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Yue Yang thinks that he is a person with a strong mental endurance, he is used to seeing all kinds of modern phenomena and all kinds of strange things announced on the Internet, he originally thought that he could be indifferent to most things or be able to face them calmly, but today Zheng Kui taught him a good lesson.

"What...... The commercial tax is 560 taels, and the agricultural tax is 3,534 stones? ”

Yue Yang's voice suddenly became high-pitched like a rooster that had been choked by the neck.

Shaking his head, Yue Yang felt a little dizzy, this number simply destroyed his three views in an instant. He asked solemnly again, and finally made sure that there was nothing wrong with his ears. Yes, the total amount of commercial taxes collected by the eight counties of Yingzhou this year is only 560 taels, and the grain is 534 stone (more than 4,000 catties).

A few minutes later, Yue Yang, who had stabilized his mind, asked Zheng Kui again: "Lord Prefect, with such a small tax, aren't you afraid of punishment from the imperial court?" ”

"What are you afraid of, I should pay too much tax from the state government." Zheng Kui had a look of indifference, "Besides, after the salt tax of 100,000 taels of silver handed over by Lord Yue last time was escorted to Beijing, this official was also rewarded by the imperial court." Besides, the tax I should collect from the state government is actually quite a lot, Lord Yue, don't you know, the commercial tax collected by the Pingyuan Mansion last year was only four hundred and seventy taels, which is not bad compared to their own government? ”

"Bang ......" The teacup in Yue Yang's hand couldn't hold it anymore, and fell to the ground and shattered......

After coming out of Zheng Kui's place, on the way home, Yue Yang's whole person felt a little heavy, what he heard just now was completely beyond his imagination, he never expected that the inaction of the officials of the Ming Dynasty had reached such a point.

In the land of a prefecture, the commercial tax collected is only 560 taels, and if it is converted into modern currency, that is to say, a prefecture-level city with eight counties collects only 60,000 yuan in taxes a year, and the grain is only more than 4,000 catties.

This thing sounded like a joke that couldn't have been colder, but it was indeed born in front of Yue Yang's eyes. Yue Yang estimated. If this matter was born in the 21st century, it is estimated that all the government officials in this city, including the mayor, will be pulled out and shot a hundred times, and there will be no one to cry out for them.

When Yue Yang asked why the business tax and grain tax were so small, Zheng Kui reluctantly sued Yue Yang. It's not that the merchants don't pay taxes, but they usually pay a very small amount of taxes, not the full amount of the arrears, and promise to pay the balance later.

For tax arrears. The government will collect the tax for a period of time, but after two or three years of arrears, the arrears can no longer be expected to pay the arrears. For these tax evaders, it stands to reason that the government can punish them, such as whipping, detaining and even confiscating their property, which was very common in the West at that time.

But this practice is very rare in Daming. Anyone who does this is usually labeled as a cool official. In the ninth year of Hongwu, there was a master book named Chengle in Pingyao, Shanxi, when his term of office expired, his superiors praised him for entering Beijing to see the emperor on the grounds that he could restore commercial taxes, and was criticized by the emperor Zhu Yuanzhang at that time, Zhu Yuanzhang said: "There is a fixed amount of taxes." If he is able to restore the government, he is exploiting the people, and he is derelict in his duties, and the state examination is not only not praised, but he is put in prison for this tax collector. Get! has collected enough tax money, but it is regarded as exploiting the people, and even Zhu Chongba himself has opened such a bad example, who would dare to really collect taxes

And so year after year. Daming's taxes are getting less and less.

Yue Yang heard a trace of helplessness from Zheng Kui's words, but what made Yue Yang feel even more helpless was that he could see that there was the ubiquitous shadow of the literati group and the merchant group in it. Yue Yang can be sure that in the current Ming Dynasty, 95% of the commercial taxes have been evaded and evaded. In this case, the use of tax rates to measure the collection of commercial tax in the Ming Dynasty has lost its meaning.

"Alas...... The immortality of the Ming Dynasty is simply unreasonable! ”

All the way back home. Yue Yang still didn't understand, did those officials in the Ming Dynasty really have no brains? Don't they know that if they continue like this, they are shaking the foundation of the country, and once a court does not have a minimum of taxes, it will collapse?

After thinking about it for a long time, Yue Yang still didn't understand why the good and dignified Da Ming became like this.

Later generations of scholars mostly believed. The immediate cause of the fall of the Ming Dynasty was the financial crisis. The country is in financial difficulties, leading to famine and no money to help; There was a war, and there was no money to pay for the army. There is no money to help the victims, and the hungry people are in turmoil; There was no money for the army's salary, and the hungry soldiers were in turmoil. The starving people combined with the hungry soldiers to lead a large-scale civil rebellion. The imperial army lacked combat effectiveness, and the state was unable to eliminate foreign invasions or suppress internal rebellions.

