New Shun 1730

Besides this kind of political metaphor of flattery, Liu Yu's attitude towards this Confucian debate is to stay out of it completely.

First, he has limited ability and is not qualified to get involved in this matter.

Second, even if he has it, he dare not.

The Dashun imperial power does not allow a person who is in a high position to have "orthodoxy".

Because the Dashun imperial power is afraid of three things.

Li Zicheng who rebelled.

Wang Mang who interpreted the scriptures.

Zhao Kuangyin who had military power.

And Liu Yu's understanding of Confucianism is far from enough and his level is extremely low.

He placed his hope on the change of the economic foundation and the great Confucian scholars who stood up to interpret the scriptures.

As for himself, he used a very standard deconstruction method.

Dismantling the Confucian system, or he did not understand the Confucian system in the first place.

Picking out sentences.

Quoting out of context.

Taking out a sentence to interpret the legitimacy of the policy.

As for the Confucian orthodoxy, schools, Confucius and Mencius, and Song Confucianism, he said "I will use what they say if it is beneficial to me".

It is like turning a complete and systematic Confucianism into a "famous saying".

Therefore, he basically interpreted the debate about Mencius from the perspective of Confucius and Mencius.

For example, the issue of land tax reform.

Those who opposed his reform believed that Liu Yu's tax rate was too high and not at all humane. After calculation, the average tax rate was actually close to 10%. Compared with the previous dynasty's 30% tax rate, this was simply tyranny.

And Liu Yu quoted Mencius' famous saying.

Bai Gui said, "I want to take one out of every twenty, what do you think?"

Mencius said, "Your way is the way of the raccoon. In a country with ten thousand households, if one person makes a pottery, is that OK?" He said, "No, there won't be enough utensils."

He said, "In the raccoon, the five grains do not grow, only millet grows; there are no cities, palaces, ancestral temples, sacrificial rituals, no money, silk, food for the princes, no officials, so taking one out of every twenty is enough. Now in China, human relations are gone, and there are no gentlemen, how can this be OK? With few people, the raccoon cannot be a country, let alone without gentlemen? Those who want to be less than the way of Yao and Shun are big raccoons and small raccoons; those who want to be more than the way of Yao and Shun are big Jie and small Jie."

Liu Yu directly brought up Mencius to make a point.

Saying that the tax is one out of thirty is a standard barbarian style, the barbarian style of the barbarians who have almost no administrative management, no complete control, and the central government almost does not care about the people's livelihood and bureaucracy.

Barbarians, grains do not grow, there are no cities to build, no palaces to maintain, no ancestral temples to worship. There are no officials or officials.

They almost ignore the local areas, do not provide relief when there is a disaster, and do not manage when there is a problem, so they can collect 20% tax.

Therefore, Mencius said that those with too low tax rates can be regarded as barbarians. It is just a matter of whether the degree of barbarism is deep or shallow.

Gu Yanwu said: When the Yuan Dynasty entered China, it set the land tax for the whole country. The tax for upper fields was three liters per mu, the tax for middle fields was two and a half liters, the tax for lower fields was two liters, and the tax for paddy fields was five liters.

Aren’t the Mongols and Yuan Dynasty barbarians? Therefore, low tax rates are the bad habits of barbarians.

Because barbarians do not know how to effectively manage a country, do not know that the government should manage the grassroots, do not know that it should provide relief to the people, do not know that it should repair the Yellow River, do not know that it should provide relief to the people, and do not know that there should be a complete set of administrative systems to ensure the normal operation of the country.

In this era of great contention, Westerners such as the British, the French and the English have already jumped out of the category of barbarians, and their tax rates are basically 14% of the gross national product. Even in terms of land tax, they pay four shillings for every pound of income, and a 5:1 tax. France can only collect taxes to 7% of its gross national product, so France, with several times the population and several times the land, cannot have an overall advantage.

If this dynasty does not want to be a barbarian, it must increase taxes.

Only when the court has money can it repair water conservancy, provide disaster relief, maintain the army, balance wealth, open schools, and protect the common people.

Only by raising taxes can we get rid of the barbarian bad habits that have remained since the Yuan Dynasty.

Is Mencius' words unreasonable?

According to 10 billion mu of land, and the harvest of 200 catties per mu of land, if the court wants to get rid of the bad habits of barbarians, the fiscal revenue from the land must reach 20 billion catties, which is about 100 million taels of silver, to be considered truly free from the bad habits of barbarians.

