The immediate cause of the fall of the Ming Dynasty was the financial crisis, the country's financial difficulties, the famine that led to it, and there was no money to help; In the event of a war, there is no money to pay military salaries.|For every two people who read romance, there is an account registered on the website of Co ° Le ° Xiao ° Shuo °. There is no money to help the victims, and the hungry people are in turmoil; There was no money to pay the soldiers, so the hungry soldiers were in rebellion. The combination of hungry soldiers and hungry soldiers led to a large-scale civil rebellion. The government army lacked combat effectiveness, and the state was unable to eliminate either external aggression or suppress internal rebellion. The financial crisis led to a military crisis, and the military crisis led to a greater financial crisis, and in such a vicious circle, the Ming Dynasty eventually went to its demise.

That's the reason for this, but what is the deeper reason behind it? Why is the country in financial difficulties? Could it be that a country as large as the Ming Dynasty could not cope with some unexpected natural disasters and large-scale military operations with tax revenues? You must know that many countries in history that are much smaller than the Ming Dynasty are still comfortable with carrying out larger-scale military operations for many years. Needless to say, those countries in the Warring States Period, Zhao State, Qin State, many wars have used hundreds of thousands of troops, and later such as the Three Kingdoms period, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, etc., can give many examples. On the other hand, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was no need to talk about the number of troops in name, but in the real sense of the word, the use of 100,000 troops to fight a war was already close to the limit, and more than 100,000 was okay, but if it was close to 200,000, the state finances would no longer be able to sustain itself. In such a large country, a country with an area of more than 1 billion mu of cultivated land and a population of nearly 200 million, the tax revenue is so small that it cannot even recruit 200,000 elite soldiers with real combat effectiveness.

The following questions arise as to why in the early Ming Dynasty, the state carried out large-scale engineering construction, launched large-scale foreign wars, and provided relief to the victims in the event of famine. And at the end of the Ming Dynasty, it won't work? Could it be because the economy of the early Ming Dynasty was more developed than that of the late Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty was in constant recession for nearly three hundred years? But this is obviously contrary to the facts, and any study of China's economic history, as well as any records of people at the time, tell us the fact that the economy of the Ming Dynasty became more prosperous and developed in the later period. In the Wanli period, the economic prosperity, the development of the productive forces has reached a peak, the beginning of the Ming Dynasty is beyond reach, even in the Chongzhen period after successive natural disasters, although relative to the Wanli period, the economy has declined, but on the whole, much higher than the beginning of the Ming Dynasty is not a problem. The economy is more prosperous, the productive forces are more developed, but the country's finances are more difficult, what is the reason?

We note that the tax revenue from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Ming Dynasty basically did not change much, so the financial difficulties at the end of the Ming Dynasty were naturally due to the fact that the country's taxes did not increase with the growth of the population, and the income remained basically unchanged, but the expenditure had to increase with the increase of the population, which of course caused difficulties, but what was the reason for this?

Another point, if the tax revenue did not increase with the growth of the population, then at least everyone felt that the tax pressure should be far lower than in the early Ming Dynasty, but why was there a lot of complaints about excessive taxes at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and there were bitter voices everywhere?

If it is said that the military salary increased later at the end of the period, or the additional additional distribution is too much, this does not make sense, you must know that during the Ming Dynasty, the Forbidden City in Beijing was built, the Wudang Mountain complex was built, Zheng He went to the West seven times, the 500,000 army made five northern expeditions to Mongolia, and hundreds of thousands of troops repeatedly went south

The fiscal expenditure caused by the single item of these events was far higher than the sum of all the tax revenues during the Chongzhen period, as well as the additional distribution of Liao's salaries and salaries, as well as the additional local additions. But why did the Ming Dynasty maintain stability in the Ming Dynasty, and the people complained about the burden, but on the whole, it was within a bearable range, why did the increase in taxes at the end of the Ming Dynasty cause such a huge opposition?

Only by giving systematic answers to these questions can we answer what the essence of the financial crisis at the end of the Ming Dynasty was, and thus what was the real essence of the fall of the Ming Dynasty!

But to give a thorough answer to these questions, we still need to analyze step by step.

The second and third facts about taxation in the Ming Dynasty

Taxes in the Ming Dynasty remained virtually unchanged for more than two hundred and fifty years (in fact, they were constantly decreasing, agricultural taxes were decreasing, and commercial taxes were decreasing even more)

The amount of tax revenue in the Ming Dynasty was basically determined in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and it rarely changed since then.

In terms of agricultural taxes, Huang Renyu said

"The reason for the limited tax base in the 16th century was the fiscal policy of the Hongwu Emperor, during his reign, a system of fixed tax quotas was established. In 1377, the emperor sent officials from various ministries, eunuchs, and eunuchs to inspect 178 tax offices and fix their tax quotas.

In 1385, he ordered that the annual tax and grain collection of the provinces and provinces be engraved on a stone tablet and erected in the household hall. In 1393, the income from the field reached 32,278,900 stones, and the Hongwu Emperor was very satisfied with this, announcing that the newly cultivated fields in the northern provinces would never be cultivated. Since then, the fixed tax has been fixed as an unwritten law, and there have been occasional minor adjustments, but the basic quota has never been abandoned."

