The Prosperous Era of Longwan

In the imperial capital of the Ming Dynasty, in the duty room of the chief minister of the cabinet, Zhang Juzheng sat silently thinking about things.

Ever since Wei Guangde met with him two days ago and brought up the matter of clearing the land, Wei Guangde pointed out that the population of the Ming Dynasty was also strange. For more than a hundred years, the population had not increased. The implications were very clear.

Zhang Juzheng naturally knew that there were serious distortions in the current yellow records, but relatively speaking, he was more concerned about the fields related to the imperial government's finances.

Besides, it doesn’t matter how much the Ming Dynasty has a larger population. In any case, according to the rules set by Taizu, each prefecture and county has its own tax quota.

Even if the population increased sharply, the Dante tax would still have to be spread equally. Finally, after the land was cleared, it was directly compiled into a whip law and the tax was collected according to the land.

Of course, if the population is counted, it will be a corvee that can dilute the civilian population.

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After all, many civilians who were not in the yellow rolls escaped the corvee that they should have borne.

But Zhang Juzheng still didn't think it was necessary. Wei Guangde just mentioned that in a few years, the imperial court should conduct a large-scale pornographic census. Using this opportunity to re-enumerate the population of the Ming Dynasty accurately would not bring any burden to the imperial court. .

Zhu Yuanzhang formulated the Yellow Book System, which can be said to be the "best" policy implemented after the founding of the Ming Dynasty. Starting from the 14th year of Hongwu, that is, 1381 AD, the Yellow Book was revised every ten years. It has never been revised for more than a hundred years. intermittent.

In fact, until the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Great Prostitution Book once every ten years was never interrupted. It has to be said to be a miracle. After all, it has been implemented for more than 200 years, and no matter what major events happened, it was never delayed.

The next time the Yellow Book was created was in the ninth year of Wanli, which was 1581 AD.

Although Wei Guangde's proposal, if truth be told, is not excessive, and the Dazao pornography register should definitely be compiled according to the real situation among the people. However, in fact, due to the financial inflow of the Ming Dynasty, the funds invested in Dazao each time were actually seriously insufficient, so it was Various problems arise.

Yes, Zhang Juzheng knew how those pornographic books were made. Many of them were copied.

Some officials would also pay attention to deleting some elderly people when copying. After all, it is impossible for an elderly person who is one or two hundred years old to still be recorded in the book, but more people just copied it intact.

This is very ridiculous.

As for the most important thing, the students from all over the country went to the countryside to actually check the population situation on behalf of the officials. Because the government subsidies were not in place, the students used deceptive methods and did not go to the countryside to actually check and record the population of each household. changes.

In this case, even if there are officials above who want to do things seriously, they cannot clearly check the population within their jurisdiction.

The data reported by the students they received was false. How could they objectively compile the yellow book?

Zhu Yuanzhang spent a lot of thought on the design of the yellow list system, but unfortunately the people's wisdom is infinite, and the yellow list system was directly ruined.

Let us give a few specific examples to understand how the "Yellow Book of Taxes and Services" was corrupted.

For example, someone named Zhang San made money in business, so he bought fifty acres of land and tried to evade taxes.

He can buy two kilograms of pork for the village chief and ask him to divide 40 acres of his 50 acres of land into the names of forty poor people.

These poor people are illiterate and easily fooled. Others fill in the yellow books for them. It is not very obvious that one person has an extra acre of tax.

This method of falsely reporting information is called "spreading".

In addition to "spray", you can also use "dead mail" and "posting" methods.

The so-called "dead transfer" means that when a fellow villager's family dies and his farmland becomes wasteland, he no longer has to pay taxes. Li Si can put part of the land in his name to evade taxes.

The so-called "posting" means that the gentry class who were studying and serving as officials at that time did not need to pay taxes. Li Si could register part of his land in their names. This was called "posting".

Information can be falsely reported during registration, and data can be tampered with after registration.

For example, when Li Si registered, he deliberately wrote down his family's population incorrectly. There were clearly five people in his family, but he wrote it down as four.

When the reviewers saw that there was an error, they marked it and asked them to go back and correct it.

Li Si got the yellow book again and corrected the population number, but at the same time he also changed his land data, which was obviously fifty acres to five acres.

The yellow book was handed back, and the inspectors checked it again. Once they saw the errors in the marked areas, they corrected them. Other information had already been checked and was not read. Li Si successfully avoided taxes.

Not only could Li Si make changes himself, but he could also bribe others to change them. There was even a case in the Ming Dynasty where the person transporting the yellow book took a bribe and parked the car on the road for several days, waiting for the briber to tamper with the yellow book.

In addition to falsely reporting information and tampering with data, there is also the destruction of yellow records, leaving you with no evidence to check.

