Reading Notes on "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli"

"The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" is a research monograph on Ming history published by Sanlian Bookstore in May 1997. The author is Huang Renyu. Let’s take a look at the reading notes, for your reference only! Thanks! "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" Reading Notes 1

In the fifteenth year of Wanli, nothing seemed to happen in the Ming Dynasty. At this time, Zhang Juzheng also died, and Zhang Juzheng's achievements were superficially denied by the court. But intellectuals with an independent stance are already very clear that his achievements must be denied, even though he did bring a wave of ripples to this lifeless world.

History will not fundamentally change because of one person’s actions. Under a certain system, history has its own trajectory. The role of individuals will partially adjust this trajectory, but it is difficult to achieve fundamental changes.

China, which has been plagued by disasters, has embarked on its inevitable path for the next thousand years since the Anshi Rebellion.

The divergent interests of the scholars in the Tang Dynasty guided the bureaucracy, the government army mechanism and the local garrison mechanism at that time, which finally brought about the state of local separatism and finally buried the Tang Dynasty. The Song Dynasty, which corrected its mistakes, emphasized the absolute control of the central government over the local areas and the absolute control of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism over thought. Although the local civil service system brought China towards unification, the unification of the management system was also accompanied by ideology. The unity of form. Those who are not outside this unified ideology are all rejected as heretics. These management systems and ideologies were based on the interests of scholars, that is, the interests of land owners. Political interests are based on land interests, which of course greatly promotes the vigorous development of China's agricultural civilization. But it also caused large-scale annexation of land. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Juzheng tried to implement a whip method.

An important reform in taxation after the middle of Ming Dynasty. It mainly summarizes the taxes and levies of a county and combines them into one article, that is, first merging the taxes and levies separately; then the dings and silver of a province are unified into the levies of a province, and each grain and one stone is compiled with a certain amount of silver, and each ding is examined and paid. Finally, the general's silver is Combined with Fuyin collection. It represents various efforts by Ming administrators in the 16th century to achieve an ideal state: corvee service was completely abolished; the Lijia system ceased to exist in both form and substance; and any remaining poll taxes were incorporated into land taxes. . Taxpayers, in turn, could satisfy their obligations to the state by paying a single, fixed installment of silver.

Corvee labor and land tax are two different types of exploitation for farmers. Before the one-whip method was implemented, although part of the labor was allocated to the land, the proportion was very small. After the implementation of the One-whip Law, the portion of labor borne by household members was reduced, while the portion allocated to acres of land increased. The additional labor levied by the state mainly fell on landowners, and it began to have the nature of being apportioned to the land. It not only reduced tax items and simplified the methods of tax collection, but more importantly, changed the nature of taxes and services. This change specifically reflects two transitions, one is the transition from property tax and active service system to monetary tax, and the other is the transition from household tax to land tax.

In the late feudal society of China, the emergence of the whip method has certain historical significance. First of all, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, due to the fierce mergers between officials, gentry and landlords, the amount of land in each district became increasingly disparate. The corvee system with Lijia as the compilation unit made the burden on households more and more uneven. Many farmers went bankrupt and fled. Migrate. After the one-whip method was adopted, the compilation and review units of labor and tax were expanded from Lijia to prefectures and counties, which had a certain adjustment effect on the phenomenon of abnormally light and heavy burdens on households in different regions, temporarily alleviated the class conflicts caused by the tax and labor issues, and was conducive to the improvement of agricultural production. develop. Secondly, the grain chief system and the Lijia system, which were established in the early Ming Dynasty to ensure the collection of taxes and levies, strictly controlled households and severely restricted people's freedom of movement. The implementation of the One Whip Law weakened the long-standing personal servitude relationship between peasants due to the corvee system, and the peasants gained more freedom. In addition, compared with the tax system in the early Ming Dynasty, the one-whip method was more adaptable to social and economic development and had a certain role in promoting the development of commodity production. The monetization of taxes and servitude allowed more rural products to be put into the market, further disintegrating the natural economy and creating conditions for the further development of industry and commerce.

