prosperous age

Chapter 963 1052 First hearing about Taungoo

The reasons for the collapse of dynasties in the past dynasties really need to be analyzed one by one. In fact, the reasons are still very complicated. It can be said that they are different, but in fact they are similar.

They are all different. Naturally, at the end of the dynasty, a series of major events that can change the country often occur.

Although they are similar, they cannot avoid political corruption and social conflicts intensified by land annexation.

However, what shakes the foundation of the dynasty is often the emergence of large-scale peasant uprisings due to the intensification of social conflicts caused by land annexation.

Even a powerful country like the Tang Dynasty declined due to the An-Shi Rebellion. Although the An-Shi Rebellion severely weakened the rule of the Tang Dynasty, the dynasty still survived for more than a hundred years and actually had a chance to recover.

Moreover, after the Anshi Rebellion, it can be said that the political environment of the Tang Dynasty has changed drastically, and it is like a blank political paper on which to write as much as you like.

However, before the Anshi Rebellion, the political corruption and land annexation of the Tang Dynasty did not end because of this turmoil, but intensified.

Everyone thought that the Tang Dynasty died due to the separatist rule of vassal towns. Although this is true, it is also biased.

In fact, after the Anshi Rebellion was put down, the phenomenon of separatist regimes in Tang Dynasty has been greatly weakened. At least in the counter-insurgency war, most of the separatist forces that appeared before the war collapsed.

During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, he continued to expand his territory and launch wars abroad.

The Tang Dynasty had fierce battles with the Turks in the north, the Khitan in the northeast, the Tubo in the west, and the Nanzhao in the southwest.

In order to facilitate foreign operations, strengthen control of border areas, and prevent foreign enemy invasion, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty established nine military envoys and one economic envoy in the border areas. Military, administrative and financial affairs within their jurisdiction were all under their management. Underneath, he is completely like a prince.

Before the Anshi Rebellion broke out, their military strength was close to 50, of which An Lushan had 15 troops, which was far more than the 8 troops of the Central Forbidden Army.

In addition, the border defense army has experienced hundreds of battles, and its combat effectiveness is much higher than that of the Gyeonggi troops, gradually forming a pattern of "focusing on the inside and the outside".

In the early days of the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang army suffered repeated defeats and was unable to resist for a while.

But as the war progressed, under the leadership of generals such as Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi, the army's strength was greatly restored.

Moreover, in this process, the number of vassal towns continued to decrease, and a large number of troops were brought under the imperial court's banner, which also expanded the scope of the imperial court's direct management. No Jiedu envoys were able to compete with the Tang Dynasty.

However, political corruption played a huge role after the war. The Tang Dynasty failed to readjust in time and quickly returned to normal.

Officials continued to be greedy, and nobles continued to annex land. Finally, the Huang Chao Uprising completely shook the foundation of the Tang Dynasty's rule.

As for Zhu Wen's eventual destruction of the Tang Dynasty, it was just a matter of convenience. At that time, the Tang Dynasty had lost all its luck and there was no tomorrow at all.

Although the teenage Wanli Emperor still didn't understand some things, Wei Guangde told him that the consequences of official corruption and land annexation would mean that the court would lose its main source of tax revenue.

Without money, the court would have no army and could not stabilize its rule. It would only be a matter of time before the emperor stepped down.

In the past, the little emperor Zhu Yijun was still thinking about how to make money after he took charge.

I heard at Ciqing Palace today that it turns out that the money was cast by the imperial court, and the materials used to make the money were dug out of the mines.

As a result, a perfect economic cycle logic gradually took shape in the mind of the little emperor.

Control the mines to mine resistance, and then let the Ministry of Industry mint coins, and he will have money.

When the emperor has money, he can recruit a lot of troops to stabilize his rule, and then look for more mines, mint more money, and recruit more troops.

Zhu Yijun was thinking, how could Wei Guangde know.

Returning to the cabinet, he quickly drafted an edict, gave it to Zhang Juzheng to polish, and then went to the Supervisor of Ceremonies.

Feng Bao was still waiting at Ciqing Palace, but the news had already been sent back, so the Director of Ceremonies quickly approved the decision and then sent it to the Sixth Section until the decree was issued.

With Wei Guangde supervising from the side, this decree process went very quickly.

After all the procedures were completed, the eunuchs of the inner court took the imperial edict and went straight to the Ministry of Household Affairs to deliver the edict. After that, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of War and other six ministries had to go through it again, and then posted it outside the imperial city.

Wanping County and Daxing County will soon receive the decree, and then copy and post it everywhere to inform the people.

On the same day, the men and horses of the Jiucheng Army and Horses Division escorted the one million taels of silver that had been prepared by the Ministry of Revenue to the Baoyuan Bureau of the Ministry of Industry.

The entire Shidaren Hutong in Dongcheng, Beijing, is already lined with three posts per post and one post per five steps. One million taels of silver have been sent here, so the alert level is naturally raised to a very high level.

After Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, moved the capital to Beijing, he set up a new Baoyuan Bureau in Shidaren Hutong, Dongcheng, Beijing, which was affiliated to the Ministry of Industry and specialized in copper coin casting.

During the Hongwu Dynasty, Baoquan Bureau was established in various provinces, which also specialized in casting copper coins to meet the local circulation of copper coins.

However, Zhu Yuanzhang later wavered on the Ming Dynasty's monetary policy, because the Ming Dynasty's Baoquan bureaus were suspended many times.

It should be noted that Baoquan Bureau is not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Industry, but rather the Ministry of Household Affairs. After all, the Ministry of Household Affairs has multiple comprehensive functions such as the Ministry of Finance + Ministry of Civil Affairs + Ministry of Transportation + Ministry of Construction.

Specifically speaking from a functional point of view, it is in charge of the country's territory, fields, household registration, taxation, salary and finance, money making and other major matters of people's livelihood.

Of course, this includes Baoquan Bureau, which is responsible for minting money.

As a result, a slightly complicated coinage system was formed in the Ming Dynasty, namely the Baoyuan Bureau of the Ministry of Industry in the capital and the Baoquan Bureau of the Ministry of Household in various provinces.

The Ministry of Revenue established the Baoquan Bureau in the capital and took control of the minting power only during the Tianqi years.

Under the new minting system structure, the Baoyuan Bureau in each province will be placed under the control of the Ministry of Industry. They will still purchase copper materials from various places and cast copper coins. In the capital, the Baoyuan Bureau will be responsible for casting gold, silver and copper coins.

The main tasks of the Baoquan Bureau in each province are still to purchase copper materials and to cast copper coins needed for circulation in various places.

At this time, Master Shi's alley was already crowded with dozens of carriages and dozens of wheelbarrows.

How much is one million taels of silver?

According to the government's regulations for transporting silver in the early Ming Dynasty, if a special official suitcase was used, it would be easy to identify it with red paint all over.

Each box can only hold one thousand taels of silver, which is not much. One person can pick it up and carry it, so the box is not big.

Whether it is ten taels of silver ingots, fifty taels, or even one hundred taels of silver ingots, each box can only hold one thousand taels, which is also convenient for officials to count.

Each box has a seal after being sealed, and the name of the person who sealed the box will be written on it. When opening the box, if the quantity is wrong, it will be easy to trace.

In fact, in the nearly two hundred years of the Ming Dynasty, there was never a case where the number of silver boxes was wrong after being opened.

Are you kidding me? Whoever is involved in sealing the box has a name that can be traced. No matter how hungry you are, you won't dare to do anything about it. It's a sure thing to catch them.

A box can only hold a thousand taels of silver. The silver allocated by the Ministry of Revenue is one million taels, which is not just a thousand silver boxes.

On each of the dozens of unicycles, there are two boxes on each side, one on the left and one on the right, to maintain balance. There are also two boxes on top to hold down the boxes below to maintain stability.

That is to say, a thousand boxes were too much to be produced at once, and the carriages usually prepared by the warehouse were not enough, so a wheelbarrow was also used. As for the rest, they were naturally put on carriages and pulled over.

At this moment, the adults from the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Works were counting the cash boxes, and from time to time they would open a box for random checks.

It's not that they are serious about their work, they are just going through the motions. When handing over money from the Account Department, there must be a procedure for opening the box and checking the money.

"This is my first time giving money, and I have repeatedly given orders not to withhold money."

An official from the Ministry of Household Affairs whispered to the official from the Ministry of Works next to him.

"Who says it's not the case? In the past, when silver ingots were minted, some could be said to be of insufficient quality. In the future, they will all be minted into silver coins, which means just counting them. It's difficult to do anything small."

The official from the Ministry of Industry next to him whispered softly.

“Then you can add something else into it.”

As soon as the official from the Ministry of Household Affairs said it, the official from the Ministry of Works shook his head like a rattle.

"The neck is not as hard as a knife. This time is different. The weight and fineness of the silver treasures cast are often different, and all the officials involved were killed."

The people in the mint are all low-level officials, so it is actually very simple to kill them.

The two officials discussed it openly. After all, it was an unspoken rule of the imperial court that the money lost was not his own. It had to be returned to the small treasury of the Ministry of Revenue, and then distributed according to the official position.

Yes, the fundamental reason why there was serious official corruption in the Ming Dynasty was that everyone was benefiting from it, so naturally no one said anything.

At the local level, officials make money by raising miscellaneous taxes. For example, the governor or governor's additional payment usually adds one silver to the regular tax of one tael. Part of this silver falls into the hands of the governor or governor, and the rest The next one is distributed by the prefect and county magistrate.

As for the extra money allocated by a prefecture, it is distributed by the prefect and county magistrate. All of it will not fall into their own pockets, but will be shared by both rain and dew.

County magistrates are official officials of the imperial court. They do not collect taxes in person, but through subordinate staff. They only need to hand over what they deserve.

