According to Biography of Li Sancai in Ming Dynasty and Biographical Materials Series of Ming Dynasty compiled by Zhou, Li Sancai (1552- 1623), whose real name was Dao Fu, was born in the thirty-first year of Jiajing in Ming Dynasty (1552) and died in the third year of tomorrow (65438). Because my grandfather defended Yanjing, my father moved to Tongzhou, Shuntianfu (Tongzhou, Beijing), and settled in Zhangjiawan. In the second year of Wanli (1574), he was a scholar, with 70 students as the head of the household department, and experienced Shandong Shu, Henan Senate, Dali Shao Qing, Langzhong and Shiyuzhong City; The economic expectation is the same as that of Nanle Wei Yunzhen (1542- 1606) and Li Chang Yuanhong (1554-1611). From the twenty-seventh year of Wanli (1599) to the thirty-ninth year of Wanli (161kloc-0/), he served as "governor of grain transportation and military affairs, Fengyang and other places in charge of river courses" and was a senior official of grain transportation affairs in Ming Dynasty.

Li Sancai is a brilliant poet. Qian (1582- 1664) recorded his life in Poems of Past Dynasties, Chen Tian's Chronicle of Ming Poetry and Zhu Yizun's Poems of Ming Dynasty (1629- 1709). When Li Sancai was in charge, there was also a book recording his words and deeds, Fu Huai Xiao Cao (or Xiao Cao), and Chen Zilong (1608- 1647) edited Ming Jing Shi Wen (Volume 42 1), and six books were also selected. In addition, the first episode of Mr. Chen, written by Chen Huodian, a Neo-Confucianist in Ming Dynasty, contains the Preface of Fu Huai. Tang Xianzu (1550-1616), Tang Ruoshi's prose and Tang Xianzu's poetry all have the preface of Reading Cao Fucao. Zhao Nanxing (1550-1627) recorded the Preface to Grass in the fifth volume of the Collected Works of Zhai. Gu Xiancheng (1550 ——1612), the sixth volume of Gao Jing Zang Draft, contains the Preface of Gongcao in Li Xiuwu, Zhong Cheng; The ninth volume of Dingling Notes (1609— 1669) contains all the stories of Huaifu, which can provide research reference.

According to the textual research on Ji Fu by Sun Chengze (1592- 1676) and Sun Qifeng (1584- 1675), Li Sancai "tasted his son: on the day of his death, he used a willow coffin." After the death of the public, there is no ambition in the tomb, and there is no monument in the tomb. None of the books written by No Self-deception, Two Crane Pavilion Collection and Commandments (Shame Record) survived. "In addition, according to Zhu Yizun's Comprehensive Poems of the Ming Dynasty, Volume 8 of Records of Tongzhou in the 5th year of Guangxu (1879) and Figures, Xiang Xian Li Sancai, Li Sancai also wrote The Collection of Burning Ai, Don't Deceive Yourself, The Poem of Wren (Xuan) and so on. The only book handed down from ancient times is Fu Huai Xiao Cao, which is collected by the University of Tokyo.

Fu Huai Xiao Cao was published in Wanli period of Ming Dynasty, with 15 volumes and 16 volumes. There are Zhu Shilu's Preface to the Huai River, Zhu's Preface to the Huai River, Preface to the Huai River and Preface to the Huai River. Originally collected by Imperial University of Tokyo, it is now in the General Library of Tokyo University. The rare books are recorded in the China Book Catalogue of the General Library of Tokyo University, numbered "G30—564", and four categories are "History Department, Imperial Letters, Memorials, etc.". . It is not clear how the printed version was collected here from China. In front of this volume, there is a square seal of Yang Shoushu: "Book Seal of Imperial University of Tokyo", with a page length of about 29 cm and a width of about 29 cm.

19cm； The inside page of the text is about 23cm long and16cm wide, with an upper limit of 4cm and a lower limit of 2cm. In the preface and postscript, the title of the book is written in the heart, and the number of pages is recorded under the double fish tail. There are six lines per page, each line is about 12 words, and each line is 2.5 cm wide. At the beginning of each volume, there is a title, and the second administrative office is "Li Sancai, Daofu, Kansai"; The heart of the edition is written with the title of "Fu Huai Xiao Cao", and the volume number and page number are recorded under the double fish tail. Nine lines per page, each line engraved with regular script, width 1.5 cm. There are eleven volumes in the catalogue of this book, all of which are ninety-eight, all of which are "Shu Shu" and Chen Shu; However, after the text of volume 1 1, there are volumes 12 to 15. For all four volumes, the first two volumes are "brand letter" and the last two volumes are "notice" and "batch details", but the contents of each volume are not written in the pre-volume directory. After the volume of this book, there are two reading prefaces: Ting Wei's Dongji reading Li Daofu's "Fu Huai Xiao Cao" and Xu's "Reading Fu Huai Xiao Cao". And Yang Xun's Postscript of Remembering Grass and Xu Luan's Postscript of Remembering Grass.

