The impact of the highly pragmatic "Taxers take from the people and use it to the people" is huge. This is not a pebble dropped on a calm lake, but an atomic bomb dropped into the sea - it What was set off was by no means a mere ripple, but a world-shaking and huge wave.
Since Emperor Taizu Gao, the Ming Dynasty has always been known for being light on corvee and low on taxes, and caring for the people's livelihood. Why don't you learn from the pragmatism and good deeds of the Song Dynasty, but you want to learn from the former Song Dynasty, which was as harsh and fierce as a tiger?
How famous was the "tyranny" of the former Song Dynasty? When people in the Ming Dynasty mentioned it, they often said that its exorbitant levies and miscellaneous taxes were ten times that of the Han Dynasty and five times that of the Tang Dynasty, so that "non-citizens" appeared widely.
The one who lifts up is the one who raises. Not to give birth to a son means that you are not willing to raise the children you have given birth to. This may be too elegant, but let's put it more bluntly: not raising a child is also called "giving birth to a child without raising a child", which means not raising a child after giving birth, drowning or throwing the baby away.
The heavy tax burden in the Song Dynasty was one of the main reasons for the widespread phenomenon of infanticide and infanticide customs.
It stands to reason that phenomena such as "not raising a child" generally only occur in a very small number of extremely poor families, or during periods of natural disasters and war turmoil when people are struggling to make ends meet.
However, in the Song Dynasty, which was "famous for its wealth", even in a period without disasters and wars, there was still a widespread phenomenon of "not raising a child" and even evolved into a social custom - infanticide.
Su Shi said in "A Letter to Zhu Ezhou": Jinghu North Road, "The little people in the fields between Yue and Ezhou only raised two boys and one girl, and they were often killed when they passed by." He was demoted to Huangzhou, and he also saw "Huangzhou". Among the small people in the state, the poor have many children and do not raise them, so they are easy to kill in the water basin when they are born." This is from "Dongpo Zhilin".
Su Shi was not the only one to record this. Zhu Xi's father, Zhu Song, also said in "Weizhai Collection: Zi Wen on Jie Killing" that in Wuyuan, Jiangxi, people "mostly stopped raising two sons, but regardless of gender, they threw themselves into the basin to kill them." Of."
However, the place where the custom of killing and drowning infants is most prevalent is probably in Fujian. Zhu Song was an official in Fujian. "I heard that the Fujian people did not like to have many children, and they often killed...although there were methods, they could not win." Wang Dechen's "History and Customs" said that under normal circumstances, "if Fujian people give birth to many children, they will "When it comes to the fourth son, he will not be raised." "If the child is a girl, she will not wait for the third child. She will often give birth and use a vessel to store water. When the child is born, she will be drowned. This is called washing the child."
At that time, some scholar-bureaucrats severely denounced this trend, saying, "The custom of not raising a son in the southeast is extremely inhumane." The "History of the Song Dynasty: Fan Rugui Biography" requested the court to severely punish it. The government has indeed taken a variety of measures in an attempt to stop it, but the custom of not raising a child has not improved. Not only has it been banned, it has even become worse in some places.
Records of similar situations are by no means scattered, there are countless of them. It can be seen that the tax burden in the Song Dynasty was so heavy that people could not even care about human ethics. In fact, not to mention the lack of moral standards, even harsh punishments cannot stop it.
When Zhu Yuanzhang founded the country, he focused on the harsh rule of the Song Dynasty, but Gao Jingshi was still not afraid to take the Song Dynasty as an example and make comparisons in his essays. It was not that he was impatient, but that some simple data were already very powerful. Explain the current problems.
Since the "productivity" of the Song Dynasty was not as good as that of the Ming Dynasty, its real wealth was naturally not as rich as that of the Ming Dynasty. However, even in the Song Dynasty where the trend of "not raising children" was prevalent, people still had "two sons and one daughter" before they started killing infants. What does this mean?
This means that although the levies and miscellaneous taxes are heavy, the three children can still barely be fed.
Then the question arises: the income of the Song Dynasty was nearly ten times that of the Ming Dynasty, which meant that the tax burden was also ten times heavier than that of the Ming Dynasty. But even so, a poor family could still support three children. So, by extension, wouldn't the poor families in Ming Dynasty be able to support thirty children? Are they still called poor? is this real?
The above inference is definitely not true. Needless to say other things, are the many people in the Ming Dynasty who sought to be eunuchs from the palace just unlucky guys who fell from the sky?
Of course not. Most of them are landless peasants and have been severely exploited. Once any natural or man-made disaster occurs, they will have no choice but to do this.
But there is still a slight difference here, that is, the people who cannot survive in the Ming Dynasty are mainly farmers, and some military households from the guards are added. However, those who could not survive in the Song Dynasty were almost regardless of their professional attributes. Except for a very few people such as court officials and royal relatives, everyone might not be able to survive.
