I, Liu Bian, Sanxing Han Dynasty

Chapter 408: Tax reform is imperative
Liu Bian said: "Reducing or exempting land rent will not solve the problem, and reducing or exempting tax is the same as reducing land rent, which makes it difficult for those who need it most to benefit."

There is no need to say much about the issue of reducing or exempting land rent. As for the tax, the reason is very simple. Regardless of whether it is exempted or not, those poor people who can't even get enough food have no money to pay the tax.

Failure to pay taxes is a violation of the law and a crime.

If they met an official with a conscience, the poor might be happy to be arrested by the government, so that at least they could have something to eat and would not starve to death.

But if the poor cannot survive in their hometown and flee from their registered place of residence, they become refugees.

The refugees were treated like grass and no one cared if they died.

Because the drought in the north this year has a wide impact, it is impossible to avoid it by spontaneous migration of the people. We should minimize the displacement of the people and put everything under the organization and management of the government.

In this situation, Liu Bian had no choice but to trust the local officials.

However, he was extremely grateful that he had rectified the administration of officials in the past few years. His influence was still there, and it should make the officials afraid.

In order to maintain the operation of the country, money and food are necessary.

In order to make officials work diligently, especially the lower-level officials, salaries must be paid. Therefore, the drought affected a wide range of people, and Liu Bian could not simply exempt all taxes in the north.

Even if he used up all the reserves of the national treasury and all his private money, and squeezed the corrupt officials to the last drop of blood, and finally survived this time, what would happen next? Without money, even if he was the emperor, it would not be so easy to do things.

The tax calculated based on the number of people was a yoke on the poor people, enough to crush their lives.

Nowadays, both men and women have to pay the oral tax of the Han Dynasty, and only the tax related to military service is limited to male adults.

By the time of the Sui Dynasty, the tax system had changed, and the main targets of the rent, labor and tax were men. The change in the objects of taxation directly led to a problem at that time - some biological men thought they were women.

And it has also been officially "recognized".

Directly "ahead" the West by 1,500 years.

Of course, Emperor Wen of Sui was naturally disgusted with this kind of behavior of "self-righteousness" as a way of disloyalty to the emperor. So not long after he unified the north and the south, he launched a special campaign of "large-scale search and inspection" - officials went to the countryside with household registration lists to identify every person one by one.

If you find that kind of "self-righteous" person, you can imagine what the outcome will be.

It was not until the Two-Tax System after the An-Shi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty that the bulk of taxes began to be linked to land.

But at that time, the Tang Dynasty was no longer able to resolve the various chaos that arose during the implementation of the Two Tax Law.

These days, Liu Bian has been seeing different news coming from counties and states all over the world, all of which clearly convey one message to him - he can't wait any longer!

Before summoning Lu Zhi and Xun Yu, Liu Bian had thought about it for a long time.

The essence of the Two Tax System was to transform the Ding tax into a household tax again, and set different tax amounts based on the wealth of the people.

Liu Bian did not expect to become rich overnight. At the current stage, it is difficult to implement the policy of "equalizing the land tax" to abolish the head tax. Even setting different household tax amounts based on the rich and the poor is difficult to do at the moment.

Moreover, the Two Tax System also has its problems, including various problems that have arisen in history when implementing the rich-poor classification system, and it cannot be copied blindly.

However, Liu Bian had also discussed these issues with Lu Zhi and Xun Yu in the past few years.

The new tax system should still focus on reducing head tax and increasing land rent.

However, Lu Zhi and Xun Yu both had some doubts about whether to bring forward the plan to change the tax system.

"A month ago, I asked Zhong Yuanchang and Xun Zhongyu to randomly check the people's property and distinguish between the rich and the poor, and we have gained something." Liu Bian said, handing the documents in his hand to the two men for them to look at.

Both Henei and Hedong were governed by capable officials, and students and local officials were assigned to them, so the politics was definitely clear. But even so, according to the household registration statistics of Zhong Yao and Xun Yue, more than 30% of them could maintain a well-off life, 40% could have enough food and clothing, and more than 25% were struggling to survive.

Data does not lie, and Liu Bian also believes in the character of Zhong Yao and Xun Yue, who will not falsify in this regard. Moreover, the data reported by the two can verify each other.

Even if we take into account that people actually form a large family with three or four generations living together by combining several small families registered on the household register, this data is very representative.

To be fair, this seemingly shocking data is quite acceptable in the feudal era, and it is not difficult to describe it as a prosperous era in history books.

