Someone may ask, if Yanyin is in the hands of the imperial court, wouldn’t it be possible to perfectly avoid tax evasion by directly counting taxes in Yanyin?
Haha, too young.
The salt of the Ming Dynasty was originally tax-included. When you buy salt, you will be taxed once, and when you use the salt to buy table salt, you will be taxed again. Not only is the tax collected, but it is collected twice!
However, the annual salt production of 600 million jins, based on these two taxes of more than 13 million taels of silver, can indeed only collect 1 million taels.
It’s strange, how did this tax disappear out of thin air?
Of course, it is because of the Kaizhong system. 99% of the salt produced by households in the Huaihe River and Huaihe River has to be exported to the Central Plains, and a lot of it is converted into military rations. Moreover, the imperial court also provides subsidies for the Kaizhong. Because of the long distance to transport grain, it must be
Use preferential policies to encourage border merchants to open in China.
What’s even more embarrassing is that the Kaizhong system was gradually corrupted, and it was the emperor who took the lead in the corruption. After the reform of the Hongzhi Dynasty, the Kaizhong system was completely blind, and it was difficult to convert salt taxes into military rations.
Where did the missing military rations go?
The emperor, the eunuchs, and the nobles, these three forces accounted for the majority and ate the most military rations! Then there were the civil servants and military generals, who also profited from it, resulting in no salt tax revenue and no military rations being transported to the border towns.
Wang Yuan really wanted to cancel the Kaizhong system, but it was not time yet. He had to wait until Zhu Houzhao died, because the first person to be reformed was the emperor!
Since it is impossible to cancel the Kaichuang system and collect taxes on regular salt, we can only start with the remaining salt and the salt classes of local governments.
The content of the conversation between Wang Yuan and his cabinet ministers soon spread to the outer court. Guess who spread the news?
Yan Song was the first to come to the door and said politely to his disciples: "If the surplus salt merchants sell it, since there are small invoice restrictions, how can we prevent the collusion between the government and merchants who are hoarding it?"
Wang Yuan smiled and said: "The kitchen households are not stupid. The government and businessmen colluded to lower the price and directly sold private salt. Isn't that what the kitchen households do now? If the kitchen households didn't secretly sell private salt, most of them would have starved to death. What's more,
Internal businessmen will also take notice."
"Internal trader?"
Yan Song thought for a moment and immediately clapped his hands and praised: "The subtlety of this plan is actually an internal businessman, and the students admire it!"
Any reform will inevitably harm those with vested interests.
If the New Deal is to be implemented smoothly, new stakeholder groups must emerge.
Take the salt policy reform of the Hongzhi Dynasty as an example. The Kaizhong system also involves countless things. Why can we start anew and implement the silver system? It is to make the Lianghuai salt merchants full! To be precise, it is to make the Lianghuai salt merchants full.
This gave rise to even more hateful "hoarding" groups.
Wang Yuan proposed that the remaining salt be sold privately and that emerging interest groups should also be supported. This group was also the Lianghuai Salt Merchants.
However, the hoarders who were fed by the silver system were the capital giants among the Lianghuai salt merchants. But what Wang Yuan supported were the more numerous retail investors of the Lianghuai salt merchants!
The hoarders are able to control the market because they rely on official sales of salt. They collude with the government and have salt but do not sell it. Border merchants and retail merchants are in danger of breaking their capital chain because they cannot buy the goods, so they are forced to turn to those hoarders.
The hoarders succumbed and were manipulated to death by the hoarders.
To put it more bluntly, salt quotation can only prove that you have the right to purchase and traffic, but it is useless to hold the salt quotation but cannot buy salt from the government. For example, some salt merchants obtained salt quotation during the Yongle period, but by the Zhengde period
You can’t buy salt yet, so the salt has been passed down from generation to generation and has become a family heirloom!
The government said, it's not that we don't sell salt, it's that we don't produce enough salt. You can go home and wait.
