"Since ancient times, the Huns have entered China, can they all last a long time? The Ming Dynasty has a deep virtue, and its descendants will have the celebration of Zhongxing. Today's emperor is wise and martial, which is the blessing of the Ming Dynasty and the luck of the vassal country. And Emperor Shenzong has a grace that will not be forgotten in our country for a hundred generations, and he has endured it with shame because of the strength and weakness, so that today, hatred is beyond words......"

Zhu Yongxing put down the letter of the DPRK and exhaled a long breath gently. Even though the Ming Dynasty had problems and problems, it was still admired and longed for by the vassal state. The dirt of culture can be washed away and the problems that arise can be solved, but they should never be replaced by barbarism and backwardness.

Moreover, Chinese culture itself has strong vitality, a culture of continuous self-renewal and self-evolution, rather than a culture of rigidity and regression.

To restore traditional Chinese culture and thought, of course, it is by no means necessary to go back thousands of years and start over at the level of Confucius and Mencius. Rather, it is to inherit and carry forward, and to continue the tradition that was interrupted by the Manchu rule!

If we blindly adopt fundamentalism, retroism, and blindly believe that Confucian classics, or other Chinese cultural classics, the more ancient the better, and the more ancient the more authentic. If this is the case, the essence of this so-called revival of traditional culture is not fundamentally different from the so-called "Sinology" that arose under the rule of the Manchus! It is precisely the destruction of the vitality of Chinese culture.

Because, under the dark rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty's imprisoned thoughts, the study of Song and Ming Dynasty science itself became a forbidden area, and it became a life-threatening thing, and the so-called Sinology obtained by drilling into the pile of old papers was relatively safer.

It was during the Manchu Qing Dynasty that the Wa Kingdom began to look down on China, right? Zhu Yongxing is not very sure, but what should be considered now is not the future of the Japanese state. It's about China's future development.

Next year will be the first year of Zhaowu, and the matter of Kaienke has been decided. There are two major departments of civil and military, and there is no need to talk about martial arts. The art of war will be examined, as well as offensive and defensive, camp formation, land and water tactics, archery, technical attack, etc. In addition to the Jinshi Department in the liberal arts, there are also absolute subjects (including law, calendrical calculation, music law, measurement, water conservancy, farming, construction, and utensils manufacturing), and the Jinshi Department does not take the eight shares, but selects talents based on time.

In Zhu Yongxing's view, this talent selection system is not perfect. It's only temporary. When it comes to talent canons and thousands of years of traditional habits, they can only be changed gradually. If the imperial examination is abolished all at once. It was a major event in which the sky collapsed, and it was not necessary that the war between the Ming and Qing dynasties would be reversed.

"Your Majesty, this is the latest statistics of the Ministry of Households." Zha Rulong presented the text and added: "Yi Shangshu believes that based on the current financial situation. It won't be implemented until next year at the earliest. ”

"I know this is not a policy that can be implemented anytime soon." Although Zhu Yongxing had expected it. But still sighed softly.

The war consumed too many resources, and the policy of benefiting the people on a larger scale had to be delayed until after the end of the war. Maybe the war is over, and the northland is withering, and it is not possible to restore it in a short time.

"It's not feasible to exempt the poll tax for the time being, so what about the apportionment?" Zhu Yongxing asked casually while flipping through the text.

"The household department thinks it is not appropriate to implement it immediately." Zha Rulong said euphemistically: "Moreover, the household department thinks that it is very difficult to operate the apportionment into the mu. ”

"Difficult? Of course, there are difficulties. Zhu Yongxing frowned slightly. said: "Are you worried about the opposition of those big gentry? ”

"Back to Majesty, it's not all." Zha Rulong thought for a moment. said: "Weichen and others have also studied it carefully, and they feel that instead of forming a problem, it is better to cancel the poll tax in one fell swoop after the victory of the Northern Expedition." ”

"I want to see what you've researched." Zhu Yongxing was a little puzzled, is there really any serious problem with the spread of the mu.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty's policy of "spreading the land into the mu" was called "good law and beautiful government, attributed to Datong and the unemployed poor forever", which was attributed to the "virtue" of the Qing rulers who loved the people like children, and was the "benevolent government" and "benefiting the poor". It was recorded in history by the rulers of the Qing Dynasty who flaunted their benevolence, so various documents, such as the Qing Three Links and the Qing Huidian, did not hesitate to render them.

In fact, it is not an original creation of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, it is transformed from the "one whip law" implemented by Zhang Juzheng. It is to spread a part of the household silver into the mu of land to collect, reduce the household levy, increase the land burden, that is, transfer the household silver to the land apportionment, and the landlord bears it.

