To be more specific, as an emperor, Zhao Jiu had no way of going to Bai Long Yufu to investigate the truth personally. If he couldn't trust these people, then there was no one else he could trust.
As for the anger he had just felt, it was essentially due to his anger at Li Gang, and these reports were actually not that absurd... Many things and many problems could be seen between the words.
Moreover, as an ordinary college student who had gone through nine years of compulsory education, Zhao Jiu knew the root of the problem from the beginning. So, rather than looking for the problem based on the report, it would be better to look for corresponding evidence in the report:
What Fan Zongyin mentioned was the widespread custom of infanticide not only in Fujian but throughout the southeast;
As mentioned by Lü Benzhong, obscene sacrifices were rampant near rivers and lakes, and the vegetable-eating demon cult was resurrected in some places;
Mei Li mentioned the universal integration of wealthy merchants and landlords, and temples and landlords;
As Yu Yunwen mentioned, the customs of cremation and water burial are common in the countryside;
As Yang Yizhong mentioned, from the literati to the common people, there was strong dissatisfaction with the ruling officials of Lu Yihao, Zhao Ding, and Zhang Jun.
As Zong Ying mentioned, some rural people abandoned their homes and moved into the city;
Of course, everyone cannot help but mention the common existence of super-large landlords who collect rent of more than 500 shi in towns and villages in the southeast, and the problem that the common people in the southeast are indeed burdened with extremely heavy burdens.
For three consecutive days, Zhao Jiu stayed in the provincial government courtyard. He neither attended any banquets nor tried to reconcile with Li Gang. He just kept studying the report and summoned, questioned, and discussed with relevant ministers.
And three days later, Zhao Jiu finally erased those superficial things and ultimately brought the problem down to the core issue of taxation in the southeast... Of course, not only had Zhao Jiu seen the answer in history books a long time ago, but all social problems would eventually be attributed to this basic issue.
Really everything, infanticide, rampant obscene worship, the intrusion of vegetable-eating cults, the prevalence of landlords, the popularity of water burials and cremations, in the end, it all comes down to the issue of land, population and taxation.
Therefore, three days later, after reading the reports, Emperor Zhao threw them aside completely and listed a few words in his summary notes:
First, the rent-labor system;
Second, the two tax systems;
Third, there is no restriction on mergers;
The fourth is field skin and field bones;
The fifth is the money for the body;
The sixth is labor.
Among them, the meaning of the rent and labor system is very simple. Rent refers to the rent for land, and labor refers to the fact that when the common people need to perform labor service, they can fulfill their labor service obligations by paying silk and satin.
This is China's basic taxation system for the lower classes that has been widely implemented since the Tang Dynasty. It certainly has many problems, but its progressive significance is unquestionable... Especially the "yong", which allows the people to avoid basic corvee labor by paying silk and satin, so that they can produce with peace of mind without worrying about delaying the busy farming season, and their enthusiasm for production is greatly improved.
Therefore, no matter how many problems the rent-and-labor system had, they could not offset his enthusiasm.
Next was the Two-Tax System, which was also a reform achievement of the Tang Dynasty and also a good policy.
When it comes to the Two Tax Law, we need to understand a concept first, that is, in the feudal era, the common people of any country had no ability to resist the government. Every time those yamen runners came to contact with the common people, they would cause great damage... Even if they came to promote good governance, they would cause disaster every time they came into contact with them.
When the higher-ups come to collect taxes and grain, won’t they extort money? Won’t they kill a chicken to entertain you? Won’t they be attracted by your beautiful daughter? Won’t the local scoundrels who have connections with the government take the opportunity to annex your few acres of prime vegetable garden?
The Two-Tax System, to put it simply, is to unify the calculation of all taxes, and collect them only once in summer and autumn each year. This greatly reduces the degree to which the common people are harassed by officials, and also allows them to allocate production materials on an annual basis without having to worry about it every day and every month.
So, of course it is good governance.
As for Zhao Jiu's own use of temples and merchants to replace the government to implement the Qingmiao loan, it was essentially a similar idea... No matter how good the method is, if it is implemented by powerful officials and the government, it will quickly become a bad policy. This is no surprise in the feudal era... Although monks and wealthy merchants can also ruin the situation, they are still much better than the feudal government.
Even according to Taira Kiyomori in the Akashin Team, Japan had a similar system hundreds of years ago, which was to lend money to the common people when there was a shortage of money... What was the result? The result was that the nobles took the opportunity to force the common people to collect the loans, and then used the interest to plunder and annex large areas. As a result, the Japanese-style land grant system was destroyed, the manor economy completely emerged, and the samurai class was born.
So, if the rent-and-labor system and the Two-Tax System are basic good policies that have stood the test of time and must be upheld, the remaining four points are the real problems.
The third point needs no further explanation... The Song Dynasty allowed mergers and acquisitions to take place at the discretion of the government, and the mergers were legal and in compliance with regulations.
The fourth point, namely the issue of farmland skin and farmland bones, was a vicious resistance measure taken by the large landowners in order to evade the tax after the imperial court announced last year that it would impose additional taxes on land.
To put it simply, the landlords actually annexed the land of the surrounding people and collected rent, but in order to pay less taxes, they used contracts to nominally keep the land with the people, thus transferring the court taxes that they should have borne to the tenant farmers.
The fifth article, needless to say, is the population tax. No matter how much land your family has, as long as you have adult people, you have to pay this thing.
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It’s even more exciting later!
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