At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, agriculture-oriented, and other industries were regarded as those who gave up their roots and chased the last.

However, in the name of Bo Fu and Qing Zhi, the productive forces were restored in a short period of time, all sectors of society began to be active again, and the handicraft industry gradually began to recover.

Among them, the first handicraft industry to recover was the textile industry.

Textile industry in the Ming Dynasty, belongs to the profiteering industry, its development and the early Ming Dynasty heavy agricultural mulberry policy is inseparable, at that time required farmers to have more than five acres of land, must be planted mulberry, hemp, cotton each half an acre, otherwise to accept silk or cotton, linen each a horse.

This policy provided sufficient raw materials for the textile industry, coupled with the contempt for merchants in the early Ming Dynasty, the number of businessmen was small, and the commercial tax was low, generally 30 taxes and 1, and the agricultural tools and boat and car silk cloth were exempt from tax.

In this way, under the policy of light taxation, the textile industry soon achieved great development, and capital always flowed in the direction of profits.

With the development of agriculture and handicrafts, the demand for various means of production and living also increased, and commerce began to flourish.

The salaries of the officials were not high, but they enjoyed the "preferential exemption" of the state's taxes, and the family situation continued to improve, and since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, those who have surplus money in the family will naturally think of using the money to invest, and many official eunuchs have begun to operate business activities that Taizu despised.

Some of them opened restaurants and shops, while others put their money into usury and became rentiers; Some simply opened pawnshops; Others, such as selling salt, tea, opening shops, mining coal, iron, textiles, etc., are no longer a contemptible thing to do business.

The imperial court's ban on alcohol was opened, the ban on mining was not so strict, and the pockets of some big bosses were bulging, and these bosses were no longer just traditional wealthy households such as landlords and old wealth, but more relied on business, mining, smelting, etc. to make a fortune, so scholars generally believe that at this time there was a germ of capitalism in China.

During the Yongle period, the national power of the Ming Dynasty reached its peak, in addition to agriculture, all industries developed rapidly, Beijing was not only the capital of a country, but also became the commercial center of the empire, along the canal, the commerce of some cities was extremely developed, and the goods were frequent, and there was a prosperous scene everywhere.

Marked by Zheng He's voyage to the West, China's overseas trade also began to develop, Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang and other coastal areas built large ships, waterway freight is very developed, iron pots, iron needles and so on have been sold to Japan, Cambodia, Myanmar, Java, Luzon, Cochin and North Korea and other countries in large quantities, ceramics, tea, silk fabrics and other exported to Europe.

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However, the prosperity of feudal society was always short-lived, and on the huge body of the Ming Empire, some places began to rot, and the national fortunes of the Ming Dynasty soon embarked on a downhill road.

The silver of the Ming Dynasty was mainly obtained through overseas trade, and a large amount of silver was in the hands of merchants, and the peasants sold grain at a low price, and then the price rose again, and they were repeatedly exploited by merchants.

However, the lack of silver in the hands of the imperial court was difficult to stabilize prices, and because of the ancestral system, it was impossible to raise taxes on merchants, and without silver, it was impossible to control commerce, and wealth was increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few.

The officials and magnates enjoyed "preferential exemptions", coupled with the recklessness of the local "arrogant right", and the wealthy eunuchs wantonly annexed land and evaded errands through means such as sprinkling, trickery, and hypocrisy, so that a large amount of taxes and forced labor could only be passed on to the poor.

In the process of increasing concentration of land and increasing taxation and forced labor, corrupt officials and corrupt officials began to prevail again, and the peasants at the bottom were trampled and oppressed by officials at all levels in different ways, making the people miserable and complaining.

If there is a wealthy family that owns thousands of acres of land, and his acres of land encroach on others too much, he will think of colluding with the government to change the yellow register, and move the new income into the old management at will to avoid paying taxes.

The wind of merger is flourishing, and a large household of 1,000 acres is also a mile long, and a small household of 30 acres is also a mile long.