And subordinate officials can also be corrupted when collecting taxes. In the Ming Dynasty, as long as the tax revenue came from physical goods, the bulk of it was actually grain.

When the people handed over grain, the government used dendrobium to pack it. The people put the grain into the dendrobium, weighed it, and calculated their own share of the grain.

The grain piles should be installed in the shape of a pointed pile. Some of them will exceed the Dendrobium wall and some will exceed the Dendrobium wall.

Just when the people heaved a sigh of relief after handing over the public grain, the petty officials would usually kick the grain with lightning speed, and the grain beyond the wall of the grain would fall to the ground.

This is the Linjian kicking of dendrobium. The kicked-out part is the so-called loss in grain transportation, and this part becomes the legal income of the subordinate staff. The most critical part of this trick is the kicking of dendrobium.

Because subordinate officials, like military positions, are mostly hereditary, it is said that there are often secret skills passed down from family to family, such as kicking the tree.

In order to achieve this style of kicking, subordinates need to practice hard for a long time. The specific method is said to be to find a tree near their home, start by kicking the tree, and reach the highest state when the trunk does not move and the leaves fall one after another.

Subordinate officials are actually the collective name for people in the three classes and six houses in ancient times. "Three classes" refers to Zao class, Zhuang class and Kuai class. "Six houses" refers to officials, households, rituals, soldiers, punishments, etc. Gongliufang, they are the basic personnel composition of the yamen.

But when it comes to the central level, naturally it won't be so mean. You can't give local officials a kick in the face when they turn in grain.

As a result, the imperial court's allocation of silver from below became the main source of income for officials, that is, floating money.

Generally, when the imperial court allocates money, 10% or 20% will be deducted from the Treasury of the Ministry of Revenue to the corresponding yamen and then out of the capital.

Part of this money will be distributed as welfare to the officials in their respective yamen in the form of Bing Jing Tan Jing. It can be said that everyone can share this money, while the other part will be directly shared privately by the officials who handle it.

No matter how honest an official is, if he can refuse to share the lost money privately, can he still refuse the welfare money distributed in the yamen?

If you refuse, then don’t you even want silver for soap officials and silver for firewood?

Over time, there were no honest officials in Ming Dynasty's officialdom.

Wei Guangde did not intend to confront the officialdom and clean up the unspoken rules, but he still wanted to change some things that could be changed.

It is this coinage that he will vigorously promote from the beginning.

If we go by the behavior of these officials, the money that the court can earn on the books is not even enough for them to float away.

At that time, if the quality of the silver coins is not enough, then the silver coins of the Ming Dynasty will become a joke, and it will be said that the silver treasures of the Ming Dynasty are popular all over the world.

To make it worthless, people would just be greedy when the silver coins were issued, but in the casting process of silver coins, mistakes were absolutely not allowed. He didn't want to become a joke and go down in history.

To put it bluntly, Wei Guangde did not dare to challenge the entire civil servant group, but he also wanted to leave a financial path for the Ming Dynasty that could barely be maintained. Therefore, when the court began to mint silver coins, it must set an iron law. The court could have a stable income through minting power. income.

After the one million taels of silver were counted, the people from the Ministry of Revenue withdrew, and the people from the Ministry of Works also withdrew, leaving only the officers and soldiers of the Baoyuan Bureau and the Wucheng Soldiers and Horses Division guarding here.

After all, unlike the previous coins that used copper, this time they were all made of silver, and their value was much higher.

The changes in Mr. Shi's alley naturally spread throughout the capital very quickly, and the news that the imperial court began to mint silver coins spread rapidly among the people in the market.

At this time, Wei Guangde was also in the cabinet duty room and received the first intelligence about Myanmar from Liu Shouyou.

But in the eyes of Wei Guangde, the joy that was originally felt because the coin minting matter was settled was instantly hit the bottom.

Yes, it can be said that the situation in Myanmar has changed tremendously in recent decades, and the previous pattern is basically no longer visible.

The Ming Dynasty established six Xuanwei Departments in the extreme areas to the west and south of Yunnan, namely Mengyang Xuanwei Department, Mubang Xuanwei Department, Burma Xuanwei Department, Babai Xuanwei Department, and Che Xuanwei Department. The Division and the Lao Xuanwei Division have either been annexed by the new Toungoo dynasty, or are on the way to being annexed.

“This Toungoo dynasty annexed Mubang and Cheche, defeated Siam several times, and now the army is besieging Xuanwei Division in Laos.

If Laos is occupied by it, will Meng Yang be next? "

Wei Guangde said with a frown.

Liu Shouyou did not dare to answer. He was also shocked when he saw this information. Who would have thought that the Myanmar Xuanwei Department was so powerful. He had already controlled three of the six Xuanwei Departments entrusted by the imperial court, and he also controlled to Siam.

It can be said that most of the areas west and south of Yunnan have actually been occupied by the Toungoo Dynasty.

"Do those in Yunnan know about these things?"

Wei Guangde shouted angrily.

(End of this chapter)