Chapter 214 Open the skylight and speak eloquently
During the Hongwu Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, the number of cultivated fields was said to be 800 million acres, but later it dropped to more than 400 million acres.
By the time of the Great Clearance in the sixth year of Wanli Period, the statistics were 758 million acres.
If one acre of silver was levied at one penny, the Hongwu acres would be levied at 80 million taels that year, and the Wanli Qing acres would be levied at 75.8 million taels.
But the problem is that taxes are getting less and less year by year. In Wanli and Chongzhen, it is only more than 20 million taels a year, including industrial and commercial taxes.
A big problem arises here.
Liu Zongzhou, Qi Biaojia and Song Zhipu were also very aware of the problem here.
"Your Highness, the number of acres in Hongwu includes fields, mountains, ponds, etc. In addition to the fields that can be used to grow wheat and rice to produce grain, the land is generally used to grow mulberry, tea, and tea trees." Liu Zongzhou said.
And Song Zhipu told Zhu Yihai, "There are also different types of acres in various places. There are two hundred and forty steps per mu, and there are three hundred and sixty steps per mu..."
According to them, there is actually not that much farming.
As for the more than 400 million acres of grain-paying fields in Wanli, there is also a problem of large and small acres, and there is also a sinkhole, which is the preferential exemption.
The land owned by the royal family and the royal family did not pay land tax.
Officials and gentry also have a large number of preferential and exemption quotas, and there are also various official lands.
Therefore, after deducting these and the Wanli Qing Dynasty, the actual total amount of land tax that could be collected was not as much as imagined.
Song Zhipu also directly gave Zhu Yihai a set of data. According to the records of the Ming Dynasty, the tax revenue in the six years of Wanli was 4.06 million shi from wheat and 22.64 million shi from rice, worth 16.44 million taels of silver, of which 350,000 shi and 4 million shi from wheat were
The starting price of gold flower and silver is 1.24 million taels.
In addition, silk cloth worth 443,000 taels of silver was collected.
The farmland cost more than 2 million shi of rice, more than 2 million shi of wheat, and the equivalent of grass was more than 2.66 million taels of silver.
Ma Zheng, the husband’s servant is 1.7 million taels,
The total of the above is 20.802 million taels, including 3.378 million taels of silver, 20.733 million shi of rice, 5.876 million shi of wheat, 14.142 million bundles of grass and other miscellaneous items.
The salt class is 1.373 million taels, the tea class is 26,000 taels, and the smelting class is 165,000 taels.
The merchant tax on ship notes is 457,000 taels.
…
"That's quite a lot!" Zhu Yihai was a little surprised when he heard this number.
Agricultural taxes were 20.802 million taels, industrial and commercial taxes were 2.238 million taels, miscellaneous income was 3.487 million taels, and the total fiscal and tax revenue was 26.526 million taels. From the composition point of view, the Ming Dynasty's finance mainly relied on agricultural taxes, accounting for 78.4% of the total revenue.
But twenty-six million taels a year is indeed a lot.
Although the salt tax is only over one million taels and the tea tax is over 20,000 taels, there is at least a problem of tens of millions of taels.
The tax in the sixth year of Wanli was only about one-eighth of that in the Northern Song Dynasty and one-quarter of that in the Qing Dynasty.
After Chongzhen came to power, theoretically, his annual income was more than 20 million taels of silver, but in fact, there were serious arrears in various places, and collections were seriously insufficient.
Military expenditures have been rising steadily, with a Guan Ning army costing several million taels every year.
During the Chongzhen Dynasty, industrial and commercial taxes were almost impossible to collect. Salt, tea, and industrial and commercial taxes were even significantly reduced. For example, the salt tax in Yunnan and the tea tax in Zhejiang were reduced by more than half.
Therefore, in the Chongzhen Dynasty, on the one hand, the original taxes could not be levied, and on the other hand, millions and millions of additional taxes were levied.
The imperial court had indeed been in a state of loss for a long time.
There were several major problems with Chongzhen's financial collapse. First, expenditures increased significantly, especially because internal forces wanted to suppress the rebellion and external forces resisted the Qing Dynasty. Military expenditures remained high every year.
On the other hand, taxes were seriously overdue and could not be collected. Especially as the prestige of the imperial court declined, the gentry and powerful officials from all over the country evaded taxes due to arrears. Local officials desperately squeezed the people and took advantage of this to impose additional taxes and assessments.
Now Zhu Yihai only has half of the country left, and the total amount of taxes that can be collected has been greatly reduced, which is even more difficult than Chongzhen's situation.
If we can't raise taxes anymore, we will be doomed.
"Let's make it simple and levy the tax according to the Wanli year. Afterwards, all the additional taxes and assessments added by Tianqi Chongzhen will be cancelled, including three rates."
