The world of film and television starts from the flow of money

In the 25th year of Wanli, the ancient land of China was stumbling forward in the twilight. The ships of the Ming Empire still seemed huge and majestic, but they were riddled with holes and were gradually heading towards an unknown abyss in the wind and rain.

It is still cold in the Forbidden City in March.

Inside the Wenhua Hall, the incense ash in the bronze crane incense burner had accumulated to a thickness of about an inch, and the mountain of memorials on the imperial desk had gone unattended.

Since the 17th year of the Wanli reign, Emperor Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty has been living in the harem and has never summoned cabinet ministers. The once bustling court is now deserted, as if forgotten by the ruler of this empire.

Prime Minister Zhao Zhigao was already in his twilight years, with white hair and beard, and a haggard appearance. Every day, he would still tremble and come to the empty court room, mechanically copying the bills that were "retained in the court but not issued".

The so-called "keeping it in the palace and not sending it out" means that after the cabinet ministers put forward their opinions on various government affairs, they would write them down in the form of tickets and present them to the emperor. However, the emperor would neither approve them nor return them to the cabinet, allowing these documents related to the fate of the country to lie dormant in the palace.

Zhao Zhigao looked at the pile of memorials, feeling helpless and sad. He knew that the heart of this huge empire was gradually stagnating in a strange way.

The account book of Taicang warehouse showed that the annual income was 485 million taels of silver. However, the Liaodong army's salary had been in arrears for three years. Liaodong was an important line of defense for the Ming Dynasty against the nomadic peoples in the north. The soldiers held on in a difficult environment, but they were not paid the due salary. The soldiers' complaints became more and more, and the army's morale began to waver.

At the same time, soldiers in Yansui Town, Shaanxi Province, mutinied seven times due to lack of pay. Yansui Town is located in the frontier and has an important strategic location. The mutiny not only seriously affected the local stability, but also brought huge hidden dangers to the border defense of the Ming Dynasty. Every time a mutiny occurred, local officials were exhausted from dealing with it. They had to appease the soldiers' emotions, report the situation to their superiors, and request a solution to the military pay problem. However, these requests often fell on deaf ears.

Under the shadow of the power vacuum, Tian Yi, the eunuch in charge of the Imperial Household Department, took the opportunity to turn the power of approving documents into a tool to make money.

The imperial edict was originally the emperor's final decision on the cabinet's proposal. After the emperor's red pen was passed, it became a formal decree. But now, this crucial power was abused by Tian Yi.

Gu Xiancheng, a Langzhong in the Ministry of Personnel's Wenxuan Division, recorded in detail what happened in April of that year: the position of Shandong Provincial Governor was vacant, and the price of this position was 30,000 taels of silver; the lucrative position of Zhejiang Salt Transport Commissioner was purchased by the Huizhou merchant Wang for 50,000 taels of silver.

In Tian Yi's eyes, official positions were like commodities in the market, which could be clearly marked with prices and bought and sold at will. Even more outrageous, the Jinyiwei Beizhenfusi Imperial Prison also became a tool for him to make money. As long as two thousand taels of silver were paid, the prisoners could "die of illness" and get away.

The Imperial Prison was originally a place for imprisoning serious criminals and hearing important cases, but now it is full of corruption and darkness. Prisoners suffer in prison, while those who are rich and powerful can escape punishment through bribery. The stench of power spreads from the center to the local areas.

Shanxi Governor Lü Kun lamented in a private letter: "County officials are like mercenaries, and they can trade criminal charges and taxes."

At the local level, corruption among officials is rampant, judicial justice is wantonly trampled upon, and the people have no place to redress their grievances or complain about their sufferings.

The Yalu River was filled with smoke, and the flames of war had never really ended. Japan's Toyotomi Hideyoshi was ambitious and sent 140,000 troops to invade Korea again. As the suzerain of Korea, the Ming Dynasty had to restart the war to resist the Japanese and aid Korea in order to maintain its suzerain status.

Reports from the Military Affairs Department came in like snowflakes, and each one was shocking.

In the first month of the 25th year of the Wanli reign, the Ming army's vanguard, Cha Dashou's troops, encountered the Japanese army in Ulsan. Relying on advanced firearms, the Japanese army launched a fierce fire attack on the Ming army. Although Cha Dashou's troops fought bravely, they were outnumbered and lost 3,000 elite soldiers.

In June, 80 warships led by Chen Lin, the general of the navy, encountered a hurricane at sea and eventually sank to the bottom of the sea. This disaster not only caused the Ming army to lose a large number of warships, but also lost 100,000 shi of military food.

Military rations are the lifeline of the army. Such a huge loss dealt a heavy blow to the Ming army's logistical supplies.

This war, which lasted for five years, was like a bottomless pit and had drained the silver treasury of Taicang.

Yang Junmin, the Minister of Finance, reported with great concern that in the 58th year of the Wanli reign alone, military expenditures amounted to million taels of silver, accounting for % of the annual fiscal revenue. The huge military expenditure put the Ming Dynasty's finances in a difficult situation. In order to raise military pay, the court had to increase taxes, and the burden on the people became heavier and heavier.

