Chapter 1055 1146 Ministry of Revenue Reform

Chapter 1055 1146 Ministry of Revenue Reform

What Wei Guangde mentioned was actually the so-called basis for Portugal and Spain to carve up the world during their power - the Papal Meridian.

The Papal Meridian is a line established by Pope Alexander VI in 1493 to demarcate the colonial territories between Spain and Portugal.

Under this treaty, Pope Alexander VI divided the world into two territorial areas, belonging to Spain and Portugal.

However, the delineation of the Papal Meridian was not generally recognized by other European countries, especially those that later entered the colonial competition.

In the early days of the Age of Discovery, or the early days of the colonial era, Spain and Portugal gained huge advantages by virtue of their first-mover advantage, making other Western countries coveted but unable to do anything about it.

But when these countries gradually went out and competed for colonies, the Papal Meridian was actually abandoned, and many disputes and disputes surrounding the colonies were eventually resolved through other means.

Although the delineation of the Papal Meridian did not comprehensively resolve territorial disputes and colonial rivalries, it is still regarded as an important milestone in international law and colonial history.

However, what the Western Popes delineated actually meant nothing to the three rulers of the Eastern Empire.

But at this time, Feng Bao and Zhang Juzheng were still confused by the fact that the Yi people dared to divide the so-called world, which shocked them even more than the fact that the earth was round.

Yes, it doesn't matter whether the earth is square or round, because the earth under their feet will not change and they will not fall.

As for the safety of those on the other side of the world, it is not within their scope of consideration.

However, the majestic Ming Empire was actually assigned to the Yi people by a Western pope. This was something they could not accept.

"Can their Pope be greater than my Majesty the Ming Emperor?"

Feng Bao was speechless for a long time and finally managed to say this.

Wei Guangde was stunned when he heard this.

In later generations, the person in the Vatican is generally called the Pope, because he is God's spokesperson in the world.

However, it seems that some people also translate religious leaders into titles such as pope.

Whether it should be the pope or the pontiff, no one paid attention to it in later generations.

Because of the decline of imperial power, there is no real empire anymore. Even countries that still maintain monarchy still rule the country through a constitutional monarchy.

The king or emperor is more of a symbol with limited real power.

The situation of the Pope is similar. With the development of science and technology, although the number of believers has not decreased but has increased, the Pope's influence on the secular world has actually weakened.

Wei Guangde did not think it was necessary to argue about the title issue and hurriedly explained: "The title of Pope is the word given by the translator. In fact, in the West, his status is that of a religious leader, such as the Taoist Longhushan Celestial Master.

In the West, there is a similar title, that is, the Pope.

Therefore, there is no need for us to be familiar with those barbarians. "

Wei Guangde's explanation also had some effect. At least Feng Bao's face looked much better, although his face was still red.

Yes, it's just a title. He is the Pope, not the emperor, and he has no secular power, only influence.

It seems that there is really no need to be familiar with these rude barbarians.

After Zhang Juzheng calmed down, he also thought about the reason why Wei Guangde said these words.

"Shandai, what do you mean, the imperial court is in dire financial straits, so we should imitate the foreigners' methods and seize territory and money?"

Zhang Juzheng's words reached Feng Bao's ears, and Feng Bao also asked in confusion: "Did he say it?"

"Didn't Shandai just say that there is a continent to the east, which is covered with gold and silver mines. The Yi people, the silver coins used by the Spaniards in our Ming Dynasty, were mined from the continent to the east."

Zhang Juzheng immediately reminded him.

After listening to Zhang Juzheng's words, Feng Bao nodded slightly thoughtfully.

"Spain and Portugal are now powerful countries in the barbarian country. They rely on the huge wealth brought by navigation, which allows them to build more large ships and recruit more soldiers.

With ships and soldiers, they can seize more territory and minerals and enrich the national treasury.

Therefore, there is no doubt about their aggressiveness.

Once there is no place in the world for them to intervene, they will probably turn their attention to those countries that they could not conquer before. "

Wei Guangde had pointedly said.

This is actually the history of future generations.

When the world was divided and the new Western order was established.

The leaders among them naturally turned their attention to areas that they had previously considered difficult to rule, such as India and China.

"So, you also led Daming to this step?"

Zhang Juzheng stared at Wei Guangde and asked word by word.

“Seize important positions to avoid similar incidents from happening.

