Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1311 Raging Waves
The impact of the highly pragmatic "Taxers Take from the People and Use for the People" is huge. It is not dropping a pebble on a calm lake, but dropping an atomic bomb into the sea—it What was set off was definitely not mere ripples, but shocking turmoil and huge waves.

Since Emperor Taizu Gao, my Ming Dynasty has always been known for being light on labor and low on taxation, and caring about people's livelihood. Why don't you learn from the high-level and pragmatic people, but want to learn from the former Song Dynasty, which was tyrannical and fierce like a tiger?
How famous was the "tyranny" of the former Song Dynasty?When the Ming people mentioned it, it was often said that their miscellaneous taxes were ten times that of the Han Dynasty and five times that of the Tang Dynasty, so that "not raising children" was widely seen.

Lifters, support also.If you don't raise children, you are not willing to raise your own children.It may be too elegant to say it this way, so let's put it more bluntly: not raising a child is also called "not giving birth to a child", that is, not raising a child after giving birth, drowning or throwing the baby away.

The heavy tax burden in the Song Dynasty was one of the main reasons for the widespread infanticide phenomenon and customs.

It stands to reason that such phenomena as "not giving birth" generally only occur in a very small number of extremely poor families, or in times of dire straits caused by natural disasters and war turmoil.

However, in the Song Dynasty, which was "famous for its wealth", even in the absence of disasters and war turmoil, there was still a widespread phenomenon of "not raising children", and even evolved into a social custom-the custom of infanticide.

Su Shi said in "A Poem with Zhu Ezhou Books": Jinghu North Road, "Yue and Ejian field villains, for example, only raise two men and one woman, and kill them after this." He was demoted to Huangzhou, and he also saw "Huang For the poor people in Zhouzhou, the poor give birth to many children, and they are easy to kill in the basin when they are born" (from "Dongpo Zhilin").

Su Shi was not the only one who recorded these. Zhu Xi’s father, Zhu Song, also said in "Wei Zhai Ji·Quan Killing Ziwen" that in Wuyuan, Jiangxi, the people "stop having two more sons, but they don’t care about men and women, and throw them into a basin of water to kill them." Of."

However, if it is said that the custom of killing infants by drowning is the most prosperous, it is probably Fujian.Zhu Song was an official in Fujian, "I heard that people in Fujian don't like having many children, and killing them is common... Although there are laws, they can't win." Wang Dechen's "History of Stigma Customs" said that under normal circumstances, "People who have many children in Fujian, Up to the fourth child, the rate is not raised." "If a woman does not wait for the third child, she often gives birth and uses a vessel to store water. After giving birth, she drowns it. This is called Xier."

At that time, some literati and bureaucrats severely reprimanded this style, "the custom of not raising children in the southeast hurts human reason" ("Song History · Fan Rugui Biography"), and asked the court to strictly prohibit it.The government has indeed adopted various measures in an attempt to stop it, but the custom of not raising children has not improved. Not only has it been banned, but it has even become more severe in some places.

The records of similar situations are by no means sporadic, and there are too many to list. It can be seen that the tax burden of the Song Dynasty was so heavy that people could not even care about the road of human relations.In fact, not to mention the lack of moral norms, even severe punishments and harsh laws can no longer contain it.

When Zhu Yuanzhang founded the country, he focused on eliminating the tyranny of the former Song Dynasty, but Gao Wushi still took the Song Dynasty as an example and compared it without fear in his essays. Describe the current problem.

Since the "productivity" of the Song Dynasty was not as good as that of Daming, the richness of its real wealth was naturally not as good as that of Daming.However, even in areas where the practice of "not raising children" prevailed in the Song Dynasty, people still had "two sons and one daughter" before they started killing infants. What does this mean?
It means that although the heavy taxes and miscellaneous taxes are heavy, the three children can barely support them.

Then here comes the problem: the income of the Song Dynasty was nearly ten times that of the Ming Dynasty, and the tax burden was also ten times heavier than that of the Ming Dynasty, but even so, the poor family could still support three children.Then, by extension, wouldn’t Daming’s poor family be able to support thirty children?Is this still called poor?is this real?
The above inferences are definitely not true, let alone other things, just say that many people in the Ming Dynasty who seek to be eunuchs from the palace are all unlucky ones who fell from the sky?
Naturally not, most of them are landless peasants, they were already severely exploited, once some natural disasters and man-made disasters happened, they had no choice but to take this bad policy.

But there is still a slight difference here, that is, the people who could not survive in Daming were mainly peasants, plus some guards and military households.However, those who could not survive the Song Dynasty were almost irrespective of their occupational attributes. Except for a very small number of people such as court officials and royal relatives, anyone might not be able to survive.