It can be seen from the preface and volume of "Returning to the Grass" that since the middle of Wanli, there have been years of wars, fires in the palace, and a sharp deterioration in finance, and a government with "mineral tax" has emerged to enrich the state treasury. Three characteristics of Wanli-from the 20th year of Wanli (1592) to the beginning of resisting Toyotomi Hideyoshi's aid to Korea (1538+0598) to the end of Wanli (1592). Benefiting from the palace fire, the country is short of use, so mining tax is levied. Because the collection of mineral tax was carried out by eunuchs appointed by the imperial court, it was directly turned over to the state treasury and was not controlled by central and local officials, resulting in various serious drawbacks. Emperor Wanli levied various commercial taxes on minerals, salt and pearls. , mainly to enrich the warehouse of private houses, and sent eunuchs as tax supervisors, which violated the state system, so they could not get the support of the DPRK ministers, and Li Sancai was the one who opposed it the most fiercely. Eunuchs, under the orders of the emperor, are unscrupulous and violate the law and discipline, so that all kinds of appalling disadvantages emerge one after another. According to statistics, at that time, only about 10% to 35% of the tax collected by the tax supervisor entered the emperor's treasury, and the rest fell into the hands of eunuchs to enrich themselves; So the biggest beneficiary of mining tax is not the emperor, but this small group of greedy eunuchs. At that time, the ministers of the DPRK opposed the mining tax, especially in the 28th year of Wanli (1600). In the third volume of Li Sancai's "Recovering the Grass", the first stop was the sparse mining tax, and the opposition was the fiercest. From Li Sancai, there are several points worth noting:

First of all, the prosperity of mining tax makes all people unemployed; Secondly, under the frequent orders of soukuo, the obstructionist offended; Moreover, tax collectors are mostly hooligans, and it is not uncommon to cheat money with fake ones; Finally, Li Sancai reminded Emperor Wanli that the emperor's duty was to make the people well fed and clothed. Although the people are humble and eager to meet the basic needs of life, they are no different from the emperor; If we can't meet people's basic needs, the world will never be stable. Li Sancai's neglect has touched the duty of the emperor and the people's right to subsistence, which is very similar to the idea put forward by Huang Zongxi (16 10- 1695) in The Original King, but it does not involve the origin of absolute monarchy.

"History of the Ming Dynasty" (Volume 74) Guan San and Zhu Yuanzhang (1328- 1398) once said: "I don't think there are as many people as 100. Later generations to more than a thousand, all because of the disorder of use. This Cao Can can only be used to sweep the floor and give orders. There will be too many orders unless there are other appointments. " He added: "This Cao Cao, there are not one or two good people, but there are often thousands of evil people. If it is used as an eye ear, that is, an eye ear cover; Used as a confidant, that is, a confidant disease. " Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty were all evil, such as Wang Zhen (? -1449), Wang Zhi of Xianzong (? -1559), Liu Jin of Wu Zongzhi (1451510), Wei Zhongxian of Xi Zongzhi (1568- 1627). The eunuch sent by Wanli to levy mining tax, pearl tax and salt tax obviously didn't listen to this ancestral training. From Wanli to Chongzhen, eunuchs suffered the most, including the mine supervisors Chen Zeng, Ma Tang, Chen Feng, Liang Yong, Yang Rong and Wei Zhongxian of the Apocalypse. Even in matteo China's notes, Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary, is the most greedy. Therefore, Fan Shuzhi's History of the Late Ming Dynasty rolled up and said:

The drawback of the mineral tax eunuch is institutional, that is, he lacks the necessary means of checks and balances on a special power. Eunuchs in mining tax were directly appointed by the emperor, and they were also directly turned over to the state treasury in the imperial court. They are not subject to the supervision of the central and local governments, and there is no system guarantee, thus forming a huge financial loophole-less levy, eunuchs enrich themselves, and a lot of wealth falls into their private pockets. In October of the 31st year of Wanli, Shanxi Governor Bai Xiu revealed that Shanxi collected 45,200 taels of tax every year, and the tax supervisor only paid15,800 taels into the state treasury, falsely claiming that he was in arrears, and kept the remaining 29,400 taels for himself. This means that 65% of the tax revenue has been misappropriated by Sun Chao. In the thirty-third year of Wanli, Huang Kekun, the governor of Shandong Province, revealed to the Sect that the tax supervisor, Matang, withdrew no less than 250,000 to 262,000 tax yuan every year, but only 78,000 yen was donated to the state treasury every year, and more than 1.3 million tax yuan was hidden within seven years. The so-called "hidden" cloud means that more than 70% of the tax money was embezzled by Ma Tang.

