A Millennium Aristocratic Family Starting from the Shang Dynasty

Chapter 659 Reforming the Land System
Even though noble families from all over the world did not dare to blatantly occupy the people's farmland due to imperial decrees, they still had various methods available.

For these wealthy nobles, they control a large amount of farmland, a large amount of wealth and sales channels, and the common people are simply unable to fight against them.

In the past, during the Daqian period, the court would deliberately restrict the land of powerful people, suppress a large amount of Daqian silver coins for trading, and implement a minimum price system, etc., which greatly restricted the wealthy nobles and powerful nobles.

So that the people will not have a bumper harvest but low prices and hurt farmers. During the lean period, food prices will not skyrocket several times.

But since the collapse of Daqian, this system has quietly disappeared. Even if later emperors established a similar Changpingcang system, the effect it could have was very limited.

During this period, there were fewer people and more land in the world, and the people were living a good life. But after a few decades, these problems will be exposed in large numbers.

"Your Majesty, in addition to this reason, another reason is that the land granted to the people by the imperial court is divided into Yongye Field and River Mouth Field. Adult men are assigned eighty acres of land and Yongye Field is twenty acres."

"One hundred acres of farmland is enough for a family of six to survive. Twenty acres of permanent land are permanently granted to the people, but the eighty acres of farmland need to be returned to the government after the age of sixty."

"This system looks good, but in fact it is extremely difficult to implement. One of the important problems is that the people are not willing to return the land."

Li Shimin asked: "This is the land allocated by the imperial court. How dare the people not return it?"

There is too much resistance in trying to push the big stem.

But this situation can only last for a while. As the world's population increases, it will no longer be able to sustain it in a hundred years.

"Your Majesty, how many officials are there in a county? How many things need to be managed? And there are more than 100,000 people in a county. How do they know whether those people are sixty years old or not?"

Moreover, this kind of behavior is competing for space with local nobles, aristocratic families, and powerful people. The power of noble families and powerful families in the Tang Dynasty court was very strong. Especially the Guanlong noble group.

"It seems that this is indeed a big problem." Li Shimin frowned, and he had already realized the problem.

They were all land equalization systems, but the Tang Dynasty made some improvements. The Wang family conducted a lot of research on the land system of the Sui Dynasty and found that nine out of ten of the land granted by the imperial court could not be taken back.

"At that time, it will definitely be difficult to supervise, and local officials sometimes find it troublesome and directly allocate the land to their grandchildren. So basically these allocated land cannot be recovered." The Tang Dynasty and the Sui Dynasty implemented The land system of the dynasty was largely the same.

Wang's method at that time was to use a large number of retired soldiers to act as low-level managers, allowing them to control the township and replace the rural elder system.

The power of the imperial court at the county level was not strong. There were only 100 officials in a county. It was not that the imperial court did not want to expand, but that after expansion, the administrative costs required were far beyond what an agricultural country could afford.

"Your Majesty, in my opinion, it is better to cancel the allotment fields and assign all the allotment fields to the imperial court. Then the imperial court will rent these allotment fields to the people at a low price. In this way, these people will need to pay a small amount in addition to agricultural taxes. Tenancy.”

"These rents can be used as income for local officials. With this income, local officials will naturally pay attention to these official lands." Wang Xuanjing explained his solution.

To be honest, Wang Xuanjing, a freak who combined the official land system and the equalized land system, is indeed good, but there are still a lot of shortcomings in it. The most prominent point is that if local officials are greedy for money and wantonly exploit the people who rent official land, or directly resell it, it will be a troublesome problem. Of course, these matters are matters of official administration. When the time comes, we can send inspection censors or other methods to supervise.

Li Shimin did not directly agree with Wang Xuanjing's suggestion, but he already agreed with it in his heart.

He also knew that if low-level officials were not given some benefits, they would naturally make money in other ways. Wang Xuanjing's approach has given these low-level officials benefits. As long as supervision is stricter, it will be easier to implement, and corruption will not have much impact even if it exists.

A few days later, Li Shimin issued a new land policy, and Wang Xuanjing's official land system was added to it.

The official land system could only be implemented in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China when there were a lot of idle vacant land, wasteland, and farmland in the world. Once the early dynasty passed and the world's population grew, it would not be easy for the court to find a large number of acres of land.

And because the court's system of restricting Buddhism and Taoism has also begun to be implemented, it can be foreseen that in the next few years, the court will confiscate a large amount of land from temples and Taoism in various places.

These fields can be used as official fields, and even the people who work on these farmlands will not be affected.

The worst case scenario is that farming for monks becomes farming for government officials, and the rent will be reduced.

After all, the imperial court still wants to keep face, and the appearance of food will not be too ugly, but those monks have no such scruples, and the rent they charge is not ordinary high.

Following Wang Xuanjing's debate in the court and telling the true situation of Tianzhu, no one in the court could stand up to Wang Xuanjing anymore. These people were now focused on checking the situation of Buddhism in Tianzhu.

Wang provided a large amount of literature and materials, which completely peeled off the skin of the hometown of Buddhism. Many officials who originally believed in Buddhism even showed signs of a collapse of their faith.

Without the opposition of these people, the imperial decree restricting Buddhism and Taoism was implemented smoothly. Starting from Chang'an, it continues to extend to the surrounding areas.

Buddhist and Taoist temples in Guanzhong were reviewed one by one, and a large number of Buddhist and Taoist believers were forced to return to secular life.

Wang Xuanjing speculated that tens of thousands of Buddhist and Taoist believers could be evacuated from Guanzhong. Basically, these Buddhist and Taoist believers would be reclassified as civilian households and then start cultivating the land.

The world is now settled, with fewer people and more land. With so many more people farming, the tax revenue will only be higher next year.

In addition to the removal of these monks, a large number of bronzes and money confiscated from the temples also enriched the imperial treasury.

Wang Xuanjing ordered people to resmelt those Buddha statues and bronze vessels, and then mix them with other copper materials to cast copper coins.

Since the middle of the Liu Song Dynasty, the world's currency system has become chaotic. The kings of various places have minted copper coins on a large scale. As a result, there are dozens of types of copper coins circulating in the market.

Many copper coins are difficult to redeem due to insufficient material and copper materials, which has a great impact on the court's tax revenue and the daily use of the people. The court has always wanted to cast copper coins, but there is a lack of copper materials. Now that there are so many copper utensils, naturally It is to mint a batch of new money.

(End of this chapter)