The architect of the power structure of the Ming Dynasty was Zhu Yuanzhang.

Lao Zhu is of course a great hero. But on the one hand, due to the years of war in the late Yuan Dynasty, commerce was basically ruined, and the only way for the country to recover was through farmers. Therefore, Lao Zhu set business taxes very low, causing the country to

Finance is extremely dependent on land.

On the other hand, Lao Zhu really doesn’t understand economics very well. Well, in other words, Lao Zhu’s ideas about economics are too idealistic.

When the Ming Dynasty was founded, Lao Zhu stipulated that land tax should be collected by the Ministry of Household Affairs. This is the most basic part of the national finance.

In order to prepare the cavalry to fight against the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, Lao Zhu also designated some farmers as horse households - you people are responsible for raising horses for the country. You will pay less or no land tax, etc. Then you can just hand over the horses every year.

There seemed to be no problem with this arrangement at the time. But the bad thing was that this part of the horse household was managed by the Ministry of War! The Ministry of Household Affairs could not interfere.

As time goes by, on the one hand, the country's demand for war horses is not that great. On the other hand, horse households cannot afford to keep war horses or have fled. And after the whip law, most of the taxes in kind (including war horses)

All the money has been converted into silver and included in the acres. Then the question arises: the Ministry of War is used to eating this part of the income, so why don’t you say that there are no horse households? Local governments, you must designate some people to be horse households or bear the responsibility of horse households.

The war horses should have been handed over to our Ministry of War! No one? No horses? This is okay. Convert the portion that the horse households were responsible for before into equivalent taxes and give it directly to our Ministry of War! We, the Ministry of War, will raise the horses ourselves.

.What? All land tax will be returned to the Ministry of Household Affairs? Your Majesty! This is not possible. If there is no war horse, our Ministry of War will not bear the responsibility in the future!

The same is true for the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Personnel, and the Ministry of Rites: the Ministry of Personnel collects donations, the Ministry of Rites has school fields, and the Ministry of Rites collects tributes from foreign envoys. The bigger problem is in the Ministry of Works: the Ministry of Works is responsible for organizing people to do corvee work! Now that society has developed,

As long as you have money, you don't have to do corvee after paying the relevant fees, and the government will hire someone to do it for you. But who collects this money? Of course it is the Ministry of Industry, not the Ministry of Household Affairs!

The six ministries of the Central Committee, so to speak, it seems that except for the Ministry of Punishment, all other ministries can collect money by themselves? Hey, how can it be so easy? The Ministry of Punishment also has to collect money. According to the Ming Dynasty Law, all kinds of corrupt officials or failed political struggles will have their homes confiscated.

For officials, the Ministry of Punishment collects their dirty fines and other fines. And this money goes into the warehouse of the Ministry of Punishment, not the Ministry of Household Affairs!

Speaking of which, there were as many as six departments in the Ming Dynasty that could collect taxes?

It’s a beautiful idea! The Ming Dynasty has two capitals, Yanjing and Nanjing each have six ministries. Nanjing’s six ministries also charge money for the southern provinces! In addition, such as Jin Yiwei, Da Nei Twelve Supervisors, Four Divisions and Eight Bureaus, and Taichang,

All yamen, including Taipu and other yamen, try their best to gain power for their departments and try their best to give their departments the power to directly collect taxes.

This is normal because it is the nature of bureaucracies and officials.

For example, suppose you are an official of the Ming Dynasty and work in a department. The superior of your department can often find money outside, and then he will give everyone subsidies in various names when there is nothing to do. Do you like your superior?

When your superiors assign you work, do you do it seriously? Are you highly obedient to your superiors' instructions?

If your department is a Qingshui yamen, your superior officer cannot get these subsidies. You see that the subsidies from the department next door have exceeded your salary several times. Not only have they bought a lot of paddy fields in your hometown, but they have also bought a lot of rice fields in the capital.

A house, a concubine, and several more houses...and you are still miserable renting a house in a smelly alley. You have to think twice about making new clothes for your wife and children during the holidays. What do you think of your superior?

