Chapter 50 The chaotic tax system urgently needs reform! The formulation of the Lijia system is not a specialty of the Ming Dynasty, but a summary of previous dynasties.
After all, throughout the dynasties, taxes have been collected in kind, so the people paid these in kind to the local government as taxes.
For the people, on the one hand, this is to avoid the pain of being squeezed by merchants when these physical objects are brought to the market.
Secondly, these specialty production areas can deduct taxes on products other than food, which is a good thing for the people, because not every place has good food production, and some places have special products that can offset the land tax. That said, it's pretty good.
Of course, the biggest beneficiaries are local governments.
In ancient times, local governments did not have separate office funds.
Their office supplies are obtained from these in-kind taxes.
Even the government does not need to pay for the sedan bearers, trumpet players, loaders, and food escorts. They are simply assigned to Ding Chao, and the people have to serve.
Today's service mostly refers to being a soldier. In the past, service was to work as free labor for the government.
Zhu Yuanzhang was very impressed by this.
This was how the Yuan Dynasty levied in-kind taxes. His family not only had to grow food, but also cotton.
Because cotton can also be deducted from taxes, but later the taxes became higher and higher, and more and more cotton was required, and the family simply could not make ends meet.
In the end, those who were forced had no choice but to sell their land and buy cotton from outside to pay taxes.
So much so that his parents became tenant farmers in Liu De's family and no longer had any even if you are a tenant farmer without any land, you still have to pay the tax that is imposed on you.
But after Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he knew that this tax system would collapse sooner or later because God would not reward him with food and officials would become more and more greedy.
But what made Zhu Yuanzhang very painful was that he couldn't find a better way to replace it.
This is really the tragedy of dragon slayers eventually becoming evil dragons.
Zhu Yuanzhang's face became more and more serious.
But Xia Yuanji still said, "If the government uses it and the court collects it at a reasonable level, the people will not object.
After all, there are no traders in the middle to lower prices. The output grown in their fields is enough to cope with the expropriation by the court and the expropriation by local officials.
Even the common people who work as corvees and servants can accept it. After all, it can be tax deducted, and they can be idle when they are not busy in farming.
It's just that natural and man-made disasters come one after another, and the system shows its inflexibility.
Your Majesty and Your Highness, as ordinary people, we all understand that the amount of produce from the ground is completely determined by heaven. It is common for a good harvest this year and a poor harvest the next.
Not to mention that in recent years, severe droughts and floods have continued, and grain and product output have been poor. It stands to reason that government requisitions and court requisitions should be flexibly changed according to the good or bad times.
But things often backfire. In recent years, the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of War have increased their exploitation of the people.
Especially for the people along the Huaihe River, due to year-round floods, the construction of dams and renovations are all completed by private labor among households, resulting in a shortage of private labor.
Coupled with successive years of drought and floods, the land has become increasingly barren and food and crop output have dropped sharply.
Cotton, mulberry, hemp, etc. need careful maintenance, and successive years of poor harvests have not reduced the requisitions by local officials and the imperial court.
As a result, local people were often forced to sell off their property to buy what they needed and turn it over to the government to complete the quota allocated to their a result, the Lijia system, which was originally able to meet the needs of the government and the court in good times, became less flexible and became unaffordable for the common people.
What's even worse is that households are divided into nine levels, and households should be paid more grain and produce more , the powerful and gentry colluded with the government, took advantage of the privileges and exemptions, concealed the number of people and acres of land, and used all tricks to become a subordinate. The cunning people were entrusted with guest registration to avoid it. The poor people in the lower household reported the truth and were promoted to the rank of subordinate. Go to the household.
There are even more unscrupulous officials who do not care about the sufferings of the people. Every time they create a yellow list, they will always seek to overflow their foreheads. Those who should be deleted will not be deleted, and those who should not be added will be added to their own books. They may even die and become a small number in the book. , also becomes the capital for collecting call it 'Dena' and 'Bao Compensation'.As a result, the rich have vast fields, but few men and poor people; the poor have no place to stand, and instead have many corvees.
When the Ming Dynasty's national power was still strong, it could barely support it, but if it declined, there would be many disasters. "
After Xia Yuanji finished speaking with grief and anger, the faces of Zhu Biao and Zhu Yuanzhang, father and son, became heavier.
Although what Xia Yuanji said was different from what happened some time ago when Linghan asked the Ministry of Household Affairs for money in order to build Yashan Village, and the Ministry of Household Affairs, the Ministry of War, and the Ministry of Industry were arguing with each other, the things were different, but the essence is the same.
That is, originally tax collection should be completed by the Ministry of Household Affairs, which manages the world's land and population, but the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Industry exploited each other's people because one of them did it in the name of construction projects and the other in the name of collecting weapons and equipment.
He even treats this piece of fat as a real thing that reaches his mouth, and he won’t let go when he bites it.
So much so that at the local level, the yamen under the Ministry of Industry and even the water transport yamen were keeping a close eye on corvee labor.
Due to the dispatch of corvee labor, the local labor force was often reduced. Without labor, crops lost maintenance and output dropped sharply.
What's even more despicable is that the corvee distribution is based on the grade of the household, and the richer the more.
But Xia Yuanji also said that if the rich and powerful colluded with the government and downgraded their household status to a lower household, they would not need to pay much in terms of population and taxes.
On the contrary, it was the honest and powerless people who paid the most taxes and served.
This is simply passing on all taxes and corvee to the poor people.
Zhu Yuanzhang, an emperor who was born a peasant, felt this very personally.
And this is why he hates officials and landlords so much.
Because these two types of people are the main culprits in persecuting him.
Those who are officials, no matter how much crops grow in the fields of the common people, no matter how much quota they have set, they will never change it.
If the harvest is good, the people can live a better life. If the harvest is bad, the people's life will be miserable.
Then someone who was transferred from the southwest, Ying Tianfu Tongzhi, was full of grievances, "Your Majesty, Your Highness, what Chief Xia just said is absolutely true.
The Lijia system was responsible for the three functions of sitting, annual and miscellaneous affairs of the court and government, which were a heavy burden on the people.
Not to mention other things, just talking about tea leaves has forced a large number of tea farmers to go bankrupt, and even a large number of tea farmers would rather let the tea trees fend for themselves in the mountains and the tea leaves will gradually grow old, rather than pick them. "
Zhu Biao asked quickly, "Why is this?"
……
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(End of this chapter)