However, there are unavoidable drawbacks in the "apportionment of the land into the mu", that is, it is impossible to evenly distribute the taxes, so that it is impossible to effectively ensure the smooth collection of taxes, let alone to meet the needs of reducing the people's burdens and alleviating class contradictions, so it has been resisted by the rich and the rich and the poor. This makes the process of implementing the policy slow and difficult.

Moreover, the policy of "apportionment to the acre" does not maintain a fixed amount of taxation and thus discourage people from evading taxes. In the early Qing Dynasty, when the measure of "never increasing the amount of money" was implemented, it was hoped that the method of fixing the amount of Ding Kou would ensure the collection of Ding Yin, avoid the loss of people, and strengthen the control of the people. However, because the measure of "never increasing the amount of money" is ostensibly fixed in person, in fact, it cannot make people attached to the land.

"Never increase" does not mean "no increase or decrease, fixed as a constant", but in essence increases the number of people. Since the amount of Ding Yin in the policy of "apportioning the land into the mu" is based on the quota of "never increasing the tax", when the policy of "apportioning the land into the mu" was implemented, the people will bear a heavier tax.

In other words, during the reign of the Manchus, most of the provinces saw an increase in the amount of Ding Yin, rather than maintaining a fixed number. In other words, from "never adding more money" to "apportioning the land into the mu", the Manchu rulers have always demanded that the people of the provinces obediently undertake feudal obligations under the banner of "setting a fixed amount, no increase or decrease", and "the grace of heaven is immense, unprecedented". The so-called "wise man" is actually just a better understanding of how to alleviate class contradictions and ensure the basic living conditions of the people.

After the implementation of the policy of "apportioning the land into the mu", the silver added by the government to the land was actually borne by poor tenant farmers and hired laborers. Ding Yin was incorporated into the land endowment and collected together, and the land became the evidence for the collection of taxes, and the poor people who were ostensibly landless and landless were thus freed from the collection of Ding Yin, in fact. In order to make ends meet, they had to rent landowners' land or sell their labor, becoming tenant farmers and hired laborers of landlords. The tenant economy of the Qing Dynasty had become a common phenomenon in the early Qing Dynasty. It also shows that a large number of peasants lost their land and became tenants.

From the developed commodity economy in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, to the remote Guizhou region, from Jiangnan to Jiangbei, it has become a common phenomenon in society to employ long-term and short-term workers for agricultural production. In this way, the tenant farmer became the real laborer of most of the land. They may pay rent through guò. or earn a living by receiving pay for your work. But it is clear that the landlords make up the lion's share of the distribution of the product, and the tenant farmers and hired laborers still hovering over the poverty line. Therefore, the real burden of these tax money and grain is still tenant farmers and hired laborers.

In the statistics of the Manchu Qing dynasty. Yongzheng implemented the "spread into the mu", the people were forced to leave their hometowns due to heavy endowments, and in the Qianlong period, a large number of displaced people flocked to the northeast or southeast coast, and their destinations became more and more inclined to the areas with poor natural environment. For example, Ningguta was originally a place where the Qing government exiled prisoners.

This indicates. The rulers' hope to reduce the burden of servitude and to settle the people to fix taxes through the policy of "apportioning the land into the mu" did not achieve the desired effect, and they were unable to control the collection of taxes and thus stabilize the society. It can be seen from this that the policy of "apportioning the land to the acre" has not reduced the burden on the people, on the contrary, it has prompted a large number of peasants to flee to other places, and the problem of displaced people has become more and more serious.

Qian Mu's "Gains and Losses of China's Politics in the Past Dynasties" has the Manchu Qing Dynasty's boastful benevolence of "spreading the ding into the mu", which can be described as a sharp evaluation:

"In the Qing Dynasty, there was a so-called method of distributing grain from the land, which only collected land rent, and no longer required Dingkou tax. This is what they themselves boast of in the so-called benevolent government. Fifty years in Kangxi. At that time, the national population totaled 24.62 million. From this year on, the Qing court issued an edict never to increase the Ding Fu - that is, the population tax, while the population was still surveyed, and it was compiled and reviewed every five years, but the Ding Fu was never increased again. ”

In fact, this provision is not benevolent. Because from the perspective of Chinese history, the two-tax system has long been used to transport the tax into the land rent, and later the peasants were required to perform errand labor or pay for immunization, which is not right later. Wang Jinggong formulated the immunization money, and after a while, the people were going to be errands again, so the Ming Dynasty proposed a whip law, and then took the errand to be included in the land rent. ”

