Late Ming Dynasty: So what if Emperor Chongzhen was inactive?!

Chapter 31: Tax Collapse and North-South Game – The Ming Dynasty, like an Audi Double Diamond, drags its two capitals and thirteen provinces forward with great difficulty.

During the morning court session, Zhu Youjian yawned incessantly. Looking at the group of "birds and beasts" below, he even considered following the example of the founding emperor and killing a few to add to the merriment.

The Grand Secretary, Huang Liji, is surnamed Huang, so he's probably backed by some local gentry, Master Huang. Are those supposedly upright officials really clean? I heard they have money to go to prostitutes after court. "Pah! Shameless! I've never even been to a brothel!"

Zhu Youjian initially wondered if he was being overly conspiratorial and paranoid, but after reviewing the tax situation, he had no more doubts. They really weren't even putting on an act! A province was only paying tens of thousands of taels of silver; they were treating him like a beggar.

King Philip IV of Spain was a miser, the Japanese shogunate began its policy of national isolation, and the two major sources of silver imports to the Ming Dynasty stalled, leading to a nationwide silver shortage. In the Jiangnan region, currency tightened, grain prices plummeted, and people were driven to bankruptcy year after year of bountiful harvests just to exchange silver for taxes.

The Single Whip Law, originally enacted by Zhang Juzheng to prevent corruption and reduce the burden of taxes and corvée labor on the people, has now become the best tool for exploiting them. All of Zhang Juzheng's reforms have been rendered useless, leaving only the Single Whip Law—it's truly a dark irony.

As for the Nine Garrisons, severe regional inflation occurred, making it impossible to buy food even with money. The Ming Dynasty poured most of its resources into Liaodong, causing silver there to become so plentiful that it became worthless, yet soldiers still starved to death or rebelled.

Even if no silver were imported, it wouldn't simply evaporate, yet it just wouldn't circulate. I wonder what those powerful and corrupt officials were thinking, hoarding so much metal—were they edible or what? The government was printing money like crazy, but ordinary people still couldn't afford a decent meal.

The idea that the Ming Dynasty died from excessively low taxes seems like the ultimate historical joke, yet it's true. The Ming Dynasty's land tax was only one-thirteenth of the total. Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed the slogan "Never increase taxes," naively believing that light taxes would improve the lives of the people. However, this later became the shackles that strangled the Ming Dynasty.

Every time someone tries to change the tax system, someone jumps out and says that ancestral rules cannot be changed. But why didn't they say that peeling skin and stuffing straw couldn't be changed?!

There was no other way; the imperial court was short of funds, so it could only impose a temporary poll tax. Although it was called temporary, even after the swine fever outbreak, people wouldn't be able to afford two meat dishes and one vegetable dish for 7 yuan anymore. Even if the imperial court canceled it, the local governments would still collect the tax.

Zhu Youjian believed that when taxes were collected, the local authorities would definitely collect them at 200%. They would squeeze out 80 cents from every half tael of silver tax, making the people want to die. But what about the taxes?! Last year, the Liaodong military tax was set at 5.5 million taels, but only more than 2 million taels were actually collected, leaving a debt of more than 60%. This year, the miscellaneous taxes are in arrears of 970,000 taels.

The poll tax is like making the wealthy pay social security, while the land tax is pitifully low. What a load of bullshit about merging the poll tax with the land tax—what a grand reform it is! In reality, the Ming Dynasty was already taxing according to land area; the only difference was that other countries could collect taxes, while the Ming Dynasty couldn't.

Even the meager tax of one-thirteenth of the land tax was refused by the gentry. The national land survey was carried out time and time again, but people simply refused to pay! When asked, they said it was a year of disaster, a famine, that even wealthy families had no surplus funds, and that large families had large expenses.

Alright, then take out the money and spend it. The people are working like oxen and horses, working "996" (9am-9pm, 6 days a week), which can be considered a form of work relief, but they just don't want to. They prefer to hide their money, like they're crazy.

Zhang Juzheng, oblivious to the impending doom, officially recognized silver as the primary currency, thus relinquishing monetary hegemony. Previously, Ming copper coins were comparable to US dollars, circulating throughout East and Southeast Asia; the Ming dynasty used small pieces of iron to extract resources from foreign countries. Now, the tables had turned; others were using scrap copper and iron to harvest the fruits of the Ming people's labor. Silver was expensive, and copper coins were cheap; gentry were using meager sums of nail polish to buy the lives of ordinary people.

It is said that "those who eat meat are base and incapable of long-term planning." From Chen Sheng and Wu Guang's uprising to the Yellow Turban Rebellion; from Huang Chao's rampage through the streets to the "stone man's appearance and the world's rebellion," these gentry seem to have no memory. They insist on being thoroughly purged from head to toe, and they will not stop until they have driven the people to rebellion.

