The difference was only two taels of silver, which was probably just an error, so Shuai Jiamo came to the conclusion: at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the entire six counties of Huizhou Prefecture owed a total of 20,480 shi of summer grain, and the debt should be divided into "summer taxes" "raw silk" was added to the name, and 8,780 pieces of raw silk were folded. There was no problem with this originally. The problem was that after the restructuring of Yisi, for some reason, the tax was borne by the whole government instead of being borne by She County alone.
What is even more tragic is that these 8,780 pieces of raw silk belong to the color tax and must be paid in kind. However, Huizhou did not raise silkworms at all, so the people in She County had to sell the grain for money, then use the money to buy raw silk, and finally pay it to the government. This means that you have to fold it twice before and after. Needless to say, the cost must be very high.
Also, this 8,780 horses is the number of horses arriving at the warehouse, and the transportation costs and losses during the journey must be added. Therefore, after all calculations, the people of She County actually paid more than the book, maybe 9,000 horses, or even tens of thousands of horses.
It is conceivable that if this situation is indeed correct, then She County is simply unlucky! Because counting from the "Yisi Reform" in the 25th year of Zhizheng to the third year of Longqing - the people of She County have been paying this unjust tax for more than 200 years!
Shuai Jiamo was so shocked that his scalp was numb, so he acted cautiously. He did not rush to alert the government, but first made a careful investigation in She County. As a result, he discovered that he was not the first person to discover that there was something wrong with this matter. As early as the 14th year of Jiajing, two people from She County, Wang Xiang and Cheng Peng, had discovered that there was something wrong with this "Human Ding Silk" .
At that time, they did not protest locally in Huizhou Prefecture, but directly submitted a report to the superior of Huizhou Prefecture, Governor Yingtian, and more than once!
At that time, the first people to receive the report were Yingtian Governor Chen Kezhai and Inspector Song Maoxi. These two were serious about their work and quickly gave their approval, requesting Huizhou Prefecture to conduct a thorough investigation. It's a pity that the timing was unlucky. These two people were quickly promoted and transferred. The successors didn't know the previous situation, so no one asked about this matter.
Wang Xiang and Cheng Peng also estimated this possibility, so they again submitted a report to the Governor and Inspector's Office of Yingtian. The successor Governor Ouyang Duo and Inspector You Jujing also received the same report. These two people had just taken office, so of course they couldn't leave things unattended, so they quickly gave their approval and asked the Huizhou government to convene six counties for a collegial meeting. As a result, the officials and officials responsible for this matter were all from the other five counties, so they were perfunctory and delayed.
Later, Wang Xiang and Cheng Peng died inexplicably one after another, and the matter fell into disuse.
what to do? These two people died in bizarre ways, most likely not from a normal death, and most likely related to this incident. If I hold on to this unjust tax payment, will I encounter the same disaster in the future?
The stubbornness of a mathematical genius occupied his entire brain: people can die, but the accounts cannot be wrong!
Thinking of this, Shuai Jiamo pushed away the account book and made a decision: he would submit a third submission to seek justice for She County. Not to mention getting back the excess taxes paid in the past or seeking to reduce or reduce other taxes in the future, but at the very least, this tax must be redistributed to the six counties. She County must not be allowed to bear it alone!
It was not easy for Shuai Jiamo to make this determination. You must know that the tax system of the Ming Dynasty was inherently messy, complicated, and involved many things. Unless a certain place was seriously affected by a disaster, it would be extremely difficult for the emperor to add or subtract one or two subjects. If he wanted to delete an entire subject with the power of a commoner, It is really difficult to reach the sky. What's more, if the apportionment is re-allocated, it means that the other five counties will increase taxes for nothing. This huge interest group will definitely block it.
However, Shuai Jiamo, who had already made up his mind, still wrote a submission in person, describing his investigation process in detail. Then at the beginning of the fourth year of Longqing, he did not pass the Huizhou Prefecture, but skipped the level and submitted it to the then Yingtian Xunjian Yushi. Liu Shihui.
In this report, Shuai Jiamo played a little trick. He added a sentence when describing the reason: "Because of the survey of the Ministry of Household Affairs in this year, I took 8,780 pieces of human ding silk and folded raw silk. It turned out that The six counties in front all lost, as evidenced by the official records."
In fact, in the "Huizhou Prefecture Chronicle", it only vaguely records the amount of ding silk silk paid by Huizhou Prefecture or She County. It does not clearly say that "the original six counties all lost", let alone the debt owed to Xia in the early years of the Guo Dynasty. Mai connected.
