As we all know, the early financial period of the Ming Dynasty was still relatively rich, so why did it collapse in the later period? Since the Ming Dynasty's Wanli Dynasty, financial difficulties have been difficult and the income has not been enough. According to the "Wanli Accounting Record", the daily military expenditure is 58.6%, the fiscal deficit is as high as 452,000 taels, and the deficit rate is about 2.5%.
First, the intervention power of the violent machine in the circulation of money has declined
The Ming Dynasty was a bit hypocritical, and although it was not a period of Confucianism, it was a historical period in which Confucianism was applied in the most hypocritical way.
Jiajing, Wanli, Tianqi, Chongzhen, these emperors are all understanding people, not because they are incompetent, but because the imperial power is too weak to control the economic activities of the people, and even the courtiers can't control the leisurely mouth.
Jiajing wants to ban the minting of bad money, and a strike can make the ban disappear. The Wanli Emperor's plan to impose a mining tax caused people to make a big fuss in an instant. Officials encouraged the townspeople to kill tax collectors, and literati slandered taxes in various ways. The Wanli Emperor was infamous and exhausted, but in the past 20 years he had only received a few million taels.
The minister, who was full of poetry, shouted to open up the wilderness. However, if they really want to reclaim the land, no one dares to really implement it, mainly for fear of being insulted, and even be scolded as "surrendering", who does this, who is flattering the country, that is, low character.
Dong Yingju said that in the face of the difficulties and obstructions of the magistrates, Dong Yingju endured humiliation and burdens, "although he was humiliated, he enjoyed it" and "self-sufficiency, buying land and collecting grain, no different from being a village chief." "The magistrates are becoming more and more arrogant, "referring to the sacrifice of the tun land, and the abuse of the tun tenant is not punished."
Second, there is the emergence of excessive democracy.
The fundamental reason is that from the Song Dynasty Cheng Zhu Lixue, the power of the monarch was intentionally or unintentionally weakened, and in the Ming Dynasty, the influence of the emperor on courtiers and the control of the state violent regime over the currency market were weakened. This made the Ming Dynasty look like a "state of etiquette", where people dressed elaborately and had a gentleman's and great power style.
During the Ming Dynasty, society showed "excessive democracy". However, when there is a war, it cannot quickly turn into a state of military dictatorship, which leads to the inability to directly tax and distribute materials through military violence like the Qing Dynasty, resulting in battlefield defeat.
The outcome of the defeat on the battlefield led directly to the collapse of the fiscal system. The former is not the cause of the latter, but the result.
Second, copper coins have decreased and private coinage has increased
In ancient countries, the issuance of money was not a simple market act, but relied on the violence of the state apparatus to ensure the credibility of money. In addition, the state must also have a great deal of influence and control over the circulation of goods, otherwise the currency will depreciate due to inflation. The Ming Dynasty was not just Chongzhen, in fact, since Hongwu, the government had little control over money.
Jiajing appears to be the more powerful emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and he strictly forbade the minting of private money. But every time it was strictly forbidden to shout loudly, in the end, it was even impossible to prohibit the private minting of inferior copper coins.
In the past, at least fake money was not much different from real money. When counterfeiting currency in the Jiajing period, the manufacturing was extremely shoddy, and the people who made the money were unscrupulous, and the people who used the money had no doubts. On the contrary, the better quality currency made by the Ming government and the circulation of coins of previous generations were blocked. This is really bad money expelling good money. In the long run, how can the economy not collapse?
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