In this way, the financial crisis, the military crisis; The military crisis leads to a greater financial crisis. In such a vicious circle, the Ming Dynasty eventually came to an end.

On the surface, what is the deeper reason?

And today, Yue Yang has come to the conclusion that the court of the Ming Dynasty has lost control of the locality.

And this kind of control does not refer to the appointment and dismissal of local officials or anything else, but the loss of control over the local grassroots and the lowest level.

The government of the Ming Dynasty is a typical model of large society and small government, during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, the entire Ming Dynasty had only 5488 magistrates, with the exhibition of more than 200 years, even in the late Ming Dynasty, the number of officials of the Ming Dynasty, which has a population of 120 million, is only 2o4oo, and the number of officials is only 51ooo, that is to say, the Ming Dynasty is relying on a total of only more than 70,000 officials to manage a population of up to 100 million, compared with the number of civil servants of more than 30 million in later generations, It is not too much to describe the scarcity of officials in the Ming Dynasty as vastly different.

The scarcity of the number of officials directly led to the weakness of the Ming court in controlling the local government, and there is an example that is very illustrative. China has always been a big tea producer, and tea tax has always been one of the important financial revenues of various dynasties, such as in the Tang Dynasty, where tea drinking was not very popular, the Tang Dynasty government only from the Lianghuai region, can get 6oo copper coins per year.

But what about the Ming Dynasty, in the fourth year of Chongzhen, how much was the tea tax collected by the Ming court from the provinces? In fact, the tea tax collected that year was: 17 taels in Yunnan Province and about 6 taels in Zhejiang. An official at the time gave the following summary of this: "Tea households in the mainland have not known about official tea and private tea for a long time. The words of the world that make money are also ignored. ”

Zhejiang Province, as one of the few major tea-producing provinces in the country, collects only six taels of silver in a year in tea tax, which is not just a ridiculous joke, but the sorrow of a country and a nation.

Yue Yang, who was sitting in the chair, tried hard to recall what he had learned in history books before, but the more he thought about it, the more he felt a sense of powerlessness welling up in his heart, is there still a way to save such a Daming? I have worked so hard here, will I just make wedding clothes for others after all?

Originally, Yue Yang still had some confidence in his heart, because he could freely shuttle between modern society and the Ming Dynasty, and Yue Yang, who had modern society as the back-end, always thought that even if he couldn't fight, it was always okay to escape. But now, the daughter-in-law has also married, and there are three of them as soon as she marries, plus the old lady, her sister Yue Ying, and a large group of subordinates and servants, and the even worse Yu Pei is about to be broken, and this result makes Yue Yang feel more and more worried.

"Alas, it is estimated that I can still go to modern society for a trip, and the next time I mess with Lao Tzu, I will buy a machine gun, who wants to make Lao Tzu angry, Lao Tzu will surprise them all!" Yue Yang was angry, but after a while he was discouraged, the current situation is that even if he has money, he doesn't know where to sell guns, he can buy them when he goes abroad, but the problem is how to transport guns and a large amount of ammunition back to China and his small courtyard in the suburbs, he can't let the courier company deliver them to his door, right?

Yue Yang, who was thinking about his thoughts, fell asleep in a daze, but what he didn't know was that when he was asleep, his name was mentioned in another place in Daming......

The Forbidden City, located in Beijing, has always been the center of the Ming Dynasty, and there is a small palace on the northwest side of the Forbidden City, which is called Nuanxiang Pavilion.

This name sounds very warm, but in fact, he has another name, that is, Emperor Chongzhen's imperial study.

Unlike the glorious atmosphere of the nominal Imperial Study Chongzheng Palace, the Warm Fragrance Pavilion is just a small palace, and the things inside are not very luxurious. It's just that most of the things are bright yellow, and it is estimated that this is also related to the identity of their owners.

Emperor Chongzhen, who was only twenty-three years old this year, sat on a bright yellow soft chair, bowed his head and kept writing something on a notebook, and after a while, he put the finished notebook aside. In front of him was a thick stack of folds, all pasted with yellow paper, on which were written some small characters.

Chongzhen was one of the most diligent kings in the Ming Dynasty, and he had to look at the twists and turns sent from all over the country, no matter how big or small. However, due to the fact that there were too many twists and turns, he couldn't see them all by himself, and he was afraid of missing important things, so he adopted the method of the Song Dynasty. He asked the secretary of general administration to write down the reason on yellow paper after receiving the recital, and paste it in the front, which is called leading the yellow, and then use yellow paper to write out the summary of the content and paste it at the back, which is called pasting yellow. In this way, he can first look at the introduction of yellow and paste yellow, and the less important ones do not need to read the full text in detail, so that he will not miss the emergency military intelligence secret and Tang report.

Stretched out his hand to pick up another book, then looked at the yellow before the book, and then looked at the yellow paste behind the book, and the already tired face couldn't help but show a look of surprise.