Chapter 116         Yizhidan

What did Li Dongyang say in his memorial?

He said something.

The first thing is county-level finance.

That is the part that remains in the Ming Dynasty’s taxes.

The remaining part generally requires the salaries of officials and the food of local students.

Nowadays, the county-level finance in the Ming Dynasty was in an increasingly weak situation from the founding of the country to the later period.

And the reserve warehouse is a symbol.

During the Hongwu period, almost all counties had reserve warehouses. Due to the size of prefectures, they stored tens of thousands of stones of grain, ranging from thousands of stones. By the mid-Ming Dynasty, almost all of them were abandoned.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the local financial resources of the imperial court were not enough to maintain local expenses.

Water conservancy, roads, disaster relief and other expenses are not enough to maintain. The only way for local officials is to find ways to ask wealthy families to pay.

Although it is not at this point yet.

But there are already signs.

Overall, the court is too concerned about local finances.

Generally speaking, there are certain examples of local expenses. For example, in a county, during the Hongwu period, the water conservancy expenditure was taken as an average, which was the funds for water conservancy in the county that remained.

This is pretty good when it was during the Hongwu period, or not far away during the Hongwu period.

But decades later, modern times have become nothing.

Moreover, taxes cannot be collected.

It was like during the Xuande period, Emperor Xuanzong exempted tens of millions of stones of money and grain in Jiangnan, and there were more or less reductions in money and grain in various places.

There is a practice that tax exemptions are generally reduced and exemptions, and the fortune is not reduced or exempted.

In other words, for example, some households in Ninghua County have difficulty in nature or man-made disasters, and they really cannot collect taxes, so the county magistrate submitted a request for reduction and exemption.

The court approved that it is okay to reduce or exempt. However, the money and grain that should be paid to Beijing cannot be reduced. The money and grain that is reduced or exempted must be deducted from the retained part.

This actually makes some sense.

If they do not do this, the officials below will only make more efforts to use the court's money and food as their favor.

In ancient times, productivity was underdeveloped, and almost every year the tax was harsh.

If you keep trying your best to urge, no one will be able to collect taxes.

But this creates a phenomenon, that is, there is almost no independent fiscal power at the bottom.

The county magistrate seems majestic, but in fact he can't do anything. After all, the county has no money and wants to do something, he has to ask the local rich households for favors.

Of course, I could only persuade students to study. I decided to make a case and urge them to pay money and food, and I couldn’t do anything else.

As for the real disaster, it is impossible to even block the people.

In Li Dongyang's memorial, the first half talks about the disadvantages, and in the second half, we will talk about the solution.

Li Dongyang did not say that the court would give more retention ratios. Just think about it, unless the forehead is kicked by a donkey, Zhu Qizhen would not need to reject it, and the Ministry of Revenue and the Cabinet would not agree.

After all, there is a strong idea of ​​unification in Confucianism. Only those who strengthen central power and financial resources will definitely not be reduced.

So Li Dongyang did not talk about this at all in the solution.

But he proposed a way to clarify local finances.

He proposed the Yizhidan.

This easy-to-know single is divided into two parts.

Part of it is the documents left to the people when the court collects taxes.

In order to prevent clerks from cheating and oppressing the people, the tax list collected must be divided into two parts, so that the people can hold one point, and the clerks who do business must hold one point.

It looks simple.

After all, modern people have long been used to various bills. When they go to the government to do business, they are even very worried about this bill and that bill.

However, doing this can greatly prevent clerks from taking action.

The other part is the tax collection of the imperial court, all of which are posted outside the county government, so that the people can know it well.

This includes some intentions of government affairs disclosure.

This alone has only reduced the degree of deceiving the clerks' deception of the people, and it is still much worse to improve county-level finance.

Afterwards, Li Dongyang transformed the retained part into two parts, part of which was regular expenses, which were generally fixed expenses, such as the salary of officials, etc., and the other part was non-regular expenses.

