2. 职称英语
  3. In the eighteenth century, Japan’s feudal overlords, from the shogun to the

In the eighteenth century, Japan’s feudal overlords, from the shogun to the

游客2023-12-14  41
问题     In the eighteenth century, Japan’s feudal overlords, from the shogun to the humblest samurai, found themselves under financial stress. In part, this stress can be attributed to the overlords’ failure to adjust to a rapidly expanding economy, but the stress was also due to factors beyond the overlords’ control. Concentration of the samurai in castle-towns had acted as a stimulus to trade. Commercial efficiency, in turn, had put temptations in the way of buyers. Since most samurai had been reduced to idleness by years of peace, encouraged to engage in scholarship and martial exercises or to perform administrative tasks that took little time, it is not surprising that their tastes and habits grew expensive. Overlords, income, despite the increase in rice production among their tenant farmers, failed to keep pace with their expenses. Although shortfalls in overloads, income resulted almost as much from laxity among their tax collectors (the nearly inevitable outcome of hereditary office-holding) as from their higher standards of living, a misfortune like a fire or flood, bringing an in crease in expenses or a drop in revenue, could put a domain in debt to the city rice-brokers who handled its finances. Once in debt, neither the individual samurai nor the shogun himself found it easy to recover.
    It was difficult for individual samurai overlords to increase their income because the amount of rice that farmers could be made to pay in taxes was not unlimited, and since me income of Japan’s central government consisted in part of taxes collected by the shogun from his huge domain, the government too was constrained.
    Therefore, the Tokugawa shoguns began to look to other sources for revenue. Cash profits from government-owned mines were already on the decline because the most easily worked deposits of silver and gold had been exhausted, although debasement of the coinage had compensated for the loss. Opening up new farmland was a possibility, but most of what was suitable had already been exploited and further reclamation was technically unfeasible. Direct taxation of the samurai themselves would be politically dangerous. This left the shoguns only commerce as a potential source of government income.
    Most of the country’s wealth, or so it seemed, was finding its way into the hands of city merchants. It appeared reasonable that they should contribute part of that revenue to ease the shogun’s burden of financing the state. A means of obtaining such revenue was soon found by levying forced loans, known as goyo-kin; although these were not taxes in the strict sense, since they were irregular in timing and arbitrary in amount, they were high in yield. Unfortunately, they pushed up prices. Thus, regrettably, the Tokugawa shoguns’ search for solvency for the government made it increasingly difficult for individual Japanese who lived on fixed stipends to make ends meet. [br] According to the passage, the actions of the Tokugawa shoguns in their search for solvency for the government were regrettable because those actions______.
选项 A、resulted in the exhaustion of the most easily worked deposits of silver and gold
B、raised the cost of living by pushing up prices
C、were far lower in yield than had originally been anticipated
D、acted as deterrent to trade
答案 B
解析 事实细节题，因果关系再次成为命题点，问德川将军试图解决财政困难的计划没有成为的原因。根据题干中的关键词Tokugawa shoguns in their search for solvency可以定位到文章的最后一句话“Thus，regrettably，the Tokugawa shoguns search for solvency for the government made it increasingly difficult for…结果很遗憾，德川将军探寻的努力，使……更难了。”这儿的thus一词表达了因果关系，THUS之前是因之后是果，所以答案就在前一句Unfortunately, they pushed up prices．很不幸，它(此法)造成了物价上涨。选项B提高了物价，从而引起生活费用上涨与其完全一致，故为正解。而A“耗尽易开采的金银矿”根本没提到；C“比预期收入低很多”与前文意思不符；D“阻碍贸易”也没提到。
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