This night, in addition to the three sitting dispatch Beijing material silver official documents, Zhu Pingan was arranged to draft more than ten other official documents, are to implement the spirit of tonight’s court discussion.
Because of the urgency of the matter, these official documents will be printed and sent out to all divisions first thing tomorrow morning, so it was only after working overtime until late at night that Zhu Pingan was able to drag his tired body across the cot in the low value hut.
This has been two consecutive nights of overtime, each time also work overtime to the early morning or so, Zhu Pingan tired of a finger do not want to move.
However, although sleepy and tired, but lying on the bed, Zhu Pingan can not sleep.
Although the night is already deep, but the low value of the hut is still like a steamer, hot and stuffy, it is estimated to rain soon, the value of the hut inside and outside the hot and stuffy.
Not only hot, but also noisy.
The value of the hut outside the Jiajing emperor opened up the rice paddies in the frogs wantonly “croak” call endlessly, the tree trunks of the cicadas also defied the “squeak” a never-ending, croaking and squeaking like a duet, one after another, cover your ears also does not help.
Why are there so many frogs and cicadas in the palace? Zhu Pingan was speechless as he lay on the bed, unable to fall asleep.
When it is not easy to fall asleep, Zhu Pingan was woken up by a nightmare, dreaming of a family because of the increase in the distribution of the capital material silver tax and the victim of the death of the family, before throwing the well, the hostess of the female voice cursed the issuance of paperwork of the official with a mournful curse.
A cold sweat.
It was too real.
Zhu Pingan now close your eyes, that scene are floating in front of your eyes, the hostess of the desperate and mournful eyes, such as the real thing.
Ai.
Zhu Pingan couldn’t help but get up and get out of bed, sat in front of the window in the dark, looked out of the window at the long night and launched himself into a daze.
At this point in time, Daming is already a huge ship in the sea that is in disrepair, and is already showing the tendency to capsize after a hundred years.
Now the outbreak of the treasury empty, is a financial crisis of a microcosm. The immediate cause of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty was not so much a peasant uprising as a financial crisis.
The financial crisis of the Ming Dynasty was like opening Pandora’s box.
Because of the financial crisis
This led to the fact that the Ming Dynasty did not have the financial resources to provide relief in times of natural disasters and famines, which led to the lack of credibility of the Ming Dynasty and led to the revolt of the Jinmin in order to survive;
That is why it led to the shortage of military pay, which led to insufficient weapons and equipment, recruitment and training, the decline in the combat effectiveness of the Ming army, and the successive failures in foreign wars and internal wars to quell rebellions, in addition to the non-payment of military pay, which also led to the mutiny and rebellion of many soldiers.
The financial crisis gave rise to refugees and mutinous soldiers, which led to a series of domestic uprisings and rebellions that grew stronger and stronger.
As a result of the financial crisis, the Ming army was not strong enough to fight against domestic rebellions and foreign invasions.
In this way, more than a hundred years of vicious circle, to the time of Chongzhen, the Ming this ship is full of holes in the ship, finally capsized.
Zhu Pingan at this time are difficult to imagine, now the world’s most developed and prosperous country – Daming will fall to the point of such a financial crisis.
A huge empire, it has more than one billion acres of arable land, has a population of nearly 300 million people, has a huge development of industry and commerce, and the emergence of the bud of capitalism, has accounted for more than 2/3 of the world’s industrial output.
However, its tax revenue was surprisingly unable to meet its administrative functioning, and arming hundreds of thousands of troops.
The invasion of tens of thousands of soldiers and horses of the Northern Hu I-Ta Khan left the northern border of this empire like a sieve, riddled with holes.
This is unbelievable.
Such tax revenue is so abnormal.
Is there something wrong with the tax system?
Yes, but not all.
You have to know that when the Ming Dynasty was first founded, it was the time of the great ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang, at that time, the Ming arable land is not as much as now, the population is not as much as now, the industry and commerce is not as developed as now, but at that time, the tax revenue is completely enough to meet the operation of this huge empire, whether it is a large-scale construction of land and buildings, or large-scale foreign wars, or disaster relief, it is more than enough.
