Jinghua, who manages his family in a pragmatic way, is accustomed to only making plans by himself and assigning specific tasks to people. He can at most call a few people in charge to come over for face-to-face discussions and then let go. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to expect him to manage "twenty-eight taels of silver honey" when he is the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
Grab it. Grab it. The biggest feature of the Hongwu-style finance is that the consumption departments and taxpayers are directly connected, and the central financial department, that is, the Ministry of Household Affairs, does not have a central regulatory role. What will this lead to? Of course, this leads to the central government having no money under this kind of fiscal decentralization.
You see, each consumption department has financial power: the Ministry of War levies military supplies and military services, the Ministry of Works levies construction materials and labor services, and the palace levies royal expenses and consumption...
what does that mean? This means that whichever of these yamen is more powerful can collect more taxes. So what does the household department do? The Ministry of Revenue is in charge of the grain and the grain tax in the areas where the One Whip Law is implemented.
However, even so, it was not easy to be the Minister of Household Affairs in the Ming Dynasty. According to Huang Renyu's statistics, 89 ministers of household affairs took office after 1380. Among them, 25 resigned from office, 22 were transferred to other posts, 16 were dismissed, 7 died in office, 7 resigned due to illness, and 3 were executed. Three people were exiled, one resigned without permission, one died on the battlefield, and one hanged himself to die for his country. In the end, there were three remaining, even more amazing, dignified local officials, but there was no detailed information on their whereabouts in the history books.
Gao Pragmatic knew very well what this Hongwu-type finance was: Zhu Yuanzhang actually regarded such a huge empire as just a rural area that produced and sold itself!
嘘戅九饼 in Chinese 嘘戅. He thought that as long as the land tax was reduced and the farmers were appeased, the country would be able to achieve long-term peace and stability. Unfortunately, the reality is very thin. This kind of self-sufficient financial system of each department is rigid and inflexible. When encountering emergencies, the people who should collect taxes cannot collect the taxes, so there is only one way left: apportion the burden to the government. People who will not resist.
What a travesty! This is almost the opposite of what Zhu Yuanzhang originally imagined. The people he wanted to protect most became the people most exploited under this system.
So how did the "Hongwu-style finance" evolve to this point?
As we all know, the nominal tax rate in the Ming Dynasty was actually quite low, which was related to the poor background of the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang.
He looked down upon Sang Hongyang, Wang Anshi and others who used grotesque techniques to expand fiscal revenue. Instead, he set tax rates for various places, carved the tax and grain revenue of each province and city on stone slabs, and erected it in the entrance hall of the Ministry of Household Affairs. within.
The meaning couldn't be clearer: I will never raise taxes.
However, as Gao Pragmatic emphasized in the article before, the price of low taxation is that the country gives up many government functions. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty could only ask the army to farm fields to provide self-supply of military food, implement autonomous management of rural areas, and so on.
In fact, the "separation and cooperation" between the Production and Construction Corps and the Imperial Guard created by Gao Jingjing during the restructuring of the Beijing camp was, to a certain extent, wiping Zhu Yuanzhang's butt.
However, Zhu Yuanzhang was more than that. The ancestral system he established made the Ming court pay very little salary to officials. Gu Yanwu, who later wrote "Everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of the world" lamented the poor treatment of officials in the Ming Dynasty. "Since ancient times, the salaries of officials have been so low."
How bad is it? Do you think it’s just a lack of money? That doesn't stop there. Under the real economy of the Hongwu-style finance, officials' salaries were not all silver, copper coins, and banknotes. They were converted into all kinds of strange objects. The more famous ones include pepper, sappan wood, etc., which were used as wages. Send it to all civil and military officials.
As for cloth, it is more common. Even different cloth, silk, silk, silk, silk, satin, etc. produced in different places can be converted for you and then issued as salary. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Revenue is in charge of this conversion. ——If your calculation is too high, the household department will be in deficit, and if your calculation is too low, the officials will scold you.
To compare it to future generations, it's like you work in a government agency, and you usually deal with the spirit of various superior documents and subordinate work reports. Then when it comes time to pay you your salary, the government says that the organization will not pay you now, but instead gives it to you. Hundreds of pounds of eggs are said to be your salary. How do you feel?
I work in the imperial court, do I have to open a grocery store when I get home to really convert my salary into money?
So to be honest, under this kind of shady system, it is difficult for officials not to be corrupt.
But Zhu Yuanzhang is not afraid, he has his solution.
His solution was to use Chongdian. He wrote what may be called China's first anti-corruption textbook. It clearly stipulates that those who embezzle sixty taels of silver will be beheaded and the skin must be peeled off, stuffed with straw and hung in the government office as a warning. This is It is the famous "peeling and pulling grass".