In a bumper year, they were able to protect themselves, but in a famine year, some peasant households would have to pay taxes today and borrow money tomorrow, leaving them without adequate clothing and food.

A large number of peasants were no longer able to survive, either they owed taxes or could only go into exile, and the unique wave of displaced people in the Ming Dynasty began to flow throughout the country in a prosperous manner.

As early as the Xuande period, there were already a large number of displaced people in many areas, and the peasants in the Suzhou area had become displaced under the exploitation of heavy rents and heavy taxes, and the arrears of tax grain were as high as 7.9 million stones.

During the orthodox period, there were no less than 100,000 people who fled from Shanxi to Nanyang, and during the Chenghua period, the number of displaced people exceeded 1 million, and in some areas, the population "fled more than half", or even "only one of the ten remained", and the abandoned land was "less than 1,000 acres, and more than 120,000 hectares".

The homeless people have increasingly become the henchmen of the Ming Dynasty......

Zhu Yuanzhang became a monk because of hunger, but he still couldn't survive, so he joined the rebel army and eventually became a generation of emperors.

Ironically, the ideal society he hoped for all his life did not come, and in less than a hundred years, his descendants brought the same life of exile to the common people.

The Ming government tried to prevent the displacement of peasants through measures such as Lijia, Guanjin, and Banshan, and sometimes even carried out brutal repression.

However, in the ranks of the exiles, there were often hidden weapons, secret societies, and their own leaders, so the form of struggle in exile gradually developed into an uprising.

During this period, small-scale peasant uprisings took place in Shandong, Jiangxi, and Fujian, where land annexation was serious, and in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Huguang, and Sichuan, where taxes were relatively heavy.

Among them was the White Lotus uprising of the more famous Shandong heroine Tang Sai'er, which was particularly striking in its heyday.

Next, the life of the Ming Empire became more and more difficult, and a series of internal and external troubles made one emperor disgraced one by one.

First of all, the eunuchs smashed Zhu Yuanzhang's tight spell, and one by one they were powerful, "sending envoys, conscripting special forces, supervising the army, dividing towns, and assassinating officials and people to hide things", as if patrolling on behalf of the Son of Heaven, searching for people's fat and ointment everywhere, and the people's grievances were boiling.

Then there is the unquiet border, there is a change in the north of the civil fort, Yingzong was captured, and the king of a country actually became a prisoner of the Mongols; In the coastal areas, the imperial court began to impose a sea ban, and the once prosperous maritime transportation gradually declined......

Due to the prevalence of corruption and huge military expenditures, the imperial court was in great financial difficulties, and the government "could not make up half of the two million dollars a year", so it had no choice but to increase taxes and forced labor step by step.

It turned out that the land in the north "never could afford to be ke" had been fully taxed at Jingtaishi; In the first year of orthodoxy, the imperial court converted most of the fields in the provinces south of the Yangtze River into silver taels, called "gold and silver", and stipulated that rice and wheat were discounted by two dollars and five cents per stone; At the time of Chenghua, it was increased to one or two, which made the burden on the peasants three times higher than before.

At this time, raising taxes is tantamount to drinking water to quench thirst, although it can quench a momentary thirst, but it will endanger life, but the rulers of the court can no longer take care of so much.

In the thirtieth year of Jiajing, the Ming Dynasty government increased the amount of 1.2 million yuan in Nanzhili, Zhejiang and other prefectures and counties, which was called "Jiapai"; In the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing, he added 400,000 yuan of silver in Jiangnan and other places, which was called "promotion"; Later, it successively introduced the names of the additional factions, such as the Ji Collection, the Pai Kuo, the Tax Deed, and the Folding of the People......

The wealthy gentry were privileged and exempt from military service, and the life of the poor peasants became more and more miserable, and the number of displaced people increased, and the uprisings became more numerous, and so on fell into a vicious circle......

The prosperity of the Ming Dynasty was prosperous and short-lived!

In this uprising one after another, by the end of Jiajing, the Ming Empire, which had flourished for a while, was like catkins in the wind, fluctuating.