A chaotic fight between the government and the public caused by boring arithmetic and the chaotic tax system of the Ming Dynasty

In the early summer of the third year of Longqing, Shuai Jiamu, a disciple of the military family in Xiao County, Huizhou Prefecture, came to have nothing to do, and with the help of friends, he entered the account room of Huizhou Mansion, wanting to use the account books of the past years to exercise his favorite arithmetic skills. He did not expect that his whim would trigger a ten-year chaos between the government and the public -- the "Huizhou Ding Silk Case".

In the middle and early Ming Dynasty, taxes were mainly collected in kind. There are two troublesome places in the physical tax, one is the high cost of management, the thousands of types of imperial properties, not only different storage methods, but also classified accounting and bookkeeping is also a huge challenge. The cost of use of the second imperial court is high, for example, a place thousands of miles away needs to use a hundred stones of rice, but the freight is far more than one hundred stone (the transportation cost of collecting taxes is not regarded by the imperial court, and the peasants who pay taxes are borne by the peasants).

To the first question, the imperial court's response was to convert the tax as much as possible into the main product (rice, wheat, silk, etc.) (and sometimes converted into other goods due to demand). This method was convenient for the imperial court, but the loss of the purchase and sale of the exchanged property was borne by the tax-paying people, and over time it was easy to cause confusion due to unclear records.

In response to the second problem, the imperial court divided the tax into two parts. Part of it was the positive tax collected by the imperial court into the treasury and used in a unified manner. Some of the miscellaneous taxes (most of the levies are miscellaneous taxes) that are levied nearby without being transferred by the imperial court in response to temporary affairs (such as water conservancy and river management, fortifications, counterinsurgency, etc.), local government officials, and military unit salaries.  

Although the tax items and tax rates of positive taxes are relatively stable (there is no fluctuation throughout the Ming Dynasty), miscellaneous taxes are very "flowered".

First, most of the miscellaneous taxes are collected and used by the localities themselves, and the local government has a large "operation" space, which is naturally easy to breed bad rules and corruption. For the sake of convenience and wealth, local governments apportion, inflate, and create clever preambles. Second, although some miscellaneous taxes have lost their meaning over time (and even the main body of tax use does not exist, such as the grain and wages levied for a certain local army), the local government does not take the initiative to cancel them, but continues to collect them as "gray income".

This led to the continuous accumulation of miscellaneous taxes in the Ming Dynasty in terms of the overall quantity and total amount of collection, which was also the main reason for the increasing tax pressure of the Ming people.

Now the book goes back to the topic.

In the process of calculation, Shuai Jiamu found that there was an abnormal tax item in Huizhou Prefecture – "human silk silk", although Huizhou Prefecture has jurisdiction over six counties, but this annual tax of 8780 horses of raw silk has always been borne by Xiao County alone. Why did the tax items belonging to Huizhou Prefecture leave aside the other five counties and collect the counties alone? In order to find out the reason, Shuai Jiamu also consulted the archives and records such as the "Ming Huidian" and "Huizhou Fuzhi".

This investigation made Shuai Jiamu think that he had discovered a big secret.

In the twenty-fourth year of Zhengzheng, Zhu Yuanzhang began to implement the "Jiachen legal system" to revise the yuan tax. In the second year, when reviewing Huizhou's taxes, the province found that there were many problems after the restructuring, which led to tax evasion in Huizhou. As a result, the tax items of Huizhou were adjusted, that is, the "Otomi Reform Section", and the missed "summer tax raw silk" was collected at a discount for grain.

Among them, Xiao County needs to levy 9,700 stone of summer grain, and the remaining five counties of Huizhou Prefecture need to levy 10,780 stone of summer grain, which translates into a total of 6,144 taels of silver, which is similar to the 8,780 horses of "human silk" discounted silver that Xiao County alone bears. Moreover, after visiting the squires and seniors, Shuai Jiamu learned that in the 14th year of Jiajing, a student from Xiao County discovered the problem of "human silk", but after reporting to Yingtian Inspector Fuyamen, the case was closed.

Based on the fact that most of the three-shift and six-room positions at the prefectural and county levels are hereditary, Shuai Jiamo came to his own inference on this issue. At that time, the relevant officials in charge of the "raw silk folding grain" affairs in Huizhou Prefecture were people from the other five counties of Huizhou Prefecture, and out of consideration for their neighbors, they tampered with the name of this folded grain and transferred the tax shared equally by the six counties to one county in Xiao County.

