The fire consumption is only collected once, and the people are benefited!

The people are convenient, but ...... What about the government?

What should the government do after that?

Yao Xiang, as the head of the house, is naturally a little difficult to accept, after all, the annual fire consumption of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver does not seem to be much, but in fact, the expenditure of the government at all levels is probably dependent on this fire consumption of silver, and in his opinion, not only now, but also in the future, the Ming Dynasty officials at all levels will also need this fire consumption silver.

However, today's strategy has completely cut off the possibility of levying fire and silver in the future. Perhaps this is beneficial and harmless for the people, but for the government, without this fire and silver, the government not only reduces a lot of income, but also without this silver, the local government is not as convenient as in the past.

“…… Since then, the people must have paid taxes in silver coins, and less than one or two have paid small coins, supplemented by money, so that although the people have benefited, since then, my Ming government has lost more than millions every year?"

As an official of the Ming Dynasty, Yao Xiang had to deal with the matter from the standpoint of the government, so that even after Fu Shan left, he still couldn't accept the minting of silver coins, and still tried to save the matter. After all, in her view, the interests of the people are the interests of the people. is not in his position, he is not in his politics, if he is just a scholar. Naturally, there will be no objection to the abolition of fire silver. But as an official in charge of the Jiangbei Household Branch, he had to put down his status as a scholar and look at the matter as an official.

"At present, it is a time when the government is in a tight situation, and if the fire consumption is abolished, I am afraid that in the future, not only will Jiangbei's consumption be tight, but even the financial resources of the imperial court will be even more tight in the future."

Looking at the worried Yao Xiang, Zhu Mingzhong just looked at him with a smile, occasionally he would cast his eyes on Gu Yanwu, he didn't catch up with the previous debate, he just handed over a report, despite this, but he still knew something about the coinage, so after he finished speaking, Gu Yanwu spoke.

"Baotian, in fact, you only see that the court is nervous at the moment, but you don't see another thing, that is, the profits that the court has obtained from it, how can the silver in the world be billions? In the next few years, for every tael of money minted by the imperial court, one penny can be minted, and if there are two or three hundred million taels of silver in the world, isn't it two or thirty million taels? ”

Regarding Gu Yanwu's words, Zhu Mingzhong just nodded slightly, and didn't say anything, how could he not know the benefits of coinage? Two and a half centuries later, the warlords minted silver dollars not because they were so profitable. It is precisely because of this that the local governments have established silver dollar bureaus, which, of course, has led to the problem of the fineness of silver dollars. However, at that time, it was a warlord melee, so naturally it cannot be compared with now.

"But fire consumption is always a steady stream of benefits!"

Yao Xiang was still a little stubborn and said.

"How can these two or three million taels be compared with the annual fire consumption of two or three million? At best, it's only a decade of benefits! After all, fire consumption silver is levied every year. ”

As soon as Yao Xiang's words came out, Gu Yanwu suddenly became dumb, indeed, compared to the "income" of two or three million per year of fire consumption, one percent of the casting profit is indeed not worth mentioning, maybe it is indeed a good thing to benefit the people to exempt fire consumption, but whether it is beneficial to the country or not, it is known.

As an official, Gu Yanwu knows very well that blindly benefiting the people is not a good thing, after all, the imperial court also needs money and income, otherwise what to rely on to raise soldiers and fight wars?

Therefore, it is necessary to have financial resources to maintain the imperial court, otherwise it will fall into the predicament of the Chongzhen Dynasty. Without money, everything is empty talk.

"Have you forgotten the lesson of the emperor's money struggling?"

Yao Xiang's reminder made Gu Yanwu's face change slightly, isn't that the case, if the emperor had enough money to pay back then, how could he end up in that step?

At that time, the natural disasters in the northern provinces continued to be combined with the rebellion of the Liukou, and there were several Qing prisoners in the north of Zhili and Shandong, and the people who were killed were more than millions, and the natural disasters, the Liukou, and the Qing Dynasty were corrupted places, so that the taxes of the northern provinces were all cut off, and the silver and grain of the real border came from the south of the Yangtze River.

When Gu Yanwu seemed to have some scruples, Zhu Mingzhong said.

"Actually, if you want to get silver, you don't need to just focus on these few taels of fire, if you want to open source, you have to use your brains and open source in other places!"

Looking at Yao Xiang, who still insisted on his opinion, Zhu Mingzhong said with a smile.

"Throughout the ages, whenever the imperial court is insufficient, it often thinks of no more than four words, "open source and reduce expenditure", the most important thing is open source, just reduce how much money can be saved? Since at present, the degree of use is insufficient, then it is natural to consider "open source", of course, how to open this source, this is the most critical! ”

As for how to open source, Zhu Mingzhong has long been in the chest, and he finally has a hundred years of experience beyond this era, so he naturally knows how to open source. Looking at Yao Xiang, who was a little puzzled in front of him, he said directly.

