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Text Chapter 569: Stealing from the Rich and Giving to the Poor

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    (Thanks to Ten Thousand Ten Thousands of Ten Thousand Congratulations to "Heartache Is Not OK" for becoming the master of this book. I also want to thank yunpiaopiao, Zuixiaodao, and Zhulinfeng for their support. Thank you!) ¡ª¡ª Without tax reform, we simply cannot maintain the current situation.  The expenses of the imperial court, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of professional troops.  To support hundreds of thousands of troops, maintain the current expansion plan, and ensure continuous military combat plans, a huge amount of money and food are required.  The current fiscal revenue of the imperial court, which is less than 10 million yuan per year, is simply not enough.  Since Yifeng came to the throne, he has actually maintained the 350,000 imperial troops in Beiya out of his own pocket, using his own internal funds.  The original tax system of the imperial court was quite simple. The land equalization system and the government military system were the two basic national policies of the Sui Dynasty. They provided land equalization to the people, and then rented and adjusted taxes.  The soldiers of the government are given land, and then the government does not pay taxes and the country does not have to pay them food and wages. The soldiers even have to buy their own weapons and equipment.  Under these systems, the taxes collected by the court every year were only used to provide for the emperor, the palace and the officials in the capital. The local officials of the court did not even use the court's fiscal expenditures. Local officials also used official fields, public fields,  Public money and official position Yongye Tian were used to pay the office expenses of local government and the salaries of local officials.  As for the officials in those places, these people do not need to pay money or food from the court, and even local officials do not need to pay money or food. These people only work but do not eat.  Of course, this is actually impossible, but the court and local governments do not pay these officials money and food. They rely entirely on their legal and reasonable duties to collect gray income to support their families and even make a fortune.  The policies of the Sui Dynasty were all primitive and simple.  As for the construction projects built by the state and local governments, such as building roads, embankments, dams, cities and walls, naturally there is no need to use national and local financial expenditures. Everything is done according to the old rules, recruiting civilians, raising taxes and allocating additional money and grain.  In short, this is an additional expense.  The national fiscal and tax revenue is not used to support soldiers, local officials, or the common people. Taxes worth nearly 10 million yuan each year are actually used for two purposes: to support the emperor and court expenses, and to support Beijing officials. Secondly,  for war expenses.  If there is no war, the fiscal revenue of nearly 10 million yuan a year is actually more than enough.  This is precisely the reason why the Sui Dynasty fought several major wars during the 19 years since its founding, but in the end it was still able to create a prosperous era with tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue every year.  But it doesn¡¯t work anymore. The various new policies of the new dynasty are different from the original strategies in every way.  In addition to supporting the emperor, the palace, and hundreds of officials in Beijing, the imperial court's taxes also had to support hundreds of thousands of Beiya imperial guards, as well as professional officers in the government and frontier armies. In addition, the salaries of local officials have also been included in national fiscal expenditures.  The civil servants who had been working for the imperial court without payment, more than ten times the number of officials, were now established and included in the ranks of national civil servants. They also had formal salaries, which was another huge sum.  The huge expenditures, plus the office expenses of the court and local officials, etc., are all additional expenditures compared to the past.  What's more, the new dynasty has abolished labor service. If the court wants to build engineering projects and recruits civilian husbands, they have to pay their salaries.  As professional soldiers, the Bei Ya Forbidden Army is treated relatively well. The average annual military expenditure for each soldier is about 50 guan. Calculated, the annual military expenditure is 17.5 million.  This does not take into account the war expenditures in the event of war. Although the border troops and government soldiers in Bianya and Nanya are not professional soldiers, they also have many professional officers. It would take a year to maintain the hundreds of thousands of troops in these two Yamen.  It's a lot of money. All in all, the military expenditure of the three yamen is at least 20 million a year, and that's not during wartime.  And Yifeng increased the salary of officials and paid salaries to the staff. Although it was not as expensive as the army, but plus the expenses of the palace, it would cost at least about 10 million a year.  ????????????????????????????????????????????????????¡­  This does not include the project costs if the court wants to build water conservancy, repair cities, repair roads, dredge canals, etc.  If the old tax system of the imperial court is still used, the imperial court will owe 20 to 30 million yuan a year. This is just to maintain normal operations, not counting additional expenditures such as wars or disasters.  It can be said that the tax system has to be changed, and it will not work without change.  If you don't change, you won't be able to survive for a day.  Although Yifeng had his own private property of the emperor and made a lot of income every year, relying solely on the emperor's internal funds would not last long.  Yi Feng had been planning the reform of the tax system for a long time, but he had not yet fully controlled the court, so he could not do it in one step.  But now that I have been in office for more than a year, and things have been sorted out internally and externally, there will naturally be less resistance if we formally propose it at this time.  