Zhu Yuanzhang can see my dreams

Chapter 335: Damn it, he really thought anyone could do it

"Well, go ahead."

Zhu Yuanzhang didn't care at all.

If there is no problem with taxation, that would be the biggest problem.

“As time goes by, some people may go from poor to rich, and some may go from rich to poor.

But the tax books have not changed for a long time. Our Ming Dynasty has not changed it for ten years. It is difficult to fully implement your majesty's principle of taxing according to the level of wealth."

This is the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang's hand paused when he was grabbing the cards.

But if we have to do the statistics every year, it would be a huge and costly project.

However, if we do not conduct an accurate statistics, some people may abandon their land and flee, becoming refugees.

"This matter should be discussed carefully."

Zhu Yuanzhang put the cards into his own pile and failed to come up with a detailed solution in a short time.

Wang Buli quietly sorted out his cards. The Two-Tax System was not a bad one, but it easily led to a large number of land mergers.

By then, the poor would have no land, and would become refugees or tenants, unable to pay taxes to the court.

The wealthy had many ways to evade taxes, so the Ming Dynasty could collect even less tax.

However, Wang Buli had no idea what to use to replace the Two Tax System.

Ultimately it all falls on the executor.

The two-tax system of the Ming and Qing dynasties was very mature, but fiscal revenue continued to be sluggish.

The core of Zhang Juzheng's "One Whip System" reform was to combine various state taxes and levies into the land on the basis of finding out the amount of land of each household, and to levy silver based on the acreage.

The executors of this system were still the officials of all ranks in the Ming Dynasty.

But at that time, most of the people who controlled the land were these officials or those who were protected by them.

These people took advantage of privileges within or outside the system to evade taxes, shift burdens, and find ways to undermine the authenticity and integrity of land accounts.

Therefore, the officials of all ranks who run the financial system are also the main force for evading taxes.

Or to put it simply, the Ming Dynasty's official land tax could not be collected in full.

It is precisely because of their lazy behavior that they are unwilling to update information in a timely manner.

Zhang Juzheng's use of harsh laws and severe punishments, sacrificing their interests or forcing these officials to take action in the short term was indeed able to improve the tax situation to a certain extent, but such a financial system did not have the conditions for long-term healthy operation.

In addition, under the Ming Dynasty system, the informal financial system had become irreversible. The Ming Dynasty's main source of income was land tax in the agricultural economy, which meant that the amount of formal income was always limited, and ultimately the financial problems could not be fundamentally solved.

Zhang Juzheng's reforms were not easy as they lacked legal and organizational basis; he could not gain the driving force through top-level design; he could only make adjustments to the existing institutional arrangements and interest structure of the Ming Dynasty.

It is not surprising at all that the government dies with the death of the leader.

Wang Buli didn't know much about finance, and he was just a fool, so he didn't say anything.

In short, the advantage of land tax is that the burden is fair, the amount of land tax paid is directly linked to the land area, and it is highly legal.

The disadvantages are that the measurement technology is complex and account book management is difficult.

Everyone wants to pay less tax, but no one wants to cut their own flesh.

Even Zhu Yuanzhang was unwilling to make concessions.

Zhu Yuanzhang played a card and asked: "Some people say that the state's acquisition of salt profits is extortionate, but I don't think the price of salt is high!"

As a commodity, salt has its own particularities.

First, consumption elasticity is low, and the amount of salt consumed by each person is almost the same.

People will not eat more salt because they are rich, nor will they stop eating salt because they are poor. As long as they can still afford it, even if the price increases, their consumption will not decrease much.

Second, the management cost is low. Not all places have salt fields, and not all salt is edible. Therefore, as long as the salt fields are controlled, tax collection and management can be effective.

Wang Buli didn't think that Zhu Yuanzhang would gain much from the salt profits, and that it was still suitable for the Ming Dynasty at present.

After all, transporting grain to the border is not an easy task.

"Your Majesty, nowadays even the poor can afford salt, so the price is not that high."

Hu Weiyong replied slightly to show his agreement.

Zhu Biao also nodded. The price of salt in the Ming Dynasty was much lower than that in the Yuan Dynasty.

And because of his father's opening of the Sino-French border, many people had access to salt, as long as they were willing to transport grain to the border.

