stjorthotic Chapter 194: Zhu Yuanzhang Wanted The Horse To Run, But Also Wanted The Horse Not To Eat Grass, And
Chapter 194: Zhu Yuanzhang Wanted The Horse To Run, But Also Wanted The Horse Not To Eat Grass, And
"They dare?!!"
Hearing Yan Changqing's last meaningful words, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately stood up in anger. The terrifying murderous intention to kill millions since the chaotic days of the late Yuan Dynasty suddenly broke out at this moment.
Even the princes Zhu Biao, Zhu Xi, Zhu Fan, Zhu Di and other princes all had extremely ugly faces. They also understood the deep meaning contained in Yan Changqing's last words.
Yan Changqing shook his head and had no intention of going into details. He brought the topic back to the original over-collection of land taxes and continued:
"Let's go back to the previous issue of excessive land tax collection."
“The root cause of this problem is that the central court collects land taxes from local county magistrates and subordinate officials, and lacks proper supervision and management.
"The direct reason is that the salaries of court officials are relatively low."
“So these officials either took the initiative to commit corruption or acquiesced in overtaxing local people.
"To solve this problem, we naturally have to start from these two aspects."
"It turns out that the imperial court lacked proper management of the collection of land taxes by local county magistrates and subordinates."
"On the one hand, His Majesty did not realize that the local county magistrates and subordinates below collected excessive land taxes, and on the other hand, it was because the previous fiscal revenue of the imperial court was not enough to support the establishment of such a supervisory system."
"After all, the Ming Dynasty is so big. If every year during the tax collection period, the Central School Disciple of the imperial court secretly visits every county, village, and town to verify and check the actual tax amount collected by these counties, villages, and towns."
"Then for the original imperial court, such a consumption of human and material resources was too great."
"And the most important thing is that such human and material resources do not mean that they can be spent once, but they need to be spent twice every year!!"
Having said this, Yan Changqing couldn't help but sigh.
If we look at administrative needs, the number of officials in the Ming Dynasty was actually seriously insufficient.
317 During the Zhu Yuanzhang period in the early Ming Dynasty, there were about 20,000 civil servants from the imperial court to local governments, and about 50,000 subordinate staff, for a total of about 70,000 people.
Even when the Ming Dynasty had the largest number of officials, the number would not exceed 100,000!!!
The number of officials ranges from seven to one hundred thousand, which sounds like a lot.
But at its peak, the Ming Dynasty had 13 provinces, 140 prefectures, 193 states, and 1,138 counties!
Just the three basic civil servants assigned to one county take up more than 3,000 positions.
In addition, a county needs at least five to ten subordinate staff, which takes up five thousand to ten thousand positions.
And this is only the most basic staffing of officials in each county, plus the staffing of the state, prefecture, and province levels, as well as the six central ministries of the imperial court, as well as the quotas occupied by officials with other roles.
It can be said that, taken as a whole, the number of officials in the entire Ming Dynasty can be said to be stretched thin and completely insufficient.
Therefore, even if it wanted to establish such a system for monitoring local taxation, it would not be possible for the Ming Dynasty, which originally emphasized agriculture and suppressed business.
There are not enough human resources, and human resources cannot support it.
The reason for this problem is actually Zhu Yuanzhang's fault.
Because Zhu Yuanzhang set the tax requirement for the court to collect "twenty-seven million shi" every year.
In other words, in fact, the imperial court could only levy a tax of "twenty-seven million shi" at most, at least on the surface, it did not require it, or it could be said to collect more.
The upper limit of taxation of "twenty-seven million dan" also restricted the increase in the number of officials.
Because if the number of officials increases too much, then according to the fiscal revenue of "twenty-seven million shi" set by Zhu Yuanzhang, "the imperial court cannot afford to support it!!!"
This resulted in the imperial court never having enough money (bhee) to support more officials, and if the imperial court did not have a sufficient number of official system to support it, then any attempt to establish a local tax supervision system would be nothing more than a dream.
"But in the future, after paying equal attention to scholars, farmers, industry, and businessmen, doing a good job in commercial taxation, and popularizing potato cultivation, the imperial court's fiscal revenue will inevitably increase significantly."
"By then, the imperial court will be able to support more officials, and then set up a special Central Taxation Supervision Department. Every year during tax collection, personnel from the Central Taxation Supervision Department will be sent to local counties and towns for unannounced visits to check the tax collection status of each place."
"If there is any violation, then we will investigate and deal with it in accordance with the law."
"This will at least ensure that local county magistrates and subordinate officials will not dare to arbitrarily collect excessive land taxes."
"After all, none of them know whether the people from the Central Taxation Supervision Department sent by the imperial court are secretly watching them.
"At the same time, the hierarchical division of local administrative areas also needs to be completely unified."
"Either choose a four-level local administrative hierarchical system of province, prefecture, state, and county, or choose a three-level local administrative hierarchical system of province, prefecture, and county, and strictly allocate the fiscal and taxation responsibilities of local administration at all levels."
"Only when local administrative finance and taxation responsibilities at all levels are clear will it be less likely to cause confusion in finance and taxation."
After hearing the method given by Yan Changqing to establish the [Central Tax Inspection Department], Zhu Yuanzhang narrowed his eyes and began to think about the feasibility of this method.
