The English version of this book is titled "1587, A Year of No Significance", and the author's signature is Ray Huang. It was published by Yale University in the United States in 1981.The first draft was written in English. After it was written, out of the desire to seek advice from domestic readers, the author himself translated it into Chinese and made some revisions. I'm interested in Ming history, and it's a long story. In 1959, I was studying in the History Department of the University of Michigan, and I chose "Water Transport in the Ming Dynasty" as the topic of my doctoral thesis.This research process took 5 years.After the thesis is completed, it is considered that I have a little understanding of the fiscal and taxation system of the Ming Dynasty, but there are still many remaining problems.In order to solve his own confusion, and try to get a glimpse of the finance and taxation of the Ming Dynasty, he began to collect materials and wrote the book "Taxation and Governmental Finance in 16th Century Ming China".At that time, "Ming Shilu" was published by photocopying in Taipei. This book is a source of historical materials of the Ming Dynasty, so it is naturally a must-read.There are 133 volumes in the book, and there is no index to use, so I have to bite the bullet and read one volume a week after teaching.This fleeting reading took two and a half years.In addition, it takes more time to search for relevant new and old works at home and abroad with reference to memorial notes and local chronicles.This book took seven years from planning to finalizing, and was published by Cambridge University in 1974.

The conclusion comes from the material.After groping through the materials for many years, I formed my own preliminary views on several aspects of Ming history, and began to get rid of the shackles of others.These views may be inappropriate, but they can always contribute to the discussion of academic circles. For example, in the past narratives about Ming history, almost all of them said that "taxes are heavy and the people are poor".If it is intended to explain that the bureaucrats were full of corruption back then, the powerless people were apportioned too heavily, the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer, it makes sense.If it is believed that the total tax revenue of the country is too high and the people are impoverished, it is different from the facts. At the end of the 16th century, Suzhou Prefecture in Southern Zhili had the heaviest land tax in the country, accounting for about 20% of rural income.In addition, it is generally less than 10% in various prefectures and counties, and there are differences in the severity. The tax and labor in Cao County, Shandong Province accounted for about 9% of rural income. In Yanyang County, not far from Suzhou, the situation is even more strange, about 10%. ~5%.Proportionally, the daimyo regime in Japan at the same time taxed 50% of revenue.In terms of the total amount, Britain at the end of the 17th century had a population of 5 million, and its annual tax revenue was as high as 7 million pounds, equivalent to more than 20 million taels of contract silver, which was roughly the same as that of China, whose population was 30 times that of China.Based on this further exploration, we can see that the root cause of "people's poverty" is not the excessive taxation of the country, but the corruption of the law and the incompetence of the government.The country's tax rate is low, and the beneficiaries are not farmers. It only encourages large and small landlords to increase exploitation and bureaucratic townships to impose additional taxes.

