Gao Pragmatic believes that the problems of northern merchants are easy to solve, while the problems of southern merchants are difficult to solve. This is not just because he is sure to convince the core of northern merchants - the Shanxi merchant gang. There is also a deeper reason, that is, the north-south The commercial trade in which merchants engaged was inconsistent in many respects.
Northern merchants mostly engaged in the trade of bulk grain, salt, cotton, fur, ginseng (produced by Jurchen), etc. In the later period, due to the tribute of Anda and the intervention and guidance of Jinghua, the trade of cattle, sheep, horses and other trades were also included. In addition to participating in the above trade, Jinghua itself also has a large number of ironware (including military industry), ships, cement, soap, porcelain, etc.
In addition to overlap with northern merchants in food, salt, cotton, porcelain, ships, etc., southern merchants also overlapped with northern merchants in other areas such as silk, silk, silk, and silk (with distinction) production, weaving (ready-made clothing, shoe and hat processing industry), printing and dyeing, paper Industries such as manufacturing and printing (books) are projects that northern businessmen are less involved in.
Some readers may want to ask, what do these differences have to do with whether both parties are willing to pay commercial taxes? Why does Gao Pragmatic think that northern businessmen are easier to persuade than southern businessmen? Is the consciousness of northern businessmen at a higher level than that of southern businessmen?
Of course it's not a question of consciousness, the question here is how much to pay.
As I have said before, it is not that scholars and senior officials have not discussed whether or not to pay commercial taxes and how to pay them. In fact, there have been many discussions, but there has been no customization.
From the perspective of Gao Pragmatic, a time traveler, the most representative discussion on commercial taxation in the Ming Dynasty could not escape the two different opinions of Qiu Jun and Wang Fuzhi.
Qiu Jun and others supported the idea of "closing the city without expropriation", while Wang Fuzhi and others supported the idea of expropriating business.
Qiu Jun has previously introduced that he advocates elevating the status of merchants, but on this issue he advocates following the etiquette of the ancients and supports "closing the city without conscripting".
Is he contradicting himself? That's not the case, because he believes that the tax system for "markets" in ancient times was a "policy to suppress business." He believes that the original intention of the ancients to establish a closed market was "with the intention of evil people driving away the poor and patenting it. Therefore, it is not beneficial to legislate to suppress it." also".
This means that in ancient times, customs cities were established to regulate and manage merchants, and part of the taxation was also for the purpose of "suppressing business" and not for profit. And "later generations will use it exclusively to benefit the country, which is not what the ancients intended." Therefore, he proposed to improve the status of merchants, but did not agree to impose a comprehensive commercial tax - an idea that southern merchants now strongly supported him.
But in fact, Gao pragmatically knows that Qiu Jun's "closing the city without levy" is not a complete and complete non-levy.
Gao Pragmatic is quite familiar with Qiu Jun's works. Qiu Jun once said, "The people grow grain and have already paid taxes, so there is no reason to pay taxes anymore. It is not the comparison between bamboo, wood and livestock. There is no taxation for bamboo, wood and livestock." Therefore, when merchants sell their goods to Guanshi, officials can tax them. Now that the people pay rent to the official warehouses, but Guanshi also levies taxes, isn't it important? This is not only not a royal policy, but also not a natural principle."
Therefore, what Qiu Jun actually means is not "no levy", but "not all levy". There must be a distinction here. For example, on grain, farmers have already paid taxes and land taxes. If they sell their surplus grain on the market, and you have to ask them to pay another tax, then this is double taxation, which is not only unreasonable, but even immoral. .
Gao Pragmatic agrees with this point of view, and believes that not only food should not be "double taxed", but also necessities such as cotton cloth should be taxed at low rates, or even preferably tax-free.
But he couldn't just consider one person's point of view. Although Wang Fuzhi was not even born yet, the views he advocated were not unproposed by others, and Gao Pragmatic himself also knew those views.
