The financial situation of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties can be said to be a bad debt, because only a certain few times can be considered a little organized: for example, the sixteen years of Zhang Juzheng in the Ming Dynasty (the first year of Longqing of Ming Muzong to the death of Wanli in the tenth year of Ming Wanli), and the Qing Dynasty only had one Yongzheng Dynasty (from the 61st year of Kangxi to the 13th year of Yongzheng).

As for Kangxi, it can be said that he has no eloquence for the emperor, but under comprehensive consideration, he really attaches too much importance to friendship, and this affection needs to be a disaster for the country. He favored the corrupt behavior of the ministers above the supervision and appeased, and tolerated them, but he didn't know that the ministers above the governors would not be fortunate to the state and county-level officials under him, and the state and county officials covered up their subordinates.

Originally, this situation was not only Kangxi once, it is a pity that Kangxi tried to rectify the rule of officials and repair the finances, but it has never had much effect, often reducing taxes or even exempting taxes, but often making the middle political envoys, state and county officials fill their private pockets, and there is no wealth in the country, no wealth in the king, no wealth in the people, and enrichment of a group of provincial capitals, prefectures and county bureaucrats in the middle.

During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the government's main revenue was the poll tax, which is "Ding Yin", and the land tax, which is "Tianfu". When a man reaches the age of sixteen, he becomes a ding and needs to pay a ding, and at the age of sixty, he does not need to pay it. Every year there is a "substitute money", which means that the money is used by others to do errand service instead of oneself, and the provinces and counties are different, and the silver ranges from one cent to eight or nine taels, and the ordinary one is about five cents to one tael.

There are some cunning people who deliberately go to be the "coat" of the flag man, that is, the slave, so that they can be exempted from Ding Yin, and even put their own fields under the name of the flag man, so that they can be exempted from the field tax, this kind of behavior is called "surrendering to the flag".

There are also some people, the gentry who are attached to the Han nationality, these people are often the former officials in the court, and now they have retired and returned to their hometowns.

In the last years of Shunzhi, the central government collected more than 21.5 million taels of silver every year, which included the discount of Tian Fu (derived from a whip method of Zhang Juzheng). In addition, there are more than 6.4 million stone of grain. After Kangxi Ping the three feudatories, he collected the Yunnan-Guizhou region under the command of the former Wu Sangui, and the tax became more than 26.3 million taels of silver and more than 4.7 million stones of grain, and the silver increased by 4.8 million taels, but the grain was less than 1.7 million stones.

In addition to Ding Yin and Tian Fu, Kangxi also had a salt tax of 2.7 million taels and a customs duty of 2 million taels, plus before, it was only about 36 million taels (the use of the three feudatories mentioned above is half the world, which shows that what is said is true).

Kangxi was already very economical, reducing the expenses of the court to a minimum, the Ming Dynasty court spent as much as 10,000 taels of silver a day, but he only let the internal affairs office spend five or six hundred taels a month, plus the reward expenses, it was only one thousand taels; At the end of the Ming Dynasty, it cost more than 27.8 million catties to burn firewood, and he only allowed 670,000 catties; There were 9,000 women in the Ming Palace, and even more eunuchs, while he only used four or five hundred.

He managed the expenses outside the palace very tightly, and Jin Fu's governance of the river required silver, and he spent two million taels, which was worth it. Several wars are the most expensive, but how much Kangxi spent every year and how much silver the war spent, there is no clear history, we dare not say nonsense.

Kangxi was much more frugal than Qianlong, but in any case, he needed 40 million taels of silver. But if we calculate it in this way, wouldn't it be that Kangxi reigned for 61 years, adding up to a fiscal deficit of 244 million taels of silver?

In fact, Kangxi not only had no debts, but also had a lot of savings in the treasury, and in the forty-eighth year of Kangxi, he already had more than 50 million taels (but in the later period, the treasury became more and more empty, and this situation was left to Emperor Yongzheng).

There is a channel to make money, that is, "selling officials and lords", which is a bit like the "selling officials in the West Garden" of the Eastern Han Dynasty, but the history is different, and even the rise and fall of the regime is different, the person who pays the money can have an official to do, can be a show talent without passing the exam, become a "prison student", and can also obtain the qualification of being a "county magistrate", this is called "donating class", Yongzheng's favorite minister Li Wei was born in the donation class, and finally he was able to become the secretary of the military department, the acting secretary of the criminal department, the governor of Zhili and other positions, nicknamed "Minda", We can also see from the nickname that he is very perceptive. To get to the point, by selling the official mantle, Kangxi only got more than two million taels of silver after selling it for three years.

In addition, Kangxi can also earn income by minting money, and the government probably has an additional income of 432,000 because of this operation and strategy.

Kangxi's "windfall" is also available, such as Ao Bai, Wu Sangui and other gold, silver and jewelry after being raided.

Kangxi was an emperor who knew the plight of the people, and often showed kindness to the people, exempting or reducing taxes on places that suffered from floods, droughts, and military disasters. It also often writes off the tax arrears of the people in one lump sum and no longer cares. From the first year of Kangxi to the forty-eighth year of Kangxi, the amount of silver for tax reduction and exemption was at least 120 million.

He also took turns to exempt the world's Ding grain once, from Kangxi 50 to 52 years, Kangxi in these three years, each year exempted one-third of the world's Ding grain. One of the most famous things is "breed people, never give more". In the fifty-first year of Kangxi, Kangxi decreed that all the Ding silver figures in Kangxi fifty years would be fixed, and the population would be increased in the future, and the poll tax would never be increased, which was really a policy to encourage childbirth, and the people no longer had to worry about the poll tax for the children who were born, and only needed to consider the problem of raising children after birth, and at this time the two high-yield crops of sweet potatoes and corn had been introduced into China, and the formal population surge during the Qing Dynasty, Shunzhi 100 million, Kangxi 200 million, Qianlong 400 million, During the Daoguang period of Jiaqing, the population remained at about 450 million.

After Yongzheng ascended the throne, the fixed amount of poll tax established by Kangxi was showdown into the land tax, and since then there has been no poll tax, on the one hand, he wants to reduce the burden of the common people who are not gentry and landlords, and on the other hand, he has reduced the procedure. One or two cents less, seven or eight dollars more than one acre of land.