The next morning, it was still dark.
The three men split into several groups and began to implement the land tax distribution according to the plan.
Song Gongwen was the main person in charge.
First thing to do.
That is to summon officials at all levels in Longyang Prefecture and announce this matter.
Land annexation.
It's not just Dawei's current problem.
It is also a stubborn disease that has been difficult to solve throughout the dynasties.
Today, the Wei Dynasty continues the system of the previous dynasty, collecting land tax and head tax.
The head tax is also called the Ding tax, which means that only those who are registered with the government are eligible.
All men, young and old, had to pay taxes.
In addition to passing the imperial examinations.
It's almost unavoidable.
However, compared with the head tax, the land tax is much easier to handle.
The so-called land tax.
It means paying taxes based on the amount of land each household owns, and it is also the bulk of the court's tax revenue today.
But the land in the world is limited, and the court's expenses are constantly increasing.
Therefore, it came to Wei Yunyi's reign.
The land tax collected was actually less than that during the previous emperor's reign.
The reason is very simple.
Although the rich and officials have vast tracts of land, they all have ways to exempt themselves from taxes.
At worst, they would try every possible means to avoid taxation from the imperial court.
If the higher-ups investigate, it won't mean a big deal to them. It's just a symbolic payment.
As for the poor people who have no land, it goes without saying that basically no taxes can be collected.
Therefore, the land tax collected by the court every year was almost entirely borne by the farmers who already had very little land. After working hard all year, the farmers not only had to pay rent to the landlords, but also had to pay taxes to the court.
This made their already poor life even worse.
In this situation, some people have no choice but to avoid paying taxes.
Therefore, they would choose to transfer their land to the name of a scholar or juren who is eligible for tax exemption.
In this way, neither the rich nor the poor pay taxes.
This resulted in fewer and fewer acres of land available to pay taxes.
This kind of thing happened not only in Longyang Prefecture, but also throughout Jiangnan and even the whole country. This action was also called: surrender.
However, tax collection is an important political achievement for every local official. Failure to collect land tax means failing the assessment of the Ministry of Households.
The evaluation of the Ministry of Personnel will also be greatly affected.
Therefore, some officials came up with a solution.
Since the land tax cannot be collected.
Then increase the collection of poll tax.
In order to complete the assessment and increase political achievements, even those who did not own land were forced to pay taxes.
In this way, taxes were collected, but the number of poor people increased and became poorer.
On the contrary, the rich who were not affected are getting richer.
Song Gongwen knew this situation.
Only then did they choose to implement the policy of allocating land tax to each household.
Directly abolish the poll tax.
Taxes were transferred to the fields. The more fields one owned, the more they had to pay. The purpose was to take money from the rich and landlords.
As for farmers who don’t have much land, not only will the head tax be exempted, but even the land tax will be reduced accordingly.
In particular, Song Gongwen came up with a solution.
In order to prevent some people from pretending to obey but actually disobeying.
He gave orders to officials at all levels.
He sent his subordinates to re-measure the land.
In addition to posting notices, the educated legal advisors were also asked to review the registered land.
There is no doubt that this move caught officials at all levels in Longyang Prefecture off guard.
I thought the father-in-law was just going through the motions, but I didn't expect he was serious about it.
Of course, they did not dare to oppose it openly.
Just keep making excuses.
It's difficult to say what you want to do and it requires careful planning.
Song Gongwen also fully guessed that these people would say this.
Then they moved out and annexed the land of Li Fang, but it was discovered by the East Factory. With all the evidence, the whole family was exiled.
He also directly announced that this was the national policy set by His Majesty and no one was allowed to disobey it.
Officials at all levels in Longyang Prefecture were helpless.
You can only go ahead with it.
Who made Song Gongwen the second-in-command of the cabinet and the father-in-law of the emperor?
And with the previous example of Li Fang, he realized that he couldn't fool people any more.
However, the policy of distributing the tax based on the amount of land used ultimately infringed upon the interests of most people, especially the gentry in Longyang Prefecture.
They believed that the land they had worked so hard to obtain was now being forcibly taxed by the imperial court, so they immediately united to oppose it.
In particular, the notices posted by the government were intended to tell the people the benefits of the land tax.
However, due to the distortion of these people, it became the imperial court's intention to impose taxes.
Although the common people did not trust the words of the gentry.
But this is not the emperor's territory after all.
Therefore, a large number of people were completely confused and felt that the court was unfair.
In particular, some officials in Longyang Prefecture also quietly supported the gentry, which made the people even more convinced.
This is also because there are more gentry who manipulate public opinion.
Some officials, with legitimate reasons, began to suggest that the implementation of the land-based tax system should be postponed for the time being. After all, public opinion cannot be violated.
At first, Song Gongwen ignored it and continued to give orders on his own.
Seeing this, the officials of Longyang Prefecture began to resist behind the scenes.
Slowly turned to the surface.
Even if the other party is the father-in-law of the emperor or the chief minister of the cabinet, so what?
The people disagree, causing public outrage. When they report this to the court, they will also have something to say.
As a result, the implementation of the land-based tax system came to a standstill.
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