Chapter 56 4. If you are poor, you have money left

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the rulers adjusted production relations, encouraged production, and the economy continued to develop.From the Ming and Qing Dynasties until the Opium War, in 1840, China's GNP was either higher than that of the United Kingdom or equal to that of the United Kingdom. Anyway, it was by no means worse than it. In the 50th year of Qianlong, that is, in 1785, China's GDP accounted for 32% of the world's total, and Europe accounted for 22%. The GDP of China alone was ten percentage points higher than that of the 11 major European countries.In the 50th year of Qianlong, in 1785, that is, 200 years ago, the United States already had it. At that time, China was like this.There are only ten cities in the world with a population of more than 500,000, six in China and eight in Asia. Apart from China, it was Tokyo, Japan, which was called Edo at that time, and Madras in India, and only two in Europe: London, Paris, The rest are all in China, Beijing, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Hangzhou.Therefore, China's economic development level at that time was still the highest in the world, and the wealth of farmers was also the highest in the world.The reason for this is because the rulers adjusted the relations of production.

First, the Ming Dynasty implemented a whip method.This was implemented by Zhang Juzheng, the chief assistant of the cabinet.Generally, the buddy who joined the cabinet first was called the first assistant.I have been in the cabinet for ten years, and you just came here, so of course you have to listen to me.Zhang Juzheng has been in the cabinet for a very long time, which means that Emperor Mu Zong entrusted Gu to him when he was dying.At that time, Shenzong who came to the throne was Emperor Wanli, and he was very young. He was like a minister like the prince and grand teacher, and he was the one who promoted the whole country.Combine the original land tax, corvee, and miscellaneous taxes into one, and convert it into two pieces of silver, and distribute the service silver collected on the basis of households in the past, and share it according to the number of people and the number of acres.According to the two-tax law, the per-person tax is levied on personal income tax, which is your property, and this levy is servile silver.That is to say, you were supposed to go to the military service, to serve corvée, but if you don’t go now, according to the regulations, you can pay for the service.Corvée is paid on a per-person basis, but now the service money is also apportioned on the farmland, which means that the role of the per capita in taxation is decreasing.The role of assets in it is increasing.The service money is shared according to the person and the field, which is called a whip method.Its role is to levy silver, adapt to the commodity economy, and then the commercialization of agricultural products and the germination of capitalism.You have to sell this agricultural product, because you can’t grow silver in your field, you have to sell it, and you will get copper coins when you sell it, and then go to the silver village to exchange it for silver.In this way, the commercialization of agricultural products is promoted, which is tantamount to pushing farmers to the market. You must have contact with the market. If you do not have contact with the market, unless the field can grow silver, it is impossible.

Second, accepting bank service on behalf of the farmers to ensure the production time of farmers and reduce the burden on farmers.The personal attachment of farmers to the state has been loosened. This is actually the same as the meaning of the two tax laws mentioned above. If you pay the silver as a proxy, you can guarantee the production time of the farmers. In fact, it does not reduce the burden on the farmers.Because when the grain is collected, the burden on the farmer may be light, but if you collect money, his burden may increase.If there is a good harvest, the price of grain will drop, and it will have a relationship with the market.This is to adjust the tax system.

