Wanli Xinming

When Zhang Siwei said the Eight Taxes and One, his heart was dripping with blood. Since the Great Reform, taking advantage of the prosperity of the world's industry and commerce and the rise of Zhang Siwei's status, the Shanxi Merchants Group, led by Wang Chonggu, has aggressively entered the industry and commerce, and won the large market share.

After seven or eight years of painstaking management, Shanxi merchants, like the traditional Huai merchants, Fujian merchants, Hui merchants, Qin merchants, Lu merchants, Su merchants, Jiangyou merchants and other large merchants, have newly promoted to the backbone of the world's industry and commerce. strength.

These big merchants originally came from traditional industries. For example, Huai merchants were mainly in the salt industry; Fujian merchants were mainly in shipping; Qin merchants were mainly in tea and horses; Hui merchants and Suzhou merchants were mainly in pawn and silk production and sales; The business gang is mainly in the hotel chain industry and so on.

As for Shanxi merchants, they made their fortunes from the "court" rice, and now they mainly focus on the financial industry and salt industry.The so-called imperial rice, in fact, carries the genes in the bones of Shanxi merchants - the most typical example of "Alta's tribute". The Shanxi merchant group earned the first pot of gold to become rich by monopolizing the transaction between Han and Mongolia.

After the Saihanba meeting, the imperial court fully opened up the trade between Han and Mongolia, and large merchants such as Qin merchants and Huai merchants also entered this market. Shanxi merchants suddenly fell from their monopoly position and suffered a lot of losses.Under the dispatch of Wang Chonggu, on the one hand, they consolidated their traditional positions, on the other hand, they aggressively entered the industry and commerce in the mainland, seized the sites of Huai merchants and Hui merchants, and developed a financial industry based on ticket numbers—now upgraded to the banking industry.

It should be pointed out that although these big business gangs are famous, compared with the industrial and commercial groups established by Zhu Yijun, they are like ants compared to elephants.Before the Great Reform, some business gangs, such as the Lushang, Fujian and Jiangyou merchants, took the initiative to rely on the royal family's industrial and commercial groups to provide them with raw materials and logistics services, and their scale was greatly expanded.

After the great reform, these merchants who had previously been attached to the royal family got the first month, and the technology and market they obtained were much better than those of Shanxi and Qin merchants. Therefore, the development of Shanxi merchants in recent years has not been as good as that of Alta's tribute period - Shanxi merchants Good at "keeping money", but lacking risk-taking genes, this is what Wang Chonggu and others have discovered long ago and will try their best to reverse it.

Despite the lack of risk-taking genes, Shanxi merchants have made great progress in the financial industry, mining industry, wood processing and transportation industry, salt industry and other directions in recent years.Especially after Zhang Siwei reached the top of the political affairs hall, the Shanxi merchant group grew rapidly like a snowball.

But now the emperor wants to change the tax system, Zhang Siwei is secretly complaining.This is bad news for any big business gang, especially Shanxi merchants.

Since Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, the industrial and commercial taxes levied are extremely low.Although the method of levy varies with the object of levy, ad valorem has always been adopted for all kinds of handicrafts, the tax rate is generally one-thirtieth, and the tax-free range is very wide. Clothes, agricultural implements, food and taxed items, vehicles and ships transporting their own items, as well as fish, vegetables, and miscellaneous fruits that are not sold in the market are exempt from tax.

However, for businessmen who are not members of the business gang, the so-called low tax rate is actually not low - the same as the tax on homesteaders.Before the Whip Law, the so-called "land fu" collected by the imperial court was extremely low, with an average of 4 liters per mu in the country in the early years of Wanli.What is this concept?According to the rice field, it is about [-]%; according to the wheat field, it is about [-]%.Compared with Japan's [-]/[-] ratio in the Warring States Period, it is pitifully low.

But these positive taxes plus Ding Fu, Junyao, Ligai, and miscellaneous—these are actually "positive taxes". The key is the corruption, inefficiency and layer-by-layer exploitation in the collection process. It has soared to one-third of the yield per mu, which is about ten times more than the so-called "regular tax on farmland".Therefore, in disaster years, large-scale mergers are inevitable.

The same is true for business taxes. As the imperial court became increasingly bloated and inefficient, governments at all levels with insufficient financial and taxation began to set up banknotes on a large scale to collect "ship fees" and "carriage and horse tax"; cities set up "door stall tax" and various types of taxes. "Miscellaneous factions" and "apportioned apportionments", the former is considered a local tax, while the latter "miscellaneous factions" and "apportioned apportionments" are close to the extortion of local officials, plus the exploitation of the tax collection link, and the same as the field tax, Daming's actual tax Business tax is not low.

