local bully-like clan forces in the Jianghuai region, probably because most areas in Jianghuai Province are too rich."
Zhu Jingyuan was slightly stunned:
"Because you're too rich?"
Lin Zexu nodded and continued to explain his thoughts:
"Take our Lin family in Fujian as an example. Our family specially allocated a sum of money to provide schooling for our children.
“At the same time, we provide young people with potential to go to college or even take part-time exams.
“Our family has also invested in related industries such as shipbuilding, aircraft, automobiles, tractors and supporting engines.
"Together, we also spent some extra money to invest in and develop farms and run rayon textile factories in Dongmozhou, the country of Dashi.
"Thanks to His Highness, our Lin family has really made a lot of money in these years from the new industries promoted by His Highness.
“But our kind of family is not special at all in today’s Ming Dynasty.
“Including the Jianghuai region, plus Shandong in the north, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong in the south, there are many families operating in various aspects and industries.
"In other words, everyone's family has people who have seen the world, and they know how to litigate when they suffer losses.
“Those who refuse to accept the punishment may even take the case all the way to the Dali Temple in the capital.
"Everyone follows the rules, so there is no direct personal threat, so there is no way to kill all the enemies, and there is no way to cover the local area with one hand.
"If someone does something shady against the rules, everyone will have a way to find out, and the court will naturally punish the offender in accordance with the law.
“Most families cannot outdo all their fellow villagers, and there are complex relationships with both competition and cooperation everywhere.
"On the contrary, in relatively remote places, there is a situation where it is suspected that a local family dominates the sky."
Zhu Jingyuan couldn't help but smile and nod after hearing this.
Although Lin Zexu was very humble, families like the Lin family in Fujian definitely did not exist everywhere.
But as he said, there are indeed many families involved in various industries and keeping up with the latest technological development in the southeastern region of Ming Dynasty.
But if the family itself is larger, the scale of the industry it operates will naturally be larger. If the family is smaller, the scale of the industry it operates will be smaller.
Betting in multiple places has always been a habitual practice among traditional Chinese clans.
The most important thing is that with the continuation of this multi-party operation and continuous learning and exploration, these families have shifted from traditional local clans to industrial and commercial asset families.
Especially what Lin Zexu said, everyone has seen the world and will not give in when faced with intimidation or coercion.
No one is afraid of taking the lawsuit to Dali Temple.
In particular, Jianghuai Province was originally located in Southern Zhili, and its current provincial capital is also nominally Nanjing in the Ming Dynasty.
I don’t even know what stage fright is.
Of course, the most critical issue is that the Ming Dynasty was powerful enough to provide a relatively fair and strict competition platform.
If anyone does not follow the rules and wants to rely on violence and black methods to attack other families, if the other party finds out the reason, they can directly approach the court to deal with it, which is a truly devastating blow.
In other words, the richest places in the Ming Dynasty, under the guidance and management of the imperial court, have formed a relatively stable and reasonable industrial and commercial competition logic after more than a hundred years of development.
On the contrary, only in relatively remote places, where information is not smooth and education is relatively backward, can there be evil local snakes.
But the problem remains.
Although there are many advanced parts of the rules established by Emperor Shizu, there are also more compromises.
Laws enacted in the pre-industrial era must, of course, be adapted to the current conditions of the pre-industrial era.
Now is the second industrial revolution, an era in which large-scale machine production has truly taken shape, and an era in which capital has merged into monopoly.
Before the rules were perfected, clever businessmen were already taking advantage of loopholes like crazy.
So Zhu Jingyuan smiled and nodded and said:
"Mr. Lin is right. The richer the area, the more orderly it is, and the place where the court is strong, the less likely it is for local evil forces to arise.
"I am very pleased with this. Next, I will adjust the scope of investigation and rectification of the evil family forces, with relatively remote and impoverished mountainous areas as the main target.
“But at the same time, in relatively wealthy areas, it is very common for local clans to join forces with each other to squeeze out competitors and use various means to evade taxes.
"I read your reports and found similar situations in almost all places, with Suzhou Prefecture, the richest city, being the most typical.
"We will start the investigation based on the marriage between Liu Yudong and Wang Baoqing's family.
"Find out the betrothal gift of 10,000 gold coins, how the cash was raised, and whose account it will end up in."
(End of chapter)