It was Emperor Kangxi who began to adjust the second point of production relations. Emperor Kangxi announced that the original land of the vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty belonged to the current cultivators, which was called renamed land, which solved the land problem of farmers.Farmers lost their land because of land annexation.In the Ming Dynasty, the vassal kings were the most capable of annexing land. Zhu Yuanzhang himself produced 25 sons. Each of these 25 sons had seven or eight sons, and these seven or eight sons had seven or eight sons. How many do you count.So at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were hundreds of thousands of Zhu's royal family, and hundreds of thousands of them were multiplied from Zhu Yuanzhang's family.In the Ming Dynasty, as long as the prince is the king, how many princes does the Ming Dynasty have?If we can't catch up with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the kings will be conferred indiscriminately.Therefore, in addition to the eight iron hat kings who founded the country in the Qing Dynasty, only Emperor Yongzheng later named Prince Yi, who was the iron hat king.Then at the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were King Gong, King Chun, and King Qing, the three iron hat kings.It means that in the Qing Dynasty, there were only 12 princes who were not demoted, and other princes were all descended, step by step. If you are a prince, your son is the county king, your grandson is Baylor, and your great-grandson is Beizi.The prince descends to the Duke of Zhen, the king of the county descends to the Duke of Fu, that is, descends step by step, and no longer descends to the Duke of Fu, and the hereditary inheritance is the hereditary Duke of Fu. The level is too far away.You are a prince and you live in the palace. When you are not a prince, you have to move out of the palace and find a place to live by yourself.The four-bedroom house in your family has been converted into a tube building, so you can find a place to live!So generally speaking, in the Qing Dynasty, when one emperor was in power, there were not many princes, a dozen or so great, but there were too many in the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty sealed the princes to other places. As a result, they were not allowed to go out in the city of Beijing, and they were circled to death in Beijing.So you can see that all the palaces of the Qing Dynasty were in Beijing, and the palaces of Prince Zheng and Prince Yu were all in Beijing.The royal palace of the Ming Dynasty was all in other places, and the descendants of the Zhu family stayed in other places to buy properties and annex farmers' land.For example, Emperor Wanli of Ming Shenzong was greedy for money. He dug a big pit in the palace to bury money. He loved his son the most, Zhu Changxun, the King of Fortune.He enfeoffed Zhu Changxun to Luoyang as the King of Fortune, and gave him four million mu of land at one time, and Henan granted him a total of four million mu of land.Zhu Changxun was like his father, he was a big fat man of more than three hundred catties, but when Li Chuang attacked Luoyang, the Luoyang guard told Zhu Changxun that now that the intruder is besieging Luoyang, there must be a brave man under the heavy reward, you have so many Money, it is estimated that their family's property is hundreds of millions of taels of silver, can you give some money to reward the soldiers, so that the soldiers can fight with the intruders with their lives.Zhu Changxun said that our family has no money, and our family is poor!Just some old furniture, I'll sell it to reward the soldiers!The guard was so angry that he said you should pull it down!Li Zicheng surrendered as soon as he opened the door.Then when Li Zicheng came in, Zhu Changzi, aren't you greedy for money?OK!This time, let you be greedy enough, burn the gold, pour it down your throat, and then burn him to death, and then chop up Zhu Changgou, isn't he more than three hundred catties , Just chop it!Then with the venison, he is Fu Wang, and the venison is divided there.After chopping a piece, his meat and a piece of venison will be shared with everyone, which is called Fulu (deer) banquet.The common people can't wait to eat their flesh and sleep their skins. You have made us all dead.So these princes are all dead.Especially in the Qing Dynasty. On the surface, the Qing Dynasty treated the royal family of the Ming Dynasty very preferentially. They built the mausoleum for the emperor, but in fact, if they caught the princes of the Ming Dynasty, they had to be killed. Almost all the descendants of the Zhu family were killed. The land is now in the hands of the common people, so Lord Kangxi announced that it was renamed Tian, ​​which was originally named after King Fu. Now, whoever grows this land owns it, so as to solve the land problem of farmers.So why do peasants support the Qing Dynasty, the Holy Son of Heaven, it is too holy, the same ethnic group makes us unable to live, or the foreign race makes us live well, then why don’t we support the foreign race?So Chinese people don’t have this kind of concept. I will support whoever lets me live. The common people are like this.Why are you so anxious for the United States to fight Saddam Hussein? You are desperately trying to defend Saddam Hussein, aren't you short-circuiting?Your life is so worthless?What did Saddam give you?So the common people are very real.

Renaming fields solves farmers' land problems. Third, Lord Kangxi stipulated that poll tax will never be imposed on the breeding population.The 50th year of Kangxi is used as a fixed population tax. In the 50th year of Kangxi, your family has 10 people. From the 51st year of Kangxi, your family will pay the population tax of 10 people. In the 60th year of Kangxi, your family has 18 people. What should I do if there are 7 people left in our family?Wouldn't it be a loss if I pay another 10 more?As the population of our family decreases, we lose more and more money. It seems that there is something unreasonable here.

Therefore, fourthly, as soon as Emperor Sejong Yongzheng came to power, Yongzheng promoted the allocation of land into acres.Divide the small tax evenly into the land tax, and the poll tax will be abolished.The head tax has been eliminated since the time of Emperor Sejong.This money is not much, 3.35 million taels. The tax revenue of the imperial court was 40 million at that time, accounting for less than one-tenth of it, so we don’t want it, just like we don’t want the agricultural tax now, a total of 2,000 100 million, there is not as much money for eating and drinking as public funds!What do you want it for?no more.Don't you also accept money from the free market?The free market does not charge any management fees, 15 billion, only 15 billion a year, how much is the opening Olympics?Why do you need to collect money from these poor people, so I don’t want this money anymore.After you don't want this money, there will be fewer stalls on the street. Am I worthy of basking in the wind and rain on the street?I'm in the shed.

Land and silver are no longer needed, the feudal state's personal control over farmers is further relaxed, and the phenomenon of hidden population is reduced.Didn't you hide it because you were afraid of the court collecting taxes?Now there is no taxation, so the phenomenon of hidden population has been reduced.Dude don't want money anymore, let's give birth!When Kangxi came to the throne, the country's population was 21 million, not to mention the population, there are a lot of ignorant people who wrote that China's population is 21 million, that's wrong!The quota is 21 million, which means that the old, weak, sick and disabled can be counted. It is estimated that there is 40 million. When Kangxi died, it was already over 100 million.In the past 20 years of Qianlong, it was 200 million. By the time of Qianlong's death, it was already 300 million. By the time of Daoguang, it was 410 million, accounting for more than 40% of the world's population.There are 1 billion in the world and 410 million in China. At that time, the Chinese were more proud. Don’t you account for 20% now?It was already 40% at that time.So China's huge population pressure has been formed since then.It is a very important thing to spread the money into the mu, because there is no need for money, and there is no need to hide it.There were 46 million people in the Sui Dynasty, and it became 12 million in the Tang Dynasty. Quite a few people just hid, especially in the Han Dynasty, with 53 million people. When it came to Cao Cao, there were 7 million people left, my God!Atom bombs aren't that destructive either.I estimate that many of them may have been hidden, and they will come out again after this period of time.

