Chapter 79 Competing with officials for profit! (Please subscribe)
“What’s the difference?” Zhu Biao sat upright.
Don’t the government’s business operations be ultimately left to officials? Wouldn’t the imperial court still be able to extract salt taxes from it?
Xia Zhibai shook his head and said: "It's different."
"And this is the biggest problem of Ming Dynasty."
"Your Majesty has read too many books nowadays. To a certain extent, he has read them to death."
"He only knows what is written."
Zhu Biao's face darkened, but he did not have an attack. .
Xia Zhibai said: "Since the Han Dynasty, all dynasties have used salt and iron to be run by the government, and special salt households have been set up to produce salt. The court collected the salt uniformly, and then sold the salt through various merchants. The imperial court collected high salt taxes."
"Since the Song Dynasty, officials and merchants have gradually merged."
"Many officials have monopolized the supply of salt in one place through their powers, thereby monopolizing huge profits."
"The Ming Dynasty learned from experience and strictly prohibited officials from doing business, and imposed various restrictions."
>“In the end, the road was narrowed.”
“The imperial court only saw the collusion between officials and businessmen and the common people, but it did not see how much huge profits the officials made under this path, and even more I have not seen how much salt tax the Song Dynasty court collected. The Ming Dynasty’s salt tax now accounts for nearly half of the commercial tax.”
“But it only received a mere million taels.”
"How shabby."
"But your highness, do you still remember how I criticized your majesty?"
"Your majesty wants to be the only landlord in the world."
"It's just your Majesty's idea that sometimes makes people laugh, because the landowner your Majesty wants to be is nondescript. He only thinks about treating the people as slaves and officials as long-term workers, but he has never thought about the future. The world’s industry is regarded as the official property of the imperial court.”
"It directly turned into government business, and the remaining profits of these hugely profitable industries fell into the pockets of the court."
"Even if your Majesty's vision is broader, more ambitious, and greedy, you can see that the Song Dynasty court has taken away The business tax should be jealous, but what is your majesty doing now? He is clearly growing countless crops in his fields, but he is still clinging to that broken begging bowl, wondering where to go to get some food."
“It makes people laugh.”
Zhu Biao’s eyelids twitched, and he also had a hint of sullen expression.
This is his father after all.
How can it be so humiliating?
He thought secretly in his heart, but he felt that it made sense.
But this opening is difficult to open.
It’s too deviant. How could anyone in the past dynasties do this?
When the government engages in business, isn’t this competing with the people for profit? And wouldn’t this be indulging official corruption?
Once this trend started, the results were unpredictable.
There are too many variables.
After Zhu Biao hesitated for a while, he still shook his head.
Too risky.
And there are a lot of things to change.
This will cause great turmoil and unrest in the world.
Zhu Biao took a sip of tea, held the cup in his hand, and said slowly: "Your idea is very radical, and it does have some merit, but running a country cannot be so quick and easy, and you can How could the officials of the Song Dynasty not think of these ideas? How could the officials of the Ming Dynasty not think of them?"
"But no one has written such a memorial so far."
"This may be possible. It is enough to prove that your ideas are difficult to test."
Xia Zhibai nodded and shook his head.
He said solemnly: "This is the purpose of my coming here this time."
"I want to practice it myself."
"But I actually know the general problem."< br>
"First of all, the Song Dynasty shared the world with the scholar-bureaucrats. The public family and the scholar-bureaucrats were not one and the same. The scholar-bureaucrats themselves benefited and would not give up the profits."
Zhu Biao frowned.
Xia Zhibai continued: "As for why no officials of the Ming Dynasty came to the meeting, it is because His Majesty is not willing to listen."
"Your Majesty has his own ideas about business operations."
"The Ming Dynasty The share of salt production is fixed to a certain extent. The imperial court calculated the population and then stipulated the salt rationing system to mine within one's means."
"The world your Majesty wants is a relatively static world. ."
"Even immutable."
"Quotas stipulate the amount of land rent collected in the world, the amount of salt produced, and ironware, etc., which keep the world in a state of lack of change. In this way, the world is kept in a stagnant water for a long time. The decrease is due to the increase in demand and the increase in output. Possible greed and desire will keep the world going."
"The officials of the Ming Dynasty knew this well and would not seek trouble."
"And the imperial court restrained them. The more you die, the more opportunities you will have for the officials below to take action. "
"They are not willing to change. "
"The last point, which many officials are afraid of, is the transportation problem. ”
"It is not easy to transport salt. If the court is responsible, it will definitely have to spend a lot of money and food, which the court cannot afford at the moment. In addition, some officials deliberately exaggerate the transportation costs and sales prices, which also makes His Majesty hesitate."
Zhu Biao closed his eyes slightly.
He has roughly understood Xia Zhibai's intention.
He wants to change the salt administration system of Ming Dynasty.
But these three reasons are not enough, and they are far from enough. Xia Zhibai was not in a hurry.
He needs to explain the problem clearly first.
This way he can ask for more privileges.
Xia Zhibai poured himself a cup of tea and felt that his throat was a little dry.
