After Wang Huan threw out the bait, he waited in this garden for Li Shanchang to take the bait. He gave Li Shanchang two manor houses, but the other one was thirty miles away from Hangzhou. Li Xianggong couldn't have traveled that far.
Moreover, Wang Huan felt that with Li Shanchang's virtue, as long as he was willing to spend a lot of money, there was nothing he couldn't accomplish. In fact, he arranged very few thugs.
In the end, he threatened to take Li Shanchang hostage, which was also a helpless move after breaking the defense out of anger.
Officialdom is like a river and lake. It is never about fighting and killing. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to sit together, eat and drink, and extract surplus value together?
Why bother to quarrel?
Because of this, when Wang Huan wanted to call for thugs to arrest someone, these people were far away, even outside the courtyard. It would take time to run in.
Before they could come in, someone had already rushed over and captured all the thugs.
Guo Ying and Zhu Ying, one behind the other, rushed in and rushed towards Zhang Ximeng.
"Brother, are you okay?"
Zhang Ximeng grinned and said, "It's okay, Brother Li, are you okay?"
Li Shanchang saw clearly that it was Guo Ying who was coming, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
Although this kid is not easy to deal with, there is always hope to suppress him.
"Did your superiors send you here?"
Zhu Ying said with a smile: "No, it was our godfather who brought us here! He was worried about...the two prime ministers, so he came here in person."
As he said this, Zhu Ying turned around and saw Lao Zhu coming towards him with fierce strides.
Li Shanchang glanced at Lao Zhu and was so frightened that he quickly lowered his head and his heart was pounding!
It’s broken, it’s really broken!
Even if Zhu Yuanzhang didn't know what Wang Huan just said. But he couldn't hide it. There was such a big loophole in taxation, and yet this beast bribed him again. The superiors would definitely suspect that he did it intentionally and deliberately for the sake of bribery.
Open the door of convenience. Even if you are lucky enough to save your old life, you will probably be like Tao An and go home to raise your grandson.
What should I do?
Li Shanchang was extremely annoyed. He saw it much more clearly than Tao An. Sooner or later, Zhu Yuanzhang would rule the world. At that time, he would be the founding official of the country, and he was destined to be famous in history and forever recorded in the annals of history.
If the car rolled over at this time, it would be worse than killing him.
Old Li asked himself, he probably would have found a crooked-neck tree and hanged himself.
There were not many people who could save Li Shanchang now. He subconsciously looked at Zhang Ximeng, but Zhang Ximeng ignored him at all. Instead, he quickly greeted Zhu Yuanzhang and bowed deeply.
"My lord, how could you put yourself in danger?"
Zhu Yuanzhang snorted, "You dare to come, what should we not dare to do? You don't know how to bring more guards to such a wolf den? What should we do if something goes wrong?"
Zhang Ximeng grinned bitterly. He followed Li Shanchang here to find out the person who gave the gift. If there was a big fanfare, why wouldn't they run away?
Fortunately, at this time, Li Shanchang came over in a hurry, bowed and saluted, and said shamefully: "Your Majesty, I am all confused. I was in a hurry and wanted to find the bribery beast, which caused Prime Minister Zhang and me to commit danger together. Please punish me!"
Zhu Yuanzhang looked at him, "If others give you gifts or bribes, why don't you give them to Mr. Zhang?"
Flies don’t bite seamless eggs!
You, Li Shanchang, must have stunk first, and then attracted the mosquitoes chasing the stench... It is wishful thinking to try to fool him away easily!
However, we are not in a hurry to capture Li Shanchang right now. We still need to use his hands to thoroughly investigate the Wang family! How can you be patient if you dare to attack our two important ministers?
When Lao Zhu thought of this, he sighed heavily and said, "Mr. Li also has good intentions. We will not blame him for such a trivial matter."
The implication is that if it were a bigger matter, it would be difficult to say.
Li Shanchang was worried, but there was nothing he could do. He could only wait and see if God would let him go...
The monarch and his ministers gathered together and looked down at Wang Huan.