What views does Wang Euzhi hold? Unlike Qiu Jun of the Practical School, Wang Fuzhi, who prefers "moral practical learning" (but he cannot be considered to be from the Xin School), has a more traditional anti-business attitude. He believes that "merchants are clever with villains and the like, and they despise the nature of others and thieves the life of others for their own ends... The barbarians benefit the merchants, the merchants are arrogant because of the barbarians, and humanity is almost destroyed forever"; "Sheng" The people are farmers and the people are farmers."
Precisely because he advocated suppressing business, he advocated Liu Bang's view of "embarrassing and humiliating merchants" in his writings, and believed that "merchants must be restrained by kings."
However, he also admitted that merchants are an important part of the economic field, and everyone (including merchants) has the obligation to pay taxes. The defeated generals will serve as kings and people."
Here, Wang Fuzhi abandoned the traditional idea of a single agricultural tax and insisted that commercial taxes were legitimate fiscal revenue. Not only should they be taxed, but some "get more for nothing" commodities should also pay heavier taxes.
He also emphasized that the expenditure of the national army should come from commercial taxes. For example, he once said in "Nightmare": "Like the Zhou system, the endowment of military chariots comes from merchants, including chariots, horses and oxen. The merchants make profits, and leather, money, silk and linen, bamboo and wood, feathers, Cloth, catkins and the like are all done by merchants, and they are the expenses of making military weapons and firearms, so there is no doubt that the merchants should be held responsible."
In addition to Wang Fu, Ma Qing also explained that levying business was in line with the laws of ancient sages and kings from the perspective of focusing on agriculture and suppressing commerce. He said: "According to the setting up of our country's banknotes, indirect taxation is required to meet the needs of the country. If you want to suppress the people who are chasing after you and return to the countryside, the ancient sages and kings thought of the support of the people and valued grain but despised gold and jade. This is a sincere and good law. Therefore, the king's law will not be abolished in the battle against the waste."
Based on the empty state treasury at that time, it was also believed that the collection of commercial taxes "can benefit the public and broaden the people's resources." He added: "Currently, the money expenditure has been exhausted, the supply of the high wall is absolutely indispensable, and the people's strength has been exhausted, it is really unbearable. The remaining profits from the merchant expedition are far different from the benefits of dredging the people." The rationality of business solicitation provides a moral explanation.
Later, he also suggested that "the merchants all over the world who travel between the north and the south are taxed through Linqing and other places. Why should those who only follow the Huaihe River to the west through Zhengyang, the gains will not be taxed, and it will be uneven." Taking the average commercial tax as the The reason is to open Zhengyang Customs.
Putting together the representative ideas and views of these two people, we can see how "distorted" Gao's pragmatic attitude was in the eyes of the people at the time - Gao pragmatism advocated improving the status of businessmen and could not suppress business, but But he insisted that businessmen should pay business taxes.
In the eyes of ordinary people, since you want to focus on business, you should provide businessmen with a good business environment. In the eyes of the world, the best business environment is, of course, no need to pay taxes. You talk about pro-business and at the same time ask businessmen to pay taxes. Are you schizophrenic?
Of course Gao Pragmatic is not schizophrenic, he is just "pragmatic and pragmatic" - it is useless to analyze this kind of thing theoretically, you have to be able to implement it in practice, and what is the current reality like?
First of all, it is impossible not to collect business taxes. If a cripple wants to outperform a person with sound legs, how developed should his leg that bears the force be? The Ming Dynasty is lame now, relying solely on the support of agricultural taxes. However, although the farmers of the Ming Dynasty are indeed very strong from a global perspective, no matter how strong they are, they cannot stand such exploitation, and this leg will have to be broken sooner or later over time.
Secondly, commercial taxes are levied to relieve pressure on the country, not to bring it down. If there is really comprehensive taxation and the same tax rate, can those who sell food compare with those who sell technology (printing and dyeing, weaving, papermaking, etc.)? Can those who sell cotton compare with those who sell silk? Can those who sell bamboo and wood compare with those who sell porcelain? than profit? Obviously can't compare.
If you can't compare, the problem arises. The current main business of northern merchants, except for Gao Pragmatic's own Jinghua clan, most of them should be summarized as "raw material trading", or at most "rough processing industry". This kind of business generally has two characteristics: one is large volume, and the other is low value-added products.