The most important thing is that Zhu Yuanzhang discovered that some merchants had begun to hire labor in border areas to open up fields in order to reduce the huge consumption of grain due to long-distance transportation, and then store the grain locally in exchange for salt permits to make more profits.

"Buli, what do you think are the loopholes in our Kaizhong method?"

"Privilege." Wang Buli played a card without even looking at Zhu Yuanzhang.

"What do you mean?" Zhu Biao asked first.

"Since ancient times, salt profits have been the life-saving money of the thousand-year-old empire." Wang Buli still gave an example: "In the Han Dynasty, Sang Hongyang mainly obtained monopoly profits in the salt industry through the state monopoly system.

However, the salt monopoly brought about serious losses in the efficiency of the salt industry, such as poor quality of salt and high salt prices, which seriously affected people's lives;

At the same time, officials of all ranks who participated in the salt monopoly gained huge wealth, while the country actually did not benefit much.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties and until the early Sui and Tang Dynasties, the state implemented private salt operations for a long time, without levying taxes on it or levying very little taxes on it.

After the An-Shi Rebellion, finances were extremely tight, and sometimes even the royal family had no food to eat.

Therefore, Minister Diwu Qi restored the salt monopoly system implemented by Sang Hongyang in the third year of Tang Zhide, but changed the production link from Sang Hongyang's official system to a private system.

The salt system of Diwu Qi had the same flaws as that of Sang Hongyang's period.

Therefore, Liu Yan rectified the salt law in the first year of Baoying reign of Emperor Daizong of Tang Dynasty, changed the state monopoly system to a licensing system, implemented private system, official collection, commercial transportation and commercial sales, and abolished the two links of official transportation and official sales.

The production of salt was carried out by private salt households with registered salt farms, but private merchants were introduced in transportation and retail, and the government only monopolized the two links of purchasing and wholesale.

This practice is similar to the land leasing in the Ming Dynasty. The government monopolized the land collection (official collection) and auction (wholesale), and left salt to merchants.

Liu Yan's approach achieved good results. The people's salt supply improved and the country's salt profits increased sharply, from an annual income of 40 guan to 600 million guan.

Before the two-tax system reform, salt profits accounted for half of the Tang Dynasty's fiscal revenue, and court expenses, military expenditures, and official salaries were all heavily dependent on salt profits. "

After Wang Buli said so much, Hu Weiyong finally understood.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty did not earn any huge profits from salt profits.

To the extent that the bulk of the Ming Dynasty's tax revenue now comes from land tax.

He also hinted that it was very easy to make money in Yanguan.

Instead of putting the money into the national treasury, he put it into his own home.

The salt officials in the Lianghuai area were extremely wealthy.

The "Kai Zhong Law" implemented in the early Ming Dynasty was a licensing system, similar to the Ru Zhong System of the Song Dynasty. It required merchants to transport grain (or horses, iron, tea, etc. needed by the army) to designated locations (usually border areas) in exchange for salt permits, and then use the salt permits to wholesale salt and then retail it.

By the Wanli period, there was a serious backlog of salt permits and salt merchants had no enthusiasm.

The imperial court then changed the salt industry system to the Gangyan system, requiring salt merchants to change from separate operations to forming "Shang Gangs", stipulating that only registered Shang Gangs could purchase salt permits and engage in the wholesale and retail of salt, and allowing such monopoly qualifications to be inherited.

The Qing Dynasty continued this practice, creating the Yangzhou salt merchants.

During the Qianlong period, Yangzhou salt merchants could make a profit of 15 million taels of silver a year, and the salt profits they handed over amounted to 6 million taels.

Yangzhou is not only close to the Lianghuai Salt Field, an important salt production area, but also has extremely convenient transportation due to its proximity to the Yangtze River, Huai River and the Grand Canal, a water transport channel from Beijing to Hangzhou.

How many people in this world can resist the temptation and not move the silver into their own treasury?

Zhu Yuanzhang then recalled that in the late Ming Dynasty, even the salt tax could not be collected.

There is no tax to be collected for such a lucrative business.

Who took all this money?
So things related to salt and tea were always on Zhu Yuanzhang's mind.

Just chatting.

Wang Buli thought so, but he found that although Lao Zhu was playing cards, he was always thinking about things.

And he just says whatever comes to his mind, but he hasn't won a single hand so far.

Instead, they kept firing cannons.