Looking back, you will find that the merchants and craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty were at least in a much better situation than the peasants. Although their "theoretical social status" was worse than that of the peasants, they actually lived far better than the peasants.

Is this reasonable?Obviously unreasonable!
In this way, coupled with the "ten times theory" deliberately exaggerated by high pragmatism, anyone who calculates this account will feel that Daming's "light corvee and poor tax" does not seem to be of great help to farmers, but it is That's too much for artisans and merchants - they have almost no tax burden.

In this way, we don't have to levy taxes according to the former Song Dynasty, which was as tyrannical as a tiger. At least I will collect [-] (one-tenth) of the former Song Dynasty. Isn't this an exaggeration?
The miscellaneous taxes in the former Song Dynasty added up to 7000 million guan, even if only 700 of them were collected, that would still be [-] million guan!
Well, even if we don't have as many tax types as in the previous Song Dynasty, we can just discount it in half, but that's still 350 million guan!
(Note: The two dynasties have always been equal to one tael of silver, but the purchasing power of one tael of silver was not equal in the Song Dynasty and in the Ming Dynasty, and even there were considerable discrepancies in different periods of the Ming Dynasty [refer to Wanli Accounting Records]. It’s just that this is too complicated. If I want to write it like this, it will probably be written as financial history, which is unnecessary.)
What would it mean if the Ming court forcibly increased its annual revenue by 350 million taels of silver?It almost means that even the matter of lifting the feudal ban can be ignored for the time being!Now that the ban on opening the feudal clan cannot be stopped suddenly, it means...

Officials who had little to do with the "possible increase in commercial tax" suddenly became excited, while officials who were likely to be affected by the increase in commercial tax became outraged.

Even though Gao Wu specifically pointed out the issue of the imperial court’s spending in "Qiyong Shu", saying that supervision should be strengthened, but officials know that no matter how much you strengthen supervision, it is great that you are not greedy for ink.But at least, the richer the court, the more powerful the officials who control the money, which is always an irrefutable truth.

What's more, once the imperial court has money, at least it won't give us money or owe us money, right?Maybe you can add some "perks" too!

Ever since, some officials who were "not afraid to pay business tax" began to support high pragmatism, while other officials who were "afraid to pay business tax" began to strongly oppose high pragmatism.

Of course, there are always people who are right and wrong in the world, not only in the later generations of keyboard warriors, but also in the Ming court.As a result, some officials appealed, some said that the implementation of commercial tax has "mixed advantages and disadvantages", some said that this matter "success or failure is unpredictable", some said that "this is a big matter, so it is better to delay", and some said "it still needs to be detailed." Study carefully, and then make calculations."

All in all, it's not about making mud, or doing Tai Chi.

However, these reasonable nonsense can't become the mainstream. At the moment when the School of Reality and the School of Mind are fighting each other, only the attitude of officials from these two schools is the most important.

There are two styles of inscriptions from the Pragmatic School. Although Gao Pragmatism puts on a high arch, it seems that they both support Gao Pragmatism, but there are still differences.

One of them is the die-hard supporters of Gao Pragmatism. These people fully agree with Gao Pragmatism’s opinions, and they almost wish for tomorrow—no, they wish they could start to fully collect commercial taxes today, and immediately set up the "Audit Office" and "Customs Office" ".

The other category is officials who originally disagreed or hesitated to do so. They just agreed against their will because they were highly pragmatic in the name of inheriting Gao Gong's behest. He is like a customer, and he said a few words to "ease the atmosphere", which probably means that we should carry out a pilot implementation first, or that we are old-fashioned in seeking the country, or we should not easily spread it out in a comprehensive way.

Even so, at least this time the overall performance of the Practical School is much more united than before, at least no one jumped out to express their opposition.

But the Heart School side is different, their performance is more united - all strong opposition.The intensity of his diction is close to swearing, and there are many people who compare Gao Yushi to Sang Hongyang, Cai Jing and other traitors in the prose.

In this way, Gao Wushi set a record for himself: he was "impeached by the Manchu court" on the fourth day of taking office.

If it was just impeachment as a means of administration, Gao Pragmatism can ignore it for the time being and wait for the emperor to express his position first.But now he is being called a traitor, according to the habits of Ming officials, he can only stay behind closed doors, refusing to come out and see things.

Shen Shixing is the highest official who clearly opposes Gao Yushi's "Qiyongshu", but as the chief assistant, he is very particular about the words used in the inscriptions and essays, and he will never exaggerate and call Gao Yushi a "traitor". The flaws in the high-level pragmatic essay.

