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Cover of Where Did the Money Go? China through the History of Taxation
Where Did the Money Go? China through the History of Taxation
“Silver is such a fine thing—it will always find somewhere to go”
Completed · 87 episodes
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Audio in Chinese
Where Did the Money Go? | “Silver Is Such a Fine Thing—it Will Always Find Somewhere to Go” Q&A | “This Part of Your Rights Is No Longer Whole”: A Problem of the Age or of Us? Q&A | What Missing Awareness Keeps People in “Pre-Modern” Thinking? 1.1 Equality and Transparency Sustain Community | Did Finance or the State Come First? 1.2 Before the State, from Hunting to Farming | Did Finance or the State Come First? 1.3 How Do Resources Join Power? Collection, Storage, Redistribution 1.4 Fiscal Exchange: Sustaining People and the “Golden Chain” 2.1 What Mystery Lies in Zhou Fiscal Doctrine? | Living within Means 2.2 How Ideas Take Form: Dating the Book of Rites 2.3 Desire and Civilization: How Western Zhou Public Finance Emerged 2.4 Spirits Depart, the People Stir: The Western Zhou Fiscal System Begins 2.5 History after the Shang–Zhou Transition: From Thirty-Year Balance to “Second Finance” 3.1 A Tax-Ideology Event: Confucius Debates Ran Qiu over Higher Levies 3.2 An Overlooked Critique: Why Did Confucius Break with His Disciple? 4.1 Reciprocal Value Makes Us Human | The Principle of Reciprocity 4.2 Restrain Desire and Treat the People Well | Reciprocity 5.1 Do Not Deliberately Equalize Others; Do Not Cause Inequality | Laozi's Natural Code 5.2 Wealth Flows Upward—Did Laozi Already Offer a Solution? 5.3 Those Clothed in Silk Are Not Those Who Raise Silkworms | Nonaction 5.4 The Best Policy Is Not to Torment the People | Nonaction 6.1 Take from the People in Measure and They Will Not Resent You | Guanzi 6.2 How Did Low-Tax Doctrine Become Reality? | Guanzi's Human-Centered Thought 6.3 How Far Is Our Thinking from Guanzi's? | Human-Centered Thought Budget Conflict behind South Korea's Martial-Law Crisis | Bonus I How Far Away Is Fiscal and Tax Justice? | Bonus II 7.1 If Hunger Drives Someone to Crime, Whose Fault Is It? | Mencius on Property and Tax 7.2 Everyone Should Receive Their Due | Mencius on Property and Tax 7.3 Accountability and Correction: Mencius and King Xuan Challenge Each Other 7.4 What Belongs to the King and What Belongs to the People A Brief Break from the Program 8.1 Cooperation or Betrayal? | Human Cooperation and Tax in Xunzi 8.2 Enrich Those Below or Those Above? | Xunzi on Tax 9.1 Why Do People “Voluntarily” Lose Freedom? | Lord Shang's Ideal State and Qin Tax 9.2 Officials and People Locked in Law's Cage while the Ruler Holds the Key Must Villagers Pay Tax on Liu Qiangdong's Cash Gifts? | Bonus 10.1 Rapid Qin Reform and Unbearable Corvée | Building and Losing the Qin Empire 10.2 Terrifying Control: Officials and Soldiers Become Indistinguishable Tools 10.3 People as Extractable Human Resources: Heavy Tax, Flight, and Rebellion 10.4 Rebellion in a Convict Register: A Real Record from Qin Documents 10.5 Letters from the Front: Soldiers and Families Caught in Their Age 11.1 Control the Accounts, Control Power | How Liu Bang Founded the Han 11.2 Huang-Lao Politics Arrives and Fiscal Policy Turns | Restoring Western Han Stability 11.3 How Did Emperor Hui and Empress Lü Escape Qin's Shadow? | Resting with the People A Brief Break while We Prepare Materials 11.4 Why Was Emperor Wen Sima Qian's Ideal Ruler? 11.5 Salt, Iron, and War: The Middle Class Bankrupt and Merchants' Darkest Hour 11.6 Two Policy Lines Struggle over the Luntai Edict | Salt and Iron Debate 11.7 Why Did Ordinary Travel Require Approval? | Han Registration and Fiscal Control 11.8 How Do the Yinwan Slips Reveal Central–Local Fiscal Bargaining? 11.9 How Does Tax Reveal the Symbiosis of Money and Power? Bonus | Tariff Upheaval and the Future World Order 12.1 How Could Land and People Be Reconnected in Turmoil? | Cao Cao's Tax Reform 12.2 What Cao Cao Innovations Rebuilt the Broken Tax System? 13. The Measure of Anticorruption: The Xu Di Rice Case in Eastern Wu Listener Q&A: Is Inflation a Tax? | Bonus Listener Q&A: Can Shang Yang Be Compared with Machiavelli? | Bonus 14. How Did Shu Han Win a Three-Kingdoms Trade War? | Overvalued Coinage 15. The Historical Code of Peach Blossom Spring: Eastern Jin Tax Avoidance 16. How Did Northern Wei Tax Reform Provide the Institutional Skeleton of Sui and Tang? 17. Northern Institutions, Southern Wealth | Tax across the Age of Division 18. Emperor Taizong's Style and the Tax-in-Kind, Labor, and Cloth System 19.1 Emperor Dezong Visits Incognito and Hears People's Complaints | Two-Tax Reform 19.2 Institutional Innovation and Imperial Paradox under the Two-Tax System 20. Why Did Song Prosperity Coexist with Weakness? | Rich but Not Strong Thank You for Joining Us—From Now On, We Meet Weekly 21. What Became of Those Who Worried before the World Worried? | Northern Song Reform 22. How Could a Delivery Worker Move the Northern Song Court? | Tax Clues in Qingming Scroll 23. From Yelü Chucai to Ahmad Fanākatī: Non-Han Financiers and Yuan Commerce 24. Why Did Early Ming Tax Fall into an Inheritance Trap? 25. How Did Wang Yangming Use Local Governance to Rescue Mid-Ming Society? 26. Three Military Households: A Microhistory of Ming Tax and Labor 27. How Did Ming Tax Move from Goods and Labor to Silver? | A Commoner's Victory 28. Consolidation, Silver Conversion, Simplification: How the Single-Whip Reform Changed Society 29. The Weaving Workers' Revolt: How Did Tax Cause China's First Urban Merchant Uprising? Listener Q&A: Growing Capital Is Not the Problem; Its Marriage to Power Is | Bonus Listener Q&A: Where Do Ordinary Lives Hide in Historical Detail and Everyday Politics? 30. From Kangxi's Tax Freeze to Yongzheng's Land-Tax Reform: Why Did Early Qing Lead the World? 31. How Did Surcharges on Qing Grain Transport Exploit the Poor? | Wu Qinghua Case Postponement Notice | Sorry—See You Next Week 32. How Did Qing Local Finance Gain Autonomy and Force the System to Function? 33. What Did Yan Jingming Do Right to Rescue Late-Qing Finance? 34.1 Cixi Issues a Self-Blame Edict and Governors Offer Plans | Late-Qing Self-Rescue 34.2 Preparatory Constitutionalism and Experiments in Modern Budgets 35. From Wuchang Uprising to Fiscal Collapse: How “Fake Constitution, Real Autocracy” Ended Qing Conclusion | If Power Has a Code, Tax History Is the Decoder Listener Q&A: Rural Governance and Tax from Dunhuang Texts to Huolu Archives Listener Q&A: Break with Imperial Thinking and Look from the People | Bonus