"The problem of salt administration in Huaihe and Huaihe is far more than just Huai'an. None of the three places can escape... However, I originally planned to report it later."
Gao Pragmatic's answer is not to refute. He does know that there are serious problems with the salt administration of the Huaihe River, or it should be said that he knows that the salt administration of the entire Ming Dynasty has major problems.
He did have some thoughts on salt policy reform, but he originally planned to deal with this matter after completely overwhelming the Xin School politically - otherwise it would most likely not be possible.
What he didn't understand now was why Wang Jiaping suddenly brought the topic to Yan Zheng. Shouldn't today's topic be about the emperor's dragon body and when the emperor's legitimate son would be crowned prince? These two things have nothing to do with the salt administration!
However, at this time, Wang Jiaping did not seem to notice that Gao Pragmatic did not want to talk about the salt policy issue now. Instead, he asked with great interest: "Rixin is good at managing finances and reforming the system better. The salt policy of the country has been suffering for a long time. For many years, It has been criticized by the world for a long time, and it often affects the country's major plans. Its restructuring has become a top priority. Since Rixin has outstanding insights, why not share it with me, so as to clear the air and see the sun."
When he asked this question, Gao Pragmatic became even more strange. The salt policy is indeed a major event, but as Wang Jiaping himself said, the salt policy of the Ming Dynasty has been suffering from long-standing shortcomings. Anyway, the problem has been delayed for a long time, and it is not less than a day or two! What are you trying to pursue now? Picture 160?
Gao Pragmatic's intuition is that there is something wrong here. Considering that Wang Jiaping suddenly mentioned Wu Chongli's impeachment of Zhao Zhigao's son Zhao Fengwei for corruption, it seems that Wang Jiaping intends to use my idea of salt policy reform to intensify the conflict between the pragmatic school and the heart school. meaning.
But the problem is that this is simply not necessary! The current conflict between the Practical School and the Heart School is already intense enough, so what need is there to add to the fire?
If not against a faction, then against an individual. Could it be that Wang Jiaping wants me to fight Zhao Zhigao? But what's the point of me doing this?
Although Zhao Zhigao is senior enough in the Xin School and has a high enough nominal status, his physical condition is very bad and his official position is not very public. Although he is currently the most senior official in the Xin School, he is relatively In comparison, his sense of presence is not as good as Shen Yiguan, who ranks behind him.
Shen Yiguan is not only a sinister person and well versed in political intrigue, but judging from his historical performance, he may be defined as the biggest black hand that pushed the party struggle to the high c in the late Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, even if I, being highly pragmatic, want to launch a targeted crackdown on the Heart School, it should be directed at Shen Yiguan. As for the issue of Zhao Zhigao, I can leave it alone for now.
Come and try it quickly. 】
Anyway, the best Zhao Zhigao can do in matters like party struggle is to play along and do some icing on the cake. It is unlikely that he will become a mainstay or do some business to help the Xin School in times of need.
To put it simply, this person is not a big threat. Not to mention that he cannot be the main t, nor is he capable of being the main c. He can only play support, and even the kind of support that may be disconnected at any time. To be honest, unless this kind of opponent jumps in front of him with residual health and can be dealt with with just one strike, Gao Pragmatic will not pay attention to him at all.
However, the current doubt is that not only Gao Zhigao understands Zhao Zhigao's situation, but Wang Jiaping also understands it. So why does Wang Jiaping suddenly have the intention to direct Gao Zhigao's firepower towards Zhao Zhigao? Although Wang Jiaping and Zhao Zhigao were not members of the same faction, they had been colleagues in the Hanlin Academy for many years, so there was no need to do this.
What's more, Wang Jiaping will retire soon. At this time, there is no need to offend a cabinet minister who doesn't seem to be bowing down yet.
There was no answer to this question for a while, so Gao Pragmatic could only perfunctoryly say: "Since Longwan, especially since Wanli, there are always people who say that the successive new policies of the country are an attempt to change the ancestral system. Pragmatic has long been aware of this. The argument is that this is the original intention of "respecting the ancestors, but not necessarily implementing the old system of the ancestors".
Heaven and earth do not change from time to time, and so do the affairs of the country and the people. Therefore, politicians should follow the trend and adjust major policies at any time in order to adapt to the current situation and lead all people towards well-being.
The system established by our ancestors at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China was certainly in line with the current situation at that time. However, two hundred years later, the current situation is very different from that of the time. The originally excellent system may not still be applicable today. Moreover, the system has been in use for a long time, and it is inevitable that it will have accumulated disadvantages. If you want to reverse the disadvantages, such as scraping bones to cure poison, it will inevitably cause temporary pain.