There was a case in which a manager was bribed to tear out a few pages from a yellow book. As a result, the person was searched and found out when he left Xuanwu Lake, and the cheating failed.

In fact, Zhang Juzheng just wanted the local government to re-check the land acres, which was to separate from the yellow book system that had been broken by the imperial court.

But Wei Guangde wanted to re-compile the yellow book by the way, so things naturally became a little complicated.

Apart from anything else, even if the local government does report the data, it will still be real data. However, there is still one hurdle for the Yellow Register to reach the Ministry of Household Affairs, and that is refutation.

After the yellow roll is submitted to the Ministry of Household Affairs, the central government needs to send people to conduct data review. The county, county, and department records are compared horizontally. The yellow roll submitted ten years ago is compared vertically with the newly submitted yellow roll. This step is called "Refutation".

The students of the Imperial College are responsible for the refutation. One refutation requires 1,200 students and takes three months to complete. On average, each person refutes fifty books.

But in actual operation, only at the beginning did the supervisors complete the task seriously. Later, they delayed the work by various means. Three months delayed for one year, one year delayed for three years, three years delayed for ten years, and the new yellow book was handed in. Yes, the last issue has not been checked yet.

Later, even the staff could not be found, and the supervisors asked for leave one after another, including sick leave, marriage leave, maternity leave, and filial leave, and tried every means to avoid labor.

Why don't the prison guards like to work?

Because the treatment and working environment are so bad.

The yellow book cannot be given to the supervisors to take home for inspection. They have to go to Xuanwu Lake and verify it in the yellow book warehouse.

The Xuanwu Lake Yellow Book Warehouse has made many special designs for confidentiality and fire prevention.

The environment around the warehouse is humid, and fires are not allowed. Winters are extremely cold, and summers are full of mosquitoes. The supervisors will most likely get sick after working on the island for three months.

Moreover, due to the strict control of entry and exit, people who are sick are not allowed to leave the island at will. Not only can they not be treated, but even if a person dies, the body cannot be transported out.

It is understandable why in the end, everyone knew about the dirty tricks of the Yellow Book, but no one wanted to mention it. In fact, this is the reason.

In fact, in the past two days, Zhang Juzheng also asked people to discuss the issue of the current yellow roll of taxes and servitude, but no one supported him in truly creating a large-scale pornographic roll.

Everyone knows about the problem of pornography, but no one supports it because they know how powerful it is.

The local government was unwilling to spend so much energy on it. The Ministry of Household Affairs in the imperial court reacted the most for the same reason. There was no way to send more people to investigate.

Not long after, the clerk outside the door came in to report that Wei Ge Lao had arrived.

Zhang Juzheng stood up and welcomed Wei Guangde in.

After a brief exchange of greetings, Zhang Juzheng said directly: "Shandai, you proposed to use this opportunity to create a yellow book to clarify the population and land. I am afraid it will be more difficult than you imagined."

"oh."

Wei Guangde was called over by Zhang Juzheng, and you also guessed his intentions, but you didn't expect that it was for this matter.

"Why? In a few years, the imperial court should re-compile the Yellow Book. Since my uncle wants to clear his father's land, why not take this opportunity to re-compile the Yellow Book of Fish Scales."

Wei Guangde continued.

"Shandai, you should know that what I think of clearing the father-in-law's land is actually different from compiling a yellow book. They are two completely different things. The original intention is to ask the local government to hand over the white book. At the same time, it is the land that is hidden by the powerful and wealthy family, and the court collects taxes accordingly.    Implemented the one-whip method to distribute taxes and levies equally, reducing taxes for the people, and at the same time, the taxes were converted from physical goods into money to expand the imperial treasury.

But if the population is also included, the opposition to the reorganization of the Fish Scale Yellow Book will definitely not be small. "

Zhang Juzheng said solemnly, "Actually, I know what you mean, but the matter of clearing the father-in-law has a huge impact. If the population census is mixed into it, not only will the people below complain about the huge workload and cannot be carried out, but the matter of clearing the father-in-law may even be delayed.

In my opinion, the matter of population census should be discussed later. "

Zhang Juzheng finally made his attitude clear. He did not agree to Wei Guangde's census at the beginning, but only promised to think about it.

After discussing with others, we felt that it was too difficult, so we decided to have a showdown with Wei Guangde.

This can't be done.

"Will the imperial court increase its investment?"

Although Zhang Juzheng has made his attitude clear, Wei Guangde still wants to fight for it.

"For good loans, even if the Yellow Book is revised, it will not actually help the court's finances.

After all, after signing, only a part of the Ding tax will be included in the whip tax, and the Ding service will eventually be promoted by the local government.