Therefore, a whip law fundamentally touches the interests of landowners. Therefore, everything Zhang Juzheng did that was beneficial to China as an outstanding intellectual and politician must be denied.

In the Qing Dynasty of later generations, Emperor Yongzheng, as the supreme ruler, implemented a similar system, dividing the land into acres, returning the fire to the public, and the officials and gentry all paid the food and worked as errands. Therefore, from the eyes of later generations, Yongzheng must be a tyrant and a rebel. The great Emperor Qianlong continued to implement this policy at a discount. He not only enjoyed the huge benefits brought by the policy, but also enjoyed all the praise given to him by the landowners, and regarded himself as a perfect old man. During the Yongzheng and Kangxi dynasties, driven by the new political system, China's economy achieved great development, and the exemption of the head tax finally triggered China's rapid population growth. Under China's national conditions at the time, these were all positive. In the early Qing Dynasty, due to the rapid growth of economic strength, China's land area also achieved unprecedented expansion. Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Tibet were finally merged into the Central Plains. Before that, these places were at best tributary states.

Since China’s New Democratic Revolution, returning land to farmers has been an important goal. However, as a result of the revolution, the greatness of the world was still preserved, including the royal land and public ownership of land. Farmers were only users of the land and had to pay agricultural taxes, until a few years ago.

At this stage, the role of land as a factor of production has dropped to a very low level, and it is no longer related to the survival of the nation and the stability of the country. Therefore, at this stage, the land owner has no choice but to find another way to realize the value of the land. Land owners, under the slogan of protecting farmers' interests, are supplying unsaturated industrial land and commercial and residential land, constantly pushing up the prices of land and land accessories: real estate and factories, and also pushing up industrial costs and living costs. In a sense, the interests of landowners continue to be protected.

Looking at the changes in China’s land system over the past thousand years, the concentration of land owners, such as the land annexation of the feudal dynasty, has always had a huge hindering effect on economic development, while the dispersion of land owners has It has played a role in promoting the economy. Of course, under certain technical conditions, if farmers do not leave their land, it will also hinder economic development. Therefore, the enclosure movement of sheep and people will eventually make Britain an empire on which the sun never sets.

This reminds me of an experience I had in the United States. It is said that when the U.S. government promoted land reclamation policies, it sold land to farmers at a price of one dollar per acre to encourage farmers to develop the land. When the government expropriated land for highway construction, grateful farmers returned the expropriated land to the government free of charge.

In China, the government uses unsaturated supply and auction to push the price of land to the limit and sell it to those who need to use the land. However, when farmers learn that the government wants to expropriate their land, they Hurry up and build buildings on the land to demand more compensation from the government. "Fifteen Years of Wanli" reading notes 2

"Fifteen Years of Wanli" is a highly rated book. I was very moved after reading it during the summer vacation. Let’s talk about it in several parts.

1. Let’s first talk about Mr. Huang Renyu. Huang Renyu, a native of Changsha, Hunan, once studied engineering, worked in a newspaper, and served as a soldier. Later, he studied history in the United States. His rich life experience gave him his own unique thinking on history.

In his preface, he mentioned his connection with the history of the Ming Dynasty. His doctoral thesis was about water transportation in the Ming Dynasty. In order to write a book and a thesis, it took him two and a half years to read 133 volumes of "Records of the Ming Dynasty". Adding in the time to write the book, it took him 7 years to write a book that is not thick! Such a rigorous attitude and perseverance are admirable. It is precisely because of his academic style that he was able to write such a wonderful and influential masterpiece.

2. Talk about this book. It is well known that the Ming Dynasty was heavily taxed and the people were poor, and the country was in dire straits. Many works before "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" believe that excessive taxation is the primary reason for people's poverty. But Mr. Huang Renyu doesn’t think so. He believes that the root cause of people's poverty lies in the corruption of the legal system and the incompetence of the government. The low national tax rate does not benefit farmers, but only encourages small landowners to increase exploitation and bureaucrats to impose additional taxes to enrich their own pockets. The Ming Dynasty adopted extremely strict centralization, and its policy policy was not focused on supporting the advanced economy to increase national wealth, but on protecting the backward economy and maintaining the security of the dynasty in a balanced manner.