Thinking that Xiao County did not raise silkworms, and had been "squeezed" for more than two hundred years of "human silk", Shuai Jiamu decided to seek justice for his father and fellow villagers out of righteous indignation and merit. At the beginning of the fourth year of Longqing, Shuai Jiamu reported the matter to Tianxun Fu Hairui, and requested that the tax be changed back to the six counties of Huizhou.

Yuanbenfu handed over the year to the household department to investigate, sitting down to take the people Ding silk folded silk 8,780 boils, the original six counties all lost, the prefecture can be verified.

However, the "original six counties have lost, and the government can prove it" mentioned in his submission is irresponsible speculation, because he has never produced corresponding evidence.

In February, Hairui made an approval of Shuai Jiamo's submission, and after receiving Hailui's approval, Duan Chaozong, the prefect of Huizhou, ordered the six counties to check the accounts and go to the prefecture for consultation. However, except for Xiao County, the remaining five counties either prevaricated on the grounds of preparing for the following year's pilgrimage (Jingcha), or advised the prefects not to toss "as usual, so as to avoid the worries of radical changes among the small people, and the government and the people will have two preference." He also gave Shuai Jiamu the hat of "the law of destroying the ancestors on the top, and the book of changing the records of the province at the bottom".

During this period, Shuai Jiamu was not idle, and he turned up another "evidence" in the vast archives of Huizhou Mansion and the "Ming Huidian". Most of the tax surveys (receipts) sent by the household department to the Huizhou capital in the past wrote "sitting on the Huizhou people Ding silk silk", but the document issued by the Huizhou government to the six subordinate counties was missing, and the tax items of Xiao County had an additional "summer tax raw silk".

Shuai Jiamu determined his conjecture on this, and the five counties changed their respective "human silk" to "summer tax raw silk", leaving Xiao County to bear it alone.

Since Harry was transferred shortly after, there was no Shangguan Inspector, and the case was delayed and progressed slowly. Shuai Jiamu increasingly identified his previous conjecture that the other five counties of Huizhou were "bullying" Xiao County. In a fit of anger, Shuai Jiamu rewrote the submission and skipped the level to report to the Nanjing Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office.

In June of the fifth year of Longqing, under the impetus of the Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office, the Nanjing Hubu requested that Ying Tianxunfu, Ying Tianfu Inspector, and Huizhou Prefecture thoroughly investigate the matter, and specified the demand to find out "the year in which the silk of the people began and why they were specially sent to Xiao County" and "whether there were other money and grain in their counties."

After the complaint was successful, Shuai Jiamu was robbed on the way home. Shuai Jiamu thought that this was the person behind the scenes, who wanted to kill him and extinguish, so he fled with his wife to his hometown of Huguangjiangxia County to avoid trouble. The main complaint was gone, and the case was deposited again.

The situation in the third year of Wanli changed again, because Zhang Juzheng began to make preparations for changing the law throughout the country, preaching the "one whip law" that converted taxes in kind and conscription into silver mu of taxation, and the "examination method" to evaluate the performance of local officials. As a result, the "human silk" case, which had been silent for four years, was turned over by someone with a heart.

At the end of February, Nanjing Hubu suddenly issued a document asking why the Huizhou government had dragged on for four years and had not found out the reason for the "human silk" in Xiao County. Cui Kongxin, the prefect of Huizhou, who felt great pressure, had to urge the six counties to hurry up and investigate the case, but the six counties soon divided into two factions and started a verbal lawsuit.

The Xiaoxian side agrees with Shuai Jiamo's view. Yao Xuemin of Zhixian County pointed out that the household houses in Huizhou Mansion have always been controlled by Xu officials of the five counties, and there has never been a grain official of the county nationality. Therefore, they must have tampered with the "human silk" of the five counties into "summer tax raw silk" and imposed it on Xiao County.

The remaining five counties do not share the view.

Chen Jiace of Jixizhi County pointed out that the "Ming Huidian" only goes to the prefecture and does not specifically refer to the county. Moreover, it is common for a government tax to be collected separately from a certain county (the imperial court will draw up a separate tax according to the different production of each place). Therefore, the relevant records do not prove that the five counties transferred their taxes to Xiao County.

At the same time, Chen Jiace also verified that the townships under the jurisdiction of Xiao County, such as Dengying, Mingde, Renli, Yongfeng, and Xiaoti, originally mulberry gardens (abandoned and destroyed by the Orthodox Dynasty to the Chenghua Dynasty), while the other five counties never existed. Therefore, raw silk was indeed a specialty of Xiao County, and it was not unusual to set a separate tax heading.