Moreover, there is another important reason that prompted Yifeng to reform the tax system, that is, the land equalization system is a policy that cannot last long, and the rent-to-pay modulation isBased on the equalization of land system.  Once the land equalization system breaks down, the tax system will lose its roots, and the country's tax system will collapse.  As an emperor with a different vision, Yi Feng certainly could not wait until it collapsed in the future before making changes.  The two-tax law was implemented in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and the annual revenue from the two taxes was around 20 million guan. Especially in the mid-Tang Dynasty, the tax revenue the year before the two taxes was introduced was only a few million guan, and it doubled immediately after the two taxes were introduced.  Although Yi Feng's new tax law was also called the Two Tax Law, it was mainly named after the spring and autumn taxes. In fact, it was quite different from the two tax systems of the Tang and Song Dynasties.  The two most important taxes implemented in the Tang Dynasty were household tax and local tax. Household tax divided various levels of wealth according to the wealth of each household, and then different taxes were set for different levels, while local tax was basically unified.  In the north and other places, the rent for each mu of land was about one dou, while for the richer fields in the south, the rent was about one to three dou per mu. Miscellaneous taxes such as labor service money were also included in the two taxes.  People's taxes are paid twice a year in spring and autumn. Household taxes and local taxes are paid according to the household level and the number of fields determined by the government.  As for this amount, the government proposed and estimated the amount of fiscal expenditure for the year, and then distributed it to various parts of the country based on this number, and levied taxes on a proportional basis. Therefore, it can be said that the amount of the two taxes was actually decided by the emperor and the court.  Calculate.  The imperial court said it would spend 10 million this year, so 10 million would be levied. People in the world would be divided into different households and acres of land.  If the emperor said that he needed to spend 100 million this year, the people in the world would have to share the 100 million according to their household status and the number of fields.  This two-tax law is naturally not fair.  However, Yi Feng's two-tax law was not to live within one's means, but to determine the rent to be paid per mu of land based on the original tax rate of the land equalization system, and then convert them all into money, and then the court would directly pay according to the tax rate.  Taxes were levied on the acres of land owned by the common people, as much as there was land, with no additional taxes.  Of course, this is the main tax, and other taxes such as commercial tax are other taxes.  Such two taxes are also levied twice a year, but the biggest difference is that the total amount of taxes is calculated based on the number of fields in the world, so it will be a relatively stable and fixed amount.  After the land measurement and census of the new dynasty, it was found that there were 10 million hectares of land in the country, and both rich and poor had land. However, according to the new tax system, the annual two-tax discount is almost 30 million guan. Of course, this number is actually  It is not fixed and will fluctuate according to the prices of grain, silk, cotton, cloth, etc., but generally speaking, the two taxes are this number.  Compared with the original rent of several million per year, it has more than tripled.  Although it has more than tripled, this amount is still not enough for basic annual financial expenditures.  For this reason, Yifeng changed the tax system and added a national monopoly to increase fiscal revenue. The monopoly was salt, tea, wine, copper coins and other important supplies, especially salt. Yifeng planned to learn from the dynasties of later generations and seize from here.  A big tax.  Yifeng estimates that the tax revenue from salt tea wine and other franchises is about 20 million a year. In addition, there is another source of tax revenue from commercial tax, from which Yifeng also plans to get more than 10 million.  This is not a delusion. When Yi Feng was pregnant, he had already begun to promote the development of industry and commerce and obtained many benefits from it.  During the Xining period of the Northern Song Dynasty, the annual two taxes were equivalent to more than 20 million guan, while the commercial tax was only 4 to 5 million guan in the early Song Dynasty, and later reached about 20 million guan.  Of course, in the Northern Song Dynasty, it was the monopoly that generated the most revenue, especially the salt monopoly of daily necessities. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the revenue actually reached 40 million guan. The monopoly of tea and wine other than salt also generated a lot of revenue, with sales rising every year.  Ten million up and down.  In the Song Dynasty, especially the Southern Song Dynasty, in addition to the three main incomes of two taxes, commercial taxes and monopoly sales, there were also a wide range of miscellaneous taxes. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the highest fiscal revenue reached more than 100 million yuan a year, among which miscellaneous taxes included  Tens of millions of guan. In the 30 years of Shaoxing, the total amount of miscellaneous tax money produced by the Green Bureau alone was more than 20 million guan.  Yi Feng does not plan to change his methods to collect miscellaneous taxes now, but he also does not want to give up monopoly sales, which is a big revenue generator. Therefore, his goal is two taxes, commercial taxes and monopoly sales. He must earn at least 60 million a year, so that the court can guarantee  In addition to maintaining operations, there is also a surplus left for local provinces, states and counties to use, so that in addition to the central finance, local governments also have money in their treasury. In addition, there is money for the court and local governments to carry out construction and development, and even more money every year.  Set aside a sum of money for special needs such as war and disaster relief.  ¡°In the final analysis, to establish a prosperous age and govern well, money is indispensable.  