In the golden autumn, thousands of households are busy with farming. Since the Ministry of Revenue is in charge of autumn grain storage, it is also one of the busiest times of the year.
Although more than half of the regions in the Ming Dynasty changed to a whip method, and no longer collected rice and wheat in kind but received cash for land tax, nearly half of the regions continued to implement physical collection, so the collection and storage of autumn grains was still a top priority.
Especially the entire northwest region, as well as other southwest regions except Chengdu Yifu, this half of the country still has to rely on the old rules. In addition, areas that have changed to a whip law will begin to collect gold flowers and silver - that is, tax money, and tax money has central and local accounts and transshipment.
All of the above are important matters that require the personal attention of Gao Pragmatic, who is the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
If calculated based on the entire period since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the average annual land tax of the Ming Dynasty was about 29.5 million shi. Among them, apart from the 12 million shi retained by the local government, the remaining 17.5 million shi had to be transported to the capital.
Of the 17.5 million shi, about 7.5 million shi were collected in the north, and most of these grains were used as military rations in the Jiubian region. The remaining approximately 10 million shi was used as the income of the Ming Dynasty center.
In addition, because the Ming Dynasty implemented the two-capital system, the political center was divided into Nanjing and Beijing, so of the 10 million stones, 1.2 million stones were given to Nanjing, and the other 8.2 million stones were given to Beijing.
Of these taxes, approximately 4 million shi came from the southern provinces. Therefore, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the court converted these 4 million shi into approximately 1 million taels of gold and silver according to the ratio of four shi of grain to one tael of silver. From this, Jinhuayin became a special term for field taxation silver.
As mentioned above, among all the original land taxes in the Ming Dynasty, the proportion in the south was higher than that in the north. However, due to the long distance from the south to the capital and the inconvenience of transportation, the loss of transporting from the south to the north is considerable. The loss ratio is about 10%, which is one-tenth. This means that for every ten shi of grain transported, one shi will be lost. It was wasted in vain.
Calculated based on the Ming Dynasty transporting 10 million shi of tax grain from the south, 1 million shi would be lost on the road alone. This can be said to be an astronomical figure - think about the Battle of Odawara just after Japan, and the support of the Sea Trade Alliance The Hojo family had 20,000 koku of rice, and the Hojo family could survive for two or three months against Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army of more than 200,000 people.
What about one million stones? If you calculate more rigidly, that would be enough to feed fifty Odawara Castle for two to three months, and the enemy's troops that need to be dispatched are actually more than 10 million. Although such a situation is unlikely to happen in reality, it is enough to prove that the concept of one million stones of grain is definitely not a joke.
In addition to losses, limited water transport capacity is also a major problem. According to the calculations of a later Mr. Huang, the largest water transport capacity of the Ming Dynasty was between 4 million shi and 5 million shi per year. Among the 8.2 million shi of grain transported from the south to the north every year, about 4 million could not be transported to the capital through inland water shipping. Therefore, This resulted in the Ming court having to turn these 4 million shi of grain into silver.
In fact, judging from the situation since Gao Pragmatic's time travel, at the turn of Long-Wan Dynasty, if Jinghua had not risen rapidly, it would have been difficult for the imperial court to even transport 4.2 million shi of southern grain to the north. Because at that time, the Yellow River was in danger for many years, flooding at least several counties almost every year, and then naturally the waterway was cut off, making it impossible for ships to pass.
During that time, Gao Pragmatic promoted Gao Gong's sea transportation, and Jinghua itself also undertook part of it. But to be honest, Jinghua barely made any money transporting the original grain at that time, and the southern sea ships collected by the imperial court also made no money transporting grain.
Most of the money we make comes from carrying private goods and returning cargo. Entrained private work means that when transporting grain from the south to the north, the ship not only carries grain, but also carries some southern specialties, whether it is lake silk and suzhou embroidery, or paper and inkstones. Anyway, you can't just transport grain.
As for Jinghua, in addition to making money from this matter, it also developed the Tianjin Port that had just been built at that time because of shipping. And because Jinghua also controls the Kaiping "Industrial Zone" and the alkali lakes, cattle, sheep and horses in Tumut, it makes even more money.
If the southern and northern parts of the Ming Dynasty are forcibly regarded as two independent economies, the reduction of the trade deficit in the northern region will be largely due to the outstanding performance of Jinghua, a giant group.
