Preface:
The Sui Dynasty, as a brief but glorious dynasty in Chinese history, its rise and fall are far-reaching. In 38 years, how did the Sui Dynasty accumulate huge wealth through harsh means, and how did it quickly collapse under the surface prosperity?
The historical wisdom contained in it is worth our deep consideration.
The treasury is bulging, the people are in dire straits: the harsh tax law extracts the people's wealth
On these superior foundations, the Sui Dynasty formulated a series of policies to further accumulate wealth. The key to this is the strict tax system.
After Emperor Wen of Sui came to the throne, he implemented an extremely strict household registration system, requiring that the household registration be checked once a year, and everyone's name must be registered, which meant that everyone had to pay taxes. Not only that, adult men and women who do not marry pay double taxes.
Under this pressure, the people had to marry and have children early in exchange for lower tax rates. A larger household requires more taxes. As a result, the number of households in the Sui Dynasty increased, and the treasury revenue also flowed.
And that's not all. The Sui Dynasty implemented the system of equal fields, in which land was divided equally among the population. The larger the population of each household, the more land it receives, and the land rent that needs to be paid is naturally higher. As a result, the people not only had to pay poll tax and household tax, but also bear a large amount of land tax.
The combination of the three made the Sui Dynasty's taxation heavy stretched the people. However, all this miserable money flowed into the pockets of the Sui Dynasty officials, and the country's wealth accumulated rapidly.
This harsh tax law has put enormous pressure on the general public. In order to reduce taxes, many people would rather self-harm than reduce the registered population. It has been recorded that in some counties, hundreds of people evaded taxes from the palace.
This extreme section has not eased the burden on the people, but has led to countless family tragedies. Some people chose to abandon their fields and flee to avoid taxes, but in the end, they could not escape heavy penalties from harsh taxes. In the face of taxes, the people can only be slaughtered by others.
The rulers of the Sui Dynasty regarded the people's livelihood and suffering as nothing, and only wanted the treasury to be full. They disregarded the lives and deaths of the people and used an iron fist to impose excessive taxes. Any attempt to conceal property or population is severely punished if discovered.
Under this repressive rule, the people are miserable, but helpless. The Sui dynasty's treasury was increasingly inflated, but it was based on the strangulation of the people. This prosperity at the expense of the people is doomed to be unsustainable.
The household registration is strictly checked, and taxes are heavy: multiple taxes are squeezed out of the people at the same time
In order to collect taxes more efficiently, the administrative institutions of the Sui Dynasty were also constantly improved. The country is divided into 10 provinces, with prefectures under the prefecture and counties under the prefecture, and each county has a prefectural order and a prefectural bean to assist in the collection of taxes.
They count the population according to the household registration, calculate the tax payable by each household, strictly enforce the tax law, and ensure that the treasury is financially full. During the implementation of the tax law, if people are found to have concealed their people or property, they will be severely punished.
In addition to regular taxation, the Sui Dynasty also set up many hidden forms of revenue sources. For example, the contracting right of the vegetable market, the city gate tax, and the specialties of the Shanzawa Lake area must pay a certain fee. Luxury goods such as porcelain and silk and liquor also have a special consumption tax. All revenues, without exception, go to the treasury. The variety of these charges amazed the people.
It is worth mentioning that the Sui Dynasty strictly forbade the people to hide weapons privately. Once a prohibited weapon is detected, not only is it punished, but it also pays a weapons tax. This is tantamount to knocking out the bone and sucking the pith, which shows the cruelty and strictness of the Sui Dynasty's tax collection. Under these measures, the Sui dynasty's wealth accumulated rapidly, and its reserves reached an unprecedented abundance.
However, the source of these revenues is the oppression of the people. The operation of the vegetable market and the circulation of the city need the people as the foundation, and excessive taxation weakens the people's consumption capacity and production enthusiasm.
Heavy taxes on luxury goods also hit the development of handicrafts. The Sui Dynasty set up many checkpoints and could not trade freely. These measures stifled economic prosperity. The wealth of the Sui Dynasty was accumulated by exploiting the common people and was destined to be unsustainable.
The granaries are full, and the army is set out: behind the pretentious strength the people and it
With a strong tax system, the Sui dynasty's fiscal revenue increased day by day. With the expansion of the population, agricultural production has also developed considerably. Especially under the attention of the two generations of monarchs of Emperor Wen of Sui and Emperor Jiao of Sui, the grain reserves of the Sui Dynasty reached an unprecedented scale.
In today's Hanzhou City, Henan Province, there was a giant granary called "the world's first granary", which was called Hanjiacang. The granary is 290 meters long, has many layers, and can store up to 500,000 stone of grain. This is just one of the many granaries of the Sui Dynasty. It can be seen that in the treasury of the Sui Dynasty, the grain reserves have reached extremely high figures.
With abundant financial resources and grain reserves as a backing, the national strength of the Sui Dynasty became stronger and stronger. In 605 AD, the Grand Canal ordered by the Sui Emperor was officially opened, and this grand canal stretching more than 1,800 miles from north to south ran through the north and south of China. In less than five years, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers were mobilized to complete the work.
Even more shocking is that between 610 and 614, the Sui Emperor launched three large-scale wars against Goguryeo. Each expedition was as high as 500,000 or even 1 million troops, which was an astronomical amount at the time.
You know, few dynasties in Chinese history have been able to maintain such a large army. The logistical support of grain and grass for the Sui army could only be completed by relying on the financial resources of the state. This fully demonstrates the amazing economic strength of the Sui Dynasty.