Chen Lu of Xiuningzhi County recalculated the tax changes in Xiao County at the time of the "Otsumi Reform Section", pointing out that Shuai Jiamu had omitted the tax corresponding to the mulberry fields that had been cleared up in the townships of Dengying and Mingde under the jurisdiction of Xiao County at that time, and the fields of the two large landowners Cheng Huixiang and Ye Zhong. The three superimpositions of missing summer wheat, abandoning mulberry garden fields, and confiscating fields in Xiao County folded exactly 8,780 horses, so there was no problem with the taxes in Xiao County.

In order to be more convincing, Wu Guan of Wuyuanzhi County proposed to go to Nanjing to check the original archives of the Yellow Book. This was originally a very well-founded proposal, but this suggestion made a big problem.

Note: The yellow book is the household registration file of the Ming Dynasty and the original proof of collecting various taxes. Detailed records of each household, occupation, output, taxes, etc. Hongwu was built in the early fourteenth year and updated every ten years thereafter, and all the originals were preserved in the Yellow Book Library in Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing.

There are no records of the "Otomi Reform Section" in the Yellow Book Library, and those materials were not stored because they were lost when the Yellow Book Library was built. At this moment, Shuai Jiamu threw out a point of view that intensified the contradiction:

The "Canon" is the charter of the ancestors' legislation, and the Yellow Book is a picture book forged by the people... The traitor countered that the Yellow Book of Fuzhi was a written law, and the "Huidian" and the Ministry of Punishment were made private.

Shuai Jiamu means "Otomi Reform Branch" to the official construction of the Yellow Book in the 14th year of Hongwu, and there were more than ten years. It is enough for the "adulterers" of the five counties to tamper with various records, so even if the yellow book has relevant records, it is not enough to rely on it, but the basis he found out from the "Ming Huidian" prevails.

If the original materials corresponding to the compilation of the Yellow Book can be tampered with, then aren't the original materials corresponding to the Ming Huidian also tampered with? Shuai Jiamu has little evidence to refute the views of the five counties and insists on his own statement.

At this time, the two sides insisted on each other and attacked each other. Driven by the county governments, students and squires from the six counties also organized the people to participate, resulting in several cross-county brawls, and the entire Huizhou capital boiled.

In order to end the dispute as soon as possible and stabilize the locality, and also to cater to Zhang Juzheng's reform plan, Nanjing Hubu came up with a method of peace at the end of November of the fourth year of Wanli. Hubu used a whipping method to compare the tax burden of the six counties (counting the six counties' ding grain, retained capital folded wheat rice, government office expenses, and various extra money and grain, and then averaged to Dingkou), and after calculation, it was considered that the 8,780 horses of raw silk in Xiao County were "extra burdens".

According to the judgment of the Hubu, the Huizhou government came up with an adjustment plan in the first month of the fifth year of Wanli. The "silk silk" was still handed over by Xiao County alone, but 3,300 taels were subtracted from the miscellaneous silver of the four divisions, brick silver, and military quartermaster silver, and distributed to the other five counties. The rectification plan was presented and approved by Nanjing Hubu in April.

However, as soon as the royal approval plan was transmitted back to Huizhou, the five counties were in an uproar, and the reason for the anger of the crowd was not only the flaws in the algorithm and the scheme itself, but also the origin of Nanjing Hubu Shangshu Yin Zhengmao. Yin Zhengmao is a native of Xiao County, so this algorithm and scheme that is beneficial to Xiao County is in the eyes of public opinion in the five counties that Yin Zhengmao is favoring his hometown and bending the law for personal gain.

And at this time, Shuai Jiamu ran out very ignorant of current affairs to "add fuel to the fire".

After the official announcement of the royal approval plan, Shuai Jiamu thought that he had made great contributions to his hometown – "eight years of meritorious service for the people", so he bought a pair of crown belts and wore them everywhere to show off. This greatly stimulated the mood of the people in the five counties and led to the popular uprising.

On the eighth day of June, Cheng Renqing, a student from Wuyuan County, led the crowd to occupy the Ziyang Academy next door to Wuyuan County and set up a deliberative bureau. Under the banner of "the autumn of heroic meritorious service, the day of the hero's service to righteousness", he instigated thousands of people to besiege the county office, forced Xu Tingzhu, who was preparing to enter Beijing, to pass on his grievances to the imperial court, and asked the imperial court to take back his life.

On June 11, the residents of Xiuning County and the squires intercepted Shu Bangru of Xinzhi County, who had taken up his post in Wuyuan County, and beat his accompanying scribes. He then handed over a protest statement and scolded Hube Shangshu Yin Zhengmao as a traitor.