There are two parts of this, one is a payment. After reporting the account to the higher authorities, you can directly leave it from the starting tax, and on the other hand, it is a balance.

Because the taxes of the Ming Dynasty are all fixed quotas, the surplus may not be large and not too much.

To be honest, Li Dongyang’s analysis of county-level finance is not very clever, but the most amazing thing he did was to introduce a large number of forms.

Even in his memorials, he also had several samples of tables, such as the sample for the people, the easy-to-know sample, the annual tax collection amount that the court had to post, specifically for everyone, and various table samples in the county government.

And take Ninghua County as an example.

From the chaotic finances, Li Dongyang praised hundreds of stones of grain and dozens of coins of copper coins.

In addition, Li Dongyang also made a special mention of one thing, which is to go to the public.

Or to go to refugees.

Ninghua County where Li Dongyang is located is a small county in the valley, but the population is quite large, so Ninghua County has a specialty, which is bandits.

Most of these bandits are people who cannot afford to eat, and they can only find ways to take risks, just to seek temporary food and clothing.

Therefore, Li Dongyang proposed to ask the court to migrate from Ninghua, the people who had no industry and were lying on the line of life and death to move to Yizhou.

He even asked the court to implement this method in Fujian, Jiangxi and other places.

Although it sounds very inhumane.

The poor have no power to die in their hometown. But there is no way to do anything. Because Fujian and Jiangxi are too crowded, the state of land annexation is second only to the two capitals of the north and south.

And there are countless specialties like bandits.

Even the famous Wang Yangming suppressed bandits in Jiangxi, and even the main force of King Ning's rebellion was the bandits recruited by King Ning, who actually had tens of thousands of troops.

Before Zhu Qizhen ascended the throne, there were people in Jiangxi, and they once gathered around 30,000 people. In Zhu Qizhen, Ye Liuzong moved to Jiangxi and Fujian.

These are all the roots.

Why is Liu Dingzhi satisfied with Li Dongyang?

It is Li Dongyang that he did not force himself to implement the one-whip method in Ninghua County. Ninghua County is not very suitable for the one-whip method. Although most court officials may not be sure of this, they all expected it.

Especially the ministers in the cabinet are mostly skilled and have local administrative experience. Many people have expected this after the proposed one-whip law.

If Li Dongyang really wants to advance and applaud the one-whip method.

Not only will Li Dongyang not have any trouble, but he will be promoted by the court. After all, when the emperor is about to promote the One Whip Technique, he will definitely not pour cold water on the reform at this time.

But it doesn't mean that Li Dongyang has nothing to do.

I pray that Li Dongyang will not be caught in Ninghua, but I just want to ignore others and not know it unless I don’t do it myself, and maybe I will be revealed in the future.

You should know that being an official is not a matter of one year or two, but a matter of a lifetime.

If there is a stain, even if it is hidden, it will not be hidden because of its higher and higher status.

Now Li Dongyang is doing very well.

On the one hand, although Li Dongyang did not directly say that he supported or opposed the one-whip method, the reform attitude he showed from the memorial was the same.

No one will classify Li Dongyang as an opposition to reform.

This attitude is first shown.

The various measures proposed by Li Dongyang seem to change some local disadvantages. A heart of loving the people is consistent with His Majesty's political propositions.

And if you think about it carefully, you will find out.

In fact, there is a secret.

Isn’t anyone really unaware of the situation at the grassroots level of Daming?

No, if you know that it cannot be solved, what's the use? The chaotic grassroots level is actually one of the political ecology of clerks. If you don't mess up the situation, how can these clerks get their hands on it and make a living?

Although this method is not surprising, it is also perfect. But if there are not enough qualified officials, will this method work?

Of course it cannot be.

Therefore, this matter was bypassed. In fact, it was back to the reform of the clerks proposed by His Majesty. It can even be said that he was secretly flattering the emperor. If the clerks do not reorganize the system, the people will not be able to rest.
Chapter completed!