No one dared to touch it. "Although the salt profits are high, most of them are used on the border, so the court's money is still not enough." Zhu Yuanzhang sighed:

"Buli, you have provided so many subsidies to the county officials. You are actually blaming me for designing officials' salaries that are too low."

The income of Jiangning County yamen runners was much higher than that of clerks in ordinary high-level yamen.

Many people are very jealous!

At present, one reason why Ming Dynasty officials had low salaries was that the price level was relatively low in the early Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang came from a poor family, and he thought the salary standard was enough to maintain a good life.

As long as ordinary officials don't go out to spend money on wine and women, they can still support their families.

However, with the improvement of the economic living standards and the rise in prices in the Ming Dynasty, the salary levels he set seemed to be lower and lower in later generations, but as the ancestral system, it could not be changed.

Another reason is that the Ming Dynasty used the two taxes as the main source of income, but the level of fiscal revenue brought by the two taxes from the agricultural economy was not high.

In order to expand their ruling base, later emperors greatly increased the number of imperial examinations.

The total number of officials, candidate officials and even students in official schools who needed financial support or subsidies from the Ming Dynasty far exceeded that of previous dynasties.

In this way, the salary level of individual officials would have to be kept very low.

The court is not that rich if it wants to be like the Song Dynasty where even small officials had high salaries.

Zhu Yuanzhang felt that the current group of officials could survive on their salaries and also support their families.

He learned the lessons of Song Dynasty's finances and was more inclined to one principle, which was to try to reduce fiscal costs.

Before the Ming Dynasty, there was interest or rent income provided by public money, public land or official land.

The government's public revenue and expenditure were mixed with the officials' personal revenue and expenditure.

Therefore, at that time, it was not obvious on the surface that officials were misappropriating or even stealing public revenue, and it was not considered as corruption.

But during the Ming and Qing dynasties, public money, public fields, and official fields had all disappeared.

In the system, officials only have income from official salaries, and any income beyond the salary can be regarded as corruption.

If you want to get a high salary, you have to get promoted. The only way to get promoted is to work hard for our Zhu family.

But Zhu Yuanzhang thought too simply. There were few high-ranking official positions anyway.

Such incentives are hard to arouse people's interest, because not everyone can get them by jumping up and down.

Moreover, the low official salary in the middle and late periods could not even support the life of an honest official like Hai Rui.

Officials therefore have more motivation and reasons to engage in corruption.

There was no way to test in the Ming Dynasty how much official salary would allow officials to live a decent life and be both efficient and honest.

"Your Majesty, I use subsidies to reward those who do not receive court salaries in order to prevent them from taking money from the people."

Wang Buli explained it again.

He knew that many people envied the Jiangning County Government, and some people were even motivated to receive higher salaries than him, a ninth-rank official.

Yongzheng did make a policy of returning the spoils of war to the public, which was far more than the regular salary, usually 10 to 20 times, or even 100 times higher.

However, after Emperor Yongzheng, the phenomenon of official corruption not only did not disappear, but seemed to become more serious.

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded. He always felt that the people below him were not satisfied.

I have worked very hard to maintain and build the Ming Dynasty, but most of my ministers want more money.

"Brother-in-law, you said that excessive issuance of banknotes would make money worthless?" Zhu Biao thought of this:

"Is it possible that as more banknotes are issued, the salaries of officials will be reduced? Or is it possible that the Ming Dynasty has a lot of silver, and issuing more silver to officials will also increase the price of grain?"

"Well, what the prince said is right." Wang Buli pinched the silver in his hand:
"Silver like this, which is of poor quality, may look like one tael of silver, but if you really want to buy something, it can't be used as one tael of silver at all.

Moreover, the situation was so difficult when the Ming Dynasty was just established. Who says it can’t prosper in the future?

At that time, officials’ salaries may not be enough as prices rise, leading to more corruption.”

Hu Weiyong understood Wang Buli's words very well.

Now many people give him gifts.

Based on the salaries of those officials, how could they have so much money to give gifts?
Not to mention that the emperors who come after him will be loyal and honest in character, and they will definitely not kill people at will like the current emperor does.

They also said that I am not a person who is good at killing, and that they were all seeking death and had run into the path of my sword.

That would result in more ministers trying to find ways to make money.

Of course, Hu Weiyong didn't dare to reveal such words to anyone.