However, the most important thing in governing a country is to be cautious. How big the impact of this pain will be and how deep the pain will be. Those in charge must be careful and not overly concerned. Pi Rixiu wrote in a poem: "This river died in the Sui Dynasty, and it still relies on Tongbo for thousands of miles." If there was no water palace dragon boat incident, Gong Yu would not have much merit. 'I think there are lines in this poem that can be changed.
"Today's Thousand Miles Lai Tongbo" is of course "not much meritorious service" to Yu, but was the fall of the Sui Dynasty really due to the "Dragon Boat Incident in the Water Palace"? I'm afraid not necessarily. There was more than one reason for the death of the Sui Dynasty. The one related to the canal was that it was dug too fast. If the canal was dug slowly according to the original plan, how could it cause millions of casualties and shake the foundation of the country and the expectations of the people?
Since His Majesty ascended the throne, many new policies related to finance have indeed been introduced, but these new policies have clear steps. They are introduced one by one and implemented one by one. We always strive to benefit both the court and the people as soon as possible after the reform, so as to This reduces the discomfort caused by the pain of reform.
So according to this idea, when it comes to the specific issue of salt administration, we and other ministers must ask themselves one or two questions before acting:
Once the salt policy is reformed, whose interests will be affected? Are these interests legitimate and legitimate interests? If it is a legitimate interest, how will the court compensate it after it is touched by the reform? Does the court have the ability to compensate?
If it is not a reasonable and legitimate interest, then the court naturally does not have to compensate, but a large number of illegal interests have gathered together for a long time and will definitely form interest groups. If these interest groups oppose the reform through various means, and even dare to do some vicious things, then How should the court respond?
In addition, we naturally need to make detailed calculations first to understand the benefits that will be brought by the implementation of these reform measures. For example, can the imperial court solve the problem of military food supply in border areas? Will the national treasury be able to increase annual revenue as a result? Can some lawless people in the relevant yamen still take the opportunity to oppress good people? Will local people and even all people in the world no longer have to worry about salt?
In short, 'morality lies in good governance, and politics lies in supporting the people'. Politicians use thousands of methods and measures, but they must never forget their original intention: to nourish the people. As I said in "Take and Use Shu": It is taxed and is neither owned by the imperial court nor your Majesty. This money is taken from the people and used for the people. "
Gao Pragmatic said so much eloquently, but in fact the central idea was very unclear. Even if all the ministers were old foxes, they probably only heard some ideas that they were not sure about.
Removing some of the official clichés they consider, Gao's pragmatic subtext is probably that the salt policy reform he envisioned may involve a huge interest group, and this reform will definitely poach their flesh and bleed their blood, so it is necessary to Think about how to deal with these people's counterattack first, so you can't launch it or execute it immediately.
Of course, different people have different understandings after hearing these words. For example, Shen Yiguan is very wary, Zhao Zhigao is very nervous, Liang Menglong is very calm, Zhou Yong is very indifferent, and Wang Jiaping is... well, he seems to be very emotional. interest.
Shen has always been very vigilant, because he felt that Gao Pragmatic might use this salt policy reform to crack down on dissidents, which might implicate his former disciples and former officials of Mr. Shen Ge;
Zhao Zhigao was very nervous because he felt that Gao Pragmatic might have been eyeing his old Zhao family. After all, Wang Jiaping had just said that his son Zhao Fengwei had been impeached. Gao Jingshi also said just now that "none of the three places of Huai'an, Taizhou, and Tongzhou can escape", which means that Gao Jingshi also knows that there is a problem;
Liang Menglong was very depressed because his family had nothing to do with the salt industry and he was about to retire. No matter how big the matter was, it was none of his business. This is a matter of high pragmatism, and he has always been very confident in high pragmatism;
Zhou Yong was indifferent because his family had no salt-related industries or business. He had been in charge of military affairs and was regarded by the outside world as a highly pragmatic yes-man. Judging from his age, it seems that he, Mr. Zhou Ge, will not be involved in finances in the future.
Only Wang Jiaping's performance is unreasonable: he is also about to retire, and he has not seemed to pay special attention to finance in the past. Today, Zhao Fengwei suddenly jumped up and talked about the salt policy. What is his intention?
At this moment, even Gao Pragmatic had to doubt that Wang Jiaping would not start to reflect on the financial policy of the Ming Dynasty until he was old, right? Ah, this... what have you been doing for decades?
