The videos I watched became popular in ancient times

Chapter 195 The trigger for abolishing agricultural taxes

There were three major agricultural tax reforms in the entire Chinese history, during the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, and later generations.

The agricultural tax reform of the Ming Dynasty came to an end with the death of Zhang Juzheng, and the agricultural tax reform of the Qing Dynasty was greatly reduced with the compromise of Qianlong.

Only the agricultural tax in later generations can be completely abolished, so that the people who farm the land no longer have to bear the burden. This achievement is not a big achievement.

Ancient people from all dynasties knew very well what it meant to cancel agricultural taxes. It can be said that it was the first time in history.

In their memory, it is natural for ordinary people to pay agricultural taxes.

Just like people need to eat, this is innate, just like agricultural taxes.

Even the people who are most resistant to agricultural taxes only think that the court can reduce some agricultural taxes. They have never thought about abolishing agricultural taxes, and they never dare to think so in their dreams.

It is precisely for this reason that they were so shocked to learn that agricultural taxes would be completely abolished in later generations.

Even Zhang Juzheng and Yongzheng were in the same situation and were extremely shocked.

Whether they implement a whipping law or engage in large-scale allotment, they just hope to reduce the burden on the people, but they have never thought of canceling the agricultural tax on the people.

If the people do not pay agricultural taxes, what will happen to the court's finances and how can the court operate?

The two of them are pioneers in agricultural tax reform. They clearly understand how difficult it is to reform agricultural tax and will inevitably be obstructed and opposed by interest groups.

It would have been difficult to make even a small change in agricultural taxation, let alone a drastic reform like that of later generations.

It is precisely because they know how deep the water of agricultural tax reform is that the two of them find it incredible that agricultural taxes will be abolished in future generations.

Ever since, the two of them continued to watch the video with great concentration.

They are eager to know how later generations successfully abolished agricultural taxes, hoping to learn something from it.

[After the founding of Xingzhonghua, although it underwent land reform and redistributed land to working people, the tax structure formed over thousands of years remained unchanged.

For a long time from the founding of Star China in 1949 to the reform and opening up, the agricultural tax and head tax contributed by farmers have always been the main source of promoting industrialization.

In the more than fifty years from 7000 to , farmers paid more than billion kilograms of grain to the imperial court.

From the beginning of 6000 to the cancellation of the unified purchase and marketing policy in , farmers contributed more than billion yuan to industrialization. This was all achieved through the "scissors gap" between industrial and agricultural products.

In addition to paying more taxes and grain than people in the city, they also earn less than people in the city.

This is because the Chinese grain pricing system at that time still adopted a combination of court regulation and market supply and demand.

This has led to an increase in grain prices that far lags behind the increase in prices of agricultural inputs and industrial products.

Of course, the scissor gap is not unique to China. It is an inevitable phenomenon and inevitable conclusion that occurs in the industrialization process of every industrialized court in the world.

The British land enclosure movement and Spanish colonial plunder essentially obtained capital in the early stages of industrialization by sacrificing the interests of certain people in some form.

In the mid-to-late 1980s, as reform and opening up gradually deepened, China had actually passed the early stage of industrialization.

Logically speaking, the scissor gap should be abolished, but unfortunately, the fiscal system introduced in 1985 gave local governments the motivation to continue to increase the burden on farmers.

And local governments, whose revenue has been significantly reduced due to the tax reform in 1994, have to continue to find solutions from farmers.

Various phenomena of arbitrary charging at the grassroots level in rural areas emerge one after another, such as three mentions and five unifications.

Three types of fees refer to the three types of fees farmers submit to the village level, including provident fund, public welfare fund and village management fees.

Wutong refers to the five types of coordination that farmers submit to the government, including education surcharges, family planning fees, civil training fees, rural road construction fees, and special care fees.

City people may have never heard of these expenses.

The pressure on Chinese farmers finally erupted in the 1990s. For a time, the whole country was discussing the collection of agricultural taxes. 】

Ying Zheng: In 7000 years, farmers have handed over more than billion kilograms of grain, which is simply incredible.