This person who had been chatting just now, looked down upon Zhu Yuanzhang, despised Zhang Ximeng, and thought he could control Li Shanchang to death, was now as soft as a ball of mud. He was in a mess, couldn't figure it out at all, and had no intention to think about it. .
How lucky are you?
I originally wanted to bribe Li Shanchang, but ended up provoking these most powerful people.
Is it the Wang Family of Heavenly Death?
A person is so frightened that he doesn't even have the courage to beg for mercy, and can only paralyze there, like a soaring lump.
Zhu Yuanzhang walked over, looked at Wang Huan, and sneered: "This beast dares to do harm to our two prime ministers? He is so insane that he should be cut into pieces!"
Li Shanda is very happy. Come on, please kill this troublemaker quickly! I beg you.
However, Li Shanchang did not dare to speak, because Zhang Ximeng had already laughed.
"My lord, this man is not just a crazy beast, but also a talented person with considerable vision... Just now he thought that I was a scholar, and that my lord has never seen any money! And he also gave Brother Li a salary of how much money he deserves. A good idea for one hundred thousand taels, I think even if you want to kill such a person, you should talk to him first!"
Zhu Yuanzhang was quite surprised. He had seen arrogant people, but never such arrogant people.
"How about you tell me, what great insights do you have?"
Zhu Yuanzhang asked twice. Wang Huan was still in his wandering state and didn't know how to answer. Zhang Ximeng leaned down and asked, "Wang Huan, are you going to kill everyone without saying a word?"
After hearing the last four words, Wang Huan seemed to come to life. His strong survival instinct prompted him to struggle, lie on the ground, and kowtow desperately.
"The villain deserves to die, the villain is stupid, I just ask the King of Wu to spare the villain's family!"
Zhu Yuanzhang looked down upon this coward and turned his head to the side.
Zhang Ximeng was very interested. He smiled and said: "Wang Huan, you said that land equalization is just dividing the land, but how to collect taxes and how to distribute the collected land taxes? There are also university questions. I don't know what the university asks. I don’t understand, I guess you have a lot of experience, so you might as well talk about it and we can discuss it, maybe you can be considered guilty and meritorious!"
This last sentence made Wang Huan tremble. He thought about it for a long time before he said slowly: "The source of wealth is strength! The use of wealth is power! You villain, I think the King of Wu only has strength, but No right!"
Good guy, you are really a madman?
How dare you question the authority in Lao Zhu's hands? Why don't you try with your own head to see if Zhu Yuanzhang dares to kill your whole family?
Obviously, Wang Huan is not so shallow. He did tell the essence of some problems...
As we all know, the fiscal and taxation system of the Ming Dynasty was very bad, but it seems difficult to explain exactly where it was.
There is a widely circulated rumor that the annual fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty is only a few million taels, which is far behind the Song Dynasty. It is simply rubbish... If this is true, the Song Dynasty should be the worst. Ah, the Ming Dynasty spent less than one-tenth of the money to maintain its power for nearly three hundred years. What an incredible achievement!
The fiscal efficiency is ridiculously high!
Obviously, this is impossible, so what is wrong?
The mistake is to equate national tax revenue with the revenue of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and equate the annual revenue of the Ministry of Household Affairs with the Taicang tax bank, and then arrive at an absurdly small fiscal revenue.
If it could be sustained for such a long time with such a small amount of annual income, all members of the Ming Dynasty would be clean and honest.
In fact, the tax bureaus of the Ming Dynasty were far more than the Ministry of Household Affairs, and the taxes collected were not just Dingyintian tax... This level of complexity is simply difficult to describe.
To give a simple example, the Ministry of Works of the Ming Dynasty not only built palaces and projects, but was also responsible for collecting taxes. The tax levied by the Ministry of Works was called bamboo and wood taxation, which roughly targeted bamboo, wood, firewood, coal, bricks, lime, etc.
Etc., taxes will be levied on things related to fuel and building materials.
This thing is charged to the account of the Ministry of Works and has nothing to do with the Accounts Department.
If you think the Ministry of Industry's taxation is outrageous, then there is something even more outrageous. Guanglu Temple, as the yamen responsible for palace meals, also has the right to tax private citizens.
The rice materials on hand are used to supply the palace expenses.
