Gao Pragmatic has always believed that the so-called "Zhang Juzheng Reform" is not only too narrowly worded, but only mentions one person when it should be included in the "Jialong Ten Thousand Reforms", and the most critical problem is that it treats the symptoms but not the root cause, which does not go into depth at all and is nothing more than a headache. Treat pain in the head and feet.
On the whole, it is clear that from the beginning to the end, we want to keep the country's finances alive, but we don't dare to squeeze out the pustules and apply medicine. In the end, we can only give up halfway.
The root cause of the failure of this operation on the Ming Dynasty, which was already covered with tumors, was not the death of the attending physician Zhang Juzheng, but the decision by the attending physician to only perform conservative treatment from the beginning, without surgical removal of the tumor or radiotherapy and chemotherapy. , but give him some anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers and forget about it. Whether he can hold on or not depends entirely on his body, his will, and God.
As long as there are other ways to think of, fighting luck is never a pragmatic option, so he chose to kill Zhang Juzheng in advance and personally carry out systemic treatment, that is, "deepening reforms."
From the military industrial system to the post system, from the one whip law to the mandatory payment of business taxes, from the opening and closing of trade to the gathering of financial power... Gao Pragmatism walked firmly step by step. Although the results were outstanding, it was also gradually difficult.
The grain chief system before him now is an inevitable obstacle that will appear after the reform deepens. In fact, although the grain chief system had many problems when it was first introduced by Zhu Yuanzhang, its evolution from one that everyone flocked to to one that everyone is afraid of avoiding today also shows that the internal problems of the Ming Dynasty were becoming more and more serious, and that they were almost terminally ill. .
First of all, the continuous annexation of land has led to polarization between the rich and the poor, and the powerful have ways to avoid taxes, making it increasingly difficult to collect public grain. The Ming Dynasty raised a lot of princes, and as time went by, big Zhu gave birth to little Zhu, and there were more and more Zhus. The amount of land owned by the princes has been given many times in the previous article, so I will not repeat it here.
At the same time, bureaucrats and noble groups are constantly seizing land by virtue of their power. Xu Jie's affairs in his hometown of Songjiang need no introduction again. These powerful people enjoy various political privileges, can reduce taxes, or even do not have to pay taxes.
Or some eunuchs, because of their overwhelming power, the local officials did not dare to collect taxes from their families, but under Gao Gong's taxation method, they had to ensure that the taxes were sufficient, so the officials passed the losses on to the ordinary people in the area. .
Some of these things have been discovered, and most of them have been punished, but Gao pragmatically knows that what has been discovered is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are still many more that have not been discovered! The root cause of solving these problems lies in the preferential treatment of the gentry, or the "privilege of fame" - and this is actually one of the most inconvenient places for Gao Pragmatic, the Sixth No. 1 Scholar, to go under the knife.
In short, as time goes by, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. However, most of the rich do not have to pay taxes or only need to pay a small amount of taxes, while the poor cannot afford to pay taxes.
Thus, tax revenues begin to fall, but spending gradually increases. Especially since the middle and late Jiajing period, under the influence of the Southern Japanese and Northern captives, the imperial court's expenditures have increased. In such a situation, the grain chief's task indicators have increased, but it has become increasingly difficult to complete. Many people have no choice but to use their own property to cope. So as Zhu Guozhen said, "If a family has a thousand gold worth of property, he will become a beggar within one year (of being the head of grain); if there are more than ten strong men in the family, he will become a beggar within one year."
Being a grain manager would make you bankrupt, so of course no one would want to do it.
In addition, the privileges of grain chiefs are gradually shrinking. When the grain chief system was first implemented, it coordinated the collection of grain from eight villages across ten miles. Although there were many drawbacks, at least it had great power. Later, the imperial court split the duties of the grain chief, including the "grain chief for urging," the "grain redemption chief," and the "long-term grain transportation chief." The original one person took charge of the duties, but now several or even dozens of people divided the work. Restricting each other and supervising each other will make it less easy for them to mess around.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the system of grain chiefs regularly visiting the capital to report on their duties and meet with the emperor was gradually abolished, and the chance for grain chiefs to see the emperor being praised and awarded officials disappeared.
At this time, people found that being a grain chief not only meant losing money, but also had little power. Naturally, the local tyrants and evil gentry in the village were no longer willing to engage in this loss-making business, so they pushed the grain chief's job back and forth to each other, eventually forming some unspoken rules. . For example, the position of grain chief is rotated among several large households, so the grain chief has changed from the original "permanent charge" to "rotating charge".
But even so, the big families were still unhappy, so it later became a "pengchong" that the whole village had to share. Even the small families had to be the grain chiefs under the "pengchong" - since If everyone is unlucky, it seems fair.
