Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 223 Unification
Zhu Yihai hunted tigers and swatted flies in Yanzhou, confiscated more than one million taels of silver, and confiscated more than [-] hectares of land from Qingtian, which can be described as brilliant results.

Even Liu Zongzhou and others chose to remain silent after reading the copied money, silver, fields, etc.

Originally, he wanted to persuade Zhu Yihai to be kind, but seeing so much money and food, how can he persuade him?They have been busy in Shaoxing for a few months, and they are stretched every day. They ask them for money and food everywhere, but they can't squeeze out more money and food even though they raise money in every possible way.

During the Northern Expedition of Jian Guo, the money and food were basically self-raised. They recruited soldiers and horses, settled the family silver, rewarded merit silver, equipment silver, and even pension silver.

For a Yanzhou Prefecture, a year's worth of land and silver is only a few hundred thousand and less than 20, but Jian Guo's tossing is like ten years' worth of money.Not to mention that if those lands are cleared, if an average of four or five taels of silver per mu, it can be sold for more than 100 million or 200 million, which is equivalent to ten years of taxes.

It can't be said that Jian Guo is an open robbery. After all, there are reasons and evidences. It is those people who embezzled, embezzled, defaulted on arrears, etc. They didn't cherish the opportunity given them.

After Jian Guo convened a meeting of ministers to inform the distribution method of the money, the cabinet ministers were very surprised and unwilling.Because Zhu Yihai wanted to use all the copied money directly as military expenses for the imperial camp.

They even want to sell the cleared fields to the soldiers of the imperial battalion, and give priority to the [-] soldiers from the Warrior Town stationed in Yanzhou.

After selling the silver, he had to tell the soldiers of the imperial camp to marry his wife.

All the elders who heard it felt sad, the imperial battalion is really the treasure of the supervisory country, but what about the battalions of other provinces and towns?Isn't Jingying gone?

Moreover, there is no shortage of money now, and the imperial court is also short of money. Shaoxing is here, so it is everywhere that asks for money and food.

"Silver must be used wisely!"

Zhu Yihai still said the same thing, now other provinces in other provinces, the cabinet proposes to build a palace in Shaoxing, this is not necessary, now is not the time to talk about ostentation.

"When the two capitals are recovered, will we still worry about not having a palace?"

"If you don't repair it, you don't need to repair a palace. The original sub-patrol yamen is good, and you can just use it. If you have money to pay the soldiers, building ordnance is the most important thing."

After Song Zhipu handed in his [-]th resignation letter and was still not approved, he was summoned by Zhu Yihai to talk about his heart for half the night, and finally dragged them together to fall asleep and fell asleep. Now he is full of energy and doesn't say anything Resignation, not to mention my low qualifications and lack of prestige.

It was useless for Zhu Yihai to persuade him. Instead, he told him that now is not the time to rank seniority. If you really rank seniority, you can't be the chief assistant, so I can't even be the supervisor.

It is history that chose us, so we have to face up to the difficulties, don’t care about what others say, be good to ourselves, let them shut up, the more they talk, the better we do.

Song Zhipu received strong support from Zhu Yihai, what else could he say, he could only bite the bullet and rush forward.

"The solitary and the princes also divide their work. The solitary master is in charge of the military and fighting, and is responsible for recruiting troops and buying horses, and directing the attack. It is not tiring for the people to lightly pay and pay less taxes. This time, it is very important to pay the people to the mu. This is the foundation of my great Ming ZTE. , if we don’t collect money and food, and don’t use Tartars to attack, we won’t be able to survive for three to five years.”

"All of this is for survival!"

"Only if we are alive, can we have the hope of defeating the Tartars and regaining the Central Plains, and then we can say that we will rejuvenate the Ming Dynasty and revitalize China, otherwise it will be a mirror image in the water."

"Make money, your only task now is to make money!"

But it can’t be done like it was in the Chongzhen period. It’s useless to rely on additional distribution. Although Liao’s salary is really not much to add nine per acre, it’s ten catties per acre, but the problem is that in the end it will be done. What is it like?
In fact, how much is the common people's Liao pay in the end?Ten catties?It was more than a hundred catties, and I was forced to leave my hometown and flee, so could this be ten catties of grain?
Now the problem is not about the tax increase, as long as the tax can be collected, even the tax amount for one whip in the Wanli era is enough.

Where there is not enough, we can make up for it with lijin, industrial and commercial tariffs, etc., and we can no longer stare at the common people for apportionment.

"If you can't figure it out, you can turn it over to Gu, and Gu will send the imperial army to help you execute it. Those who should be arrested, those who should be killed, and those who should be copied. It's time like this, and the money is buried in the In the cellar, waiting for the Tartars to come and sacrifice them?"

"It's this kind of time, and you still think about defaulting on money and food all day long, and just let the common people pay taxes. If the taxes are not enough, they will set up a name again, and the apportionment will continue. Doesn't this mean that the government will force the people to rebel?"

Wanli’s one whip method initially combined the names of many hard-working bankers and collected them together, which was convenient for the court and the people. In the end, it maintained the original tax amount, improved the convenience of collection, and reduced the cost of tax collection.The national measurement is also based on maintaining the original amount, and it is not to re-establish the real number of cleared land.

But Huang Zongxi and Zhu Yihai also chatted all night, chatting while sleeping. When talking about a whip method, he summed up the tax system of the past dynasties and said a very insightful sentence, that is, every major tax system reform in the past dynasties will combine many types of taxes , and there will be a short-term tax reduction effect, but soon, the taxes that are collected together will appear again under a different name.

As a result, tax on top of tax will increase the burden on the people.

For example, the Tang Dynasty’s Two-Tax Law replaced rent and mediocrity regulation. Its original intention was to merge various miscellaneous taxes and reduce the burden on the people. However, within 20 years after the implementation of the Two-Tax Law, various exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes that had been merged into the Two Taxes appeared again.

Wanli of the Ming Dynasty reformed the law by merging the old miscellaneous taxes into the land tax, canceling the old miscellaneous taxes and prohibiting the emergence of new miscellaneous taxes. However, in the Chongzhen Dynasty, various new miscellaneous taxes emerged one after another.

Now Zhu Yihai has to fix many new miscellaneous taxes that have appeared after the one-whip law, and spread them into the mu. On the surface, it looks good, but Huang Zongxi said that according to the historical law, it will definitely not take decades, and the tax will be divided into the mu. In addition to the final fixed land bank, there will definitely be many new taxes and so on.

For example, Zhu Yihai's new lijin was originally this kind of new tax.

Huang Zongxi's suggestion is to overthrow everything before and start over.

For example, the land tax is re-established, with one tax for twenty for official land and one tax for ten for private land.At the same time, industry and commerce are no longer restrained but regard the same as the basics, and reasonably collect industrial and commercial taxes, customs duties, salt taxes, etc. to supplement fiscal revenue.

The last thing is to live within our means, plan expenditures according to income, in order to achieve a balance of income and expenditure, and no longer always impose additional taxes on the people to harm the people.

This idea is insightful, but it is not entirely correct. For example, the change of land tax to the original color without silver is not all good. Although the tax levy of silver actually brought great hidden dangers to Ming Dynasty, especially after Wanli, the import of silver from the West was sharp. After the reduction, it caused a big problem.

However, if all land taxes are collected for grain, the collection cost will be greatly increased. It must be known that after the mid-Ming Dynasty, except for a few granaries that also collect natural grain, the land taxes in other places will be converted into silver, which reduces transportation and storage, etc. cost, and even in the process of collecting silver, it can reduce corruption and other situations than collecting grain.

The two had a deep conversation that night.

(End of this chapter)