It was getting late, and Li Po was already a little dizzy, so he let Su Dan and others go.
It is estimated that in the next few months, both the court and the central government will have to focus on the word taxation. This is a serious court policy. Starting from today, the next many days will be the days of formulating the tax system of the early Tang Dynasty, corvee and other matters.
How to take care of the current situation and reduce the burden on farmers is the top priority in this matter.
At this time, we cannot, as before, try our best to adhere to the old system and work hard to make the rule stable in order to cope with the mutual attacks among the princes.
To carry out reforms, such as land transfer, countless changes must be made.
The first is the age for granting land. This must be lowered. The population is too small and the acres of land are too large. Everyone thinks that the age for granting land should be lowered to eighteen, which means that the age of adulthood should be changed.
In addition, in order to encourage fertility, the age of marriage for men and women must also be changed. Of course, the current generation does not seem to care much about this. There are many nobles who get married at the age of thirteen or fourteen.
In particular, the emperor took the lead in violating the rules. The optimal age for drafting candidates into the palace was between thirteen and fifteen years old. Look, why do you set everyone's marriage age in their twenties?
The second is the person to whom the land is conferred. Don’t think that the land conferrer is either a man or a woman. In the Sui Dynasty, there were ding oxen to confer the land. For example, one ding oxen could confer 80 acres of land. If there was one ox, it could confer hundreds of acres of land.
mu.
The original intention was naturally good, to improve the efficiency of farming and encourage everyone to raise cattle. However, in the last years of the Great Cause, the land grant with oxen was tended to be abolished. The main reason was that the world was in turmoil and people were not full, so they slaughtered cattle to satisfy their hunger.
The government could not stop it at all, so this item was not counted.
When the Tang Dynasty was founded, people in the Ministry of Household Affairs proposed to abolish the system of farming cattle and granting farmland. The reasons were very good.
There are many disadvantages to the use of cattle to confer farmland. In the Sui Dynasty, laws and regulations were rapidly corrupted. During the Renshou period, there were sometimes only one cattle in a village. In order to compete with the government, the land was shared by the whole village, and the officials turned a blind eye.
One eye resulted in a serious loss of official land.
In addition, those who own cattle are usually nobles or wealthy people in the countryside. They already have a lot of land, and adding cattle will increase their wealth, but they will not have much benefit to the people.
In addition to the issue of Ding Niu, there is also the issue of land transfer between men and women.
In the former Sui Dynasty, it was stipulated that a male should be granted eighty acres of land, and a female should be granted forty acres of land. On this issue, Su Quan and Dou Dan agreed that only male males should be granted land, and no more land should be granted to women.
woman.
This is also due to the bad government of the former Sui Dynasty. When the former Sui Dynasty reformed the tax system of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, it was in the early years of the founding of the emperor. Emperor Wen and his wife were in power. In addition to practicing strict frugality, nobles and common people were not allowed to have more concubines.
At that time, the social atmosphere was in good order, and the nobles rarely performed music. If the nobles were like this, the common people would not dare to be presumptuous.
Therefore, the land granting was considered fair at the time, but during the Daye period, the nobles gradually relaxed their hands and allowed wives and concubines to enjoy themselves as much as they wanted, which soon extended to the land granting system.
Because both men and women can grant land, the rich take more and more advantages, but the poor suffer a big loss. When some people marry their daughters, in order to keep their daughter's land, they discuss with the husband's family to transfer the daughter's household registration
He stayed at home and only married off his daughter falsely.
The resulting contradictions became increasingly acute, and many nobles got involved, creating a chaotic atmosphere. As the atmosphere declined, it also undermined the foundation of the former Sui Dynasty's rule.
Therefore, everyone in the Ministry of Household Affairs suggested that women should not be given any land at all, and that they should only take care of the widows, and then increase the number of land granted to men to make up for the losses of the people.
Li Po was shocked when he heard this. He thought he was already very familiar with these things, but the details were really lacking. He couldn't help but think that it was a long way for a woman to hold up half the sky.
Anyway, he felt that with this kind of arrangement, women's status would only get lower and lower... Of course, there was nothing that could be done about it. Agrarian society was like this, and women's intelligence might only be released after productivity was liberated.
This is an injustice in the distribution of manpower, and there is no way to change it based on subjective perception.
There are also issues of land granting to slaves, untouchables, etc., which need to be treated appropriately. Slavery is a social issue. The Central Plains Dynasty has already passed the slavery stage, and the lives of most people will be strictly guaranteed in peacetime.
The era of wanton killing of slaves has long passed, and powerful nobles should be more reckless. However, under normal circumstances, wanton killing will also be punished, but it just depends on the circumstances or their status.
Today, when the population is declining sharply, the imperial court must enact laws to prevent such incidents from happening, and granting land to slaves is also based on the above reasons.
It's just that Li Po considered that he might have to capture people from outside to make up for the lack of corvee service. Do those people need protection? No.