Upon hearing such a huge number, Ying Zheng was stunned and stunned.

He calculated in his mind that the people would turn in 7000 billion kilograms of grain in fifty years, which means that on average, 140 billion kilograms of grain would be turned in every year.

Based on the calculation that 100 kilograms is one stone of grain, the people of later generations will have to turn in million stone of grain every year.

What a concept this was, his scalp went numb just thinking about it.

The grain that the common people of Da Qin turned in every year was only a few million dan, not even a fraction of that of future generations.

The huge gap shocked him and he couldn't bear to look directly at it.

He also knew that the conditions in all aspects of future generations were better than those in Da Qin, and the grains handed over should be more than those in Da Qin.

But is this too much?

It can be described as a difference between cloud and mud, which shocked him greatly.

You know, New China was only established in 1949.

The newly established imperial court was in ruins, and the people could hand over hundreds of millions of stones of food to the imperial court before they had recovered from the war. This was simply unbelievable to him.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't imagine that scene.

The land of China has been shattered by mountains and rivers. After a hundred years of war, the land of China has been beaten beyond recognition, and countless people have been killed and injured.

It was under this situation that the land of China and its people were dying, that New China was established.

Then as soon as Xingzhonghua was established, the people who were killed and injured turned over hundreds of millions of stones of food.

He couldn't believe this was true, but there was no reasonable explanation other than this speculation.

Although he didn't know the history of the establishment of Xingzhonghua, he could know a thing or two from the previous videos.

From the cultural relics escaping from the British Museum, we can roughly guess that the land of China was plundered by foreign invaders in the late Qing Dynasty.

There are so many Chinese cultural relics in the British Museum, which shows how desperate the disaster faced by China at that time.

With such a disparity in strength between the two sides, it took the Chinese people a hundred years to drive out the foreign invaders and successfully establish a New China.

Even when the land of China was beaten to pieces, he could not figure out how the people who suffered heavy casualties handed over hundreds of millions of stones of food.

He remembered clearly that high-yielding grain varieties were developed only later.

The newly founded New China had nothing but ruin.

He thought for a moment and came up with the only possible guess.

That is, the population of future generations will be extremely large, much larger than he imagined, and it is very likely that there will be hundreds of millions of people.

Only with such a large population could we hand over 100 million shi of food to the imperial court at the beginning of the founding of New China.

The common people of all dynasties sighed deeply. No matter what era, the phenomenon of arbitrary fees charged by the government has always existed.

I thought that only their dynasty had arbitrary charges, but I didn’t expect that even in later generations, ordinary people would also make arbitrary charges such as Santi Wutong.

The lives of their people are already very difficult, but the government still imposes various additional taxes on them, which is almost driving them to death, and the pressure they bear is almost crushing them.

But the people of each dynasty ignored their sadness at the moment, and instead focused all their attention, holding their breath and listening carefully to what happened next.

Because the video has made it very clear that the pressure on Chinese farmers in later generations was too great, and it finally broke out in the 1990s, causing the entire country to discuss the issue of collecting agricultural taxes.

They knew very well that this might be an opportunity for the abolition of agricultural taxes in later generations, and after the final discussion, agricultural taxes were completely abolished.

Ancient people from all dynasties are eager to know what happened in the 1990s in later generations that led to the cancellation of agricultural taxes that had lasted for thousands of years.

At this moment, all dynasties, whether they were emperors, generals, ministers, or traders, were all staring at the sky with concentration.

They know the answer to why agricultural taxes can be eliminated is about to be revealed.

Especially ordinary people in various dynasties did not dare to breathe or blink their eyes.

After all, the next answer will be related to the vital interests of every one of them. They would like to see what major events happened in the 1990s that gave rise to the opportunity to cancel the agricultural tax.

Only by knowing what happened can the common people learn from it.

They do not expect agricultural taxes to be abolished in their current era, but they only hope to learn from the experience of later generations in the 1990s so that their agricultural taxes can be lowered.