There was a slight increase during the Yongle period, and "in 1412, during the reign of the Yongle Emperor, the tax and grain revenue from agricultural land is said to have reached a record 34,612,692 koku," and the reason for the increase was "probably due to the fact that Annam was included in the quota as a newly annexed province." But after losing his rule over Annan, "the income was readjusted to nearly 30 million stones."

Then, during the Xuande period, the state's land income was further reduced on this basis

"1430,...... Landowners in the Yangtze River Delta have become so dissatisfied with the exorbitant extras attached to their land endowments that they have deliberately defaulted on their taxes to the extent that the total amount of taxes has exceeded all three years' worth of taxes. For this reason, Emperor Xuande made concessions and ordered a complete reduction of taxes and grains in these areas, with a total exemption of 3 million stones. …… However, this shortfall was not levied on other regions, and the annual planned income has remained at about 27 million stone since then, but the increase in arable land and population has not been taken into account. ”

In terms of cultivated land, "in fact, the vast majority of local officials only wanted to restore the original amount of land to the imperial government as the current statistics, and the new acres of land were rarely reported." …… The result of this is that taxes are detached from the area of cultivated land. The report in 1502 is the best proof of this. It should be pointed out that the tax quota system was the basic policy of the Ming Dynasty, and the Tang and Song dynasties never implemented this policy so rigidly as the Ming Dynasty."

In terms of population, "contrary to popular belief, the growing population rarely contributes directly

(This chapter is not finished, please turn the page) tax increases. The surplus population often becomes a floating population, and it is difficult to tax them, and even if the surplus population can be registered and assessed, the local managers are reluctant to report truthfully, fearing that the increase in the reported population will prompt the government to readjust the local tax quota, and the increase in taxes is at most a readjustment of the tax burden, due to the increase in taxpayers, the tax burden of each household is reduced, making the tax relatively easy to collect, and at the same time the managers have also gained a reputation for benevolence"

Therefore, no matter how much arable land increases, how much the population rises, and how much productivity progresses, the agricultural tax of the Ming Dynasty has always been maintained at this level, and it has been quoted many times before that "before 1600, the basic tax amount was 26 million stone of grain"

In fact, even if we don't look at Huang Renyu's discussion, we can find records of agricultural taxes in the Ming Dynasty that did not increase but decreased from the history of the Ming Dynasty

In the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu,

summer tax, more than 4,717,000 stones of rice and wheat, more than 39,000 ingots of money, and more than 288,000 horses of silk; Autumn grain, more than 24,729,000 stones of rice, and more than 5,000 ingots of money.

Yongle Zhong,......, the world's true color tax grain is more than 30 million stones, and silk banknotes are more than 20 million. When it is counted, the universe is rich, endowed with Yingxian, the rice millet has been exported to the Beijing division for millions of stones, and the prefecture and county warehouses have accumulated a lot of money, so that the red rot is inedible

In the second year of Jiajing, Yu Shi Li said: "In the early summer and autumn of the country, the two taxes were more than 470,000 stones, and now it is less than 90,000; There are more than 2,470,000 stones, and now there are more than 250,000 less. 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.

Wanli time, summer tax, rice and wheat totaled more than 4,650,000 stones, more than 57,900 ingots of banknotes, and more than 206,000 horses of silk;

Autumn grain, rice total 2233,000 stones

From these figures, it can be seen that agricultural tax revenue, from Yongle to the peak, has been decreasing since then, in the Jiajing period, compared with the Hongwu period, it has been a decrease of 90,000 stone for wheat and more than 2.5 million stone for rice; And in the Wanli period. Wheat decreased by 110,000 stones, while rice decreased by 2,690,000 stones.

On the surface, these reductions are not too much, but if one considers that the population of the Wanli period was at least more than double or even triple that of the Hongwu period, and that agricultural tax revenues did not increase significantly but decreased in absolute numbers, then this is quite a staggering reduction.

The above is a situation in which the agricultural tax has not increased or even decreased for a long time.

As for the situation in which the tax revenue of industry and commerce does not increase but decreases, in fact, it has been explained in passing in the previous section. To add a few more points, Kojiro Taguchi said, "Commercial tax, which has always been valued in successive dynasties, was not so important in the Ming dynasty. On this issue, the ancestors of scholars believe that this is because of the Hongwu and Yongle Emperors in order to restore the circulation economy, in order to restore the circulation economy, the early Ming Dynasty authorities used treasure banknotes as a commercial tax to pay, but with the depreciation of treasure money, the commercial tax also continued to decrease"

This is to illustrate that the commercial tax is calculated by treasure money, and the treasure money continues to depreciate, and the commercial tax will naturally continue to decrease. Whether or not this is the case, the fact that commercial taxes are constantly being lowered and even close to being abolished in some places is certain. However, there is no need to say much about the reduction of commercial tax, because even in the early Ming Dynasty, the commercial tax was not seriously collected. Commercial taxes have always been in a state of nominal existence throughout the Ming Dynasty, and it is of no real significance to reduce them or not.

(End of chapter)