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Chapter 23 Mining Tax
On February 26th, Emperor Wanli fell ill, and I heard he was quite serious. No one except the queen knew the details.The next day, the emperor suddenly summoned the cabinet uncharacteristically. He told several academicians to assist the prince face to face. He also issued an order to abolish the mining tax, stop the construction of the two palaces, and grant amnesty to the whole world, which was somewhat of a plan for the funeral.

Just when the palace and the court were waiting for the upcoming major changes, the emperor's illness suddenly recovered the next day, and he sent his ministers to ask for the imperial edict from the cabinet, intending to go back on it.

At this time, if Shen Guanyin insists that the imperial edict has been issued and there is no time to recover it, the ministers will have nothing to do even if they smash their heads.But he didn't know why, but he actually handed the imperial edict back.

Now the courtiers gave up. No matter which faction they belonged to, they all turned their guns and started firing at Shen Yigui.Even Tian Yi, the chief eunuch of the Li Supervisor, complained privately that Shen had always been soft-headed. If he could support him again, the mining tax that had been criticized by the courtiers might be abolished. It was a pity that the success was in vain.

This incident spread to Jiangxi, and more than [-] porcelain workers in Jingdezhen rioted, smashing the porcelain factory, burning the tax office, and killing the tax supervisor.For a time, the government and the public were shouting curses, and no one could care about the dejected prince who was huddled in the East Palace playing with things.

Hong Tao still understands why the mining tax has caused such a stir.Having lived in the palace for nearly 20 years, he would study various policies of this era whenever he had the opportunity.Then from God's perspective, draw your own conclusions through vertical and horizontal comparisons.

Talking about mining tax is an old tune, which almost ran through the entire Ming Dynasty, on and off, and became a never-ending topic of debate between the emperor and his courtiers.

When the Ming Dynasty was first established, there was a lot of waste waiting for improvement. Zhu Yuanzhang was busy consolidating his rule and was not enthusiastic about mining.Even if there are some mining industries, they are basically state-owned enterprises led by the imperial court, and their output is very low and almost negligible.

During the Ming Dynasty, the political power became more stable, the private economy recovered, and the mining industry naturally developed. Mining taxes have increased more than ten times, and the emperor could not ignore it no matter how blind he was.

After the mid-Ming Dynasty, the imperial court became larger and larger, with more officials and vassal kings. From time to time, foreign wars had to be fought, and financial expenditures increased accordingly.

But the Ming Dynasty was a society that focused on agriculture and suppressed commerce. Land policy aside, even if not a single acre was annexed, it was obviously unreliable to suddenly increase output through farming, and it would be difficult to significantly increase the overall amount of farming.

Scholars, farmers, industry and commerce, first of all, the scholar class is a manager, which can only improve efficiency but has no direct output.Although many scholars were relatively wealthy, if the emperor did not want to become a loner, he would not be able to ask for money from the scholars on a large scale.

The farmers who follow closely behind are farmers and the main body of society.The taxes imposed on them are no longer too light. Coupled with the issue of land annexation, continuing to increase taxes is tantamount to digging one's own grave.

Then looking at the lowest level of business, the Ming Dynasty set the tone from the beginning, emphasizing the roots and suppressing the bottom, and not encouraging business.Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that farmers could wear silk, gauze, silk, and cloth, while merchants could only wear silk and cloth.

He felt that businessmen were untrustworthy and extremely restless. Having too much money would easily lead to random thoughts, which artificially lowered the social status of businessmen and made people unwilling to do business.Although there was some relaxation in the middle and later periods, the mindset formed over hundreds of years has not essentially changed.

In a society that discourages business, the vast majority of people will definitely not be willing to do business if they have other options. Even if they are forced to do so, they will not have much enthusiasm. It is nothing more than a springboard to find opportunities to escape from the merchant class.

Take the income from customs bills the year before last as an example. The total amount was more than 40 taels, accounting for less than 10% of Taicang's income.In the Northern Song Dynasty, the proportion of commercial tax revenue in Taicang was about 50%, and in the Southern Song Dynasty, it was as high as more than 70%.

The agricultural tax rate in the Song Dynasty was even higher than that in the Ming Dynasty. If the agricultural tax rate in the Ming Dynasty were collected, the proportion of commercial taxes in the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty would be close to 90%.

In fact, there is no need to calculate so many proportions, let alone think about whether to encourage commerce. Just look at how the household registration system of the Ming Dynasty stipulated why commerce was underdeveloped.

A regulation that prohibits people from moving around at will and requires a letter of introduction when going out can kill 90% of private commerce in the cradle.The rest are all businesses dominated by the royal family and official groups, such as salt, iron, tea and grain.

These industries are more like the state-owned enterprises of later generations than businesses. They are not only inefficient and wasteful, but also monopolize the market, further suppressing the development of private business.

