Before Chongzhen left Beijing, he had asked He Ruzhong to make a comparative analysis of the tax systems of the Song and Ming dynasties.

Although the Song Dynasty was often ridiculed and despised by the literati of the Ming Dynasty, it was still very effective in terms of fiscal revenue.

At that time, Jingkang was ashamed, and all the hundred years of accumulation in Bianjing of the Song Dynasty were plundered, and the regular army was almost not one in ten, and finally it was forced to rely on piling up money to survive the destruction of the Southern Song Dynasty.

The Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties belonged to the financial pull of the Ming Dynasty, which was actually a major flaw in the system of the Ming Dynasty.

Back in the palace, Chongzhen summoned Han Yi and Bi Ziyan to discuss.

Looking at Bi Ziyan's recital, the first thing to analyze is the comparison of Tian Fu in the Song and Ming dynasties.

The measurement of the Song Dynasty is different from that of the Ming Dynasty, if they are all converted into Ming stones, then the Ming Dynasty has more than 30 million stone tax grain, while the Song Dynasty only has more than 20 million stone tax grain.

This is obvious, because after all, the difference in arable land between the two sides is there.

The second is the industrial and commercial tax, which is the sum of the government's monopoly income and commercial tax.

In this regard, the Song dynasty was far stronger than the Ming dynasty.

First of all, wine, the Song Dynasty implemented a liquor monopoly system, with an annual income of more than 10 million yuan, which is the pillar tax source of the government.

The Ming Dynasty allowed folk liquor, and the liquor tax was a miscellaneous tax, and Emperor Hongwu was completely exempt from taxes for the primary agricultural products produced by the peasants, and almost all of the folk wineries with the largest output were exempt from taxes.

In addition to the liquor tax, the Ming Dynasty also taxed large quantities of goods at various banknote customs.

However, wine is a very regional commodity, and it is likely that you will not be used to drinking it in a different place.

Shaoxing's daughter is so popular that she can't sell it at all in Shandong.

Shaanxi's flower carving in Nanzhili is also unattended.

Therefore, the revenue of the Ming Dynasty's liquor tax was very low, and Bi Ziyan estimated an annual income of 100,000 yuan on the basis of no reference figures at all, which was almost negligible.

The second is the tea tax.

The tea tax of the Song Dynasty was also more than sixty times that of the Ming Dynasty.

First of all, in terms of production capacity, the Ming Dynasty has shrunk greatly compared with the Song Dynasty, and the original Song Dynasty has a tea output of more than 20 million catties a year, which supports the prosperity of the ancient tea horse road.

However, after the Mongol invasion, the Sichuan land was empty, and the output of Sichuan tea in the Ming Dynasty was less than one million catties.

In addition, Hongwu's tax exemption policy for agricultural products has made tea farmers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian almost free of paying taxes when selling tea. The government only levied a tax of 2.5 wen per catty of tea, and the total income was only more than 50,000 taels of silver.

Finally, there is the salt administration.

In the early years of Hongwu, the salt administration implemented the Kaizhong Law, that is, the state did not directly profit from the salt monopoly, but distributed the salt introduction, that is, the voucher for receiving official salt sales from the salt farm, to each border town.

In the hands of the border towns, the salt is equivalent to real money, because the merchants can sell the salt anywhere with the salt guide.

Tempted by the introduction of salt, merchants would take the initiative to bring grain, silk cotton, wheat beans, silver and other military supplies to the border towns to trade.

The advantages of this system are obvious, as the salt itself has a quota and is not prone to loss or loss during transportation. It greatly simplifies the cost of transporting money to the border, and then exchanging the border town for materials.

In short, there is no difference in the price of the middlemen, and the border towns and merchants can trade directly in proportion to the price of salt and the real thing.

But since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, this system has been corrupted.

First of all, the border town officers used their own crooked brains, for example, when Emperor Longqing, Wang Chonggu, the governor of Xuanda, was a wealthy family in Puzhou, Shanxi, and his own younger brother turned out to be a big salt merchant.

