Chapter 30 Controversies and Controversies About the Franchise Policy

From the founding of the country in 618 AD to 742 AD (Tianbao reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty), the Tang regime's loose policy on industry and commerce lasted for more than a hundred years, and there were many repetitions and disputes. "New Book of Tang" records an incident; in 703 AD, when the only female emperor Wu Zetian was in power in China, the relevant departments requested to re-levy the customs tax.A minister named Cui Rong immediately wrote a letter to stop it, and eloquently put forward the "six musts". The core meaning is that if tariffs are imposed, it will inevitably increase the burden on the people, hinder commodity transactions, and eventually cause social unrest, and the government will lose more than it gains.Wu Zetian adopted his intention and gave up the idea of ​​class levy.

The debate over the benefits of salt and iron is even greater. Bai Shouyi described in detail the evolution of the system from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the mid-Tang Dynasty in his article "Relationship between the official handicraft industry and the feudal system from the Qin and Han Dynasties to the end of the Ming Dynasty": In the early Northern Wei Dynasty, Yanchi in Hedong County was originally owned by the government to collect taxes. Stop it, and soon it was owned by some wealthy families; during the Yanxing period of Emperor Xiaowen (471-476), the imperial court reestablished the supervisor, and then collected taxes and profits!In the period of Emperor Xuanwu (499-515), the ban was lifted again; during the reign of Shengui (518-520), it was returned to the state.Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty established the country and announced the banning order, and the Tang Dynasty continued the Sui system for more than a hundred years.

In the first year of Kaiyuan (713) of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, Minister Liu Tong published "On Salt and Iron Tables" and picked up the discussion of franchise again.In his view, distributing the benefits of mountains and seas to the people will only cause a greater gap between the rich and the poor, so they should be nationalized to achieve the goal of "equalizing the rich and the poor". This is the real way of the emperor.Like all the people who advocated the nationalization policy in the past, Liu Tong's argument was based on "taking the rich and helping the poor", but the essence was to increase the state's fiscal revenue.Xuanzong ordered the courtiers to discuss Liu Tong's proposal. Everyone felt that "the benefits of salt and iron are very beneficial to the country", so they set up an organization to "check the domestic salt and iron lessons". However, this exclusive policy was only implemented for about ten years. In 1999, Xuanzong ordered that, except for Puzhou Yanchi, the rest of the salt and iron production areas "do not need to be inspected" and were released to the people again.