And once the private sale of surplus salt is allowed, domestic retail traders can immediately rush to the salt field to trade directly with kitchen households. How can you wait for your hoarding households to collude with government merchants to lower prices?
It seems that the hoarders are hoarding salt, but the core method is to control the government's salt shipments and use the time difference to strain the capital chain of border merchants and domestic merchants. As long as the private sale of surplus salt is allowed, the hoarders cannot control the shipments.
Border merchants and retail merchants were instantly liberated.
Wang Yuan's reform plan, kitchen households, border merchants, and retail merchants are all beneficiaries, and they are the largest in number. As for the losers, they are a small number of merchants, salt transportation department officials, and
The powerful people behind it.
There is no need for court supervision. As long as the new policies are promulgated, countless retail merchants will spontaneously charge into the battle.
No matter how big the capital is, hoarders cannot hoard indefinitely. After being hit by countless retail traders, they have to slowly return to the market itself.
Many officials pondered this truth carefully and gradually understood it.
Zhang Cong, who was serving in the Hanlin Academy, clapped his hands on the table and laughed: "Wang Shangshu is a strange person. He can straighten out the seemingly intractable knot of the salt policy by selling only the remaining salt privately."
In history, no one in the entire Ming Dynasty thought of this method?
Someone!
Li Xueshi of the Longqing Dynasty once proposed it, but when he made this suggestion, he was just a small censor. Who would listen to him? (Note: This Li Xueshi is not the one of the Jiajing Dynasty, but the one of the Longqing and Wanli Dynasties.)
…
Yang Zhai.
In response to the incident, Cai Jing and Yushi Gao Shikui, together with a large group of officials, blocked the gate of Yang Tinghe's house.
After Wang Yuan's "Request to Change the Salt Law" was submitted, the cabinet never approved it, and it was not even brought to the court for discussion. After learning about the pros and cons, a large number of scientific and technical officials also petitioned to change the Salt Law.
Yanguan can not only gain political achievements by criticizing people, but also have the power to discuss matters. As long as they have the upper hand and can successfully reform the salt policy, then they can achieve political achievements.
With both political achievements and a reputation, why not do it?
It is a pity that the emperor did not go to court, the imperial censor's memorial was blocked by the cabinet, and the memorial on the matter was blocked by the ceremonial supervisor, and the officials were just looking at the blind man.
The officials became anxious and complained privately to Yang Tinghe, and Zhang Yong joined forces to block the way of speech.
Even after talking about it, the cabinet was still pretending to be dead, and Yang Tinghe did not dare to reform at all. Then, the officials could only block the door, and gathered twenty or thirty people to discuss the matter.
door.
They arrived very early, just as the curfew was lifted at midnight, and Yang Tinghe happened to be leaving for work.
"Mr. Yang Ge, please put the imperial government and the country first!" Cai Jing bowed his hands and bowed.
"Mr. Yang Ge, please put the imperial government and the country first!" Twenty or thirty officials shouted in unison.
Yang Tinghe was so angry that his head was smoking. He thought that these officials were sent by Wang Yuan. He suppressed his anger and said kindly: "Everyone, please come back. There is no room for omissions in the reform of the Salt Law. The cabinet is discussing it in detail.
.”
One word, drag!
It's not that the cabinet won't reform, but it's discussing the details of the reform. I don't know if the discussion will last until the Year of the Monkey.
Censor Gao Shikui asked: "Then why don't we approve the memorial?"
Yang Tinghe evaded: "The cabinet approved it and sent it all to the Supervisor of Ceremonies, but there is no news from the Supervisor of Ceremonies."
Two words, blame!
If the blame is left to the ceremonial eunuch, can Yan Guan still go to the inner court to argue with the eunuch?
The ministers looked at each other, unable to do anything about it. Yang Tinghe said that the cabinet was discussing reforms, and the eunuchs were behind the memorial. How could they beat Yang Tinghe?