The problem now is not to add new taxes, but to levy the basic ones first.
The gentry must be allowed to pay taxes and the burden on the common people must be reduced.
For example, take the average number of various corvee services in Yanzhou Prefecture during the Wanli Period, and then spread it among all the counted acres in Yanzhou Prefecture.
Excessive levies and miscellaneous taxes will be cancelled, and taxes will be collected from every acre.
For example, if Yanzhou Prefecture offers one penny of silver per mu, it will first levy the hundreds of thousands taels.
If it is not enough, we will make up for it from aspects such as salt tea, industrial and commercial banknotes.
It turns out that all these taxes were imposed by the gentry, but here is a tax warehouse of at least 20 to 30 million taels or more.
Moreover, levying industrial and commercial taxes will not increase the burden on ordinary people compared to imposing additional taxes on Tianfudingkou.
"The land is combined into one, and the land is divided into acres. This money must be levied in full, but it does not need to be transported and turned over. It is necessary to increase the local retention. My plan is to pay four parts of the tax, one part for internal funds, and one part for internal funds.
It will be transferred to the national treasury, one part will be kept in the province, and the other part will be kept in the county."
"The fire consumption returns to the public, the same four points."
"As for the specific ratio of the four points, 10% is for internal use, 50% goes to the national treasury, 10% is left to the province, 10% is for the prefecture, and 20% is for the county."
This fiscal allocation is much larger than before and is given to local governments.
In the past, the total was less than 20%, but now Zhu Yihai actually gave 40%.
If we calculate it as 80 million, the place can leave 30 million.
Yanzhou Prefecture has more than 100,000 taels a year, and 30% of the prefectures and counties have 30,000 to 40,000 taels.
In addition, the fire consumption can also be returned to three to four thousand, which greatly increases local fiscal revenue.
If local industrial and commercial taxes are also allocated according to this proportion, it can increase a lot.
The profits from the Lijin are earmarked for special use and all go to the Imperial Nutrition Soldiers.
"Your Highness is kind and kind!" Liu Zongzhou praised him endlessly. Since Wanli, the imperial court and local governments have added various additional gifts, which have already been several times as high as the official gifts.
If he is removed from office, it will indeed lighten a lot of burdens on the people.
Qi Biaojia asked, "Today we want to restore ZTE and use troops to fight the war, but what should we do if the expenditure is not enough? If we reduce the starting quota and increase local retention, how can we solve the problem without increasing taxes and apportionments? Isn't it still empty talk that we will never increase taxes?"
"Live within our means and use finances as rationally as possible. If the budget is not enough, we will adjust industrial and commercial salt, tea, currency and other taxes, and we will never impose additional taxes on Tianfu Dingkou."
“If it’s not enough, we’ll borrow money.”
If you borrow, you have to pay it back, but if you add taxes, you don't have to pay it back.
Zhu Yihai's attitude is very clear. Stop squeezing the common people. They have already squeezed them dry. In the future, land tax will be the main tax, the poll tax will be abolished, and at the same time, the industrial and commercial taxes that were abolished by the gentry will be raised. Not only must they be collected, but also
It can be equal to the agricultural tax and can walk on two legs.
There was a gentry landowner and a poor old man.
In the past, a poor old man's family had many sons but no land. They worked in a sharecropping field and had to bear a heavy burden of corvee labor. It was so oppressive that they could not survive. The sons were all single and could not find wives. The family lived in a simple shack and only had two meals a day.
Wild vegetable porridge is on the verge of wanting to flee or even rebel at any time.
Now it's better. After the tenants join the acres and have no land, they don't have to pay the original dingyin. Now they only have to pay the land rent to the landlord. The remaining savings can be used to find a wife for his son, or even save up to build an adobe thatch.
house, or buy some cloth to make new clothes.
For a landowner with a thousand acres of land, he was originally a scholar, and he was exempted from forty acres of land, two ding, and even Yao. He just paid some Lijia and miscellaneous labor silver. In fact, he may not have paid anything at all.
Pass.
But now, from the 1,000 acres of land minus 40 acres that are exempted, the remaining 960 acres have to be paid.
If you pay one ding of silver per acre, that is ninety-six taels of silver.
This included thirty taels of tin silver more than originally paid.
It's equal to three ounces plus one ounce.
In contrast, the poor family had no land and no land, and they had to pay a corvee of ten cents of silver per cent, but now they are freed.
For a landlord, if he has a thousand acres of land, he can harvest several thousand dan a year. Even if he collects rent 50-50, he still has one or two thousand dan.
One acre of land is charged two or three dan, and one tael of silver is levied. Even if it is one tael of silver and one dan, the tax rate is thirty tax to twenty tax one, no more than five percent, which is definitely not high.
