Although the Embroidered Uniform Guard (Jinyiwei) has appeared to have kept a low profile and wielded less power in recent years, the psychological impact they have had on the civil and military officials of the Ming Dynasty is still profound. Even the wealthy and powerful gentry trembled at the mere mention of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
Emperor Ying Shi's deliberate mention of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot, his henchmen, is clearly a warning shot.
In reality, everyone knows that matters like tax collection generally don't require the garrison to be mobilized. If the garrison were to be mobilized, it would almost certainly indicate a popular uprising. Or rather, these garrisons were simply prepared for powerful and aristocratic families.
Zhu Yunying planned to use tax collection to severely suppress corruption. Normal people have a very low tolerance for corrupt officials.
Don't argue that a corrupt but capable official is better than an incompetent but honest one; that's a very rare exception. The most important thing is that corrupt officials in office are often involved in corrupt dealings, which has an extremely negative impact on the overall atmosphere of officialdom and the governance of people's livelihoods.
Looking at the civil and military officials below with their varied expressions, Zhu Yunying didn't say anything more. Some things were better left unsaid.
Zhu Yunying had not forgotten his main task: to rectify officialdom and crack down on corruption. This was a secondary matter, not the fundamental reason for summoning important officials. Zhu Yunying had not forgotten that he still wanted to reform the tax system and would not be distracted or fooled.
With a sigh, Zhu Yunying said with concern, "The Two-Tax System has been in place for hundreds of years and has been improved by successive dynasties. However, it seems that my beloved ministers are well aware of its shortcomings."
In fact, many people are well aware of the shortcomings of the two tax laws. Although the original intention of these two tax laws was good, and they did indeed have many positive aspects.
However, the Two-Tax System also frequently involved taxation in monetary form, which was later converted into in-kind payments. Alternatively, over time, greedy feudal officials created various pretexts to extort money beyond the fixed tax quotas. Furthermore, many officials, seeking promotion, levied exorbitant taxes on top of the regular taxes. These heavy burdens of exorbitant taxes plunged the toiling people into a miserable state worse than death.
Most importantly, after the implementation of the Two-Tax System, the problem of land consolidation will become more severe. The rich will force the poor to sell their land without transferring the tax, leaving the tax behind even after the land is sold. Eventually, when they are unable to pay, they will have no choice but to flee. Land concentration will reach an unprecedented level, and more farmers will become tenants or farmhands.
Or it could be a situation where money is valued more than goods, forcing farmers to sell silk, grain, or other products at low prices to pay taxes, thus increasing their burden.
There are also problems such as the failure to adjust household registration levels for a long time, which may lead to the failure to implement the principle of equal burden on the poor and rich.
After all, with the current level of productivity, conducting household registration surveys and the like frequently would be an extremely troublesome task.
Yu Xin stepped forward and quickly said, "Your Majesty, although the Two-Tax System has its shortcomings, the administration is clean and the court is fair, and all taxes collected from the national treasury are deposited into the coffers."
“That makes sense.” Zhu Yunying nodded, but still emphasized, “I know you should be cautious, my dear minister. But you must not neglect long-term planning. The country has a lot of land and few people, and all the people own land. However, the country has been established for more than 30 years, and many wealthy households have more and more land, while some farmers have become tenants. You must not forget this.”
This is also what Zhu Yunying is worried about now, fearing that the Ming Dynasty will decline after reaching its peak.
The Ming Dynasty is currently politically stable and has been in a period of continuous recuperation and development. All of this has led to a significant improvement in people's livelihoods, and the living conditions of many people have begun to improve.
At this time, phenomena such as land annexation began to emerge. Even if it didn't seem particularly severe, or if land annexation didn't yet pose a threat to the Ming Dynasty, it couldn't be assumed that nothing was happening.
Zhu Yunying had such concerns because he was the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and his long-term vision was to ensure the continuation of the dynasty.
However, the so-called "stability" of some civil and military officials in the Wuying Hall is simply a matter of not wanting to see changes in the court's structure.
For these people, all they wanted was a few years or decades of peace and wealth in their term. As for the issue of the Ming Dynasty's succession, they weren't necessarily particularly concerned about it, nor did they think about things that far in the future.
Yu Xin hesitated to speak, because he was naturally aware of what Zhu Yunying had said, after all, he was the Minister of Revenue!
Seeing that the civil and military officials remained silent, Zhu Yunying continued, "Throughout history, land annexation has always been a difficult problem to solve. I know that Confucian scholars have high hopes for the well-field system, considering it to be perfect. But my dear ministers, please consider this: if the well-field system is so perfect, why didn't successive dynasties implement it?"
The well-field system was indeed a prosperous era that many scholars longed for. As for the equal-field system, this was a system that existed from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the early Tang Dynasty, and it was also a system of distributing land according to population, but it was quickly replaced by the Two-Tax System.
Ultimately, it boils down to land annexation, which became a cause of intensified class conflicts in many dynasties, especially in the later stages of those dynasties.
Grain net
Zhu Yunying then continued, "Many policies are based on the number of people. In my opinion, the poll tax will ultimately lead to land annexation, which is unavoidable. My new policy is that the dynasty will not levy taxes based on the number of people."
Seeing the puzzled looks on the faces of some of the officials, Zhu Yunying solemnly declared, "By the grace of the Retired Emperor, it is decreed that taxes will never be increased for the increase in the number of people!"
In an instant, many people felt they had misheard, thinking that the Hongwu Emperor and the Yingshi Emperor had collectively made a foolish mistake, coming up with all these unreliable ideas. They felt they couldn't stand to see the Ming Dynasty prosper, and that they were trying to lead the newly powerful Ming Dynasty to its decline!
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