A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 508 Development and Taxation Honorary Officer

Hebei has flat land and a prosperous population. Since the Jin Dynasty became powerful, the degree of development here has been much higher than that in the south due to environmental and other factors. Especially after the imperial court improved agricultural technology, Hebei, Guanzhong, Central Plains, and Huainan became the most populous areas.

This time there was a severe drought in Guanzhong, Hebei Province, and the imperial court took advantage of the drought to relocate the population. At the same time, the imperial court used work as relief and built water conservancy reservoirs to cope with the drought.

The imperial court has always attached great importance to the development of agriculture. No matter what time of year, people always have to eat. Therefore, agriculture is the foundation of a country. Without agriculture, there would be no normal country, let alone a strong one. Agriculture is the foundation of a stable country.

The agricultural policy that the imperial court has always implemented is to encourage people to reclaim wasteland and promote cattle farming. At the same time, it promotes manure and encourages the cultivation of legume crops.

Even though the imperial court has been vigorously promoting iron farm tools, stone and wooden farm tools are still used in many places in Daqian. The main reason is the insufficient iron production. Even some remote areas are still from the slash-and-burn era.

In this era, the speed of information transmission is slow. Policies such as unified currency, checks and balances, and homology that have been implemented since the time of the First Emperor are still not fully implemented in remote areas.

At least until now, currencies from various countries in the Xian-Huai period are occasionally circulating in the Daqian market. There is no way around this. Even if you are the emperor, after an order is issued, you cannot make the whole world implement it overnight.

In real history, Qin Shihuang's policy of checks and balances was not completed until the fall of the Qin Dynasty. It was not until the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty that it was generally completed.

The imperial court encouraged farming, but not everyone knew the farming techniques. The imperial court had always relied on experienced farmers to learn it, and then sent the old farmers back to various places to teach and promote it, or sent agricultural scholars to teach in various places.

The imperial court needed to consume a large amount of iron every year to arm the army, so the number of iron farm tools was naturally not enough. Because of problems with iron smelting technology, whether it is agricultural tools or weapons, the annual loss is huge.

Daqian still uses iron-wrapped agricultural tools most of the time.

Half a million people migrated from Hebei, some of whom moved to southern Fujian and Lingnan, and others to the Korean Peninsula and Liaodong.

Daqian implemented two tax systems in remote areas, one was a normal national tax model for the territories under actual control, and the other was a similar tax farming model for vassal territories within the sphere of influence.

Actual control of territory needs to be taken seriously and properly handled, so taxes are collected according to formal standards. Land tax is one for five taxes or one for ten taxes. The imperial court integrated all the Dingkou tax and other exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes into the field tax. This makes it easier to collect taxes and make corruption less likely for lower-level officials.

It is easy for the court to prevent corruption, and the people also know how much tax they need to pay. Officials from various places use clever names to increase taxes arbitrarily, and the people know it immediately, and the inspection censors and embroiderers in various places can easily discover it.

It won't be like in real history, where the people don't know how much tax they have to pay, it all depends on the officials. Although the five taxes seem to be several times heavier than the thirty taxes of the Han Dynasty, in real comparison, the taxes paid by the people of the Han Dynasty were much higher than those of Dagan.

In the beginning of the Han Dynasty, there was a tax of fifteen to one. During the period of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wen of Han advocated agriculture as the basis, reduced taxes and corvees, and reduced the land tax to thirty taxes to one. On the surface, the tax of thirty to one was already very low. It can be said that it is unprecedented, but the main tax revenue of the Han Dynasty came from the head tax.

In the Han Dynasty, minors were charged 23 qian per person per year, and adults were charged qian per year. The equivalent of corvee and military service was qian per month. Even if officials did not conduct repeated taxes and did not collect other taxes such as firewood tax and mulberry tax, the taxes of the Han Dynasty were actually five out of ten or four out of ten. Every household had to perform labor services every year, either going to the mountains to cut firewood, or working for the court for free. It could be said that they were not allowed to rest all year round. In case of floods, droughts and locust plagues, you will need to pay extra. Even during the Wenjing period, it sounded like the people were living a good life, but in fact it was just not that difficult.

Therefore, in order to pay less taxes, people in the Han Dynasty often drowned their babies, or sold their children and grandchildren, or even sold themselves directly and became slaves of wealthy families.

Because Daqian promoted officials and nobles to also pay taxes, coupled with the emphasis on commerce and trade, collecting commercial taxes and seigniorage, the finances were relatively comfortable. At the same time, the royal families of all dynasties have been patching up the tax system, such as seigniorage tax, mining tax, salt and iron tax, etc., to prevent the court's taxation from being too heavy and the people being unable to afford it.

For those that were not actually controlled by the court, but were within the control of the Daqian court, Daqian implemented another tax model.

The land and population here are not controlled by the imperial court, so you can do it in your own way. If you don't listen to me, you don't want to hand over the land and people, and you want to be protected by Daqian. If you continue to be your cave master or village master, you will need to pay protection fees.

If you pay the protection fee, you can live here peacefully. If something happens, the court will help you. But if you don't pay the protection fee, then you will be beaten, robbed, or killed, and you will be the one to do it. Accept that you are unlucky.

Of course, Da Gan is not unreasonable. He is a kind person who protects everyone. How much tax you collect on your territory, just give me half of it.

If you think it's too expensive and can't afford it, or don't want to give it, then accept the rule of Daqian, measure the land, and organize the people into households, so that you can pay taxes according to Daqian's normal taxes.

Daqian will not cause heavy taxes on the domestic people, but not only does it not collect taxes on Ji Mizhou, but it gives you various benefits every year. If this is done, those barbarians will be willing to join Zhu Xia only after their brains are exhausted.

At that time, the original benefits of joining Zhuxia were not obtained, but instead, a large amount of taxes had to be paid. How hard they thought it was before they were willing to join.

Therefore, it must be attractive to those barbarians, and then those barbarians will be willing to join it. Similarly, doing so can also enhance the sense of belonging of the general public.

This is another force that Daqian has always used to expand outward.

If the imperial court has enough power, that barbaric land will be almost developed. After being influenced by the Daqian culture, these people will admire the Daqian culture and take the initiative to join. The court will also grant them titles of nobility for those who take the initiative to join. , and then move to Luoyang or other five capitals to live and become an honorary officer.

Here we have the best education and the best life experience, which is much better than being a mountain king in a wild land. If those people are unwilling, they will be forced to "convince people with reason."

(End of this chapter)