[In 1999, there was a farmer named Zhou in Fengcheng, Jiangxi.

In view of the difficult life of farmers at that time, they not only had to work, but also had to bear heavy agricultural taxes.

So at his own expense, he compiled the documents of the imperial court at that time related to reducing the burden on farmers and distributed them to everyone.

At the same time, he encouraged farmers to fight for their own interests and resist some unreasonable fees.

After the local government learned about it, they arrested the farmer named Zhou on charges of misleading and disturbing people's hearts.

The problem was that just two days later, the farmer named Zhou died.

After learning the news, Zhou's family was troubled and more than 50 people went to the door of the local government to demand a reasonable explanation. However, the local government did not realize the seriousness of the problem and continued to muddle through and drove these people out of the government.

This kind of behavior completely angered the farmers, and good people died inexplicably. Thinking back to those years when the local government ignored the lives of the farmers in order to complete the assigned tasks, there was still a jingle circulating among the officials who had already deteriorated.

Hang yourself without untying the rope, drink medicine without picking up the bottle, throw yourself into a river without pulling someone in, and if you dare to beat someone, they will be arrested.

Soon, this incident quickly spread in the four surrounding areas. A total of tens of thousands of people took their own farm tools and a large group of people came to the door of the local government. The farmers who were bent on revenge were already carried away. mind.

They rushed into the government office and threw the county magistrate and an official from the second floor.

Then they dug a big hole and sold the two people's goods.

The local head catcher and a policeman who came to mediate were also beaten to death on the spot, and the head catcher's entity was fished on a tree for public display.

That night, Jiangxi dispatched a large number of police officers to Fengcheng, and the incident gradually subsided.

Soon after, the imperial court held an emergency meeting and reported a number of major mass incidents caused by the overburden of the peasants.

In view of the seriousness of the situation, it was emphasized that the country should immediately stop collecting and handing over agricultural taxes by coercive means.

In March 2000, the imperial court decisively issued a pilot notice on tax reform in agriculture, and officially launched the first rural tax reform pilot in Jiangxi, canceling agricultural taxes.

In 2003, the imperial court issued another notice to comprehensively promote the rural pilot work tax and fee reform and further promote it nationwide.

By 2005, agricultural taxes had been abolished in most areas across the country.

In January 2600, the agricultural tax, which has a history of years in China, completely withdrew from the stage of history.

The abolition of agricultural taxes is indeed due to the Fengcheng incident in Jiangxi to a certain extent, which made the court see the plight and urgent needs of farmers. 】

When ancient people from all dynasties saw this place, they were all shocked and dumbfounded.

Especially the common people of all dynasties were extremely excited at the moment, their faces were flushed, and their hearts were surging.

It turns out that the answer is this, which is beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

Originally they thought it was the later imperial court that took the initiative to cancel agricultural taxes, but they did not expect that this was actually the case.

If the people of later generations did not fight to the end, it is estimated that this agricultural tax will never be cancelled.

Some smart-minded people in various dynasties were not surprised at all by this incident, because they knew that no change in the world could be successful without bloodshed and sacrifice.

This is a rule summarized by all dynasties, and even future generations cannot avoid it.

Any reform, especially an unprecedented reform such as the abolition of agricultural taxes, will definitely involve bloodshed and sacrifices.

Reforms in the past dynasties, from Shang Yang's reform in the Qin Dynasty to Yongzheng's reforms in the Qing Dynasty, were all accompanied by bloodshed.

They deeply understand that there is never a savior, only themselves can save themselves.

Whenever the imperial court imposed additional taxes, forcing them to survive, no one stepped forward to save the people. In the end, they could only save themselves.

From the Qin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, everything was like this.

At this moment, the people of all dynasties were all agitated and had different thoughts.

They were greatly inspired by the Fengcheng incident in later generations and felt that they had found a direction that could greatly lighten their life burdens.

The reason why the agricultural tax in later generations was able to be abolished was all the result of the hard struggle of the people in later generations.