At the very least, similar incidents were not allowed to happen in the vassal states surrounding the Ming Dynasty. "

Wei Guangde shook his head and replied, "It can be seen from the reaction of the Sulu Kingdom that it is not that they cannot understand the wolfish ambitions of the Yi people, but they just lack the strength to fight against them.

And they can only rely on me, the Ming Dynasty, and long for the protection of the Ming Dynasty.

These we can give him.

However, at the same time, they must also shoulder their responsibilities to the Ming Dynasty. They are not asking them for money or resources, but to completely open the Ming Dynasty market so that our merchants can do business with them.

The imperial court collected taxes to obtain financial support for protection, and they could also obtain the Ming Dynasty products they desired. "

In fact, there were no international business rules in this era, and they were all made by local rulers themselves.

No matter where the merchants came from, they had to accept the various regulations of the local rulers.

Not only did they have to pay taxes, but they also had to supply designated goods. It didn't mean that you could sell goods casually and only consider the market without considering other things.

In some religious countries, some goods cannot be sold.

Some would also restrict trading ports, and foreign merchants could only trade in designated port cities.

These undoubtedly affected the interests of merchants.

Because the more restrictions there are, the more profit margins foreign merchants may have.

This is why many colonial wars were launched at the beginning with the opening of trading ports.

Opening more trading ports and contacting more merchants will increase demand and their profit margins.

The Ming Dynasty now has the confidence to open only Yuegang and impose heavy taxes on the goods circulating here, which is actually a manifestation of this right.

"The Ming Dynasty not only has to return to Nanyang and regain control of the South Ming Sea, but also enter the West and reach all the places visited during the Yongle period. It also has to continue to expand trade routes and sell Ming Dynasty goods to more distant places.

The foreign merchants can travel thousands of miles to buy Ming Dynasty goods and sell them back, which means that our Ming Dynasty goods will only have higher profits overseas.

It is not wrong for merchants to pursue profits. As long as there is a higher profit, they should go to great lengths to deliver goods to your door. "

Wei Guangde made a cold joke and said, "As for what my uncle said before, it is actually very simple to enrich the treasury, not just to increase taxes blindly.

I remember that I had read the article "There is a Great Way to Make Money" written by my uncle earlier. In fact, the article has already said that it is nothing more than increasing revenue and reducing expenditure.

In the past, it was difficult to increase revenue, but since the late emperor has lifted the ban on sea trade, there are naturally new ways to make money.

The Ministry of Revenue can also consider cooperating with sea merchants and participating in it to make profits.

As for saving money, my uncle has said everything he should say in the article, and I don't have any other ideas.

However, I sent a letter to my family in Jiangxi a few days ago, but I didn't expect that no merchants would go back in the past few days. ”

Speaking of this, Wei Guangde looked at Zhang Juzheng and said: "Although I can use the imperial post to send letters home, and even send a servant to make a special trip.

But this matter still gave me some other ideas.

The Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War jointly manage the imperial post, which usually delivers official documents, welcomes officials, and delivers war reports during wars.

But in normal times, these postmen don’t actually have much to do, which is really a waste.

Shandai thinks that it is entirely possible to formulate a regulation so that the postmen can accept the task of delivering letters from the people.

There is generally no such demand in the county, and most of the letters are delivered across prefectures or even provinces.

According to the distance, the postmen charge a certain amount of money, and this money naturally offsets the court’s expenses on the postmen.

That is, it can be said that this is an increase in revenue, or it can be considered as saving money for the court. "

"Hiss"

Hearing Wei Guangde's words, Zhang Juzheng took a breath.

To be honest, Zhang Juzheng had not expected Wei Guangde's proposal, because the post station system has been implemented since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, and it has a history of nearly 200 years.

No one has ever proposed that the post station system needs to be changed, and naturally it has been automatically ignored by officials because they can benefit from it.

But in fact, Zhang Juzheng also knows that the annual expenses of the post station are actually very huge, so huge that it is difficult for ordinary people to imagine, based on the bills submitted by the Ministry of War to the Ministry of Revenue every year.

Three million taels of expenditure.

How many people in later generations know that the Ming Dynasty's annual investment in post stations and express delivery shops would be so huge.

The expenditure of three million taels is not actually for postmen, but for welcoming and seeing off officials, repairing post houses, and adding horse carriages.

Of course, only a part of it needs to be subsidized by the Ministry of Revenue, but only a few hundred thousand taels, more than two million taels of silver, actually All of them are allocated to local miscellaneous taxes.

