The days passed quickly, and gradually September passed in a flash, and in October, after the provincial capital and township examination in mid-September, the atmosphere of the imperial examination in Guangzhou did not fall, but became more intense.

In the second year of Longwu, it was still a turbulent and changing year, after the imperial court moved to Guangzhou, because of the changes in Fujian, it caused huge internal shocks in the Southern Ming Dynasty, and gradually stabilized.

Emperor Longwu had the support of He Tengjiao, the old man of Nanyang, Wan Yuanji of Jiangxi, and Wang Yan, the three major governors, and his strength was much stronger than that of Lu and Gui.

Although the envoy to Zhaoqing sent back the news that King Gui did not abdicate the Gui domain and moved to Guilin from the new one, both the Gui domain and the Lu domain said that they would send envoys to Guangzhou to discuss the future development of the Southern Ming Dynasty and decide the relationship between the emperor and the two eunuchs.

Wang Yan was still busy every day during this month's time, and he originally promised Xu Yanyan that he would salute her as soon as her parents arrived, but because of the affairs of the court, she could not handle it.

At this time, in the palace, Emperor Longwu and Wang Yan and other ministers were still engaged in fierce discussions, but the root of the problem was still the old problem, and the court had no money.

The root of Nanming's current bane is buried from the time of Taizu, Taizu was born in a poor family, started in the peasant uprising, and finally became the emperor, creating the foundation of the Ming Dynasty, Taizu's background and experience determined his statecraft.

The attitude of the Ming Dynasty between farmers and merchants, as well as the increasing power of the emperor's court staff and courtiers since Wanli, made the civil officials and the emperor separate from morality, and indirectly caused the gentry's indifference to the imperial court, which also determined the current financial embarrassment of the imperial court.

In the Ming Dynasty, the status of merchants was very low, and although the merchants were rich, they had no power, so they tried to closely integrate with the scholars who could grasp public opinion and future government affairs.

Some businessmen have married scholars, subsidized scholars, invested huge investments in cultivating scholars, bribed bureaucrats, or bureaucrats simply found agents to engage in industry and commerce with huge profits, so that collusion between officials and businessmen has become the norm since Wanli.

The hustle and bustle of the world is for profit, and the hustle and bustle of the world is for profit.

The Ming Dynasty's fortune was pitiful, and it was basically unable to meet the expenses of officials, and the big businessmen and bureaucrats quickly became one in order to obtain spokespersons in the imperial court, and the bureaucrats in order to obtain benefits.

Within the Ming Dynasty, the Donglin Party combined with the Jiangnan merchants to form a major force, and the Zhejiang Party combined with the smuggling maritime merchants, which was another major force.

The formation of these two forces, one spoke for the Jiangnan gentry and opposed the collection of commercial taxes, and the other spoke for the smuggling syndicate and opposed the opening of the sea.

As for the Jin merchants, they also wanted to find spokespersons in the court, but in Shanxi, the culture is far greater than that of Jiangnan, where the humanities are gathered, and there are very few people who can enter the court to be officials, so they naturally cannot form spokespersons in the court, so they directly smuggled out at the end of the Ming Dynasty, secretly communicated with Mongolia and Manchuria, betrayed the Ming Dynasty, and supported foreign people to enter the Central Plains.

In the last years of Chongzhen, after more than 270 years of development in the Ming Dynasty, various problems have accumulated and it is difficult to return, the big landlords rely on donating a meritorious name or a meritorious name to avoid taxes, and the yeoman farmers and small landlords will donate their fields to the people, coupled with the ingenuity of the royal family, nobles, and bureaucratic landlords, there are fewer and fewer yeoman farmers who can provide taxes for the imperial court.

At this time, the country had to raise taxes because of the military pressure of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and between the commercial tax and the agricultural tax, Donglin naturally spoke for the south of the Yangtze River, and there were few officials in the central and northwest of the country, so it was naturally impossible to compete with Donglin, so that the imperial court could not open the source, and could only increase the agricultural tax.

The situation in the Ming Dynasty became that on the one hand, there were fewer and fewer yeoman farmers who paid taxes, and on the other hand, the taxes became heavier and heavier, and the result was that the only remaining yeoman farmers also went bankrupt and became displaced because of the increasing burden, and since then they have fallen into a vicious circle and even social collapse.

This is the lesson that Wang Yan summed up from the Chongzhen period, he stood in the center of the hall and saluted the emperor: "Your Majesty, the current situation, in the agricultural tax, there is no doubt that the mistakes of the past will be repeated, and the minister thinks that the reform of commercial tax is imperative!" ”

After Wang Yan finished speaking, Gu Yuanjing, who had just entered the cabinet, objected: "Your Majesty, in the past two hundred and seventy years of the Ming Dynasty, commercial taxes have always been like this, and the law of the ancestors cannot be changed. ”

After Wang Yan entered Guangdong, Gu Yuanjing was marginalized, and the real power basically fell into the hands of Su Guansheng, and he had already lost power, but when he defended the war in Guangzhou, he stood on the side of the pro-Tang faction, and the court phenomenon was extremely short of officials, so he was able to enter the cabinet and take power.