Today, the actual tax rate for industry and commerce is about ten taxes and one, which is close to the "eight taxes and one" rate proposed by Zhu Yijun.But for Shanxi merchants and other big officials and businessmen, no one dares to accept miscellaneous and apportionment.They also only pay a small amount of money for banknotes and door-to-door taxes.Compared with small industrial and commercial people, the tax burden of these big business gangs is probably only about [-] tax or even lower.

Therefore, it is only natural for Zhang Siwei to feel deeply painful about the tax rate proposed by the emperor - this is equivalent to more than doubling the positive tax.

For Zhu Yijun, he was a tax worker before crossing the border. The tax policy of the Ming Dynasty was full of loopholes and there was no secret in his eyes.After all, that's what he does.

Zhu Yijun has been studying the tax issues of the Ming Dynasty since the time of crossing in the first year of Wanli.But it was not until the 14th year of Wanli that he took any action because he knew the fundamentals of fiscal and taxation policies: the first thing is to conserve tax sources.

Before the reform, the biggest source of taxation in the country, apart from agricultural taxes such as land and land, was the industrial and commercial consortium established by Zhu Yijun. At this time, it was meaningless to add industrial and commercial taxes, because the profits of this consortium were all used by him for R&D and training. Junhe has helped the court through various painful periods.

In the first few years after the reform, although various industrial and commercial enterprises had capital support, they could not increase taxes in the initial stage. What Zhu Yijun needed was their savage growth and job creation, thus promoting the transformation of the entire world.

Now that it has been six years since the Great Reform was fully implemented, Zhu Yijun needs to use the tax reform to put a new bridle on the hurricane's capital.Therefore, it is time for tax reform.

The world at this time is a mixture of capital and feudalism, and Zhu Yijun's judgment is a half-capital, half-feudal society.In major cities, industries and commerce with textiles, cement manufacturing, iron and steel smelting, mining, and primary chemicals as the mainstays have cultivated sizable markets; The architecture has hardly changed.

The socialized production of primary industrial products has completely destroyed the original handicraft industries in the cities, and the Zhangzhou Revolution is a typical example.Zhu Yijun, who has suppressed the crisis through various policies, understands that the new capital urgently needs to expand the market.

Whether the emperor is willing or not, the tentacles of capital will extend to the countryside, absorbing new labor and expanding the consumer market, but the self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy cannot provide these.Because this requires a substantial increase in the consumption level of farmers who are mainly self-cultivators.

When it comes to such a macroeconomic policy adjustment, the little division chiefs of later generations can't help but feel like walking on thin ice.But later generations of China have a ready-made experience that Zhu Yijun can directly copy - large-scale infrastructure construction.This kind of capital-directed flood irrigation policy of "one power to reduce ten associations" will quickly give birth to cities and immediately improve the living standards of farmers.

Infrastructure construction requires a huge amount of capital, but capital cannot be taken out of the initiative.This leads to Zhu Yijun's second motivation for tax reform - to increase tax revenue to provide funds for infrastructure construction.

The third motivation is to solve the problem of land annexation.Zhu Yijun put the tax reform and the "ration field" together, and what he wanted was the mutual promotion between the two.Because infrastructure construction requires not only money, but also land.The cost of building facilities without land foundation is extremely high. For details, see the California high-speed rail project - Zhu Yijun has learned.

The Second Wanli Reform, which was triggered by the confrontation between the monarchs and ministers in the Hall of Mental Cultivation, was initiated.The entire top-level design is extremely grand—Zhu Yijun intends to initiate a national discussion and gather public opinion widely.Zhang Siwei's study talk was just the end of Qingping.

A very necessary prerequisite for the realization of this top-level design is that the emperor has absolute control over the national economy.Before the Great Reform, there was no large-scale industrial and commercial complex in Daming, and control was not a problem, but there were no conditions for realizing this top-level design; after the Great Reform, a large number of new interest groups have been born - with a large number of remnants of feudal guilds. The business gang is a clear example.

Therefore, Zhu Yijun could not tolerate Heshengyuan, the Shanxi Merchants Bank, out of control.The confrontation with the Prime Minister was not his preoccupation with interests, but the fact that he did not allow the financial industry to escape the emperor's control.

The banking industry, which is close to the financial operation model of later generations, has been born with the help of Zhu Yijun's unravelling.Different from the self-exploration of financial capital without the guidance of travelers, Zhu Yijun first brought the financial industry into modernization in order to better serve the development of industry and commerce. It is closely related to economic development, and it is an industry that can be ripened in advance. This industry does not involve industrial production. The strict system and mature management will only make Zhu Yijun more comfortable in controlling the real economy.

The direct modernization of the financial industry has certainly made capital lack the necessary tempering, but Zhu Yijun's original intention was not to make capital stronger and invincible in the struggle between capital and feudal production relations. He needed to use the largest financial capital to control the country, not the other way around. Controlled by capital - Zhu Yijun, a traveler at this time, has left the unilaterally transparent map and entered a new fog of history with the whole world.