Although the corruption of mining tax eunuchs has caused huge property losses to the people, the civil unrest caused by predatory collection of business tax may be more serious. This method of imposing heavy tax barriers is equivalent to double taxation on a commodity, which will eventually lead to an increase in commodity prices and a decline in consumers' purchasing power, and the most serious state may be the cessation of commercial activities. What's more, it encroached on the commodity funds of poor and weak businessmen and various illegal grain taxes. And these eunuchs dare to be so arrogant, purely out of the protection of Emperor Wanli, which is also the main reason why Li Sancai constantly resisted Yan Shangshu.

According to historical records, in the twenty years after the 10th year of Wanli (1582), that is, from the 11th year to more than 30 years of Wanli, the national politics and people's economy changed greatly due to the three major levies and levies of mining tax in Wanli, making the country poor and the people unconscious. Huang Renyu's "Finance and Taxation in China in the 6th Century/kloc" points out that the financial situation of the Ming Dynasty in the 28th year of Wanli (1600) was worse than that of Jiajing and Qin Long. Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary, also pointed out that the mine tax source in the middle of Wanli was an empty treasury after the Korean War, and people were generally poor because of insatiable eunuchs. Considering the above statement, combined with the comprehensive interpretation of Li Sancai's Fu Huai Xiao Cao, it can be said that the 40-odd years in the late Wanli period of Ming Shenzong (1573- 16 19), especially since the middle of Wanli, can be said to be a key time point for turning from rich to poor, and it is also the most dramatic stage in Ming history; No matter in politics, economy and academic thought, it is facing great changes. The transition from rich to poor in Ming Dynasty was a gradual process. Since the middle of Wanli, the people of the whole country have been generally poor, and their livelihood has become increasingly difficult and depressed. In fact, the most serious key lies in the plunder of imperial power, especially the "mineral tax" incident, which is the dividing point between the rise and fall of the country and the rise and fall of the economy in the late Ming Dynasty when natural disasters and wars frequently occur. Although there are many reasons for the country's chaos and people's plight after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, we can know from Li Sancai's Huai Cao that some of them are due to poor system design, some are due to natural and man-made disasters, and some are due to the deprivation of those in power and the disadvantages of taxation. Insufficient tax revenue means that * * * can't fully manage the resources of the empire, which is actually bad for taxpayers. Because normal taxes can't make up for the expenses, the necessary project expenses will be solved by other means; However, due to the lack of effective audit, private levy is easy to waste funds and often becomes the source of crime, with many disadvantages. Due to the weak economy of small farmers, mainly yeomen and tenant farmers, the poor tax revenue, the county official Xu Li's indifference to tax details and the lack of supervision mechanism, as well as the frequent occurrence of wars and natural disasters, it has become an important reason for the national government's ills.

Li Sancai's Huai Cao can be said to be a microcosm of the decline of Wanli national politics and the depression of people's livelihood. He is also a scholar-bureaucrat with lofty ideals who has a profound understanding of the world and a sincere voice for management politics. Because it is unique at home and abroad, it is also precious in Japan, which is very worthy of in-depth study and provides reference for political and academic circles.

(Author: Chinese Department of Taiwan Province Normal University)

New bookshelf

Bitter and happy company.

-Zhou Xunchu's academic experience.

Mr. Zhou Xunchu is a senior professor of liberal arts in Nanjing University and a famous historian of literature and history.

This book has been serialized on classical literature for more than three years. The book is divided into 20 lectures, which is a review and summary of Mr. Zhou Xunchu's life experience in studying and treating ancient literature and history. Not only have personal life experiences and feelings, but also have a high academic level and readability. The appendix after each lecture is a variety of reports or articles related to it to help readers understand the content more comprehensively.

Accompanied by Bitterness and Happiness, by Zhou Xunchu, 32 hardcover books, priced at 130 yuan. Phoenix Publishing House published 2065438+September 2006.