As everyone knows about what happened later, this bloody suppression failed to stop corruption because the officials were too poor. For example, when Li Dongyang, the chief minister of the cabinet during the Zhengde period, passed away, he was so poor that he "could not attend funerals."
In the end, the wool came from the sheep. Officials used clever tricks to increase their incomes, and apportionment of bank accounts, bank accounts, military service, and salaries gradually got out of control. Although the nominal tax rate is low, the burden on the people is getting heavier and heavier.
The bureaucracy has rapidly darkened, and has finally reached the point where no official is corrupt. Anyone who does not integrate into this chain of interests will not be able to gain a foothold in the officialdom. Most of the Ming Dynasty bureaucrats who were influenced by Confucian culture chose to give in when they experienced this ideological struggle of "ideal or reality."
As a result, everyone in the imperial court began to work hard to generate income for themselves, while the central finance was completely depleted. It seems that each department performs its own duties, but each sweeps away the snow in front of its own door, ultimately forming a huge public service vacuum. Social responsibilities such as currency issuance, commercial logistics, household registration statistics, and land surveying are gradually ignored.
The absence of government gave rise to a considerable degree of grassroots autonomy in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. I’m not talking about other places, just Xinzheng, Henan. If the Gao family doesn’t agree to something local, can the county magistrate of Xinzheng be able to handle it? However, the Gao family was still a good official and a good gentry in their hometown. It is almost self-evident what they would be like if they were replaced by local tyrants and evil gentry.
This state of almost "civilian anarchy" led to a peculiar social scene in the Ming Dynasty: on the one hand, farmers who had relocated to their hometowns gave up their household registration and wandered around due to excessive taxation; on the other hand, urban handicraftsmen spontaneously united and formed The so-called germination of capitalism, Suzhou alone had at least 10,000 craftsmen during the Longqing period. However, due to the rigidity of the fiscal system, the government was never able to tax industry and commerce until Gao Gong came to power and Gao Pragmatism emerged.
Hongwu-type finance is like the Hu Monk's drug in the book. When those who are immersed in it become vested interest groups, no one cares about the side effects.
The Ming Dynasty's transition from prosperity to decline was first reflected in the financial inability to make ends meet. As the country's most important tax, land tax has been declining. During the Yongle period, the income from land tax remained at around 30 million shi. By the first year of Jiajing, this number had dropped to around 25 million. In other words, after the Ming Dynasty society experienced more than a hundred years of development, the government's most important fiscal revenue not only did not increase, but even decreased by nearly 20%.
It had only been a few decades since the establishment of the later Red Dynasty, but how many times had the economic scale increased? Even though the times are different, the speed of development is always different, but comparing the two, how can Gao Pragmatism tolerate this kind of system that is not only backward but also weird!
Behind this is the fact that the powerful gentry are occupying vast fields while reducing taxes and exemptions for themselves; but the common people not only have to pay full taxes, but also face additional assessments and corvees. Those who have money do not pay taxes, and those who pay taxes have no money. This strange national situation has greatly frustrated the tax system, and the country has gradually begun to default on taxes on a large scale. According to Huang Renyu's research, by the Chongzhen period, more than a quarter of the counties in the entire imperial fiscal and tax area did not pay any taxes to the central government. Grab it
At the same time, financial expenditures were increasing day by day. Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that his sons and grandsons would enjoy financial allocations for generations. This expenditure, which was inconspicuous at the beginning, had become a financial worm by the middle and late Ming Dynasty. According to a report from the Ministry of Rites in the fifth year of Longqing's reign, "only princes, princes, generals and lieutenants at all levels received a total of 8.7 million shi Youqi per year", which accounted for about one-third of the country's land tax revenue. The League of Legends
In summary, the fiscal and taxation system established by Zhu Yuanzhang is not only primitive but also rigid. The seemingly low tax rate and low flexibility have resulted in the government's basic fiscal revenue being almost fixed. In the event of a natural or man-made disaster, when the government needs additional expenditures, it finds that there is no system to collect taxes from those who should pay taxes. In the end, it can only be allocated to ordinary people engaged in agricultural production, resulting in an increasing burden on the private sector.
Gao Pragmatic has actually solved a small part of these problems step by step over the years.
For example, in his early years, the post station no longer had the power to exploit the local people, but became a "government guesthouse" that was responsible for its own profits and losses. It changed from a "government agency" to a "public institution". At the same time, past officials could not exploit them at will. , you must issue a "bill" for everything you use along the way and reimburse it when you arrive.