The decay of the military system was even more frightening. Li Rusong, the general of Liaodong, was brave and good at fighting. He had made great achievements on the battlefield, but unfortunately he died in battle. After his death, his brother Li Rumei bribed the Ministry of War with 50,000 taels in order to obtain the position of general of Liaodong.

In the military system of the Ming Dynasty, the appointment and dismissal of officials should be based on the talents and military achievements of the generals, but now it is controlled by money. The Chu Wang Guard stationed in Wuchang had 12,000 soldiers recorded in the military register, but in reality there were only 3,000 old and weak soldiers. The empty salary was divided up by the Huguang Governor Zhi Keda and the eunuch Zhang Ye who guarded the garrison. In order to satisfy their own selfish desires, they did not hesitate to withhold the soldiers' military pay, resulting in the soldiers' hard life and low combat effectiveness.

In Shaanxi, in order to make up for the lack of military pay, Guyuan General Ma Gui allowed his soldiers to rob caravans, and even called it "borrowing pay from the people." With Ma Gui's connivance, the soldiers wantonly robbed the caravans of their property, and the people hated them to the core.

In April, thunder roared.

At this time, the tax collector Chen Feng was sitting in the Yellow Crane Tower feasting and enjoying himself. Chen Feng, the eunuch appointed by Emperor Wanli himself to take charge of the mining tax, implemented the tyranny of "taxing anyone who saw a mine, and taxing people if there was no mine" in the Huguang region.

The Jiangxia County Records of Disasters in the 25th Year of Wanli recorded Chen Feng's evil deeds in detail: his minions were rampant in the name of searching for minerals. They dug up the foundations of more than 400 houses, and many people's homes were destroyed in an instant, leaving them homeless. Those who dared to resist were killed, and as many as 67 people were forced to death.

In Xiangyang, Chen Feng's followers imposed a "mulberry and jujube tax" on the trees, regardless of whether the trees were bearing fruit or not. Wang Jiayin, a farmer in Zaoyang, could not stand such heavy taxes, so he gathered people to resist the tax. However, their resistance was brutally suppressed by the guards. Three hundred bodies were mercilessly thrown into the Han River, and the water of the Han River was dyed red with blood.

The Jiangnan region was not spared either.

In order to satisfy his greed, Suzhou weaving eunuch Sun Long raised the loom tax from three coins per piece to eight coins. This move made the loom owners overwhelmed and they stopped weaving in protest.

On June 16, Ge Cheng, a weaver, was filled with righteous indignation and led two thousand weavers in rebellion. They rushed into the tax office and burned it down. Sun Long was so frightened that he fled to the Hangzhou prefectural government office and saved his life.

In Songjiang Prefecture, retired Minister of Rites Dong Qichang used his power to expand his estate on a large scale, and the area of ​​his estate reached 40,000 acres.

The lease of tenant farmer Xu Nianzu's family clearly shows that in the 25th year of Wanli, he cultivated 20 mu of paddy field, but had to pay 18 dan of rice as rent, while the rice yield per mu that year was only 1 dan and 2 dou. The heavy rent made life extremely difficult for Xu Nianzu's family. They worked hard for a year, but most of the harvested grain had to be handed over to the landlord, and they could only barely make a living. This year, in addition to man-made disasters, there were also natural disasters.

The Yellow River suddenly burst its banks at Zhujiazhai in Kaifeng, flooding large tracts of farmland and villages. The torrential rain, which lasted for 40 days, triggered a great famine in the Central Plains.

Henan Governor Zeng Ruchun was extremely worried and reported to the court: "People in Guide Prefecture are eating each other, and people in Runing Prefecture are selling their wives and daughters to block the road."

In Runing Prefecture, the streets were full of people selling their wives and daughters. According to the annals of Chengcheng County in Shaanxi Province, more than 30,000 people starved to death in the county, but the county magistrate Zhang Douyao ignored the lives of the people and continued to collect "suppression funds". In the end, the hungry people could no longer bear it, and Wang Er led the crowd to beat Zhang Douyao to death in the county government office.

The refugees spread like a surging tide. In the Huguang Jingxiang mountainous area, 200,000 refugees from Henan and Shaanxi gathered together to form a "shelter dwelling".

In order to survive, they opened up mines and reclaimed wasteland, but this led to armed conflicts between the natives and the immigrants. The conflict between the local indigenous residents and the immigrants continued to intensify, and the two sides often clashed over limited resources.

The confessions of a group of refugees captured in Nanjing's Yingtian Prefecture showed that their leader was a deserter from Jizhen. Their members included blacksmiths who were forced into bankruptcy by mining taxes, military households whose land was seized by garrison officers, and even weavers who fled from Suzhou to resist taxes.

The prophecy of the Sun and Moon Sect, "The virtue of civility and martial arts will benefit the people; the wise king will be born and the sun and moon will shine again," spread rapidly along the canal. The leader of the sect, Ren Woxing, has developed more than 100,000 followers and secretly manufactured weapons and armor, preparing to launch an uprising.