Now we can only earn so little money, we can neither control the grassroots nor raise the people, nor build schools to develop education, nor give some financial subsidies to the widows and orphans. What else can this be but the remnant of the barbarian customs?

Liu Yu did not argue from the perspective that the court could not collect taxes, the grassroots could only make apportionments, and the gentry avoided taxes.

Instead, he directly brought up Mencius' words, saying that the thirty-one tax is the barbarian habit, and the practice of giving up grassroots control and allowing the grassroots to be semi-autonomous at a low tax rate is the remnant of the Mongols.

His practice of "I will quote it if it is beneficial to me, regardless of its system" also made this "Rugao Meeting" very difficult to handle.

Whether to collect taxes, how much taxes to collect, how to maintain the operation of a court, and how to achieve regional balance are originally scientific issues.

What did it end up like?

It turned into reading scriptures.

The scriptures say that we should tax eleven, not twenty, so the eleventh tax is good.

But we can't say that this approach is completely bad. The debate on the tax rate issue has indeed led some great scholars to think about issues such as tax collection, governance, grassroots control, and the responsibilities and obligations of the court.

But Mencius is indeed indispensable here.

The government's good governance is benevolent governance.

And under the basis of absolute imperial power, what is the basis for good governance?

If you don’t have a compassionate heart, you are not a human being; if you don’t have a sense of shame and disgust, you are not a human being; if you don’t have a sense of courtesy and humility, you are not a human being; if you don’t have a sense of right and wrong, you are not a human being. Compassionate heart is the beginning of benevolence; shame and disgust is the beginning of righteousness; courtesy and humility is the beginning of propriety; right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. People have these four beginnings, just like they have four limbs.

So we need to cultivate our mind.

And after cultivating our mind.

Everyone has a heart that cannot bear to see others suffer. The ancient kings had a heart that could not bear to see others suffer, so they had a policy that could not bear to see others suffer. With a heart that cannot bear to see others suffer, we can carry out a policy that cannot bear to see others suffer, and we can rule the world in our hands.

The policy that cannot bear to see others suffer, which is the foundation of benevolent politics.

This is why the mind-nature faction has grown stronger. Otherwise, how can we constrain the court to carry out good politics?

This is not to say that Mencius's teachings are really unavoidable in this reform. It is useful, but in reality, it is quite limited.

A bunch of gentry who have studied Confucianism and cultivated their minds for a lifetime have not really spontaneously done good deeds.

The real unavoidable part is some specific examples mentioned by Mencius.

For example, this sentence: When Yao was in power, the world was still not peaceful; floods were flowing and flooding the world; the grass and trees were lush, the beasts were multiplying, and the grains were not harvested; the beasts were pressing people, and the tracks of beasts and birds were crossing into China. Yao was worried about it alone, so he appointed Shun to govern it. Shun made Yi take charge of fire, and Yi burned the mountains and swamps, and the beasts fled. Yu dredged the nine rivers, dredged the Ji and Luo rivers, and poured them into the sea; he opened the Ru and Han rivers, and drained the Huai and Si rivers, and poured them into the Yangtze River. Then China could have food. At that time, Yu was away for eight years, and passed by his door three times without entering; even if he wanted to farm, could he? Hou Ji taught the people to grow crops and plant the five grains. When the five grains are ripe, the people are nurtured. This is the way of man. If people are well fed and clothed, live in comfort but have no education, they are close to animals. The sage was worried about this, so he appointed Qi as the Minister of Education to teach them about human relations...

The origin of these words is to oppose the absolute egalitarianism of farmers and the theory of fair exchange of small producers of farmers.

However, due to the changes of the times, the focus of later generations has been placed on the difference between "man and animals" in the latter part.

However, if you want to interpret the sutra in a distorted way, it is not impossible, and it is even very simple.

That is, can the process from Dayu to Hou Ji and then to Qi mentioned by Mencius be understood as having a "sequence of precedence"?

Or is there a priority order?

Flood control, that is, the people's right to life, safety and survival, is the top priority.

Then, production can be carried out.

And then human relations education can be carried out?

If there is a priority or sequence, then can we say that Liu Yu's current industrial and commercial development, salt policy reform, land policy, and development of productivity are also of great significance in the concept of Confucianism.

Or from another perspective, can Mencius' words be understood as the government must assume obligations such as water control, protecting the people, developing production, and educating the people?

If it is to be assumed, where does the money come from? Do we need to collect taxes? Do we need to reform? Do we need to increase the court's fiscal revenue?

