Add Bookmark | Recommend this book | Back to the book page | My bookshelf | Mobile Reading

Free Web Novel,Novel online - All in hlnovel.com -> Prose -> Dust Heart Video

Economic Review of the Qing Dynasty: General Discussion of Shihuozhi in Draft History of the Qing Dynasty

Previous page        Return to Catalog        Next page

    ?

    Author: Shi Yuchun

    In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, various harsh policies were introduced one after another.  The most important of these is the apportionment of exorbitant taxes with complicated names.  And these exorbitant taxes are mainly used for military expenses.  All kinds of large and small wars and rebellions cost not only human lives, but also a lot of money.  The essence of this harsh reality is that the people live in extreme poverty and the social wealth is extremely scarce.

    After the Manchus took over China, in order to win the hearts of the people, and of course, to alleviate the various difficulties faced by the society, the first thing it did was to abolish and reduce all kinds of exorbitant taxes.  The exemption of exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes is to give the people a chance to breathe, so that the people can survive first.

    ?From the entry of the Manchus to the Kangxi and Qianlong eras, after a long period of recuperation, the country's financial situation gradually improved, and the people's lives were basically secure.  It is conjectured that the wars in the late Ming Dynasty must have caused the death of a large number of people. The result of this death was a sharp drop in the population of the entire society.  Obviously, the rulers of the Qing court realized the seriousness of the population problem and the importance of population size in social development.  The incentive policy for increasing the population means that the government will never increase the corresponding endowments for the newly born people.  In addition, as far as the whole country is concerned, the Qing court has generally exempted the whole world's taxation two or three times. This is a very powerful, very difficult, and very bold move.  People who wrote history even sighed at this, asserting that such a move was unprecedented.

    Since Daoguang and Xianfeng, the previously closed maritime trade has been opened up.  The opening of ports, shipping, and sea routes was not voluntary by the Qing court, and was mostly achieved by bombardment, military aggression, and blackmail threats.  During this period, it was also a time when the country changed one after another.  In the process of opening up maritime trade, the domestic commercial trade market, concepts, and models have all been severely challenged, and the road to increasing national wealth has been blocked.  At the same time, the country has spent a lot of human life and wealth in response to changes in the current situation, and there are too many places to spend money.  The most damning thing is that those in power can't see the situation at that time clearly at all, and their judgments about the future situation are also muddled.  This kind of result is to start the war casually without accurate deduction.  War means the melting of treasury money.  These large and small internal and external wars, the silver accumulated in the government treasury, and the grain stored in the official warehouse, all disappeared in a short time.  What's even more abominable is the huge amount of compensation after the defeat. According to statistics, this alone is as high as more than 400 trillion (should be 400 million taels).  It is said that if the Qing court's income was used to repay the debts, these war reparations would not be paid off for decades.

    In order to solve the financial difficulties, the Qing government, like all rulers in the past dynasties and later, naturally targeted the people under its rule first, and the method was nothing more than increasing taxes and apportioning various types of donations, salaries, and labor.  And other harsh and oppressive forced collection of money.  In addition, it is to implement a series of measures to boost national strength:

    1. Change water transportation to sea transportation to reduce transportation costs;

    2. Change the previous monetary system and implement the national currency;

    3. Implement salt administration and increase fiscal revenue;

    4. Mining minerals to increase financial resources;

    In addition to the above items, measures such as trying railway construction, changing the postal model, establishing a power management bureau, opening up maritime shipping, etc. were also adopted.

    The planning of this series of new policies has only one purpose, which is to increase fiscal revenue.  However, there is no deep study or comprehension of the basic common sense of a rich country and a strong people that has existed since ancient times, that is, it is necessary to achieve "many people engaged in production and few people consuming; the speed of production is fast and the speed of consumption is slow".  Think about the peaceful times of the three ancient generations. Those rulers even knew that once the masses were in poverty, you would not be able to sit in this world for long. After thousands of years, they even forgot this truth. It is really sad.

    The above is a summary.  (Remember the site URL: www.hlnovel.com
Didn't finish reading? Add this book to your favoritesI'm a member and bookmarked this chapterCopy the address of this book and recommend it to your friends for pointsChapter error? Click here to report