If you look back, you will find that the businessmen, craftsmen, etc. of the Ming Dynasty were definitely in a much better situation than the farmers. Although their "theoretical social status" was worse than that of the farmers, they were actually far better off than the farmers.
Is this reasonable? Obviously unreasonable!
In this way, coupled with the "ten-fold theory" deliberately exaggerated by Gao pragmatism, anyone who calculates this account will feel that this kind of "light corvee and low endowment" in the Ming Dynasty does not seem to be of great help to the farmers. On the contrary, it is For craftsmen and merchants, that was too much - they had almost no tax burden.
In this case, we don’t have to tax according to the former Song Dynasty, which was as harsh as a tiger. At least I tax one eleventh of the former Song Dynasty. Isn’t this an exaggeration?
The miscellaneous taxes of the former Song Dynasty totaled 70 million guan. Even if only 11% of them were levied, that would still be 7 million guan!
Okay, even if our taxes are not as high as those of the previous Song Dynasty, we can just discount them in half, but that’s still 3.5 million yuan!
Note: The two dynasties have always been equal to one tael of silver, but the purchasing power of one tael of silver was not equal in the Song Dynasty and in the Ming Dynasty. There were even considerable discrepancies in different periods of the Ming Dynasty. Please refer to Wanli Accounting Records. It's just that it's too complicated. If I were to write it this way, it would probably be a financial history, which is unnecessary.
What would it mean if the Ming court abruptly increased its annual income by 3.5 million taels of silver every year? It almost means that we don’t even need to consider the matter of opening the vassal ban for the time being! And now the vassal ban cannot be stopped suddenly, which means...
Officials who had little to do with the "possible increase in commercial taxes" suddenly became excited, while officials who were likely to be affected by the increase in commercial taxes became extremely angry.
Even though Gao Pingshi specifically pointed out the issue of court expenses in "Qui Yong Shu" and said that supervision should be strengthened, officials knew that no matter how hard you strengthen supervision, it is great but you cannot be greedy. But at least, the richer the court is, the more powerful the officials who control the money are. This is always an irrefutable truth.
What's more, once the imperial court gets rich, at least it won't give us any more gifts or debts, right? Maybe we can even add some “allowances”!
As a result, some officials who were "not afraid of paying commercial taxes" began to support Gao Pragmatism, while another group of officials who were "fearful of paying commercial taxes" began to strongly oppose Gao Pragmatism.
Of course, there are always good people in the world, not only among the keyboard warriors of later generations, but also in the Ming Dynasty. As a result, some officials appealed to the public. Some said that the implementation of commercial tax has "mixed benefits and disadvantages." Some said that the success or failure of this matter is unpredictable. Some said that "it is a serious matter, so it is better to postpone it." Some said that "more details are needed." Study carefully and then make calculations.”
All in all, it's either making peace with mud or doing Tai Chi.
However, these reasonable nonsense cannot become the mainstream. At the moment when the Practical School and the Heart School are competing against each other, the attitudes of officials from these two schools are still the most important.
There are two styles of inscriptions from the Practical School. Although Gao pragmatism has a high arch, so generally speaking, it seems that they all support Gao pragmatism, but in fact there are still differences.
One type is considered to be the die-hard supporters of Gao pragmatism. These people fully agree with Gao pragmatism's opinions. In their words, they almost can't wait for tomorrow - no, they can't wait to start comprehensively collecting commercial taxes today, and immediately establish an "Audit Office" and a "Customs Office". ".
The other category is officials who originally disagreed or were hesitant to do so. They had to agree against their will just because Gao Pragmatic was claiming to inherit Gao Gong's legacy. Therefore, after expressing their agreement, they behaved as they should. He was just a guest, and said a few words to "ease the atmosphere," which basically meant that we should conduct a pilot implementation first, or that we are old and mature in seeking a country, so we should not easily roll it out in an all-round way.
Even so, at least this time the overall performance of the Practical School was much more united than before, and at least no one jumped out to express their opposition.
However, the case for the Heart School was different. Their performance was more united - they were all strongly opposed. The intensity of his words is almost like scolding. There are many people who liken Gao Pragmatic to Sang Hongyang, Cai Jing and other treacherous people in his essays.
In this way, Gao Pragmatic set a record for himself: he was "impeached by the Manchu Dynasty" on the fourth day after taking office.
If he was only impeached for his administrative methods, Gao Pragmatic could ignore it for the time being and wait for the emperor to express his stance. But now that he has been accused of being a traitor, according to the habits of Ming officials, he can only stay behind closed doors and refuse to come out to take matters into his own hands.
Shen Shixing was the highest-ranking official who took a clear stand against Gao Jingshi's "Qi Yong Shu". However, as the first assistant, he was very particular about the wording of the memorials and essays. He would never arbitrarily exalt Gao Jingshi and call Gao Jingshi a "treacherous sycophant". Flaws in Gao pragmatic essays.
