Chongzhen Wiretapping System

Chapter 791 The Wealth of Nations

At the end of Chongzhen's 22nd year, the revenue of the imperial treasury had reached more than 8000 million taels.

Compared with the past, the main tax increases come from the following two aspects:
First, the errands of verifying the preferential exemption of officials and gentry and urging taxes, represented by Zhang Pu, have expanded to the whole country, and the taxation of land taxes, owed taxes and labor services that have been cleared out has increased by more than ten times compared to before the start .It can be seen that these officials and gentry sucked a lot of blood from the court.

As the saying goes, cutting off someone's money is like killing one's parents.This point, as long as adults, basically know it.

When Zhang Pu and others were ordered to do this errand, they did not hesitate to self-mutilate in order to turn down the errand.From this we can see that it is difficult to verify the preferential treatment and exemption of officials and gentry and to collect taxes.

Even though Zhang Pu was originally the leader of the Fushe Society and the representative of those officials and gentry, once he did this job, he was immediately suppressed by those officials and gentry, and even later, he even did not hesitate to physically destroy him, trying to slander Zhang Pu to provoke Civil uprisings, even if they were not killed at the time, they would definitely be dismissed from office.

A good example of similar things is Liu Mao who proposed to Emperor Chongzhen to dismantle the post station to relieve the financial pressure on the court.

At that time, he reported: "Today, about seventy-eight out of ten people in Xiazhou County are trapped in inns, but only two out of ten in inns are used for official business, and eight out of ten are used for private matters."

Moreover, Liu Mao's strategy at that time was not to dismantle all the post stations, but to strictly use the post stations and cut off the hands reaching out to the post stations, which caused a great backlash.

When Liu Mao did this, the officials and gentry and even their family members used to eat, live and travel for free at the post station when they went out, which is gone; There is no benefit to gaining fame; and so on, the interests of countless parasites have been damaged, and only the imperial court and ordinary people can benefit.

As a result, officials rallied and attacked. The Emperor Chongzhen at that time was not from later generations, nor did he have golden fingers such as wiretapping systems, which led to Liu Mao's miserable end.Even after his death, he still has to bear a reputation, which means that he died because of his demolition station.

It can be said that Zhang Pu's verification of the preferential exemption of officials and gentry and the payment of taxes can be said to be more damaging to the interests of the entire officialdom than what Liu Mao did. Even more bleak than Liu Mao's end.

However, Emperor Chongzhen is no longer the original Emperor Chongzhen. Not only did he come from later generations, but he also had an eavesdropping system. He used tough measures to deal with the counterattack of officials and gentry. , In addition, more than 100 local chief officials were demoted and questioned, so as to support and promote Zhang Pu to continue to perform his errands.

It was also thanks to Emperor Chongzhen who was victorious in all battles, opened up territories and expanded land, and his prestige increased day by day, giving Zhang Pu and the others the greatest support, thus completing the policy of verifying the preferential exemption of officials and gentry and urging taxes throughout the country.

After spending so much effort to promote it, the rewards are naturally very high.Not only is the imperial court accurate about the land property of the whole country, but also the money that should be collected from land taxes and labor labor is never in arrears, which immediately gave great support to the imperial court's finances.

The bulk of the second court's treasury revenue is war.

Most of the wars in the past few years have achieved success in opening up territories at a very small cost.Not to mention the seizure and the like, after the successful expansion of the territory, the huge business demand, I don't know how much business tax the court collected.The routes that contribute the most business tax are from Jiangnan to Nanyang, Annan and Dongwu.

It is foreseeable that in the future, as the population of Liaodong and Hetao Plains increases, it will also drive commerce and trade in the north.

Of course, the country of Ming Dynasty is peaceful and the people are peaceful now, and there are no more thieves and thieves, which also greatly promotes the commerce and trade among the various provinces in the country.

At this time, after Emperor Chongzhen verified the treasury income, he convened the cabinet and the six ministries to discuss increasing investment in transportation in various places, and no longer limited to local labor to recruit construction manpower during slack periods.Instead, pay and pay daily to attract people.In addition, rewards should be given to migrant workers and local officials who first completed the planned road construction.The reward method for migrant workers is of course money; while local officials are reflected in the assessment.

In this regard, Xue Guoguan and others can understand the emperor's eagerness to repair the traffic that controls the world as soon as possible, but they don't understand why they have to pay so much money to the people.

"My goal is to spend all the money, not leave it in the treasury to rust!" Emperor Chongzhen patiently explained to them, "Money is only money if it is circulated. When I spend the money, the people actively, Roads are built quickly; and the people have money, so they have the confidence to buy what they want. In this way, it can stimulate the production of more things everywhere, and the court can receive more taxes. Only in this way, Only then can there be a virtuous circle, the imperial court will receive money continuously, and the common people will also receive continuous money.”