In short, if these words are separated, they can be understood from different perspectives.

Of course, if we want to integrate them into a complete system, solve the disputes between Confucius and Mencius, the schools of Confucianism, and interpret the words of these saints from a new perspective, that is what the great Confucians have to do.

Liu Yu certainly does not have this ability.

But his perspective on interpreting the scriptures has indeed been supported by some great Confucians, and they really understand the many reforms carried out by Liu Yu from the perspective that Liu Yu expected.

In fact, there are quite a few people.

But...

However, during the Jiangsu reform that lasted from the first year of Weixin to the fifth year of Weixin, some great scholars who initially supported Liu Yu's approach and even approached Liu Yu's interpretation of the scriptures finally disagreed with Liu Yu.

At the beginning of the reform in the first year of Weixin, after solving the basic rules of abandoning salt and reclaiming wasteland, Liu Yu invited some great scholars to visit the Haizhou salt factory.

These great scholars who were originally inclined to Liu Yu's reform were very supportive and happy.

They felt that there were indeed many benefits.

The court could control the salt tax, which would have more money for disaster relief, flood control, etc.

Moreover, the cost was reduced, and the merchants and the court also benefited, while the cost could be reduced, which was indeed beneficial to the people. At least, the people's salt was cheaper than before.

However, as the reform deepened, the problem finally broke out.

At the beginning of the third year of Weixin, about 20,000 salt workers in Huai'an and Yangzhou broke out in a rally or uprising against the court's change of salt production areas.

With the changes in the salt production area, the change in the salt logistics center, and the overly drastic reform speed, there was indeed no way to accommodate so many salt workers who originally made their living from salt.

This uprising received widespread sympathy, especially the sympathy and support of the locals in Yangzhou and Huai'an.

Because it was not just them, in fact, the entire Huai'an and Yangzhou had a hard time during the reform process.

And because the reform was too drastic, Yangzhou and Huai'an declined rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The canal plus Huainan salt is the root of Yangzhou and Huai'an.

Liu Yu dug up the roots directly.

Let's put it this way, even the prostitutes in Yangzhou City opposed Liu Yu. There were even at least forty dramas that humiliated Liu Yu.

The uprising, which was mainly led by salt workers, received widespread sympathy and support from Yangzhou, and a large amount of funding was given. Some Confucian scholars even joined the uprising.

The slogan of these people's uprising was not rebellion, but anti-traitor. Go straight to Haizhou and destroy the salt factory in Haizhou, leaving a way to survive for millions of people in Yangzhou and Huai'an.

Then... it was brutally suppressed by the executioner Liu Yu.

More than 700 people were killed, and 4,000 people were sentenced to exile to Nanyang Plantation, Whale Sea, Ceylon and other places. The remaining people were given some living opportunities and asked to work in Songjiang Prefecture, but they lost their houses and other things. Even if they still did the same job there, their living standards would drop sharply compared to when they were in Yangzhou.

The really disgusting thing was not the suppression itself, but that Liu Yu deliberately indulged some people to become bandits after defeating the rebel team.

The rebels who originally had demands and were led by Confucian scholars were dispersed, and the extremely impoverished salt households and salt soldiers who were left behind by the Jiangsu reform and could not be fully covered quickly became bandits.

Liu Yu deliberately indulged, and the chaos caused a large number of rich households, merchants, or capital, to migrate to Songjiang Prefecture, Suzhou Prefecture and other places south of the Yangtze River in a few years.

In just a few years, a large amount of capital in Huai'an and Yangzhou moved south.

After that, the city continued to decline, and the lower classes could not survive again and again, leading to rebellions and chaos.

Then, capital moved south again and again.

In the Tang Dynasty, countless literati fantasized about riding a crane to Yangzhou; in the Ming Dynasty, Huai'an was as prosperous as the capital.

A thousand years of prosperity, in a few years, was tossed to death by Liu Yu.

Everything was a huge contrast within a few years from the abolition of the canal by Dashun, the promotion of sea transportation, and the change of salt administration. Many people have witnessed the prosperity of Yangzhou and Huai'an before the abolition of the canal by Dashun.

The buildings are dilapidated, the flowers and trees are withered, the snails are drooling, the spider webs are withered, the grass is withered, and the old city scenery is withered.

The deserted city is surrounded by broken tiles, and the poor merchants sit on the empty tung trees.

The prosperity of the past is declining today. Those who do not shed tears when watching it are not human.