After the court meeting, Zhu Jianshen returned to Qianqing Palace.
He was sitting in front of the imperial cabinet, holding in his hand a book compiled by the Ministry of Household Affairs.
It records in detail the tax revenue from Jiangnan's new tax system in previous years, which is getting less and less every year.
After Zhu Jianshen read it, he put it down, frowned, and whispered: "I hope these people can seize the last chance, otherwise..."
Looking at the Ming Dynasty at this time from the perspective of the future, Zhu Jianshen clearly understood that the significance of the new tax system to the Ming Dynasty was much greater than the significance of overseas expeditions and the expansion of territory.
The new tax system now implemented by Zhu Jianshen is actually an abolition of the poll tax, which transfers the country's financial pressure from the heads of ordinary people to the rich.
This is the path that must be taken.
In later generations, some people often said that the wealth of society was in the hands of 20% of the people, but in the Ming Dynasty, this situation was actually even worse.
There is never a shortage of wealth in society, it just doesn't flow to the people who need it.
Why did the Ming Dynasty die?
It’s not that the Jurchens are too strong, it’s not that the intruder is too fierce, it’s not that the Ice Age is too cold…
The intuitive reason is that the Ming Dynasty had a huge financial problem and there was no money.
On the one hand, it is because of the problem of clans and vassalage. There are too many people who are freeloaders. If the hundreds of thousands of freeloader clans are replaced by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, then history is destined to be rewritten.
On the other hand, Zhang Juzheng tried hard to reform the tax system but was completely rejected by problematic students.
Zhu Jianshen was very lucky that he was Zhu Jianshen.
If it were Chongzhen who became the Carpenter Emperor, his difficulty would suddenly change from Novice Village to Hell Mode.
This period was the middle period of the Ming Dynasty. The imperial power was still strong. The credibility of the country and the majesty of the royal family could be demonstrated without resorting to the power of eunuchs.
In history, Emperor Chongzhen did not even think about reaching out to the gentry and families in the countryside for money until his death. Instead, he added three major taxes and three major rates to the people, namely Liao rates, suppression rates and Lian rates. This was a faint flag move. As a result, more and more rogue bandits in the country were suppressed, and eventually they became trapped in a cocoon.
Of course, at his time, the court's credibility and prestige had reached the lowest point in history. It was extremely difficult for him to take action against the gentry and gentry.
At that time, Zhu Youjian had only one choice, and that was to choose to be an invisible person, a qualified hands-off shopkeeper, reuse a capable and capable eunuch, and use him as his front man, and there were some opportunities to save the situation.
The elder brother of Emperor Chongzhen, the Carpenter Emperor, did a great job. His front man, 9900-year-old Wei Zhongxian, became a leader among eunuchs and the top eunuch in Chinese history.
But in the Ming Dynasty with Wei Zhongxian, the civil servants complained and blamed the emperor. However, there was military pay in Liaodong, there was little internal rebellion, there were generals outside, and ministers inside. Although the Ming Dynasty was on the decline, it was still far from being destroyed.
Compared with his elder brother, Zhu Youjian was a very outstanding monarch with a strong desire for power. However, after he took control of the Ming Dynasty, he took a completely different path from his elder brother Zhu Youxiao. Seventeen years later, he conquered the Ming Dynasty. Pushed to destruction, leaving only one sentence
Of course, Zhu Youjian does not bear the main responsibility, and his death in Wanli is by no means an empty talk... The main reason is to completely deny Zhang Juzheng's reforms and go back.
History is a circle, and land annexation is also an unavoidable topic.
Whoever can curb land annexation and rationally distribute social wealth can escape the three-hundred-year cycle.
The new tax system that Zhu Jianshen is working on is to curb the progress of land annexation... He just wants to escape the vicious cycle of three hundred years of history...
If the Ming army is not satisfied with its pay, it will be invincible if it is fully paid...
This may be a bit exaggerated, but if you think about it carefully, it is just like that. Soldiers need to eat food. However, in the late Ming Dynasty, you could not eat food, you could not feed your family, and there was no comprehensive policy to support the soldiers' posthumous affairs.
In this case, who dares to die, who dares to charge forward...
If you die, it means that your whole family will also reach the end, which will make the Ming army's fighting will weak...
The Ming army was not weak, only its finances and a series of subsequent pension policies were weak.
Deeply influenced by Confucianism and the five thousand years of Chinese history, many people do not live for themselves...
Either for parents, or for wife and children...
There is nothing wrong with this. You must have goals and beliefs in life. If you regard your parents and family as your own beliefs, they are definitely more real than illusory gods...
These people are the root of their hearts.
Because of this, Zhu Jianshen would adopt high-level pensions for the fallen soldiers...
It is telling the soldiers that as long as you die on the battlefield with meritorious service, your family will live a better life than when you were alive.
But all of this requires money and a healthy financial system to support it...
The new tax system must be promoted and must be sustained.
So far, rulers have exposed their cruelest side to the most ordinary people, instead of bravely attacking the strong.
With two thousand years of poll tax, the birth of a child meant that a family immediately had to pay the tax.
This curbed population growth.
Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when the well-field system collapsed and private land ownership emerged, farmers and common people had to bear four types of taxes: land tax, head tax, miscellaneous taxes and corvee.
For a long time, the most unchanged thing is the poll tax.
For example, in the early Western Han Dynasty, the oral tax was 120 qian, so a family of five would need to pay 600 qian per year. The price of grain during the Qin and Han Dynasties was 30 shi per shi, so a family needed to hand over 20 shi of grain every year.
This tax payment point is very high.
According to records such as "Book of Han, Shi Huo Zhi", during the Qin and Han Dynasties, "a harvest from a hundred acres was no more than a hundred stones" and "a family of five occupies a hundred acres of land", which is equivalent to one-fifth of the total grain output. .
This was still in the early Han Dynasty when taxes were low and taxes were low. In the middle and late Han Dynasty, the poll tax increased further, which further increased the pressure on the people. Therefore, many people were unwilling to farm and joined the wandering ranks.
Then a turning point in history occurred in the late Tang Dynasty. Due to the separatist rule of vassal towns, years of war, and instability in the government, farmers fled in large numbers, the land equalization system collapsed, and land annexation was serious. The traditional tax system could no longer continue, so the first two The tax code was also born.
The two-tax law combines all taxes and levies them into two periods, summer and autumn.
The Two-Tax Law reduces the amount of capitation tax and mainly emphasizes "taxation per mu", but it is not thorough enough.
Zhang Juzheng's implementation of the "One Whip Method" can be regarded as a partial realization of "dividing a small person into an entire acres"...
As a farming civilization in the traditional sense, even if Zhu Jian deeply thought about taking him on the road of plundering, the tradition could not be changed without a hundred years of precipitation.
Landlords and bureaucrats in the Ming Dynasty had the privilege of tax exemption and exemption. Now Zhu Jianshen must abolish these privileges to reduce the pressure on the people and lay the foundation for a population explosion...
Only when there are more people can we take root all over the world, and only in this way can we achieve Zhu Jianshen's grand goal of colonizing the world...
Biquge
