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

Chapter 59: Xiang Zhuang dances with a sword, aiming at Pei Gong

The prospects for reform described by Bi Ziyan were quite enticing. The chaotic state of the imperial tax system had been recognized long ago, and attempts to change it had been made.

Whether it was Zhou Chen during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Ming, Gui E and Hai Rui during the reign of Emperor Jiajing, or the famous Zhang Juzheng, they all made such attempts.

Wang Anshi said, "Changes in the heavens are not to be feared, ancestral laws are not to be followed blindly, and public opinion is not to be heeded." But what if our ancestors were particularly awesome?

There must have been a reason why Zhu Yuanzhang divided financial power among himself! The Ministry of Revenue in the Ming Dynasty was practically crippled. The true Minister of Revenue should have been the emperor himself, but that required the emperor to have sufficient ability and prestige. What prestige did Zhu Youjian have at that time? As for ability, he was certainly very capable in matters of the bedroom, but when it came to accounting, he could only count on his fingers.

In fact, Bi Ziyan had already been very considerate of the emperor. He did not intend to seize the emperor's private treasury; it was just that the source of the funds changed from him earning them directly to drawing them from the imperial granary.

During the Wanli era, the imperial treasury could earn six million taels of silver a year, but after the abolition of the mining supervision, this figure shrank dramatically. Last year, the annual income was less than two million taels, but you have to understand that the Ming Dynasty's damned finances meant that even the Taicang treasury only earned four million taels a year!
If one-tenth of Taicang's current revenue were allocated to the imperial treasury, Zhu Youjian would suffer a huge loss; however, if calculated based on Zhang Juzheng's 40 million taels, it would be a profit. But was Bi Ziyan capable of matching Zhang Juzheng's abilities?!
However, there was still room for maneuver. He only said that the tax revenue should be centralized, but most of the inner court's income was not actually tax revenue. For example, the imperial estates still belonged to the emperor, and Bi Ziyan couldn't very well seize all of the emperor's land.

The three main sources of income for the imperial treasury were: tax-free imperial estates, gold and silver embezzled from the taxes of Southern Zhili, and confiscated property as fines. As long as Bi Ziyan did not touch these sources of income, the losses to the imperial treasury were actually negligible.

If that's the case, why did he go to all this trouble to carry out the so-called integration? His real purpose was actually to take advantage of the tax-free privileges! Zhu Youjian finally realized this, his eyes widened, and he looked at Bi Ziyan in disbelief.

This old man is truly fearless! His so-called "setting an example" is not about consolidating taxes as he keeps saying, but about getting the emperor to take the lead in abolishing tax exemption privileges so that all land in the country, including the land of princes and gentry, would have its tax exemption privileges abolished and officials and gentry would pay taxes together!
What a masterful "Xiang Zhuang's sword dance was aimed at Liu Bang"! Zhu Youjian was so shocked that he broke out in a cold sweat, feeling as if he was about to melt into water!
What a grand gesture! It turns out that what they're after isn't his pitiful private treasury income at all, but rather the vast amount of hidden taxes in the country!
"So my meager fortune isn't even worthy of being coveted!" Zhu Youjian didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but he felt increasingly aggrieved. Being an emperor was truly a tasteless and meaningless job!

Zhu Youjian could figure it out; the people in the court were shrewd and not stupid. They were just initially fooled and misled by Bi Ziyan!

"Your Majesty, Bi Ziyan harbors wolfish ambitions and spreads heresies to mislead the public. We urge Your Majesty to investigate thoroughly!" Huang Liji stepped forward and said. His family owned tens of thousands of acres of land; if Bi Ziyan succeeded, what would become of them?!

In reality, the Ming Dynasty never had a law exempting gentry from taxes; they were only exempt from corvée labor. However, in the Ming Dynasty's absurd tax system, corvée labor and apportionments constituted the bulk of the tax revenue.