Zhu Yuanzhang after the founding of the country, a number of northern expedition will be the Mongolian Yuan to fight the exile in Europe; his son, Zhu Di period, but also a succession of foreign troops, 500,000 troops five times the Northern Expedition against Mongolia, hundreds of thousands of troops repeatedly southern expedition to Vietnam, but also the construction of the Forbidden City, but also in the Wudangshan large-scale construction, as well as the history of the famous Zheng He seven to the Western Ocean, did not see any financial crisis.
You should know that the Ming Dynasty’s tax system, from the founding of the country to the present, basically nothing has changed.
Why the arable land increased, the population increased, the development of industry and commerce, but according to the tax system since the founding of the tax system can not meet the operation of the empire, resulting in a financial crisis?
Zhu Pingan from the modern era knows the root cause very clearly.
But, unfortunately not many people know this now the Ming people, of course, perhaps someone saw, but for various reasons, perhaps concerns, perhaps know the cause but no solution to know, did not say it.
Tonight to participate in the court either cabinet ministers, or ministries of ministers, but tonight the court several measures, are to treat the symptoms but not the root cause.
And some measures, such as sitting sent Beijing material silver, short-term is to treat the symptoms, but in the long run is not worth the loss.
Ming Dynasty is now the problem, one of the biggest problems is the serious land annexation.
Ming dynasty land annexation is too serious, although more and more arable land, but the land owner is less and less, the arable land of the Ming dynasty is more and more highly concentrated in the hands of a few people.
The royal family’s imperial estates got off to a bad start, Emperor Jiajing’s cousin Zhu Houzhao just succeeded to the throne, set up seven imperial estates, and later set up more than thirty imperial estates one after another, the number of imperial estates cultivated land far exceeded that of previous dynasties.
The royal family, bureaucrats and gentry were not far behind.
To be disrespectful, one’s own seat master, Xu Jie, is not very clear about how much land he has now, but Zhu Pingan knows that when Xu Jie was the chief minister, he occupied 240,000 acres of good land in his hometown of Su Song, with tens of thousands of tenant households; and the current chief minister, Yan Song, occupies arable land all over Jiangxi, Nanjing, Yangzhou, and other places, too numerous to count.
According to Zhu Pingan’s information in modern times, about half of the good land in the vicinity of the capital city of the Ming Dynasty belonged to the royal family, bureaucrats and the red gentry after the annexation of land.
The land was highly annexed to the royal family, bureaucrats and red gentry.
It is important to know that most of these lords of land annexation belonged to the privileged class of Daming, according to the tax system.
The royal family, princes, relatives, ministers enjoy the privilege of exemption from taxes and grain and poor service; officials are exempted from corvée service; the official to the official “back to his family, lifelong nothing to do with”; in addition to their own exemption from military service, the household preferential exemption of the two daughters.
In addition, the landless people became their tenants, and they were exempted from national service under their shade.
Therefore, more arable land, more population, but less tax.
The original tax system of the Ming Dynasty could not cope with these facts such as land annexation.
In the future, Zhang Juzheng’s change of law, a whip law, than the current tax system has improved a little, so that the Ming Dynasty has recovered some vitality, but it is also a small repair.
At least, a hundred years later, the Qing Dynasty’s “Apportionment of Din to Mu” is much more progressive than a whip law.
Of course, in addition to agricultural taxation, commercial taxation is also a lot of problems …….
But the problem is, he knows so much, but what is the use?
Zhu Pingan sat in front of the window, looking out of the dark window, silently the Spring and Autumn Zuo Qiu Ming’s “Zuo Zhuan .Cao Yu on the war” recited silently, so that Zhu Pingan emotion is not that “a drum, and then decline, three and exhaustion”, but Cao Yu on the fellow townspeople said that “meat-eaters despise, failed to far-flung”.
Do not want to sit under the stage to watch the play, want to go on stage to perform ……
Hey ……
Zhu Pingan shook his head and laughed bitterly, but also know that it is not realistic, this is not a novel, their own a small sixth-grade official, which has the qualifications to perform on stage.
However, Zhu Pingan looked out the window with a more and more determined gaze.