Hearing this, many civil servants seemed to understand half-understood, and finally Xue Guoguan asked: "Your Majesty, there is a certain amount of wealth in the world, how can we keep getting money? The court has money, but the common people have less money!"

The implication is that the money of the court comes from taxes and taxes. If the court has more money, don’t the people have less money?
This view was used by Sima Guang to ridicule Wang Anshi for imitating Sang Hongyang and talking about Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.Even during the Ming Dynasty, this view was still popular among scholar-bureaucrats.

Isn’t the wealth of the Ming Dynasty’s treasury now obtained by Zhang Pu and his like from the common people (actually referring to the officials and gentry) and from the merchants?
After hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen chuckled and said, "It seems that I have to publish another book on economics to enlighten Zhu Qing!"

"..." Hearing this, all the courtiers couldn't help but looked at each other.Judging from the emperor's behavior all the time, maybe there is something wrong with his thinking again?

Seeing their expressions, Emperor Chongzhen smiled and said, "I'll ask you, does the annual increase in silver mine income come from the imperial court or from the common people?"

Silver is money, and it is dug out of the ground.Now the most common place is the Iwami Silver Mountain, which was seized from the Wa Kingdom.Xue Guoguan listened and couldn't answer the emperor's question, but it didn't mean he was convinced of the emperor's point of view, so he immediately replied: "Your Majesty said, like seeing a silver mountain in a stone, the silver originally belonged to the Tokugawa shogunate, but now it belongs to the Tokugawa shogunate. In Ming Dynasty, the total number remains unchanged."

Emperor Chongzhen heard him change the subject secretly, and stopped talking about the relationship between the court and the people, but included the original Japanese kingdom. He was not annoyed, so he asked again: "It's just iron, but if it is made into a steam engine, the value will increase. How many times, what's the point of this money?"

"Of course it comes from the people who bought it, and the people have less money." Xue Guoguan replied after thinking about it.

"..." Emperor Chongzhen was speechless, so he had to ask again: "The common people bought the steam engine. Although they paid for it, he also has a steam engine. This steam engine is also valuable. Does he have any losses?"

"..." This time, it was the turn of Xue Guoguan and the others to be speechless. How to tell the difference?

He turned his head to look at the other colleagues, and finally said, "Your Majesty, the steam engine is not money."

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he immediately asked: "What do you think money is?"

"..." Xue Guoguan was a little dumbfounded when he heard this, isn't money just money?

"Did you think that money refers to gold and silver, and refers to the bank notes issued by the Royal Bank of Ming Dynasty? There are also copper coins and so on. These are the money?" Emperor Chongzhen scanned the ground and asked again.

Isn't it?This idea is the idea of ​​almost all the courtiers below.

For this era, it is all about being an official, thinking about how to be an official, and the so-called being an official is actually managing people.This point, in the land of China, has not changed for thousands of years.

As for whether there are economic thoughts, there must be some, but they are not mainstream, let alone very deep.

After this communication, Emperor Chongzhen felt more and more necessary to popularize the knowledge of economics. Even if he himself was only half-experienced, he was definitely much better than people of this era.

This also gave him an idea that the system architecture of all walks of life should be set up by him, a traveler.He may not be proficient, but he proposed a framework for those who are interested to fill in this framework, study this framework, and form a complete system. This is a very important thing for Daming.

In other words, in today's Ming Dynasty, the economy needs to develop, and the mind must also be liberated!

Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen taught these courtiers economics lessons from the concept of what money is, and finally told them that wealth is not fixed, but increases with the development of productivity.

Just like that, a court meeting that was supposed to discuss the imperial court's plans and policies turned into a popular science school.Fortunately, after Emperor Chongzhen broke through the inherent understanding of these "students", with a little explanation, these Ming elites can basically understand the new content that Emperor Chongzhen said, as if it opened their eyes. This is the case!
After understanding this, Emperor Chongzhen told them that the imperial court would increase the issuance of banknotes (actually almost banknotes) to adapt to the current economic development and avoid economic austerity that would affect the economy. They didn't understand much. Difficulties.

Knowing that these money will be circulated to the society through the Daming Construction Bank will increase employment and promote the further improvement of social productivity, etc., and I can barely understand it.

After the dynasty was over, all the white-bearded grandpas were filled with emotion: "Live and learn, the ancients never deceived me!"Of course, they also have to sigh, why the emperor is younger than them and often goes out to lead troops to fight, but he has so much knowledge in his mind?
And Emperor Chongzhen himself, after this incident, also began to write Daming's "The Wealth of Nations".

(End of this chapter)