After the Jiajing Emperor's reign, local governments converted exemptions from corvée labor into exemptions from land taxes. The Jiajing "Regulations on Exemptions" stipulated that first-rank officials in the capital could be exempted from corvée labor for thirty adult males, while officials outside the capital were exempted by half; those with lower ranks of official titles, such as students and imperial academy students, could be exempted from corvée labor for two adult males. This was originally nothing special, just a small, unremarkable preferential treatment, amounting to only a few taels of silver. However, many things are like this: once a loophole is opened, they tend to escalate into increasingly exaggerated practices.

The breach in the Dongting Lake dike started with just a hole the size of a finger spewing water, but within days it grew into a breach over 200 meters long. Everyone could only watch helplessly as the lake water rushed down, unable to do anything. It wasn't that no one noticed the leak, or that no one tried to plug it; everyone and every resource was mobilized, but despite their best efforts, they were still powerless.

Perhaps we shouldn't have opened that opening in the first place, or perhaps it was just because there was too much water or the water pressure was too high; whether we opened it or not, the result would have been the same.

In the present Ming Dynasty, students are exempt from the tax on 80 mu of land, those who pass the provincial examinations are exempt from the tax on 400 mu, and those who pass the imperial examinations are exempt from the tax on 2,000 mu!
High-ranking officials obtained massive amounts of land through "deceptive transfers," and then used "flying transfers" to register these lands under the names of numerous students and scholars. This allowed them to maximize their tax-exempt privileges and, with these tangible benefits, win over lower-ranking officials, forming a huge community of interests.

Xu Jie, the Grand Secretary of Zhejiang, owned 240,000 mu of land, equivalent to the area of ​​two and a half Beijing cities. Compared to him, the princes of the Ming Dynasty were nothing, just a roadside plot. As Hai Rui lamented, "The taxes from Xu's land alone could equal the taxes of three provinces, yet not a single penny was paid, all of which was distributed to the people."

In addition, there were other forms of tax evasion: altering land registration information to classify fertile farmland as "inferior land" to lower tax rates; falsely reporting disasters to request tax exemptions from the imperial court; falsely reporting auspicious omens, such as two ears of rice per ear, to apply for tax exemptions; concealing household registrations and owing taxes...

The various methods were endless, and it would take three days and three nights to describe them all. They were truly stingy, owning thousands of acres of fertile land but refusing to hand over a single grain of rice!
Grand Secretary Li Guoyu looked at Bi Ziyan with astonishment. Although he admired him greatly, he still stood up to object, saying, "Your Majesty, governing a large country is like cooking a small fish. Minister Bi's plan is too hasty. Our Great Ming has long suffered from accumulated problems that cannot be solved by a single drastic remedy. Reforms should be carried out gradually, otherwise it may shake the foundation of the country!"

Li Guoqi's family also had several thousand acres of affiliated land. Even Bi Ziyan's family must have offered some. Bi Ziyan was willing to sacrifice his family fortune to relieve the nation's difficulties, and he was happy to cooperate. But were the tens of thousands of civil and military officials and hundreds of thousands of students in the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty also willing to cut their own throats?!

He couldn't see even the slightest possibility of Bi Ziyan succeeding. If it were possible, Zhang Taiyue would have done it back then; if it were possible, the previous emperors would have done it. Perhaps only the Hongwu Emperor, who slaughtered all the court officials like pigs and dogs, could have done it. And the current emperor?!

Li Guozhu shook his head inwardly. The current emperor was indeed intelligent, but the affairs of the world could not be solved by mere cleverness. Three thousand White-Spear Soldiers could isolate the inside from the outside and protect the palace, but could they quell the flames of war that were rising throughout the country and the constant peasant uprisings in Jiangnan?

He thought the current emperor was good, and he also thought Bi Ziyan, the Minister of Revenue, was good. The Ming Dynasty had changed three emperors in just ten years, and it could no longer withstand any more turmoil!

(End of this chapter)