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Mining tax eunuchs, that is, mining eunuchs and taxing eunuchs, they either divide their labor, or one and two terms. The use of mining to increase fiscal revenue is beyond reproach in itself. If the central and local governments coordinate, conduct careful surveys, and operate rationally, the resistance to opposition may be much smaller. The results of practice show that this is a failed attempt. The problem is not in the mining itself, but in the eunuchs who supervise the mining, who know nothing about the business, but they contain tianxian in their mouths, command arbitrarily, corrupt the law, and compete with the people for profits.
What's more, the good people threw themselves into their favor and indiscriminately reported that there was a mine somewhere, and the eunuchs blindly mined it without surveying, and found nothing. In order to pay the bills, the eunuch must make sure that the local government and the people contract the illusory mining proceeds. Therefore, mining has become a means of expropriation and tyranny, causing a wave of opposition throughout the country.
Tax inspectors dispatched to industrial and commercial cities and land and water transportation hubs are responsible for collecting taxes from merchants and citizens. Judging from the background of the prosperity of industry and commerce and the development of the market economy at that time, it is not unproductive to increase taxes a little more than before, and the consequences are not necessarily bad. However, the eunuchs who were responsible for supervising the taxation did not consult with the local government and did not consider the actual situation in various places, and blindly fished with all their might, acting arbitrarily and enriching themselves.
Along the canal and on both sides of the Yangtze River, eunuchs added a large number of new customs in addition to the original tax customs, repeatedly taxed, causing public resentment to boil over and commercial depression. The dispatch of the eunuchs can be traced back to June of the 24th year of the Wanli calendar, when the emperor sent the eunuch Lu Kun, together with Dai Shaoke of Hubu Langzhong and Yang Jinwu of the Jinyi Wei Youshu, to Henan to open mines, and at the same time sent the eunuch Wang Liang and the Jinyi Wei official Zhang Maozhong to Zhenbao Jiyong and other places to open mines.
The Wanli Di Banknote clearly states that the beginning of the mineral tax began in the twenty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar:
"Dai Shaoke of the ChahuBu Langzhong and the Jinyi Weishu Yang Jinwu Opened a Mine in the South of the River. Wang Liang, the official of the Chayun Treasury, and Zhang Maozhong, the official of the Jinyi Guards, opened mines at Zhen (定), Bao (定), Ji (州), Yong (平) and other places.
What worries Shoshu Shixing of the Ministry of War is that the official government's mining will stimulate private mining, causing social problems, which in turn will lead to armed conflicts between the government and the "mining thieves" and affect public order. The emperor's focus was on economic gain, and he did not take this concern seriously at all, and continued to send eunuchs to various places to mine.
It is ridiculous that the eunuchs will lead the mining, but where do they have such vision and ability? As a result of blindly doing something reckless, it becomes extortion under the guise of opening a mine. In some places, which are called mining, but in fact nothing can be opened, and the eunuchs force the rich households to contract, and the insufficient amount is compensated by the rich households; or it is contracted by the local government, and the insufficient amount is offset by the local finance. In this way, the so-called mining is in vain, but it is just another form of apportionment.
In May of the 25th year of the Wanli Calendar, The Inspector of Henan, Yao Siren, exposed the eight major drawbacks of mining:
First, the mines are full of thieves and the people are worried about the chaos; second, the mines are extremely tired and the landslides are worrying; third, the miners are cruel and flee; fourth, the lack of food for the miners is worrying; fifth, the mines are full of holes, and the waste is worrying; sixth, the ore is less silver, and it is worrying to force the purchase; seventh, the people are all mining, and the unemployment is worrying; eighth, the officials are wanton and the radical changes are worrying.
In August and September of the same year, he sent eunuch Chen Zeng to Qingzhou, Yizhou, Qixia, and Zhaoyuan in Shandong to open mines, sent eunuch Wang Zhong to Open Mines in Hengling, Shaanxi, sent eunuch Tian Jin to Changli Mine in Yongping Province, and sent eunuchs to Zhending to mine. As soon as this end was opened, the good deeds from all over the world "offered mines" to the imperial court, as if mushrooms after the rain, and countless mineral deposits suddenly appeared. As a result, the emperor sent eunuchs all over the country. Changping has Wang Zhong, Zhending, Baoding, Jizhou, Yongping, Fangshan, and Weizhou have Wang Hu, Changli has Tian Jin, Henan has Lu Kun, Shandong has Chen Zeng, Shanxi has Zhang Zhong, Nanzhi has Hao Long and Liu Chaoyong, Huguang has Chen Feng, Zhejiang has Cao Jin and Liu Zhong, Shaanxi has Zhao Jian and Zhao Qin, Sichuan has Qiu Chengyun, Liaodong has Gao Huai, Guangdong has Li Jing, Guangxi has Shen Yongshou, Jiangxi has Pan Xiang, Fujian has Gao Yu, Yunnan has Yang Rong, and so on.
However, after all, mining pays attention to science and technology, not as simple as "sesame opening the door", and the result of doing whatever you want, the people's resentment boils. Taxation seems more convenient when it comes to amassing wealth. In October of the 24th year of the Wanli Calendar, the emperor sent a large number of taxing eunuchs while sending eunuchs to open mines.
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the prosperity of the market economy and the rapid circulation of goods, a banknote customs was set up in Tongdu Dayi. Yixian County, Jining, Xuzhou, Huai'an, Yangzhou, Shangxinhe, Hushu, Jiujiang, Jinshazhou, Linqing, Beixin, etc., these banknotes, according to the size of the merchant ships, levy varying amounts of "ship material". After collecting "ship material", the cargo tax is no longer collected, except for the customs clearance and the North New Customs, which also collects the cargo tax. After the twenty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar, the situation changed, not only the number of tax collection places increased, but also the names of taxes appeared one after another.