development of agricultural production. First, the cultivation of cotton.Cotton cultivation can solve the problem of wearing clothes.In the Ming Dynasty, it was promoted to the whole country, from the south of the Yangtze River to the north of the Yangtze River. Isn't that the promotion of the whole country?During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Southern Dynasties, and Liang Dynasties, Bodhidharma, the 28th generation patriarch of Indian Zen Buddhism, came to the east and established Shaolin Temple.The first ancestor of Chinese Zen, Bodhidharma, brought a kapok cassock when he came to the east, and the sacred object of Zen has been passed down from generation to generation.Kapok kapok, that is, cotton cloth, is very valuable.I have never seen it in China. The rich in China wear silk, while the poor wear hemp. I have never seen kapok robes.In the Northern Song Dynasty, it was planted in Fujian. In the Southern Song Dynasty, it was widely planted in the south, but not in the north.So in the reign of the Southern Song Dynasty, cotton cloth could be widely used in the south, but the north still had to go through the mutual market, the north gave horses, and the south gave cotton.By the Ming Dynasty, it could be grown all over the country. China’s cotton should have been imported from India through two routes, one from Xinjiang and the other from Hainan Island.

The most critical is the second: corn sweet potato.The corn sweet potato introduced in the Ming Dynasty was continuously popularized in the Qing Dynasty.During the reign of Chong Frame, it began to be promoted in China.If this thing had come to China 20 years earlier, the Ming Dynasty might not have perished, because the common people would have enough to eat.The peasants in northern Shaanxi rebelled because they had nothing to eat. You eat my son, and I eat your son.Otherwise, if you eat Guanyin soil, your stomach will swell and you will die, and the common people can only rebel.If the corn sweet potato came, it would be fine.This thing is native to Latin America, Mexico.There are mainly Spanish colonies, Spain also has a colony in the Philippines in Asia, and the Philippines has a large number of overseas Chinese.So this thing was brought to the Philippines by the Spaniards, and overseas Chinese in the Philippines brought it back to China. It was first planted in Fujian, and then gradually spread to the whole country.Fujian is a mountainous place with narrow land and densely populated areas. There is very little arable land, so this is the only way to grow it.So in this way, its characteristic is to make use of barren land and increase the total grain output by a large margin.At that time, rice was four to five hundred catties per mu, wheat was two to three hundred catties, corn was six to seven hundred catties, and sweet potatoes were 18,000 catties.Even if it doesn’t rain, you don’t need to fertilize it. It’s more than eight thousand catties. If it rains again, the weather will be good. If you fertilize again, it will be more than ten thousand catties.Such a thick big sweet potato, you can eat it!Lowering blood sugar, lowering blood fat, healthy food, that stuff is the best.No matter what kind of land can be planted, it can grow regardless of the location, and the yield is still so high.This kind of thing is very suitable for us in China.Therefore, there was no peasant uprising in the Qing Dynasty for more than 200 years, and corn and sweet potatoes contributed the most. This thing is the best thing.Therefore, its function, the first point just mentioned, is that the land is utilized and the total grain output is greatly increased.

The second point is to feed a large population, free up more land to grow cash crops, and then commercialize agricultural products. The third characteristic is that the land has been utilized, the total grain output has been increased, a large number of people have been fed, the contradiction between man and land has been alleviated, and the social order has been stabilized.Why did the Qing Dynasty say that there were no large-scale peasant uprisings in the past 200 years? It has a lot to do with the introduction of corn and sweet potatoes and the contribution of corn and sweet potatoes.If there is no such thing, the crop output will increase all of a sudden, and the common people will be able to eat enough, so the population of China will also double.If you don't need money, why don't you give birth?In fact, in the Qing Dynasty, everyone could see the contradiction between man and land very clearly.At the beginning of Kangxi's accession to the throne, the per capita arable land area was 25 mu. By the time of Qianlong, it had become 6 mu. By the time of Daoguang, it had become 3 mu. Today, even 1 mu is gone.

So at that time, it was very clear that Kangxi said such things. Since the unification of this dynasty, for sixty or seventy years, the people have enjoyed peace, and the household registration has become more and more prosperous. The family is full.But they had no way at that time, and they didn't understand family planning. The result of population increase was huge contradictions, which put pressure on China until today.The growth of social wealth in China is out of proportion to the growth of population.And more importantly, the number of people in China's economically underdeveloped areas has increased significantly. The birth rates in Beijing and Shanghai, especially Shanghai, are lower than those in Europe, with negative growth, and Beijing is also negative.But the population of Beijing has increased so much every year.This piece of land in China can support at most 670 million people, which is the most suitable, and now it has doubled. Third, the planting area of ​​economic crops expanded in the early Qing Dynasty.Why can economic crops be grown?Isn't it because we have sweet potatoes?We save space so we can grow cash crops.The area increased to form some specialized production areas.For example, in Fengtai Flower Township, I produce flowers and bees eat them. The flowers I grow are sold and exchanged.