He took a sip and continued: "When I was in Kaifeng, I had an in-depth understanding of the Ming Dynasty's salt policy."
"In the early Ming Dynasty, the salt administration was under the old system of Xun Yuan. In the first year of Hongwu, the court reorganized the farm property and moved the people into kitchen households. They were counted as dings per household, which was called salt dings."
"The imperial court stipulated that salt should be calculated according to dings. , called forehead salt, each salt is given to the kitchen household every year, and it is not allowed to be sold privately. Anyone who belongs to the kitchen household is exempted from its handymen. "
"Some of the kitchen households in the Ming Dynasty were from the Yuan Dynasty. Yes, after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the court continued to allow these people to produce salt, and some criminals were forced to change their household registrations to Zao households. Secondly, because some places were rich in salt industry resources, the government would also choose to convert some people into salt producers. Ordinary people changed their household registration to Zao households."
"But the imperial government changed it over and over again."
"It was just to ensure that the quota of salt production could be achieved, and it did not consider the burden of Zao household at all. .”
"But the imperial court has not considered that some Zao households have a large population and some have a small population. However, regardless of the population, each household has to pay a salt tax of thirty dollars."
"This also leads to Some kitchen households were overwhelmed, and some had a lot of salt. "In the end, the private salt trade became a disaster, and the kitchen households also complained."
"The court has been complaining for a long time." In cracking down on illicit salt smuggling, we are also constantly tightening the surplus salt in the hands of kitchen households, trying to maintain the stability of the salt market, but the effect is not good. "
"In the final analysis, the Ming salt policy is unreasonable."
"Not only is it unreasonable for the kitchen households, but the taxation of the court is also unreasonable, and it is also unreasonable for the people who need salt."
"The Ming Dynasty had very strict management of these kitchen households. Once naturalized, future generations would not be allowed to They are separated from their household registration and cannot change industries."
"The salt they produce can only be sold to the government, and private trading is strictly prohibited."
"The only benefit the government gives these kitchen households is. It means that they are relieved of their chores.”
“Zao households work hard to make salt for a year, but in the end they can only get the food and money stipulated in the official work standard.”
"If officials encounter embezzlement, many families will go hungry to make salt. In this case, in order to survive and survive, they can only sell private salt."
"Otherwise, they will not survive. Go on."
"Moreover."
"The annual sales of Daming salt are as high as tens of millions."
"The imperial tax is only one million."
"The kitchen households have no money, and the government has not received the money. Where will the other money go?"
"The officials of the Ming Dynasty said that the world was prosperous, but they refused to provide more salt to the people so that the people could buy it. The salt is always in a state where it is barely enough and extremely tense. Is this the way of governance in the Ming Dynasty? "
"How can people not feel dissatisfied and resentful under such circumstances?"< br>
Xia Zhibai’s eyes became sharp.
He looked directly at Zhu Biao, stood up slowly, and said coldly: "The Ming Dynasty's system is deformed."
“Even twisted.”
“Stability for the sake of so-called stability.”
“Even forced stability.”
“I know clearly that the world is not suitable, but I still We must use high pressure, force, and brutal methods to force the world to accept this kind of stability.”
“Everyone in the Ming Dynasty has problems, from the emperor to the ministers.”
"As for the problem of Emperor Qin, it has always been a matter of vision."
"The consideration is too one-sided and crude."
"You can only see what you want, but you can't see the end result. The actual situation. "
"To achieve his goal, he will do whatever it takes, even if the final result is not that way, he will use force to force the world to become what he wants."
"As for it. The problem for officials in the Ming Dynasty is actually even bigger.”
"Because of your background, your father sometimes does not think that much. However, as officials and officials of the Ming Dynasty, these people deceive the superiors and conceal the interests of the imperial court in every possible way."
"If business taxes are too high, it will dampen the enthusiasm of businessmen, and it will also improve the status of businessmen in disguise."
"If people's lives improve, they may have more desires and greed, which will cause social unrest. , but they forgot that there is a sentence in the book of sages, that when you have enough food and clothing, you know honor and disgrace, and when you have enough food and clothing, you know etiquette."
"They say they want to ask for orders for the people, but in fact they turn a blind eye to the hardships of the people at the bottom and have never seen it. Want to change.”
“There is something wrong with Ming Taxi”
"With such a group of scholar-bureaucrats in the entire court, how can there not be problems with various policies of the Ming Dynasty?"
"Today, His Majesty is very guarded against all officials."
"However, The key point is to compete with the officials and take back the interests of the imperial court that have been occupied by the officials."
"That's what I want to tell your highness."
"That's it. We must learn to compete with officials for profit.”
"Take back the 'financial rights' that officials have usurped one by one."
"Perhaps using conventional means, it is very difficult to take away the 'financial rights' that officials have usurped, and you will also encounter great resistance. But I have the most advanced technology and tools in the world today, so I may not be able to seize food from the tiger's mouth."
"I will use practical actions to tell people all over the world, the path that hundreds of officials avoid talking about. Is it really wrong?”
“Is the path taken by the Ming Dynasty wrong?”
(End of this chapter)