Liang Yong, the eunuch of the Imperial Horse Guard, was sent to Shaanxi by the emperor in February of the 27th year of the Wanli Calendar to collect the excise tax on famous horses. According to the regulations, the tax inspector may not bring troops. However, Liang Yong recruited outlaws, accumulated five hundred warhorses, formed a cavalry, and entered and exited the border. His henchman, Jinyi Wei Qianhu Legang, was the most ruthless, helping Liang Yong to do some adulterous crimes. Wang Zhengzhi of Zhixian County, Fuping County, exposed Liang Yong's treacherous plot to the imperial court, and the emperor involuntarily ordered that Wang Zhengzhi be escorted to Beijing and imprisoned in Jinyiwei for four years, but he died in prison inexplicably.
Xu Douniu of Weinan County was an incorruptible official like Wang Zhengzhi and was quite dissatisfied with Liang Yong. Liang Yong instructed his henchman Hang Daxian to lead a group of men and horses straight into Weinan, extorted and extorted from Xu Douniu, killed several people on the spot, and made a big fuss in the county hall, and Xu Douniu died of anger.
The Governor of Shaanxi, Jia Zhiqian (字学叔, pinyin: Zhāng Rong, a native of Guangpingwei County), complained about Xu Douniu and hoped that the emperor would punish Liang Yong. The emperor, however, wanted Liang Yong to participate in the trial of the case. Yang Yingwen, the official of the speech, objected, saying: His Majesty has already seen the injustice of Xu Douniu, Liang Yong, as the main messenger, is guilty of the same crime as Hang Daxian, so how can he participate in the trial of this case? His objections were ineffective. Liang Yong, relying on Qin's orders, rebuked The Shaanxi Governor Jia Zhiqing and Xi'an Fu Tongzhi Song Xian during the trial, and suspected of taking advantage of the private interests, and investigated these people together. As far as this was concerned, the emperor readily agreed.
After that, Liang Yong's arrogance became even more arrogant, and he openly proposed to the emperor that he also lead the town to guard his post, lead his troops to inspect the salt ponds such as Huama and Qingyang, and levy salt lessons. What's more, liang Yong, under the pretext of patrolling, led the outlaws to march around with the umbrella cover of the flag and the umbrella, wantonly plundering, digging up the tombs of the emperors of previous dynasties, searching for ancient gold and jade artifacts, and extorting money everywhere. Zhixian was overwhelmed and rode away one after another. Liang Yong instructed his minions to kill Zheng Siyan of the county, and commanded Liu To apply for employment.
In order to accumulate wealth, the emperor instructed and connived at the mining tax eunuchs to go to various places to loot, and ran amok. Local officials could not stop it, and central officials were helpless, and seemed powerless to change the situation except to complain from the upper echelons. This is due to the fact that the Wanli Emperor Zhu Yijun has always been obsessed with it and has gone his own way. The perverse behavior of the mining tax eunuchs has intensified social contradictions and triggered popular unrest.
The arrogance of the mining tax eunuchs is clear at a glance. According to scholars' estimates, from the 25th year of the Wanli calendar to the 34th year of the Wanli calendar, the mining tax eunuchs paid a total of 5.69 million taels of silver into the inner treasury. What is the concept of an average annual payment of 569,000 taels of silver?
This income is a small amount compared to the annual agricultural tax (summer tax, autumn grain) and salt tax revenue. Taking the sixth year of the Wanli Calendar as an example, the revenue of the Taicang Silver Treasury was 3680,000 taels, of which the agricultural tax silver was 209 million taels and the salt tax silver was 1 million taels. However, compared with customs duties and commercial taxes, it is a large amount.
In the sixth year of wanli, Hexiwu, Linqing, Hushu, Jiujiang, Hangzhou (Beixin), Huai'an, Yangzhou and other banknotes were released into Taicang with a tariff of 234,000 taels; the incomplete statistics of Chongwenmen, Tongzhou Zhangjiawan, Jiangxi, Shandong, Shaanxi, Guangdong, Yunnan and other places in the sixth year of the Wanli Calendar were 113,000 taels of commercial tax silver.
It can be seen from this that the amount of silver that the eunuchs of the mining tax pay to the inner treasury every year is a small amount, and gold, pearls, mink, ginseng, horses, etc., have not been counted. This kind of super-economic forced accumulation can certainly not be ignored. The reason is that it is an extra squeeze beyond the positive tax, not the revenue of the national treasury, but the wealth that is only at the disposal of the royal family, and the drawbacks are inevitable. Officials repeatedly advised the emperor, accusing him of the shortcomings of the mining tax, and the emperor repeatedly argued and refused to accept it.
The mining tax eunuch was a Chincha minister appointed by the emperor, who directly served the treasury of the court, was not supervised by the central government, and was above the local government, without any institutional constraints, forming a huge financial loophole. How much wealth is amassed? Hand over geometry, intercept geometry? It is a confused account, and only the mining tax eunuch himself has a number in mind. The inevitable result, therefore, is that the eunuchs pay more and pay less, the eunuchs are full of private pockets, and a large amount of wealth falls into their private pockets.
These eunuchs have been living in the palace for a long time, and they are nearly ignorant of the national economy and the people's livelihood, and about industry and commerce, act arbitrarily, corrupt the law, and enrich themselves, thus making the people's resentment boil over the whole country.
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