If they could also stand up and fight against exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, could they also force the court to lower taxes?

At this moment, people from all dynasties suddenly had the idea of ​​learning from future generations.

They learned something from the descendants of later generations. They must learn to fight when they are treated unfairly by the court.

When the common people in the last years of the dynasty saw such a inflammatory scene, the resentment in their hearts was instantly released, and they shouted to resist.

And this spark shows signs of getting stronger, and is always on the verge of a volcanic eruption.

It is estimated that if anyone raises his arms at this time, he will get a response from thousands of people.

When the rulers of various dynasties learned the reason for canceling agricultural taxes, their expressions changed greatly.

Among them, the emperors in the early and middle dynasties were better. At most, they felt a little headache.

But the emperors in the late stages of each dynasty all had frightened faces, as if the sky was about to fall.

The situation of their dynasty was not good to begin with. Now that the common people in the world know the examples of later generations, I am afraid they must imitate them.

At this moment, they were all despairing and had a premonition that war would break out in the world.

Li Shimin: This marquee is good in every way, but it is not suitable for the common people to see. It is too easy to incite the common people.

There are countless benefits he has received from Tianmu, whether it is information about the future or various amazing products, they all make him happy.

But there is only one thing. Sometimes some videos played by Tianmu can easily make people restless.

But for him, he didn't have to worry.

His Tang Dynasty was already on the rise and would soon usher in an unprecedented prosperous era, so there was no need to worry about riots among the people.

[This time, the reason why the agricultural tax in the context of the small-scale peasant economy failed to completely strangle the commodity economic tax as it did in the past thousands of years was because the latter easily counterattacked the agricultural tax.

It was because New China had accumulated a fortune at that time. To be precise, it was a major opportunity of three historical levels.

First of all, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the local tyrants were eliminated and their fields were divided. During the land reform, the landlord class that was parasitic on agriculture was completely eliminated. All land was state-owned and only contract management rights were opened to the public to prevent the recurrence of land annexations.

As a result, the biggest obstacle to the implementation of commodity economic taxes in the past thousands of years is that the agricultural landlord class has completely lost the soil for survival.

The second opportunity is that China decided to emancipate its mind, embrace the commodity economy, and move towards reform and opening up.

Stigmatizing activities against business practices and business thinking were quickly removed from life.

The launch of a series of pilot projects and projects continues to prove the possibility of business prosperity bringing about tax prosperity.

For the first time, the commodity economy received higher treatment than the small-scale peasant economy in official terms.

The third opportunity is China's successful accession to the WTO at the end of 2001.

China, which has joined the international commodity economic cycle, has exploded with even greater energy.

The scale of profits and taxes brought by the commodity economy has also been far behind agricultural taxes, and the contribution of agricultural taxes to the imperial government's finances has been minimal.

Especially considering the huge cost behind the collection of agricultural taxes, from the perspective of the court, there is no need for agricultural taxes to exist. 】

Wang Mang: Take all land as state-owned and only open the right to use it to the common people to prevent land annexation from happening again. Isn’t this land reform for future generations the land reform that I am pursuing now?

He deeply understood what the problems of the Han Dynasty were. In the final analysis, they were caused by the powerful annexation of land.

It is precisely for this reason that after he usurped the Han Dynasty and established a new dynasty, he ordered the land to be nationalized to solve the stubborn problem of land annexation.

I didn’t expect that later generations would also implement such a land policy, and I don’t know if they were based on his approach.

It's just a pity that from the original history, we know that his land reform failed completely, and he also lost his country and his life.

He learned lessons from history and did not carry out drastic land reform.

Instead, they adopted a mild approach and implemented land nationalization bit by bit, hoping to use a subtle and silent strategy to paralyze the opposition.

By then, by the time the opposition comes to their senses, it will be too late.

But even so, he is not sure whether this land reform can succeed, and is worried that it will repeat the same mistakes.

While he couldn't help but envy the later courts, he also admired the success of the land reform.

