Chapter 885: Big Wedding (Part 1)
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, it is the spring of the sixth year of Wanli. The ice and snow have been removed, and the swallows have returned, and the willow branches have green elms and green seeds. The vast North China Plain wakes up from the long winter and rejuvenates its vitality. The cows and horses are cheering and making spring light like wine. The heaven and earth warm up the fragrance of flowers, how can it not make people feel relaxed and happy?
During these six years, God has given enough face to the Ming Dynasty. Every year, the weather is good and there is nothing wrong in all directions. This is a great opportunity for the reform of the experts. Since August of the sixth year of Longqing, when he was silent, the country has implemented a series of reforms in the past five and a half years, and has re-cleared the rights and responsibilities of the central and local governments in politics. The most prominent of these is the increase in fiscal power and the decentralization of administrative power.
The increase in fiscal power is a major achievement. Before this, although the national supply was distributed by the central government, the actual implementation was entirely dependent on local yamen that did not belong to each other. Local yamen... are usually county-level officials who directly transport supplies to nearby yamen, river workers and other units that need supplies according to the amount specified by superiors. A prefecture and county must deliver money and grain to more than a dozen different small units; a yamen must receive supplies sent by more than a dozen prefectures and counties. This short-range supply line is like a spider web, densely spread across the country. Its degree of inefficiency and rigidity can be said to have no ancient people in front of them and no visitors after them.
Just imagine, if more than a dozen prefectures and counties supply them in fixed quantities, it is inevitable that some prefectures and counties cannot be paid on schedule due to various reasons, while other prefectures and counties are not obliged to make up for their vacancies. Therefore, the country is clearly capable, but always has insufficient supply. This situation that affects the whole body, let alone make any changes. Therefore, the fiscal crisis caused by the country has been completely unsolvable for the past two hundred years.
However, the emergence of the law on the law provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to solve this chronic disease, so that the central government's total collection of the general branch was no longer just a slogan. In the second year of Wanli, the Ministry of Revenue established the "Duzhi National Money and Grain General Office", referred to as the "Duzhi General Office". The Minister of the Ministry of Revenue Wang Guoguang personally served as the envoy of the Duzhi, and the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue Tao Da, was appointed as the deputy envoy of the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue Tao Da, who set up the north and south general warehouses in the two capitals and set up branches in various provinces across the country. It is stipulated that the tax bank collected by each province shall be released and transferred to the sub-warehouses first except as part of the local expenses, and shall not be intercepted by themselves.
According to regulations, each province's warehousing division must summarize the bank account to the Ministry of Revenue before ten months of each year. After the budget for the next year, the Ministry of Revenue will coordinate the distribution, and all the supplies will be supplied according to military needs and materials will be purchased and purchased by the compradors. All of them will be recruited to recruit merchants to purchase and transport them on their behalf.
The so-called "purchase" is a government procurement act like "purchase". However, the "purchase" that existed in the early days was a transaction between the government and farmers or small producers, without going through the merchants, and it did not happen frequently. Because most of the materials needed by the government were directly collected from the people through the form of tribute. In short, before the middle of Jiajing, any form of government procurement was only accidental, unspecified, and did not form a scale.
In the past fifty years, the status and role of the commodity economy in the entire social economy have been significantly improved. The significant change it brought about was that a large number of materials were pouring into the market. Not only Suhang silk sold to Europe, Songjiang cotton cloth, which was clothed in the world, Jingdezhen porcelain with prices of gold, but also those grains, cotton, sericulture, tea, indigo, fruits, etc. that could only be produced and used by themselves in the era of small peasant economy, have entered the market and become commodities. These commodities are numerous and good, which has increasingly stimulated the people's production from more to more, and progressed to less and more. This social division of labor with deep cultivation has increased the value of production and promoted the mutual exchange between various places.
