Since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the field tax and forced labor have been levied separately, that is, a variety of forced labor, including a service, forced labor, miscellaneous labor, force difference, etc., into one, and the general number is one article, and the summer and autumn taxes that are incorporated into the field tax are collected together.

The old service law had a difference in silver and a difference in strength, and it was issued according to the standard of household and ding. After the introduction of a whipping law, all forced labor was levied in silver, forced labor was abolished, and the government hired people. The allocation of service silver has also changed from the original sharing by households and households to the sharing of funds and fields.

The annual forced labor required by each state and county is hired by the government at the expense of the tax collected, and civilians are no longer paid free of charge.

The tributes and goods that had been collected from the local authorities, as well as the fees for handing over to the capital treasury for annual needs and staying in the local treasury for supplies, were all levied in a whipping law.

The object of taxation is the mu of land, and the form of tax payment is to be converted into silver, that is, the so-called "silver levied per mu".

According to the "History of the Ming Dynasty", the "One Whip Law" records that the combined service is levied together, and the land tax and the forced labor of various names are combined and levied together, and at the same time, part of the burden of the Ding service is spread into the acres of land. In the past, the levy was changed from being carried out according to the household and the Ding to be apportioned according to the number of Ding and the field grain; Except for the need for the government to levy rice and wheat, the burden of servitude shall be converted into two cashiers;

Peasants and all kinds of households with forced labor can pay for forced labor, and the forced labor is undertaken by the government's hired personnel; The collection of conscription was directly handled by local officials, and the original system of "collecting and dissolving the people by the people" was abolished through the grain chief and the chief of the department, and was changed to the system of "official collection and dismissal".

Specifically:

1. Clear the land, expand the area of collection, and make the tax relatively equal.

In view of the situation that existed at that time that the land occupied by a large number of people increased and the tax was reduced, only by starting from the land was cleared that the service could be equalized. According to the results of partial clearance, 280 million mu of land has been increased, and many landlords have paid taxes on the land they have concealed.

2. Unified enlistment, restricting harshness, and stabilizing taxes.

Before the introduction of a whip, it was a separate servitude. Given acres of land to pay taxes, enlisted by households, in addition to enlistment, there are a variety of items, soil tribute and other additional assignments. After the implementation of a whip law, it was all simplified into one.

The land will be attributed to the land and collected by the mu; Forced labor was changed to hired labor, and the government hired people to serve on their behalf. Due to the unification of the assignment, it is difficult for officials at all levels to use their names skillfully. As a result, the evils have been cleared up, so that taxes tend to be stable, and the peasants have been able to settle down for a while.

3. Collect silver per mu, and the official settlement will make the collection method more complete.

In ancient China, Tianfu and Tang Dynasty were basically levies. Although the two tax laws of the Tang Dynasty were calculated in currency, the payment was still converted in kind. The Song Dynasty was taxed, but occasionally it was discounted into silver. Although the Yuan Dynasty branch is silver, the accumulated grain is still the real grain and millet. However, since the implementation of a whip law in the Ming Dynasty, not only have all the errand servants been changed to silver, but also Tianfu has been changed to color except for a few areas such as Suzhou and Hangzhou that still levy physical goods for the royal family's consumption.

At the same time, the levy of conscription was no longer handled by the chief of the province and the chief of grain, but was directly collected by the local officials and paid into the treasury. Since then, the tax is not levied according to the kind, which saves the cost of transportation and storage; The collection and relief is not handled by the armor protection personnel on behalf of the person, which eliminates the disadvantages of erosion and distribution, and makes the collection method more perfect.

Historical significance:

Positive

1. After the whipping law, the units of the commissioning and examination of the service bank were expanded from Lijia to prefectures and counties, which had a certain regulating effect on the phenomenon of unusually light and heavy burdens on the households in Libei, so that the class contradictions arising from the issue of enslavement were temporarily alleviated, which was conducive to the development of agricultural production.

2. The implementation of the whip law has weakened the personal servitude relationship that has been formed on the peasants for a long time due to the forced labor system, and the peasants have gained more freedom. In addition, compared with the enslavement system in the early Ming Dynasty, a whip method can better adapt to the development of social economy and has a certain role in promoting the development of commodity production.

The monetization of servitude brought more rural products to the market, prompted the further disintegration of the natural economy, and created conditions for the further development of industry and commerce.

3. Reduce the cost of taxation and increase the tax revenue of the imperial court. After the implementation of the whip law, the government directly sent the list of enslavements to each household, and each household directly handed over the enslavement to the government, eliminating the heavy labor of the lieutenant chief and the chief of grain, as well as the disadvantages of pain, malpractice, and consumption of public grain.

Because the transportation of paying taxes in silver is lighter than paying taxes in kind, it is also very convenient to pay and transport the service, which saves the cost of tax collection and improves the administrative efficiency of taxation and the economic efficiency of taxation.

4. A whip law is an epoch-making event in the history of China's enslavement system, which changes the form of collection parallel to "fu" and "service" in previous dynasties, unifies the service law, simplifies the enslavement system, and marks the transformation of taxation from physical to currency, and the types of taxation from complicated to simple.

Negative significance

Although a whip law has its progressive significance, it is an integral part of the superstructure of feudal society and still serves the foundation of feudal society. It was implemented to sort out the finances of the feudal regime. The whip law is a reformist policy, a helmet of the struggle between the professional regime and the landlords. However, this "reform" and "struggle" were also extremely weak, and even the right of preferential exemption to the gentry and landlords at that time had to be "excepted."

1. South orange and north orange

The whip law is the result of more than 100 years of reform of the various enslavement systems in the Jiangnan region, and it itself has a very strong regional color in the south of the Yangtze River, and the implementation of local policies with strong regional colors in other parts of the country will inevitably lead to contradictions due to factors such as differences in the regional environment, different levels of economic development, and obstruction by local officials in safeguarding the interests of their own regions and strata, and this contradiction will directly lead to the damage to the interests of the peasants.

2. Additional distribution

A whip law was originally used to levy silver for officials and use it for officials, but after the implementation of a whip law, it did not achieve the goal of eliminating the harm of miscellaneous labor. The destruction of a whip law is prominently manifested in the additional allocation, and the local government has increased the levy tax in addition to the whip law, which is very disturbing to the people. Generally speaking, at the end of Wanli and the beginning of the apocalypse, a whipping law was no longer observed.

3. Fire consumption

The implementation of the whip law also bred another problem that had a very long-term impact in the future, that is, the problem of fire consumption, because the tax law stipulated the payment of silver, and the so-called "fire consumption" was produced in the process of melting and casting silver. The actual fire consumption of the smelted silver was on average every two to two cents, or one or two hundredths, but the actual fire consumption levied was often much higher, reaching two to three cents per tael, and sometimes even more. Fire consumption has become an ingenious means of local agglomeration, and it has also become a heavy burden for taxpayers.

4. Silver and valley are cheap

The official two taxes are silver. When paying taxes, the people will convert grain and other outputs into silver, so they should concentrate on exchanging with merchants when paying the two taxes, and the merchants will use this to raise the price of silver, which is a major malpractice of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and is also known as a whip for the remnants of the people.