If this is still understandable, then the Rites Department of Qingshui Yamen actually has the power to tax.
What does the Ministry of Rites levy?
Medicinal materials!
That's right, the Ministry of Rites wants to collect the money for medicinal materials for Tai Hospital.
After all, the hospital is too low-level to ask for money, so it would be better for the Ministry of Rites to come forward. Of course, the civil servants of the Ministry of Rites are responsible for the three-point fertilizer. They just want to get some wolfberry, ginseng, and fur seal kidneys to replenish the kidneys.
There are by no means a handful of similar central government offices. And this is not all. In addition to those that have to be sent to the imperial court, there are also some that are retained for personal use. This is also a bad debt and cannot be explained clearly.
Just imagine the normal process. Taiyuan Hospital needs medicinal materials, submits documents to the Ministry of Household Affairs, gets approval, and then Taiyuan Hospital takes the money to go to the place of production to purchase them, and includes them in the department's expenditure budget for the year, that's it.
But in the Ming Dynasty, this matter became strange.
The Taiyuan Hospital collected the medicinal materials and discussed with the Ministry of Rites. The Ministry of Rites wrote a document to the local government and then handed the matter over to the local grain chief and asked them to send the medicinal materials and silver coins to the Ministry of Rites.
Traveling thousands of miles from the local area to the city, handing it over to the Ministry of Rites, and transferring it to the Taiyuan Hospital... Along the way, people were fed, money was wasted, and everything was cleared up and down, and it was transferred layer by layer... The cost in this process was considerable.
amazing.
Moreover, every yamen and every tax item has to go through such a toss.
The common people were miserable, especially in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. The grain chiefs could not hold on any longer and scrambled to evade their duties. Tax arrears were frequently owed in various places. In some places, they could not pay taxes for decades. There was nothing the higher authorities could do.
The reasons why this situation occurs are very complicated, but it is undeniable that the clues can be seen from the initial design of the fiscal and taxation system.
In history, Lao Zhu did have a shallow understanding of the fiscal and taxation system... He thought that using the grain chief to collect taxes and distribute taxes could avoid exploitation by officials.
And it’s very convenient to use.
As long as he makes a decree, if there is any shortage of things, just ask the grain chief to send them there, that's it.
Judging from the external military use of the Hongwu Dynasty, under Lao Zhu's careful management, the fiscal and taxation system was able to operate efficiently.
However, with the death of Lao Zhu, the subsequent emperors neither had Zhu Yuanzhang's diligence nor Lao Zhu's prestige.
All kinds of ills quickly appeared... All officials, who could get a hand in it, exploited them ruthlessly, using various methods of extortion to exploit their subordinates.
Unable to bear the burden of having countless yamen and constantly depleting the land, the grain chiefs simply gave up their jobs.
I quit!
Local yamen also retained more and more property to meet their own expenses and refused to turn it over to the court.
Having said all this, the fundamental problem with the Ming Dynasty's finances is that it did not establish a complete system of general revenue and expenditure.
"Lord, where the will comes from, it is the power of the king, and where the wealth comes, it is the blessing of the king. Only when the lord has the power of finance and taxation in his hands can he truly be authoritative and authoritative! Take it up and send it out. Only when you go out can you fully exercise the power of the king... It is really rare for this beast to have such insight!" Zhang Ximeng still admired Wang Huan a little bit, of course, only a little.
Zhu Yuanzhang gritted his teeth and was furious. From a salary to the distribution of financial power, Zhu Yuanzhang learned another solid lesson!
"Although this beast has some insights, he has ulterior motives. He wants to exploit loopholes to make huge profits, and even bribes and coerces our important ministers. Such a madman will not be enough to anger the people if he is not killed! Come on, kill the entire Wang family. We copied it!"
Turning around, Lao Zhu said to Li Shanchang: "Let's go back now and discuss financial and tax matters immediately without any delay."
After Lao Zhu finished speaking, he walked away. Zhang Ximeng was in a good mood and followed behind. It seemed that there might be hope for better finances.
Elder Li Shan's face was ashen, and he didn't know what storm was waiting for him! Old Li could only catch up in a hurry...