Obviously, the salt was introduced into Wang Chonggu's hands, and it is difficult to say how much of it can be given to the Xuanda border army and how much of it falls into his own pocket.

Secondly, a large number of imperial relatives and relatives, after discovering that this salt can be turned into real money, they keep looking for opportunities to ask the emperor and the court for it.

Every time the magnates get a salt lead, they can sit and reap usury. "One lead to white gets six silver coins, and if you accumulate a thousand leads, you can get six hundred gold, and ten thousand leads can get six thousand gold."

And this money was originally supposed to be the military salary of the border army.

Finally, there were the eunuchs beside the emperor.

Historically, Wanli, Tianqi, and Chongzhen all sent eunuchs to the Lianghuai salt farm, hoping to control salt production and increase salt revenue.

What they didn't expect was that it happened to be these eunuchs they trusted the most, who either sold salt at a low price for personal gain, or used it as a favor to curry favor with their relatives and nobles.

Some modern eunuchs have always been dissatisfied with this, believing that the civil officials deliberately ruined the "clean reputation" of the eunuchs.

According to their theory, the eunuchs are the closest to the emperor, and they are the most loyal to the emperor except for the helpless in the palace.

In fact, eunuchs are not born as orphans, but also have nephews and nephews, and they also expect their families to provide for their old age.

At the same time, it is impossible for eunuchs not to have personal desires, and the ten permanent servants of the Eastern Han Dynasty encouraged Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty to sell their officials, and as a result, they all became extremely rich.

Not to mention the rich people like Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian.

These three waves of moths dealt a devastating blow to the salt administration of the Ming Dynasty.

First of all, so many people have salt in their hands, and the annual production of the salt farm is simply not enough.

The eunuchs sent to supervise the salt works are gone, and the production is not finished, so won't the salt we sell become a blank check?

Therefore, the stove households who produce salt are forced to work overtime day and night by violent means, resulting in a large number of stove households fleeing.

The lack of manpower led to the first problem of the salt administration, the decline in production.

In the case of insufficient production, the salt works also gave priority to the salt in the hands of those elites, and the salt in the border towns became waste paper.

This leads to the second problem, the unpaid salaries of the border towns.

At the same time, because of the profit that can be made by reselling salt, many salt merchants do not produce and transport at all, but raise the price of salt by covering the plate.

Ordinary people can't afford to eat salt, which will lead to the third problem, the breeding of private salt.

Under the impact of private salt, official salt will be unsalable, which leads to the fourth problem, the sharp decline in salt revenue.

Chongzhen and Han Yi finished reading Bi Ziyan's report, and their faces were heavy.

Chongzhen looked at Bi Ziyan, "Jing Zeng, your writing is very solid." ”

"Since you have listed the malpractices of this dynasty, you must have some ideas, why don't you talk about it?"

Bi Ziyan hesitated, "The minister thinks that if you want to open source, the Tian Fu of this dynasty is not as good as the dark consumption of the Song Dynasty." ”

Chongzhen nodded, to put it bluntly, direct taxes are not as good as indirect taxes.

"Your Majesty has sent Geng Ruqi to clean up the salt administration, if it goes well, in the future, the major border towns other than Liaozhen will at least not make trouble with millions of arrears."

"If we can further follow the example of the Song Dynasty and monopolize the sale of wine and tea, the profit will be about 10 million taels, which is more than enough to support the war in Liaodong, and there will be a surplus of millions every year."

Han Yi squinted his eyes and said, "Although this is the case, it is the old system of Taizu not to tax the wine and tea produced by the farmer. If you want to change, it will inevitably lead to a lot of discussion in the world. ”

Chongzhen nodded, "Not only that, if you want to monopolize it, the wineries and tea farmers you ran before will be banned, will it cause social unrest." ”

Bi Ziyan said, "This is exactly the reason, so the minister has been thinking hard all night these days and coming up with a way." ”

He took out another notebook, "The minister thinks that if you want to specialize in wine and tea, you don't have to choose one or the other, the poor and the rich country, and compete with the people for profit." ”

"Instead, we can take the road of joint ventures, and the people will benefit both!"