Yang Tinghe got on the sedan chair and went to work in a swagger, leaving a bunch of officials in a mess.
"Huh, I used to think he was a capable minister, but I didn't expect him to be a mediocre person. Wang Shangshu's new salt law is so exquisite that it should be promulgated to the world as soon as possible, but Yang Tinghe is dragging his feet!"
"Yang Tinghe controls the cabinet, and Zhang Yong controls the ceremonial supervisor. His Majesty was seriously ill and did not attend court for several months. These two people have been isolated from China and the outside world!"
"A treacherous person will never be false, and a mediocre person will never be false."
"Look at who he promoted? Peng Ze had a bad temper. He was able to lead troops and fight, so how could he be qualified to be the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue? Peng Ze had been in charge of the Ministry of Revenue for more than half a year, and all the officials and departments were in a mess. I impeached several households.
As for the head of the department, there has been no follow-up until now, and it has not even been brought to the court for discussion!"
"That is, Sun Shangshu (Sun Jiao), Shi Shangshu (Shi Jie), and Huang Shangshu (Huang Ke), when these three were in charge of the Ministry of Household Affairs, which one did not keep everything in order? The Ministry of Household Affairs was in chaos as soon as it came into Peng Ze's hands.
Yang Tinghe simply recommended a bastard!"
"I think Yang Tinghe should have become an official long ago and replaced Wang Shangshu as the first assistant. The world will definitely be in great peace!"
"..."
These scientific and technical officials all want to climb up the ladder. They attribute all their unsatisfactory career to Yang Tinghe and replace him with Wang Yuan as the chief assistant. Most of them will also criticize Wang Yuan.
The brothers Yang Shen and Yang Dun were about to go out. When they heard the noisy discussion outside the door, they were so frightened that they quickly retreated.
The two brothers looked at each other and sneaked towards the side door. They were too embarrassed to go through the door for fear of being ridiculed by the officials.
Not to mention that Yang Tinghe had not yet dominated the government. Even in the early years of Jiajing in history, Yang Tinghe had already dominated the court, but one round after another of officials came out and made Yang Tinghe pretend to resign several times.
The main reason was that Yang Tinghe formed cliques. Although he won over a large number of courtiers, he was not popular among middle- and lower-level officials and officials.
The officials who were not bribed by Yang Tinghe were all his opponents. To put it bluntly, they were jealous and unconvinced. They were all Jinshi in the same field. Why was so-and-so promoted so quickly while I was still sitting on the bench? So-and-so was naturally promoted based on his ability.
It's okay, but he's not better than me, and he doesn't have more political achievements than me!
"Brother, it's better to advise father." Yang Dun sighed.
Yang Shen shook his head helplessly: "I can't persuade you."
Yang Dun said aggrievedly: "My house can only be entered and exited through the side door. What's the deal?"
Yang Tinghe was too difficult. Once he agreed to reform the Salt Law, he would attack many officials of his own faction. How could he do it?
Even though Yang Yiqing was a reformist, Wenyuan Pavilion also appreciated Wang Yuan's reform ideas.
But if the new law is really implemented, Yang Yiqing will probably not support it. If he can not obstruct it secretly, it will be regarded as tolerating the country. Because Yang Yiqing’s native place is in Zhenjiang, which is one of the base camps of hoarders, there may be one hoarder who belongs to Yang Yiqing.
Covered.
In any case, Yang Tinghe once again lost the support of the people, and the middle and lower-level officials in the capital secretly ridiculed him for being a mediocre prime minister.
Naturally, the officials were not satisfied with speaking ill of him behind his back. Instead of going to reform the Salt Law, they called on their friends to catch Yang Tinghe and impeach him.
Wang Yuan was thick-skinned and never paid attention to impeachment.
Yang Tinghe was ashamed because he was the leader of Qingliu. The piles of impeachment memorials made Yang Tinghe feel numb, so he had no choice but to impeach himself and resign. Not to mention whether it was true or not, he had to at least pretend to resign.