Xinshun 1730

Chapter 961 The Last Successful Reform of the Dynasty ([-])
The starting point of the emperor's work has nothing to do with the last word "民" in the four characters on the plaque in the main hall of the Forbidden Palace that was changed in the Jiashen year.

However, a qualified emperor must be aware of the principle that leaning towards small farmers is to maintain the stability of imperial power.The self-cultivating farmers are the pillars of the imperial power, but the scholar-bureaucrats are not. Those who can defend the imperial power at critical moments have to rely on the self-cultivating farmers.

Tenant farmers are unreliable, merchants are unreliable, gentry are unreliable, and hired labor is even less reliable.

The bloody massacre in Huainan was already doomed when Liu Yu said that he would prepare low-quality rice, corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and sorghum.

Does the emperor want to reform?Do you know that the literati-official policy of exempting miscellaneous labor and local apportionment is embezzling imperial power and the imperial court's control over the country?
I really want to, and I know.But dare not move.Liu Yu's reforms in southern Jiangsu have achieved remarkable results, especially the mu tax reform, but the emperor also knew that the situation in southern Jiangsu was special, and it was because Liu Yu gave them another sweet date to invest in after mobilizing their interests.

Now this disguised land reform in Huainan and northern Jiangsu can be regarded as finding a "slanted path" for the emperor. Although it cannot be reproduced, the effect can achieve the most desired result.

After pacing around for a few laps, the emperor glanced at the Yellow River on the map, which turned sharply to the south, and looked around Huainan for a few laps, then gradually moved down.

From Funing, Yancheng, and Huai'an, they have already arrived at Yangzhou Prefecture and Zhenjiang Prefecture, and gradually moved eastward to Changzhou Prefecture, Nantong Prefecture, and Suzhou Prefecture...

With the reform of water transportation, the garrison of Zhenjiang Prefecture can also be abolished or replaced.

In the era of water transportation, if Zhenjiang Mansion was brought down, it would not be far from the collapse of centralization.

But now, the status of Zhenjiang Mansion is accompanied by the water transportation reform, at least not to the extent that once there is a change, the world will be shaken.

As the starting point of shipping, Songjiang Prefecture is also a transit point for communication with Japan and Southeast Asia, and its status is rising day by day.

However, Songjiang Mansion and Zhenjiang are different.

Zhenjiang Mansion is only the starting point of the canal. If Zhenjiang is defended, if there are foreign enemies or enemies come from the southeast, the canal will still be smooth.

But Songjiang Mansion is not by the canal, but by the sea.

To defend the Songjiang Mansion, the power to control the sea is gone, and it is also useless.

Of course it's not all bad.

There are also benefits.

Foreign enemies do not want to consider internal troubles.

For example, a peasant uprising may cut off the canal; for example, a local rebellion may cut off the canal.

However, whether it is a peasant uprising or a local rebellion, it is impossible to turn out a navy.

Even if they create a navy, they can also create a group of officers capable of naval warfare.

The Navy is a technical arm, at least relative to the Army.

As long as they can't change the navy, it means that the court will not collapse because of finances.

With money bags and rice bags in hand, the suppression can always be suppressed.

The strategy of the imperial court, there is no need to think about protecting the canal, water transportation, this, and that. If people lead you by the nose, it is easy to come up with a strategy of "attacking what you have to save"-this is very important for those who played in the past. For Dashun who attacked the vassal king and mobilized the enemy army, it is the history of the founding of the country, and I remember it clearly.

There are good ones, and there are bad ones, and the emperor himself understands how different it is from the past.

Now that the empire that the Li family took over from Gao Yigong has come to this point, it has reached the point where it has to continue to develop the navy and continue to expand the Nanyang buffer zone to ensure sufficient security.

With Nanyang becoming a rice production base, to some extent, Malacca has taken over the status of Zhenjiang Prefecture.

At this point, there is actually no way out—once the canal is abandoned, if something happens at sea, the canal cannot be repaired in three or two years.

The abolition of the canal is a desperate move, and there is no turning back.

The navy is not good. Even if there is money to build the canal overnight, it will take a few years to build it. What will happen then?

The Academy of Sciences produced some railcars, but the emperor looked at them, and they were just playthings. When it really became a "grand canal that doesn't need water", the emperor doubted that he might not be able to see that day.

Once you go to the sea, there is no way to retreat.

The empire is slowly slipping onto a road that has been unlearned in more than [-] years of history.

For a while, the emperor understood why Liu Yu was so nervous about the currency exchange. The inexplicable fear of the future, the unpredictable, and the things that cannot be deduced from past experience or rational reasoning always make people panic. of.

Changes like boiling frogs in warm water, accompanied by the need to pay attention to the navy, have caused more new problems.

The Navy needs a group of new officers.If you read the Thirteen Classics, you can't be a navy officer, and you don't even know the latitude and longitude. How can you become a naval officer?
Even if the emperor has realized that the new students in many places may become a big problem-they can't take the imperial examination, but they still have knowledge-but now the empire has been forced to pay attention to the navy and trade. It is impossible to ban new learning, we can only allow it to "flood".

It is true that the imperial examination is not allowed, and the world will be shaken.

Yet something must be found for these people.

But what?

The emperor's gaze shifted again to the Huainan area in northern Jiangsu, which was the place where Liu Yu was going to kill many people.

Once the local evil gentry is slaughtered by this method of luring snakes out of the hole, can the imperial court learn from the system of the Qin Dynasty and select new students to serve as small officials to fill Huainan and northern Jiangsu where the squires have been slaughtered?

