Chapter 22 Chapter 22 Why is the end of the Ming Dynasty so poor

If there is one word that can summarize the most important characteristics of the late Ming Dynasty, it is probably the word "poor". The biggest feature of the late Ming Dynasty was poverty, especially when the last emperor Chongzhen was in power.First of all, the government is poor. Except for the Liaodong troops who can guarantee full payment of the military pay in the nine northern borders (and often late), most of the other regions owe it.Whether it is war or disaster relief, there is no money for it.Soldiers are also poor, if they don’t get paid, they will make trouble, if they make trouble, they will rebel, and if they rebel, they will suppress it, but they don’t even have the money to suppress the rebellion.If you don’t have money, you can only increase taxes, but the common people are also poor. If they can’t pay taxes, the officials will force the people to rebel and stir up civil uprisings.In this way, there have been more than ten years of internal and external troubles, the east wall was demolished to make up for the west wall, and finally the country was destroyed. Some said it was Li Zicheng, and some said it was destroyed by the Qing Dynasty. But looking at the whole process, it is more like economic bankruptcy.

But it was the end of the Ming Dynasty, which was so poor that it was the period when modern Chinese economists like to talk about "the budding of China's capitalist economy". The south of China, especially the southeast coast, was really rich.Suzhou and Hangzhou are naturally a paradise, reciting poems and enjoying the moon, and the life of petty bourgeoisie is enjoyable, and the maritime merchants in Fujian and Guangdong are also so rich that they can rival the country.Later, when the Qing army went south, they plundered the properties of local retired officials of the Ming Dynasty, and many of them were loaded into several ships.The key members of the Donglin Party, such as Li Sancai, "Song Jiang in Timely Rain", have 4.7 million taels of silver in his family, which is equivalent to hundreds of millions of RMB.How could such a wealthy dynasty die of poverty?

An important reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty was that they did not understand a question: why were they poor? To explain the poverty of the DPRK, the first fatal problem is taxation. The tax system of the Ming Dynasty was established by Zhu Yuanzhang after the founding of the country, mainly based on the collection of agricultural taxes.Everyone in the world explained that the dynasty "emphasized agriculture and restrained business", but after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the first reduction or exemption was the commercial tax, and many harsh tax regulations during the Yuan Dynasty were abolished.There are two main types of commercial taxes in the Ming Dynasty, namely "pass tax" and "resident tax".Passing tax refers to the tax to be paid on the transit of goods, and residence tax refers to the tax to be paid on the storage, transaction and sale of goods.The agricultural tax of the Ming Dynasty was unreasonable from the beginning. Although the land tax of the Ming Dynasty was generally low, heavy taxes were levied in the Jiangnan area.The income from agricultural tax accounted for 90% of the national tax revenue during Zhu Yuanzhang’s period. At this time, the total amount of land that can collect agricultural tax was the highest in Chinese history, with more than 8.5 million hectares, much higher than the highest level of 6.4 million hectares in the Kangxi and Qianlong heydays.Therefore, since the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the government income of the Ming Dynasty was once very high.When Emperor Yongle was in power, he was able to conquer Mongolia five times, overhaul the canal, subdue the barbarians, and accomplish things that the emperors before and after his death could not do. The economic foundation comes from this.

Things changed later. There was an important loophole in the taxation of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the gentry and the royal family of dukes could be exempted from taxes.In other words, the taxation of the entire country is done by the middle and lower classes.Later, this policy was exploited more and more by people, such as land tax. Many landlords and even small people put their land in the homes of landlords with tax-free privileges, euphemistically called "hosts", to avoid taxation.Later, the land annexation was serious in the Ming Dynasty, and a large number of landlords annexed land. They owned vast land but did not have to pay taxes. Instead, landless farmers had to bear harsh taxes, so civil uprisings continued.By the time of the "Hongzhi Zhongxing" of the Ming Dynasty, the land that the Ming Dynasty could use to collect agricultural taxes had dropped from more than 8 million hectares in Zhu Yuanzhang's time to more than 4 million hectares at this time, which was fully reduced by half.In order to cope with the tax crisis, starting from Emperor Xiaozong Zhu Youtang of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty mainly increased tax revenue by expanding tax sources, that is, emigrating to the Huguang area with fewer people and more land. Carry out reforms to resolve tax contradictions as much as possible by reducing and exempting the tax process and increasing tax efficiency.Especially when Emperor Zhengde Zhu Houzhao was in power, he began to levy customs duties on a large scale for the first time, and a 20% tariff was also imposed on foreign tribute envoys to China for trade, but these measures were only temporary.When Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty was in power, the tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty was almost to the point of "shortage". The Mongolian tribes in the north continued to invade, military expenditures surged, Japanese pirates in the south continued to invade, and most of the taxes in the southeast were wasted. Under such circumstances, the Ming Dynasty We can only continue to increase taxes in the middle road area, especially in Jiangxi and Huguang areas, and hold trade privileges in the southwest region to expand financial resources through the "tea horse trade" with the southwest ethnic groups.Although the Ming Dynasty suppressed Japanese pirates and pacified Mongolia, when Emperor Jiajing died in 1566 AD, the government of the Ming Dynasty could only store food for one month.It is time to solve the economic problems.

At this time, a solution to the problem appeared, which is the famous Zhang Juzheng reform in history. Today, when we talk about Zhang Juzheng's reforms from the first year of Wanli (1573 AD) to the tenth year of Wanli (1582 AD), the "one whip method" is always regarded as Zhang Juzheng's original achievement.In fact, long before this, a whip method had already been produced.It first appeared in Jiangnan during the Xuande period, but it was called "Zhengyifa" at that time.The economic reintegration of the Ming Dynasty began during the reign of Zhu Zaihou, the Longqing Emperor before Zhang Juzheng. In a few years, Zhang Juzheng's promotion to the whole country is already a matter of course.

