"Since then, no matter how much arable land has increased and how much the population has risen, how much has commerce and trade flourished? The agricultural tax of our dynasty has always been maintained at this level of 27 million stones, which makes the tax collected by nearly 20,000 people almost equal to that of 10,000,000 people. Lao Yu and Uncle told a few numbers, the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, the summer tax, more than 4,717,000 stones of rice and wheat, more than 39,000 ingots of money, and more than 288,000 horses of silk; Autumn grain, more than 24,729,000 stones of rice, and more than 5,000 ingots of money.

In Yongle, there are more than 30 million stones of tax grain and more than 20 million yuan of silk money. At this time, the unai is rich, endowed with Yingxian, the rice millet has been exported to the Beijing division millions of stones, and the prefecture and county cangli have accumulated a lot of money, so that the red rot is inedible.

In the second year of Jiajing, the then Yu Shi Li Guanyan, the summer and autumn two taxes, wheat more than 4.7 million stones, today less than 90,000 stones; More than 2,470,000 stones, less than 2.5 million today. And the clan, the redundancy of officials, the number of internal officials, and the increase of sergeants are all taken from them. If it is paid, it will be lost every day, and the payment will be increased every day.

During the Wanli period, the summer tax, rice and wheat totaled more than 4,650,000 stones, more than 57,900 ingots of banknotes, and more than 206,000 horses of silk; Autumn grain, rice total more than 2,233,000 stones.

Uncle must have understood that the further he goes, the more people and land he has, and the less taxes he pays. From the Yongle Dynasty to the peak, after that is a continuous decrease, in the Jiajing period, compared with the Hongwu period, wheat decreased by 90,000 stones, rice decreased by more than 2.5 million stones; In the Wanli period, the wheat decreased by 110,000 stones, and the rice decreased by 2,690,000 stones. On the surface, the reduction is not much, but if you look at the growth of population and land, the population is more and the taxes are less, which is quite terrible. ”

Wu Zheng asked: "Then don't the important ministers of the court want to find a way to solve this drawback?" ”

This is a reasonable question, although there are corrupt officials and corrupt officials in every dynasty, there is no shortage of clean officials and ministers.

There is no reason why in a hundred years, no one will point this matter out and correct it.

Mo Zhinian smiled bitterly, "Uncle is really strong, but any dynasty, once it is past its peak, will form outdated laws, and these old rules will often become a tool for some people to protect their interests, and whoever wants to change it will have to fight against the ancestors." Not to mention the courtiers, I'm afraid the first emperor didn't have that much courage. ”

"Uncle is right, in the past hundred years, there are naturally ministers like Uncle who are as strong and strong as Uncle, but they often don't end well. The resistance came from two places, the first was the restraint of the civil officials on the emperor, and the second was the local government's desire to protect the place. Uncle I am afraid that I don't know that when Emperor Chongzhen sent three salaries to resist Jin, the civil officials of the Manchu Dynasty were in the same spirit, and they told the emperor that increasing taxes would make the heavens angry and resentful, and the crime was monstrous, and even the reason for the deterioration of the situation. All the officials who suggested to Emperor Chongzhen to increase taxes were portrayed by them as villains. Yang Sichang, who suggested to the emperor to increase his salary by three salaries, was even more attacked and scolded for his incomplete body, and was even scolded by Huang Daozhou as a dog and a wolf.

At that time, the emperor's additional payment was carried out only under the tremendous pressure exerted by most of the members of the Wenchen. In the end, he still did not resist, so Zhou Yanru took office, and suggested to the emperor according to the instructions of Zhang Pu, the leader of the Restoration Society, that the first request should be released from the grain arrears, and the people should accumulate money, and all soldiers should be reduced from the wasteland in the old age. Su, Song, Chang, Jia, and Hu Zhufu were flooded, and the emperor finally allowed it to replace the grain with next year's summer wheat. This made the already stretched finances, even worse, according to the old decay, after the Ming Dynasty perished in less than two years, and Emperor Chongzhen listened to these suggestions There is the most direct connection! ”

"As for the local government's intention to protect the local government, it is not difficult to understand. Before, the old man talked about the arrears of taxes to the imperial court in various parts of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and was exempted by the imperial court with three million stones. Here, I will tell my uncle an example, when the first emperor first ascended the throne, although some people proposed to increase the tax quota, the tax quota was never paid at that time. According to 340 counties, tax arrears have reached 50 percent or more. These 340 counties account for 30% of the financial and tax areas controlled by the Ming Dynasty. Among them, 134 counties did not actually pay any taxes to the imperial court that year. From the perspective of these two kinds of obstruction, even if the emperor wants to make great efforts, I am afraid that he has more than enough heart and not enough strength. ”

Mo obsessively sighed.

Wu Zheng was in a very dull mood when he heard this, felt that his lips were thirsty, and took the tea bowl and drank it all.

A good cup of Ming Qian tea, Shengsheng was used by Wu Zheng as a bowl of tea at a roadside tea stall, with some meaning of cow chewing peony.

Don't be obsessed with being busy and let people change the tea for Wu Zheng.

Wu Zheng asked: "But the people live in poverty, because of the heavy taxes, abandon the land and become refugees, or sell the land to engage in other livelihoods, is this also false?" ”

Mo Zhinian looked at Wu Zheng in surprise, and asked rhetorically for a long time: "Uncle, have you ever seen really poor people in Hangzhou?" Maybe there is, but that's not more than a hundred. Besides, in all dynasties, how can the poor people have ever been few, and why have the poor people become the cause of destruction in our dynasty? ”

Wu Zheng does have a feeling of being brainwashed by Mo Obsession.

His words almost subverted Wu Zheng's perception of this history.

The reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty is not what he knows, but one word - money!

He's X, is this something that money can solve?

This reminded Wu Zheng of a sentence, money is not everything, but no money is everything.

But Wu Zheng did believe it a little, what kind of political mediocrity, corrupt officials, collusion between officials and businessmen, and heavy taxes, which dynasty and which generation did not have these?

Whether it is the Qin Emperor and the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty and the Song Ancestors, or the later republic, these circumstances are all accompanied.

Although they are all drawbacks, it seems that they are not convincing to really investigate the root cause of their demise.

From Wu Zheng's personal experience in this year, the defeat of the Ming army was not the reason for the strong combat strength of the Qing army and the lack of combat strength of the Ming army, but the result of unanimous non-resistance and passive resistance from top to bottom.

Just like when Chen Sheng's 100 people were chased by dozens of Tartars and fled all the way, it was not that they couldn't fight, but they didn't want to fight, and they didn't want to fight.

And the reason for this is that Shangguan fled when he heard the news.

Why did Shangguan run away, it was nothing more than greed for life and fear of death, there was no hope of victory in his heart, and even King Lu surrendered the city, they are a fart?

If this is just an example, there are cases in every dynasty and every generation, but if most of the generals are like this, it is called hell if they are undefeated.

Therefore, when Wu Zheng corroborated his personal experience with Mo Zhinian's statement, he realized that what Mo Zhinian said really made some sense of his X.

Thinking of this, Wu Zheng's eyes shrank instead.