He was well aware of the great resistance faced by the landlord class in order to successfully implement land reform.

But it happened that later generations of the imperial court were able to succeed, which made him extremely envious, and at the same time he also looked forward to his own success.

After reading this, the landlord class in all dynasties were all frightened in their hearts.

Later generations forcibly eliminated the landlord class in order to nationalize the land. This made them, who were also landlords, inevitably feel a little sad.

But what makes them fortunate is that this matter did not fall on them and has little to do with them.

Moreover, their dynasty was different from later generations. Later generations could successfully eliminate the landlord class and force the land to be nationalized, but their dynasty would never succeed in doing so.

If the emperor of their dynasty wanted to imitate later generations and impose land reform, they landlord class would let the emperor know what it was like to change dynasties.

The emperors of various dynasties could only admire the later dynasties at this moment, having accomplished what they wanted to do but did not dare to do.

As emperors, they naturally eliminated the disadvantages of land annexation.

The demise of successive dynasties was all caused by widespread land annexation, which led to desperate people to rebel.

They also want to carry out land reform, forcibly nationalize land, and then redistribute it to the people, solving the problems of land annexation once and for all.

But they only dare to think about it and don't dare to implement it at all.

Not to mention not daring to implement it, just revealing the slightest hint of this will probably cause war and chaos in the world.

Land is the lifeblood of the landlord class. If their land is forcibly confiscated, they will definitely unite to rebel.

By that time, their emperor has also come to an end, and there will be no life left at all.

You must know that a landlord is not terrible, but the landlord class is terrible.

Strictly speaking, as emperors, they have countless imperial estates in their hands, and they themselves are the largest landowners in the country.

Land reform involves land confiscation, so will their vast imperial estate also be confiscated?

Even if they wanted to, this land reform would not be implemented.

After all, the civil and military ministers of the imperial court were all landowners with large amounts of land.

Moreover, officials, scholars, squires, etc. in various places are all landlords.

If they really implement the land confiscation reform, they will find that the officials in the court will strongly resist, the generals with heavy troops will also strongly resist, and the scholars all over the world will also strongly resist.

Looking at it this way, except for himself as the emperor, everyone around him strongly resisted.

Under such circumstances, it is simply impossible to advance land reform.

You know, whether it is Zhang Juzheng who promoted the one-whip method, or Yongzheng who promoted the idea of ​​dividing the land into acres.

The two land reformers only dared to collect taxes from the landlord class, but they never dared to gain land from the landlord class.

Even when the two of them imposed taxes on the landlord class, they met with great resistance, let alone the forced confiscation of the land of the landlord class.

I'm afraid that once the two of them come up with the idea of ​​confiscating the land, they will be torn to pieces by the people around them the next moment.

[The complete abolition of agricultural taxes in China means that for the first time in thousands of years, we have successfully broken through the instinctive thinking and thinking inertia of focusing on agriculture and suppressing business under the thinking of small-scale peasant economics.

After more than fifty years of eradicating vested interest groups, China, from the government to the people, has finally gained the ability to embrace a commodity economy and a market economy.

However, embracing the commodity economy is only the beginning. The real difficulty lies in maintaining it and guarding against the idea of ​​reversing reform and opening up at any time.

Although the landlord class that upheld the small-peasant mentality has long since disappeared, the cognitive inertia they left behind is still engraved on each of us, ready to counterattack at any time.

Westerners have been engaged in the commodity economy hundreds of years ago and have long been accustomed to it, so they have no worries about going backwards.

But we do, and it's heavy.

In the long history of China, doing business has always been considered to be fraud, because making a profit is contrary to Confucian etiquette.

Moreover, merchants have no fixed residence and are more managed than farmers.

Therefore, merchants have been despised by literati and officials for thousands of years.

During the Han Dynasty, merchants were not allowed to wear silk clothing and were not allowed to serve as officials.

The Jin Dynasty stipulated that merchants must wear two-colored shoes, one black and one white, specifically to humiliate merchants.