Obviously, under such circumstances, trying to quickly increase business taxes in a short period of time is as unreliable as immediately increasing the output of each acre of land by three times compared with last year.Unless they were fooled by the trick of putting ten thousand jin per mu on satellites, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was obviously not so ruthless and wicked, and really wanted to torture the peasants to death.Well, now there is no extra money for scholars, farmers, or businessmen to squeeze out, and only one worker is left.The life of the craftsmen who took turns serving the imperial court was not a good one, and obviously they could not make much money.However, there is an exception in industry, mining, especially precious metal mines.

No matter gold, silver or copper, as long as it is dug out, it will be money.The imperial court discouraged mining, mainly because it was afraid of causing social unrest.Mines are usually located in the wilderness, and it is difficult to manage a group of young people.

Zhu Yuanzhang made his fortune by gathering people to rebel. He knew how dangerous it would be if such people gathered in large numbers, so he would rather give up his mining income than hide hidden dangers in the country.

But the emperor's unwillingness to mine does not mean that no one cares about the real money thrown there.The powerful people from all over the world, including officials, are not fools. There is no reason to enter the treasure mountain empty-handed.So they colluded to take advantage of policy loopholes to sell licenses in disguise, and then received a large kickback or simply participated in the business.

Under human manipulation, the mining industry in the Ming Dynasty gradually became a gray industry. Only a pitiful amount of tax was paid to the court every year, but the scale of mining in various places increased year by year.

The official document said it was desolate, but in fact the work was prosperous, and all the profits went into the pockets of local powerful people and officials.The miners at the lowest level and the emperor at the highest level could only drink soup, which was still cold.

In fact, Emperor Wanli was not the first to collect mining taxes. He had done so during the Zhengde period.The emperor looked at it and said, "Well, you are all eating so much that you don't even have hot soup left for me. In the end, when the state has something to do, it urges me to use my private money to subsidize it. Why?"

An emperor with a softer personality could tolerate it, but an emperor with a stronger personality might not tolerate it at all.You can take me, why can't you!If you can use your power to deceive the superiors and conceal the inferiors, I will send eunuchs to inspect all parts of the country.I found a mining operator sitting there to collect taxes, and all the taxes collected went into internal funds.

Now the courtiers and local powerful people were not happy, but they couldn't directly say that the emperor had robbed them of their rice. What should they do?Easy to handle, they used two tricks.

First, they launched a public opinion offensive. They did not mention a word about taking shares in mining. They only said that the emperor sent eunuchs to collect taxes to compete with the people, increase the burden on the miners, easily cause civil unrest, and occupy the moral high ground.

Then privately confuse the miners, making them endure hardships and work overtime for a year, but in the end they are still hungry and cold. The root cause is due to the emperor taking away more, eating more and occupying more, just like later generations used public opinion to guide 996 people to hate the capitalists. The real initiator is hidden behind the great righteousness, and it is difficult to see the beginning and end.

Most of the miners come from poor backgrounds, and the platform they stand on is not high enough to see the twists and turns at the top. It is easy to be fooled, and then they foolishly confront the mine supervisors from all over the place, and they still don't know that they are being used as a weapon for others.

If you lose, you will be sued locally. If you escape a gust of wind, you will be released to continue working.If they win, the emperor will be forced to call the mine supervisor back, and the bonus will not fall into their hands. In the end, it will be the same as before, whether he has enough to eat or not, and he will still work overtime when he should.

Speaking of the dispute over mining taxes, on the surface it seems to be about the emperor's excessive extortion, but in fact it is a competition for interests between a group of officials and the emperor.No one is right or wrong. Both sides are doing it for personal gain. No one is thinking about the country. It is a dog-eat-dog situation.

The official group tried to use economic means to limit the imperial power. When there was no money, the emperor naturally had to listen to the officials' suggestions and govern the country according to their ideas, and at the same time, he had to delegate power.This was the root of the evil that was planted when Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister and took over the power. He started in the wrong direction and would break out sooner or later.

On the contrary, if the emperor wants to consolidate his imperial power, he must have money, otherwise how can he maintain a large number of eunuchs to do things for him.Without Dongchang, Xichang, and Jinyiwei, how could we compete with the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty?

This can be proved by the attitude of the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty, including some eunuchs.Shen has always been the leader of the Zhejiang Party and has the most influence in the court.There are also several small groups existing at the same time, secretly fighting against each other.But when it came to the mining tax, they immediately abandoned their previous differences and came to a unified stance.

As the saying goes, anything that is abnormal must be a monster.Why are they so unanimous? Is it really for the country and the people?The answer is obviously no. If they had such high moral integrity, they should have vomited out all the extra land they occupied and returned it to the farmers.

There is only one logical inference. Officials and some eunuchs have the same interest in the mining tax. Only real money and silver interests can unite people from different regions, with different ideas, and with different demands so closely.From a motivation point of view, the benefits are not small.

(End of this chapter)