The lessons of the war in the late Jin Dynasty were so profound. He could not raise tigers to cause trouble. Slaves would remain slaves for the rest of their lives, and their descendants must also be slaves, and they must be treated separately from the domestic slaves raised by the nobles now.
Li Po thought coldly, as if he could hear the wailing of countless people, but he was not moved at all...
Then there is the most substantive issue in land granting, which is how much land is granted. Because the system of granting land to women is to be abolished, more land is granted to men. But overall, there is no doubt that the number of lands granted to each household is
Much less than the previous Sui Dynasty.
Of course, we need to discuss this later, because Li Po plans to distribute cattle on a large scale to improve production efficiency. This will have to wait until the alliance is reached before making a decision, because if the negotiation with the Turks goes well, he may be able to purchase large quantities of cattle and sheep from the Turks.
?
Then Datang’s pastures also need to be rebuilt, especially the Liangzhou and Yulin pastures, which not only have to raise war horses, but also cattle for farming. I don’t know if the cattle raised on the grasslands can be used for farming.
This requires careful consideration and brainstorming. Don't let the cattle go down and everyone kills them to eat meat, or groups of people die due to poor feeding, which would become a joke.
Therefore, it is urgent to establish Sinong Temple. It is much better to let professionals do this than to let people from the Ministry of Revenue do it.
In addition, there are also the distinction between open fields and mulberry fields. Open fields are land granted to the people by officials, and they are collected when the people die. It is a complete form of state ownership. The benefits are obvious. The nobles cannot deprive others of their land at will, and the income of the people is also fixed.
It will be much easier for the government to collect taxes.
The disadvantage is that the land that people have cultivated all their lives is not owned by individuals. When people die, the land disappears. How do you feel about that?
I have been working for the government my whole life, so there is no need to mention my motivation.
However, it has been like this since ancient times, and people seem to have become accustomed to it. The consequences are actually very helpless. People are tightly bound to the land, which is conducive to government management.
But looking at it from the other side, the disadvantages are not small. Industry and commerce cannot develop at all, social activity is not enough, and the government's taxation can only be based on physical goods.
Therefore, the annual income before the Sui Dynasty was always low. The underlying reason was the public ownership of land. It can be said that this system greatly hindered the pace of social development, but it was beneficial to the rule of the aristocracy.
In this case, what do you think the ruler will do? There is no need to ask. Even if he realizes the disadvantages, he will choose to ignore it. Isn't it just a little less income? Compared with the stability of rule, what is this?
But when the Tang Dynasty was founded, it was time to change.
In fact, given the limitations of people in the world, there are almost no people who can realize this on a deep level. Even Li Po has never thought about it deeply, because he has no personal experience and no understanding of this.
There is no research on social issues.
Like Su Tan, he only saw superficial things.
I feel that in order to stimulate farmers' enthusiasm for farming, they should be given certain benefits, so certain changes must be made. It is better to expand the scope of mulberry fields, that is, Yongye fields, so that farmers can taste some sweetness, and it is better to have more
Plowing in the fields with a happy mood.
Well, this is the beginning of land privatization. Who made Datang’s land so rich?
Moreover, Li Po felt that the land in Henan, Hebei, and Shandong was deserted, so it was even more important to attract people to farm there. If more Yongye fields were set up, it would be a good idea.
Now that we have private property, is it still far away to buy and sell land? Laws and regulations in this area are almost ready to come out.
Reforms in this area have made everyone in the Ministry of Household Affairs very worried. There were a lot of discussions, and even if there was no quarrel yet, the smell of gunpowder was getting a bit strong.
This was still at the Umrah meeting. It is conceivable that after returning to the Ministry of Household Affairs, many people will immediately think about writing letters to express their opinions, and the discussions within the Ministry of Household Affairs will also be very intense.
This is the first of its kind. Where can the truth come from without controversy?
Then there is the reform of the land granted to officials, the permanent land of the nobles, the official land, the public land, the military camp land, and the farmland.
This is only a matter of land granting, and corvee and taxation also account for a large part.
I spent an afternoon fussing over it, sorting out the pros and cons, and looking for feasible solutions, which made my head grow bigger.
The emperor was like this, which made his ministers suffer even more. The emperor had clear thinking and sharp words, and he would not pretend to understand. If he didn't understand something, he would ask immediately. In the end, when Su Tan and others were dry, they all felt that today
Fewer people were brought.
It wasn't until ten minutes after sunset that Li Po let them go. He had no intention of leaving anyone to eat. He had lost countless brain cells, so he needed to take a good rest.
These household officials also became disgusting in his eyes. If he ate with them, his ears would probably be filled with money and food, and his mind would be filled with land and taxes, so he drove them away without hesitation.
After a small court meeting, he completely forgot about Du Fuwei's plan to build an academy. He returned to the Manlu Hall for dinner and fell asleep. Before going to bed, he still muttered that he couldn't live this day...