The overall tax figures of the Ming Dynasty were still very impressive.
In the fifteenth year of Wanli, the total taxable land of the Ming Dynasty was 701 million acres, and the total land tax was 26.69 million shi. In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, more taxes were collected due to the increase in three rates.
.Even based on the land tax figures in the fifteenth year of Wanli and the grain prices in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the total annual tax revenue of the Chongzhen Dynasty was at least 66.72 million taels of silver.
This number seems astonishing, and it seems to be enough for the Ming Dynasty to recruit soldiers, horses, thieves and slaves, but the actual situation is that not all of these collected land taxes were paid into the national treasury.
The land tax in various places in the Ming Dynasty can be divided into two categories; one is the beginning of luck; the other is the survival. "The province's direct silver grain, although the name and color are different, roughly the land tax, both have two items, and they are inseparable from the solution, and the two items are retained." The so-called
The transportation is the part transported to the central government or other provincial prefectures, prefectures, counties or border towns, capitals, garrison and other military areas. The retention is the part reserved for local expenses.
A large amount of tax revenue collected by local governments is directly supplied to the consumption of health offices, divisions and local government offices. Only a small part of it is actually turned over to the national treasury, only a few million taels a year. For example, in the 28th year of Jiajing, the national treasury "
The annual income of "Taicang" was only 3.95 million taels. Because of this, the emperor Zhu Youjian was so short of money that he had to continue to increase taxes.
But for Li Zhi, who collects taxes locally, this huge tax base is a good thing. He can get a lot of benefits by slightly increasing the 20% land tax.
After increasing the land tax by 20%, Li Zhi can get an additional 315,000 taels of silver per year and a natural land tax of 63,000 shi. According to the current market price of grain, 63,000 shi of natural wheat is equivalent to 157,000 taels.
Thousand taels of silver. Including discounts, Li Zhi can earn 472,000 taels of silver a year from Tianjin's new tax system. Even after excluding the expenses of more than a thousand tax collectors, there is still a net profit of 400,000 taels.
Li Zhi was very happy to learn that his tax collection method could earn him more than 400,000 taels of silver.
Li Zhi happily took Xie Liangyou and two hundred guards to the house of Jin Gentry named Cao to collect the first tax payment under the new tax system.
The Jin gentry surnamed Cao had no intention of resisting Li Zhi. Li Zhi went on a killing spree in Tianjin and killed so many officials. How could the landowners in Tianjin dare to go against Li Zhi? Although paying taxes is likely to cause cunning servants to come with donations.
The fields left. But after all, the silver fields and the fields were external possessions. At this time, it was better to comply with Xing Guobo's new tax system and save one's life.
The Jin gentry named Cao's family has 1,731 acres of dry farmland. Now Li Zhijun pays a land tax of seven liters per mu of land every year. For more than 1,000 acres of land, he pays a total of 123 shi of wheat.
Jinshen surnamed Cao obediently took out more than a hundred stones of wheat from the granary and handed it to Li Zhi's tax officer.
Li Zhi successfully collected his first land tax and was about to leave the house of Jin Gentry named Cao when he suddenly saw a guard running over and said loudly: "Uncle, there are hundreds of farmers gathered outside. I don't know what to do.
Everyone was kneeling on both sides of the road!"
Li Zhi was stunned and looked outside the door.
Xie Liangyou said coquettishly: "Is it possible that the aftermath of Lu Hualin's incitement to the peasants is still there, and the peasants heard that the uncle was coming and wanted to cause trouble?"
Li Zhi thought for a while and smiled: "Go out and have a look."
Xie Liangyou grabbed Li Zhi tightly and said: "My uncle has a body worth thousands of gold, so don't put yourself in danger!"
Li Zhi reluctantly stretched out his hand towards the guards and shouted: "Bring the armor and put it on!"
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Boss Kong is a thirty-two-year-old farmer.
He is a single descendant of three generations and is the only male in the Kong family. His family has twenty acres of dry land in Zhaojia Village, which is a piece of thin land passed down from ancestors. Logically speaking, having twenty acres of land is not bad, but Mr. Kong and his wife
Live a day of hunger and satiety.
Boss Kong's hard life was all because he was weak and bullied by the government officials.