Shen Yuanfu felt that the biggest flaw in Gao Pragmatic Essays was the new financial system he established because of the need to collect business taxes.
First of all, if these systems are to be realized, more officials must be added. For example, Gao Pragmatic said, "It takes more than one person to put in and out of accounts; it takes more than one person to put in and out of treasury."
This means that all those in charge of accounts throughout the country must be set up as a "left-right official system", in which the left-hand official manages the accounts and the right-hand official checks the accounts. Not to mention whether this will cause the left and right officials to be hostile to each other, lead to discord or even internal strife. Simply speaking, the number of additional officials that the court will send is by no means a small number.
According to the idea of "small government" that Ming people were accustomed to, you are artificially increasing redundant officials and increasing court expenses. In other words, it increases the burden on the people in disguised form.
This is true for those who manage accounts, and it is the same for those who are in charge of various warehouses. Moreover, Shen Shixing knew very well that the Ming Dynasty had a lot of "treasury management personnel" - because there were various warehouses built in various places, including grain and grass, weapons, cloth, contributions, honor guards, etc.
In this way, the number of warehouse management personnel will also be doubled. How much financial waste will this cause?
Not to mention whether pragmatic and strengthened supervision can eliminate corruption, that is uncertain.
Shen Shixing, who is well versed in the ways of officialdom, is very aware of the tricks involved. Let me just say that although your right-hand officer can supervise the left-hand officer, what can you do if the left and right officers conspire to share the spoils? manage?
Oh, you said you still have the Audit Office? Okay, then let me ask you, how big a staff does your Audit Office need to be able to supervise such a huge number of accounts, warehouses and other institutions in the world? Even if I give you a Metropolitan Procuratorate, I'm afraid you won't be able to handle it!
At this point in Shen Shixing's memorial, he began to introduce the "Taoist-level argument" of their school of thought: governing officials still depends on education, and cannot just rely on these "increasing manpower for no reason" means. Only everyone can be a gentleman and have outstanding morals. , Self-discipline is rigorous, only in this way can official administration be clear and clear, and only in this way can we truly make light of corvee and pay low taxes, and make a living for the people.
After Shen Shixing's memorial was submitted to the Supervisor of Ceremonies, he saw the impeachment of Gao Pragmatic by the officials. This was incredible, and he realized that something might be going on.
Some impeachments similar to his are just "discussing the matter on a case-by-case basis". The key is that there are many pragmatic impeachments mixed into the impeachment, such as "treacherous and sycophantic", "legacy" and even "slander of the emperor".
Among them, the one that made Shen Shixing break into a cold sweat was the impeachment of Gao Pragmatic for "slandering the emperor".
Slander you? Why did Gao Pragmatic slander you?
It’s true. These memorials all seized on a passage in Gao Pragmatic’s “Qi Yong Shu” and began to denounce:
"It may be said: In ancient times, there was Tang and Chang, and there was also Jie and Zhou. My emperor was a man of divine, civil, and martial arts, so how could he know that all his descendants would be virtuous? If there are even one or two unworthy men, there is still a limit to the meager taxation. Isn't heavy taxation not abusing the people?"
Some people say: In ancient times, there were both wise kings like Shang Tang and Zhou Wen and Jichang, as well as tyrants like Xia Jie and Shang Zhou. Although my emperor is extremely wise and powerful, how do I know that all his descendants will be as perfect as the emperor? If there are one or two unworthy descendants, then if the system of our dynasty is light on corvee and light on taxes, it will not have much impact, because there is a limit to how much money an unworthy emperor can waste; but if heavy taxes have already been collected, this will Isn't the unscrupulous emperor squandering the people's blood and sweat? That's cruelty to the people!
From a writing perspective, Gao Pragmatic's passage is a "question" because he has a "self-answer" at the end. From a logical point of view, there seems to be no problem, because this is a very normal assumption - who can guarantee that their family will never produce unworthy descendants?
However, the problem is that it doesn’t matter whose family you assume may have unworthy descendants, but how can you assume that the Tian family may have unworthy descendants!
Why can't we assume this? Because even if the Tian family really produces an unworthy descendant, when this unworthy descendant becomes the emperor, he will still be your emperor. If you say he is unworthy, it will still be "slandering the emperor"!
Therefore, "slandering the emperor" here does not mean that he has slandered the current emperor, but that he has slandered future emperors!
Is this what you should and can do as a minister?
As a result, many impeachments put the charge of Gao pragmatism at the top of the list, but Chief Assistant Shen Shixing was the only one who broke into a cold sweat after seeing it.
broken……
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PS: I have something to do tonight, so I’ll update in advance.
Another PS: I don’t know why, but the book reviews I replied to cannot seem to be displayed. Can I still be banned or deleted by the system in my own book review area? What the hell? This is all. My typing reply on my mobile phone is already slow, and it was swallowed up...
