Volume 1: Birth! Seven time travelers Chapter 017: Shitty Finances (Part 2)
The designer of the power structure of the Ming Dynasty was Zhu Yuanzhang.
Zhu Yuanzhang was a great hero, of course. But on the one hand, due to the many years of war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, commerce was basically ruined, and the country could only find ways to recover from the peasants. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang set a very low tax on commerce, which led to the country's finances being extremely dependent on land.
On the other hand, Lao Zhu really doesn't understand economics. Or maybe Lao Zhu's ideas about economics are too idealistic.
When the Ming Dynasty was founded, Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that the land tax should be collected by the Ministry of Revenue, which was the most basic part of the national finance.
In order to prepare cavalry to fight against the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang also designated some farmers as horse households - you people are responsible for raising horses for the country, and you pay less or no land tax, and then you just need to hand over the horses every year.
This arrangement seemed to be fine at the time. But the problem was that the Ministry of War was in charge of these horse households, and the Ministry of Revenue could not interfere.
As time went by, on the one hand, the country's demand for war horses was not so great. On the other hand, horse owners could not afford to raise war horses or fled. Moreover, after the Single Whip Law, most of the in-kind taxes (including war horses) were converted into silver and included in the land. Then the question is: the Ministry of War is used to this part of the income, and what if the horse households don't have it? Local officials, you must appoint a part of the people to be horse households or to take responsibility for the war horses that the horse households should have handed over to our Ministry of War! No one? No horses? This is also possible. Convert the part that the horse households were responsible for before into an equivalent tax and hand it over directly to our Ministry of War! Let our Ministry of War raise horses ourselves. What? All the land taxes belong to the Ministry of Households? Your Majesty! This won't do. If there are no war horses, our Ministry of War will not be responsible in the future!
The same is true for the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Personnel, and the Ministry of Rites: the Ministry of Personnel has donations, the Ministry of Rites has school fields, and the tributes from foreign envoys are also collected by the Ministry of Rites. The biggest part is in the Ministry of Works: the Ministry of Works is responsible for organizing the people to do corvée! Now that society has developed, as long as you have money and pay the relevant fees, you don’t have to do corvée and the government will hire someone to do it for you. But who collects this part of the money? Of course, the Ministry of Works and definitely not the Ministry of Revenue!
The six central ministries, so it seems that except for the Ministry of Justice, all other ministries can collect money by themselves? Hehe, how can it be so easy? The Ministry of Justice also has to collect money. According to the Ming Dynasty law, the Ministry of Justice collects the fines of various corrupt officials or officials who failed in political struggles and had their property confiscated. And this money goes into the warehouse of the Ministry of Justice instead of the Ministry of Revenue!
Speaking of which, there were as many as six departments in the Ming Dynasty that were capable of collecting taxes?
Wishful thinking! The Ming Dynasty had two capitals, Yanjing and Nanjing each had six ministries. The six ministries in Nanjing also collected money from the southern provinces! In addition, the yamen such as Jinyiwei, the twelve prisons of the palace, the four departments and eight bureaus, as well as the Taichang and Taipu, all tried their best to gain power for their departments and obtain the power to directly collect taxes for their departments.
This is normal because it is the nature of bureaucracy and officials.
For example, suppose you are an official of the Ming Dynasty, working in a department. Your superior in this department can often find money outside, and then give subsidies to everyone in various names. Do you like your superior? When your superior assigns you work, will you do it seriously? Do you highly obey your superior's instructions?
If your department is a poor government office, your superior cannot get these subsidies. You see that the subsidies of the department next door are several times more than your salary. Not only have they bought a lot of paddy fields in their hometown, but they have also bought a big house in the capital and married several concubines... and you are still living in a stinky alley. You have to calculate a lot to buy new clothes for your wife and children during the holidays. What do you think of your superior?
Of course, this brings a lot of problems: from the top, multiple departments can collect taxes, leading to internal management chaos. When the country is in trouble, no matter how much money there is, the country's power cannot be exerted. From the bottom, the people bear too heavy taxes, which leads to the suppression of social consumption and then production. On the one hand, the society is always at a low level of development. On the other hand, it is easy for the people to have no resistance to risks, and they will go bankrupt if they are not careful - therefore, the country's ability to resist risks is also extremely low.
The elites of this era who truly care about the country and the people have seen the problem and proposed solutions, such as the Single Whip Law.
But human nature is like this: I didn't have this money before, but now I have it, I'm happy. I had this money before, but now I'm not allowed to take it, so I'll be furious! The Ming Dynasty has been in operation for more than 200 years, and each department has long been accustomed to having its own treasury. You say you don't want to take it?
Therefore, over the years, since the death of the political strongman Zhang Juzheng, the Single Whip Law has actually begun to gradually relax. More than a dozen departments in the Ming Dynasty have begun to desperately make money on their own!
For example, we often hear about the Taicang warehouse. It is not the central silver vault of the Ming Dynasty. It is the warehouse where the Ministry of Revenue in Yanjing stores silver. Correspondingly, the Imperial Household Department has its own Changying Treasury, and the Ministry of Works has its own Jieshen Treasury. In addition, the Guanglu Temple, the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue, etc. all have their own silver vaults. It is impossible for the Ministry of Revenue in Yanjing to transfer money from these silver vaults.
The outer court was like this, so the inner court naturally followed suit. Almost all the departments with a little power in the twenty-four yamen in the palace tried to develop and then set up their own warehouses. For example, Neichengyun Warehouse, Guanghui Warehouse, Dongyu Warehouse, etc. The Ministry of Revenue in Yanjing could not control the many warehouses in the outer court, so of course it could not even think about it.
In 1592, the then Wanping County Magistrate complained in his diary: The tax grain, tax silver, local specialties, etc. collected by the county this year, according to the requirements of the state, must be sent to 27 warehouses respectively! But how much silver is this amount of stuff worth in total? Less than 2,000 taels! The county magistrate lamented helplessly: Wanping is already a county town under the feet of the emperor , but because there are too many warehouses to transport, the loss on the road is also quite amazing. If it is a county town in remote areas, how much loss will there be for such a ridiculous transportation? (Shen Bang, "Wanshu Miscellaneous Notes")
Therefore, so many departments are collecting money, saving money, and building treasuries. Needless to say, the harm it brings to the country. Now the question is: In addition to the silver treasury of the Ministry of Revenue, which is responsible for the salaries of state officials and the army, and for disaster relief, where does the money of other departments go?
The Ministry of War still needs to get war horses, but the quality of these war horses... Alas, the horse tax is still too low. Your Majesty, for the long-term stability of the country, either you increase the horse tax or let the Ministry of Revenue subsidize us.
The Ministry of Works still had to build various public works such as river embankments, and was also responsible for the royal gardens and mausoleums of the previous emperors. However, if the palace sent eunuchs to supervise the construction, the Ministry of Works would complain about being poor, saying that our Jieshen Treasury was empty and they couldn't pay. Then the officials of the Ministry of Works would instigate the eunuchs in various ways: "Eunuch, the Ministry of Revenue is in charge of the national finances, you should go and ask the emperor to pay some money!"
In short, I am responsible for collecting money, and when paying money, everyone says in unison: go to the Ministry of Revenue!
As for the remaining money, it is used for departmental benefits, official corruption, or loaning money to businessmen and collecting interest.
In short, the Minister of Revenue of the Ming Dynasty in this era was called the "Earth Official", responsible for the production of all things. In fact, he was the most frustrated one among the six ministers.
