Putting aside what happened in the Qianqing Palace for the time being, since Liang Yong made a big fuss, the cabinet ministers in the cabinet were all disappointed.

After a hurried lunch, the five auxiliary ministers of the cabinet, the six ministers and seven secretaries of the foreign court, and the eunuch Chen Ju, who came to listen to the government, a total of thirteen people, opened their posture and sat down in front of the cabinet hall.

Because everyone is in the cabinet, it is naturally difficult to find out what other people think, but they are silently thinking about their hearts.

"The situation of the matter must have been known to you, the disadvantages of the mining tax have been a disaster for the court for many years, don't need the old man to say more, as for a whip law, although the words of Liang Gonggong are not good, but it is also the truth, His Majesty ordered the ministers to evaluate the merits of Zhang Gong's life a few days ago, a whip law is the most important, everyone present is on the sparse, presumably there is no need for the old man to explain what a whip law is, even so, then discuss how to deal with this matter!"

After everyone was seated, the scribe who was holding the pen and record on the side was also ready to stop, and the presiding officer of the court meeting, the old head assistant Wang Xijue, got up and said slowly.

Liang Yong's words were a little ugly, and his attitude was a little arrogant, but what he said was also the truth, whether it was a mining tax or a whip law, the people present were Menqing'er's policy, and there was no need to go back to prepare at all.

"The old man has a doubt, dare to ask Yuan Fu to explain his doubts! As far as we are concerned, we have advised Your Majesty to abolish the mining tax, how did it turn into a whip law to replace the mining tax, if this matter is not sorted out, I am afraid it will be difficult for this court discussion to continue! ”

The first person to speak out was Zhu Geng, Zhu Ge Lao was very depressed today, but after a short lunch time, Zhu Ge Lao calmed down.

It is a good thing to abolish the mining tax, but if the mining tax is replaced by a whip law, then it is better to let the emperor collect the mining tax!

To put it bluntly, it is not protected by the laws of the imperial court, and it is a policy implemented by the first emperor relying on the monarchy, which has many loopholes, but a whip law is different, and a whip law can be said to be Zhang Juzheng's life's painstaking efforts.

The path that the old man has spent his whole life exploring is definitely the best way to reform under the current system.

In the final analysis, there is also an ancestral system in front of everyone, the tax system of the Ming Dynasty was personally formulated by Emperor Taizu, and future generations cannot change it, this is an iron law.

Not to mention the courtiers, even the emperor is not easy to move the tax law.

But then again, what if you want to reform the economy without making it easier to tax the law?

It's nothing more than two roads, one is like Emperor Shenzong, using methods outside the system to collect mining taxes, the old Zhu family also has an ancestral system, the emperor is the largest, although the emperor can't change the tax law, but he can collect taxes separately!

Lao Zhu stipulated in detail the collection system and standards of various taxes, but the mining tax was a name created by Emperor Shenzong himself, so it was naturally not within the scope of the ancestral system.

However, the disadvantage is also obvious, this kind of tax system that is free from the system is obviously incompatible with the current tax system of the imperial court, and the collision between the two will cause all kinds of problems.

It is the consensus of the entire imperial court that the mining tax is a disaster, and it is not for nothing.

The collection of mining taxes did support the use of the treasury to a certain extent, but on the other hand, the people were ruined because of this, and even many people rose up.

Of course, in addition to the near-rogue way of the Divine Sect, there is another way to make up for the shortcomings of the tax law.

It is the method used by Zhang Jiangling, which is solved reasonably and legally from within the system, the advantage of this road is that it does not violate the ancestral system, and it can be implemented by the imperial court for a long time, but the disadvantage is that it is difficult! It's as hard as it gets!

If Shenzong's mining tax pit was for the common people and businessmen with some capital, then Zhang Jiangling's whip law was aimed at Manchu officials and landlord gentry, or the entire bureaucratic system.

Which is difficult and which is easy to tell at a glance.

Of course, the courtiers impeached the mining tax, but why the mining tax has still existed steadily everywhere for so many years, not only because of the insistence of the Divine Sect, but also because the fundamental reason is that it is not the courtiers who are forced to pay the mining tax money, although they will go to the court for this matter, but not many people are willing to really fight with the emperor for this.

In the final analysis, the truth of officialdom is that friends who die do not die and those who are poor.

But a whip law is different, it is aimed at the entire bureaucratic system, or rather, it is a kind of amendment to the imperial tax system, and it is important to note that the amendment is not a modification.

In the end, it is necessary to return to the old problems, land annexation and the growing bureaucracy.

