Ming Dynasty: My Father Zhang Juzheng
Chapter 5 2 big hand
Chapter 5 Two Big Hands
"Mencius said: 'Governing is not difficult, but it is not done by the rich.' What is a rich family? It means the royal family, the nobles, the powerful and wealthy. My father created the Wanli era with his own strength, which is enough to go down in history. At that time, the country was peaceful, the treasury was full, and the world was at peace.
If you retire at this time and enjoy your remaining years, it would be a wonderful thing."
"No, this old man is very stubborn. He won't give up an inch when it comes to power. It's useless to persuade him directly." Zhang Yunxiu shook his head, grabbed the rice paper, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it on the ground.
By this time, it was already bright, and the ground was littered with discarded paper balls.
The warm winter sun shone through the window onto Zhang Yunxiu's face. Zhang Xu felt tired and exhausted.
Zhang Juzheng will die one day if his relationship with the emperor does not improve before his death.
Then, the Zhang family cannot escape the fate of being liquidated.
In fact, it was very simple to improve the relationship with the emperor. All Zhang Juzheng had to do was to submit to the emperor, say a few nice words, and then go home honestly to live out his life in peace.
This is not capitulationism.
Instead, he retreated in order to advance. As long as Zhang Juzheng was still alive, even if he was still half alive, who would dare to say anything bad about him?
But for Zhang Juzheng, it was more difficult to submit to the emperor and speak sweet words to him than to kill him.
The older people get, the more stubborn they become and the less willing they are to admit that they are wrong.
Especially, that person is his own nephew.
With this apology, he has lost all his authority. How could he possibly do that?
"Well, you are having a good time, but I haven't had enough fun yet, and now I have to suffer with you." Zhang Yunxiu thought, shook his head, his face full of bitterness.
Suddenly, a crisp voice sounded outside the room: "Fifth Master, the master asked you to get up quickly and go to the study to see him after breakfast."
"understood."
Zhang Yunxiu responded, then stood up from the table, rubbed his cheeks, pushed the door open and walked out of the bedroom.
After quickly washing up and having breakfast, Zhang Yunxiu ran straight to Zhang Juzheng's study.
When he pushed the door open and entered, he saw Zhang Juzheng sitting in the main seat, looking at him seriously.
"Father." Zhang Yunxiu bowed quickly.
"Sit down." Seeing his son come in, Zhang Juzheng pointed to the desk on the left.
There are several books on it.
When Zhang Yunxiu took a look, he found that "The Analects of Confucius", "Mencius" and "The Book of History" were among them.
"Fuck."
He cried out in his heart and stood still.
"Why don't you sit down?"
"I talked back to my father yesterday and I don't dare to sit down."
"Humph, you are quite good at talking." Zhang Juzheng glared at his son and continued, "Don't think you can get away with it. Just pick a book at random. I want to test your progress this year."
Zhang Yunxiu's brain was working rapidly. He was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly shouted, "Father, when I came to the capital, I heard people praising the tax law "One Whip" you reformed last year. I have a different opinion."
"Oh? Tell me about it." Zhang Juzheng became interested.
Seeing that he didn't have to recite, Zhang Yunxiu breathed a sigh of relief and continued to speak according to his memory: "Since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty has had many taxes, mainly the two major categories of taxes on capitation and land. The capitation tax is divided into three categories: lijia, equal labor service, and miscellaneous labor service."
"Although there is only one type of land tax, there are many items in it, and most of them are paid in kind, which is easy to cause damage to the physical goods. Father unified the collection of silver and measured the land to calculate the number of people, which is indeed a great innovation."
Zhang Juzheng heard the hidden meaning, smiled coldly, and asked: "You are not even a candidate, how dare you discuss state affairs? From your tone, it seems that my "one whip" method has many loopholes?"
"Yes."
"So you are right, what's wrong with our 'One Whip'?"
"May I ask, father, whether this measure should be implemented in Jiangnan first?"
"So what?" "That's right!" Zhang Yunxiu walked to the table, picked up a piece of rice paper, and handed it to Zhang Juzheng. "This piece of high-quality rice paper should be sold for about ten cents in Jiangnan, but in cold and remote places like Shaanxi, the price may be doubled."
Zhang Juzheng didn't understand what was going on and motioned for his son to continue.
