When an old friend's son came to visit, Fang Fengnian naturally had to greet him in person. Ma Shaoguang was led into the back house by Fang's family, and when he saw Fang Fengnian greeting him at the door of the study, he hurriedly walked a few steps forward and said, "The lower official greets the lord of the department, and the lower official is a junior and subordinate, how dare he bother the elders to go out to greet him?" Capital sin, capital sin! ”

Fang Fengnian, as Ma Shaoguang's direct boss, was able to go out to greet Ma Shaoguang, which really gave Ma Shaoguang face.

Fang Fengnian said with a smile: "Ziheng, this is at home, don't use the officialdom, the old man and your father are friends in the same year, a few years younger than your father, you can call the old man uncle!" ”

Ma Shaoguang heard Fang Fengnian say this, and quickly changed his words, calling him uncle.

Fang Fengnian pulled Ma Shaoguang into the house, the family served tea, Fang Fengnian asked, "Ziheng, can this road be hard?" ”

"Uncle, the south of the Yangtze River is peaceful, but after Yangzhou, it is somewhat decayed, and several cities in the north have not yet recovered from the war. But the road is safe, and there are no bandits! ”

Fang Fengnian smiled: "This is natural, at the beginning of the tenth year of Shenwu, the emperor reduced the tax share of the northern provinces to three percent, that is, the local government left seventy percent, and all the money was used to set up a local inspection department to ensure the safety of the provinces and localities, and the money will naturally have an effect!" ”

Fang Fengnian, as the secretary in charge of national taxation, was naturally familiar with the operation of national taxation, and saw that Ma Shaoguang did not understand, so he began to explain the taxation of the Ming Dynasty in detail for him.

The taxation of the Ming Dynasty was similar to that of later generations, and it was also divided into two types: local tax and national tax, but the names were different. The Ming Dynasty called the national tax as the positive endowment, and the summer and autumn endowments in various places, the collected grain, and the three major salaries established in the late Ming Dynasty were all positive endowments.

Of course, the money is handed over to the state, and the local government also needs to operate, so in the early Ming Dynasty, the central and local governments were divided into seventy-three points, that is, the central government took seventy percent of the positive endowment, and the local government left three percent for local government operations.

This kind of policy was not bad in the early days of the dynasty, because at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, a large number of people died, and there were no local landlords, so the state was still able to collect a lot of money, and both the central and local governments could ensure smooth operation.

However, after the Ming Yingzong Tumubao Change, the state changed from an offensive to a defensive position against Mongolia. Defending always costs more money than attacking, so the central government began to gradually increase the proportion of sharing, and in the later period of Wanli, in order to suppress rebellions in various places, the sharing system was directly abolished, and all positive endowments had to be attributed to the central government.

It stands to reason that after hundreds of years of peace in the middle of the dynasty, the population of the provinces increased dramatically, and the population increased and taxes should have increased, so why was the tax not enough? Quite simply, as the population increases, so do the number of people who study, and these people do not pay taxes.

In addition to these, there were also land annexations in the provinces, an increase in the number of officials, and an increase in the number of large landowners in various places. As a result, there were more and more displaced people, and the scale of the uprisings of the displaced people who could not survive in various places became larger, and the imperial court was tired of coping, and the financial expenditure became larger and larger, so it had to increase taxes and forced labor.

It turned out that the land in the north "never could not afford to be ke" had been fully taxed by Jingtaishi. In the first year of orthodoxy, the imperial court converted most of the land endowments 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 the formation, it was increased to one or two, and this increased the burden on the peasants by three times compared with before. Raising taxes at this time 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 imperial court can't care so much anymore.

In the process of increasing concentration of land and increasing taxation and forced labor, the peasants were starved of clothes and food. The peasants beat one stone of grain, and the taxes handed over to the imperial court amounted to eight buckets. Some peasant households, who pay taxes today and borrow tomorrow, are no longer able to survive. If they can't pay their taxes, they have to sell their sons and daughters, but many more choose to go into exile. At the time of Xuande, there were already a large number of displaced people in many areas, and during the orthodox period, there were no less than 100,000 people who were exiled from Shanxi to Nanyang. During the Tianshun Chenghua period, the number of displaced people exceeded one million. In some areas, "more than half of the population has fled," or even "only one out of ten remains," and the abandoned land is "less than 1,000 mu, and more than 120,000 hectares."

The Ming government prevented peasant exiles through measures such as Lijia, Guanjin, and Banshan, and sometimes even carried out brutal repression. However, in the ranks of the exiles, there were weapons, secret societies, and their own leaders, so the form of struggle in exile developed into an armed uprising.

At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang became a monk because he couldn't eat enough, 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 did not come, but over the course of several generations, his descendants brought the same life of exile to the common people. The exiles became the confidants of the Ming Dynasty. They did not become freedmen in the bud of capitalism, but became a constant source of soldiers for the insurrectionary army. Small-scale uprisings occurred in Huguang, Fujian, and Jiangxi, where land annexation was severe, and in Zhejiang, Sichuan, and Shandong, where taxes were heavier.

A series of peasant uprisings in the middle of the Ming Dynasty forced the Ming Dynasty government to make some appropriate political reforms in the early years of Jiajing, implementing measures such as reducing rents and silver, rectifying servitude, suppressing eunuchs, and abolishing Jinyi Wei lieutenants.

