Imperial Master of the Ming Dynasty

"this"

Zhu Gaoxu scratched his beard. He really didn't know much about the Ming Dynasty's land system.

The knowledgeable Li Jinglong took over the words at the right time and played the role of admiration assigned to him by Zhu Di.

"Emperor Taizu Gao founded the country and established the land system inherited from the Song and Yuan Dynasties, that is, the two-field system."

"The nature of the land in the Ming Dynasty is divided into two types: official land and private land. Among them, official land is about 1.2 million hectares, accounting for about one-seventh, and private land is about 7.2 million hectares, accounting for six-sevenths. Generally speaking, private land is more than official land. Mr. Tian’s pattern.”

Li Jinglong paused and then continued: "The main sources of official land are, first, the official land inherited from the Yuan Dynasty, and the second, the land that was lost when the local separatist forces were pacified. For example, when the puppet king of Wu Zhang Shicheng was pacified, all the land was lost." All the land owned by the pseudo-Wu dignitaries was designated as official land. Most of the rich and powerful people in Su, Song, Jia and Hu areas also had their land confiscated due to consecutive convictions."

The so-called evil rich and common people, well, are actually the local scholar-bureaucrat families that were inherited from the late Song Dynasty to the late Yuan Dynasty and entrenched in Su, Song, Jia, Hu and other prefectures.

"In addition to the property of the royal family, vassal kings, nobles, etc., there are also farmlands in the official fields, which are divided into military villages, merchant villages, and civilian villages. The latter two can be ignored, mainly military villages across the country. Emperor Taizu Gao stipulated that every One dou of rent was collected per mu, and the rest was used to support the officers and soldiers of the guard station."

"Private lands are collected from fish scales, which are divided into general maps and sub-maps. The sub-maps are based on lijia, and then the sub-maps of several li are summarized into a general map of townships, which is updated every ten years."

Li Jinglong thought for a moment and said: "If we follow the first point and calculate who owns all the materials for producing food, such as farmland, cattle, and seeds. The official land of the Ming Dynasty belongs to the state and is distributed to the royal family, vassal kings, It was used by nobles and the military, while private land belonged to farmers or landowners.”

"The second point, what is the status of those who produce food and those who own it, are landlords and tenant farmers, as well as homesteaders, both. The third point, who ultimately distributes the food, also arises based on the second point."

Jiang Xinghuo nodded. He spoke in great detail. He was obviously a knowledgeable young man, not just a Qinhuai drifter.

At this time, Zhu Gaoxu's attitude towards Li Jinglong had obviously changed.

Zhu Gaoxu thought to himself: "I didn't expect that Li Jinglong is not good at fighting, but he knows a lot about other things."

"What you said is very good. Then I will briefly talk about these three points of the Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, and Yuan Dynasty according to the differences between dynasties. Listen to what is the difference from now, and use this to understand the evolution of the land system. "

Jiang Xinghuo said slowly: "In the early Tang Dynasty, the Guanlong military meritorious aristocratic group inherited the land equalization system since the Western Wei, Northern Zhou, and Sui Dynasties, and adapted to the sharp population decline after the war in the late Sui Dynasty; in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the Anshi Rebellion led to the expansion of feudal towns. In order to reduce the burden on the people and collect taxes efficiently, the two-tax system was changed. Generally speaking, the land system in the Tang Dynasty was owned by the state, gradually transitioning to ownership by landlords and farmers, and finally transitioning to ownership by large landowners. The tax system It also changed with the changes in the field system.”

"In the Song Dynasty, due to the loose economic policies of the country and the people, which did not inhibit the annexation of private land, the number of state-owned fields decreased significantly. The land system was basically owned by landlords and supplemented by owner-cultivators."

"And it is precisely because of the land system that landlords will do their best to annex land, which will inevitably lead to a large number of bankruptcies among homesteaders."

"So Wang Anshi implemented the Green Crops Law, trying to subsidize the farmers in terms of 'production means' and curb land annexation."

"But it is a pity that Wang Anshi faced opposition from the entire landlord class. Even if Wang Anshi did not dare to change the two points of 'the mutual status of those who produce food and those who own it' and 'who will ultimately distribute the food', he would not touch the landlords. The transformation of class interests ultimately ended in failure."

"As for the Yuan Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty implemented the two-field system in the land system and the tax farming system in the tax system. After satisfying the interests of the Mongolian aristocracy, it allowed the Han bureaucrats and landlords to suck the bones out of the people without touching the interests of the landlord class at all. In the end, The oppressed peasant class has lost large areas of their land and will inevitably revolt, there is nothing to say.”

Jiang Xinghuo finally concluded.

"So, looking at the evolution of the land system in past dynasties over the past thousand years, we can draw a simple rule."

“The field system (that is, the nature of land ownership) determines the tax system, the ratio of the landlord class to the peasant class determines the tax base of the dynasty, and the scale of the tax base, mainly agricultural taxes, determines the longevity of the dynasty.”

What Jiang Xinghuo did not give as an example was the Qing Dynasty, the last feudal dynasty in the future.

That was a being who magically jumped out of the above rules at the end of the dynasty.

The reason is also very simple. The evolution from agricultural society to industrial society has caused the empirical laws of agricultural dynasties to become invalid.

In other words, the law did not expire, or the expansion of tax bases such as customs duties and taxes extended the life of the Qing Dynasty. However, tariffs and fees had nothing to do with land ownership, and therefore were not determined by the ratio of the landlord class to the peasant class.

Zhu Gaoxu just realized it at this time, and he said excitedly.

"So, as long as we use the land system to control the landlord class so that its proportion does not become too large, we can extend the life of the Ming Dynasty!"

When Li Jinglong heard this, he was speechless for a moment.

This is indeed the truth.

But this is just like you can live forever as long as you don’t get sick and age. Isn’t this nonsense?

Land annexation by the landlord class is something engraved in the bones and has nothing to do with people.

On the contrary, if a tenant farmer becomes a small landowner, he will be more diligent and crazy than the original landowner when annexing his land.

Zhu Gaochi, who is next door, is obviously more sensitive to state governance than Li Jinglong. He clearly realizes that what Jiang Xinghuo said is definitely not nonsense!

“Fields determine taxes!

The proportion determines the tax base!

The tax base determines lifespan! "

Hearing this profound summary of the rules, for Zhu Gaochi, who was in charge of the state affairs of the Ming Dynasty, it was like drinking a bowl of ice water in the middle of summer, soothing from head to stomach.

Zhu Gaochi was a little shocked. He had previously imagined the limits of Jiang Xinghuo's talent.

But he didn't expect that Jiang Xinghuo had already reached the limit of his imagination in just one sentence.

Jiang Xinghuo turned out to be such a great talent, able to explain the root causes of the millennium-old land system and tax system in detail.

This is something that he thinks is something that even the rare wise ministers and talents Yang Rong, Yang Shiqi and others cannot do!

Zhu Gaochi turned around and grabbed Zhu Di's sleeve and said happily: "Congratulations, father, for having such an amazing talent!"

Zhu Di smiled reservedly, patted the elder's shoulder and said.

"Just listen here. Since Jiang Xinghuo has summarized the law of how the field system determines the lifespan of a dynasty, he will definitely come up with a solution."