Shuai Jiamo secretly added these six words in order to create an established impression on Shangguan and make it easier for him to act - but little did he know that this small trick would later become a key point in the lawsuit.
In addition to this, Shuai Jiamo also said: "Nanjing's shipping warehouse collects 20,190 pieces of silk every year, of which silk-producing areas such as Zhejiang and Huguang only pay 8,501 pieces; Yingtian The Thirteenth Prefecture only needs to pay 2,905 pieces. But our Huizhou Prefecture does not raise silkworms at all, but it has to bear 8,780 pieces. The local people can only sell the grain, convert it into silver, and buy it from Zhejiang and other places. The repurchase and these two procedures doubled the cost, which was unbearable. What's more, if this burden was shared among six counties, it might be bearable, but now it is borne by one county in Shexian County - one of the counties The tax is higher than that of Zhejiang and Huguang (Wu Feng’s note: the Chief Envoy, similar to a provincial administrative region), which is totally unreasonable!”
To be honest, Shuai Jiamo played another statistical trick here. Because the tax system of the Ming Dynasty was not a unified collection and interpretation, one place often had to pay taxes to several places.
For example, the silk tax in Zhejiang, Huguang and other places is not only sent to the Nanjing shipping warehouse, but also a large part is sent to Taicang Bank, Czi warehouse, etc. In fact, the total silk tax in Zhejiang is as high as 130,000 pieces, and the total silk tax in Huguang is about 27,000 pieces, both far exceeding She County.
But Shuai Jiamo did not talk about the total number, but only took out the Nanjing shipping warehouse for comparison, and it immediately seemed that the situation in She County was particularly miserable.
The brilliance of this method is that these figures are all real and can completely withstand verification. Just a slight manipulation in the comparison method immediately shows extraordinary results. In fact, the burden on She County itself is indeed heavy, but it does not mean that As a result, the people were in dire straits, but when compared to Shuai Jiamo, normal people would find it miserable and shocking.
In addition to making some small manipulations in historical data and statistics that he felt were sufficiently concealed, Shuai Jiamo also had other methods.
He wrote this in the first sentence of his submission: "The heritage of the world is of equal value, and the old things cannot be equal. She County has long been partial to endowments, and the people are extremely poor. However, under the reign of Renming, Prepare a statement of love and beg for equality."
In just one sentence, the word "average" appears twice. Obviously, this is not because of his limited writing skills, but because he has a profound intention.
When Gao Gong and Gao pragmatic uncle and nephew were discussing financial management plans in private, Gao Gong mentioned that even Zhang Juzheng was concerned and hoped to promote a whipping method nationwide. Gao Gong believes that the whip method can be implemented in some wealthy areas - that is, the "economically developed areas" that Gao is familiar with - but it must not be implemented in some poor areas, otherwise the poor will inevitably suffer more Exploitation. [Wufeng's Note: It was mentioned in the previous article, readers who don't remember can look it up by themselves. ]
At present, Jiangnan is of course a prosperous place, so a braiding method is being implemented, which will be a whipping method in the future. The prototype of this tax reform policy began in the 10th year of Jiajing. From the 40th year of Jiajing to the Longqing period, it was gradually tested in the Southern Zhili region, which has the strongest economy but also the heaviest tax burden. The slogan he put forward happened to be: "Equalizing taxes and servitude will alleviate the people's poverty."
So why did Shuai Jiamo get "equal" twice? The purpose is to elevate this tax dispute to a level that responds to the imperial policy.
On a deeper level, the core gist of this compilation is indeed to merge land taxes and corvees, cancel all taxes in kind other than rice and wheat, and change them to a unified tax rate of 20,000 yuan. Therefore, Shuai Jiamo repeatedly emphasized in his submission that "human silk silk" is a physical tax, which is very troublesome to pay and needs to be adjusted urgently. This is closely linked to the reform that the central government is vigorously advocating.
In Shuai Jiamo's opinion, as long as this matter can be used as a basis for national policy, it will probably attract the special attention of Governor Yingtian. The thousands-year-old Chinese tradition is there: once the top management pays attention, things will be easier to handle.
In particular, the current governor Yingtian is also very vigorous in the implementation of the policy. And as long as he is willing to express his position, the matter will be half-no, more than half. The reason why Shuai Jiamo has this confidence is that the governor is so famous that he is far more famous than ordinary officials - his surname is Hai, his given name is Rui, his courtesy name is Ruxian, and his nickname is Gangfeng.
This incident indeed alarmed Hai Rui in the end, but at the same time, Gao Gong, who was at the helm of the national policy and the flag bearer of reform in the capital, also learned of the news - the one Gao Pragmatic had in his hands.