"Five words, things are valuable because they are rare." Zhang Yunxiu held up five fingers and said, "Silver is scarce in remote places like the north, so when food and various items are discounted, the same thing can only be discounted to a smaller amount of silver."
This time, Zhang Juzheng stood up suddenly as if he was stung by a wasp.
He widened his eyes and looked at his son in disbelief.
Yes, there is a shortage of silver in the north, and the common people have no money. When the time comes, they will inevitably be exploited by the government.
Zhang Yunxiu continued, "Moreover, most of these profiteers rely on the government. When the time comes to deliver silver, the profiteers try their best to lower the price. The people are forced to sell under the pressure of the government."
"The most abominable thing is that in good years, profiteers hoard large quantities of grain at low prices, leaving the people with no money to earn. When bad years come, the people have no food, but still have to pay taxes to the government. All in all, the profiteers make a fortune."
This is the biggest bug in the “One Whip” strategy. Big investors have enough capital to buy low and sell high.
After Zhang Juzheng's death, almost all of his new policies were abolished, except for this "whip".
It’s not because the officials are kind-hearted, but because they can make money faster this way.
In the past, after receiving items, you still had to sell them yourself. How could it be as convenient as collecting the money yourself?
The aristocratic families act as both referees and players. How can ordinary people play?
Zhang Juzheng only felt his blood boiling. He had not expected that such a huge disaster could be hidden in the whip method.
But he couldn't change it, so he had to drink the poison.
After all, the imperial court actually benefited from it.
Glancing at his father, who was stunned and speechless with a dark face, Zhang Yunxiu carefully probed, "Actually, if we use both hands well, the drawbacks of a single whip are not unsolvable."
"What do you mean by two big hands?" Zhang Juzheng was stunned. It was the first time he heard of this term.
Zhang Yunxiu then remembered that the guy who wrote The Wealth of Nations was not born yet, so he patiently explained: "There are two forces. One is the spontaneous force of the market, and the other is the imperial court."
"Merchants and ordinary people pursue profits. They will go wherever there is profit. In order to better pursue profits, merchants and ordinary people can only constantly improve the quality of goods."
"Wait a minute." Zhang Juzheng interrupted, "Merchants are all greedy and greedy. If the world is left to merchants, wouldn't it be a mess? Besides, there are many unscrupulous merchants who sell inferior goods as good ones and cheat the people."
"This is about another big hand." Zhang Yunxiu continued calmly, "The court must resolutely crack down on illegal merchants, create a good market atmosphere, and at the same time forcefully deal with some things."
"For example, in the 'One Whip' law, the power to set the price for grain purchases should be determined by the imperial court. The purchases must be made based on the local grain prices, at a value that is neither too high nor too low."
hiss.
This method is quite clever, as it can protect the interests of the government while ensuring that the people are not exploited.
Zhang Juzheng was shocked when he heard this. He picked up a pen and paper and started writing on it.
Zhang Yunxiu on the side remained silent, with a trace of regret in his heart.
He originally wanted to persuade Zhang Juzheng to retire while the going was good, so why did he add more workload to him?
Zhang Juzheng was a man who was naturally limited by the times. The "one whip" system had already shown a trend of distributing the tax rate based on the amount of land, but he did not see this step.
Kangxi's "never increase taxes on the increase of population" and Yongzheng's "distribute the tax rate according to the amount of land" were all things that happened later.
The poll tax is a sharp knife hanging over the heads of ordinary people.
Since Emperor Yongzheng abolished the head tax, the population of China has skyrocketed.
The population of the Ming Dynasty just exceeded 100 million during the Wanli period, and during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, it exceeded 400 million.
Although the Qing Dynasty brought harm to China, it did make an indelible contribution to the population explosion.
Just as he was thinking about it, Zhang Juzheng had finished writing without him knowing, and their eyes met.
Zhang Juzheng's thin face trembled slightly, and he rarely smiled, praising: "You care about the suffering of the people. It seems that you are not completely ignorant."
"My son, my son, this is all God's instructions. Father, you really should check on your health." Zhang Yunxiu replied tremblingly.
"Asshole!" Zhang Juzheng glared at him again, slammed the table and cursed: "I thought you had made some progress, but it seems that your hysteria is indeed quite serious."
As he said this, he shouted outside, "You Qi, go get me a doctor to take a good look at this rebellious boy's brain!"
(End of this chapter)