Who would easily expose their own secrets? It wasn't like he accepted the gifts personally. Anyway, I didn't ask them to give me anything.

"Money, money."

Zhu Yuanzhang threw down a card heavily: "Too much money is not good, too little money is not good either."

"Father, if we were like the Song Dynasty, would we do more business?"

Zhu Di had heard of the developed commerce in the Song Dynasty.

"Commercialism?"

Before Zhu Yuanzhang asked a question, Zhu Biao frowned first.

This is obviously very different from the national policy of the Ming Dynasty.

At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the state basically abolished the discriminatory policies of the past dynasties against merchants in political, economic and social life, recognized that the "four classes" of scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans were "the foundation", and especially affirmed the role of wealthy merchants "for national trade".

As a result of this trend, many officials and their families even considered it a pride to marry the daughters of wealthy merchants as their daughters-in-law.

The Song Dynasty also opened up economic opportunities to individuals on a large scale, allowing and encouraging merchants to enter activities such as production and trade.

In terms of management, the Song Dynasty also developed in a direction that was conducive to commercial activities. For example, it completely abolished the Tang Dynasty's fixed-time and fixed-point market trading system and completely opened up urban economic life.

In his heart, Zhu Yuanzhang looked down upon the "poor and weak" Song Dynasty.

He didn't even have the ability to recover the old territories of the Han and Tang dynasties, and it was really shameful that he was treated like that by the royal family.

If Zhu Yuanzhang had not conquered Dadu and discovered the head of the Song Dynasty emperor, the exquisite wine jar would still be in the hands of the Yuan people and kept in the treasury.

“Why did the Song Dynasty elevate commerce to the level of national policy?”

Wang Buli pushed his cards aside and was hit by Zhu Yuanzhang's attack. Then he smiled and said:
"The Song Dynasty was in the midst of a national survival competition. It had not even recovered the old lands of the Han and Tang dynasties, and had to face a court established by a tough minority. It had to find ways to make money in order to take on the responsibility of supporting the army, officials, and people.

How can they afford the annual tribute with just the little income from the land?"

Wang Guangyang, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke: “Your Majesty, the so-called raising troops means that the Song Dynasty had to establish a professional army with a large number of people, high level of organization and equipment, so that the military expenditure was huge.

The so-called "supporting officials" means that in order to win the loyalty of scholars, the Song Dynasty had to adopt preferential policies towards officials. The number of people admitted to the imperial examinations was large, the number of officials was large, the salaries were high, and the rewards were many, so the official salary expenditures were extremely high.

The so-called "supporting the people" means that the Song Dynasty not only inherited and developed the famine relief policies of the past, and made every effort to provide food relief to the victims, but also developed a welfare system "from prenatal care to sacrifice", using fiscal funds to provide various welfare services for the people.

Of course, in the end it turned into redundant officials and soldiers.

Especially for many soldiers, they could not rebel unless they starved to death, so the whole thing was to maintain stability.

“During the Southern Song Dynasty, it engaged in a large amount of trade with Arab merchants via sea routes, with spices being the most important commodity.

The combined customs duties, official foreign trade profits, and licensing fees obtained from this played a huge role in preventing the financial collapse of the Southern Song Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang paused as he listened to Wang Guangyang and Wang Buli's explanations: "So, maritime trade is so profitable?"

"make money."

Wang Guangyang's trip to Guangdong was not in vain, as he gave Zhu Yuanzhang a positive answer.

"In fact, Your Majesty can also see from the account books that the trade between Ming and Goryeo in the past few months is enough to earn a lot of silver to supplement the treasury."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded, then shook his head: "No, since the commercial taxes of the Song Dynasty were so profitable, why did they perish?
Especially as the territory became smaller and smaller, in the end, we had no power to fight back against foreign invasions, and could only passively defend and could not march north. "

Can Wang Buli say that all the Northern Expedition factions were killed?
How difficult would it be to unify the country from south to north?
Do you really think it’s all you, Zhu Yuanzhang?
Wang Buli didn't know how to complain.

After all, the one standing in front of you now is the only one in the entire Chinese history who has successfully established a unified dynasty from south to north.

Many dynasties that migrated south eventually perished.

After hearing this, many ministers couldn't help but fall into thought about how to answer His Majesty's question.

(End of this chapter)