At the moment when the Ming Dynasty was facing imminent demise, God actually gave the Zhu dynasty a chance to push a person named Zhang Juzheng onto the political stage.

During the Jiajing period, the power of eunuchs was suppressed to a certain extent, opening the era of "power ministers", and the cabinet scholars began to have the distinction of the first assistant, the second assistant and the group assistant.

There is a saying that "there will be no seed in the same phase, and men should be self-reliant; The chairs take turns to sit, and they will come to our house today", in order to compete for the power of the first assistant, the scholars used all kinds of tricks to defeat the competitors.

During the Jiajing and Longqing periods, in just six years, Xu Jiejie knocked down Yan Song, Gao Gong pushed Xu Jie, Zhang Juzheng squeezed Gao Gong away again, and coaxed me to appear, it was ridiculous, and they all made wedding dresses for others.

Zhang Juzheng, born in Jinshi, like his predecessor Gao Gong, is the beneficiary of the Ming Dynasty's power era, as a generation of famous ministers, in terms of moral character, he is not as good as Wang Anshi; In terms of martial arts achievements, he is not as good as Cao Cao; In terms of cultural accomplishment, he is not as good as Zhang Jiuling; In terms of scheming, he is not as good as Xiao He and Zhang Liang.

He loves beautiful women and luxury, he is not informal, and his father's funeral is not worried, but he chose to "seize love" in the face of fierce criticism, and even beat people when he was impeached in the imperial history, it seems that there is no integrity of a celebrity at all.

However, in fact, the deeds of his life are remarkable.

He reused the famous generals Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang to strengthen the border defense in the north; He implemented mutual markets in the frontiers, which maintained long-term political and economic stability in the frontiers; He used Pan Ji to tame the water, and the Huanghuai water control effect was remarkable; With the persistence of one person, he carried out a reform that was almost impossible to succeed in, and took care of a dynasty that was about to rot into a prosperous atmosphere......

Among them, Zhang Juzheng's brilliant and meritorious deeds in his life are the first to recommend "a whip method".

Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of land has been annexed by the emperor's relatives and civil and military ministers, and these people often enjoy the preferential exemption of servitude, and the land granted by the emperor is exempt from tax.

Those gentry landlords who did not have preferential exemptions entrusted their land to the above-mentioned powerful families, so that by the time of Zhang Juzheng, the land controlled by the state for grain payment had decreased sharply, and compared with the founding period of the Ming Dynasty, "the land has been reduced by half".

Some data show that at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there were as many as 850 million mu of cultivated land registered by the government, but by the sixth year of Wanli, only 510 million mu were left, and more than 300 million mu of fertile land had evaporated.

This shows that nearly 40 percent of the country's land has fallen into the hands of imperial relatives and nobles, wealthy families, and officials who are greedy for bribes and enrich themselves.

Moreover, those who have thousands of acres of fertile land often do not need to pay for grain and errands, but those who are surrounded by walls do not fall into vain again and again, and some small households are so weak that they have to flee with their families.

Zhang Juzheng saw all this in his eyes, and after holding the power, he immediately implemented thunderbolt means to implement reforms, and all parts of the country watched for a while, and moved the real chapter one after another.

The reform is divided into two steps, and the first step is to implement the "Qingzhang".

Even according to today's concept, Zhang Juzheng's method at that time was already very advanced and effective, first of all, requiring those who have land to conduct self-inspection and declaration; Then there is the township and village organization measurement and book, this book is called "fish scale book"; The third step is to cross-check, from each township, each to draw out the "prudent" people, cross-check, review and the same number of books to pass the customs, different will be held accountable.

After more than two years of clearing, the land recorded by the government has increased by more than 180 million mu compared with before the clearing.

As one of the powerful people of the dynasty, Zhang Juzheng himself also enjoys preferential exemption, and is naturally the object of Qingzhang.

The results of the inventory are very representative, the Zhang family's field is about more than 70 stone of grain, but in the county government's list of enlistment, it turned over a few times: "Cabinet Zhang, preferential exemption of more than 640 stones", and the extra 570 stone grain is exempted along with the "Cabinet Zhang".

The more than 570 stones, some of the Zhang Juzheng clan borrowed the family name of "one preferential exemption", and there were also the private fields of the Zhang family's servants who mixed into the Zhangjia fields, and more of them were actually unknown to the Zhang family.

Zhang Juzheng's anger after learning about his family's situation can be imagined, in a letter to his son, he demanded that all the 570 stone grain entrusted to his family be handed over immediately, and he did not even want the government's preferential policies for his family, "all of them are on an errand with the small people."

For the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Juzheng was indeed a rare talent for governing the country, as early as when the cabinet was fighting and his political life was in jeopardy, he wrote a side: "I am willing to serve the dust with a deep heart, and not seek my own interests", in hindsight, he did it.

……

The results of Wanli Qingzhang, so that the treasury was quickly filled, according to the historical records, to Wanli ten years, Taifu Temple as much as four million taels of silver, plus Taicang silver, the total amount of about seven or eight million taels, Taicang's grain storage can also be used for ten years, since Zhengde, Jiajing, "the most rich".

At the same time as Wanli Qingzhang, Zhang Juzheng was already considering the second step of reform, which was destined to go down in history, that is, "a whip law".

A whip method, to put it bluntly, is to combine the field tax, the ding tax, and the miscellaneous tax, according to the number of acres of land, and pay it with silver, so that the tax begins to be transformed from physical rent to monetary rent, and the original complicated names are unified under one item, so it is called a whip.