The Sun and Moon Religion, with its mysterious doctrines and organizational form, attracted many people living in poverty. They felt hopeless about real life and placed their hopes on the birth of the Ming Wang described by the Sun and Moon Religion.

The divisions within the scholar-official class were equally severe.

Donglin Academy quietly emerged, and Gu Xiancheng loudly called out during his lectures: "The world's right and wrong should be heard by the world."

He advocated freedom of speech and opposed autocratic rule, believing that the affairs of the world should be judged by all people. When his student Li Sancai was the governor of Fengyang, he openly petitioned to abolish the mining tax. In the petition, he wrote: "Your Majesty loves pearls and jade, and the people also want to have enough food and clothing; Your Majesty loves his children and grandchildren, and the people also love their wives and children."

However, the leader of the Zhejiang Party, Shen Yikuan, manipulated the censors to withhold all the memorials opposing the mining tax. In order to protect the interests of himself and the Zhejiang Party, he did not hesitate to compete with the people for profits and suppress dissidents.

On the winter solstice, officials at the Beijing Imperial Astronomical Observatory nervously observed the celestial phenomena. They were horrified to find that after the solar eclipse, the stars were visible during the day.

In ancient astrology, this was seen as an ominous sign of "the yin is strong and the yang is weak, and the sacred artifact changes hands." This huge empire seemed to have been shrouded by an invisible shadow and was sliding step by step into the abyss.

The Imperial Household Department reported that the national horse administration had collapsed, with the number of war horses in stock being less than one-third of that during the Yongle period.

War horses were important strategic materials in ancient wars. The collapse of the horse policy meant that the military power of the Ming Dynasty would be severely weakened.

The Yuheng Qinglisi of the Ministry of Industry reported that the Zunhua Iron Works produced only 90,000 kilograms of iron per year, less than a quarter of the output during the Jiajing period.

Iron is an important raw material for manufacturing weapons and agricultural tools. The sharp decline in iron production not only affected the manufacturing of military equipment in the Ming Dynasty, but also had an adverse impact on agricultural production.

On the top of Snake Mountain in Wuchang, the glazed tiles of the Chu Palace are particularly dazzling under the bloody setting sun. The tenant farmer Liu Liu was brutally killed for resisting the oppression of the palace, and his body was hung on the boundary monument of the palace farm to warn other tenant farmers.

Liu Liu's wife was so grief-stricken that she jumped into the Yangtze River with her three children. Before jumping into the Yangtze River, she carved the words "Tian Hu Cannibalism" on the side of the boat.

At the same time, in the Forbidden City thousands of miles away, Emperor Wanli was leisurely playing with the newly tributed Burmese jade. He was immersed in his own enjoyment, completely unaware that the empire was already in crisis.

If everything went as usual, twelve years later, his grandson Emperor Chongzhen would hang himself in Jingshan, and the Ming Dynasty's rule would come to an end.

The 25th year of Wanli became an important turning point in the decline of the Ming Empire.

During this year, serious problems arose in all aspects of the Ming Dynasty, including politics, military, economy, society, and culture. These problems were intertwined, like a tight net that bound the Ming Dynasty tightly.

Although the Ming Dynasty still maintained a huge imperial structure on the surface, it was actually crumbling. The chaos in the 25th year of Wanli was like the bloody dusk before the collapse of the empire, foreshadowing the end of an era.

The court had huge expenses both inside and outside the court. The war in the north was tense and the military pay was huge. The renovation of the palace and the extravagant life of the royal family also made the treasury spend money like water. In order to fill this huge financial hole, an idea that seemed to be able to make money quickly came to the mind of Emperor Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty - sending eunuchs to serve as mining supervisors and tax collectors to collect mining taxes and commercial taxes from all over the country.

Soon, one decree after another was issued from the capital, and the appointed eunuchs rushed to various places like sharks smelling blood. Among them, Chen Zeng, Gao Huai and other eunuchs were the most conspicuous. Holding the imperial decree, they paraded through the city. Wherever they went, they acted recklessly in the name of the Son of Heaven.

In their eyes, taxation is nothing more than an excuse for plundering. The blood and sweat of the people and the wealth of the merchants are all objects that they can plunder at will.

Wuchang, an important city in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, became the target of exploitation by eunuchs because of its developed industry and commerce.

As soon as Chen Zeng arrived in Wuchang, he colluded with local officials and set up tax stations in various places in the city. Whether it was merchant ships transporting goods on the river or street vendors, they could not escape the fate of being taxed. As long as the goods moved a little, the tax collectors would rush over and forcibly demand taxes. If anyone dared to resist, they would be beaten and their goods would be confiscated.

Merchants suffered terribly. Many small shops closed down due to heavy taxes. The once bustling streets have now become deserted. The livelihoods of the people have also been greatly affected. Some people who make a living by selling their skills and doing small businesses have also lost their source of income...

(End of this chapter)