But unfortunately, these are Hedong and Henei, which are higher in level than other counties and kingdoms in the world. There are probably few other places that can compare with them.

Moreover, with the sharp decline in wheat harvest this year, the 40% of the people who were originally well fed and clothed will have to struggle to survive. As for the people who were originally living below the survival line, it only takes a fuse to provoke a civil uprising.

Isn’t this exactly what happened in the civil uprising in Huayin County?

"It's not that I'm anxious, but the people's support is not right, we can't delay!" Liu Bian took out Lu Jun's Guanjin County Experience and gave it to the two to read. "In the past few years, I and the officials inside and outside the court have been doing the work of paperhangers. The flourishing flowers and splendid flowers in the court and the country are nothing but castles in the air."

"This year is already the fourth year of Guangxi. Zhong Yuanchang and Xun Zhongyu checked the number of people without land in the county in recent years. The number of people in each county under their jurisdiction has increased compared to the first year of Guangxi. This is not what a prosperous era should look like!"

Upon hearing this, Xun Yu immediately bowed and said, "I am incompetent and cannot help you share your worries."

"This is a problem that has accumulated over the years for the Han family. There is no need for Wen Ruo to blame himself. But at the moment, I am thinking that the grain stored in various places is not enough to appease the people for a long time. Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to change the tax system to reassure the people. Otherwise, I am worried that things like the Huayin uprising will happen again and again!"

Lu Zhi asked, "Your Majesty, have you ever considered that the new tax system may not be heard by the poor people?"

Liu Bian nodded - "Right now, most people hope to see relief from the court. At this time, they will certainly cooperate more than ever with officials going to the countryside."

The history of the Western Han Dynasty from the beginning to the end is also a period of time when the power of the government gradually withdrew from the countryside. The most obvious example is that the seeds for the people to plant had to be provided by the government, but now, some local governments don’t even care when the people start planting.

What replaced the power of the government were clans, large or small, that were linked by blood ties.

On ordinary days, officials might encounter various difficulties in investigating the specific conditions of the civilian poor in the countryside, but now, with money and food for disaster relief, things will surely be much smoother.

According to the simple experience of the ancients, in a normal year, the people could save enough for one year's expenses through three years of farming.

During the years when Liu Bian was in power, although there were natural disasters and man-made disasters of varying degrees, there were still many families that met this condition. However, as long as they were not a family with many fields connected to the fields, even if they did not meet the conditions for receiving relief, Liu Bian believed that most people would still be happy to see the poor around them receive relief.

"In my opinion, we should take advantage of this opportunity to provide relief and announce new tax laws at the same time!" Liu Bian concluded.

When determining the new tax system, especially since this year is a disaster year, we must live within our means.

According to the statistics in recent years, there are nearly 9 million Han households, 45 million people, and more than 600 million mu of farmland. A simple calculation can show that the average amount of farmland per household is 67 mu.

But as for the problem of the average, those who understand it will understand it, and those who don’t understand... there is nothing you can do even if you fast forward to the point where you don’t understand.

Moreover, there were slaves, hidden households, and hidden fields among them.

In fact, the majority of Han people have less land than the average. If the tax system is to be reformed, it must be ensured that those with more land in the middle will at least not pay more because of the new tax system.

According to calculations based on actual conditions, the new tax law, which was composed of field rent and household tax, ultimately resulted in a field rent of five liters per mu, and each household was required to pay two feet of silk or three feet of cloth, which could also be replaced by money.

The corresponding material of silk is cotton. Liu Bian planned to add cotton to the mix after cotton became popular.

Considering that the average yield per mu in normal season is two shi, the land rent increased from thirty-one to twenty-one.

Generally speaking, without arbitrary levies by the emperor or local officials, and without corrupt officials doubling the oral arithmetic tax, a normal family of five would need to pay the oral arithmetic tax, plus miscellaneous taxes such as fodder tax that do not include land rent, which would cost a total of seven or eight hundred coins a year, which is exactly the current price of a piece of silk. A piece of silk is four feet long. Now, based on the household as the unit, the head tax has been directly reduced by half.

For the people whose farmland is below the average of 67 mu, this is definitely a major benefit. Even if it exceeds the average, the difference between the two tax systems will not be that big.

Moreover, if this law is used this year, it must be reduced or exempted according to the disaster situation. And based on the current number of acres of land and households, the income from the new tax law will definitely be lower than that of the old tax law.

However, considering that the total amount of farmland in the Han Dynasty exceeded 700 million mu during the reign of Emperor An, it is certain that the land measurement, which will be emphasized after the promulgation of the tax system, will have great potential.