There is a problem with the Ming Dynasty's fiscal policy. Gao Pragmatic has been thinking about this for 20 or 30 years. If we look at it from a certain height, in addition to issues such as commercial taxation, sea opening, and vassal ban that have been discussed many times, there are mainly the following three issues:
One is not paying attention to technical means. Specifically, it includes specialized economic knowledge and legal systems. The establishment of a fixed tax system made many technical details irrelevant. A good tax system and local tax amounts should be flexible, but the quota system makes these disappear.
Second, there is a divergence between fiscal theory and practice. In the financial management of the Ming Dynasty, ideological bias, a rigid sense of responsibility, segmented scope of action, low official salaries, insufficient understanding of the actual situation, and insufficient public investment... all these reasons made the country unable to mobilize all the financial resources of the empire. The resources controlled are only a small part of it.
The low official tax rate in the Ming Dynasty caused the tax burden on the people to continue to rise. At the same time, the court failed to get the money, and all the money was seized by the bureaucrats and gentry in the middle. In turn, due to the low nominal tax rate in the Ming Dynasty, public investment was very small. In addition to maintaining a grand canal and repairing palaces, the court had almost no other public infrastructure.
In addition, the tight fiscal revenue has caused officials' salaries to be too low, so that officials are rampant in corruption and levy arbitrary taxes in addition to taxes. Zhu Yuanzhang adopted cruel policies to punish corruption, but still could not prevent the problem from occurring. He had to explain that corruption is not only an ethical and moral issue, but also has institutional reasons.
Third, the finances of the Ming Dynasty were obviously negative. The main concern of the imperial court was its own stability, so the Ming Dynasty's finances were never considered from the perspective of promoting economic and social development.
The financial systems of the Tang and Song Dynasties were actually more developed than those of the Ming Dynasty, so the economic capabilities of the Tang and Song Dynasties were much stronger than those of the Ming Dynasty. But the biggest revelation from the Tang and Song Dynasties to the Ming Dynasty was that too much local power would affect the stability of the central court. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty adopted a negative fiscal policy from the very beginning, making it impossible for local governments to have sufficient financial resources to fight against the central court.
However, while the Ming Dynasty solved the problem of the separatist tendency of the local courts through the weakness of local finances and the high centralization of power, it also caused the central court's own financial mobilization capabilities to be weak. Therefore, once it encountered a foreign invasion, it was easy for it to be unable to fight a war. And perished.
Just when Gao Pragmatic began to wonder whether Wang Jiaping was suddenly interested in studying the fundamental problems of the Ming Dynasty's financial system, Wang Jiaping personally broke his illusion.
After Wang Yuanfu praised Gao Pragmatic's "prudent governance" with a look of relief, he suddenly changed the topic and said: "I said that Rixin is good at managing money. It really hit the nail on the head... You just said that 'a large number of illegal interests gather together, there will definitely be Forming interest groups'. I completely agree with this statement, and I also know that this matter is now beginning to take shape."
Everyone was startled when they heard this, including Gao Pingshi. Everyone began to figure out the meaning of Wang Jiaping's words.
However, Wang Jiaping was still the Wang Jiaping who spoke directly. He did not keep the cabinet ministers waiting for a long time and said to himself: "Didn't I just say that Wu Chongli impeached Zhao Fengwei... He not only impeached Zhao Fengwei One person, but used this to discuss the complete corruption of the Lianghuai Salt Administration. Many distinguished ministers and officials from the Jiangnan generation had their hands involved in the Lianghuai Salt Administration.
Nowadays, there are many salt merchants in Huaiyang, big and small, and almost all of them who are named have someone secretly supporting or controlling them. "
Oh, you are talking about this... Everyone looked like they were suddenly enlightened.
This is indeed a big deal, but the problem is that everyone has known about it for a long time! This is nothing new. Didn't you just learn about this situation today?
Of course Wang Jiaping had known about it for a long time, but the focus of his discussion today was not on the matter itself. Wang Jiaping looked around at the crowd, hummed softly, and said: "More than a month ago, many local salt officials and salt merchants in Lianghuai Province acted as if they had received some decree, and started manipulating salt prices to make huge profits.
Then Wu Chongli discovered that these people had transferred a large amount of money collected through this operation to the capital through various methods. Colleagues, who can tell me that such a huge amount of money suddenly poured into the capital... What are these people going to do? "
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ps: I’m so busy that I even missed nucleic acid today and have to find another place to do it tomorrow.
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