However, later, the advancement of the whip method accelerated, and the eastern and central provinces in the south gradually began to collect gold and silver in an all-round way, and the task of transporting grain was considered to be handed over. But the lack of grain transportation is not a problem for Jinghua, nor for the shipowners and boatmen in the south, because not transporting grain can free up tonnage for cargo, speed up the circulation of goods, and everyone earns more.
At this time, there is a question: Who will transport the gold, flowers and silver?
There is no doubt that even the Jiangnan plutocrats are not willing to compete with Jinghua for this business. After all, it has to be delivered to Tianjin Port, which is Jinghua's first private port. The parking fee depends on Jinghua's mood. As a result, the business of transporting gold and silver from the south became a monopoly business of Jinghua, and the yamen across the south had to spend a sum of money every year to pay for the freight.
Wait a minute, why are the yamen from all over the south giving money to Jinghua? Shouldn’t this amount be counted as “central tax”? Shouldn’t the Ministry of Household Affairs, which is the central finance department, provide the money?
It's really not the case. This money came from the local government from beginning to end in the Ming Dynasty. Specifically, it can be roughly divided into five steps.
In the first step, the Ministry of Household Affairs of the Ming Dynasty calculated the tax amount of each province. Every year, the imperial court makes statistics on the current year's tax amount based on the previous year's tax amount. The gold and silver that each province should pay this year will be distributed to the local governments. Later, local government offices will collect gold and silver according to the requirements issued by the Ministry of Household Affairs. This is the starting point of all steps in the collection process of gold and silver.
In the second step, the local government issues a "voucher". The local government will divide the total tax amount of the province according to the tax amount given by the Ministry of Household Affairs and allocate it to different local governments.
Government offices at all levels issue them layer by layer, and finally the county government issues a "voucher" to specific taxpayers, which is something like a list of taxes payable. This step is very critical, through which the task of allocating the tax amount is achieved.
The third step is for the taxpayer to seal the money. For example, a certain grain chief (note: "grain chief" will be discussed below), after receiving the receipt, sealed the silver package according to his own tax amount, and handed the silver to the county government according to the corresponding method. Through this step, taxpayers complete the process of paying taxes.
In the fourth step, the local government transports the gold and silver to the capital. In fact, the process of transporting gold and silver from local government offices to the central government is the most complicated link in the entire gold and silver collection process.
In the process of transporting gold and silver in local government offices, a two-tier management system was generally implemented in the past. The so-called two-tier management means that the local government is responsible for the paperwork of gold and silver, while the specific transportation work is handed over to private agents.
This kind of agent is actually very similar to the escort agencies often seen in film and television works. According to modern language, it can be called an express company. In addition, there is another situation where the local government arranges grain chiefs with larger amounts of money to undertake the task of transportation.
In the later period, this method in which the grain chief was responsible for transporting tax grains or gold and silver gradually evolved into a kind of feudal labor, and the burden of transportation gradually fell on the heads of ordinary people. The specific situation will be discussed below.
The fifth step is to check and verify with the Ministry of Accounts. After the gold and silver are transported from the local area to the capital, the Ministry of Household Affairs usually checks and inventories the silver. If the amount is consistent with the tax amount issued by the Ministry of Household Affairs, the gold and silver will be put into the national treasury. Thus all the processes of gold, flower and silver collection were realized.
The situation can be explained clearly once the steps are laid out: whether it is transporting grain or gold, flowers and silver, in the Ming Dynasty, it was always the job of the local government, and the central government just sat on the ground to receive the goods. It's okay to say that the goods are delivered in good quality and quantity, but as long as the goods are not delivered, or the goods are not in quantity, the responsibility lies entirely with the local party.
Jinghua was obviously the most powerful logistics group in the Ming Dynasty. Its position as a "transportation contractor" was unshakable, and its charges were relatively reasonable. It was deeply trusted by yamen everywhere.
This situation has come to this year, probably because Gao Pragmatic has secured his position as the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue. The yamen or the chief officials in various places suddenly started to clamor for one thing: the abolition of the grain transportation system, the gold, silver, gold and physical goods all over the country. The grain tax was changed to be transported uniformly by Jinghua.
This incident was so intense that the imperial court received more than 70 memorials from various yamen in one month, all of which were about this incident. Gao pragmatic discovered that the people who initially clamored for this incident were from the Jiangnan area, mainly officials from the Xin School, but later even officials from the Real School and the Neutrality School began to follow suit, resulting in the current situation where the whole court is clamoring. .