In fact, Liu Bian originally wanted to directly restore the land rent to one-tenth, after all, there was the ancestral law to rely on, but he was finally persuaded by Lu Zhi and Xun Yu.

Boil the frog in warm water!

step by step.

Historically, after Cao Cao pacified Hebei Province after seven years, in order to appease the people, he ordered "to collect four liters of rent per mu of land, two pieces of silk and two catties of cotton from each household, and the rest of the money cannot be collected at will, and the strong are oppressed and the weak are punished." The prerequisite at that time was that the Wuzhu coins of the Han Dynasty could no longer be circulated because of the small coins minted by Dong Zhuo, and the people who paid the tax amount set by Cao Cao could be exempted from all taxes including corvée.

The biggest difference between Liu Bian's tax system and Cao Cao's tax system, apart from the amount of tax levied, was corvee labor.

As for whether the one-month corvee labor stipulated by the Han Dynasty is worth the price difference, that is a matter of opinion.

By the way, the land rent of four liters is about twenty-five percent tax, and two catties of cotton is equivalent to one piece of silk.

One thing is clear: at least when Cao Pi was emperor, the so-called "the rest of us are not allowed to act on our own" had been forgotten.

As for why Liu Bian did not consider directly exempting corvee labor, it was because corvee labor involved manpower and had a wider impact.

Apart from anything else, there are now some temporary workers who are responsible for doing miscellaneous guarding in various government offices. These temporary workers come here to perform labor service.

If these temporary workers were to be dismissed hastily, not only would taxes have to be increased, but also money would have to be spent on hiring additional staff, a process that would be as complicated as another tax reform.

Moreover, given that the Han army had few soldiers, corvee labor was necessary.

But in general, the new tax reform is in line with the general trend of changing from taxing people to taxing land, and it also takes care of the landless and landless people as much as possible.

At the same time, it is almost foreseeable that when Liu Bian puts forward this plan, it is bound to arouse opposition from those who have countless fertile lands at home.

But with the reorganization of the eight commanders of Xiyuan and the expansion of the eight battalions of the Northern Army, Liu Bian is very confident!
After reaching an agreement with Lu Zhi and Xun Yu, who had always been aware of the situation, Liu Bian began to summon ministers to the Yuntai Palace.

The Three Dukes and the two generals are of course indispensable. For such an important event, when the Three Dukes come, the Nine Ministers must follow.

The so-called "three sitting alone" are the Minister of the Chancellery, the Chief Censor, and the Inspector of the Capital.

In addition, there were several people who served as advisors, including Ma Ritian, Zhao Qian, Cao Song, and Yuan Kuai. Liu Bian, who was originally appointed as Shizhong by Liu Bian from the prefect of Ba County, also met Zhao several times, but felt that he was even worse than Yuan Kuai, who liked to do nothing, so he did not look for him this time.

Including Xun Yu who was granted special permission, there were more than twenty officials present, which was a great gathering of talented people.

Many of them have large amounts of land at home.

Yuan Wei and Yuan Ji of the Runan Yuan family, Yin Xiu of the Nanyang Yin family, Liu Yan of the Jiangxia Liu family...

Even Huang Wan, who was known for his good character and fairness, was from a wealthy family in Jiangxia.

Huang Zu of Jiangxia, who has always appeared as a villain, is from the same clan as him.

These people have different attitudes towards the sudden new tax law.

Ma Ritian has seen a lot of things in recent years. He was busy summarizing the experience of leading the people to the south, and now he has no time to consider the specific details of the new tax law.

However, seeing that the emperor had taken out a new tax law without any prior warning, he could not help but advise: "Your Majesty is the Son of Heaven, and you should follow the will of heaven and correct the unrighteous trends. Such a major matter, involving all the people, how can it be discussed privately in a secret room?"

It's almost as if Liu Bian was taking the lead in destroying social customs.

Liu Bian knew Ma Riti's character and was used to it. He was not angry, but just explained and admitted his fault, saying, "That is why I am so eager to invite you all to come and discuss this!"

Ma Riti had long been accustomed to the emperor's bad habit of sometimes sincerely admitting his mistakes but refusing to change. Hearing this, he stopped pestering him and just took out the experience he had summed up in recent days with great effort, and said, "Your Majesty, I have been busy planning the migration of the people to the south recently. Now that it has been completed, I will present it to Your Majesty."

"You are so thoughtful!" Liu Bian ordered someone to take it over.

(End of this chapter)