China has a vast territory and complex situations.The Ming Dynasty adopted strict centralization, and its policy was not focused on promoting and supporting the advanced economy in order to increase the wealth of the country, but on protecting the backward economy and maintaining the security of the dynasty in a balanced manner.This kind of situation is really rare in the history of the world, especially in the Ming Dynasty in the history of China, and the instigator of it is Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty.The following example can be used as a glimpse of the leopard.In the twenty-first year of Hongwu (1388), Zhu Yuanzhang personally instructed that the people's taxpayers should not be put into the warehouse, but directly supplied to the families of the sergeants, and the sergeants would no longer be paid to the soldiers. Wei's five thousand sergeants are counterparts.After a year of experimentation, Zhu Yuanzhang believed that the results were good, so he issued an order to implement it nationwide.This method is divorced from reality, and it is difficult to get through, which is self-evident, so I had to be anticlimactic and disappear.Although this arrangement is no longer implemented, other economic measures corresponding to it are still extremely harmful.If the military tax revenue is collected, the domestic transportation and communication will be improved accordingly, followed by the banking and insurance industries in response to objective needs, and the development of commercial organizations and laws.Since each region communicates with each other, it can divide labor and cooperate in the future, and each develop its production technology according to its local special situation.Western European countries had moved in this direction in the 14th century, and Japan did the same at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.However, the fiscal and taxation system of the Ming Dynasty was out of touch with the development of the private economy.In the 20th year of Wanli (1592), Shen Bang, the magistrate of Wanping County in Beijing, claimed that he had to pay 27 different institutions every year, and the total amount was not more than 2,000 taels of silver.Similarly, the whole country is covered with such short-distance supply lines, which come and go, receiving from the side, without a structure, and the statistics put forward are often written in paper, so that the above-mentioned phenomenon of uneven tax rates occurs.This practice of maintaining a backward agricultural economy and unwillingness to develop commerce and finance is the main reason why China has evolved from the advanced Han and Tang Dynasties to the backward Ming and Qing Dynasties in the world. In 1972, I went to Cambridge, England, to participate in the work of "History of Science and Technology in China" hosted by Dr. Joseph Needham.We have written the above opinion as "The Nature of Chinese Society: A Technical Interpretation", which was published in Rome and Hong Kong.Li Gong gave a speech in Hong Kong on April 30, 1974. He also used this article as his speech. The latter part was translated into Chinese and published in Hong Kong's "Seventies" magazine.

It is also difficult for us to agree with the view that during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, China's feudal economy had developed into a capitalist economy.Capitalism is an organization, a system.That is, Marx discussed the capitalist circulation mode in the second volume of "Das Kapital", and its formula is also C-M-C, that is, commodity (Commodity) is exchanged for money (Money), and money is exchanged for commodity again, in an endless stream.But money is a public institution which confers on private persons the powers which belonged to the public.The more private capital accumulates, the greater its power over public life.At the same time, commercial capital is the forerunner of industrial capital, and when commerce is fully developed, the development of industry can be similarly increased.This is characteristic of the development of capitalism in Europe and America.China's traditional politics neither has the ability to organize, nor does it want private wealth to expand to the point where it is difficult to control, which is a burden on the safety of the dynasty.

In "Song Chuang Meng Yu" written by Zhang Han in the Ming Dynasty, it is recorded that his family started with a loom.Chinese and foreign scholars of the history of the Ming Dynasty have quoted this text more to explain the progress of industry and commerce and the germination of capitalism at that time.In fact, if you read the full text carefully, you will know that Zhang Han’s narration about his ancestor Yemeng Shenren granting an ingot of silver for buying a machine to weave cloth is to promote the idea of ​​karma and fate.Regardless of the absurdity of the god-man granting silver, even one ingot of silver is not enough to buy a loom, so this statement obviously cannot be used as a reliable history.Wang Shimao, a contemporary calligrapher, mentioned in "Eryou Committee Talk" that Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province fired porcelain, and the fire was so bright that it was called "Thunder Town in Four Seasons".Based on this, several contemporary scholars believe that this is a sign of the development of industry beyond the age.In fact, Wang Shimao’s original intention was to start from the perspective of geomancers, dissatisfied with the local residents’ digging of the ground, so that no one was admitted to the imperial examination; and then the situation was not stable, and the kiln was closed for three months, and the results were immediate.

If this is the case and so on, what is the crux of the problem? This is something that researchers and scholars of Ming history have to seriously consider.The author believes that for two thousand years in China, morality has replaced the legal system, and it was the most extreme in the Ming Dynasty. This is the crux of all problems.The purpose of writing this book is also to illustrate this point of view.This view has already begun in my book "Financial History".This book tries to popularize the study of historical topics, so it adopts a biographical narrative style.What is described in the book may be called the general record of a big failure.Because the main characters mentioned are Zhu Yijun, the Emperor of Wanli, Zhang Juzheng and Shen Shixing, the academicians, Hai Rui, the governor of the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate, Qi Jiguang, the chief military officer of Jizhou, and Li Zhi, a famous scholar who left as a magistrate. They may be defeated. Or called cracking, no one has perfect merits and virtues.Even the characters mentioned on the side, such as Feng Bao, Gao Gong, Zhang Jing, Zheng Guifei, Fu Wang Changxun, Yu Dayou, Lu Tong, and Liu Ting, all had no good results.This situation is definitely not explained by personal reasons, but that the system at that time has come to an end, and everyone from the emperor to the common people has become a victim and suffered disaster.