What's the idea again?

Of course, the problems caused by this are huge: for the upper side, many departments can collect taxes, leading to internal management chaos. When the country is really in trouble, no matter how much money there is, the power of the country cannot be exerted. But for the lower side,

, the people bear excessive taxes, which results in social consumption being suppressed, and thus production is suppressed. On the one hand, it keeps society at a low level of development. On the other hand, it is easy for the people to have little resistance to risks, and if they are not careful,

It will go bankrupt - as a result, the country's ability to resist risks is also extremely low.

It is not that the elites who are truly concerned about the country and the people in this era have not seen the problems in this. They have also proposed solutions: such as the whip method.

But human nature is like this: I didn’t have this money before, but now I have it, and I’m happy. I had this money before, but now I’m not allowed to collect it, so I’m going to jump! The Ming Dynasty has been running for more than two hundred years, and various departments

I have long been accustomed to having my own small treasury, so you won’t accept it if you say you don’t want it?

Therefore, over the years, since the death of the political strongman Zhang Juzheng, the whipping method has actually begun to gradually weaken. More than ten or twenty departments in the Ming Dynasty have begun to desperately make money for themselves!

For example, we often hear about the Taicang warehouse. It is not actually the central bank of the Ming Dynasty. It is the warehouse where silver is stored in the Ministry of Finance of Yanjing. Correspondingly, Taipu Temple has its own Changying Treasury, and the Ministry of Industry has its own

Jieshen Treasury. In addition, Guanglu Temple, Nanjing Ministry of Revenue, etc. all have their own bank treasury - it is simply impossible for the Yanjing Ministry of Commerce and Industry to allocate money from these bank treasury.

If the outer court is like this, the inner court will naturally follow suit. There are twenty-four yamen in the inner court, and almost all departments with some real power are trying to establish their own warehouses, such as Nei Chengyun Warehouse, Guanghui Warehouse, Dongyu Warehouse, etc.

...The Yanjing Household Department has no control over the many warehouses of the outer court, and of course it doesn't even think about the inner court.

In 1592, the then Wanping County Magistrate complained in his diary: The tax grain, tax money, local specialties, etc. collected by this county this year must be sent to twenty-seven warehouses in accordance with the requirements of the country! But this point

How much is the total equivalent of the things in silver? Less than two thousand taels! The county magistrate lamented helplessly: Wanping is already the county seat at the foot of the emperor, but because there are so many warehouses that need to be transported, the losses along the way are also quite staggering. If those

How much is the loss caused by such ridiculous transportation in remote counties? (Shen Bang, "Miscellaneous Notes of Wanshu")

Therefore, so many departments are collecting money, saving money, and building treasury. Needless to say, the harm it brings to the country. So now the problem comes: in addition to the treasury of the Ministry of Revenue, which is responsible for the salaries of national officials and the army,

Apart from providing relief to the victims, where is the money from other departments spent?

The Ministry of War still wants to get war horses, but the quality of the horses... Well, the horse tax is still too little. Your Majesty, for the long-term peace and stability of the country, either you increase the horse tax, or you ask the Ministry of Household Affairs to subsidize us.

The Ministry of Works still has to build various public projects such as river embankments. The Ministry of Works is also responsible for the royal gardens, the late emperor's mausoleum, etc. However, if Ouchi sends eunuchs to supervise the construction, then the Ministry of Works will

They will complain about poverty in every possible way, saying that our Jieshen Treasury has been depleted and we can’t get out the money. Then the officials from the Ministry of Works will provoke the eunuchs who oversee the work in every possible way: Father-in-law, the Ministry of Revenue is in charge of the national finances. You should go and tell the emperor.

, ask the Ministry of Finance to provide some money!

In short, when collecting money, I am responsible for this matter. When paying out money, everyone said in unison: go to the Account Department!

As for the remaining money, departmental benefits, official corruption, or lending money to businessmen to collect interest, etc.
Chapter completed!