I want to be emperor

chapter 187

The efficient taxation and confiscation work presided over by Chen Xingkai fully guaranteed the various expenses of the Rural Protection Army, and they are still extremely rich.

In this regard, Huang Chengxuan, the Minister of Finance who is in charge of spending money, even expressed his goodwill to Chen Xingkai when he began to introduce the recent financial situation: "Because of the excellent and efficient work of my colleagues in the Taxation Department, our army's money and grain income has increased significantly recently."

"Since our army left Lushan County in March, our army's financial situation has greatly improved. Although expenditures have doubled, our income has increased even more!"

"Especially after the Battle of Zhaozhuang, our army successively conquered Nanyang City, Xiangyang City, Xinye, Zhenping, Yuzhou and other large numbers of cities. When capturing the above-mentioned areas, we collected from the local Ming government, the vassal clan, and some recalcitrant officials. Gold, silver, copper coins and other cash with a total value of about 300 million taels were confiscated from recalcitrant elements such as gentry and gentry.

"In addition, there are a large number of various antiques and curios with a total value greater than cash and other materials that are easy to realize. Even if these materials are sold at a discount, they can return at least 400 million taels of silver.

At present, we are selling these curios and common materials that are easy to get rid of. So far, more than 180 million taels of cash have been withdrawn, and the remaining materials are still being sold. "

"It is initially estimated that all the cashing of this batch of materials will be completed within three months!"

"As a result, our army confiscated more than 700 million taels of cash, curios and volatile materials in a series of battles going south."

"In addition, we also confiscated a large number of real estate, fixed assets such as shops, and businesses such as restaurants. A small number of confiscated buildings were directly used for the offices of various official agencies, and some shops were taken over by the Ministry of Commerce. Others Residences were awarded to meritorious officers and civil servants as residences, and the remaining residences and shops are being sold one after another.”

"However, the most fixed assets are not these residential shops, but land, a huge amount of land!"

"The amount of land we have successively confiscated is far beyond our initial estimate. At present, the various types of cultivated land we have confiscated have accounted for more than [-]% of all the cultivated land in the area controlled by our army. In addition, we have also confiscated a large number of temporarily abandoned land. or easily developed land."

"Adding the two together, the various types of land confiscated by our army will occupy about [-]% of the arable land in the jurisdiction, and this figure will continue to expand with the tax work and suppression work, and it is expected to eventually reach [-]% Around five!"

When Luo Zhixue heard that the arable land data is not in the unit of mu, but directly in the percentage of all arable land in the control area, he couldn't help but open his mouth...

He had expected that a large amount of land would be confiscated, but he never expected that so much land would be confiscated.

Thirty-five percent... This is just the confiscation of official land, the land of the vassal king's clan, and some of the land of the recalcitrant gentry, and there are more gentry big families who did not resist, and paid taxes honestly or evaded taxes. , has not been discovered for the time being, and their land has been preserved.

The amount of land in this part of the land is temporarily unknown, even through the taxation data of the tax department, it is impossible to make detailed statistics, because many gentry and big households still have tax evasion, and they don't know how to resist taxes, but they don't actively declare what they own. All the land can be kept as long as it can be concealed. Once it is discovered by the tax officer of the Township Protection Army, it will actively pay it back and never resist tax...

This is also why the Taxation Department of the Baoxiang Army is very helpless. After all, these people are just evading taxes. They have not reached the level of direct tax resistance. One tael will never leak nine coins...

In response to this kind of tax evasion with a good attitude on the surface and a sincere attitude of admitting mistakes, but still stubbornly evading taxes, the tax department is already preparing to introduce a related penalty policy specifically for tax evasion. This penalty policy is very interesting, and its characteristic is high fines. Supplemented by the death penalty and imprisonment.

It is easy to understand the death penalty and imprisonment, but it is worth mentioning the high fine!

In a series of clauses with fines, the minimum is five times the fine, and if it is a little serious, the fine will be ten or twenty times the fine. If the amount is huge and the situation is bad, then the starting point is hundreds of times, and there is no limit and the fine will go directly to bankruptcy.

Even if the fine is paid, this person will have to go to jail or even be sentenced to death.

Some time ago, Huang Chengxuan summoned a large number of dishonest gentry in Nanyang City, and said in front of hundreds of big gentry households: "If you dare to reduce my tax by one tael, I will dare to fine you 100 taels! If you dare to cut me 100 taels, I dare to let you go bankrupt directly! If you dare to lose me 1 taels, I dare to let your whole family die!"

These undisguised remarks, even eager to ransack their homes and exterminate their families, scared a group of gentry to death!
Speaking of which, the current tyrannical government and even most of the bad reputation of the Township Protection Army... Most of them are created by the tax department.