Shen Yuanfu felt that the biggest flaw in the high-level practical essays was the new financial system he formulated because of the need to collect commercial taxes.

First of all, if these systems are to be realized, more officials must be added.For example, Gao Pragmatically said, "Entries and withdrawals cannot be done by one person; storage and withdrawal cannot be handled by one person."

This means that everyone in the country who manages accounts must be set up as a "left and right chief official system", in which the left chief official manages the accounts, and the right chief official checks the accounts.Not to mention whether this will cause hostility between the left and right chief officials, cause discord or even internal fighting, the number of additional officials that the imperial court will send in this way is by no means a small number.

According to the idea of ​​"small government" that Ming people are accustomed to, you are artificially increasing redundant officials and increasing court expenditure.In other words, it is a disguised form that increases the burden on the people.

The same is true for those who manage accounts, and the same is true for those who are in charge of various warehouses.Moreover, Shen Shixing knew very well that there were already many "warehousing personnel" in the Ming Dynasty-because there were various warehouses built in various places, including grain, grass, military weapons, cloth, contributions, guards of honor, etc., and so on.

In this way, the warehouse management staff will also need to be doubled. How much financial waste will this cause?
Not to mention whether the highly pragmatic strengthening of supervision can put an end to ink corruption is a matter of chance.

Shen Shixing, who is well versed in the way of officialdom, is too aware of the tricks in it, let alone say that your right chief officer can supervise the left chief officer, but if the two chief officials conspire to share the spoils together, how can you manage?
Oh, you said you still have the Audit Office?Okay, let me ask you, how big is your Audit Office required to supervise such a huge number of accounts, warehouses and other institutions in the world?I just give you a Metropolitan Procuratorate, I'm afraid you can't manage it!

When Shen Shixing’s memorabilia was written here, it began to lead to the "orthodox-level argument" of their mind school: governing officials still depends on enlightenment, and can't just rely on these "increasing manpower for no reason", only everyone is a gentleman, with outstanding morals , self-discipline is strict, and only in this way can the government be clear and clear, and can it be true that the corvee is light and the tax is light, and the people live in peace.

After Shen Shixing's memorial was submitted to the Supervisor of Rites, he saw the impeachment of Gao Yushi by the officials.This was unbearable, and he realized that something might be wrong.

Similar to him, the impeachment of "discussing the matter as it stands" is nothing more than the impeachment. The key is that the impeachment is mixed with a lot of impeachment of high-practice "treacherous", "legacy" and even "slandering the monarch".

Among them, the thing that shocked Shen Shixing the most was the impeachment of Gao Pragmatic for "slandering the emperor".

Slander the king?Why did Gao Yushi slander the king?

Indeed, these memorials all seized on a passage in Gao Yushi's "Qiyongshu" and began to criticize:

"It may be said: In ancient times, there was Tang Chang, and there was also Jie and Zhou. My majesty is a godly scholar, how can he know that all future generations will be virtuous and virtuous? If there is one or two unworthy things, there is still a limit to the poor taxation. Isn't heavy taxation the abuse of the people?"

Some people say: In ancient times, there were such wise rulers as Shang Tang and Zhou Wen (Ji Chang), as well as tyrants such as Xia Jie and Shang Zhou.Although my majesty is extremely wise and mighty, how do I know that all the descendants of the majesty are as perfect as the majesty?In case there are one or two unworthy descendants, if the system of our dynasty is light and thin, it will not have much impact, because there is still a limit to the money that the unworthy emperor can waste; Isn't the unworthy emperor squandering the blood and sweat of the people?That is abuse of the people!

From the perspective of writing, Gao Yushi's passage is a "question" because he has a "self-answer" behind him.From a logical point of view, there seems to be no problem, because this is a very normal assumption - who can guarantee that their family will never have unworthy descendants?
However, the problem is that it doesn't matter if you assume that someone's family may have unworthy descendants, but how can you assume that there will be unworthy descendants in the Tian family!

Why can't this be assumed?Because even if the Tian family really has an unworthy descendant, when this unworthy descendant becomes the emperor, he will still be your emperor, and if you say he is unworthy, he will still be "slandering the emperor"!
So the "slandering the emperor" here does not mean that he slandered the present, but the future emperor(s)!

Is this what you should and can do as a courtier?
As a result, many impeachments put the charge of high pragmatism in the first place, but the first assistant Shen Shixing was in a cold sweat.

broken……
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PS: There is something tonight, update in advance.

Another PS: I don’t know why, but the book reviews I replied to don’t seem to be displayed. Can I still be banned or deleted by the system in my own book review area?What the hell, this is all, my mobile phone is slow to type and reply, and it is swallowed...

(End of this chapter)