Gu Yuanjing had been an official in Guangdong for many years and had close ties with the gentry of Guangnan merchants, so he naturally opposed the tax increase.

In the past nearly a month, Wang Yan has found out the information on the commerce of Guangzhou and Chengnei, and has contacted a group of businessmen, so that his ideas for reform have become clearer and clearer.

The short-sightedness of the Jiangnan gentry and the Donglin Party resulted in Jiangnan being ravaged by the Qing soldiers, the economy and people's livelihood withered, and they paid less taxes for more than ten years, but in the end, not only did they not stand on any cheap, but their family property was robbed by the Qing soldiers.

The enlightened merchants and gentry must reflect on this, and look for a new spokesman who can protect their interests, and Wang Yan is ready to take advantage of the situation, although he advocates a tax increase, but the essence is for the long-term and benign development of commerce.

Under his reforms, enlightened merchants and gentry would naturally rally behind him, but those profiteers and gentry who were bent on their own interests, insatiable and did not want to contribute to the court, were also ruthlessly eradicated.

After Gu Yuanjing finished speaking, Wang Yan took out a book from his official robe and presented it to Emperor Longwu: "Your Majesty, this is a report written by Hong Chengchou, the rebel thief of Jiangnan Governor of the Qing Dynasty who was copied by the Heaven and Earth Society, to the captive head Dolgon, who suggested that the world be pacified. Previously, there was a decree to reduce taxes in the north and levy land taxes according to the standards of the Wanli period, and now they are using land to buy people's hearts, Your Majesty, all the ministers, I will add land taxes again, and the hearts of the people will be lost~"

The land problem was one of the biggest problems of the Ming Dynasty, and every change of dynasty in Chinese history was basically a redistribution of land.

After the Qing court entered the customs, it was a real tyranny to enclose land, surrender and charge, and seize a large number of official fields and private fields in the Ming Dynasty, but with the expansion of the area conquered by the Qing court, and a large number of Han people were slaughtered, the time came to the third year after entering the customs, and the problem of more people and less land that plagued the Ming Dynasty became a small number of people and few people on the side of the Qing court, and the land problem was immediately solved.

Emperor Longwu looked at the fold, his face was gloomy for a while, how much land did the vassal king of the Ming Dynasty occupy, he knew that if the Qing court killed the vassal king now and gave the land to the people to cultivate, then the situation would be really not good.

At this time, Emperor Longwu handed over the fold to Zuo Maodi, let several scholars circulate it, and then said: "This strategy of Hong Rebellion for the Northern Captives is really sinister, and the matter of agricultural taxes will never be added according to Wang Qing's words." Let's talk about the law of reform of commercial taxation, and today Zhong Aiqing must set the general strategy. ”

Hong Chengchou's performance to the Qing court made Emperor Longwu feel urgent, and made him feel that the longer the time dragged on, the more dim his hope of recovering the rivers and mountains would become.

Seeing this, Gu Yuanjing and other officials who opposed the increase in commercial tax no longer spoke, while Wang Yan said: "Your Majesty, the reform strategy of the ministers, in addition to adjusting the tax rate and strictly investigating tax evasion, should also encourage commerce, first of all, to reduce the types of taxes, simplify the complex, secondly, to abolish the checkpoints, prevent the officials from exploiting, so that the goods can be easily circulated, and finally for the merchants who pay more taxes, they should be given status rewards, and the decree that merchants can only wear cloth clothes should be abolished." ”

The Complete Book of Agricultural Administration. Volume 4 says that in the fourteenth year of Hongwu: "The intention is to emphasize the original and suppress the end, and it is ordered that the peasant family is allowed to wear yarn and silk cloth, and the merchant family is only allowed to wear cloth." In the peasant house, if there is a merchant who is a merchant, he is not allowed to wear veil. In other words, it is illegal for a merchant to wear silk clothes, and he can only wear cloth clothes.

This law basically exists in name only, and no one abides by it, but Wang Yan's proposal to repeal it is a signal to merchants that the imperial court will change the national policy of valuing agriculture and suppressing business.

(Thank you for the 500 book coins that Shushan climbed diligently, thank you for the gift and reward of Yue Lengwoxin, thank you Chu Muyu, Uncle Chun's monthly ticket, at the end of the month, everyone has a vote for me, try to watch three more tomorrow.) ）

Please remember that the first domain name of this book is .. Biqu Ge mobile version update fastest website:m.