Zhao Jun's promise to the victims spread like a plague, and made Wang Yao, the transport envoy of Jinghu South Road, miserable.
Because of the two-tax system, he had to raise enough grain to send to Zhenzhou this year.
The land tax is collected on the first day of May in summer and on the first day of September in autumn, and the payment period is two and a half months respectively.
This means that the land tax in Hunan was almost collected by the end of July. However, due to the sudden heavy rain, it was blocked by floods just after it started to reach Yuezhou, and is now still in the Yuezhou transfer warehouse.
Zhao Jun waved his hand and immediately sent people to Yuezhou to transport the grain back to help the victims.
Then his political achievements this year are ruined, and he has no hope of promotion in the future.
But it was obvious that his arms were no match for his thighs, and he was powerless to do anything.
But Wang Yao figured it out soon.
Now that the Constitutional Yuan is in power, and the Governor is second only to the President, isn't political achievement just a matter of a word from the Governor?
Harvesting this year's summer grain and handing it over to the court is a political achievement, but if heavy rain suddenly comes and floods rise, and providing grain to the victims is provided, isn't that also a political achievement of another degree?
As long as none of the disaster victims starve to death and as long as the land can produce a good harvest next year, the dean will definitely make a note of his contribution in the book of merit.
So after a brief struggle, Wang Yao quickly changed his position and firmly supported Zhao Jun's decision.
Zhao Jun had no burden in embezzling taxes.
Because the taxes in the Song Dynasty were mainly composed of the two taxes, commercial taxes, salt and wine taxes, tea taxes, exemption money, etc., although the two taxes accounted for a certain proportion, the proportion has been getting lower and lower.
From the 70% in the era of Zhao Kuangyin and Zhao Guangyi, it dropped to 30% in the era of Zhao Zhen and Zhao Xu.
For example, during the reign of Emperor Zhao Zhen, the summer tax on grain transported from Jinghu South Road was only about 600,000 dan. According to the price of rice and wheat in Bianliang, which was maintained at 200 to 400 wen per dan throughout the year, the average value was 300 wen, which was worth about 230,000 guan.
At the end of the year, the agricultural tax paid by Jinghu South Road was less than 500,000 strings of cash.
During the reign of Emperor Renzong, the Northern Song Dynasty had eighteen routes. Except for the major grain-producing provinces of Huainan East Route, Huainan West Route, Jiangnan East Route, Jiangnan West Route, and Liangzhe Route, whose annual agricultural taxes exceeded one million guan and each route would transport two to three million dan to Kaifeng, the rest of the routes basically only collected a few hundred thousand guan.
In total, the agricultural tax alone, collected from all over the country, was only about 10 million strings of cash a year, which was less than what Zhao Jun had earned from confiscating property to help Zhao Zhen in recent years.
Therefore, the embezzled tax itself would not have much impact on the court.
In addition to inspecting Changsha these days, Zhao Jun also visited other disaster areas. Although he had been to the disaster area in Huainan before, the disaster area had been restored for three years at that time and the situation had improved a lot.
But now experiencing it with my own eyes is another matter.
Can you imagine the tragic scene of a village where most of the families have died out and every household is wearing mourning clothes?
Can you imagine that in other county towns, a man, covered in dirt and tattered clothes, would carry his daughter in a basket, carry her to the main street of the county town, and sell her with a straw stuck on her head?
Can you imagine an old man crawling on the ground in dirty mud and picking up a bone dropped by a rich man and chewing on it?
Landlords and wealthy families walked ostentatiously in the streets, accompanied by slaves and carried in sedan chairs. They glanced at every poor person selling their children on the street as if they were looking at pieces of merchandise.
Strictly speaking, except for Changsha and Linxiang where the disaster was relatively serious, the rest of the counties were relatively well off.
But other counties did not have the advance warning from Chen Xiliang. Even though the disaster situation on a large scale was relatively good, many villages along the river suffered heavy losses.
Maybe they were still sleeping in the middle of the night when the dam suddenly broke and the whole village was submerged in the tide.
If the remaining people want to survive, they can only sell everything they can in exchange for a chance to live.
When Zhao Jun saw this situation, he really couldn't sleep the whole night.
For modern people like him, although we can get a glimpse of clues from history books, such as "There was a severe drought in Huainan, and people ate each other" and "There was a great famine, and people exchanged their children for food".
But how can the understatement in history books compare to the cruelty we see in reality?
Therefore, the impact of all this before his eyes on him was unimaginable.
It’s just like the TV series “Awakening Age” I watched when I was in college, where the young great men walked through the streets in the rain and saw and heard everything.
It’s shocking enough to see it in a TV series, let alone seeing it with your own eyes?
To this end, Zhao Jun traveled to various counties many times, instructing local road officials, state governors, county magistrates and many other officials to strictly require their disaster relief actions to ensure the post-disaster management of the victims.
In fact, it is not difficult to temporarily intercept Hunan's agricultural taxes to support the victims, but the difficult part is how to live in the future.
Therefore, during this period, Zhao Jun has been urging local officials to clear farmland, recruit local troops, hire young and strong people, repair the embankments on both sides of the river, and clear the fields buried by silt and floods.
The common people's land was returned in full, but the gentry were required to pay for the cleanup of their land. As for the tenants who had no land and could only work for the rich landlords, the government would help them reclaim the land.
One good thing that could be considered after the flood was that the water washed a large amount of silt onto the shore, causing the plains on both sides to be covered with mud and sand. Although a lot of sand cannot be used to grow crops, the silt is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are beneficial to the growth of crops.
Therefore, many fields that were previously barren and could not be cultivated could now be cultivated after piling up silt. If this was not possible, Zhao Jun would ask local officials to help dig mountains and divert water channels for irrigation.
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