Theoretically speaking, the most fundamental reason why the court over-levied land taxes on local county magistrates and subordinates was that the court did not have enough control over the local areas and had unclear information about the collection of local land taxes.
If the Central Tax Inspection Department is established, the personnel of the Central Tax Inspection Department can go directly to the local front-line tax collection sites and personally supervise the actual tax collection of local county magistrates and subordinates.
In this way, even if local county magistrates and subordinate officials collect excessive land taxes, the central government will be aware of it in time and deal with it immediately.
The only problem is that if you want to establish a central tax inspection department that can cover all counties and even cities and towns across the country, you will need at least thousands of people to do it.
And these thousands of members of the Central Tax Inspection Department must have official status and be supported by the court.
Moreover, such an official status cannot be too low, at least there must be an official status of eighth to seventh rank, otherwise how can one be able to overpower those local county magistrates who are ninth rank.
But suddenly supporting thousands of officials from the eighth to seventh grades was also a huge pressure on the court's finances.
After all, although Yan Changqing said, "In the future, equal emphasis will be placed on scholars, farmers, industry, and businessmen. After the imperial court pays close attention to commercial taxes and popularizes potato cultivation, the imperial court's fiscal revenue will increase significantly."
However, Yan Changqing cannot really predict how much the imperial government's finances will increase.
Therefore, on the one hand, Zhu Yuanzhang felt that it was necessary to establish the Central Taxation Supervision Department, but on the other hand, he still felt that this part of the expenditure was still too large.
The so-called "I want the horse to run, but also want the horse not to eat grass" is talking about Zhu Yuanzhang.
[Perhaps, we can just establish a Central Tax Inspection Department with three to five hundred people, which only needs to cover one-fifth to two-fifths of the Ming Dynasty. 】
[Then it was announced that the imperial court had sent personnel from the Central Tax Inspection Department to supervise the actual collection of land taxes across the country. 】
[But we won’t tell you exactly how many people will be sent and where they will go to monitor the actual situation of tax collection!!!]
[We can ask personnel from the Tax Supervision Department to supervise local tax collection in the north this year. [We can ask personnel from the Tax Supervision Department to supervise the construction of local tax collection in the south next year. 】
[Even though it is impossible to know the actual tax collection situation in various places in the Ming Dynasty at the same time, when the personnel of the Tax Supervision Department arrive in the next year, they can casually ask the people about the actual tax collection amount in the previous year. 】
[Then we will naturally be able to know the actual collection of local taxes in the previous year. If there is an over-collection, we will still investigate and deal with it. 】
[In this way, it can not only save the court’s expenses, but also play an actual role in tax collection and supervision!!!]
In a flash of thought, Zhu Yuanzhang had already thought of a compromise that had the best of both worlds.
And there is indeed nothing wrong with this method.
According to Zhu Yuanzhang's thinking, the biggest drawback is that there will be a delay in knowing the actual tax situation in some places.
But this delay is not unknown. It can be one or two years as late as three or five years as long as it is. In the end, personnel from the Central Taxation Supervision Department will still take turns to inspect various places in the Ming Dynasty.
By then, the actual tax collection status of local county magistrates and subordinates in the past three to five years will still be inspected by personnel from the Central Taxation Supervision Department.
As long as the people are held accountable carefully afterwards and the people's losses are compensated, then there won't be a big problem.
Moreover, this "incomplete" supervision method also has an advantage that Zhu Yuanzhang likes very much.
That is fishing law enforcement!!!
After the Central Tax Supervision Department was established, local county magistrates and subordinates all over the world would no longer dare to collect excessive land taxes in a short period of time.
But when one or two years, or three or two years pass, the local county magistrates and subordinates will definitely be unable to help but try the law again.
At that time, if local county magistrates and subordinates find that they have once again over-collected land taxes and have not been inspected by the Central Taxation Supervision Department, they will definitely feel lucky.
Then they would feel that Zhu Yuanzhang was scaring them, and then they would be even more wanton in over-collecting land taxes.
Finally, when the Central Taxation Supervision Department came to inspect them, they reported to Zhu Yuanzhang that they had excessively collected land taxes.
Then Zhu Yuanzhang had reason to confiscate their homes and exterminate their clans as a warning to local county magistrates and subordinates all over the world.
Zhu Yuanzhang knew very well the essential and most important role of the Central Taxation Supervision Department.
Then it is to warn local county magistrates and subordinate officials not to act recklessly and collect excessive taxes on common people's fields; secondly, it is to truly monitor the tax collection of local county magistrates and subordinate officials.
If you want to always serve as a warning to local county magistrates and subordinates, then the best way is to take a few local county magistrates and subordinates from time to time and "grab the family to warn Juban."
However, even Zhu Yuanzhang could not do more of this kind of thing by using local county magistrates and subordinates to confiscate their homes and exterminate their clans for no reason.
So at this time, he needed to deliberately let them go and deliberately give them the opportunity to make mistakes. In this way, he would have a suitable reason to take action.
At that time, we can also use the behavior of those local county magistrates to confiscate their homes and exterminate their clans, and then compensate the people for their losses, to gain a wave of public support and once again strengthen the credibility of the court!!!
In Zhu Yuanzhang's view, this is a matter of killing two birds with one stone!!!
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