Zhang Juzheng didn't pay attention to it before, but it's different now.

Now Wei Guangde proposed to increase revenue for the post station, or to save money, which made Zhang Juzheng suddenly feel that the expenses of the post station seemed to be a bit high.

The post station system during the Ming Dynasty was a huge communication and transportation network, which was of great significance to the governance of the country and military communications.

The operation and maintenance of the post station required a lot of funds, which mainly came from the national finance and local people's taxes.

The funds for each post station are generally provided according to the size of the post station, the number of personnel and carriages, and are used to replenish the post station's materials, improve and maintain the infrastructure, and pay the postman's remuneration.

In addition, the post station reform and system adjustment in the Ming Dynasty, such as the increase in the food intake of horses and the change in personnel configuration, will directly affect the operating costs of the post station.

"Shandai, I'm afraid that your business is not profitable, but losing money. "

Just when Zhang Juzheng was thinking about the post and delivery business, Feng Bao suddenly interrupted.

Wei Guangde looked at Feng Bao, somewhat puzzled.

"Although there is a demand for letters among the people, how many are there? Most relatives live in one place, where they need to communicate by letter.

As for those who need letters, that is, officials and merchants, they have channels to deliver letters.

As for you this time, it just happened that there were no merchants traveling back and forth."

Feng Bao explained.

In fact, Feng Bao's statement is not bad.

The current system of the Ming Dynasty restricts people to their hometowns. Generally speaking, there is no need to send letters to other places.

However, the Ming Dynasty also insisted on immigration. In fact, many clans were scattered across the country because of this.

Therefore, in response to Feng Bao's words, Wei Guangde shook his head and told that one branch of the Wei family went to Liaodong and the other went to Datong.

"Through the help of the Ministry of War, we have information about relatives who went to Liaodong that year, but the information about the Datong branch was lost due to the war in the early years."

Wei Guangde said, "If there is a letter to contact them, they can write a letter to Jiangxi, and there is no need to search hard.

Brother Shuanglin said that there is no such demand among the people. This is true at least, but it may not be the case. "

"What Shandai said is absolutely true."

Zhang Juzheng answered, but at this time he was not thinking about developing private postal services proposed by Wei Guangde, but thinking about reforming postal delivery services and reducing operating costs.

"Earlier, the imperial court immigrated to Liaodong and the west to open up wasteland. Many of these people have lost contact with their families for many years. If the imperial post can provide convenient communication, I think they will still have demand."

Zhang Juzheng said so, so Feng Bao naturally didn't say much, so he just nodded with a smile.

"Shan Loi, the Yi Delivery thing you mentioned seems to me to be a good direction.

Who would have thought that Yi Delivery's annual expenses have exceeded three million taels of silver. "

"What?"

It was the first time that Feng Bao knew that the court's courier service cost so much money. Three million taels was not a small number.

The total annual income of the imperial court is only equivalent to tens of millions of taels, and the postal service is almost equivalent to 10% of that.

Of course, Feng Bao also knew that the burden on the court was small, and the bulk was still on the local government.

But this expenditure is also significant.

Wei Guangde didn't know that he wanted to open up private postal services to facilitate people's contact. Under Zhang Juzheng's operation, it turned into a reform.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the imperial court's use of post stations was very strict.

But by now, huge corruption has emerged.

Although Zhang Juzheng was still drunk at this time, he was already planning to formulate a new "Regulations on Giving Posts", which stipulated new regulations for the issuance and management of Kanhe and the use of post stations.

Seeing that Zhang Juzheng was asking Wei Guangde for advice, Feng Bao rolled his eyes and asked in a low voice: "Shandai, do you think the twenty-four yamen of the inner court should also be changed?

Everyone in the outer court said that the inner court was accustomed to spending money but never asking for money. However, the inner court was meant to serve His Majesty, so how could it make money in business. "

After listening to Feng Bao's words, Wei Guangde shook his head directly and said, "Brother Shuanglin should find a solution to the inner court matters. This is not a matter for me to interfere with."

"You, you."

When Feng Bao heard what Wei Guangde said, he had no choice but to point his finger at him without saying anything else.

"Shandai, apart from Yi Delivery, what else can be improved by the Department of Revenue."

At this moment, Zhang Juzheng also asked following Feng Bao's words.

"In the Ministry of Accounts, the Baochao Lisu Department can be abolished or do other things."

Wei Guangde said without thinking.