First, once the new Huaihe River is repaired, someone must assume the original position of the country gentry—the state will pay for the repair of the Yellow River, so what about maintaining the local canals?Definitely needs someone to organize.

Secondly, among the new students, first-class students enter the Academy of Sciences, second-class ones enter the Navy, and third-class ones work as business personnel, but these still cannot give outstanding talents room for advancement.Nanyang is a direction, and Huainan can also be a containing pool.

The third is the issue of taxation.

Ten taxes one or even eight taxes one, after the land is distributed to small farmers and those local apportionments are banned, the common people can still afford it.The imperial court also needs an efficient tax system to maintain its operation.

Relying on the taxes collected to pay those new students as salaries, the imperial court still made money.

In addition to these three points, there is another issue that has to be considered.

The rule goes deep below the county level, which means that many things have to be managed.

Rule rule, just collect taxes, that's not rule.

This is not the emperor loving the people like his son, but a very real problem.

Usury is also a loan, at least a loan.

On the one hand, the squires were swept away.

On the other hand, if the imperial court did not fully assume some of the status of the squire in the countryside, the countryside would soon be chaotic.

The simplest example is lending in times of famine.

Small farmers are very vulnerable. In case of a disaster, in case of water, in case of a fire or house burnt down...

Even if the parents die, you have to buy a coffin and blow a sounder, right?It doesn't all require urgent money.

Since it is going to use poisonous tricks to wipe out the bad gentry in Huainan, should the imperial court assume the role of the simplest squire as a lender?

Commitment, that is the young crop method.

With regard to the young crop method, there are many examples from the past and the past, and there are many problems.Merchants and squires can sell their daughters-in-law and daughters if they can’t repay their loans. Can the court do this?
Green crop loans are not granted, and small farmers are so vulnerable. If something happens and the country gentry is wiped out, what will these people do?
What little farmers have accumulated is enough to eat every year.If you encounter a little disaster, you will not be able to bear it.The country gentry is certainly hateful, but the country gentry did undertake some places that the court could not control.

To some extent, today’s government no longer knows how to rule the people directly, and can only choose indirect rule, using squires as agents—very similar to the British colonial rule in Java, where squires act as the link between small farmers and the government. middleman between.

The emperor, the royal family, and nobles are like a group of colonists, relying on the violence of the army to maintain peace with the gentry class.As the middleman of the colonists, the gentry was responsible for administering the vast rural areas.

Anyone can be the emperor, as long as the original rules are maintained.

Official lending, regulation, land sales, suppression of tyrannical and forced land sales, private disaster relief, relief in minor disasters... These methods are all thrown away now, and they are simply unaffordable.

The court doesn't care about all aspects of the people's lives that are closely related to each other, and someone will naturally fill in the vacancy.

It seems that the imperial court has made money and doesn't have to bear too much trouble.

In fact, the imperial court can only collect 3000 to [-] million taels of silver a year, which is equivalent to the purchasing power under silver inflation. It is hard to say whether there is a lot of tax in kind in the early Ming Dynasty.

Compare it to the United Kingdom, which can enforce the Enclosure Act, guarantee authorized monopoly, and levy various indirect taxes and direct taxes; compare it to France, which can control the economy, and can officially control foreign trade and colonization; then compare it with only war and water control. , the rest has almost no control over the economy, the land is completely free to buy and sell, and the official does not even control the legal coinage. The exchange rate of copper coins and silver is all determined by the market-which one is like the legendary "perfect" "Night Watchman Government" ?
It is not without reason that the Physiocrats talk about China.

The United Kingdom did not say that the exchange of pence, shilling and pound was mixed, and it was all determined by the market.

Even the Netherlands, which was ridiculed by Liu Yu all day long, did not get mixed up in the exchange of copper coins and Dutch guilders issued. Instead of currency value, they exchanged in the free market, right?
Of course, Liu Yu's evaluation is that the court is incompetent and useless, not that they want to do this subjectively.

It is similar to Dashun's "trade surplus", or similar to the "ideological release" at the end of the previous dynasty.

It's not that the court has done something, but that it's so incompetent that it doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what to do, and even if it knows, it can't do anything.

Although Liu Yu's thoughts about the "incompetence and waste" of the Dashun court have been kept in his heart, and he has not said it out.

But after the emperor had been in contact with the outside world over the years, he had similar thoughts in his heart.Especially after knowing the revenue of the British tax treasury and knowing what the land tax and various messy taxes in the UK can harvest, this kind of thinking has somewhat sprouted.

Relatively speaking, the degree of incompetence is actually not as serious as the data comparison.

It’s wrong to only look at silver, and you have to count the nearly three-fold difference caused by the price revolution in Western Europe such as grain and cloth on both sides.Although they are all silver, Dashun's 20 taels is really not the same as London's 20 taels.Dashun's various weird policies, although they were not aware of them when formulating the policies, objectively did delay the worldwide price revolution brought about by American silver.

However, the emperor didn't understand this. Seeing the comparison of the treasury's silver income data, he was naturally terrified, stunned and thoughtful.

Since this is the case, the emperor wanted to try various centralization reforms in Huainan, northern Jiangsu and southern Jiangsu.Southern Jiangsu is following the intervention model, while Northern Jiangsu is following the direct-administrative model.

If we want to do this, in addition to collecting taxes, we have to bear some of the things that the squires originally assumed.

So young crop loans are inevitable.Somebody has to lend money in case of a bad year, in case of a rainy day.

However, the shadow of the failure of previous dynasties made the emperor hesitate in his heart.

(End of this chapter)