A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 658
The implementation of any new policy will inevitably involve old interest groups.

What's more, it involves the fundamental tax system, which affects all aspects. This is almost to tear down the old everything and establish a new system.

Zhao Renben felt that although he had the prime minister standing behind him to support him, there always seemed to be a pair of invisible hands obstructing the implementation.

Under the green money willow tree in the Wu family's round fort, Zhao Renben was very haggard.
"If you feel powerless, it means that many people support you on the surface but are actually blocking it. Secondly, there is something wrong with your team."

Wu Huaiyu poured him a cup of tea, then turned to the former county magistrate Liu Rengui, "Zhengze, what do you think?"

"Big landowners, if they own a hundred acres of land, they will have to pay two liters of grain, two inches of silk, and three minutes of cotton per acre in the future. The more land they have, the more they will pay. One hundred acres more. That would be equivalent to doubling the original lease. If there were an extra thousand acres, it would be equivalent to ten times the amount...

How can we not feel bad about paying taxes in kind on yellow rice and white silk? Once the tax is established, it will have to be paid every year. Liu Rengui said bluntly.

Zhao Renben said, "Recently, the county government, including the head of Lizheng Village and even the village elders, have been busy with this matter. Everyone is working hard."

"The hard work is real, but there are definitely many people who are not motivated."

Zhao Renben wanted to speak for his men, but Wu Huaiyu waved his hand, "You don't have to defend them. In fact, I don't blame them for not doing things well. If the horses are running, how can they not eat grass?"

"Nowadays, many officials have problems. Some people take the opportunity to accept money from large households in order to lower their household status by underestimating their property. Some people change the good farmland of large households into medium and poor land.

There are also people who prey on the common people, valuing worthless things at a lot of money and valuing poor land for farmland. In fact, they just want to take the opportunity to extort money from the common people.

how so?

Don't think of these subordinates as being tall and powerful. In fact, they are just to support their families.

I know that the yamen used to have public money and public land, public grain and interest for public expenses and food money, as well as some subsidies for officials and subordinates.
In addition, when taxes are collected every year, a large amount of money from various apportionments, surcharges, and fire expenses is also used as extra money for these subordinates and even county officials. I will not talk about other various gray incomes.

Usually when they collect taxes, they have to spend a lot of money on grain. With this year's new tax law, many landless people have become customers. Rent transfer and free warehouse grain are exempted. People who are not satisfied with the land of a hundred households will also be exempted from rent transfer and free warehouse grain. A lot of reductions have been made,
Additional provisions, fire consumption, etc. are also clearly stipulated, with reductions and exemptions,

In their eyes, what is reduced is their income. The income is greatly reduced. Where do these subordinate officials get their enthusiasm? "

Wu Huaiyu's words hit the nail on the head.

"These are all bad rules and old habits. Your subordinates must supervise them carefully." Zhao Renben gritted his teeth.

"How to supervise? Some things are actually forbidden. In other words, originally, the court was not unaware of these things and turned a blind eye to them. The previous routine was still barely maintained, but Now that there is a new law, there must be a substitute for this, otherwise your county government will not be able to operate."

Even if the Tang Dynasty is a Ji county, the real officials in Liunei are actually one county magistrate, one county magistrate, one chief registrar, and two county lieutenants, a total of five officials. The county magistrate is the sixth grade, the county magistrate and the The chief registrar and county lieutenant are only eighth- and ninth-grade officials.

In addition, there are also magic officers, that is, one with a doctor of classics and one with a doctor of medicine.

Below these officials, such as Liang Lushi, Liucao's assistant, historian, city magistrate, warehouse governor, assistant teacher, etc.

21 assistants, forty historians, and two account historians. These are all miscellaneous tasks.
The other ten wardens, four interrogators, and ten Bai Zhi all belong to miscellaneous positions.

In addition, there are [-] county economic students and [-] medical students. Compared with civilians, these people are relatively special. They have the privilege of being exempted from class service and enjoy food and accommodation, which is equivalent to the status of reserve officials.

To be honest, a large county like Sanyuan in Gyeonggi Province cannot manage with just such a small number of people. In all aspects, there are several officials and dozens of officials. To put it bluntly, for future generations, there are not as many people as a county bureau.

