"Old Zhu, what tax does our Ming Dynasty have besides commercial tax?"

Fang Shiyu did not directly answer Zhu Yuanzhang's question, but instead took the lead in asking questions.

"Our Ming Dynasty is actually divided into tax and service. These are two parts. Tax is divided into true colors and color, and service is also divided into equal services and service."

"In addition to the Ding Tax that has been abolished by His Majesty today, and the commercial tax that I just mentioned, there are fourteen remaining taxes."

"Of course, this is the regular tax issued by the court, which is on the surface."

"As for the miscellaneous taxes, levies and other corvee labor in the local prefectures, it is unknown."

Before Zhu Yuanzhang could speak, Li Shanchang quickly answered.

The reason why taxes here are divided into cost and color breaks is actually because the ancients' thinking was greatly restricted, and tax collection is also divided into physical objects and silver.

The natural color tax is to collect different types of taxes based on different local conditions.

The color discount tax is the tax on collecting silver.

The equal labor service was one of the three major labor service in the Ming Dynasty. Because it was arranged according to households and other people, it was called "equal labor service". In the early Ming Dynasty, the labor service included the regular service of Lijia and the miscellaneous service. The miscellaneous service was a servant for local officials and was sent by Lizhou and other people.

For example, maintaining local public order and building river embankments are the main service.

The mail service is not fixed and will make flexible adjustments according to the needs of the court.

For example, building bridges and roads, dealing with natural disasters and man-made disasters, etc.

The designation of these policies is still Li Shanchang himself. Although Li Shanchang has basically not participated in the government affairs now and is mostly idle at home, his concern for the government affairs is still the same as before.

Therefore, Li Shanchang was even more familiar with some of the policies of the Ming Dynasty than Zhu Yuanzhang.

"It's not bad, it's right!"

"Since you all know that the Ming Dynasty has a wide variety of tax revenue, do you know the consequences of doing so?"

Fang Shiyu still looked at the ancients with a smile on his face and asked slowly.

"Evil consequences? What kind of evil consequences can this be? Didn't all dynasties do this?"

Li Shanchang frowned and suddenly felt that things were not simple.

When he formulated these policies according to Zhu Yuanzhang's intention, he read the tax policies of many dynasties and finally formulated them by learning from their strengths and weaknesses.

These policies of the Ming Dynasty were almost modeled after the previous dynasty.

Just copy it and change the name.

Some of them are too lazy to change their names, so they just copied them.

"I don't know what you look like, so the young master will tell you."

Fang Shiyu smiled faintly again.

"The consequence of these taxes is so complex and numerous, that is, they will continue to increase the burden on the people, and the court officials have more opportunities to fish and meat for the people."

"What did you say?"

"These policies of our Ming Dynasty will make the people burden more? Will the court officials be corrupt and abuse the law? Will the people be lied to the people?"

When Fang Shiyu finished speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang's face changed immediately!

Although these were all done by Li Shanchang, Zhu Yuanzhang was the one who made the decision in the end. So many dynasties did this, and there was no problem with it?

Why did it not work when we arrived in our Ming Dynasty?

Did this little bastard deliberately make things difficult for me? He had to put all his hat on my head?

"Young Master Fang, isn't that true? Which dynasty, such as the Han and Tang dynasties, did not do this?"

"Nothing went wrong? Why is it not possible when it comes to our Ming Dynasty?"

Zhu Di, who had not spoken, couldn't help but ask at this time.

Zhu Di, who was originally very depressed, only realized that Zhu Di had realized that he had seen Li Qi, who was even worse than him yesterday and beaten into a pig's head by Li Shanchang.

It turned out that the fathers were the same. They were criticized by Mr. Fang, but they could not vent their anger at Mr. Fang. In the end, they could only use their son as a punching bag.

As for which foot stepped in first when entering the house, whether those officials in Peking are corruption or not has nothing to do with their beatings by their father!

They just live as saints and can't escape when they deserve to be beaten!

Who made me beat my son?

So, please follow my dad quickly and don’t let my dad be criticized by Mr. Fang again. If you look back, you will be beaten up again.

It’s too heavy for me to say it, my dad is doing it too much. Even if I have been killing the Tartars for half my life, I can’t stand it!

