On the third day after their wedding, the couple got into busy work.

It’s not that I don’t want to have a honeymoon for a while, but this year’s autumn harvest is about to begin. After the autumn harvest, it’s time to collect taxes. If the hidden taxes and fees are not revealed as soon as possible, the treasury will lose at least 70% of its income.

Lu Bu's current expenses for maintaining the army basically depend on the money he robbed from Xi County, and it also costs a lot of money and food to accommodate the families of the soldiers who came from Liangzhou.

Moreover, according to Lu Bu, he saw in his dream that there would be a severe drought and a plague of locusts the year after next. If he didn't quickly stock up on more grain and grass in the treasury, he would be eating dirt the year after tomorrow.

It just so happens that we can use this time to measure the land, conduct a population census, build various water conservancy facilities, and dig more reservoirs and ponds. As long as we are well prepared, the disaster year after next will be both a disaster and an opportunity for Bingzhou.

Zhang Mo has already assigned the manpower to measure the land. The young men and women in Tulou and Juyi Village have gone to school for so many years, and they are more than enough to do these basic tasks.

Bingzhou now has 15 counties in Taiyuan, 14 counties in Yanmen, 10 counties in Shangdang, and 4 counties in Jiaxihe County. Excluding some occupied by Heishan, a total of 38 counties are completely under the jurisdiction of Lu Bu. These people can really measure this.

There is so much land that it would probably take more than a year and a half to measure it all.

The job Zhang Mo gave them was not to actually use a ruler to measure the land piece by piece. Instead, he first went to each county government office to get the land registration book, and then went outside the city to check each family's land piece by piece according to the book. It was recorded that there were records in previous years.

The land that is subject to taxation must be marked one by one first. The remaining unmarked land is hidden and must either be registered to participate in taxation or be directly confiscated as unclaimed land.

Of course, there will inevitably be some registered acres that are inconsistent with the actual number. If you can visually inspect the land during the proofreading process, there is no need to re-measure it if it looks almost the same. Some large pieces of land that cannot be visually measured need to be measured and then registered.

It was inevitable that some families would not cooperate. Lu Bu assigned soldiers to follow the land surveyors. Those families that did not cooperate were directly arrested for obstructing government work. They were fined and jailed. This time the official attitude must be tough.

Once the land surveying work is arranged, the subsequent taxation system will also need to be changed.

The current taxes in the Han Dynasty can be roughly divided into two parts: the first is land rent. According to the richness and poverty of the court, there is a tax of one tenth, a tax of fifteen and the lightest tax of thirty. Now Lu Bu still implements the original tax in Bingzhou.

One out of ten taxes.

If we look at land rent alone, even if a ten-per-ten tax is implemented, the burden on the people will be very light.

The second is the tax, which is the population tax. There are many items. The first is the tax. Those aged 15-56 have to pay the tax. Each person is 120 yuan as a "one calculation". Normally, each person pays one calculation every year.

However, for merchants, slaves, or unmarried women over the age of fifteen, their wealth must be doubled or even multiplied several times.

The second is koufu, 7-14 years old, 20 yuan per person. When the emperor was short of money, he would also lower the age. The current age set by the government for koufu is from one to fourteen years old.

20 coins may seem like a small amount, but in the Han Dynasty money was expensive and the burden on the people was really heavy. Because of this tax system, many poor families could not even afford to have children. In order to avoid taxes and fees, they concealed their population or drowned their girls.

The third is Gengfu, which means annual military service and corvee money. If you don’t want to serve, you can use money instead.

In addition, there is a household tax of 200 yuan per household, which is provided to the feudal lords and princes in the fiefdom and is not directly listed as national fiscal revenue.

In addition to land rent and taxes, there are also various miscellaneous taxes on industry, commerce and mountain wood products, and there are also unscrupulous officials who privately increase taxes. Among them, there is a bonus for the loss of field rent. The specific amount of the tax is decided by the local officials themselves.

Under the heavy tax system, even in peacetime, the people could barely survive starvation. Once natural disasters and man-made disasters occurred, they would lose their entire family and sell their fields and children. After every natural disaster, it was a great opportunity for the family to absorb the land's population.

In addition to these passively absorbed common people, there are also many common people and small landowners who really can't survive and will actively attach themselves to powerful families to avoid heavy taxes and labor. As long as they hand over part of the harvest to the wealthy families they are attached to, the rest will be their own. Of course,

The amount handed over was slightly less than what was handed over to the country, but it could only keep them alive.

And in some extreme circumstances, even if you want to be a disciple, you can't, and you can only risk everything to become a refugee and a bandit.

The powerful families hid their land and population, evaded the calculation of taxes and oral taxes, and annexed land and absorbed the population again and again, resulting in less and less government revenue. Only at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty did the place become extremely rich, but the central government was extremely poor.

Only when the situation was so bad did Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty think of selling his official position and seizing money from the noble family.

Bingzhou caused various rebellions by the Xiongnu, Heishan, and Baibo, resulting in serious population loss and a large amount of land being abandoned. The remaining powerful families formed an interest group. In addition to almost controlling Bingzhou economically, these interest groups also had certain armed military capabilities.

Strength, and even some people may be connected with the Montenegrin Army, so that they can still tenaciously survive after Lu Bu led his troops to Luoyang.

Of course, there was help from Juyi Village at the beginning, but there is no doubt that they have the armed forces themselves. The Wang family, in addition to the tribes of Amo Tulou, Wang Gai, and Wang Ling also trained a number of tribes.

However, this little power has no ability to resist in front of Lu Bu's regular army.

Therefore, at present, the government wants to increase tax revenue. In addition to attracting refugees to reclaim abandoned land, it also allows these powerful families to pay taxes formally. To solve the tax problem, the land population must be counted.

The land is easy to measure, but the hidden population is difficult to check in a short time. Moreover, it is unrealistic to kill the powerful families with one blow. There are not many powerful families in Bingzhou, but there is still Hanoi County with many powerful people.

If things don't go well on one side, it will be even more difficult for Lu Bu to take over the other side. This reform can be regarded as a test of the water in advance.

What Zhang Mo wants to learn from is the system of dividing land into acres, abolishing calculated taxes and oral taxes, dividing the land rent evenly according to the population in a certain year, collecting taxes in one go, and only collecting taxes based on the amount of land. Those with more land will get more.

Accept, those with few will accept less, and those without land will not accept.

In the general office of the Prefectural Mufu, Du Ji raised some doubts after hearing what Zhang Mo said about the new tax system.

"Some families have ancestors who were granted meritorious lands. There is no need to pay taxes on these lands. Many people transfer their land into meritorious fields to avoid taxes and fees. How should we solve this problem?"

Zhang Mo said, "Since we need to reform, we will change this area this time. We will not take back the farmland. However, we will set an upper limit. The acres within this range will not be taxed, and the excess must be paid. This will be the future king.

The tax exemption ceilings for ministers and generals in the reward account also need to be stipulated according to different levels, otherwise these emerging classes will also become part of land annexation and tax evasion in the future."

She said and looked at Lu Bu, "I wonder what your Majesty wants?"

Lu Bu nodded, "It's up to you to decide what you think is more appropriate, my husband. I don't know much about this."

Lu Bu said this out of humility and to give Zhang Mo power. Before she came back, he had learned a lot about things before she came back. He didn't know how to think about good policies, but he could still hear what they said.

Good or bad.
Chapter completed!