In the past six years, due to the young age of the emperor and the fact that the two palaces were not in opposition to each other, they were constraining each other. Therefore, Gao Gong was actually in charge of the government. His achievements in various aspects allowed him to pursue the posthumous title of "Wenzheng". main reason.
When Mu Zonglongqing died, the imperial court's annual revenue and expenditure were almost equal, and six years later, the imperial court was already making a surplus - but this does not mean that Gao Gong simply controlled losses.
In the sixth year of Longqing, the imperial court's annual income was 3.3 million taels of silver, and its expenditures were similar; but in the fifth year of Wanli, the imperial court's annual income had reached 5.1 million taels, but its expenditures had also increased to 4.6 million taels.
Why is this? Revenue growth comes from several sources.
The first is to clear the land. This is what Zhang Juzheng also did in history, and Gao Gong did the same. However, at this point, their efforts are actually about the same, and the results achieved are not much different in Gao Pragmatic's view, so we can leave it for now. Skip it, but in short, it slightly increased the court's annual income.
The second step is to continue opening the port. Zhang Juzheng was relatively resistant to this matter, but Gao Gong was happy to do it. If the Gao family's so-called practical knowledge of managing the world does not mention those major principles, it can be simply summed up in one sentence: see practical results. Therefore, Gao Gong’s financial management thinking is also in the same vein: making money is the most important thing.
In the past six years, in addition to Yuegang, which had been opened during the Longqing period, the imperial court successively opened four major ports, namely Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbo, and Tianjin from south to north.
Of course, the opening of the ports at this time was different from the understanding of many people in later generations. It did not allow foreign merchant ships to dock at these ports at will, but allowed the Ming Dynasty merchant ships in these ports to go to sea. But even so, the Ming court began to The tariffs obtained by several ports have also been greatly increased.
Gao Pragmatic played a role here. Since the imperial court's previous system for taxation of commercial ports was very poor, Gao Pragmatic made a simple and easy suggestion to Gao Gong: only calculate taxes based on the size of cargo ships.
The customs duties of the Ming Dynasty, before Zhengde... there was no tax, it did not collect taxes. During the Zhengde and Jiajing years, a points-drawing system was adopted.
The so-called draw system means that when goods are shipped, a certain percentage is collected as tax. The specific value was relatively variable at first, but later it was gradually fixed at two-tenths.
During the Gao Gong period, the situation changed and became a three-tax system: import tax, export tax, and water inlet tax.
Among them, taxation refers to the fact that maritime merchants need to pay a tax when applying for a pass to enter and exit a seaport. Only ships that handle this tax are formal and legal merchant ships. This tax is paid annually based on the size of the ship, but the tax does not high.
The terms import tax and export tax were "created" by Gao Pragmatic. Originally, the names reported by local governments and the Municipal Shipping Department were "water rates" and "land rates". Water rates are import taxes, which refer to taxes on goods shipped into the port from outside; land rates are export taxes, which refer to taxes on goods shipped out of the port from within.
It turns out that various local government offices and municipal shipping departments listed very complicated taxation details, such as "2 cents and 5 cents for every 100 kilograms of pepper water." There are hundreds of kinds of goods, some of which are large in quantity, and some of which are large in quantity. If it is less, it is simply inconvenient to calculate. Therefore, Gao Pragmatic suggested to Gao Gong that the tax be levied only according to the size of the ship, but the destination of the ocean should be divided.
For example, for merchant ships traveling to and from the Western Ocean (actually, the South Sea), if the width is more than one foot and six feet, 10 taels of silver will be levied; for each additional foot, an additional 1 tael will be levied. Since the ships traveling to and from Dongyang and Luzon are relatively smaller, the overall tax amount will be reduced by 30%. This tax rate is nearly half higher than the historical tax rate. But in fact, Gao Pragmatic is very clear that this tax rate is not high at all. It is because the historical tax levies were too little...
After the four major ports were opened one after another, although it only took a few years, by the fifth year of Wanli, they could already provide nearly one million taels of additional tariffs to the court every year, with an average of more than 200,000 taels per port.