"My fourth son, isn't he superficial?"

"If other dynasties use it, does it mean there is no problem? Your Majesty nowadays doesn't know what the consequences will be, otherwise he wouldn't just copy the methods of those dynasties in the past."

"With His Majesty's character today, how can he allow such things as fish and meat to happen? All policies that will increase the burden on the people will definitely be strangled in the cradle today!"

As he finished speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang finally showed a knowing smile.

This little bastard is quite pleasing to the eye today!

I also know to say good things about me.

"What kind of evil consequences will Mr. Fang bring? How should our Ming Dynasty improve?"

Only Lao Liu asked the key questions seriously.

"Old Zhu, you just said that the court's taxes did not charge a cent more, and those merchants would raise the price by 10% and in the end the people would pay the bill!"

"Have you ever thought that for every extra tax in the court, there will be ten more local prefectures?"

"Once taxes become more and more, the chances of officials from the state government contacting their true colors and disparities will be greater and greater, and the chances of their corruption and abuse of power will be higher and higher?"

"Do you think this is a bad result?"

Fang Shiyu put away his playful smile and asked slowly and seriously.

In fact, in all dynasties, even in the 21st century, corrupt officials have only had a few methods of embezzlement.

The most common one is to build large-scale projects and carry out large-scale projects.

As long as there is a big project, it is not certain whether the contractors can make money, but the responsible officials must all make a fortune.

Look at the road construction projects in the 21st century. The front was just completed and before they could open the traffic, they immediately broke up and rebuilt them!

In just a few miles, he can give you a year or two to practice!

Today's Ming Dynasty is basically the same.

Although the Ming Dynasty's projects were not as many as the 21st century, and they would never dare to build a road for a year or two, these officials could make themselves greedy for a lot of money through a wide variety of tax and labor.

As for the equal-limited labor system in the Ming Dynasty, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the village chief cheated on personal gains and uneven burdens of labor service. The government was corrupt and the officials were traitors, so they were basically invalidated.

"Young Master Fang, didn't you just say that the court wants to tell the people what tax they collect and how much do they charge?"

"As long as the court does this, those officials will be unable to embezzle them again, right?"

"You brought it up, don't you remember it?"

Li Shanchang asked again.

"Of course I remember, this can only prevent those corrupt officials from making clever names and making good use of the people."

"But in the Ming Dynasty today, there are more than a dozen types of regular taxes. The people don't have to do anything anymore. They spend their time paying taxes every day."

"The key is that in addition to paying money, the people also have to pay grain, medicinal materials, cloth, etc.."

"Do you think the burden on the people can be lighter in this situation?"

"No matter how transparent or strict the court is, can we still stare at the officials below for twenty-four hours? They have more opportunities to eat fish and meat!"

After the words came to the ground, Zhu Yuanzhang and others had nothing to say in an instant.

Now they themselves realized the problem. The Ming De tax revenue is really diverse and messy.

The silver is also collected and the physical goods are collected. In some states, the tax collected includes salted fish.

The most important issue is that these various types of taxes are not paid together by a group of people, but are on the head of every commoner, and every commoner has to pay so many types of taxes.

Here we will be divided into primary tax and secondary tax.

For example, taxes divided according to seasons, the people must pay the grain tax first after the autumn harvest of grain. This is the tax.

After paying the tax, ordinary people have to sell food other than their lives. The money sold must be divided into two parts, one is a color discount tax. After paying the color discount tax, another part is used to buy cloth and then pay the secondary tax.

Of course, if you find it troublesome, the people can also use the grain to find specially weaving cloth to exchange for the cloth, and then pay taxes directly.

But this method basically doesn't work, because the cloth is a hard currency in the Ming Dynasty and was booked in advance by merchants before it was produced.

The people who do cloth business and grain business are basically the same group of people.

Where have the common people ever played with this group of merchants?

Therefore, it is complex and cumbersome, extremely time-consuming, and unnecessary losses will occur during the tax payment process.

All the things will eventually be borne by the people themselves.

And it is precisely because of this situation that those unscrupulous merchants know that it is not okay for ordinary people to not buy cloth or sell food, so they directly suppress the price of food to extremely low and raise the price of cloth to extremely high.
To be continued...