However, due to the prevalence of corruption and huge military expenditures, the Ming Dynasty's finances were in difficulty, and the government "could not fill half of the two million dollars a year." In the thirtieth year of Jiajing, the Ming Dynasty government increased the allocation of 1.2 million yuan in Nanzhili, Zhejiang and other prefectures and counties, which was called "Jiapai". In the 36th year of Jiajing, he added 400,000 yuan of silver in Jiangnan and other places, which was called "promotion". Later, there were additional names such as Ji Gui, Paiku, Tax Deed, and Folding the People. The gentry landlords were exempt from taxation and military service, and the lives of the poor peasants were more miserable, the number of displaced people increased, and the uprisings became more numerous. By this time, the Ming Dynasty was already a catkins in the wind, and it was shaky.

At the moment when the Ming Dynasty was facing imminent demise, history gave the Zhu dynasty an opportunity to push a man named Zhang Juzheng onto the political stage. As a generation of celebrities, Zhang Juzheng loves beauties and is still luxurious, and it seems that he does not have the integrity of a famous man in the Ming Dynasty. In the text that we can see now, we can't see the flavor of the article, but it has the meaning of a doer. Zhang Juzheng's life merits, the first to change the tax system of the "one whip law", so that the Ming government's financial situation greatly improved, and left a valuable legacy to future generations. The new law that Zhu Hongsan is now implementing in Jiangnan is just a strengthened version of Zhang Juzheng's "one whip law".

A whip law, to put it bluntly, is to summarize the conscription and grain that should be paid in each township to the prefecture and county, and the prefecture and county to the prefecture, so that the layers are handed over and summarized, and how much is each stone of grain equivalent to silver, and how much is each requisition converted into silver, and how much is converted into silver, and directly handed over to silver. Unify the original complicated names under one entry, so it is called a whip.

Zhang Juzheng's reforms greatly alleviated the financial crisis in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, but there was a drawback of Chinese officialdom, that is, the death of people. After Zhang Juzheng's death, the reforms he advocated were abolished by his good disciple Emperor Wanli, Zhang Juzheng was also raided and his grave was exhumed, and his son was forced to die.

At the end of Wanli, in order to raise military expenses to resist the invasion of the Later Jin Dynasty and suppress the peasant uprising, the imperial court sent additional silver to Tian Fu. It is mainly divided into Liao, Suppression, and Training, collectively referred to as "three salaries". Liao salary is to raise the salary of the Liaodong garrison to increase the field endowment. In the forty-sixth year of Wanli, the expedition began. At the beginning, an additional 3 centimeters and 5 millimeters per mu were allocated, and then it was continuously levied to reach more than 10 centimeters per mu. Wage suppression was an increase in the amount of military pay used to suppress the peasant uprising. Chongzhen started the expedition for ten years. According to the old grain amount, six hundred yuan was levied, and eight cents per stone was levied, and another silver was levied for a period of one year, but it was not cancelled later. Training is to raise and suppress the peasant uprising, train the army, and increase the salary to the field. Chong frame 12 years to levy, per mu of silver levied one cent.

At this time, the state finances and credit of the Ming Dynasty had been completely bankrupt, and the collection of the three major salaries was just a matter of drinking to quench thirst, and it was only a matter of time before the Ming Dynasty fell.

When the local government collects positive taxes for the state, it is often a taxi fee, which is also a helpless way, and local officials are also human beings, and in order to maintain the operation of local governments, they also need money. Therefore, there are all kinds of bad rules in various places, such as fire consumption, apportionment, donations, common practices, etc., which can be attributed to the local tax. In the late Ming Dynasty, the land taxes levied by various localities were even several times the positive payment of the imperial court.

After Zhu Hongsan became emperor in Guangzhou, he was very familiar with the tax system of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Hongsan was initially ready to use the butcher's knife of the Manchu Qing and the Liukou to kill the Jiangnan scholars, and then play the image of a savior to liberate them, just like the northern provinces.

But people are not as good as heaven, Zhu Hongsan forgot that his gang of guys are also scholars, as Zhu Hongsan's power grows bigger and bigger, he naturally has to accept the Jiangnan scholars who fled south, and these people are trying to persuade Zhu Hongsan to go on the Northern Expedition earlier for their different purposes. At that time, Li Chengdong and Jin Shenghuan were anyway, and the anti-Qing situation in the whole country was very good, so Zhu Hongsan's head was hot, and he gave up the strategy of making a fortune in Guangzhou back then, and turned to attack everywhere to grab territory.

The military generation gap made Zhu Hongsan's Northern Expedition very smooth, and those landlords in the south of the Yangtze River were liberated by Zhu Hongsan before they were killed by the Manchus. In order to achieve long-term peace and stability, it is necessary to solve the problem of land annexation, and the culprits of land annexation, those big landlords in the south of the Yangtze River, are on the right side in the anti-Qing campaign, and Zhu Hongsan has no way to kill them with the help of the Manchu butcher's knife, so Zhu Hongsan has to sacrifice the new deal in order to solve the financial crisis.

The implementation of the New Deal greatly alleviated the central government's financial crisis and slowed down land annexation in various parts of Jiangnan. Zhu Hongsan, who had money in his hands, began to restore the economy in the north, and the first step was to reduce the financial share of various localities, and reduce the share of provinces such as Shandong and Hebei that were not seriously damaged to 30 percent, while Henan and Shaanxi, the hardest-hit areas, directly reduced or exempted taxes, and at the same time gave a large amount of allocation.

Of course, some of this money was embezzled by local officials, but some of it was still used, so the localities began to recover slowly, and the law and order in the northern provinces also improved greatly.