Clearing the land was the second matter. Related to this matter was instigating the emperor to "sell off the imperial estates" and resell as many of the original imperial estates near the capital to the original imperial estate tenants as much as possible. To this end, Gao was pragmatic and considerate. The emperor came up with means such as repayment of loans and redemptions for up to thirty years.
But the imperial village was not enough. Gao was pragmatic and deceived the nobles in Beijing to join the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance. He used the appalling return on investment in maritime trade to lure them to invest in maritime trade, and then sold off their previously untouchable properties. , "pack lightly" and go to the sea to make money.
In fact, this is what Gao Pragmatic worked hard to liberate the means of production to ordinary people, so that they can at least have a basic source of income or a basis for survival. But this work is also not finished. At the very least... there are still relatively few nobles in the south who are superior to others, let alone officials.
Of course, many officials now quietly invest in the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance, but there is a little trick here: because these officials do not dare to blatantly invest in the shares like the nobles, they only enjoy the right to dividends when they invest. , a series of rights and interests such as voting rights that should have been brought by its shares were transferred to Gao Pragmatic Agent in black and white.
In fact, officials in this era really don't care much about this, or they subconsciously think that they are no better than Gao Pragmatic in doing business. Instead of worrying about these unfamiliar matters themselves, it is better to leave them to Gao directly. God of Wealth.
The third thing is the division of the Beijing camp. This is not only to solve the problem of the lack of combat effectiveness of the Beijing camp, it is also to solve the financial problem: those who fight will fight well, those who make money will make good money, and those who make money will support the war. At the same time, the imperial court lost the big burden of Beijing Camp, which originally needed to allocate hundreds of thousands of taels every year.
However, Gao pragmatically knew that the effectiveness of this system was limited to when he was still in the court. Once someone like him leaves the court, whether he quits his job or dies, this system will fail very quickly: those who make money are definitely not willing to support those who fight for "no reason".
He is pragmatic and those who make money dare not support those who fight, because the most profitable part of these people is controlled by Jinghua and his pragmatic hands. If one day he is so pragmatic and gives up on this matter, these distinguished nobles will have to find various excuses to reject this "extra expense"?
Are you saying it's hard to find an excuse? Just kidding, that’s too easy to find: my Production and Construction Corps is losing money, I can’t afford to support you!
How about it? As long as you make a good false account, even the emperor can only stare.
Therefore, in fact, Gao Pragmatic has not finished the restructuring of the Jingying camp. He has other big moves yet to be made. Of course, this has a lot to do with him leaving office too quickly. It is not that he only did half of it on purpose and left someone behind. Back door.
When it comes to the implementation, it actually means that the highly pragmatic fiscal reform has entered the deep water zone.
Gao Jingshi deliberately made some manipulations in this matter, linking the tax reform with some of Gao Gong's reforms that year. For example, Gao Jingshi's establishment of the Customs Administration was linked to Gao Gong's previous "Longqing Kaihai".
Originally, the taxes at those ports needed to be levied through the Municipal Shipping Taxation Department. However, although the Municipal Shipping Taxation Department in the Ming Dynasty had a relationship with the Ministry of Household Affairs, it had little relationship. It was almost a separate organization. It only paid accounts and paid taxes to the Ministry of Household Affairs in the end. The Ministry of Revenue has no control over anything in the tax collection process.
Gao Pragmatic is very annoyed by this situation. What he needs now is a "big household department", and what he needs to do is to unify the central financial power. For a traveler like him who came from the Red Dynasty system, the most basic economic work idea is "macro-control and micro-guidance." Now that the central government cannot even unify financial power, can it take the lead in regulation? Can only be ridiculed.
Grab it. Grab it. The Customs Department and the Audit Office serve this purpose. The Customs Department is to take back various financial rights one by one to the central government of the Ministry of Revenue, and the Audit Office is even more "vicious" - even if there are still some financial rights that cannot be taken back for a while due to historical problems, then I will still be there You hold aloft the Sword of Damocles above your head.
Even though I can't directly ask you to do this or that, I can tell you clearly: If you can't do what I want, my sword will kill you!
The League of Legends is the League of Legends. The Audit Office, in fact, puts a tightrope on various yamen or officials with financial power, just like setting up a patrol officer outside the Chief Secretary.
You said I can't control you? Yes, in theory I have no control over you.
You said you dare not listen to me? Haha, then give it a try.
This is why Gao Pragmatic originally planned to cancel all in-kind taxes except for grain and cloth after the Customs Office and the Audit Office were fully open.
It's just that now we have to move forward.
----------
Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi", "Lu Sen'a", "Yilu Sexyou", "Long Disrepair nn", "Baba Casi", and "Book Friends 20170107012220447" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