Even in dynasties such as the Tang, Song and Ming Dynasties, which had a strong commercial atmosphere, there were still many restrictions on merchants.

There are clearly stated rules on what colors of clothing cannot be worn and what occasions cannot be entered and exited.

All this stems from the instinctive contempt for the free commodity economy under the thinking of small farmers.

Because Asian agricultural civilization is not like Western pirate colonial civilization, you can just go out and grab a handful when you are hungry.

From the perspective of the small-scale peasant economy, if all the Chinese people go into business and no one is farming, the whole country will go hungry. Therefore, society as a whole hates all activities except agricultural production.

Of course, we now know that this is wrong. Business prosperity will feed back technology, and technology will promote food production.

After thousands of years, we have finally reached a social consensus that "everything is of inferior quality, only education is high quality", and businessmen were ranked last among scholars, farmers, and merchants.

This mentality, even today in the 21st century, is still deeply rooted in the hearts of many of us.

We always require businessmen to show perfect personality, otherwise we will become a tool to spurn and criticize them.

This is actually a kind of alienated thinking that blends small-scale peasant economic thinking and commodity economic thinking. It is a phenomenon that is widespread in all Asian courts that are influenced by Confucian cultural thoughts.

For example, we often hear cynical comments such as "No one asks questions at the general's grave, but the actor's family affairs are known to the world" to belittle some entertainment industries that are not engaged in production.

This shows that even today in the 21st century, we still have not been able to get rid of the cognitive inertia brought about by small-scale peasant economic thinking.

They are still intentionally or unintentionally attacking the living environment of commercial activities based on the so-called top and bottom rankings thousands of years ago.

Actors are also a commodity economy, and they are also a commodity economy with high added value.

For example, the Disney Company in the United States has a yearly revenue of nearly 6000 billion yuan.

As the main tax payer in Guizhou Province, Moutai's annual income is only 1300 billion.

The amount of taxes Disney pays alone is an astronomical figure.

If the Disney Company was established in China and paid taxes to China, then the money could be used like agricultural taxes to develop and build infrastructure, subsidize farmers and benefit people's livelihood, not to mention exporting global culture and even promoting public opinion.

Just like what American Hollywood movies do, the heroes are all Americans and the bad guys are foreigners.

At that time, the Chinese film "House of Flying Daggers" surpassed the effect of countless Confucius Institutes.

But what are we doing?

Bruce Lee introduced Chinese Kung Fu to several generations of foreigners. However, to this day, we can still see some people criticizing that Bruce Lee does not know Kung Fu and is just an actor who is praised for his talent.

This is a reflection of the small farmers’ thinking that constantly requires everyone to have a perfect personality, otherwise they will inevitably end up being stigmatized.

Because small-scale farmers’ economic thinking never looks at the possible benefits, the most typical example is the online game industry, which was once comparable to electronic opium in the minds of many people.

But today we realize that the West’s pursuit of game image quality eventually became a hotbed for the birth and growth of artificial intelligence brain GPUs.

From today's perspective, there is no difference between those who were full of positive energy to resist and the conservative ministers in the late Qing Dynasty who were full of saying "Western gadgets are just fancy tricks, China still values ​​etiquette."

Their thinking determines the upper limit of their cognition, and they have no idea that boiling water and opening the lid of the pot can eventually push the train. 】

Businessmen from all dynasties were extremely envious of businessmen of later generations who could be recognized by later generations of courts.

In later generations, the imperial court personally stepped down to give a platform to the businessmen, which was something they could not even dream of doing.

You must know that in the dynasty they lived in, no matter whether they were court officials or ordinary people, they had a discriminatory mentality towards their businessmen and always insulted them at every turn.

Their merchants also made contributions to society. They not only exchanged goods, but also paid taxes to the court, but everyone often turned a blind eye to this.

Although they are richer and live a better life than ordinary people.

But the social status of their businessmen is the lowest, and anyone can curse them.

Their biggest wish is to improve their social status and have the same status as ordinary people.

But just this alone will never be possible.