The poor families were freed after sharing their land, and the rich families had little impact. But for the court, first of all, the cost of taxation was reduced. In the past, the poor could not afford to pay, so why pay with their lives? Can't taxes be levied?
Qi, the people are also oppressed and have no life.
The only problem is what to do if these landowners refuse to pay taxes.
After all, they had such a criminal record before and tried their best to exempt or even refuse to pay.
Liu Zongzhou and others undoubtedly thought about this issue as well. This was the biggest obstacle under the new policy of never increasing taxes and sharing the family income.
"Do you understand now why Gu wants to set an example in Yanzhou?" Zhu Yihai asked.
This is killing the chicken to scare the monkey.
The purpose of restating the preferential and exemption rules is to make those gentry who have defaulted on payment understand that
Yanzhou punished him so harshly, and even resorted to such thunderous measures as investigating twenty years of accumulated debts and forcing him to make up for the shortfall, all of which were just to serve as an example to others.
"A tenant farmer pays 35 taels per mu of land, a small amount of silver per year, a landowner with a hundred acres of land pays 35 taels per mu of tax, money and grain, and a large landowner with a thousand acres of land pays 35 taels of land per mu.
Ten taels of silver, who do you think has the greater burden?"
Obviously, the larger the landowner, the smaller the burden.
The problem is so simple. It’s not that everyone can’t understand it. The key is that in the past, those who formulated policies were bureaucrats, landlords, and scholar-officials. Even if the burden was small, they were unwilling to bear it.
Even if the poor have no place to stand on, they still want them to bear the burden for themselves.
This is human nature.
Zhu Yihai pulled off the fig leaf, leaving Liu Zongzhou and other scholar-bureaucrats speechless.
Is Zhu Yihai's idea good? Very good, they can't refute it in their hearts.
But they are also aware of the resistance this new law may face. How many people are really willing to pay more for the country?
But Zhu Yihai's words have always reminded them that if they don't change, the world will be destroyed. It's time to change.
Will they really wait until the Tatars take over the world and stop paying taxes?
Isn’t the Tatar knife quick?
Zhu Yihai risked offending all the landowners, gentry and bureaucrats in the world, but still brought it up, indicating that it was indeed a last resort.
Just like a person who is extremely thirsty will drink poison to quench his thirst.
"Your Highness is trying to rob the rich and give to the poor," He Tengjiao said.
"Is it really more reasonable to tax people based on ding, rather than tax per capita? Isn't it more reasonable to tax people based on land occupation? What is the essence of tax?" Zhu Yihai asked rhetorically.
He Tengjiao replied that taxation is based on Ding, which has been a custom since ancient times.
"Wrong, it's a big mistake to have privileges. To levy one tael of silver from a person who has one tael of silver is to seek wealth and harm one's life. To levy one tael of silver from a person who has ten taels of silver is a slightly heavy burden, but it is still affordable. You can ask a person who has ten taels of silver to tax one tael of silver."
If a person has one hundred taels of silver and he levies one tael of silver, it will be no problem for him. If a person who has one thousand taels of silver levies one tael of silver, it will have no effect on him at all.”
"The biggest problem in the Ming Dynasty over the years has been the lack of money. Why is there a shortage of money? Taizu established a system of light taxes and light taxes. However, with the development of the country, the government and the government were short of daily necessities, so they had to continue to impose additional taxes on the people. This book
It goes against the original intention of Taizu to reduce taxes and reduce taxes. The burden on the people continues to increase, and the corvee tax is increased several times or even more than ten times the official tax. Is this reasonable? "
"It's unreasonable. We need to raise taxes, not on a per-capita basis, but on a per-property basis. The rich will be taxed more, and the poor will be taxed less. This will last long."
"In recent years, everyone has been pretending to be confused because they don't want to pay. But they don't think about it. If the Ming Dynasty is destroyed, will they still get these generous benefits?"
"Today, I would like to ask all your ministers, if the Jurchen Tartars are able to secure their position in the Central Plains, will they still treat the gentry and powerful people as favorably as the Ming Dynasty did? Impossible. As soon as the Tartars enter Beizhi, they will run around to encircle the land and take the people captive.
Servant, all your ministers should have heard of these things, not to mention the Jinan Massacre, Yangzhou Massacre, etc. they caused."
Zhu Yihai was very excited.
The tax system of the Ming Dynasty is so anti-human. It only focuses on the poor people to pluck their wool, and will not let them go until they are bald. How much can be plucked out?
Leaving those big fat sheep covered with wool alone ended up not only killing the skinny sheep, but also freezing to death during the Little Ice Age. Those fattened sheep were just left to the Manchus.
, they killed sheep and skinned them to make fur coats, which not only kept them warm, but also ate the fat lamb meat.
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