Even many people in the Township Protection Army are dissatisfied with the tax department's ruthless and shameless way of doing things.

Guo Quanshu has repeatedly said in semi-public occasions that the taxation department should pay attention to the way it works, and that it cannot be a one-size-fits-all...

Chen Xingkai chuckled at this, and investigated the tax evasion of the Guo family, and then produced detailed evidence to fine the Guo family nearly half of their assets...

As a result, the two ministers have completely turned their faces...

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However, even if the Rural Protection Army has such a strict taxation policy, it cannot completely eliminate the situation of concealing land, and even many of them are not deliberately concealed, but have not been counted in some remote areas.

According to the current data held by the Rural Protection Army, the confiscation of land by the Rural Protection Army and the land still in the hands of the landlords (paying the field mu tax) accounted for about 80.00% of the identified arable land.

So here comes the problem, there are so many farmers in the entire jurisdiction, they only own about 15.00% of the land together... There are also a large number of small landlords who only own a small amount of land, but still lease the land to tenants, Rich farmers.

Pure owner farmers and tenants own very little land.

After learning about these situations, Luo Zhixue couldn't help sighing that it's not unreasonable for refugees to spread all over the place these days. The land annexation is so serious, coupled with the high rent and the increase in layers, most of them have entered the pockets of officials. Fu and heavy corvee.

The ability of farmers in this era to resist risks is simply too poor to bear witness.

If you order anything, you have to sell your sons and daughters, and even the whole family starves to death.

Under such circumstances, it is an inevitable result that a large number of farmers become refugees and then become rogues.

Luo Zhixue felt that in order to solve the large number of refugees under the control of the Rural Protection Army and prevent the emergence of bandits, in addition to various emergency measures such as work-for-relief, it is more important to reduce the burden on farmers and increase their risk resistance.

The whole family will not starve to death if they encounter something casually.

When Huang Chengxuan was still introducing the amount of confiscated land in various places, Luo Zhixue was already thinking about how to use this batch of confiscated land to completely reverse the people's livelihood in the Nanyang Basin area.

Divide the fields directly?

This is not advisable. When he was still in the Funiu Mountain period, Luo Zhixue had already tried the policy of free and direct land distribution. The effect was not satisfactory, and it even aroused internal opposition.

Many officers and soldiers of the Rural Protection Army believed that the so much land they had fought to the death could only be obtained by military merits, while those ordinary people could get the land for free without doing any shit.

This is not fair.

Giving and rewarding are not equal!

And even the landless and small-land farmers who distributed the land for free obviously did not feel grateful to the rural protection army. Sooner or later, they will kill them, and the land they get will be lost in the future.

Furthermore, after the land was distributed, the farm tax had to be paid. Many people thought that the farm tax of the thieves was too high, which was completely tyrannical.

Their argument is that the land mu tax of the Rural Protection Army accounts for almost [-]% of the land output.

Throughout the dynasties, there has never been such a high land tax.

Of course, those who said this completely ignored, or deliberately did not mention that the rural protection army’s tax policy for farmers was only the field tax, and the tax was collected in kind.

If a self-cultivator is only farming honestly under the rule of the rural protection army, he does not need to pay anything except the field tax.

If it is a tenant, it is even easier, because there is no land, and even the field tax cannot be collected from him, that is, he does not have to pay anything...

The field tax policy of the Rural Protection Army ensured that the actual burden of the peasants under the Rural Protection Army was much smaller than that of the Ming Dynasty.

Unfortunately, even so, many people are still dissatisfied with this.

Through the field mu tax and the free distribution of land, Luo Zhixue has completely awakened. Many people are cheap. Not only will they not appreciate the benefits, but they will speak ill of you everywhere, and even stab you at critical moments.

Therefore, the policy of free land distribution is completely over. Currently, under the rule of the Rural Protection Army, there is only a system of land distribution for military merit.

Luo Zhixue intends to continue to deepen the policy of increasing the rent of official land, and strive to reduce the rent ratio. In addition, he must find ways to limit the amount of land owned by landlords to avoid continued land mergers.

When Luo Zhixue was thinking about the land issue, Huang Chengxuan had already finished talking about the confiscation of the land, and began to introduce other confiscated proceeds.

In addition to cash, high-value curios and soft goods, and ordinary salable items, the items confiscated by the rural protection army were actually more important, and they were also extremely high-value cloth, food and other livelihood materials.

Especially for food, even if the Rural Protection Army has money, it is difficult to buy it from other places on a large scale.

(End of this chapter)