The so-called empty seal case is actually not complicated in summary.
According to the laws of the Dasheng Dynasty, the finance and taxes collected by each county must be reported at different levels, and the state government calculates the finance and taxes reported by each county, all the way to the Ministry of Household Affairs.
After the Ministry of Accounts has completed the accounting of the actual fiscal and tax records nationwide, it will then check it with the fiscal and tax figures reported by various localities to ensure that the two figures are consistent.
If it is inconsistent, then it needs to be sent back and recalculated.
But in the early years of the Dasheng Dynasty, a large part of the tax was in kind, which meant that it included not only silver taels, but also grain, cloth, silk, salt, etc. There might even be bits and pieces such as a few taels of cinnabar.
As the financial taxes from various places are sent to the capital, some unexpected situations are likely to occur, resulting in the actual physical goods entering the warehouse being significantly less than the previous physical tax statistics from each county. The figures do not match up. At this time, a tax payment will be made.
Go back and review again.
In ancient times, transportation was not developed enough, and it was troublesome to travel to and from many places.
Therefore, as early as the Northern Barbarians, officials at all levels came up with a way to save trouble, which was to ask local officials to bring account books with blank official seals to Beijing, and then go to the Ministry of Accounts for accounting before filling them in to ensure that the two numbers would definitely match.
.
After the establishment of the Dasheng Dynasty, many officials were actually from the previous dynasty.
After all, in ancient times, those who could read and be officials were often local aristocratic families, or at least people with a certain foundation. When the dynasties changed, it was impossible for the Great Sheng Dynasty to abandon all these people, as that would cause a lot of trouble.
The problem.
Therefore, many of these officials, especially local officials, are actually the same people as before.
Naturally, these people followed the old-fashioned way, going to Beijing with blank account books stamped with seals, and handing over an account book that would never contain any errors.
But for Sheng Taizu, this was obviously intolerable.
Why is it required to check at all levels, and if the account is not correct, it must be sent back for re-accounting?
It is because taxation is the foundation of the country, and there is too much room for corruption and fraud, so even if the steps are complicated and the process is troublesome, we still have to pay attention to these details.
If you go to Beijing with a blank account book and fill in as much as you want, then what's the point of keeping accounts?
Wouldn't it be more convenient to just skip the accounting and charge as much as the household department pays to your local government?
Therefore, Sheng Taizu was furious and investigated the matter, and punished all the chief seal officers and adjutants involved. The chief seal officer was beheaded, and the deputy seal officer was punished with a stick and then exiled.
Chu Ge took a rough look and found that the case he encountered at this time was almost the same as the situation Sheng Taizu encountered back then.
As for whether this was an unjust case, Chu Ge did have some opinions of his own.
First of all, is it an unjust case?
Certainly not.
A group of local financial officials and a group of central financial officials gathered together thousands of miles away to discuss filling in the tax payment amount in an empty account book that had been stamped, and then they said it was to save trouble and improve administrative efficiency?
As long as the emperor is not stupid, he probably won't believe it.
This has even gone beyond the scope of falsifying accounts, and is already the most egregious modification of original data. Since this number is negotiated by everyone, what is the significance of the data that are actually collected by various prefectures and counties and checked at all levels?
Anyway, can’t you just fill it out as you watch?
All dynasties before the Dasheng Dynasty collected physical taxes, and I have never heard of any dynasties using blank seals. What's more, there were more than a thousand counties in the Dasheng Dynasty, and more than half of them did not use blank seals to keep accounts.
of.
Among the prefectures and counties where Kongyin does accounting, many of them are near the capital. Places that can be reached in a day or two by horseback also use Kongyin.
To say this is to improve administrative efficiency is indeed a bit insulting to people's intelligence.
The task of these officials is to calculate all the data clearly. If the calculation is unclear, Sheng Taizu will just ask them to go back and calculate it again.
The task of the local officials is to calculate these data. It turns out that after a year of calculation, the calculations are inconsistent, but they are still confident?
What's even more outrageous is that in order to save trouble, these people just bring blank account books and fill them in casually.
Is it reasonable to use the practices of the previous dynasty to do the things of this dynasty? It is indeed not unjust for such people to be killed.
Secondly, are there any officials who were wrongfully killed here?
This cannot be confirmed, but it probably exists.
But in this case, it would be difficult to distinguish.
Because the key to this case is that the operation method of Kongyin will bring huge loopholes to the entire financial system, it is easy to cause fraud, and it is extremely difficult to trace.
How many officials use empty seals to make money? How many officials just use empty seals to save trouble?
This is almost an unverifiable question.
As for Sheng Taizu, it is impossible for him to believe that these officials are simply to improve efficiency.
Chu Ge didn't believe it either.
Just like today's officials, if they put forward an argument that can improve efficiency, but obviously has a lot of room for maneuver, ordinary people will think that they are doing it to improve efficiency or to seek rent for their own power?
