After Zhu Youxiao finished telling the story, he brushed his sleeves away, leaving everyone to ponder in place. 35xs counterfeiting and counterfeiting is unlucky for the country and the people, the state collects less taxes, and the people lose money, which is like an ant on a broken embankment for any dynasty, and it is absolutely forbidden behavior. In the past, due to the backward smelting and casting technology, the Central Dynasty could not put an end to the adulteration of silver, and even some unscrupulous merchants would exchange copper coins for smelting, cast into bronze and then resell them at a high price. Now, thanks to the research and development of firearms and the construction of bridges across the river, the Ming Dynasty has accumulated sufficient technical reserves, coupled with the needs of developing the market economy, the printing of new currencies has become the trend of the times.

Foreign trade during the Ming Dynasty was almost uninterrupted, and even during the Jiajing period, large quantities of goods were exported to Arabia and Persia and then transshipped to various parts of Europe via the Ottoman Empire. After Colonel Zhu You came to power, on the one hand, he swept away the threat from the southeast coast and ensured the smooth flow of shipping; On the other hand, the development of handicrafts is encouraged and the number of exports is increased.

After years of operation, the annual commercial tax collected by the imperial court is as high as 4 million taels of silver, plus import and export duties and trade profits, as well as traditional revenues such as agricultural tax, mining tax, and salt tax, adding up to nearly 16 million taels of silver. These silver taels can fully guarantee the high-speed operation of Daming Company, but compared with the gross domestic product of the entire country, it is actually not even one-tenth.

According to Huang Renyu's article "Finance and Taxation in Ming China in the Sixteenth Century", as well as the papers of other scholars, we can know that the tax ratio of the Ming Dynasty was very low, that is to say, the output value of nearly 100 million taels of silver behind the tax of 16 million taels of silver. With such a large silver circulation base of 35xs, once converted into silver dollars, it will not only greatly increase the circulation speed of money, but also improve the ability of the imperial court to mobilize imperial resources. Of course, there are many people who will definitely doubt the fact that the Ming Dynasty paid taxes was low, so I might as well say a few words here.

To say that the authoritative work on the study of the Ming Dynasty is the official history, but because the "History of the Ming Dynasty" is a masterpiece of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, there are many untrustworthy points in it, so people are more willing to look at the actual records to collect evidence. However, the "History of the Ming Dynasty" is very detailed and can be used as a reference.

In the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, the summer tax included more than 4,717,000 stones of rice and wheat, more than 39,000 ingots of money, more than 288,000 horses of silk, 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 silk banknotes.

In the second year of Jiajing, Yu Shi Li said that "the two taxes in the early summer and autumn of the country, more than 470 thousand stones of wheat, more than 90,000 meters less than 2,470 thousand stones, and more than 250,000 yuan less 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 totaled more than 4,650,000 stones of rice and wheat, more than 57,900 ingots of banknotes, more than 206,000 horses of autumn grain on silk, and more than 2,233,000 stones of rice. 35xs

From these figures, it can be seen that the agricultural tax in the Ariake period has not changed much from beginning to end, and considering the factors of population growth and inflation, we can definitely say that the tax burden of the DPRK is actually decreasing. As for the commercial tax, Wanli and Tianqi were scolded for uselessness if they wanted to restore the mining tax, but the January Emperor and the king of the dead country were blown into the sky by Donglin, and the mysteries in it were self-evident.

Then the question arises, why did there be a peasant uprising in the last years of the Ming Dynasty's low taxes? The author believes that the original impetus of the uprising was to survive. Due to the influence of the climate of Xiaoice River in the Central Plains, agricultural production in the Central Plains has generally decreased, and Gansu, Shaanxi and other places have even no harvest, even if the imperial court does not add three salaries to them, a large number of displaced people will not get relief from the imperial court will still have accidents, and at this time the Ming Dynasty has been struggling to support in Liaodong, Sun Chengzong even wants to build the fortress all the way to the hinterland of Liaodong, from a military point of view, this is the best choice to deal with the Eight Banners strong army, how can it be difficult for a woman to cook without rice.

Friends will ask why the last years of the Ming Dynasty could not effectively provide relief to the victims, which has to start with the civil service establishment and the tax system. In order to reduce government expenditures in the Ming Dynasty, the number of officials was always maintained in a fairly low proportion, and although it increased during the Sanyang period, the total number of civil servants was only about 20,000, and the total number of officials was about 50,000.

We can do a simple arithmetic problem to make the management system of the Ming Dynasty a little more vivid. The traditional Ming Dynasty generally refers to two capitals and thirteen provinces, a total of about 1,400 counties, after removing the Xuanwei Division and the Capital Division, there are still 1,100 of them. According to the principle of equal distribution, 60,000 people were dispersed, and there were less than 55 people in each county. Such a person has to be responsible for taxation, adjudication, public security, transportation, education, public works, and social relief, even in the information age. In fact, only 30 percent of these people work as errands in the county government.

This led to two contradictions that accompanied the Ming Dynasty, one was that corruption was repeatedly prohibited, and the other was that the imperial court did not have enough control over society. Speaking of which, the friends had already angrily picked up the watermelon knife and vowed to press the little brother to the ground and ask what the Jinyiwei and East West Factory were. It is true that these violent organs are all tools for maintaining imperial power, and how can all dynasties have been missing, and the most famous MI5, the CIA, the Mossad, the KGB and other institutions in the world today are not selling early? Moreover, the people in the edict and prison are all figures with heads and faces, and it is these people who control the main wealth and public opinion in society, and they are between the court and the people, deceiving the superiors and concealing the subordinates to accumulate interests, and eventually lead to the gradual demise of the weak country and the poor people.

Based on this judgment, Zhu Youxiao continued to expand the number of local officials while the finances improved, and it was not possible to have enough talents to jointly manage the country. If market fundamentalism continues as before, then the prosperity of commerce will not only not increase the income of the imperial court, but will breed another Donglin Party to hinder the imperial court's decrees, which is why Emperor Chongzhen was unable to collect an extra tael of taxes from the merchants while holding a mountain of gold.

In the current situation, Zhu Youxiao has absolute control over the main resources of society, first, the new army has been fully reorganized, and he can physically surpass all enemies; Second, after the popularization of compulsory education, the bureaucracy will recruit a large number of children from poor families every year, and Zhu Youxiao not only has a natural tacit understanding with them in policy, but can also guide the direction of public opinion; Third, he firmly controls foreign trade, and all exported goods must be handled by the Weaving Bureau and Huayuan Trading Company, and can only be loaded into the sea after customs inspection, and finally exchanged for official ships in the new port of the Malacca Strait and then transported to the destination. Fourth, the imperial court set up money banks and granaries all over the country, and uniformly set the grain prices in each province to prevent merchants from exploiting the peasants by taking advantage of price fluctuations. In addition, the imperial court also issued a number of sets of preferential policies, openly and secretly squeezed private money banks, began to make a preliminary attempt to completely ban private money banks, and then forced the new currency reform to concentrate the country's property in the hands of the imperial court.

Of course, if you want the surrounding vassals and European trading countries to also use the currency of the Ming Dynasty, the premise is absolute economic and military suppression. To this end, while Zhu Youxiao continued to control the Strait of Malacca, he also once again sent a huge construction corps to the Western Regions to open the way for the Silk Road.