Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 488 Kill Three Birds With One Bird [Part 4]
The biggest difference between Gao Gong's examination method and Zhang Juzheng's examination method is that Gao Gong did not define a fixed standard for all the things that officials in a certain place must complete every year.

Although how many things must be done by local officials every year, this test method is consistent with the test method, but some details are very different.

For example, the amount of tax required by the examination law to be paid by a certain place is basically immutable. Once the imperial court stipulates how much tax your prefecture should pay this year, Zhang Juzheng will only look at whether you, the prefect, have paid the full amount. If you pay enough, you will pass the examination. Insufficient handover is unqualified, and basically no other reasons are asked.

Gao Gong's examination method is different. He combined the advice given to him by Gao Pragmatism before, and adopted a way of considering floating values.Just take Wuchang Mansion as an example. The specific operation method is: first calculate the total tax payment of Wuchang Mansion in the past ten years, take an average annual tax payment, and then use this average as the base point to calculate the tax payment of Wuchang Mansion next year. If the tax amount exceeds this average, it is at least qualified, if it exceeds 5%, it is considered good; if it exceeds 10%, it is considered excellent.

But this is only one of the tests in the examination method, and it must be evaluated in combination with other items, such as regional stability.Regional stability is a big project, which includes the investigation of various public security incidents such as civil commotions, riots, bandits, rogues, homicides, and robberies.

Of course, roughly speaking, it can be summed up as "the economy (taxes) must be increased, and unrest must be reduced!"

This is ruthless.

According to the consistent law of the Ming Dynasty or other feudal dynasties, the so-called increase in taxes is nothing more than squeezing harder, and squeezing this kind of thing will end up with bad luck for ordinary people in all likelihood, and then the government will force the people to rebel and social unrest.

Now we have to raise taxes again, and we can’t force the officials to force the people to rebel, otherwise they will fail the exams. Therefore, when the exam law was first implemented, the officials of Ming Dynasty were a little confused for a while. What the hell is going to happen? ?
During that time, the pressure on Gao Gong was undoubtedly enormous. All kinds of impeachments and complaints flew to the Secretary of General Administration like a snowflake, filling the cabinet, and even the two palaces had to call Gao Gong in private to ask about the situation.

But what kind of person is Gao Gong?How can the reform line he has identified be abandoned halfway because of some impeachments and doubts?

As soon as the heavenly officials showed their power, the official hats fell into a pile!

In just three months, many officials who spoke fiercely when they were in the shuffle suffered a great loss. They were dismissed from their posts to wait for investigation, returned to their hometowns to live idle, stayed idle with crown belts, demoted officials, demoted to foreign posts, transferred to foreign posts... ...All kinds of handling decisions of different severity were sent from the Ministry of Officials to various yamen and places in the name of imperial decree, and the officials of Ming Dynasty all over the world have fully seen the majesty of Gu Ming's chief assistant!

Seeing that it was not an option to force it, the officials of Ming Dynasty had no choice but to find another way, and began to really think about how to complete this damn test method.

At this time, Gao Gong's various private letters began to be sent to various places again.Private letter politics is a feature of the cabinet system of the Ming Dynasty, that is, auxiliary ministers tell or hint to local officials what to do through private letters instead of formal channels. workaround.

However, a red-headed document is not as good as a greeting from the leader, which has always been the case in ancient and modern times, so Gao Gong's private letter is very effective-the officials who received the letter immediately knew what Lord Shoufu meant: collect business taxes!
Peasant uprisings are common in China. Are there merchant uprisings in China?
Didn’t you see that Wang Zhi, the captain of Wufeng, the largest maritime merchant (pirate) in the Jiajing Dynasty, was always thinking of being recruited by the court?

Decades later, there will be an even more powerful maritime merchant, Zheng Zhilong, who is also trying to find ways to recruit him!

Local officials from all over the country got hints and understood it. Although they knew that moving the businessman's cake would cause a lot of trouble, they had to find a way to move it for their own black hat!

However, these officials are also divided into different situations, but those who have a wealthy family generally move slightly, and a little bit of business tax means nothing, because they only need to hold on to their black hats, anyway. Not very short of money.

If it is the kind of official who comes from a humble student background and an average family background, he is usually more willing to climb up, and the knife is more ruthless when he starts his hands.However, there are dangers in doing so, because when some local merchants or rich gentry who often sell grain are more powerful, some small riots may result.

But still the same sentence, they dare to do some tricks such as gathering crowds to resist taxes, gathering crowds to strike the market, although points are also deducted in the examination method, but it is much lighter than the deductions in cases of civil uprisings and rebellions. .

Afterwards, these officials found out that even if there were three such riots in a year, the points deducted would not be as many points as the extra taxes!So why hesitate, add!

Of course, everyone knows how to settle accounts, knowing that you can’t add too much in one year, because if you add more this year, it will be difficult to exceed this year’s base next year.

As a result, as if the big hands of market regulation, many local governments have gradually and slowly started to increase business taxes, not asking for more, but seeking stability!
Since all places are added, of course Huguang will also be added.However, the ratio of business tax is easy to increase, but the total value of commercial scale is not easy to increase. If the total value does not increase, it will be difficult to increase the business tax year after year, which will inevitably cause more and more pressure on businessmen. Slowly speaking There will be fewer and fewer people who do not order business, and it will be a big trouble.

Therefore, increasing the total value of business has become an issue that local officials must consider.Although Huguang has both cotton cloth and silk, its scale is not comparable to that of the Jiangnan area. Therefore, in terms of advantageous industries, it is still food.

How to increase grain production has now become a major issue in the minds of officials in Huguang—if grain is sold from Huguang, it must go through the customs to pay commercial taxes!

This is a political achievement!It is the key to whether one's own black hat can be kept, and whether it can become bigger!How can you ignore it?

So Gao Pragmatic's opportunity came. He wanted to sell the good idea of ​​overhauling water conservancy to Huguang officials, because this is a good deal that kills three birds with one stone!
How to overhaul water conservancy to kill three birds with one stone?
First of all, the construction of water conservancy has been a manifestation of political achievements in all dynasties of China, and it can also be named-"Su Causeway Spring Dawn", you know?Su Causeway was built by Su Dongpo!When future generations mention Su Causeway Spring Dawn, don't they have to think of Su Dongpo's political achievements?Not to mention the Dujiangyan of Li Bing and his son, it is really famous through the ages!

Secondly, the construction of water conservancy can benefit.Just like Dujiangyan, let the Chengdu Plain become a land of abundance where floods and droughts obey people and fertile wilderness thousands of miles away.Huguang already has a lot of good fields. If water conservancy construction is strengthened and disasters are reduced, won't grain production continue to increase?After increasing production, don't we need to increase sales?Doesn't the total business tax increase for foreign sales?
Again, it can reduce the chances of civil uprisings and riots breaking out.Although Daxing water conservancy costs money, first of all it needs someone to repair it. There is no mechanized operation these days, and the labor required for large-scale construction is not a small number.Since the idle labor force has been hired to work in large numbers, the chances of various security crimes are of course reduced.

If there are any difficulties in building water conservancy projects, there is one more problem: Is there enough money?
So when Gao Wushi told Zhu Zaiyu the whole plan, Zhu Zaiyu thought about it for a while, and then frowned and asked this question: "The construction of water conservancy is naturally beneficial to the country and the people. If it is feasible, Zhu Zaiyu will naturally I completely agree and are willing to contribute, but...how can the government offices in Huguang get so much money to build water conservancy projects? Moreover, even if they ask us to buy a large amount of cement, how will this help the disaster situation in the north?"

(End of this chapter)