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This book is a cultural reading about the finance and taxation of the Ming Dynasty. Through relevant historical materials, the author uses the seventeen emperors of the Ming Dynasty as nodes to panoramically display the entire economic, political, social, and ecological changes caused by taxation and finance throughout the Ming Dynasty. The book outlines the inner connection and mechanism between complex factors such as the ruler's personality and preferences and taxes and servitude, and deduces that the evolution of taxation and the rise and fall of dynasties are closely related and highly consistent. It reveals how a regime based on traditional agricultural productivity continued to devour itself in the expansion of fiscal expenditures.