Their merchant group was even willing to pay more taxes to the court in exchange for the court treating their merchants equally.

But the court was not willing to give them this opportunity at all, and would even sneer at them and say that they were wishful thinking.

In this regard, they businessmen can do nothing but complain.

Their only hope now is that after watching this video, the current emperor understands the importance of businessmen and is willing to improve their status.

[Only by studying hard can you become useful, and only when you become useful can you help the development of society.

Therefore, in order to get the final result, we must get rid of distracting factors from the beginning and concentrate on learning. This is our simple understanding all the time.

Results dominate behavior, which is in line with the ideas of agricultural civilization.

If you want to have a good harvest, you have to work hard from spring. If the court wants to have a good fiscal year, it has to collect taxes.

Agricultural taxes are best collected. As for the interference factor of businessmen, they need to be suppressed and belittled at all times, so that everyone will give up the idea of ​​​​doing business and go to farming and paying taxes honestly.

This conservative idea of ​​​​small farmer economy has brought great hidden harm to our commercial economy in today's era of globalized trade.

However, this also makes us look back at the major challenges and practical significance of reforms such as reform and opening up and the elimination of agricultural taxes.

Businessmen are not saints, and we can no longer demand everyone from the perspective of a small-scale peasant economy.

It is true that businessmen are greedy by nature, but our laws are tools to limit their greed.

If businessmen cause wanton chaos, they should not just blame the businessmen, but should reflect on the room for legislative progress.

The court only needs to draw red lines for supervision, and the rest of the stage is left to companies to play freely. The desire for money will spontaneously drive businessmen to pursue profits, which will then be converted into taxes and enter the national treasury.

Therefore, there is no distinction between good and bad in doing business. As long as we can make money for the government's finances, this is our ultimate goal. We cannot be too scared to go to the fields to plant crops when we hear the chirping of grasshoppers.

When we were children, we would all laugh at the man who looked for the sword against the carved marks in "Carving the Boat and Seeking the Sword". When we grow up, we will find that it has taken us two thousand years just not to look at legitimate businessmen with colored glasses and the theory of original sin.

Due to various reasons such as reality and consciousness, especially for a court that has thought deeply about the small-scale peasant economy for thousands of years, it is extremely difficult to abolish agricultural taxes.

We were born under the red flag and grew up in the new era.

There is always an illusion that it is natural for the commodity economy to dominate. It has only been 45 years since the reform and opening up.

The one-whip method lasted for 51 years from pilot to nationwide implementation.

The reform of the whip law seemed to be a done deal, but Zhang Juzheng's life-long efforts were in vain after his death.

If we count the abolition of agricultural taxes to today, it has only been 17 years. Many people still have the inner demons of the small-scale peasant economy, and reversing the direction of history is not just talk.

Fortunately, China at the beginning of the 21st century had the courage to break the boat and seal away the agricultural tax forever as quickly as possible.

This also proves our determination to continue to expand opening up and maintain the prosperity of the commodity economy market. 】

Li Longji: There is no stability without farmers, and there is no wealth without business. I naturally know the importance of businessmen, and my prosperous Kaiyuan era cannot be separated from the contributions of businessmen.

Whether it will inhibit businessmen depends on the agricultural situation at that time.

After all, food is the most important thing for the people. Only when the people's food problem is solved first can we talk about other things.

If even the common people's food is a problem, businessmen will naturally have to be suppressed at this time, otherwise there will be trouble.

Compared with emperors of other dynasties, he was more friendly to businessmen and formulated many policies to support commercial activities.

The reason why he strongly supports commercial activities is precisely because the food problem of the people of the Tang Dynasty has been solved, and then it is necessary to vigorously develop commerce to make the Tang Dynasty prosperous.

Therefore, he strongly agrees with some of the views in the video. As long as good policies are formulated, businessmen will have a positive impact on the court.

Because of this, with his strong support for businessmen, the Tang Dynasty ushered in the prosperous Kaiyuan era when all nations came to dynasty.

(End of this chapter)