There are nine deputy county magistrates in a county, and one county even had fifteen deputy magistrates.

There are thirty or forty bureaus in a county, and each bureau has four or five deputy directors.

Sanyuan County has fewer soldiers than Jing County, only five soldiers. Each soldier has three fewer assistants and four more. This is equivalent to the director's assistants, with a total of only 21.

There are only three or five people under each Cao's assistant.

Further down, there is no more scriptures.

A Hucao with a heavy task has four Sihuzuo, seven Shihushi, and one Accountant Shi. Since Sanyuan County has more than [-] households, two more Sihuzuo, four Hushi, and one Accountant Shi are added.
How could Hu Cao, Six Assistants, Eleven Historians and Two Accounts Histories be in charge of the money and food affairs of more than [-] households in the county?

In fact, there are a large number of non-staff writers under them. No establishment means no salary. The county is responsible for their income, including welfare.

Each of the six Cao offices has non-staff personnel.
In the same county government office, the three-class yamen officers officially only have four interrogators, ten white officers, and ten prison guards. But in reality, there are not enough. Therefore, there are a large number of supernumerary three-class yamen officers responsible for executions, standing shifts, and prison guards. Guard prison prisoners, catch thieves, open roads, etc.
Although the local government will assign various errands to young men in the county to serve in turns, some tasks are more professional and require permanent services, such as catching thieves, so these people do not rotate and become salaried yamen. Non-staff personnel are different from the color servants who are on duty for the common people.

They all have to be paid by the yamen.

Where does this money come from?
Mainly based on old customs, such as kicking the stems when harvesting grain, piling the people's grain into buckets and kicking it hard, and everything that falls out belongs to the subordinates.

Another main source is fire consumption. Each tax must be levied additional fire consumption. There is no unified standard for this fire consumption. You can charge as much as you want. It depends on how much money the subordinate officials in the yamen want. When it is powerful, The fire energy consumption may reach [-]% to [-]% of the positive energy, or even double. When it is less, it may reach [-]% to [-]%.

Other scrap money, bunch money, warehouse money, etc. are also collected in bulk.

As for going to the Yamen to do business, let alone charging you paper and pen fees.Subordinate officials are also human beings. They cannot use their love to generate electricity and work for the court for free. Even if some of the upright and scriveners are the children of local wealthy families, rich families, or even honorary officials, they may not be short of money, but they control the affairs of the government. , in fact, the self-interests that can be achieved are greater.

In fact, all local officials and below are local people, and they are basically selected from landlords and large households. After all, subordinate officials must first be able to read and write, and the servants must also have a certain degree of authority. This makes the county government, In fact, the county officials appointed and dismissed by the imperial court, together with the subordinate officials of these local powerful representatives, and the village chief of Li Zheng in the township, ruled the entire county.

"Now that the new law is being trialled, various problems have been exposed. If we find one, we must face it and solve it. Today we will talk about the salary of the subordinate staff, as well as the work and food money of the non-staff subordinate staff.

Where to come from, how much to give, and how to ensure their income without harming the people. "

It’s hard to hear that you both want and want.

"Boldly raise your opinions. We are now in a pilot project, so you need to be bolder. Don't be afraid of making mistakes, just be afraid of doing nothing."

Liu Rengui proposed two items: public land and public money.

It turns out that there was a public house lending money, and Wu Huaiyu was a money-lending officer. At that time, there were nine money-catching officers in Sanyuan County. Later, Sanyuan merged with Chiyang, and the county's population became larger and its level increased.

However, the central department of the imperial court had already canceled the history of the money-grabbing order. The original six or seven hundred people were compiling the history of the money-grabbing order. After the cancellation, the capital of the original public house was handed over to Chang Pingcang for management, and seven thousand were selected from all over the world. Wealthy households were asked to replace them every three years and pay a sum of money to the court every year, called Xu Shi. The court directly allocated a sum of officials' public money to each government office every year to use it for office expenses and official food and miscellaneous items. This is equivalent to The yamen's own small treasury was cancelled.