Under the above premise, specific comments on specific historical figures will inevitably have discrepancies with domestic and foreign Ming history experts.For example, Emperor Wanli has always been considered stupid. After reading this book, readers may think that the author sympathizes with this emperor.If there are such criticisms, the author will not make more useless excuses.Because this book discusses Wanli, it aims to explain that the position of the emperor is an institution produced in response to social needs, and each emperor is an individual.Another example is Hai Rui, which is also a subject that can easily cause disputes. A public case 15 years ago is still fresh in people's memory.The purpose of setting up a chapter on Hai Rui in this book is not to add to the already closed case, but to introduce readers to some forms of local government at that time.There is not much information about local administration in the 16th century. Shen Bang's "Miscellaneous Records of Wanshu" contains the situation of the capital rather than a general overview. Gui Youguang's narrative of Changxing County, Zhejiang Province is also incomplete.In contrast, Hai Rui's posthumous writings, involving all aspects of the local government at that time, are of the most reference value.Studying Hai Rui's people and writings can give us a more specific understanding of the situation of that day.Of course, the problem is far more than that, such as how to solve the problem of Wanli's establishment of the reserve, but the dispute continues?Why can the island country Japan invade China but China cannot conquer Japan?Why was Western Europe already using firearms to improve tactics, while China was still building the Great Wall?Why is everyone saying that Hai Rui is a good official, but he has been excluded repeatedly?These specific problems are undoubtedly inseparable from the above-mentioned general crux, but each has its own specific reasons.When the author was writing this book, although he was different from the dark groping in the past, he still hesitated when he wrote this book.The answers given in the book are all opinions, readers are welcome to criticize and correct.

In China's past, there were a lot of taboos, so when speaking and writing, they were ambiguous, or referring to others to refer to this, or using the past to satirize the present, which was more common in the Ming Dynasty.This book discusses the current affairs of the Ming Dynasty, and whatever is discussed or not is aimed at the history of the 16th century.If I want to discuss today's people and current affairs, I must write straight and straight, and I will never learn the methods of the people of the Ming Dynasty, otherwise it will violate the purpose of writing my book.Of course, on the other hand, taking the past as a mirror, people today may not be unable to get some enlightenment.This book intends to explain the traditional historical background of Chinese society in the 16th century, that is, the profile of the society before it conflicts with the world trend.With such a big historical failure, it can be guaranteed that the conflict will start, and it will never be possible to restore the old state, thus leaving China with an opportunity to completely create history.

This book is translated from English to Chinese. Because of the differences in domestic and foreign situations, and because the translation is my own work, this translation is actually a translation.The author has been away from the motherland for more than 30 years, and rarely has the opportunity to read Chinese and use Chinese to write. However, the motherland language has developed a lot in the past 30 years, and the gap is even greater.Fortunately, Mr. Shen Yucheng from the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences read the Chinese manuscript carefully and polished the text; he also received the attention of Mr. Fu Xuancong from the editorial department of Zhonghua Book Company, and often consulted with the author on various technical issues.Therefore, when this book meets readers, the text is far smoother than the original manuscript.The fundamental inadequacy of its creative rhetoric is of course still the responsibility of the author.In addition, brother Liao Mosha was the author's friend in need when he was young, and he wrote a signature in his busy schedule, which added a lot of color to this book.I would like to express my heartfelt thanks.

Huang Renyu January 1981 in the United States