Although the new law allows those who serve in the army to pay for their service with money, the government will recruit people to serve.

Even if the population increases by 10 million or 20 million after the census, the number of slaves included in the whip tax will still remain unchanged, and they will eventually be spread among the acres.

As for the corvee, they were naturally promoted on a rotational basis at the local level. They did not select people according to the yellow list, but were selected by the household chiefs.

Although I also want to make the pornographic book accurate, the opposition is too loud, and you and I have to consider the subsequent harm. "

Zhang Juzheng said that this was not a problem that Wei Guangde thought about the court spending more money to hire people, but a trouble that broke the unspoken rules of the court and local governments.

'However, if the imperial court does not grasp the true population situation, a lot of chaos will inevitably occur when local governments raise taxes and levies.

Just one corvee can destroy many families. ’

Wei Guangde sighed.

This is really not Wei Guangde's nonsense. Many families were torn apart due to the corvee system, and their families were destroyed.

Looking back on the long history, the corvee system has a long history.

The so-called corvee refers to the state's requisition of civilians to perform labor services without compensation. As early as the Warring States Period, the corvee system already existed. By the Qin Dynasty, this system was increasingly perfected.

Generally speaking, there are three types of corvee: official corvee, apprentice corvee and civilian corvee.

Among them, the common people served the people's corvee, which is what we usually call corvee.

Large-scale projects in ancient times often required large-scale corvee labor. Not only the construction of palaces for the royal family, but also the construction of cities and river dams were all projects completed with a large number of corvee labor.

Before the Ming Dynasty, the corvées borne by the common people also included border guards, that is, they went to the border to serve as soldiers to guard the border.

The first peasant uprising in ancient China, that is, the Dazexiang uprising launched by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, was directly caused by "It was raining heavily and the roads were blocked, and the time was lost. If the time was lost, all laws would be cut off."

This meant that they were unable to reach their destination on time due to heavy rain and blocked roads. According to Qin law, those who missed the deadline would be executed.

It can be seen that the implementation of the policy on corvee labor in ancient times was very strict.

When it comes to improving people's power, it is basically the rural gentry and the village chiefs who have the final say.

The gentry were exempted from military service, and they had already been spoiled by others.

Originally, they only gave a few places, but in fact, they magnified them infinitely.

In the end, the corvee could only fall on the poor people. Although Zhang Juzheng's new law allowed the people to pay off the corvee with silver, how much money did the people have?

In a battle, ten people take turns and five people take turns, which are basically two different concepts.

The imperial court could not control the population of the people, so injustice would inevitably occur when collecting and issuing corvee services.

Moreover, due to the influence of clan power in the countryside, it is inevitable that many families will bear a heavy burden, and the government has no way to verify it.

You must know that corvee service is free of charge. The government not only does not give money, but also has to bring your own food. Therefore, those who served in corvee service in ancient times had a narrow escape from death.

Heavy work during the day, poor food and sleep, and no money for treatment even if you get sick, but it will cost your life.

Although the narrow escape from death may be a bit biased, the mortality rate of those who served in corvee is indeed relatively high.

Suddenly, Wei Guangde suddenly thought of Yongzheng's method of spreading the servants into the fields. In fact, Zhang Juzheng's whipping method had spread some of the servants into the fields, but not all.

Wouldn't it be better if all the peasant laborers were assigned to the fields, and if the country needed people to do corvee labor, the money would be spent directly instead of levying rural laborers.

Anyway, after the Ming Dynasty divided military households, it was equivalent to separating the border guards from the past corvee service.

"Uncle, what if we allocate all the Ding tax borne by each prefecture and county to the fields you mentioned earlier?"

Wei Guangde said.

He now no longer mentions counting the population of the Ming Dynasty, but wants to monetize the head tax and corvee and spread it into the Qing Zhang's land.

"Um?"

Zhang Juzheng looked at him in surprise.

So Wei Guangde said what he was thinking about.

“In this way, all national finances and taxes come from the land. If the people have land, they pay taxes, but if they don’t have land, they don’t have to pay taxes.

It is said in the Book of Rites that if there is land and wealth, how can the people get the money to pay taxes if they have no land?

After all the land has been released, the government collects taxes, and the local area needs people's power. They can spend money to hire people without disturbing the people in the countryside. Isn't this the best of both worlds? "

Wei Guangde suggested.

"Dividing a small family into an acre?"

Zhang Juzheng lowered his sentence and then nodded slightly.

Indeed, Wei Guangde's words made sense to him.

The people worked to survive, just to provide food and clothing, and could not save any money at all. All the money was obtained by the landlords.

Taxing on a per-capita basis is indeed a bit excessive, but spreading it over acres of land seems to be a good idea. (End of chapter)