Mr. Kong has few relatives and does not know many of them. In addition, he has a dull personality and cannot say a word for a long time. He is alone in Zhaojia Village, and other villagers named Zhao do not pay much attention to him.
When Mr. Kong was twenty-five years old, he married a dim-witted woman from the next village.
On weekdays, Mr. Kong and his stupid wife can be said to be lonely people in Zhaojia Village, and they are often bullied by the city's yamen. Those yamen add all the land tax layer by layer to Mr. Kong's land, so there is no such thing as "excluding surplus".
, what "sending rice", what "gaining silver", in short, there are all kinds of unspeakable tricks. I just increased the land tax of Mr. Kong to two buckets and five liters per mu. In addition, every two ounces of color were added.
After spending two cents of silver, Mr. Kong finally had to pay three dou of land tax for each mu of land.
Mr. Kong also thought about resisting, but every time Mr. Kong defaulted on his land taxes, the government officials would send people with shackles to arrest him. Mr. Kong had no relatives, and he did not dare to cause trouble even though he was being bullied. In the end, he had to be beaten by the government officials again and again.
They bullied me into paying a land tax of six stones per year for twenty acres of poor land.
However, these 20 acres of dry land are thin and have no irrigation water source. They rely on carrying water from a small river a mile away for irrigation. They can only produce fifteen shi of grain in a year. After excluding one bucket and three liters of grain per acre,
For the seeds, and excluding the land tax of three bushels per mu, Mr. Kong could only harvest three bushels of wheat per mu, a pitiful income of six stones a year.
Six stones of wheat are ground into rice flour to feed two people. Every year during the lean season, Mr. Kong and his wife go hungry. Mr. Kong is thirty-two years old, and his wife is twenty-nine, and now she has no children.
They gave birth to a son and a daughter, but they both got sick from hunger and died.
It’s not that Boss Kong never thought of taking his land to donate, but as soon as those gentry masters heard that Boss Kong paid such a high land tax, they knew that Boss Kong was the target of oppression by the government officials. Taking Boss Kong as a servant would make the government servants miserable.
What people can exploit is to offend those government officials.
In the end, no gentry was willing to accept Boss Kong's contribution.
Day after day, year after year, Mr. Kong and his wife lived a life without hope, struggling for food and clothing. Maybe if there was a famine some year, Mr. Kong and his wife would starve to death. Every time Mr. Kong
After listening to the scholars in the village talking about Chuang Wang and Chuang Jiang, Mr. Kong secretly hoped that King Chuang would come to Tianjin.
It's better to make a fuss with a bandit than to live this hopeless life.
However, just as Mr. Kong was living this numb life day by day, he heard a shocking news.
Scholars are spreading rumors that Uncle Xing Guobo will increase taxes on Tianjin's fields. Not only the gentry who did not pay taxes before will have to increase taxes, but even Mr. Kong, who is struggling to make ends meet, will also have to increase taxes.
When Mr. Kong heard the news, he felt like the sky was about to fall. If his family was in a situation like this and taxes were to be increased, what would he and his wife have to eat? Uncle Xing Guo would drive people like him to death?
But after returning home and thinking about it calmly, Mr. Kong didn’t believe what the scholar said this time.
Boss Kong has heard about Xing Guobo countless times. Xing Guobo built water conservancy facilities in various counties to develop new fields and recruited tenant farmers for farming. Xing Guobo gave each tenant 20 acres of good land and cattle, and only collected 30% of the land.
The land rent made the tenant farmers extremely rich. Not only that, Xing Guobo also recruited tenant farmers to develop Xiaoliuqiu. It is said that the tenant farmers there were even richer.
The farmers in Tianjin are all eager to join Uncle Xingguo, even if they abandon their family business.
Mr. Kong didn’t believe that Uncle Xingguo, who had benefited the people in this way, would raise taxes on the poor peasants who were too poor to eat!
Sure enough, not long after, Xing Guobo's tax official came to the countryside and said that Xing Guobo would reduce taxes for the poor and only collect seven liters per mu of land as land tax. The rumors spread by those scholars were self-evident.
This tax rate is only a quarter of the land tax that Mr. Kong currently bears!