On June 29, more than 5,000 people from Wuyuan County and the squires besieged Shu Bangru (forcing him to go to the Shu court to redress his grievances) and occupied the county. The official documents exchanged between the prefecture and county were intercepted and tested by the locals, and then the people of Xiuning and other counties also occupied the county office, and successively issued letters to besiege the merchants of Xiao County.

The people of Xiao County are not accustomed to making trouble in the five counties, and they spread rumors everywhere, saying that the other five counties gathered people to rebel...

Seeing that he was held up for rebellion, people from the five counties also fought against each other. They forged official documents and sent flying reports to the government officials of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong, saying that Xiuning and Wuyuan counties had been invaded by more than 10,000 thieves...

For a time, not only the government affairs of the Huizhou capital were paralyzed, but several provinces in Jiangnan were also stirred up.

Note: The police signal in the Nanzhi area is generally reported to Nanjing by the local government, and then Nanjing uniformly sends an alarm to the surrounding areas. This time, several political secretaries directly received alerts from Xiuning and Wuyuan counties, and their first reaction was that the rebellion was very large, and Nanjing was occupied by "thieves".

Although this popular uprising was quickly suppressed, Ying Tianxun Fuduyuan knew very well that if the problem of "human silk" was not fundamentally solved, Huizhou would be chaotic in the future. In July, while arresting the chief culprit of the disturbances in various counties, Ying Tian's Inspectorate issued an Anmin notice saying that he would revise the royal approval plan, and arrested Shuai Jiamu and imprisoned Shuai Jiamu for accumulating wealth and showing that he caused troubles in the five counties.

In December of that year, the Nanjing household department announced that the apportionment of the five counties would be reduced to 2,000 taels, but the people of the five counties did not accept it. Although there was no revolt, protests and petitions flew all over the place, and taxes were refused.

Tossed to November of the sixth year of Wanli, Nanjing Hubu revised the plan again. A few unimportant miscellaneous tax deductions were selected from the original taxes of the five counties, but because there were still several hundred taels of additional expenditure, the five counties still did not agree. At this time, some people may wonder, the taxes involved are not high, why not cancel the matter directly?

During the imperial period, taxes were easy to increase and difficult to cancel (in fact, it is similar now), in addition to the income of the imperial court, it is also related to the face and majesty of the imperial court and the imperial power, and the cancellation means self-denial, so the cancellation of the case is easily not opened.

In March of the seventh year of Wanli, the rectification plan was revised again. The 6,145 taels of Ding silk were still borne by Xiao County alone, but from the historical miscellaneous taxes borne by Xiao County, two items, "Huizhou Military Quartermaster Silver" and "Jinqu Dao Jiechi Prefecture Military Salary Silver", which were now of little significance, were selected and offset (reduced) 1950 taels and 580 taels respectively, while the five counties no longer needed to apportion for Xiao County, so that the six counties were happy.

However, Ying Tianxun Fuduyuan, Nanjing Hubu and the imperial court, who had been tossed for several years, were very unhappy, and Shuai Jiamu and Cheng Renqing, who initiated the popular rebellion in the five counties, naturally became punching bags. In the end, Shuai Jiamu was sentenced to "send a hundred rods and three thousand li to send the border army", while Cheng Renqing was sentenced to beheading the prison marquis (later changed to the army) on charges of "deceiving the public, committing disorder, building a banner and opening a bureau, binding officials and insulting officials, and making flying words in Dalu".

Note: During his detention, Cheng Renqing compiled the "Complete Book of Silk Silk" based on the materials he collected, detailing the beginning and end of the "Huizhou Silk Case", as well as the taxes paid by the imperial court at that time, local apportionment of miscellaneous taxes, collection standards, and collection methods. This book is also an important source for scholars to study taxes in the Ming Dynasty.

Looking back at this case, the so-called tax "fraud and deception" completely stemmed from Shuaijiamu's unfounded personal conjecture. But the case also reflects the chaotic and rigid nature of the Ming Dynasty's tax system, unable to keep up with social changes.

Under this tax system, while the "imperial dynasty" was rampant and exhausted the people's strength, the imperial court believed that the taxes imposed on the people were not high (the Ming Dynasty's positive taxes were always low, but the local government continued to increase miscellaneous taxes). When the imperial court imposed "three salaries" due to embarrassing finances, the subjects of the imperial dynasty also broke out because they could not bear the heavy taxes.

Note: "Three pay" is not as high as some people think, and Mr. Huang Yanyu has concluded that the total amount of three pay is equivalent to a 10% field tax (or a doubling of the field tax).