However, this apparent strength is actually based on the exploitation of the people. Those rich granaries and armaments came from the blood and sweat of the people, but the Sui government squandered them in war and luxury.
Hundreds of thousands of troops fought in the south and the north, which not only consumed huge amounts of military supplies, but also caused the destruction of productive forces and made the people more and more miserable. Those migrant workers who built the Grand Canal were also forcibly recruited by the Sui government, and forced labor crawled on it.
The people were originally the most precious wealth of the country, but in the Sui Dynasty's view, the people were only tools that could be exploited at will. This kind of rule based on the people is not destined to last. The strength of the Sui Dynasty was nothing more than a castle in the air, lacking the sincere support of the people as a basis. When the hearts of the people begin to drift away, its demise will follow.
Great luck and prosperity, the people do not have a good life: behind the prosperity and prosperity, the people's life is difficult
The Sui Dynasty's practice of accumulating wealth by oppressing the people caused the broad masses of the people to suffer greatly. The harsh tax laws made the people unbearable, and many were forced to flee and leave their land, but often ended up being captured and paid their taxes.
Meng Chang was a typical fugitive at the time, and he once wrote that "when the Sui Emperor was a fire, the harsh government was like fire, and the people were depressed and unhappy" to express his dissatisfaction with the rule of the Sui Dynasty.
Not only that, in order to avoid the heavy tax burden, many people choose to self-harm themselves to escape the harsh household registration system, which shows their despair. According to historical records, some counties even reached two or three hundred people from the palace. These extreme measures have not lifted the people out of their predicament, but have caused more family tragedies.
As the population skyrocketed, land was limited, and life became more and more difficult. According to statistics, at the end of the Sui Dynasty, the country's population was as high as 46 million, far exceeding the upper limit of land that could be carried, resulting in a large number of people without land to cultivate. Food supplies are stretched, and the grain in the granaries is not helpful. The prosperity of the Sui Dynasty was nothing more than an illusion, and a real crisis was quietly bred.
This strong contrast fully reveals the illusion of prosperity of the Sui Dynasty. The prosperous scenes depicted in the book contrast with the misery of real life.
On one side is the magnificent construction of the Grand Canal, on the other side are the people forced to do hard labor; On the one hand, the national treasury is brilliant, and on the other hand, the heavy taxation leads to the destruction of the family; On the one hand, there is the grandeur of the army's expedition, and on the other hand, the production damage has led to food shortages. This distorted situation is fraught with hidden dangers.
In fact, the various policies of the Sui Dynasty were harming the interests of the people. Draconian taxation and household registration systems forced people to marry and have children prematurely, causing the population to skyrocket beyond the load on the land.
Although the implementation of the average-field system was conducive to the accumulation of wealth, it increased the burden on the people. The Grand Canal and the conquest wars were also labor-intensive. All this accelerated the outbreak of the social crisis. The prosperity of the Sui Dynasty was nothing more than a façade at the expense of the people.
Emperor Taizong of Tang "hid the wealth of the people" and rose up on behalf of Sui: the policy of lightly dispensing with thin endowments allowed the people to live and work in peace and contentment
In 618, Li Yuan mutinied in Wuzhou and soon captured Chang'an, the capital of the Sui Dynasty. The following year, the last monarch of the Sui Dynasty, Emperor Gong of Sui, announced his surrender, and the Sui Dynasty perished. Just 38 years later, the once-powerful empire collapsed. The reason for this is that the rapid decline of the Sui Dynasty is inseparable from its harsh methods of oppressing the people.
Unlike the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty established by Li Yuan underwent major innovations in tax policy. The policy of "thin endowment and light dismissal" implemented during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang greatly reduced the burden on the people, and the wealth of the Tang Dynasty was truly "hidden by the people". This allowed the people to live and work in peace and contentment, restore social order, and lay the foundation for the prosperity of the Sheng Tang Dynasty.
Specifically, Emperor Taizong reduced the number of taxes paid and lowered the tax rate. He also formulated a more rational land distribution system to ensure the people's enthusiasm for production. At the same time, the military system will be reformed, redundant personnel will be streamlined, military expenditures will be reduced, and more funds will be used to develop production. These measures have greatly reduced the burden on the people and allowed them to live a relatively prosperous life.
Unlike the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty put the interests of the people first. Through a stable social environment and preferential policies, people can work with peace of mind and obtain more income.
This provided a solid foundation of public opinion for the Tang Dynasty. Although the treasury revenue has decreased, it has won the support and support of the people. This was exactly what the Sui Dynasty lacked.
Emperor Taizong's reforms made the people truly feel the favor from the dynasty. They were willing to actively create wealth for the country and support the development and growth of the Tang Dynasty. This people-oriented, prosperous and strong thinking set an example for future monarchs. The contrast between the Sui and Tang dynasties shows the true meaning of "hiding wealth for the people".
Epilogue:
Looking at the history of the Sui Dynasty, we see that a country's wealth should not only stay in the national treasury, but should benefit the people. The so-called "the people are only the state, the people are the state". The people live and work in peace and contentment, and the people of Guotai are safe; The people are in dire straits, and turmoil is inevitable. Only by storing wealth among the people can the country prosper and develop sustainably. The fall of the Sui Dynasty gave painful enlightenment to future generations, and also made Emperor Taizong of Tang understand the true meaning of "rich people". This history is full of wisdom and worth learning from today.