It is a pity that this so-called fairness itself is unfair. For example, Huang Shiren asked Yang Bailao to collect taxes. Yang Bailao obviously did not dare not to pay, and he had no choice but to give Xi'er away if he could not afford it. But if you in turn asked Yang Bailao to ask Huang Shiren to collect taxes, he Yang Bailao would Can it be harvested?
As a result, the grain chiefs who could not receive taxes or gold and silver had no choice but to "resign" and run away with their buckets.
In fact, due to the reform of practical learning, the situation of contemporary grain managers is somewhat better than that in the late Jiajing years. However, just as Zhang Juzheng's reform was criticized for being superficial, the actual learning reform, as a top-down reform, has so far failed to penetrate into the local system, especially the grassroots level of society. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty when "imperial power did not extend to counties", the problem of grain production was still one of the representative phenomena of serious problems in the vast rural areas.
Since the problem exists, it is certainly impossible for Gao Pragmatic, the Minister of Household Affairs who is regarded as a radical reformer, to ignore it. However, this incident broke out so suddenly that it was difficult for Gao Pragmatic not to suspect that there was fraud.
Where does the fraud come from? This requires reverse inference, which is also an idea that Gao Pragmatic has always been good at. Take the grain chief system, for example. Originally, a big problem that caused many grain chiefs to run away with buckets was that the grain chiefs had to pay for the transportation costs of transporting grain to the capital.
After Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Beijing, the southern grain chiefs originally only had to transport it to Nanjing, but then they actually had to transport it to Beijing. This was really a loss to my grandma's family. However, since the one-whip law was widely implemented, the land tax and grain can be converted into gold and silver and turned over. The grain chiefs, except for the part retained by the local yamen, can directly take the money to Beijing or hand it over to the central government for the remaining part that needs to be turned over to the central government. Jinghua came to "consign" it, which was a hundred times more convenient than escorting a large amount of ready grain.
But this matter is not completely resolved, because even in the southern region, not all provinces have changed to a whipping method. In the southwest, there is only one Chengdu Prefecture that collects cash, and all other regions still collect grain.
In addition, Jinghua's "consignment" was not as widespread as the express delivery industry in later generations of the Red Dynasty. It was not available in many areas, or even if it was available, the coverage was not large.
For example, in most areas in the south of the Yangtze River, Jinghua may set up a shipping agency similar to Cainiao Station in one county. However, in many areas in the southwest, even one prefecture may not have one, but there are often two, three or even three or four prefectures. Share a shipping agency.
This is where private capital is inferior to state-owned capital, even if it is highly pragmatic. The same situation is like the difference in network coverage between the later Red Dynasty and the Midi Dynasty. Although the Midi Dynasty is a so-called developed country and one of the best in the world, the network coverage in rural areas with small populations is much lower than that of the Red Dynasty.
Some people get excited when they say that the average Internet speed of some developed countries is higher than that of the Red Dynasty, but they keep silent about the reason why their Internet speeds are so fast because these private network providers only cover "key areas", while even the Red Dynasty Even if there are only a few households in a certain village, they have to ensure that they have continuous access to the Internet. (The same goes for systems such as electricity.)
So can this compare? Who cares more about the interests of the people?
But now that Jinghua is also privately owned, it is too pragmatic to ignore losses and roll out grain taxes and gold and silver consignments across the country. If this happens, if the grain chief system is completely abolished, if there are problems with taxation, grain and gold and silver transportation in the future, he, the Minister of Household Affairs, will definitely be blamed.
If in order to avoid such chaos, Gao Pragmatic would have no choice but to roll out Jinghua's shipping business in an orderly manner at all costs, which would inevitably put great financial pressure on Jinghua itself.
You must know that Jinghua's consignment business today mainly "walks on two legs": one is in the south, mainly relying on river water transportation, and eventually turning to sea transportation north to Tianjin Port; the other is in the north, mainly relying on Jinghua's growing horse team, responsible for The region is mainly located along the Nine Borders and adjacent inland provinces. The Yellow River Basin can also be supplemented by water transportation, but it is not the main force.
Under such a plan, it would be difficult for Jinghua to conduct business in depth in the southwestern mountainous areas and even in the southwestern part of Huguang, which later became western Hunan. There are many river systems in the local area, but the hydrological conditions of many rivers in the local water system are very complex, especially in the upstream areas. The rivers in some areas are wide but shallow, and in some areas the water is deep enough but the river channels are narrow and the flow speed is fast. In short, it is not very convenient to establish a unified system. system.
The model that Jinghua likes is that a ship does not need to be transshipped from loading to unloading. For example, it departs from Wuchang and sails directly to Suzhou for unloading (the regional division of Suzhou Prefecture at this time is different from modern times. Changshu County and Jiading County near the Yangtze River Estuary are both Belonging to Suzhou Prefecture), this can save time, effort and cost.
