Of the tax silver submitted, people elsewhere needed to pay only one wen, while the people of South of the Yangtze had to pay eight. Of those, three wen were taxes the Imperial Court had stipulated they should pay; the other five had been shifted onto them by local gentry and wealthy households.
Over the past few years, Yu Qian had reformed official administration. Coupled with advances in papermaking, the Ming Dynasty had conducted two censuses and land surveys, setting right much that had been thrown into disorder across the land. Those gentry and wealthy households now had to pay their own taxes and perform their own service, greatly lightening the burden on ordinary people. But in truth, it was still far from enough.
Since community schools had been established, literacy in the Ming Dynasty had risen considerably. Generally speaking, seventy percent of children with normal intelligence attended community schools for three years.
But after those three years, the rate of continued education plunged straight to thirty percent.
To raise enrollment in those three years of community school and the rate of further education afterward, they had to do more than increase educational spending. They also had to find ways to lighten the burdens on ordinary people.
Only when common folk had money left over would they consider sending their children to school.
Only with more literate people could they cultivate more talent, allowing the Ming Dynasty to surge ever onward without pause.
Pan Yun took the Crown Prince and his little companions to witness much of the suffering among the common people.
Did they truly think that because South of the Yangtze was prosperous, it had no poor people?
There were plenty of poor people hidden beneath its splendor, and their ability to withstand hardship was even weaker than