The book contains the following discussion: "In the 20th year of Wanli (1592), Shen Bang, the magistrate of Wanping County in Beijing, claimed that he had to pay 27 different institutions every year, and the total amount was less than one thousand taels of silver. . Similarly, the country is covered with supply lines of this distance, which come and go, receiving from one side, without any structure, and the statistics presented are often just a piece of paper, resulting in the above-mentioned uneven tax rates. "This approach of maintaining a backward agricultural economy and being unwilling to develop commerce and finance is the main reason why China has changed from the advanced Han and Tang Dynasties to the backward Ming and Qing Dynasties worldwide.

On the other hand, it can be seen from some books that China has been replacing the legal system with morality for two thousand years, and this was still the case in the Ming Dynasty, which was the crux of the decline of the Ming Dynasty. The Wanli Emperor, the great scholar Zhang Juzheng, Shen Shixing, the Nanjing Metropolitan Procuratorate's censor Shi Hairui, Jizhou's chief military officer Qi Jiguang, and the famous scholar Li Zhi who passed away as a prefect were either ruined or did not die well, and none of them were recorded in the book. A person's merits and virtues are perfect. All this is because the system has reached its limit, and everyone from the emperor to the common people has become a victim.

The book "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli" was originally only available in English. Later, in response to requests from domestic readers, a Chinese translation was released. Its English version was originally called "1587, AYearofNoSignificance". It is precisely because many historians have ignored what happened in this seemingly inconspicuous year that they have not gained anything. However, the author used a cautious attitude to gain insight into the seemingly trivial changes during this period that can be seen as big. Only then can you gain unique insights.

3. Let’s talk about the thoughts derived from this. Take Hai Rui in China as an example. As a royal censor, Hai Rui fulfilled his responsibilities, spoke out and dared to remonstrate, and even risked beheading to point out the emperor's faults, which was truly upright. Not only was the emperor displeased with his style of work, but all the officials in the court complained about his behavior, including many loyal people. Why?

Although Hai Rui's creed and personality are respectable, no one follows his example. The reason is that people have become accustomed to another set of forms that are accepted by the public. Hai Rui's way of doing things is the right way, and this right way is already sparsely traveled.

To give an example: At that time, the imperial court sent imperial envoys to inspect various places. It's called inspection, but it's actually about making money. Everywhere he went, he would openly or secretly ask for benefits from local officials. Local officials also took this opportunity to send money to help them lay the foundation for their promotion in the officialdom, and to keep their official positions. They were able to levy and extort money in the areas under their jurisdiction without being dealt with. It was consensual and tacit, so why not do it? ? But Hai Rui, who had a clean mind, didn't care about this. He entertained Shangguan with green vegetables and tofu. The imperial envoy hinted several times, but Hai Rui participated in the play, which made everyone feel insecure, fearing that their own affairs would also be exposed.

Logically speaking, what Hai Rui did was not inappropriate and extremely correct, but under the rules at the time, it would definitely cause a storm. Why? At this time, this kind of transaction method among officials is no longer an underground bribery, but seems to have an upright trend. Every individual in the system has found his or her own balance point in this system, and has found a way to be promoted and a way to make a living. Habits have become natural. As long as everyone can get what they want, a gray trading market has been formed. , why change? It happened that at this moment, Hai Rui came out halfway, determined to turn the world upside down. Once the current system is subverted, each individual must be repositioned to adapt to the new rules and relationships. It is not known whether the current vested interests can be recovered by then. Who is willing to change? Hai Rui's behavior is like a European intruding into an Indian tribe, which is tantamount to destroying the jobs of all officials in the world. People who are accustomed to a set of rules that benefit them will rise up when someone tries to subvert it. Habits and interests are the chief culprits. It was because of this that Hai Rui suffered a severe blow. He was unemployed at home for 15 years and his later years were miserable. The system has caused all this.