Chapter 2146 Flower Struggle (54)

After the American War ended, the United States was born, and along with this country came huge war debts.

Louis XVI used increased taxes to fill the deficit caused by the war, but ships from New England returned home with pepper, silk and other goods.

Free competition can improve production efficiency, so merchant ships from two cities in New England give people the feeling of coming from two countries. It is precisely because Chen Hongmou introduced merchants that he improved the mining capacity of copper mines and made Manchu Qing's copper

Can be self-sufficient.

During the reign of Emperor Wanli, there were three large-scale wars: the northwest, southwest frontier and Korean wars of the Ming Dynasty. They were the Battle of Ningxia to quell the rebellion of the Mongols, the Battle of Bozhou when the Miao chieftains rebelled, and the Korean War with Japan.

These three wars all played a great role in consolidating China's territory and maintaining the Ming Dynasty's dominant position in East Asia. However, Nick believed that the consumption of these wars was also huge, and Wanli would also face the problem of war deficit after the war.

The simplest way was to print banknotes, but the Ming Dynasty banknotes at that time were not trusted by the market. The next step was to expand foreign trade. The Ming Dynasty implemented a sea ban policy, but it was looser and tighter. The sea ban was the tightest in the Jiajing Dynasty, and it became somewhat stricter in the Wanli period.

Relax, even if the Japanese pirates were still rampant at that time. The third is taxation. Emperor Wanli sent eunuchs to collect mining taxes, which was called a tyranny of cruelty to the people. Not only Yang Rong, but also mining envoys in other places caused civil unrest, so the court was divided into

In order to support and oppose the imposition of mineral taxes, even some eunuchs also stood against the imposition of mineral taxes.

There are many people who don't like these intersex people, but many of them are poor people. However, the financial situation at that time made it difficult to reduce taxes as the censor Yanguan said, or to suspend taxes as Chen Yongbin said.

In the 30th year of Wanli, just after the wedding of the crown prince, the emperor fell ill. The illness came so suddenly that Emperor Wanli began to have wild thoughts and felt that he would soon die, so he gathered his ministers together and wrote a will.

And arranged for Tuogu ministers.

After arranging all this, Wanli brought up the matter of mineral tax: From now on, Ke and Jiangnan weaving and Jiangxi pottery will be stopped. The internal supervision sent down will order them to return to Beijing, and all the criminals in custody will be released.

The officials who were demoted were restored to their original posts, and they were all replaced by censors and censors.

It is undeniable that in addition to military expenditures, the extravagance and waste of the emperor's private life also placed a burden on the finances, such as his alchemy and palace and Taoist temples. However, Wanli's last edict contained a sign of repentance, which made everyone happy.

But four hours later, the situation changed dramatically, because Emperor Wanli's illness recovered, and he regretted issuing such a testament and planned to take it back.

"A gentleman's words are hard to follow", the emperor was "no joke", and the edicts were rarely changed. Legend has it that after receiving the news that the emperor wanted to retrieve the edicts, the eunuch and eunuch who was responsible for the ceremony risked his life to persuade him, but the result was that

He was almost chopped with a knife by the emperor, who was recovering from a serious illness.

The ministers at that time planned to create an "established fact" and promulgate the imperial edict. They only needed the eunuchs to delay the emperor for a while.

There are two methods of edicts: handwriting and printing. The handwritten edict is called "transcript", and the engraving printed edict is called "tuohuang". Both handwriting and printing take time, but in the end the eunuchs could not withstand the pressure exerted by the emperor.

Although Emperor Wanli had not been in court for thirty years, he was not an unenterprising emperor. No matter how powerful the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty were at that time, they did not dare to hold the emperor hostage like the ten permanent servants of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

In the end, Emperor Wanli chose to implement most of the imperial edicts, but never mentioned the suspension of mining taxes. In the early days of Emperor Wanli's accession to the throne, the affairs of the Ming Dynasty were handled by his mother and the chief minister of the cabinet Zhang Juzheng. After Zhang Juzheng implemented the "One Whip Law", the Ming Dynasty's taxation was

It was mainly the conversion of physical objects and corvee labor into silver. It was precisely because of the large amount of silver income that there was a short-term prosperity in the early days of the Wanli Dynasty.

A whip law passed over the li chief, and the county magistrate was directly responsible for collecting taxes. This was not only a tax reform, but also a social structural reform. Originally, the role of county-level administrative officials was auxiliary, mainly supervising whether the lijia in the jurisdiction was being fulfilled smoothly.

Duty, when Lijia cannot function well, he is responsible for helping to clear obstacles, that's all. Lijia implements a rotation system internally, other than that, he has the same job as a lord, responsible for promulgating national decrees, resolving internal disputes within Lijia, and maintaining

According to the order of "ritual", labor obligations are organized, and activities such as dredging waterways, building dams, and resting cultivated land are carried out to ensure the production base.

After the One Whip Law was implemented, not only residents converted their taxes into silver and handed them over to the county magistrate, but from the perspective of the people, the county magistrate had the responsibility to protect their own lives and various businesses. However, due to frequent floods and droughts, the county governed by the magistrate had to collect taxes.

The responsibility for the difficulties must be borne by the county magistrate. In order to complete the term smoothly and without major mistakes, county-level officials need to take the lead in preparing the production base, which is the activities such as dredging waterways, building dams, and cultivating land that were originally the responsibility of the district chief.

