The most "shameless" emperor dug ancestral graves for money

During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, internal and external wars continued, and the Three Expeditions consumed countless wages, which coincided with the Little Ice Age. Several northern provinces suffered from famine for many years, and the treasury was empty and unable to make ends meet. However, the Ming government was not hindered by fiscal expenditures. It was still the most developed cultural and economic period of the Wanli Dynasty, and the famous "germination of capitalism" was born at this time.

For a long time, Wanli has been portrayed as a foolish king who neglected state affairs and was greedy for pleasure, destroying Zhang's reform achievements and accelerating the demise of the Ming Dynasty. But according to historical records, the "faint emperor" at least made more money than Emperor Chongzhen who only collected agricultural taxes.

Due to successive years of drought in the north during the middle and late Wanli period, it is estimated that Li Zicheng would have come out decades earlier if he had collected taxes according to the "examination method" of the Zhang period. Under such circumstances, Wanli resolutely did not make things difficult for the farmers. Not only did it abolish the examination method, but it also exempted taxes in the disaster-stricken areas several times. In order to make up for the loss of agricultural taxes and ensure the normal operation of the state machine, Wanli racked his brains to include names in business taxes and mining taxes, earning himself a reputation as "shameless when asking for money." Ironically, it was the shameless desire for money that led to the economic and cultural prosperity of the Wanli period.

A large-scale maritime ban began in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, which not only reduced business taxes, but also evolved to the point where maritime merchants seduced the Japanese and plundered the people during the Jiajing period. After the division and reunification of Longqing, the enemy was surrounded and suppressed by Qi Jiguang and other generals, lost the support of big businessmen, and gradually subsided. In order to collect more business taxes, Emperor Wanli not only fully opened the sea ban, but also violated the "ancestral system." For example, in Ming Taizu, it was stipulated that merchants were not allowed to wear gorgeous clothes. Wanli said directly that as long as he paid taxes, it didn't matter what he wore, even bright yellow clothes that symbolized royal status.

For the taxation of mines and merchants, the direct emperor was controlled by his trusted eunuchs. The eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty were directly subordinate to the imperial power. Although they are corrupt, they have a bottom line after all. Moreover, some losses will be recovered if the property is stolen after the incident. However, in the civil service system, there is often collusion between officials and businessmen, and the stakes are complicated. Sending civil servants to oversee the "disappearance" of business taxes would be ten times more serious. For example, during the Chongzhen period when civil servants were dispatched to supervise business taxes, the tea tax in Jiangnan was only 12 taels a year.

However, eunuchs often have psychological problems due to disabilities in important parts, and they do things unscrupulously. A eunuch named Chen Feng caused a shocking incident.

Chen Feng is one of Wanli’s mining tax envoys. When he was overseeing business taxes in Wuchang, there were reports that villagers robbed the tomb of Li's wife Yang and "obtained a large amount of gold." So this man was inspired to organize tomb robbing to increase his "political achievements". At that time, he sent people to rob all the nominal tombs in Jingzhou, which were all within the scope of his power. The most famous thing is that this guy has the audacity to steal fairy spirits.

The Xi'an Mausoleum is not considered a mausoleum, but it was even more important than ordinary mausoleums in the Ming Dynasty, because the father of Ming Shizong, who inherited the throne from his cousin, and the great-grandfather of Emperor Wanli, was buried in it. After Jiajing succeeded to the throne, he rebuilt his father's mausoleum. The scale and tomb were as large as the mausoleum. In order to bury things, Chen Feng used the convenience of the fairies next to Zaoyang Mine to secretly dig under the guise of mining.

After the incident, the world was shocked, and officials at all levels demanded severe punishment. The people also gnashed their teeth at Chen Feng and wanted to kill him. Chen Feng was so scared that he hid. But after Wanli saw the huge financial income from tomb robbing, he backed down and stopped delving into it. It can be said that "asking for money and being shameless" has reached the extreme. No wonder later generations of scholars often criticized Wanli for being "dissolute and shameless".