Southern businessmen are different. They are engaged in either high value-added industries such as silk, porcelain, and papermaking; or "finishing industries" such as dyeing, weaving, printing, and even pen making. To put it simply, the "unit efficiency" is very high and the added value of the product is very high. Even if it is a small trade, the amount involved is not small.
In this way, if a one-size-fits-all approach to taxation was implemented according to the Ming Dynasty's past taxation methods, merchants with low added value would simply stop doing it, because their profits might become negative after deducting taxes.
For this reason, the Practical School made a not particularly detailed classification of these things in the commercial tax that was previously implemented.
To put it simply, with the commercial tax currently implemented, the tax rate imposed on southern businessmen is much higher than that on northern businessmen. Only a very small number of "northern businessmen" are taxed heavily - for example, there are many in Jinghua, such as cement , soap, etc. are all heavily taxed, otherwise Gao Pragmatic would not have paid more than 1.7 million taels of tax every year.
However, Jinghua has its own particularities, and has always been viewed as "exceptional", so it is not truly representative. In the eyes of the outside world, the commercial tax currently promoted by the Practical School is a typical "North is light on the South and the South is heavy" - northern merchants pay a very low tax rate, while southern merchants pay a very heavy tax rate.
In fact, if we look at the absolute value of this thing, the north is "extremely light", but the south is not heavy either. iBookstore
Why? The average commercial tax in the north (excluding Jinghua) is only about one hundred and two (1%, 2%), while the southern merchants only collected one hundred and fifty (5%) after Zhang Siwei took the opportunity to conduct a sneak attack, and did not include In the entire south, only South Zhili and Zhejiang are implementing it. Neighboring provinces such as Jiangxi, Huguang, and Fujian have not implemented it, let alone Guangdong and Guangxi.
Can a 5% tax rate be called heavy tax? Of course not, but that’s not the way the question looks at it. There is a saying that "worry not about scarcity, but about inequality." In the eyes of southern businessmen, this matter is very simple: Why is your business tax only one hundred and one hundred, but when it comes to me it is one hundred and fifty? Am I so easy to bully?
Of course it's not easy to bully, there is a huge school of thought behind her!
The contradiction between the Practical School and the Heart School is difficult to reconcile. "Orthodox" is on the one hand, and interests are on the other.
Gao Pragmatic has always advocated a steady approach, but this time he has to work hard on commercial taxation. One of the main reasons is that he knows that it is impossible to reconcile such conflicts, and he can only "take advantage of the opportunity to attack" like his uncle Zhang Siwei did.
To take advantage of the opportunity, you must first have the opportunity, so do you have it now?
have.
The imperial court is usually anxious for money when it is waiting for the rice to come out of the pot. This is an opportunity.
Originally, if the imperial court was eager to ask for money to do other things, such as repairing the three main halls, the Xin School would have many reasons to refuse. However, the reason why the court is waiting to use the money is very legitimate. Dealing with the clan issue is a temptation that the Xin School cannot refuse, and the deeper reason is to defeat Can Yuan. Although the Xin School is indispensable for this, on the surface it is not It's hard to say no - this is the last wish of the two ancestors, you refuse?
This is why Gao Pragmatic chose to do it now. If this opportunity is missed, it will be even more difficult in the future.
Hu Zhili was a little uncomfortable with Gao Pragmatic speaking so straightforwardly. He always felt that Gao Pragmatic treated him directly as a member of the Pragmatic School, and he always felt a little restless after listening to it.
Of course Cheng Wen didn't feel this way. He just pondered and thought hard about whether this matter could be done.
As one of the top leaders of the Practical School, Cheng Wen knew very well that Shen Shixing was forced to agree to Zhang Siwei's previous tax collection of 150 yuan in Nanzhili and Zhejiang, and then Shen Shixing himself was under tremendous internal pressure. The reason why he was obsessed with introducing Wang Xijue into the cabinet was also due to this pressure.
Wang Xijue is the richest man in Suzhou, and he can represent the interests of the "financiers" in the south better than him. Recommending Wang Xijue to the cabinet can, on the one hand, prove that Shen Yuanfu has always been on the side of the sponsors, and on the other hand, it also allows Wang Xijue to share his firepower - if something like this happens again in the future, you, Wang Xijue, should always take the lead. First line, right?