You know, at this time, Daming Sea Trade has just begun to "recover", and in Gao Pragmatic's view, it is still in its infancy!
The opening of Hong Kong has become the single largest income item for Gao Gong’s financial management.
Another aspect is the emphasis on industrial and commercial development.
As early as the end of the sixth year of Longqing, Gao Pangshi secretly ordered civil and military officials from the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Household Affairs, the Ministry of Industry, and some important towns on the Nine Borders to go to war to build momentum for the private military industry. In the first year of Wanli, the imperial court officially adopted a new system of private and parallel procurement of military industry.
Under this system, the imperial court continued to maintain the government-run manufacturing sector, but allowed some qualified "private enterprises" to participate in military manufacturing, and also reformed the ordnance distribution and procurement system. Under Gao Pragmatic's secret manipulation, a "contractor bidding system" was finally formed.
What is going on with this system? For example, if the Xuanfu garrison needs to be equipped with 20,000 firearms, the Ministry of War and the Cabinet will also approve it.
Then, the Ministry of War will first issue a list and inform various government departments, such as the Ordnance Bureau, Warfare Bureau and private military enterprises, as to how soon they will hold bidding. Then the requirements set by the Xuanfu garrison and the Ministry of War were discussed, such as shooting distance, shooting accuracy, firepower intensity, barrel cooling time and other technical indicators, and then the bidding started.
The bidding meeting was chaired by the Ministry of War, and officials from the Department and the Dao were also dispatched to participate in the supervision. The meeting is not only a meeting, but also an on-site display, and then the results are compared, and finally a comprehensive consideration is carried out, reported to the cabinet, and finally announced to the public. Only then can the bidding departments or companies be determined.
In order to ensure the advantages of the government-run sector or the sustainability of the government-run sector, if a private military enterprise wins a bid, it must also pay one-tenth of the total winning bid as a deposit. After winning the bid and completing the transaction, the deposit will be directly converted into taxes. , will not be returned.
If the transaction cannot be completed due to the winning bidder's own reasons, the deposit will be fully deducted and liquidated damages will be recovered according to the contract. The "reasons of the winning bidder itself" here include, but are not limited to, the company's inability to complete the bidding, product quality not up to standard, etc.
As for the so-called "qualified" private enterprises in the military industry, the conditions they need to meet are not low.
First, a "business deposit" of 100,000 taels of silver must be paid to the Yamen of the Ministry of War to ensure that they have the strength to engage in military manufacturing; secondly, any serving military attaché or his immediate family members must not be the owner of a military industrial enterprise; thirdly, any immediate family members within three generations who are involved in conspiracy Those who commit crimes are not allowed to be the owner of the enterprise or to participate in the shares. Furthermore, private military industrial enterprises must have an official dispatched by the Ministry of War to supervise the flow of products. The Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Sixth Section can send personnel to inspect at any time (in order not to affect the normal operation of the enterprise). Business, limited to two times per year)...
Anyway, all of them add up to more than a dozen restrictions.
However, what is slightly embarrassing is that after the emergence of the private military industry system, until now, only Gao Pragmatic has opened two private military companies in the Ming Dynasty: Jinghua Musket Factory and Jinghua Artillery Factory.
It's not that Gao Pragmatic is the only person in the entire Ming Dynasty who can meet the conditions, but that others are still cautious about it.
But even for these two enterprises, Gao Pragmatic paid a tax of 70,000 taels in Wanli five years alone!
In the first month of the sixth year of Wanli, the Second Town of Jiling and Liao, which was the first to be redressed, achieved a "mountain splitting victory" under the decisive attack of Li Chengliang, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong!
In that month, Subahai, leader of the left-wing Mongolian Taining Tribe (Khalkabalin Tribe), invaded on a large scale and camped in Pishan. Li Chengliang, the commander-in-chief of the Liaodong Army, supervised the troops marching 200 miles out of the fortress overnight and destroyed the Pishan camp. He quickly killed and injured more than 10,000 people such as Hai and others. Li Chengliang's troops killed 1,130 people and seized tens of thousands of their equipment and livestock.
