Chapter 32 The terrible tax system of the Ming Dynasty! Zhu Biao was also trying to figure out what was going on with the current national finances.
Although Zhu Biao is capable, he can't stand the fact that people around him don't teach him financial knowledge.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor, did not pay attention to business and looked down on business people, so how could he bother with finances.
All his fiscal policies are simple and crude, and there is even no fiscal system at all.
The entire financial system of the Ming Dynasty was the most chaotic among all unified dynasties.
This is also a shortcoming in the education Zhu Biao received.
Dad doesn't pay attention to it. The civil servants themselves feel that their own class is superior. As for businessmen, aren't they even lower than ordinary people? Can this still make us pay attention?
Pooh! Therefore, Zhu Biao's financial knowledge is almost zero.
Now that Linghan wants to build Yashan Village, the Ministry of Household Affairs, the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of War are pushing each other's responsibilities. The father and son are also a little confused.
I could only hear Zhao Mian, the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, saying loudly: "Qin Shangshu can't say that. Since the beginning of His Majesty's decision to Yingtian, he has ordered the six prefectures of Yingtian, Taiping, Zhenjiang, Luzhou, Fengyang, and Yangzhou, Chu, People in the second state herded horses, and for this reason, horse owners were specially stipulated to be exempted from half of the land tax.
However, all the above-mentioned areas are farming areas in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The pasture land is narrow and there are no professional herdsmen. They are only run by ordinary people and their numbers are far from enough to meet military needs.
His Majesty was eager for war horses. In the fourth year of Hongwu, he set up a group of herdsmen in the Dashili camp, with water and grass nearby, and set up an official office for full-time shepherding. At this point, Yingtian and other land horse commissions were abolished, and taxes should be returned to the Ministry of Household Affairs.
However, although the horse racing stopped, the taxes on horse raising households did not stop. Instead, they continued to be collected by Taipu Temple under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War in the name of fodder fees.
In other words, in the past 20 years, half of the land tax of many households in the above places was actually confiscated by the Ministry of War. Qin Shangshu, you will not deny this, right? "
Qin Kui, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, stood aside and did not answer. Some taxes from these state capitals were indeed taken by their Ministry of War, but it was not easy to hand them over.
Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao and his son were right. No wonder Zhao Mian, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, was not willing to accept it. The Ministry of War had taken away the taxes of so many wealthy places, and now they were asked to pay for it. They must not be reconciled.
Then Zhao Mian looked at Shen Jin, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, who was silent.
"Shang Shu Shen, the Ministry of Industry's appetite must be even greater.
The Ministry of Industry not only set up bureaus in various places to collect bamboo and wood, and intercepted fish stocks in the Qinhuai River, but also mobilized requisitioned money and corvee labor from various places for the construction of mausoleums, palaces, and city wall to a certain extent, these corvees are converted into money and received directly by the Ministry of Industry. If you say that your pockets are not full, who will believe it?
Now that we are building a village in Zhongshan, wouldn't it be better to simply let the Ministry of Industry recruit corvees? The Ministry of Industry does not even need to prepare dry food and tools for the corvees. It can be completely left to the people to prepare their own. Anyway, the Ministry of Revenue does not collect these taxes. , there is no reason to completely let the Ministry of Household Affairs out. "
Shen Jin, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, immediately complained: "Shangshu Zhao, this is wrong. In order to build the Xiaoling Mausoleum, the corvee service around Yingtian Mansion has already been recruited. Our Ming Dynasty is an enlightened dynasty. How can we recruit corvees multiple times a year? Our Ministry of Industry You can’t do such a thing!”
Zhao Mian immediately said: "If you can't contribute people, then provide money."
Shen Jin immediately shook his head: "The Ministry of War has taken half of the taxes from the surrounding area of Yingtian Mansion, they should pay it."
Qin Kui, the Minister of War, also complained, "Half of the tax has been used to buy horses, and we can't get out."
Zhu Biao already felt a headache when he heard this, and at the same time, he felt something that was incredible to him.
That is, the tax system of the Ming Dynasty was too chaotic.
Originally, the taxes in the world should be collected by the Ministry of Household Affairs, but the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of War were able to arbitrarily collect taxes into their own pockets due to various system Han also had a headache listening to this.
How could it be so complicated? The Ministry of Revenue, which seems to be the money bag, actually does not even have the full power to collect taxes. It is no wonder that it has taken so long to make some money in recent years, because the Ministry of Revenue has no money at all.
As for the money obtained by other departments, how can it be so easily handed over? It is estimated that they will have to wait until there is no other way before they reluctantly part with it.
The quarrels and interest competition between the six departments are already so serious, let alone the whole world.
It seems that Chen Han is right. Many things have not been solved at the root. When you want to solve them, you find that the intricate entanglement of interests has long stopped you from changing them. The best way is to solve them before they have completely deteriorated. correct.
And now he understands why sometimes when the court wants to implement a policy, it has been clearly discussed, but when it comes to paying for it, someone inexplicably stands up to oppose it.
At first, Ling Han always felt that these opponents found that the policy was not good and spoke up.
Now I finally understand how those people have such a high level of consciousness. It is simply because the implementation of this policy requires money from their own mouth.
If you don’t want to contribute money, you will find excuses to say that the policy is not good and disrupt it. At the worst, you will have to drag it to other departments to contribute money together.
Going back and forth, isn't this just internal strife between the imperial courts?
Now Ling Han could see from such a small matter as the construction of Yashan Village that the Ming Dynasty had such a chaotic situation just in terms of taxation.
If the center of the imperial court is like this, wouldn't it be even more chaotic underneath? No wonder Chen Han has always emphasized that the root of many mistakes lies in Zhu Yuanzhang, and it seems so.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang was not good at finance, he was good at politics and absolutely smart.
Only now did he know that the root cause of the many problems that Chen Han said in the Ming Dynasty was himself. He didn't believe it at first, but now he saw that the three departments were pushing each other.
This damn girl was already in such chaos when she first founded the country. Now these departments have to frame each other for a few coins?
If this is not changed, the Ming Dynasty will be done with the tax system alone.
Is it obvious? Because taxes are levied separately, no department wants to spend money. They all feel that the money belongs to them. They feel very happy when they get it. When they spit out a copper, they feel as painful as cutting out flesh.
It's such a big deal to do this.
Now that I can still control myself, if the emperor in the future doesn't understand the twists and turns, will he be tricked to death by these people? Zhu Yuanzhang finally got fed up: "Shut up, everyone! They are all top leaders in the government, and they are quarreling over petty gains. It is simply insulting to politeness."
The three ministers were also very sensible and apologized one after another.
"Your Majesty, please calm down. It's all your fault for your incompetence!!"
Seeing the behavior of these old friends, Zhu Yuanzhang had no choice but to make a decision: "To build Yashan Village, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of Household Affairs will jointly fund the construction of Yashan Village. The three of you will be fined three months, and the salary will be folded into the construction fee. That’s it, it’s over!”
The strange thing is that they didn't feel bad at all for the three-month fine. On the contrary, it was able to drag the other party into trouble. The three of them felt that it was worth it...
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(End of this chapter)