And because of the "lessons learned" from the last time, Cheng Wen felt that Shen Shixing would definitely become more careful about commercial tax matters and become more resolute in his opposition.
Cheng Wen sighed and asked in a low voice: "If Yuan Fu insists on refusing, does Situ plan to have a 'tax negotiation' with the Xin School?"
The term "business tax discussion" is obviously compared to "dali discussion". Of course Gao Pragmatic could hear that this was Cheng Wen emphasizing the huge impact of this matter. It might spread across the country like the Jiajing Dynasty's great ceremony, and countless high-ranking officials and dignitaries were ups and downs over it.
Gao Pragmatic also knew that Cheng Wen's words were not false threats. The most important reason why the great ceremony had a huge impact was that it divided the ministers. It was the largest and most obvious political rift in the Ming Dynasty. What followed was a comprehensive political contest and fierce fighting between the old and new forces.
Will the “Business and Tax Discussion” have an impact comparable to the “Great Rites Discussion”? It is very likely that there will be, because once Shen Shixing and Wang Xijue choose to strongly oppose, the political pattern since Gao Gong has been in power will be completely broken.
The struggle between the Practical School and the Heart School will never be the same as before, with both sides guarding their own bottom lines, testing and striving for each other above the bottom line. Once this seemingly tender veil is completely torn off, both sides will have no choice but to go into battle and engage in hand-to-hand combat. Unless one side falls, it will be difficult to stop the war.
However, as one of the important ministers of the Practical School, Cheng Wen knew very well that the emperor probably did not want to see this scene now. He just wanted to raise money to open the vassal ban, and then go into battle lightly to accumulate the materials, money and silk needed to attack the residual Yuan. , fulfill the last wish of the second ancestor and revive the Ming Dynasty.
If this great undertaking can be accomplished, perhaps the emperor's temple name will be "Ming Sheng Zong" in the future, or even "Ming Sheng Ancestor"!
Holy!
Why is it holy?
"Posthumous Laws" says: To promote good deeds and write simple poems is called a saint; to treat guests with courtesy is called a saint; to humble oneself and follow advice is called a saint; to worship and be polite is called a saint; to practice the Tao and transform the people is called a saint; to exhaust reason and exhaust one's nature is called a saint; to impoverish the divine knowledge Transformation is called sage; understanding the prophet is called sage; being great and transforming is called sage; giving generously to everyone is called sage; studying a few things deeply is called sage; being able to listen to good counsel is called sage; cutting heaven and earth into pieces is called sage; being wise and controlling the heavens is called sage; common people are called sage. To be able to prepare things is called holy; to prepare things into instruments is called holy; to prepare the way to perfection is called holy; to deify the difficult is called holy.
Simply put, it is perfect!
The temple title "Holy Ancestor" was created in the Tang Dynasty by Li Longji, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, specifically for his ancestor Laozi Li Er. Later, emperors of all dynasties specially named ancestors of their own families who had great saintly virtues. Later, the emperors who were given the temple title of "Sheng" were usually those who had great achievements in "redefining the world".
Completely destroying the residual Yuan Dynasty, conquering the sworn enemy of the Ming Dynasty for 200 years, bringing peace to the world, and then establishing a new heaven. Doesn't such an emperor deserve a "sacred" temple title?
On the other hand, with such a "future" in front of us, can the emperor allow a schism between ministers like a grand ceremony to occur at this moment? Cheng Wen was very suspicious.
But Gao Pragmatic's face was very calm, and he only said: "A gentleman does what he does and what he doesn't do. Reforming the old system will never be a smooth road. No matter whether the road ahead is a deer stronghold with no horses, or an abyss, we only have the world in mind. . Where righteousness lies, even if there are tens of thousands of people, I will go there."
Cheng Wen sighed and simply pointed out the main idea: "What if the emperor doesn't want to see my two factions arguing at this moment?"
"Then convince the emperor."
----------
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Yue Xiaoyao" and "A Pot of Spring Tea" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