In essence, there is no bad system, and the tax law formulated by Lao Zhu was applicable in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, but it also did not reach the point where it needed to be completely revised during the Wanli period.

It's just that the society is changing, and the situation in the Wanli Dynasty is very different from that in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhang Juzheng can't change the tax law, so he can only start from the current social situation.

The first is to measure the land and uncover the large amount of land that has been hidden, which is the basis for collecting taxes and promoting a whip law.

The core of a whip law is, in short, to replace grain, silk, labor and other items that replace taxes with silver taels, and to integrate the taxes of various names and collect them uniformly.

It seems simple, but the knowledge in it is great, first of all, the most important and the most difficult to cross the ancestral problem in front of everyone.

Zhang Juzheng's whip law was the result of amending it on the basis of the ancestral system, and he did not change the standards of various taxes set by Emperor Taizu, nor even abolished or increased any taxes.

What he did was to collect taxes in a different way!

This is one of the few loopholes left by Lao Zhu, and it is also the only way that Zhang Juzheng racked his brains to bypass the ancestral system.

His purpose in doing this is actually only to touch on the fundamental problem, but it has not solved the fundamental problem, but it is enough.

There is no problem with Lao Zhu's system, or in other words, the problem is not big, and the problem is the person who implements the system.

People who are familiar with the economy know that there is a thing called the standard system, which is simply the basic circulation unit of the monetary system.

Before Zhang Juzheng, the imperial court collected taxes, which were generally based on grain, mixed with silk and silk cloth and other valuables.

The advantage of this is stability, after all, gold and silver are not as real as grain, especially in disaster years, food is the most important thing, where there is a disaster, the court disaster relief is food, and you can't give a bunch of silver to a bunch of people who are waiting to be fed.

However, there is a great disadvantage of the grain standard, that is, it will produce losses, and there are all kinds of differences in fineness, for example, the grain produced in the land of Jiangnan is the best grain, while the grain produced in the barren land on the border is the inferior grain, not to mention that the grain produced in each place is affected by the fertility of the land and natural disasters, so when the officials collect it, they cannot simply use the quantity to determine the conclusion.

The second is the problem of transportation and preservation of grain, grain is not better than gold and silver, improper preservation will rot, and even if it is properly preserved, it can only be preserved for a few years, and the tax collected by the imperial court is difficult to preserve for a long time if it is in the form of grain.

Moreover, long-distance transportation will consume countless manpower and material resources, which in the end will also be apportioned to the people.

What's more, these two big loopholes will also give officials the opportunity to get their hands on it, so that they have the opportunity to profit from it; in fact, the problem of taxation is fundamentally the problem of officials.

So Zhang Juzheng actually opened the entire bureaucratic system, he put all the taxes together to collect, which in disguised form eliminated the opportunity for the local officials to increase the tax, you know, these years the common people have no culture, the interpretation of the regulations is in the hands of the local officials, the government casually makes up a tax name, they have to pay honestly, but after the implementation of a whip law, even if the people do not know whether they should pay the taxes of various names, they should always know that they only pay once a year. If there is a levy of taxes, it must be the indiscriminate apportionment of the magistrates.

In this way, when collecting taxes, supplemented by the strong supervision system of the imperial court, the burden on the common people can be reduced to the greatest extent, so that they are not troubled by excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes, which is a tax reform.

On the assignment of labor, Zhang Juzheng will all the grain and silk and other items, all converted into silver two to collect, it greatly reduces the cost of labor, a simple truth, it takes more than a dozen people to transport a hundred stone of grain, but converted into silver, but about fifty taels, a small box can be easily sent to the capital, which saves more than ten times the manpower.

And the grain standard gradually replaced with the gold standard, the biggest advantage is that the gold and silver will not be corrupted, after Zhang Juzheng's reform, the tax revenue of the state treasury has increased sharply, it is not just the balance of payments, but the tax is greater than the use of the state treasury, since these taxes are stored in the state treasury in the form of gold and silver, naturally do not worry about the general decay of grain.

Over the years, the balance of silver taels is also very considerable.

More importantly, the conversion of grain and other materials into silver taels to facilitate calculation and collection has reduced the opportunities for officials to manipulate and plug all kinds of loopholes in the original tax system.

But what can be imagined is that these two systems of his touch are the interests of the bureaucracy, which is equivalent to forcibly stripping off the gray income of officials and distributing them to the treasury and the people.

To put it mildly, if it weren't for Zhang Juzheng's foresight and firm grip on the central power in his hands, I am afraid that if a whip law is just proposed, it will die in time, and Wang Anshi's experience is still in place!

And now to restart a whip law, it is natural to face the entire bureaucratic system that is still extremely large......