Logically speaking, it should be a good thing for business to come to your door. After all, although Jinghua’s fees are not high, since it is a business, it must be profitable. Besides, Jinghua’s transportation power is already strong, and idleness is idle. What’s wrong with having more business? ?
However, Gao Pragmatic became vigilant and always felt that someone was behind this incident. As for the reason, it may be a combination of many aspects. To explain Gao Pragmatic's vigilance and even suspicion, we must first talk about the grain chief system with Ming characteristics.
In September of the fourth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1371), Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated the "Autumn Grain Edict of Liangzhe and Zhejiang Provinces", establishing a "grain chief system" for the first time. To put it simply, this system means that the court no longer sends officials to collect grain, but instead assigns the responsibility of collecting grain to highly respected villagers in the village, who are the grain chiefs. This edict stated: "... Among them, those with more fields will be the chief of grain and supervise the taxation of their villages."
The grain chief system was first implemented in Zhejiang and later implemented nationwide, becoming an important system in the Ming Dynasty. The question is, why did Lao Zhu implement the grain chief system?
In fact, Lao Zhu himself said quite clearly in the edict that the basic reason for establishing the grain chief system was "I have deep sympathy for corrupt officials who have harmed the people and enriched themselves for four years."
In the Yuan Dynasty, there was serious official corruption, and corrupt officials oppressed the people. Originally, the various miscellaneous taxes of the imperial court were overwhelming the people, and the officials were filling their own pockets by collecting grain. Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born in a poor peasant, naturally had hatred for the officials, so out of the purpose of caring for the people, he let the people themselves Collect taxes.
According to Lao Zhu's idea, in a large hometown, all the folks are our own people, and it will definitely not be too difficult for our own people to collect taxes from our own people. This is the so-called "governing good people with good people, and there will be no danger of invading fishing." At the same time, another advantage of having a grain minister is that it reduces the quota of civil servants, which can save the country money.
Therefore, Lao Zhu said in his imperial edict: "The establishment of grain chiefs is to facilitate the establishment of divisions and the management of the people. Therefore, in order to facilitate divisions, and if a county has one hundred thousand grains, there will only be ten grain chiefs and no more than twenty chiefs and deputies. It's up to the grain chief to fulfill the duties as scheduled. Diligence depends on the grain chief. If there is a division, the grain officer of the ministry can only agree to send a grain officer to a certain place to pay."
Look, what a great policy! It used to take ten or twenty people to run the errands, but now it is left to the people themselves. All they have to do is send someone over to take over and take it back. It really saves people and effort, and there won’t be any scandals involving men bullying women. How great, bright and correct. From the lines of the imperial edicts and imperial edicts, any literate person can see how satisfied Lao Zhu was with his grain chief system.
Ever since, the grain chief system began to spread. Probably because large grain-producing households were required to bear more social responsibilities, "those with more land" became the grain chiefs, and the position of grain chiefs naturally fell into the hands of the landlords and gentry.
There is no doubt that in a feudal autocratic society, rights will inevitably bring benefits, and when rights are given to people with resources, it will naturally be a great benefit. Landlords and gentry are people who have considerable social resources. If they sit in the position of grain director and have the right to collect grain, they can be said to be even more powerful and can get great benefits.
The first advantage of this is that you can enrich your own pockets by making food. The main responsibilities of the grain chief are to collect, collect, and deliver grain taxes. According to regulations, the grain chief must first receive a survey from the government, and then issue a grain collection quota to the district chief as required. Then the district chief will assign the task to the commander, who will then go to the door to collect grain.
After the head of A has received the grain, he summarizes it to the head of the area, and the head of the area gives it to the head of grain. After the head of grain counts and summarizes it, he is also responsible for escorting it to the designated place, so that it is considered complete.
Obviously, in such a multi-level service process, one can use one's ingenuity to use various methods to create clever names, commit fraud for personal gain, and obtain huge profits.
For example, during the Hongwu period, there was a grain chief named Zhu Anai. He cleverly created a lot of tricks, such as collecting rice, money for carts, money for stripping husbands, money for making books, and money from the grain bureau. , see rice samples, choose rice, etc. Originally, the tax quota given to him by the imperial court was only 10,000 shi of rice. As a result, this guy not only collected 32,000 shi of rice, but also collected 11,100 copper coins. All the extra money besides Shi Dami went into his own pocket.
