I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 512 Tax Reform
Although Zhu Houxuan didn't know when or whether he could become emperor, he still had to do what he had to do and promote political reforms.

So one morning during the court session, after dealing with other matters, Zhu Houxuan suddenly said: "The tax reforms tried out in the Beijing Special District and Northern Zhili are now very successful, so I plan to implement the tax reforms throughout the country."

Zhu Houxuan's words caught everyone present off guard. After finally having two days of peace, they were about to start reforms again?
However, Yang Tinghe still asked, "How exactly do you plan to change it, Your Highness?"

"Governing a large country is like cooking a small fish. I am not going to make a big change this time. Instead, I am going to change the taxation in kind to the collection of money. Currently, silver dollars and silver yuan certificates have been circulated in various provinces, but only some taxes are paid in silver, and the rest are still mainly in kind. It is better to convert all local taxes into new money starting from next year, so that the local governments can also save some manpower."

Jiang Mian asked: "If the grain tax is changed to silver, where will the annual grain be transported from?
Zhu Houxuan said: "Retain the original tax collection in some grain-producing areas along the canal and the Yangtze River. The grain tax in these places is enough to support 400 million shi of grain every year. In addition, the Royal Group has many sea vessels, and the cost of sea transportation is much lower than that of grain transport. We can also consider changing grain transport to sea transportation."

Zhu Houxuan had long wanted to change the canal transportation. The Grand Canal is a river full of defects. There are great disadvantages in using the Grand Canal for transportation. First, the canal is narrow and shallow, and often faces the problem of insufficient water, especially in early spring and late autumn, when the river dries up and needs artificial water diversion. Second, the Yellow River often bursts, and the silt it carries flows into the canal, and it costs a lot to dredge the river.

Just maintaining the Grand Canal requires a huge amount of manpower, material resources and financial resources, which intensifies social contradictions and increases the burden on the people, so it is better to switch to sea transportation.

The Royal Group not only has many seagoing vessels, but also has continuously improved its seagoing vessel manufacturing technology. The Royal Group has also continuously improved its navigation technology, and even built many lighthouses along the coast to guide the direction. The Royal Group has also launched insurance business for seagoing vessels, which has reduced the risk of sea transportation to the lowest level.
The four cabinet ministers remained silent for the time being, as they were all carefully considering the pros and cons.

If only the in-kind taxation in some grain-producing areas on both sides of the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal was retained, it would definitely save countless transportation costs, which would be a great thing for the country and the people, but it would hurt the interests of the officials and soldiers in the grain transport.

Mao Ji asked: "Once the reform is completed, there will be at least 300,000 unemployed soldiers and workers. How will their livelihoods be arranged?"

Zhu Houxuan smiled and said, "I'm afraid most of the canal soldiers and workers will have a better life."

Everyone was silent.

The fact is just as Zhu Houxuan said, the canal soldiers and workers seem to have a stable job, but their lives are very hard. Even when there is no transportation task, they will be forced to do private work by the canal transport military officers. They work hard all year round but get no salary, and can only survive on meager rations. It is a good thing that they can no longer transport rice. They can work and earn money by themselves, which is a liberation of human resources.

But what if you can't find a job?
Moreover, before finding a job, they had to resolve their household registration issues, as the household registrations of the canal soldiers and canal workers were registered separately.

This is the key point, and also the original meaning of what the officials meant when they said “the food and clothing of millions of canal workers depend on it.”

Zhu Houxuan continued: "In the areas where grain is converted to money, a small number of transport soldiers and workers will continue to be employed, and the remaining transport tax silver will all be transferred to civilian households!"

"No," Jiang Mian reminded, "It's just a matter of words for Your Highness to turn them all into civilian households. But for those canal soldiers and workers, they only have household registration but cannot get land, and they will all become refugees. There will be more than 300,000 refugees all of a sudden. What if some scoundrels raise their arms and do what Chen Sheng and Wu Guang did?"

Zhu Houxuan smiled and said: "If the government no longer controls household registration, refugees will naturally become vagrants." Zhu Houxuan did not mention the idea of ​​migrating the canal workers and canal soldiers, because although the Royal Group had many sea vessels, its main transportation capacity was limited, and the transportation capacity allocated to immigration was even more limited. Recently, a lot of this immigration capacity had been occupied by the relocation of the garrisons, so it could not be allocated to the canal workers and canal soldiers.

But it’s a good opportunity to change the Ming Dynasty’s household registration system first.

"Your Highness, no!" Yang Tinghe firmly objected, "If we no longer control the household registration system, how will the tax be collected?"

Every state affair is not independent, but interconnected. Any change in one area will cause a chain reaction, so reform is never an easy task.

Zhu Houxuan said: "The most reasonable way should be to 'spread the tax on land'. But now it is definitely impossible to implement the tax on land, so let's ignore it for now. The local officials will figure out how to collect the tax on land. If you focus on the household registration, it will be easier to collect the tax on land."

The idea of ​​equalizing the land tax has been proposed for a long time, but no one has the ability to implement it.
Yang Tinghe was speechless.

Dingliang is the poll tax.

Kangxi said "In prosperous times, the population will increase, but taxes will never be increased." This does not mean that the country will not increase taxes, but that the quota will be set for a certain year, and the new population in the future will no longer have to pay a head tax.

These eight words are pure nonsense. Even if the state wants to impose a poll tax, it is difficult to do so. Local officials will not allow this to happen. The more statutory poll taxes there are, the more difficult it is for local officials to complete their tasks. Therefore, they actively conceal the population, and the population number on the household registration books is always difficult to increase.

The population of the Ming Dynasty is just like this. The population on the Yellow Book is only slightly more than that at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, at more than 60 million. The Ming Dynasty has been peaceful for more than a hundred years, so why is the population so small? It is because there are many "black households" and "hidden households" without household registration.

Yongzheng came up with a policy of "equalizing the land tax and the poll tax", which abolished the head tax, and the national population suddenly grew explosively. This did not mean that the actual population size was increasing rapidly, but that the people and officials were willing to conduct population registration truthfully.

The short-term explosive growth is the result of true registration, while the long-term growth is related to the introduction of new crops, the improvement of medical technology, and the reduction of the population burden on ordinary people after the abolition of the head tax.
There were three main types of poll taxes in the Ming Dynasty, namely: Lijia silver, Junyao silver and salt banknote silver (there were other taxes, but they could be ignored).

Salt tax and silver are salt consumption taxes levied based on population size, and this money needs to be submitted to the central government.

Now the Royal Group has monopolized the production and sale of salt, which has actually abolished the salt banknote silver.

Lijia silver and Junyao silver are local fiscal revenues that do not have to be submitted to the central government, and are also an important source of gray income for the magistrates.

(End of this chapter)