"The key is still the "campaign to close the market"! ”

The "levy of closing the market" in Zhu Mingzhong's mouth is actually the so-called commercial tax in later generations. The so-called customs refer to the checkpoints through which trafficked goods pass. A market is a market for the trade of goods. Taking the banknote customs as an example, it was as high as more than 40 thousand taels during the Apocalypse.

Unlike the Ming Dynasty, which many people imagined, did not levy commercial taxes, or insisted on leniency for merchants, compared with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty instead used commercial taxation as the fundamental law of valuing agriculture and suppressing commerce, restricting merchants from making huge profits, and even Ming Chengzu said many times that "commercial taxes, the state is chasing the last people." Because of this, with the development of commerce, the burden of commercial taxes increased day by day. Instead of reducing it day by day, it will even continue to raise taxes and repeatedly lead to civil unrest.

"The Siege of the City?"

Almost as soon as Zhu Mingzhong's words fell, Gu Yanwu hurriedly spoke.

"After a little more than the levy of the city, since the previous dynasty since Longqing, all bridges, roads, Guanjin private tax collection, reckless benefit of the sick people, although the difficulty of the edict to investigate a certain can't, but also, two palaces and three palaces, construction costs are not rich, such as mining tax increases, and Tianjin shop rent, Guangzhou Zhuyu, two Huai surplus salt, Jingkou supply, Zhejiang City, Chengdu salt tea, Chongqing famous wood, Hukou Yangtze River ship tax, Jingzhou shop tax, Baodi fish reed and door stall business tax, oil cloth miscellaneous tax, ......"

In the past ten years, Gu Yanwu, who has been reflecting on the pros and cons of the Ming Dynasty every day, naturally knows the drawbacks brought about by the repeated "campaign to close the market", so he will speak out against it.

"In the 13th year of Chongzhen, Hexiwu, Linqing, Yangzhou, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Jiujiang seven banknotes plus Chongwenmen commercial tax levied about 800,000 taels (1), and more than 40 other banknotes in the country are less than seven passes, and the annual income is only slightly inferior......"

Looking at Jing Liu, Gu Yanwu continued.

In the first year of Chongzhen, the banknotes of the seven places plus the Chongwenmen commercial tax levied about 550,000 taels (2), but in just thirteen years, the tax amount increased nearly twice...... Since the order of the tax increase, and the market price is higher day by day, the small people are poor day by day, as for the burden of burden, sporadic trivial things are not exempt......"

Regarding Gu Yanwu's opposition, Zhu Mingzhong just smiled and said nothing, in this era when the commodity economy is not developed. Collecting commercial taxes is not as simple as people think. Even in the future, during the tax reform in the 90s, considering the difficulty of tax collection, the government still chose to focus on the collection of production links, because the government could not invest a lot of manpower and financial resources. Taxes are levied on consumption, so relatively simple production is chosen.

But in this era, in this era there are no factories for later generations. There is only that kind of small-scale peasant economy, at most there are some workshops. In this way, the collection of commercial tax is naturally not like that, which can be collected with one mouth. After all, even in the 21st century, taxing retail and consumer goods is still a problem for governments.

What was not solved in the 21st century was wanted to be solved in the 17th century. It's just wishful thinking!

It is precisely because we know more about the times than we know in the past. Not only did he understand that the collection of commercial taxes in this era was mainly based on customs collection, supplemented by municipal taxes, and that there were dozens of miscellaneous taxes collected on shops in the city, which were equivalent to the "fees" of later generations, and most of them were used for local government expenses. Because of understanding all this, now he naturally will not be like in the past, the reason why he takes it for granted that the Ming Dynasty added three salaries when "the northwest does not add the southeast", that is simply the imagination of the ignorant, since the Mengyuan Dynasty, the economic value of land agriculture in the south is better than that in the north, so the average land tax per mu is heavier than that in the north. As a strategic envoy of Jianghuai, he naturally knows that the tax of silver per mu in Changzhou is now five cents and six cents per mu, while the tax in Jiangbei is correspondingly lighter, with one mu of five or six cents, and one mu of five or six cents, with an average of no more than five cents. The corresponding Changzhou Mansion has long been twice as average as Jiangbei.

As for the so-called "eunuch party collecting business tax" and "Donglin party opposing business tax", they are also just Internet jokes. Even on the contrary, the "eunuch party" who was touted as heaven was the group of people who really opposed the collection of commercial taxes, and even in the Chongzhen Dynasty, "exempting the Xianyang commercial tax from Tongguan and the city's favor merchants" was still one of the charges of those "eunuchs" who were "talented and virtuous".