Actually, there are ways to reverse the tax predicament. The simplest solution would be to turn back the clock, abolish the practice of paying taxes in kind, and collect taxes entirely in kind. Unfortunately, this is impossible. The Grand Canal has long been blocked. The Ministry of Works spends money every year on water conservancy projects and dredging, but it's unclear which concubine was actually "dredging" it. Natural siltation, the collapse of the canal system, rebellions disrupting passage… ultimately leading to the absurd conclusion: transportation costs might be higher than the cost of goods!
Guo Yunhou, the Minister of Revenue, was an amateur. To fill the deficit, he proposed that the emperor increase taxes. He didn't mention a word about commercial taxes, salt taxes, mining taxes, or customs duties; he only talked about a poll tax. The Ming Dynasty had a population of over 100 million. If taxes could really be collected from every single person, even a small amount would be enough for the Ming Dynasty to conquer all seven continents.

Unfortunately, the Ming Dynasty was now a case of "the mountains are high and the emperor is far away." The Ming military force was concentrated in the nine border regions, and taxes could only be levied on the northerners. However, the northern agricultural productivity was low, and coupled with years of natural disasters and wars, where could they possibly find the money to pay taxes? This forced the people to choose between rebellion and death.

Strangely, Guo Yunhou's proposal was agreed upon by most officials. They believed that given the tense situation, it was best to temporarily overextend resources and subject the people to hardship. Once the mess in Liaodong was resolved, everything would be fine, and a symbolic tax exemption could be offered to appease the people. This was the fundamental reason why the Ming Dynasty was so short-sighted, lacking strategic resolve, and intolerant of mistakes in its military affairs! The court was clinging to power. But how can a war be fought like this? When Wang Jian mobilized the entire nation's army to destroy Chu, Liu Bang said, "Victory and defeat are common occurrences in war; this is not something to be taken too seriously."

However, Bi Ziyan, the Minister of Revenue in Nanjing, was eager for advancement and submitted a memorial proposing eight reform measures:

1. Increase the number of salt certificates, allowing merchants to purchase salt certificates at a discount to supplement military funds;

Second, reduce redundant troops and conscripts, streamline the military structure and cut expenditures;
Third, investigate and crack down on fraudulent military pay, and strictly investigate cases of empty military quotas and false reporting of military pay.
IV. Develop paddy fields in the eastern part of Beijing and reclaim wasteland in the Beijing area to increase grain production;
Fifth, investigate hidden lands throughout the land and measure the land properties concealed by powerful families to expand the tax base;

VI. Establish military farms and restore the military farm system to achieve self-sufficiency in military food;

VII. Compile the "Tax and Labor Service Register" to standardize tax accounts and combat corruption;

8. Merchants were ordered to transport grain to the border regions to secure preferential policies.

Although it still follows the old trick of increasing revenue and reducing expenditure, it is still quite respectable compared to someone like Guo Yunhou, who is considered a "minor" character.

Officials in Nanjing and Beijing were mobile. The official rule was that officials of the same rank would be exchanged every six years, but in reality, whoever lost the factional struggle would go to Nanjing to retire. Bi Ziyan was one of those who were sent to Nanjing by Wei Zhongxian.

Zhu Youjian was just worried about not being able to find people to lead the charge, and now that someone has stepped forward, how could he not use them?!

Even lying low and giving up requires a certain approach. The current situation is fraught with crisis, making him feel terrified. The entire Ming Dynasty is like sitting on a powder keg, ready to explode at any moment. If he does nothing, he might not even be able to hold out until the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign.

But for his own safety and to maintain what little imperial authority he had left, he couldn't take matters into his own hands. All he could do was "adapt to the situation."

It's not about saving face, but rather that authority is equivalent to power. If the emperor is repeatedly humiliated, who will listen to him in the future? Being an emperor is essentially no different from being the head of a gang.

Personal reputation is secondary. At this critical juncture of national struggle for survival, if no one had taken the lead and raised the banner of righteousness, the consequences would have been as we have seen in later generations: the history of the Southern Ming Dynasty, which would make people furious.

Today, Southern Zhili bears a significant portion of the Ming Dynasty's tax revenue. The heavy reliance on Nanjing officials is a form of political collusion, exchanging power for the wealth of the Jiangnan gentry.

Of course, this would inevitably provoke a backlash from northern officials, after all, Beijing was their home turf. But that's just a north-south struggle, what does it have to do with Emperor Zhu Youjian? Let them fight it out themselves.

It feels like a high school argumentative essay...

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(End of this chapter)