In addition to old commercial centers such as Nanjing, Suzhou, Songjiang, and Hangzhou, many small and medium-sized commercial towns have emerged, such as Shengze Town and Shuangyang City in Wujiang; Buse Town and Changle City in Zhejiang, and commercial towns are spread across the southeast. The north is dominated by Beijing, including small and medium-sized cities such as Hejian, Linqing, Kaifeng, Xi'an, and Taiyuan, as well as Yuncheng, Zhangde Town, which are connected to the commercial network in the south, forming a huge commercial network throughout the country. Merchants shuttle through the freight north and south, and each town is both a concentration of goods and a commodities exchange center. Therefore, goods from anywhere can be bought from the market. Especially in those central cities, although they do not have developed industrial and handicrafts, the goods in the city are sporadic, and merchants gather all the goods from all over the world for sale, and they have everything they want.
In sharp contrast, the strict household registration system at the beginning of the country collapsed. Not only did the military households die in name only, but all kinds of craftsmen responsible for producing for the government also fled. These people changed their names and joined the ranks of commercial production. The disappearance of the official workshops made it difficult for the government to directly collect the required materials.
These emerging economic phenomena have had a huge impact on the various policies and measures of the government. Some old and conventional practices are not feasible. They are replaced by some new methods. In the tide of commodity economy, many officials feel deeply involved in collecting various physical objects in the government and being responsible for transportation. They are not only troublesome, but also often get punished for various reasons. They hope to borrow the powerful power of merchants to complete tasks easily.
By the end of Jiajing, merchants had become an important force in controlling social and economics. Most of the residents in major cities were businessmen, and the remaining half were employees who worked for merchants. It can be said that the entire urban economy had been controlled by merchants. Rich businessmen with tens of thousands of dollars were like crucian carp crossing the river, and only those with family income of one million could be called wealthy. The other two or three hundred thousand dollars could only be called middle-aged merchants.
People will know hundreds of years later that money is a public system, which grants the power that originally belongs to the public to the private sector. The more private capital accumulates, the greater the power it has to manipulate public life. In particular, merchants are good at dealing with government and local forces. The richer they are, the more powerful they are, which makes them not as easy to exploit and drive as farmers.
Especially after Jiajing, Shen Mo's call to "procure scholars with businessmen, and support merchants with scholars" has become popular in the past decade. Merchants in various provinces have generally followed the example of Shanxi merchants and invested the large amount of money they earned into the local cultural and educational cause, opened schools, sponsored scholars, sponsored literary associations, and gave gifts to scholars. After more than ten years of unremitting efforts, there have been large numbers of officials and literati in the court who spoke for them...
Once the government urged the government to be too fierce, and the demands were excessive, and they refused to pay the debt, countless literati immediately criticized the people, exclaimed and criticized the government for "beating bones and marrow, causing everyone to destroy their families and escape one after another." Some officials would also write in a sympathetic tone, saying, "A family of tens of thousands of gold is gone, and therefore they jumped into the river and the river. It is so sour and pierced. Who is not the poisonous of cruel officials?" It seems that all the merchants will go bankrupt overnight.
Moreover, the people were not on the side of the government. The mainstream image of businessmen in this era was the Confucian businessmen who were dissatisfied with wealth and righteousness. They used a very small amount of money to build bridges and pave roads to help the victims, so that the people would never forget their goodness... This was particularly obvious in the later uproar. Because the people were far from awakening, they regarded the landlords and gentry who directly exploited them as gods and sincerely supported them. Not to mention the merchants with more hidden means of exploitation...
In this environment, it is absolutely impossible for the government to drive merchants without paying money.
So officials tried every means to increase their silver and money income. In the first year of Zhengtong, the land tax in the seven southeastern provinces changed to silver and paid taxes, which represented the changes in the government's desire and policies. Soon, all taxes outside the land tax gradually replaced the goods with silver. Until the first whip method was launched, the physical tax was completely abolished and only cash was collected from the people. The government's warehouses were no longer full of physical objects, but were replaced by white silver. Officials could finally purchase more complete varieties and more abundant quantities from the market.