As for the Donglin Party, which was accused of opposing the collection of commercial taxes, it was the advocates of commercial taxes. It can be said that it seems that He Shijin is the most like the so-called "eunuch party" person, but to the disappointment of some later generations of "eunuch fans", he is precisely a member of the Donglin party. Even He Shijin's reform plan to exempt him from the commission and try to supplement the Liao salary with commercial taxes was later attacked by the eunuchs for his corruption and corruption.

Of course, as far as Zhu Mingzhong is concerned, he knows very well that whether it is the so-called "Donglin Party" or the "Eunuch Party", they all advocate that they have always been aimed at attacking their opponents. Not for the sake of the country, of course, they will always have a righteous and awe-inspiring appearance on their lips.

Zhu Mingzhong, who smiled but did not speak, thought of what he had learned from the books he had read under Zhu Zhiyu's teaching for more than half a year, and the Ming Dynasty, which was vague on the Internet in later generations, although he did not know its true appearance, Zhu Mingzhong knew very well that Gu Yanwu opposed the increase in commercial taxes and had his scruples - as the "moral politics" of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, after the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, a large amount of commercial taxes were exempted. to win the hearts and minds of the people.

"At the beginning of the entry of the Qing Dynasty, it was decided by the Beijing division that each customs would be exempted from taxation for one year, and the tax deficit and additional tax increase in the next quarter would be exempted, and the excess tariff and sporadic landing tax in various states and counties would be exempted...... The customs offices were ordered to issue regulations, set up counters to collect taxes, and not to deduct fire consumption, and the Qing Dynasty was still so compassionate to the merchants, so as to promote the prosperity of the market. If the tax amount is increased slightly, won't it make the hearts of the world's businessmen fall into it? ”

This may be the difference between Gu Yanwu and others, in his eyes, Da Ming is never perfect, he can see the shortcomings of Da Ming, and he can also see some "good deeds" of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Not to mention anything else, even if the Qing Dynasty did not pay the fire tax at the pass a few years ago, it was tantamount to giving the merchant some kind of privilege. Compared with the Ming Dynasty's "tax to suppress the end" of merchants, the Manchu Qing Dynasty had a great "favoritism" for merchants, and the eight imperial merchants were also a manifestation of their "preference" to a certain extent.

Of course, Gu Yanwu didn't know that the "levy of closing the city" in Zhu Mingzhong's mouth was not the "tax increase" in his heart.

"Tax ......"

Facing Gu Yanwu's opposition, Zhu Mingzhong groaned.

"The tax increase is undoubtedly to quench the thirst of the drink, the first emperor, although the commercial tax has been repeatedly raised, the state is still insufficient, but you have caused the business to wither, and the merchants have fled the capital. If the person who increases the three salaries only makes the people miserable, the people change in vain, and the "tax increase" is the open source, but it is just a trip to drink water to quench thirst, how can Zhu not know! ”

Shaking his head, Zhu Mingzhong looked at Gu Yanwu and Yao Xiang and said.

In addition, the "levy of the closed market" is limited after all, if you want to levy commercial tax, you must levy factory tax! ”

"Factory tax" is what Zhu Mingzhong called "the levy of closing the market". Compared with the chaotic commercial taxes such as "landed silver" levied in the market, the factory tax is the real big one. This is also from the experience of Britain 200 years later, or a century and a half later. The rise of commerce in Britain was based on factories, and the expansion of national taxes was also due to the establishment of factories. After all, taxing production is the simplest and easiest. In contrast, other countries are still there racking their brains to collect taxes through the land, tax card links.

"Factory tax?"

Gu Yanwu was stunned for a moment, and then asked rhetorically.

"What is factory tax?"

"Can it mean to draw taxes from weapons factories, shipyards, etc.?"

Yao Xiang, who is the head of the household, naturally knows that the weapons factory, shipyard and other government-run factories have always been the "big taxpayers" in Qinghe.

"According to the strategy, although the taxes paid by these weapons factories, shipyards, and sulfur factories far exceed the commercial taxes of the whole city of Qinghe, these factories are only government-run factories, and the taxes levied in this way are only transferred from the left hand to the right hand, so what is the solution for the state?"

Yao Xiang's rhetorical question made Zhu Mingzhong smile slightly, and then looked at Yao Xiang and said.

"Since it is possible to run factories by the government, why can't we encourage private factories to set up factories?"

(1) "Continued Literature General Examination", Volume 18, "Zhengyi".

(2) "Chongzhen Long Edition" volume 3 is played by Ziyan