However, these [-] assistants only replaced the [-] who were originally in the capital department to compile the history of money-catching orders. The imperial court did not care about the history of other yamen's own money-catching orders, and the funds allocated were limited.

However, various yamen will also follow suit. For example, Sanyuan County distributes 720 yuan of interest from the original [-] money-catching orders in the two counties each year directly to the wealthy households in the county, and even later returns it to ordinary people. The people also went from house to house to pay a sum of money, but the money received was more than before from the loan sharks.

In fact, it's just a head-to-head fee.

"The money offered by Sanyuan County is completely baseless and random and should be cancelled," Liu Rengui said bluntly.

Zhao Renben said that if this apportionment was cancelled, there would be a big hole, and where would it be plugged?The new tax itself has created a lot of new holes that cannot be filled. The subordinate officials are not active in doing things, and some daring ones have even begun to accept bribes and blackmail the people.

Wu Huaiyu thought for a while.

"Old Zhao, if we don't break it, we won't establish it. Let's break the old nest and rebuild a new set of rules. Taking advantage of the rare opportunity of piloting it now, be bold.

How many government officials, officials, and servants are there in Sanyuan County now? How many are within the warp system, how many are outside the warp system, and how many are temporary? Are they enough? "

"Everyone in the economic system has a fixed number. There are many subordinate officials and servants outside the economic system. Together with the rotating duties of the common people, it can maintain the operation of the county." Zhao Renben replied.

"As long as it can maintain operation, you can make a list for me based on the current number of officials, subordinates, and servants.
We will give them a salary and food allowance, plus some miscellaneous food subsidies, as well as the office expenses required by the Yamen, money for canteen food, etc.
Let’s see how much food we need,”

Zhao Renben was confused, "Is the Prime Minister going to include all these things that are not part of the economic system, and then the court will distribute the salary?"

"That's impossible. The county will solve it on its own."

Wu Huaiyu's solution is to compile a list or register regardless of whether he is a member of the Yamen, and then set wages, subsidies, etc., calculate a total expenditure, and raise a sum of money based on this list.

"How to raise money? Or should we allocate it to big households or ordinary people?"

"It's still unreasonable to spread it on the land. We should spread it on the land. For example, if the food money of people like the county government is [-] guan, it cannot be spread on the land of each person. Instead, it should be spread directly on the land, and it should be spread on the land. .

Those craftsmen and businessmen should also share their stalls appropriately, but the customers and tenant farmers should not share their stalls. "

There are more than 50 acres of land in Sanyuan County. If we say that we only pay more than 700 guans, then in fact, we only pay less than one and a half cents per acre.

And if it is spread to [-] households, each household will cost more than [-] yuan. If it is only spread to [-] households, it may be more than [-] yuan per [-] yuan.

The specific amount of the wages and food money for the subordinates needs to be carefully calculated. Wu Huaiyu's idea is to include this money in the budget, and the government will collect it, manage and distribute it, instead of the officials and subordinates messing around on their own.

You can't just sell it as you want, or sell it as much as you want. It must have a formal name, have regulations to follow, and be supervised and managed.

"How much is the salary for this salary and food?"

You definitely can't set it too high, you can only set it a little lower, but in this case, the subordinates will definitely be dissatisfied. They have the power in their hands and will still take advantage of it.

Therefore, Wu Huaiyu proposed another supplement, that is, the money and food consumed by fire should be returned to the public. The money and food consumed by fire should also be included in the management. Part of it would be used as public expenses, and part of it would be used to subsidize officials and subordinates.

"Ms. sir, the subordinate officials are treacherous and greedy. Even if the court gives them salary, miscellaneous materials and even annual welfare subsidies, won't they be greedy and greedy?"

"This is different. In the past, the imperial court did not pay these workers. They had to eat, drink, and support their wives, sons, daughters, and parents. So the yamen had to turn a blind eye, otherwise who would do the work?

But now that the court has solved this problem for them, it is reasonable for us to punish anyone who messes up again. Another thing is that it used to be bad and unspoken rules, but now they are made explicit, with unified collection, reasonable burdens, and unified distribution. , fair and just, much better than the previous one. "

"Corrupt officials will always be banned, but we still have to find ways to reduce and crack down on them,"

(End of this chapter)