However, it is obviously inconvenient and inappropriate for the government to directly send people to the market to buy goods of many reputations and colors... For the scholars and officials who are not speaking of profit, they are really losing their identity and lack the patience to bargain with the common people. So another widely adopted form emerges, that is, to seek intermediaries between the government's purchasing and market supply. The government only contacts the intermediaries, and all the required materials are purchased and transported to designated locations. This kind of intermediaries is called "compradors". They are generally big merchants with wealthy resources, and the scope of purchasing is all in all, including everything from food to bedding, from ink to charcoal. As long as it is needed by the government, they can be used to attract investment.
The comprador merchant who won the bid can get a guaranteed ticket issued by the Ministry of Revenue and cashed it with the ticket after transporting the designated materials to the designated location. However, the government's reputation has long been bankrupt. The merchants are worried that they will get nothing after completing the errand, so they are reluctant to move forward with the government's solicitation. They proposed that they hope that the government can deposit the money in Huilian Number or Rishenglong first, and if they agree, they can also deposit a deposit. At that time, they will complete the errand and withdraw money by the ticket. If the deadline is exceeded, they are willing to be punished.
After the financial power was collected, the local government was freed from the heavy task of retrieving it, but the opportunity to take advantage of it was also lost. If there were no corresponding compensation measures, it would cause strong resistance from the local officials. Even if there was a mountain of tests to be tested, the officials would rebel.
This is why Shen Mo knew that there was fire consumption but did not make any regulations. For this kind of method of not having a scattered battle but having a secret profit, it is naturally more laborious and stung than the "spin-spin-kicking husk" and has to join forces with profiteers to resell. It is much more elegant and simple, and naturally it is a big match for the appetite of officials.
With the fire consumption, officials at the prefecture and county level are naturally satisfied. But for the officials in the border areas, they never need to kick and sell food by themselves, so there are only the young people who are filial to the real money and silver, so whether the fire is consumed has no meaning to them. What they care about is that as the financial power is collected, the power in their hands is reduced. Especially for those wealthy provinces, they do whatever they want, and never have to look at the face of the Ministry of Revenue. The Ministry of Revenue has to beg them, asking you guys to do it well and give two more big money to turn around.
Now that the financial power is handed over, they will beg their grandfather to sue their grandmother, and the grandson of the Ministry of Revenue has become an old man. Do you think the governors and governors of various provinces are willing?
Shen Mo prepared another big gift for them, that is, the decentralization of administrative power. Simply put, there are three points: one is to change the governor and governor to a local official, second, reset the local administrative structure, and third, decentralize part of the appointment and removal power. This is really too satisfying for the governors of various provinces... Mr. Shen is worthy of being a caring person for everyone and knows our needs very well.
Although in ordinary people, the highest chief of a province is the governor and the governor, and they are indeed performing the duties of the head of a province. However, if you open a "Record of Officials of the Ming Dynasty", you will find that in the structure of local officials, the governor, the chief commander, and the commander are the highest chiefs, and there is no governor or the shadow of the governor.
This is because in order to prevent the ministers from being dictatorial, Emperor Taizu abolished the prime minister in the central government and analyzed the politics of the Secretariat to the six ministries. In the local area, he also abolished the Secretariat and divided the power of the provincial government into three parts, appointed the State Council to be in charge of the political affairs of a province, and appointed the Censor and the Censor and the Censor and the Censor and the Censor and the Censor and the Military Affairs Office. The three are not affiliated with each other and restrict each other to avoid the disadvantages of local power. But just like the central government cannot live without the prime minister and later the cabinet appeared, the three local departments were hindered each other and were difficult to decide when things happened, so that the governor and the governor appeared.
Governor and Governor are two verbs, which are different from nouns such as "Shangshu" and "Governors". They obviously mean temporary dispatch. Governors means to inspect local governments and govern military and civilians. Whenever there are major disasters and chaos, the power of the whole province needs to be unified to pacify the whole province, the country will send envoys to govern the local governments, and the matter will be terminated after the work is completed, so there is no fixed number of personnel, and there is no full-time job. However, later, the affairs of each province are more and more. The former governor has not returned, and the latter comes again. As a result, the powers of the governors overlap. In the fifth year of Xuande, the first batch of permanent governors were born, and a generation of famous ministers Yu Qian was among them.
Chapter completed!