If it is inland in the southwest, it is possible that even the same river must be divided into sections. Some places in the middle need to be changed to land routes or even water routes for a while, and land routes for a while. The cost will rise all of a sudden, and it will also be very inconvenient in terms of management.
The above are just various cost troubles. In addition, Gao Pragmatic also believes that there are other possible conspiracies.
For example, the national land tax, whether it is in kind grain taxes or gold, flowers and silver, is uniformly shipped by Jinghua. Just saying this makes people sleepless and sleepless. If you, Jinghua, suddenly take the money and run away, what will I do next year in the Ming Dynasty? Officials across the country Do both the army and the army have to go hungry? The officials may not be so hungry that they rebel, but if all the soldiers are hungry...who can bear this responsibility?
Once Jinghua really masters such huge power, according to the attitude of "not hesitating to speculate with the greatest malice", Jinghua can use this to force the imperial court to make various concessions to it.
Maybe Gao Pragmatic wouldn't think this way at all, but if others want to speculate this way, Gao Pragmatic can't prove his innocence. After all, I'm not saying you will definitely do this, I'm saying you have the ability to do so - what if?
When Gao Budang thought about this, he was so shocked that he broke into a cold sweat. If this move is really deliberately planned by someone, then this plan is really too vicious!
If Gao Pragmatic is not a time traveler but is really a bureaucrat of this era, I am afraid it will be difficult to refuse the power that once successful can force the court to compromise. The temptation is too great.
There is a saying that "the emperor has no shortage of hungry soldiers". If the money and food for the Ministry of Revenue can be obtained, it all depends on Jinghua's face. It is conceivable that Jinghua will have many ways to influence the government. Considering the political status of Gao Pragmatism, even replacing "influence" with "control" may not be an exaggeration.
Can the emperor allow this to happen? Obviously not! As long as the emperor is still confused, it is impossible to tolerate such a situation, even if that person is highly pragmatic.
However, now that the trend has started, Gao Pragmatic, as a banner of the "radical reformists", cannot allow him to retreat in terms of political influence.
Fame can bring huge influence to a leader. With this as the backing, it can unite people's hearts and achieve great things that others cannot do. But on the other hand, fame can sometimes force people to act contrary to their true intentions and make decisions that should be appropriate at inappropriate times.
Gao Pragmatic is still unclear who the designer of this conspiracy is, but he knows that this person made a good move.
Where is the ruthlessness of this plan? The cruel thing is that if you don’t see through it and step on the high pragmatic foot, you will not only suffer big economic losses, but also political losses; and even if you see through it and don’t step on it, you will not suffer economic losses, but political losses You will still suffer a loss.
There is no need to explain the economic aspect, only the political aspect.
The former disadvantage means that if Jinghua takes this job, it will inevitably be remembered by the emperor, and the worst result may be "unnecessary"; the latter disadvantage means that if Jinghua does not accept the job, then the reform in Gao Pragmatic's hands will be The flag cannot be held firmly, and we can only be forced to surrender the political initiative. The political power he possesses with the help of "three generations of Yuanfu" may be seriously shaken.
What a plan, what a plan!
However, since you think so highly of me, how can someone like Gao disappoint you?
I am a pragmatic person who appears and exists to solve problems. I am highly pragmatic and can be where I am today, but it is not just because of the support of my parents! I became the Minister of Household Affairs less than ten years after I became an official. Do you really think I am just relying on the Holy Family?
Then you are wrong, I rely on getting the problem solved every time!
Gao pragmatic had a plan in mind, but he was not in a hurry to take action. Instead, he remained silent for a while, patiently waiting for the "abolition of the grain chief" incident to continue to ferment.
By mid-August, things were in full swing. Coinciding with Halloween (Zhu Yijun's birthday), which is August 17, the emperor felt that there must be an explanation for this matter first, otherwise he would not be able to live a happy life, and he would just read various memorials every day and argue.
Some say that the system of grain chiefs has long been hopeless and must be abolished. Some say that it is the system of Taizu. It is advisable to take it slow.
The emperor read the memorials for half a month, most of which talked about this matter, and finally his head was as big as a bucket. Unable to wait for Gao Pragmatic's reaction, he also knew Gao Pragmatic was in trouble, but the matter could not be delayed any longer, so he had no choice but to personally send a letter to the Hubu Yamen, asking Gao Butang in a tactful tone what he thought of the recent situation. What are your views on the debate over whether the grain chief system should exist or not?
"If you have any suggestions, dear sir, don't ask anything else. Just come straight to the point. I will look into it carefully."
Gao Pingshi looked at the handwriting and found that it was actually an imperial handwriting. He couldn't help but smile and thought: The heat is enough.
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