"The Manchurians ran into China, and every qiē was illuminated, and the amount of land was also levied according to the rules of the Wanli period, so the errand service was already spread out in the field rent, and now it is still necessary to do the errand service. By the time of Kangxi, the unity of the earth and the Ding was brought to another time, which was still evolving according to the inertia of Chinese history. How can this be considered benevolent? ”

"What's more, after the integration of the land and the people, the tax is actually increasing. Therefore, this method quickly loses its effect of currying favor with the people. Moreover, basically speaking, if the population tax is added to the local tax, the population will increase in the future, and the people will not be responsible for the state. Until now, the average Chinese people, unless they have land and houses, are not responsible for the state, and this is really not a good system. In short, in terms of the system, the Qing Dynasty really did not have a few things worthy of our praise today. ”

Zhu Yongxing covered his scroll and pondered, although the research materials were not so detailed and accurate, but he still saw the general problem of the problem. It seems that he was also confused by the praise of the Baoyi people and the banner of pulling the tiger skin, and it was a bit hasty to propose the so-called benevolent government "spreading the land into the mu".

Just as overestimating the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners, he is still inevitably deceived or misled by the history tampered with by the Manchu Qing Dynasty!

Zhu Yongxing smiled bitterly, he understood the truth, the form of the servitude system can be changed, but if the basis of feudal exploitation cannot be fundamentally changed, the government will not benefit the tenants. Whoever owns the land and who takes the initiative has the right to decide. Unless the state imposes a mandatory order on the amount of land rent and uses violence to ensure the implementation of the policy. But at the moment, it is not appropriate to intervene.

Moreover, in ancient China, there has always been a ding tax, but generally a family's land is certain. Population growth means an increase in taxes and a greater burden. This objectively limits population growth, which is contrary to Zhu Yongxing's hope for a large population to multiply.

Therefore, in order to increase the population substantially, it is necessary to make it no longer limited by land resources, or to increase land resources substantially. Abolishing the poll tax, weakening personal control, and speeding up the movement of people is one way to do this; Opening up the territory to the outside world, that is, aggression and plunder, is another way.

The alarm bell rang for Zhu Yongxing again, letting him know that even if he is a traverser, he is not 100% right, and there are times when he makes mistakes.

Moreover, any reform measures cannot be accomplished overnight, nor can they be evenly distributed, and they will inevitably go through a long-term period of exploration and running-in to make the reform measures more suitable for the needs of the social economy. He proposed that the land should be divided into mu with a good starting point, and it was indeed to solve the problem of taxation for the peasants, so that the peasants could reduce their burdens, and at the same time let the state finance increase its income. However, as an agrarian country, if the land problem cannot be completely solved, the stage of social development is there, and a breakthrough at a higher level cannot be achieved.

Putting aside the Manchu Qing Dynasty's "benevolent administration" -- "apportioning the land into the mu," Zhu Yongxing seriously considered the policy of "the officials and gentry pay grain and work as errands."

The reason why the ancient dynasty perished and why it could not escape the doom of three hundred years of reincarnation is actually the result of land annexation, that is, the result of robbing the poor and helping the rich.

For example, in the Ming Dynasty, those who controlled a large amount of land did not need to pay taxes, but the taxes were passed on to those who had no land and less land. Because the privileged class was still a minority at the beginning of the dynasty, the land that did not need to be taxed did not account for the majority. As time passed, the problem began to intensify, and there were more and more privileged classes, such as people with meritorious reputations, officials of Zhishi, relatives of the emperor, land given by the emperor to someone, landlords and wealthy people, and so on. After a while like this, the problem exploded, the dynasty was overthrown, and then a new round of reincarnation followed.

If Zhu Yongxing wants to end this curse of reincarnation, he must solve the problem of land annexation, but he must not violate China's thousand-year-old tradition of land policy, so there are only two ways left: unified taxation and outward expansion.

Land can still be bought and sold freely, but the previously privileged classes such as the gentry, the state and the clan must pay taxes in one piece, and the imperial court will no longer use land as a reward, and the meritorious and the clan will be distributed with grain and money according to the rank of the knighthood. Then, backed by the violence of the state, a strict tax on land rent was enacted to protect the tenant farmers from too harsh exploitation.

As long as the common people have something to eat, the country's long-term peace and stability can still be guaranteed in the absence of a strong foreign invasion.

"Let the household department count the land of the gentry, and I want to know how many people do not pay taxes now." Zhu Yongxing knew that the numbers would not be too big, and that the situation of war, killing, and fleeing, the situation in which the privileged class was everywhere in the middle of the Ming Dynasty had completely changed. Because of this, this may be an opportunity to implement policy. (To be continued......)