Chen Xi was confused because the Chen family was the representative of local tyrants and evil gentry.

Their family has been entrenched in Yangliuqing Town for hundreds of years and has done nothing bad.

She actually knew her family's affairs in her heart, but after reading these two tit-for-tat articles, she felt that they were telling the truth. What is the truth?

"Master, I'm confused. Who is right?" Chen Xi asked with his head tilted.

Yang Fan put down the newspaper and said, "What both of them say is fact, but they are just looking at it from their respective standpoints. In fact, both of them have only said part of the facts. What they accused of is true. They are actually birds of the same feather. There are no good people, they are all thieves who harm the people."

When Yang Fan saw Xiao Niangsai and the others, his eyes were brightly looked at him, waiting for his explanation.

They knew that this was the time for the master to make a high-profile statement again.

Lin Yueru looked at her master in admiration. The master was the most knowledgeable and looked at problems very sharply and accurately. Many things that were full of foggy, Yang Fan was often able to see through the essence incisively.

Yang Fan took a sip of tea, put down the cover bowl, and said, "In fact, dividing the population of the Ming Dynasty into farmers, businessmen, scholars, gentry, nobles, and royal families is a false proposition. Classification is actually meaningless. No matter which class there are people who create wealth, there are people who consume wealth. In fact, there are only two classes in the Ming Dynasty, namely the production class and the consumption class."

"This is actually the offeror and the offeree. The collapse of all dynasties has been the offerees, and they can no longer afford to offer the offerees. More and more people are offered, and eventually the country is crushed and eaten up."

Lin Yueru frowned and thought for a while, and asked, "Master, but the actual situation is complicated. Everyone is both a producer and a consumer. It just plays a role on which side. There should be very few pure producers and consumers, and most people have both."

Yang Fan nodded and said, "You are right."

There was a fat man with a big head on the Internet in later generations, and his views were very sharp. Yang Fan agreed very much. Yang Fan used it to help Lin Yueru solve his doubts.

"In fact, producers and operators can be divided into two types. In other words, the landlords and rich people in the Ming Dynasty are actually divided into two types. One is to survive and develop through commercial rules, and they are essentially business landlords and rich people. The other is to rely on rights to be derived from landlords and rich people. They are essentially right-seeking landlords and rich people."

"When the dynasty began, it would relax the control of the people. As long as policies and management were given, the people would be motivated to create wealth without the need for the court. Soon, the people would be rich and strong in one or two generations. As long as a relaxed environment was given, the people would automatically and spontaneously create a large amount of wealth. Just like the Han Dynasty, the rule of Wen and Jing was restored with the people and did not interfere with them. The rule of Huang-Lao and the rule of inaction was carried out. By the time of Emperor Wu, the grain warehouse was piled up and piled up to the open air, resulting in a large amount of rot. The money warehouse was full of money, and the rope of money was rotten, and the amount of money was dispersed was too much to calculate."

"As for why, every dynasty will decline from prosperity, that is because the court is afraid of the people's prosperity. Once the people are rich, it will be difficult to manage and the court cannot control them anymore. Because financial freedom is free, the people are not afraid of anyone. The court and the people are always opposite. So when the new dynasty is established for 70 or 80 years, various restrictions will begin to be made."

"How to limit it? It's actually very simple. It's indulging rent-seeking landlords and eating business landlords. Rent-seeking landlords will eat business landlords in the middle of seventy or eighty years."

The ladies were silent. This is the fact that what was happening every day in the Ming Dynasty.

Nowadays, most of the gentry have passed the exam and become civil servants. Then they use the power of civil servants to be rent-seeking landlords, persecuting and invading business landlords, self-cultivating farmers, and small business owners.

Xin Qiji was about to resign as the prefect of Hangzhou, but his younger brother rushed to find him and said that our family had not bought land yet, so you could not resign. You had to buy thousands of fertile land first before you could resign.

It can be seen that such things have existed since ancient times and have not been new in all dynasties.

In the Ming Dynasty today, there is no civil servant as a backstage, and it is already a dream to make a fortune by doing business.

At this time, the business landlords and industrial and commercial owners had been eaten up. All cities in the Ming Dynasty were in a state of depression, and the streets were closed.

The tax base of the imperial court was the business landlords, industrial and commercial owners, self-cultivators, and small handicraftsmen. They went bankrupt one after another, and the tax could not be collected.

This led to the court's tax revenue becoming worse and worse, and the finances gradually collapsed.

In the last seventy or eighty years of each great dynasty, that is, at the end of the dynasty, people generally came out to reform. For example, the two tax laws of the Tang Dynasty, the Wang Anshi reform of the Song Dynasty, and the Zhang Juzheng one-whip technique of the Ming Dynasty.

No matter how the reform changes, it is all about maintaining the model of continuing to collect money from the people without collapsing. In the end, it is about asking the people to pay for money.

Why reform? Because everything you can eat is completely eaten.

Rent-seeking landlords like this won’t shut up and don’t eat. Will they not be hungry just because they eat up all the food? That’s impossible.

Then who should I eat? I can only swallow each other.

This is why party struggles intensified at the end of the dynasty.

They are divided into different interest groups and devour each other. The reform is to find a new devoured class or restore the eaten class to ease the internal contradictions of the ruling group.

But from a historical perspective, this process is often irreversible. These reforms delayed decline and prolonged the life of the dynasty. But they could not turn the world around.

Mei Xiang raised her little hand when she heard this and said she wanted to ask a question.

Yang Fan signaled that he could say it, and she asked, "Master, aren't the problems you mentioned just the corruption of officials? Have the country been destroyed by corruption in all dynasties?"

"No dynasty lost its country because of corruption." Lin Yueru took over and said. "Because any dynasty was extremely corrupt from the beginning. From the beginning to the end, there would be no Qingming Festival."

The little girl also nodded and said, "Yueru said it well. At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the Guo Huan case showed the problem."

The Guo Huan case was one of the four major cases in the early Ming Dynasty. It occurred in the 18th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1385) and was a major case of corruption among officials.

Guo Huan, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and others, who worked with officials from various provinces to cheat and sell official grains, were later exposed, and the amount involved in the case was greatly affected by the economic field and attracted worldwide attention.

In response, the Ming Taizu executed all six ministers and subordinates. In order to recover the stolen goods, he implicated landlords across the country, and countless people were searched and bankrupt. The landlords were deeply resentful of this.

In order to calm the resentment, Zhu Yuanzhang executed the judge Wu Yong and others.

Zhu Yuanzhang was still alive, but Guo Huan and his group dared to embezzle more than 24 million stones of grain in total.

How much is this? It is equivalent to the fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty in the year!

This case involves twelve governors across the country, including Zhao Mao, Minister of Rites, Wang Huidi, Minister of Justice, Wang Zhi, Minister of War, and Mai Zhide, Minister of Works.

A total of 24 million dans of refined grain were lost, from the left and right ministers of the six ministries, with 7 million stolen goods!

Ci Lianzhi, and the officials in charge of all the officials were killed. Tens of thousands of people were killed. In order to recover the stolen food, it turned into a national riot, and all the rich people of the people went bankrupt.
Chapter completed!