This is not an isolated case. For example, Jiading County Grain Chief Jin Zhongfang and others secretly added eighteen types of taxes and also made a lot of money. There are so many of these.
It is well known that Zhu Yuanzhang was very strict in dealing with corruption, so those who were corrupt officials would be stripped of their skins and grass. But like other corruption situations, even under such harsh punishments, many people still take risks, which shows how deep the oil and water is.
By the way, in addition to the main business of collecting grain, the grain chiefs would often be assigned other tasks by the court. For example, they participated in inventory and verification of land, compiled fish scale atlases, led people to reclaim wasteland, even morally persuaded people in the countryside, and even participated in judicial proceedings and served as "jurors." These positions are very lucrative. Even if there is no lucrative part, at least they can boss around the people, teach them from a high platform, and are very prestigious.
In addition, the grain chief also enjoys some political privileges. For example, if a grain manager commits certain crimes, his crime can be reduced by one level, or he can even spend money to avoid jail time. "Records of the Ming Dynasty" records: "In the twelfth month of the eighth year of Hongwu, Guisi issued an order to the censor, saying: 'Bishe Liangzhang, let him be in charge of the herdsmen's rent, so as to avoid the disadvantages of being disturbed by officials, which will be very convenient for the people. From now on, the grain chief If there are any miscellaneous capital crimes and those who are exiles or disciples, stop using the stick to prevent them from losing their lives." Yu Shitai Chen said: "If the chief of grain commits a crime, I promise to pay him money to atone for his crime." It's OK."
It is true that the crimes mentioned here do not include official crimes such as abuse of power for personal gain, corruption and bending of the law. They can only redeem "miscellaneous criminals", but even so, they are already superior to others.
Not only that, the grain chiefs in the early Ming Dynasty were led by officials every year and sent to the capital to "prove their identity" and then pay homage to the emperor.
This is amazing. A rich man from the countryside can actually meet the emperor. Isn't that a great honor? Can he brag about it for a lifetime? At this time, after the emperor read the officials' evaluation reports on the grain chiefs, he would also reward the outstanding grain chiefs, and some would even directly appoint them.
For example, Yan Zhenzhi, a native of Wucheng, Zhejiang, was originally a grain chief. When he went to Beijing to report on his duties, Zhu Yuanzhang said that he had done a good job and directly gave him the rank of counselor of the General Affairs Department of the fifth rank.
All in all, in the early Ming Dynasty, when the grain was grown in the local area, it was really powerful and powerful. It was really a great job. Everyone loved it and wanted to do it. Those who became the master would never give it up to other families, and only hoped that their descendants could continue to do so, so the grain chiefs at that time were all "Yongchong".
But as the saying goes, nothing lasts forever, but later on, being a grain manager turned out to be a fatal job.
Gu Yuanqing, a contemporary, said in "Yibaizhai Poems" that there was a nouveau riche in Changshu who bought a large field. At this time, a Taoist priest came to him to ask for alms, but the nouveau riche refused to give, so the Taoist priest wrote a poem on the wall of his house: "Buy more farms and laugh at your stupidity, and you will follow after you get enough grain. Watch him farm for a few years." , to whom should I hand it over to my children and grandchildren?"
You are having fun buying land now, but when you become a grain manager in the future, there will be times when you cry. This is not nonsense. At that time, people in Wuzhong "feared the service of the grain chief as much as they feared death" and would rather die than become the grain chief.
Zhu Guozhen, who was elected in the 16th year of Wanli, said in his "Yongzhuan Essay" that "it is better for people to avoid the service of the grain chief than to be exiled to the garrison." He also told a story that Guo Bo, the magistrate of Changzhou County, had a quarrel with the retired old minister Liu Ying, so he arranged for all seven members of Liu Ying's family to be grain chiefs. When the old minister found out, he was actually pissed off. died.
From being the pinnacle of power and fame in the countryside, to being the god of plague that everyone shuns, what happened to the position of Grain Chief in the two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty?
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Thanks to book friends "Cao Mianzi", "Fanyin (Li)", "Herendil", and "book friend 20170107012220447" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
PS: Yesterday’s chapter was probably blocked due to some religious reasons. I changed it and submitted to unblock it, but it was still illegal. Haha... It seems that you can't apply for lifting the ban again within 48 hours. I'll check again in a few days.