The benefits of this were many, some of which may seem like little now, but at the time, they contributed significantly to social development.

First of all, it stipulates that taxes are levied on "silver", not on other goods and servitude, and that silver circulates as money, which has a legal basis and promotes the development of money;

Secondly, in a short period of time, the financial resources of the Ming government increased greatly, and a considerable part of the people's silver finally flowed back into the hands of the government, and the government had a certain ability to stabilize prices;

Third, the nature of the whip law of leviing according to the mu caused most of the financial burden to be transferred from the peasants to the big landlords, who became the main source of taxes, and the peasants' burdens were reduced, which naturally promoted the productive forces;

Fourth, some landless people, including merchants and small handicraftsmen, no longer perform their duties of forced labor in addition to commercial taxes, so that the tax revenue will begin to transition from a poll tax to a property tax, and the tax burden will tend to be reasonable.

The implementation of the whip law changed the extremely chaotic and seriously uneven system of servitude at that time, and it reduced the unreasonable burden of servitude on the peasants, restrained the fraud of the officials, and especially abolished the harsh force difference, so that the peasants had more time to engage in agricultural production.

However, the fact that there was no provision on the total amount of servitude imposed by the whip law left an opportunity for officials at all levels to extort excessively, which was its main shortcoming.

Through the implementation of a whip law, the Ming Dynasty's treasury was full in a short period of time, and its financial situation was greatly improved.

However, the so-called "rather give a hero a horse to a stirrup than a scoundrel as an ancestor", the sad thing about Zhang Juzheng is that he did not meet a master.

Zhang Juzheng's reform, bound to offend a large number of privileged class, Zhang Juzheng before his death, they dare to be angry but dare not speak, to Wanli ten years, Zhang Juzheng died of illness after the bones are not cold, impeachment is like snowflakes flying towards Wanli's dragon case.

Emperor Wanli, whom Zhang Juzheng assisted with all his heart, was a smart man, but he was also the laziest and most greedy emperor in the entire Ming Dynasty.

Zhang Juzheng's ten years of auxiliary country, Wanli is still young, every time he sees his teacher Zhang Juzheng, he trembles, and the fear in his heart is indescribable, but now, the person who manages him every day is finally dead, and he can finally vent his evil anger.

A few months later, Wanli angrily ordered the house to be raided, and cut off his official rank, and forced the seal book and the four generations of edicts given before his death, and even Zhang Juzheng himself was in danger of being opened and whipped, and his family members were either starved to death or exiled.

Mingshenzong Wanli, not only can not be a homebody for decades, but also loves money, he likes silver, and his greatest fun is to sit on the kang every day and count silver to play.

The most convenient way for the emperor to take the world's money is to raise taxes, but the income from the tax increase cannot go into the treasury, but into Wanli's private small treasury, which was called "inner treasury" at that time.

Wanli saw that mining and smelting were very profitable, so he started an article on the basis of the original mining tax, he completely abandoned the tax system, and sent eunuchs as "mining tax envoys" as the emperor's private tax representative, collecting private money for him.

It is said that it is a mining tax, but in fact, these eunuchs come out, which is basically equivalent to a robbery with open fire, as long as they specify which land has mineral deposits under it, the owner of the real estate must pay the mining tax.

The harm of mining tax collection is devastating, those mine supervisors have no scruples to run rampant throughout the country, the means of collecting wealth are almost crazy, only in the twenty-seventh year of Wanli in five days, the mining tax and commercial tax of two million taels, the efficiency is so high, it is amazing, this is still the amount paid into the emperor's treasury, those eunuchs and retinue swallowed up the money, but it is immeasurable.

The mine supervisor became the biggest scourge at that time, and this time not only the peasants, but also many scholars, eunuchs, and businessmen were greatly infringed upon.

As a result, the wheel of history rolled forward, all Zhang Juzheng's efforts came to naught, and the fate of the Ming Dynasty returned to the track of accelerating and falling.

Later, after the three major expeditions of Wanli, Zhang Juzheng's money saved was also finished, but a Houjin rose in the north, harassing the border from time to time, and in the interior, the peasant uprising never stopped.

The imperial court fell into a two-sided war, the north rejected Houjin, the righteous army in the inner town, and the treasury had no money, and the ministers asked Wanli to use private money to make up military salaries, but he said: "No, this is a national war, why let me pay for it, I don't pay it, you have no money to raise taxes." ”

Minister: "But the country is yours of the emperor......"

He said, "Don't fool me, I don't see the country, the silver is really mine." ”

Fun isn't it? This emperor, just like this.

There was no way, since then, the imperial court had to send silver to Tian Fu again and again, which was mainly divided into Liao, Xuan, and Lian, collectively referred to as "three salaries".

The increase in the "three salaries" overwhelmed the peasants again, and the means of collecting money from the mining tax made the scholars and the rich even more chilling, and finally became the last straw that crushed the camels.

Historians say that the death of the Ming Dynasty was not in Chongzhen, but in Wanli!

At this point, the fall of the Ming Dynasty is only a matter of time.

Finally, his grandson Chongzhen had the last intimate contact with the crooked neck tree on the coal mountain, and the emperor of the Zhu family bid farewell to the historical stage forever......

(Question: What are the main categories of Daming household registration?) ）

Thanks: Alliance leader "Descendant Fang Ze" and "Autumn Story" for the reward!

(End of chapter)