This is self-evident.
Therefore, there will definitely be no problem if this matter is dealt with strictly and seriously. If it is not dealt with, the serious financial problems encountered in the later period of the Dasheng Dynasty may appear in the early and mid-term.
After all, when making money, everyone’s appetite is getting bigger and bigger.
If you kill a group of people at the beginning, you may be able to temporarily stop this evil trend and let it spread more slowly; but if you ignore, condone, and acquiesce at the beginning, you will still not know this in a few decades.
How much space can officials carve out?
But Chu Ge did not intend to completely copy Sheng Taizu's method, because there was indeed a practical problem behind this matter that was difficult to deal with.
That is, there will inevitably be losses during the transportation of physical taxes.
After the empty seal case, the local management will collect additional consumption and use the consumption to make up for the loss. In this way, it actually increases the burden on the people. Therefore, the empty seal case blocks the officials from filling in the account books at will, but
There is no way to completely solve this problem.
Therefore, in the later period of the Dasheng Dynasty, the physical tax was changed to a unified levy of silver taels. However, the daily use and melting of silver taels may cause natural losses that lead to mismatches. There is also a saying that fire losses are returned to the public...
In short, this matter was almost impossible to completely solve in feudal society, but a series of reforms could at least have some effect at the time and help the dynasty continue for several more decades.
"Based on the situation in the early years of the Dasheng Dynasty, it is definitely unrealistic to change the unified physical tax to the collection of silver coins. After all, the market economy has not developed to that extent. If the change is forced, problems will easily arise.
"What's more, Sheng Taizu is already in his twilight years and his physical condition is not as good as before. He can't push forward this kind of reform that often takes several years to complete.
"However, as far as physical tax losses are concerned, we can implement a simplified version of 'returning losses to the public'."
Thinking of this, Chu Ge thought about how to handle this case.
The official who holds the seal will be put to death, the deputy seal official will be punished with a rod and exiled, and any form of empty seal behavior will be strictly prohibited from happening again. This of course remains unchanged.
Then, decide on a strategy of "returning envy to the public".
In other words, due to the loss of physical taxes, "consumption" is inevitable. However, this consumption cannot be collected from the people, and there must be strict regulations. Officials at all levels cannot be allowed to levy as much as they want. There is a fixed ratio.
In this way, all localities still faithfully report the tax data at various levels and go to the Ministry of Household Affairs for verification.
When losses occur due to some special reasons during the transportation journey, it can be regarded as waste. When entering the household department, if the loss is within the normal range, it will be put into the warehouse normally. The excess waste cannot be retained by the officials themselves. However, these expenses can be used as subsidies to officials at all levels or have other uses.
If the loss is not within the normal range, then the reason must be explained. If it is due to special circumstances, such as heavy rain, then relevant certificates must be available for inspection.
Of course, Chu Ge is also very clear that any tax reform in ancient times cannot escape a law: there have been more than one tax and fee reform in history, but after each tax and fee reform, due to the limitations of the social and political environment at that time, the burden on farmers has decreased. After a period of time, it rose to a higher level than before the reform.
The reason is also very simple. The original intention of these reforms was to combine various miscellaneous exorbitant taxes and levies into one, which not only reduces the difficulty of collection, but also makes it difficult for officials at all levels to use clever names to commit corruption.
However, at the end of the dynasty, as the court's control over the grassroots continued to decline, officials could still find ways to collect more taxes under clever pretexts.
In other words, several taxes were originally combined into one, and after a period of implementation, officials would levy new taxes in a clever name. In fact, this new tax was already included in the previous taxes.
It is equivalent to the imperial court extracting gray income from officials, and giving preferential treatment to officials to find ways to increase new gray income. On the contrary, the taxes borne by the people are increasing.
Chu Ge is not a god, so of course he cannot solve this problem.
But he tried his best to use the wisdom of later generations to find the best solution to the financial and taxation issues in Sheng Taizu's dungeon in the short term, and he was able to deal with the dispute.
After Chu Ge thought about the general countermeasures, he automatically implemented them.
However, just when Chu Ge was about to take a look at the changes in Guo Zuo of the Dasheng Dynasty, he discovered that this case was not over yet.
The young eunuch came to announce: "Your Majesty, the alchemist is asking for an audience with Mr. Fang."
Chu Ge was stunned for a moment: "For alchemists?"
He quickly searched for this name in his mind.
Soon, I remembered.
This was a famous person at the time who was also involved in the empty seal case.
In history, he wrote thousands of words to Taizu Sheng, arguing that "the empty seal case has no other crime and can be forgiven."
And Taizu Sheng's answer to him was: exile.
Chu Ge realized that the situation this time was probably the same as the original scribe copy.
It's not enough to just give a measure, you have to refute these people face to face, then the task will be considered complete.
