What kind of people caused the Imperial Court to be unable to collect taxes?
This question was actually worth discussing, but if he were to ask Yuan Huang now, he would definitely give a general idea.
"Corrupt officials are exploiting the people!"
Yuan Huang's answer could be considered a politically correct answer. In this era, most of the literati would answer this way. Regardless of whether they had embezzled money or not, regardless of whether they had done anything shameful, they would definitely say the same thing.
Hence, Xiao Ruxun laughed, a laugh that was filled with mockery.
"Deacon Yuan, now you should know why I didn't tell you anything and hid it from you, right?"
Yuan Huang was extremely puzzled.
"What do you mean?"
"The ones causing the Imperial Court to be unable to collect taxes are not the corrupt officials, but all the High Scholars and the members of the Imperial Family. It is the entire group of officials excluding the Emperor. In other words, it is the entire foundation of the Daming Dynasty! Including Deacon Yuan! The entire group of officials in the Daming Dynasty are all rotten! "
Yuan Huang was stunned.
"Root … base? Including me? "
"Ever since Emperor Taizu stipulated that the current officials, including those who were Elementary Scholars and above, could enjoy a certain amount of land tax exemption, the seeds of what is happening today were already planted. Emperor Taizu wanted to use the officials who relied on the Imperial Examinations to become the foundation of the Daming Dynasty. However, he did not expect that this was the foundation that destroyed the vitality of the Daming Dynasty.
Every dynasty had such a rule, but it was limited to the current officials. Only the Daming Dynasty gave this benefit to the High Scholars. During the Song Dynasty, the High Scholars were only exempted from labor, but the Daming Dynasty was different. Not only the officials, but even the High Scholars were exempted from taxes. "
Yuan Huang hurriedly said, "But the High Scholars are exempted from taxes, and the officials have a certain amount of tax exemption!"
"There are policies from above, and there are countermeasures from below. Deacon Yuan, since ancient times, many of the decisions made by the central court were originally for the benefit of the people. However, when it was implemented, it was often biased. Let's not talk about other things. Wang Anshi's Green Seedling Law originally wanted to use low interest loans to help the farmers survive the famine years. This was to prevent the farmers from selling their land to the rich during the famine years.
But what about putting it into practice? However, it had become the high-interest loans that Wang Anshi hated the most. Benefiting the people had become harming the people. This was the deviation in implementation. Taizu had set a limit, but how many people followed it? By spending some money to establish connections with the government, these taxes could be directly waived. Those that couldn't be waived would be distributed to the commoners since they didn't have to pay taxes anyway.
They control the vast majority of the arable land and food. Not only that, but they also hide a large number of people, preventing the imperial court from controlling the arable land, food, and people. The imperial court is poor, but they are rich. "
Xiao Ruxun's words silenced Yuan Huang.
"Before the Song Dynasty, tax exemption was limited to the officials of the dynasty, and there weren't many of them. However, the Daming dynasty has given this privilege to the High Scholars. How many High Scholars are there? How many Jinshi officials were there? The number of people had increased several times!
In recent years, natural and man-made disasters had been happening continuously, but the farmers depended on the weather to make a living. It was fine if the weather was good, but if there was a disaster, they did not have the ability to resist it. Once there was a disaster, what could they do? They could either borrow money and food from the big families, or they could just sell their land and borrow high-interest loans.
The famine years had ended, and it was time to repay the loans. What could the poor farmers use to repay the loans? They could only use their own land, and this was before the imperial court encountered a major war. Once a major war happened, the imperial court's finances would be tight, and there would be people with ulterior motives who would raise taxes.
The commoners already had a heavy burden on them. Once the taxes were raised, the local officials would levy exorbitant taxes, and the commoners would not be able to bear the burden. Either their families would be ruined, or they would move into the houses of the local High Scholars, who would hand over their land to them. They would become tenants, and pay taxes to them. From then on, the taxes they paid would have nothing to do with the imperial court, and the land would have nothing to do with the imperial court.
More importantly, these people would have nothing to do with the imperial court anymore. They would become hidden citizens, and would not be counted in the imperial court's household register. They would still be alive, eating, and surviving, but they would be gone. The Daming dynasty would not be able to count them!
With this vicious cycle, the imperial court would be able to collect less and less taxes, and the national treasury would be emptied. There would be less and less things that could be done. There would be no money for wars, no money for disaster relief, and no money for projects. Just continue to raise taxes. The more taxes there are, the fewer people who would pay taxes. In the end, the national treasury would be empty, and the imperial court would be out of money. What should we do? "
Yuan Huang finally understood. Xiao Ruxun had pointed his sword directly at the entire privileged class of bureaucrats who sucked the blood of the Ming government. That was why he had massacred the High Scholars in the three southeastern provinces!
He was digging up the lifeblood of the High Scholars!
This was unprecedented, and it was the first time in history that something like this had happened.
That was why he said that he wanted the High Scholars to become history, and that they would cease to exist.
Previously, he had thought that this was crazy talk. However, it turned out that this was a practical action that had been planned for a long time, and he had already achieved initial success. In the foreseeable future, no one could stop Xiao Ruxun. No one in the four seas!
Japan had been beaten into submission, and the Japanese pirates' rebellion was over. 300,000 Northern Barbarians had been killed, and they fled in terror, never daring to come back again. The Dongwu Kingdom in the south had also been eliminated. No one in the entire Southeast Asia dared to challenge the power of the Daming Dynasty.
No one could stop Xiao Ruxun.
He asked himself honestly. As an official, his family's land did not have to pay taxes. Because of this preferential policy, his life was not bad. However, if one day the imperial court said that his family's land would have to pay taxes …
Would he be happy?
Yuan Huang was not a saint, and he would also be unhappy.
He was a person who had read the books of sages. Why should he have to pay taxes with the peasants?
In fact, this was also the common view of scholars. In that era, literacy was a privilege. Those who had knowledge were different from those who did not. One was in heaven, and the other was on earth. Even the taxes were different.
So that was how it was.
Thinking of this, Yuan Huang understood that Xiao Ruxun had long planned to implement this policy.
He also knew that the aristocrats would strongly resist, so before the policy was implemented, he would first kill the people who stood in the way, and then implement his own policy. Those who could not resist had no other choice but to accept it.
"But even so, what do you want to do after you get rid of the aristocrats? If you want to build an eternal dynasty, will it be enough to just get rid of the aristocrats? "
Yuan Huang could not imagine such a future.
"Of course, it's not just that. I will make sure that the land is state-owned, and it is prohibited to buy or sell it. Farmers cannot buy or sell their land at will. Everything will be in the hands of the central government."
"This … Isn't this what Wang Mang did? Don't you know what happened to Wang Mang later? "
Yuan Huang was taken aback.
"Of course I do. That's why I took the initiative and killed the aristocrats of the three southeastern provinces. In the future, I will also move against the other provinces. Not a single one of them will be able to escape. They will either hand over their excess land and submit to me, or die, and I will control all the land in the world."
Xiao Ruxun expressionlessly spread his hands. "Wang Mang's mistake was that he did not clearly understand what the foundation of his rule was. Daming's Taizu regarded the scholars who rose to power through the imperial examinations as his foundation. He hoped that these people would ultimately protect his dynasty, so he killed the aristocrats without worry.
After he killed the aristocrats, there would be imperial officials to govern the country for him, so the world would not fall into chaos. However, Wang Mang did not know that the local tyrants were already extremely powerful in the late Han Dynasty. The foundation of his dynasty was actually these local tyrants.
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