British Duke Zhang Weixian shook his head: "His is not like Xu Guangqi's. I really don't understand it very well, especially about taxation."
Fang Congzhe also thought for a moment: "Bi Ziyan's is indeed better than the second and third place, but I don't think the advantage is that big. Why does Your Highness think he has a big advantage?"
Zhu Youxiao nodded seriously and opened Bi Ziyan's answer sheet.
His opening chapter is different from the essay and essay-style answers in the Baiguan answer sheet.
After the concise introduction at the beginning, it goes directly to the core content, which looks more like items. Then, at the end, it ends with an incisive summary and actionable plan.
"One: Taxation and Apportionment.
The one-whip method is to unify taxes and unify cash collection. It has been forty-five years since the one-whip method began. If there is more of one thing and less of that, the disadvantage is apportionment. In the end, people have no land and no land.
The people are suffering unspeakably, and its source is the separation of land tax and Ding tax.
2: Divide a small share into an acre.
The solution is to divide the land into acres and collect taxes uniformly according to the fields. Landless people go to the city to work, and the taxes are uniformly collected from the workshops. This tax comes from the fields and workshops, not from the head..."
Zhu Youxiao scanned through so many answer sheets and picked out this stall when he saw it.
Regarding the first half of all the answers, the most amazing ones are "Spreading a small amount into an acre" and "China cannot always make money from ceramics and silk".
Bi Ziyan was able to deal with the huge financial crisis in the early years of Chongzhen, and he was able to write two heavyweight financial articles, "The Complete Book of Taxes and Services" and "Du Zhi Memorial". Of course, he was also able to come up with the next stage of the whipping method - sharing.
Ding Rumu.
It's just that during the Chongzhen period in history, he was faced with internal and external difficulties. Even if he could think of it, he would not propose this unimplementable policy.
Now Zhu Youxiao has shown very powerful political measures. From the very beginning, he defeated the two major resistances to the New Deal - radical and conservative civil servants, as well as incompetent relatives.
He also ransacked the homes of traitors, strictly investigated corruption in the Ministry of Works, abolished servants in the capital, and opened labor reform workshops. This seems to be a great achievement.
Bi Ziyan knew that his opportunity had come, and when he encountered this exam, he asked "What makes a country rich?"
This is the field in which he is best at, and he directly proposed the bold but difficult-to-implement idea of "dividing a small family into an equal share" because he believed that the prince overseeing the country might really have the courage and means to implement this policy.
Zhu Youxiao continued: "Not only did Bi Ziyan explain many other methods, they were also very powerful.
For example, the division and transfer of money between the capital and local governments, the collection and labeling of land taxes, the suppression of mergers and the reduction of land taxes in Shaanxi, and the coordination between the Ministry of Revenue and Jin Yiwei to control the country's money and grain. These measures all grasp the key points and have the characteristics
Possibility of implementation."
Li Ruhua sighed: "It is true that everything is on the key points. This person has been in the south of the Yangtze River and served as the chief envoy in the northwest. With such rich experience, he can think of these key measures."
In contrast, he has been in the capital for a long time, and is certainly more capable of managing people and treasury. However, at the grassroots level, he is a little unfamiliar with the place, so he cannot think of a way to divide the land into acres and implement this policy.
The most important thing is that the power of taxation lies in the hands of the Ministry of Revenue, the cabinet and the royal family, and cannot be too dispersed to local governments.
Zhu Youxiao feels the same way.
Later generations had a good opportunity for development. Although there were wars, it was rare to have funds. As a result, due to poor actual control, a considerable part of the tax revenue was distributed to local governments, while the landlords and compradors in various places were busy encircling land and making money, and finally industrialized
The process has been delayed for decades.
Now Bi Ziyan proposed that Jin Yiwei cooperate with the Ministry of Household Affairs to investigate the tax situation in various places, and then the use of local tax revenue will be mainly led by the capital, whether it is transported to the capital or not, but where the capital and the court will take the lead.
This avoids the bad situation in the late Ming Dynasty when something goes wrong in the local area and they claim they have no money and reach out to the capital for money. If there is an accident and a huge supplement is needed, it is to take precautions instead of the capital looking down upon them.
.
Bi Ziyan's move grasped the key to finance.
Zhu Youxiao smiled: "This is the first half. His second half is equally outstanding, so he can be firmly ranked in front of Sun Chengzong and Xu Guangqi."
Continuing to analyze for everyone present, Bi Ziyan in the second half went from specific methods and tax practice to theory and principles.
It is proposed to deepen the division of labor and cooperation, and professional people do professional things, so as to improve the quality and time of product production.
Then, those who need it or are good at coordinating it can coordinate the various divisions of labor, and use finance and policies to stimulate the development of industries that can expand profits and require technical research.
Zhu Youxiao immediately thought of the mercantilism of this era and the subsequent "The Wealth of Nations".
I can just use "Das Kapital" and even political economics to guide Bi Ziyan, so that Ming Dynasty can be at the forefront of the times in economics and industrial development.
In fact, it’s not that scholars in the Ming Dynasty couldn’t think of economic principles such as labor, division of labor, wages, land rent, assets and capital, but that scholars and industries in feudal society had a relatively separated economy.
Traditional Confucian scholars and officials put a considerable part of their energy on classics and history and officialdom. The abilities of these talents can no longer be used in industry and economy, which is equivalent to being wasted.
Then the traditional large landowners and businessmen, because of huge profits, focused on enclosing land and hoarding supplies, waiting until the market was out of stock and prices rose to make big money.
This land economy and the way of making money by reselling materials make businessmen pay more attention to prices in the southeast and northwest, rather than the actual production and the economic principles and policies behind the industry.
Zhu Youxiao wants to do one thing, and that is to make the handicraft industry more profitable than land and food. To achieve this, firstly, it is necessary to improve agricultural productivity and reduce the huge profits of land that are several times that of industry. Secondly, it is to expand domestic
With overseas sales markets, the manufacturing industry can make more money instead of being completely suppressed by land and food.
After all, there are only so many scholars, only so much energy, and start-up capital is not sufficient. If we engage in land development, there will be no industry or anything.
Think about it, if wealth and finance revolve around selling and buying land, and local wealthy businessmen make money from the local population, thus neglecting industrial development and upgrading, and eventually letting the West or even the East surpass them, that would be sad.
In the late Ming Dynasty, if you circled around the land more, you would run the risk of intensifying internal conflicts.
As a practitioner of industrial upgrading in later generations, Zhu Youxiao certainly knows the secret.
"In that case, let's determine the top three, Bi Ziyan, Sun Chengzong, and Xu Guangqi."
"Okay!"
"The next four to ten will be ranked by everyone, and I will check them one last time."
"According to the decree."
Zhu Youxiao is looking forward to how much potential Bi Ziyan, an economic expert from the late Ming Dynasty, can unleash in his own hands.