But collecting taxes in this way is a profound knowledge. It cannot be imposed arbitrarily or apportioned arbitrarily. It will only make things worse.  In Yi Feng's view, the tax system of the Song Dynasty was good. Although there were many tax items, the taxes borne by the people were basically normal. For example, although the Southern Song Dynasty only occupied a place in the south of the Yangtze River, the annual tax revenue exceeded 100 million yuan.  In the Northern Song Dynasty, it was even higher by multiples, but they still maintained the rule of the Southern Song Dynasty by levying such high taxes, and even blocked the attacks of foreign tribes from the north.  But the other person who seemed to be a negative example to Yi Feng was the Ming Dynasty.  The Ming Dynasty's annual fiscal revenue was only a few million taels of silver. It seemed that it collected very little tax, but in fact the people's lives were very difficult. The reason was that large sums of tax revenue such as salt tax and commercial tax were lost in the Ming Dynasty.  Sorry, being raped by those officials and gentryThe ruling class was robbed, which enriched those people but made the court miserable.  The same is true for the two taxes. The officials and gentry have many tax-free and exempt privileges, and a large number of hidden households caused a large loss of tax revenue for the court. In the last year, only a few million taels were collected, but most of them were collected from ordinary people.  collected from the common people.  When the Ming Dynasty encountered the crisis in Liaodong and the bandits in the customs, the court continued to use troops, and it was short of pay and food. In the end, it was not allowed to raise more troops. The millions of taels of three salaries that the court levied every year were almost all in the end.  The money collected from the hands of ordinary people resulted in the bankruptcy of poor people one after another, which ultimately ruined the Ming Dynasty.  According to Yi Feng, a remote court in the Southern Song Dynasty collected more than 100 million taels of tax revenue a year, while a unified dynasty in the Ming Dynasty that unified the Central Plains only collected several million taels of tax revenue a year, and paid three additional taxes.  It caused the world to boil. This is a good illustration of the problem.  The Ming Dynasty only knew how to collect taxes from poor people, while the Song Dynasty mainly relied on collecting taxes from merchants. Secondly, it collected taxes through the roundabout method of monopoly, giving the people a relatively fair tax system. After collecting the money, the world remained stable.  According to Yi Feng's idea, in the most reasonable tax system, main taxes such as the two taxes should only account for about 20 to 30% of the national tax revenue, while the industrial and commercial tax should account for more than half. Plus the revenue from monopoly sales,  It should also be higher than the two taxes.  Of course, there is still a long way to go to achieve this step. First, industry and commerce must be extremely developed and prosperous, and there must be enough taxable goods. Only when industry and commerce are prosperous can the court receive enough taxes.  However, in addition to income from two taxes, commercial taxes and monopoly sales, Yifeng actually also has a large private income.  Many of his properties are in his name, such as Northern Bank, Oriental Insurance and other properties. According to the report of Gao Mingyue, the manager of his private property, it can now bring him more than 10 million yuan in income every year.  The amount of money is equivalent to the court's fiscal revenue for one year before the tax reform. Even after the tax reform, it can reach one-sixth of the court's revenue.  This money belonged to the emperor's private property, and the imperial finance department had no right to interfere with its income and expenditure and could not use it.  Before that, Yi Feng had been using the money to support the imperial army in Beiya, as well as the expenses of the palace, as well as the expenses of the three secret intelligence agencies and three special forces under his direct jurisdiction.  Yi Feng's new tax law has doubled the national fiscal revenue six times a year, increased the salaries of officials, paid staff, and reduced the tax expenditures of most ordinary people. It will be a great success for ordinary people.  Benevolent government is a good thing even for many soldiers and officials, and their interests are protected.  But there are certainly good things and bad things. This new tax law has reduced the burden on ordinary people, but it will make the nobles and powerful landowners bleed. The two tax laws are basically taxed according to acres. The original rent is included in the acres.  The more taxes there are, the more taxes there will be, which will make those nobles and tycoons who own large amounts of land feel the pain.  The reform of commercial tax also caused merchants to pay high commercial taxes, which increased many business costs, and those nobles and powerful people were also a group of people with a large amount of negotiation capital.  Whether it is the main tax, two taxes, or the industrial and commercial tax, it will greatly affect the vital interests of the upper class. Even monopoly sales such as salt, tea, and wine will also affect them.  Yi Feng knew this very well, better than anyone else, but he still put forward this plan unswervingly.  This time, he may have to play a dangerous game with the nobles, powerful landlords and wealthy businessmen in the world, but Yi Feng believes that he will not lose. Maybe one thousand of the noble, powerful, landlords and wealthy businessmen in the world will oppose his new tax law, but Yi Feng believes that he will not lose.  He also has 999% of the ordinary class of soldiers and civilians in the world to support his reforms. He is not Song Shenzong, and his current control over the world is beyond his reach.  Moreover, although the new tax law will be harmful to those rich, promoting the development of industry and commerce, enriching the country and strengthening the army, and expanding the territory will also be an extremely rare opportunity for those classes. If they have a long-term vision and cooperate with the court, they will lose everything.  Just sesame seeds, but you can harvest watermelons.  In the end, we have to see how many people have such knowledge.
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