The focus of the one whip method is that the land that can be used to pay land taxes in the Ming Dynasty was reduced at this time, and there were many tax items, which gave local officials the opportunity to embezzle and intercept.The one-whip method unified all agricultural taxes into one, simplified them, and converted them into silver for one-time collection. This would not only reduce the exploitation of ordinary people, but also maximize the taxation efficiency of the country.Before the one-whip law, Chinese people paid mainly taxes in kind. After the one-whip law was implemented, it became a currency tax. From an economic point of view, this not only developed the country’s commodity economy, but also improved the efficiency of currency circulation.

At the same time as the one-whip law was implemented, Zhang Juzheng began to clear up the land across the country, mainly to clear up those lands that were deposited under various names and tax evasion.As a result of Qingzhang, the land available for tax collection in the Ming Dynasty has changed from more than 4 million hectares in the past to more than 7 million hectares at this time.Although it is not as good as Zhu Yuanzhang's period, the tax efficiency is much higher than that, so this is also the period when the tax efficiency and total tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty are the highest.At the peak of Zhang Juzheng’s reform, the annual tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty was 8 million taels. If combined with the purchasing power of silver at that time, it was not only much higher than when the Ming Dynasty was founded, but also much higher than when the Qing Dynasty was in its prime. This can be said to be a feudal dynasty in China Highest tax time in history.In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen increased land taxes in various ways, but in the end, the annual tax was only 4 million taels, while military expenditures increased to 6 million taels, and the fiscal deficit was in deficit every year, so that it finally went bankrupt.

The rectification of agricultural tax is not the whole of Zhang Juzheng's reform. Another focus of Zhang Juzheng's reform is the reform of commercial tax.Zhang Juzheng advocates "simultaneous development of agriculture and commerce". His method is to reduce tax links, reduce and exempt commercial taxes, and increase tax efficiency.On the one hand, he devolved the authority of the Overseas Trade Organization Shibo, fully delegated the power of trade to coastal merchants, and levied taxes based on the amount and profit of each trade, instead of levying taxes based on the length of time spent at sea as in the past. This ensures the interests of most businessmen.In addition, Zhang Juzheng reduced or exempted the checkpoints of tax evasion, reduced tax evasion, increased trade tax, that is, taxed according to the profits of commercial trade, and strictly prohibited businessmen from colluding with local wealthy and powerful households.In the ninth year of Wanli (AD 1581), the commercial tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty accounted for 40% of the country's annual income, which was unprecedented since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

However, Zhang Juzheng's reform was abolished after his death in 1582. His "examination method" was abolished, and the one-whip method became the only reserved item, and Qingzhang's land was also stopped.In the later period of Wanli's reign, because a large number of officials with a business background in the southeast took office, he began to adjust the business tax, and distributed the main business tax to small and medium businessmen. The big businessmen obtained tax exemption through joint ventures with powerful and powerful privilege.Industry and commerce flourished in the later period of Wanli, and Wanli also hoped to increase commercial taxes, but he adopted a simple and crude method, that is, sending eunuchs as "tax envoys" to collect taxes.This approach naturally collected money, but it caused a large number of small and medium-sized businessmen to go bankrupt, and even offended the businessmen. Therefore, the whole country opposed it. Except for the eunuchs and Wanli himself who made money, it almost offended a large number of people and dealt a heavy blow to the commodity economy.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, especially during the Chongzhen period, the financial difficulties were mainly due to two reasons. The first is land mergers and continuous natural disasters, which have prevented the country from collecting agricultural taxes.At the end of the Ming Dynasty, extreme weather occurred everywhere. Plague disasters continued in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Hebei, and the people were displaced. Their tax revenue was also passed on to other disaster-free areas.When Chongzhen was in power, the land that the country could use to collect taxes had dropped to more than 3 million hectares. Due to internal and external troubles, tax increases naturally aroused civil unrest and a vicious circle.Natural disasters, the scope of tax collection is small; taxation is heavy, and the foundation of the dynasty is naturally crumbling.

Equally important as land annexation was the loss of economic control by the Ming Dynasty over the country's richest southeast region.In the late Ming Dynasty, the southeast was the region with the most developed commodity economy and the region with the most serious tax evasion.Maritime merchants gathered in the southeast, but at this time, most of the maritime merchants chose to partner with local families with tax-free privileges to achieve tax-free purposes. The result was that the people were rich and the country was poor, and farmers and small and medium-sized businessmen became the bearers of taxes.After the people are unable to pay taxes and go bankrupt, the land is annexed by the big landlords, and the country cannot collect taxes; after the bankruptcy of the small and medium businessmen, the property is annexed by the big businessmen, and the country's taxes are more and more tax sources are reduced. arrive.For example, Zheng Zhilong in Fujian obtained tax-free privileges by befriending local officials, and finally grew rapidly, and even controlled the Nanming regime. In fact, at the root, the problem of the Ming Dynasty lies in the disconnection between the country's political system and economic direction.When the national economy is transitioning to modernization, the country's taxation system remains in an agricultural society.The main purpose of Zhang Juzheng's reform in the Ming Dynasty was to allow the country to keep up with this transformation, but unfortunately Zhang Juzheng's reform lasted only 10 years, so the whole transformation came to an abrupt end, stagnant, and finally caused the consequences of the country's subjugation.There is no Zhang Juzheng in the world, sincerity is not empty words.