As the importance of county-level administration in society increases, it becomes important to have people who can provide advice to county administration and represent various interests in the region. Many local officials are not familiar with local conditions when they arrive, and they need people who are familiar with the situation.

, these people act as intermediaries between local society and county administration. These local elites are called squires.

The squires cannot enforce national laws, but they are the center of the patriarchal system. Through the patriarchal system and patriarchal order, the squires have implemented autonomy to a certain extent. The squires are often made up of scholars who have not yet served in the imperial examination, failed scholars, relatively educated small and medium-sized landowners, retired officials, and clan members.

It consists of a group of socially influential figures in the countryside, including elders.

This phenomenon naturally arose during the process of social mobility and change as the household system disintegrated. County officials needed squires to manage the county, and squires also needed county officials to support some of their actions, so local society began to win over local officials.

Case.

The Qing Dynasty followed the Ming Dynasty's whipping method and made some reforms. Therefore, the social phenomena produced in the Ming Dynasty also continued to the Qing Dynasty.

After Wanli's death, most of the Yi whip law and Zhang Juzheng's reforms were abolished until the Qing Dynasty re-enabled them. Not all of the taxes collected were silver, but also 30% of copper, but the "fire consumption" problem was still serious, so much so that Emperor Yongzheng issued an order to "return fire consumption to the public".

Perhaps because of the difficulty of his accession to the throne, starting from the Yongzheng Emperor, the Qing emperor's posthumous edicts were placed behind the large and bright plaque in the Qianqing Palace. After the emperor's death, the ministers of Gu Ming jointly removed the "Building Box". Check with the emperor's secret collection of posthumous edicts, and announce the successor to the throne after confirming that they are consistent.

At the same time, Yongzheng implemented the policy of "one body of gentry and one body serving as servants and one body receiving food", which greatly enriched the national treasury and left a solid family background for Emperor Qianlong.

The story about the "Edict of Yongzheng" was published in a Russian magazine in 1770. For some reason, it offended Queen Catherine, causing the magazine to cease publication. Legend has it that the two emperors had a good relationship.

In fact, on Mazu's birthday, "The Peony Pavilion" performed in the Admiral's Mansion was once banned, as well as "The Legend of the Phoenix" by Wang Shizhen, "The Romance of the West Chamber" by Hong Sheng, "The Peach Blossom Fan" by Kong Shangren, etc. Emperor Qianlong believed that it was not The romantic affair of a talented man and a beautiful woman is full of flirting and flirting between men and women, which is enough to make underage viewers have bad thoughts and poison their hearts, so it should be banned.

"puff!"

Georgiana had been drinking. She had been reading for so long and her mouth had long felt dry. The plot Bonaparte was reading almost made her spit out the wine.

He pretended not to see it and continued reading.

However, the royal family did not seem to be afraid of contamination. This kind of play is still performed, but the content has of course been refined. The emperor put forward opinions on the content of the script, singing, acting skills, music cards, facial makeup, and props. There has been a qualitative change. Even the Water Margin play also emphasizes Recruiting peace is mainly about being loyal to the country, and the Three Kingdoms drama boils down to the unification of the three kingdoms and peace in the world.

After the changes, a big play would actually take ten days to perform from beginning to end. Nick would not spend ten days just to watch such a "big play". He would rather read the ten volumes of "Three Kingdoms".

Cao Xi sent someone to return Nick's picture album and book to him. Maybe he had checked them in detail and found no problems.

Not to mention Cao Xi, Nick himself felt that the way the note appeared in his room was weird.

It is easy for farmers to be deceived by "magical powers" such as "sowing beans to make soldiers" and "invulnerability" and believe in various magical folk remedies. However, the bureaucratic class will not believe in such "superstitions". Not only did Confucius say, "Keep away from ghosts and gods." ", "The son is silent and his strange power confuses the gods".

If the suspension of mining taxes was indeed God's will, the British landed in the New World at about the same time.

Unfortunately, all this can only remain a hypothesis, because the emperor repented and withdrew his edict.

Just like what is written in the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms: It is easy to move forward, but it is difficult to move against it.

This sentence means that it is easy to act in accordance with public opinion, but it is difficult to act against it.

In the 30th year of Wanli, it happened to be the time when the people couldn't bear it and burned the Yunnan tax factory. If the "edict" of Emperor Wanli had been sent to Yang Rong, he would have been transferred, and thousands of people would not have been tortured.

Caused death.

Bonaparte fell silent.

"I don't think his last point is completely right," Georgiana said, "but I think 'a horse is hard to catch' is right."

He looked at her.

"Integrity, my lion, you cannot have the same problems as Emperor Wanli."

"Do you believe that it was his promise to God that made him healed?" Bonaparte asked.

"Do you believe?"

"If I believe this, then I will believe what the Pope said about St. Peter's wrath." He said coldly.

Georgiana snatched the book from his hand and muttered, "Merlin's beard, I really wish it was Pride and Prejudice."

"what is that?"

"A 'simple' love story!" she complained. "Damn it, why doesn't a Frenchman write about romantic love?"

He smiled, kissed her forehead, then stood up, brought the wine, and filled it up for her.

Along with the sound of water flowing, Georgiana continued to read, and soon she noticed a ball of orange light. It turned out that he had lit the candle.

She looked out the window. It turned out to be so dark. No wonder she had been struggling so hard to read just now.
Chapter completed!