Chapter 70 The hardest thing is to beat yourself down
Whether it is Fan Zhongyan or Wu Zunlu, they have become accustomed to their status as scholar-bureaucrats and are also accustomed to this kind of privilege. In their view, this is the reward that scholars should receive after ten years of hard work and being named on the gold list.
Over the years, they would have almost forgotten the existence of miscellaneous taxes unless they saw it with their own eyes, but during this disaster, when Ye An once again exposed the implementation, it was even difficult for the two of them to accept it.
At this time, they looked back and discovered that the people of the Song Dynasty would not raise their children even if they did not encounter natural disasters, and they would still live in dire straits.
Yes! Let alone these two people, even Ye An himself has almost forgotten that he has become a privileged class in the Song Dynasty and has begun to enjoy the benefits brought by these privileges.
But when he saw all this, the pain in his heart still came out. Compared with scholar-bureaucrats like Fan Zhongyan and Wu Zunlu who came from official families, "ordinary people" like Ye An, who had different values, could no longer
Unable to suppress the anger in my heart.
No matter how Ye An and Qin Mumu integrate into this era, they always regard themselves as "ordinary people" in their hearts. Their positions and views on the world are completely different from people of this era.
In other words, they have a kind of "empathy" towards everyone in this era, and they will subconsciously put themselves into the other person's perspective to look at problems.
But the scholar-officials of the Song Dynasty were different. They believed that some people were born to rule the world, and some people were born to be managed. Some people should enjoy privileges after becoming scholar-officials in ten years of poverty, and some people should enjoy the benefits of status because they were born well.
The privilege comes.
Therefore, no matter how much the Song Dynasty squeezed the people at the bottom, no matter how local people launched peasant uprisings or rebellions, it did not matter to the scholar-bureaucrats of the Song Dynasty.
They are already part of the privileged class, how can they "knock themselves down"?!
However, the Han nation has never lacked heroes who go against the grain. People like Ye An cannot be heroes, but he can be the promoter behind heroes. Even if Fan Zhongyan doesn't want to be this hero, he will push him up...
Sure enough, Fan Zhongyan and Wu Zunlu were sweating profusely after hearing Ye An's words. Their faces were red and they wanted to find a gap in the ground to get in.
Ye An did not choose the wrong person. If the person facing him was Lu Yijian, the old guy would listen to Ye An's words without changing his expression and his heart would not beat. If the person facing him was Wang Zeng, he would definitely be filled with emotion and finally give up. If the person facing him was Zhang Shixun,
, Li Di and the two, I am afraid that they will run away after Ye An said the first sentence.
But now we are facing Fan Zhongyan, the man who once said, "Worry first when the world is worried, then be happy when the world is happy." You can doubt his ability and his methods, but there is no need to doubt his heart of caring about the country.
Worry about the people.
Some people are born with a strong sense of responsibility. As long as it is stimulated at the right time, it will burst out with amazing energy. Fan Zhongyan was embarrassed by Ye An, but he did not escape. Wu Zunlu thought for a long time and finally looked at
Fan Zhongyan.
These two people have known each other for a long time, or can be said to be close friends, otherwise Fan Zhongyan would not have come all the way to Tongzhou. This is the easternmost part of Jianghuai, close to the sea, so the disaster will not be too severe to a certain extent.
serious.
Wu Zunlu has the ability and means, but he needs a backbone, and Fan Zhongyan is his backbone.
"If we want the country to never collect miscellaneous taxes, it may be difficult to achieve it overnight. For now, we can exempt the Jianghuai miscellaneous taxes first, and then plan for it slowly. After all, it involves the country's public funds and frontier troops. The public expenses are huge, and the courtiers may not be able to second the proposal... For now, we should use
Relief for the victims of the Jianghuai River disaster is the most important thing!”
Fan Zhongyan was telling the truth, but his words also revealed helplessness. How could he not know that the Song Dynasty had too many excessive taxes and heavy taxes, but the Song Dynasty was now inseparable from the excessive taxes and taxes.
Ye An stopped talking. In fact, in a sense, the commodity economy of the Song Dynasty was prosperous enough, but the tax policy was not perfect and unfair.
Looking at Fan Zhongyan who looked helpless and confused, Ye An turned to look at Wu Zunlu who was frowning and thinking hard, and suddenly smiled: "You two have at least agreed that exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes should be abolished, which is great. As for how to abolish them, we need to
How long will it take? I need to plan hard. I am just impulsive. With the current official positions of the three of us, trying to achieve this is tantamount to wishful thinking. But as long as you keep this in mind, it will eventually be accomplished one day. It will be impossible to rashly remonstrate.
It’s effective, just like when Chang Sheng introduced the new method of making tea, it was stillborn in the end!”
Ye An was also hit by the failure of the original reform. He had also experienced the consequences of recklessly implementing reforms. The accusations against him were all trivial, but the counterattacks that followed the failure of the reform were harmful to others and himself.
There is nothing wrong with being cautious. After all, the results of Wang Anshi's neurotic reforms are well known, and in the end it is ordinary people who are unlucky.
The current environment of the Song Dynasty is relatively stable, and the White Lotus Society is not yet established. As long as it is eradicated early, there will be no risk of spreading. However, the long-term evils are so deep that the old system will have to be abolished sooner or later, otherwise the Song Dynasty will continue to embark on a vicious cycle.
As long as the seeds are planted in Fan Zhongyan's heart, the rest of the things will be easy to handle. The Qingli New Deal he implemented is good. Among them, he included many policies such as official reform, favor reform, tribute reform, enriching the country and strengthening the army, etc., which can have a great impact on the country.
There were almost no changes to Song's tax laws.
This is the most unreasonable part. Only by improving people's lives can the country be stable. In fact, the return from the abolition of miscellaneous taxes is even greater.
But they couldn't see this. Ye An felt that his idea of relying on Fan Zhongyan to reform the tax law was a bit far-fetched, because after spending so many days together, both Fan Zhongyan, Wu Zunlu, and even Wu Yu of Yingtian Prefecture had seen how exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes were squeezing the people.
But no economic laws were discovered.
In their view, the abolition of miscellaneous taxes means a reduction in the court's revenue and a reduction in available national funds. They have never thought of formulating a reasonable tax law to make up for this, let alone using the market economy for adjustment and the use of the state.
Intervene in the market.
Just like Fan Zhongyan's disaster relief work, most of them were to distribute food, prepare porridge, buy medicine, build thatched huts and other means to resettle the people simply and crudely. However, there were very few changes before Ye An proposed to use work instead of relief.
Why Wu Zunlu successfully contained the disaster in Tongzhou was partly because he transported grain by sea to sell grain, but more importantly, he thought of providing work-for-relief, which not only kept the people's jobs but also the economic production of Tongzhou.
Ye An was working at his desk in Tongzhou's public house and writing. He should do the reform of the tax system himself! Fan Zhongyan... no, even among the courtiers of the Song Dynasty, only a handful of them could understand the laws of economic operation. It was no problem for him to reform politics.
If he reforms the economy, he is trying to force others to do something difficult.
However, the only good thing that has been reached is that Fan Zhongyan once again asked Ye An and Wu Zunlu to jointly petition Zhao Zhen to exempt Jianghuai from summer and autumn taxes this year, as well as various miscellaneous taxes.
And the memorial emphasized that this measure must be implemented by sending people to supervise it, so as to prevent the policy from being smoothly conveyed to the local people and local officials refusing to implement it.
Being able to think of this shows that Fan Zhongyan is thoughtful and has realized the importance of local implementation of policies... Unfortunately, this is not enough in Ye An's opinion!