First, from now on, all previous taxes, additional levies and levies will be abolished. In the First People's Commune, tax exemption will be implemented for two years. From the third year onwards, land tax will be levied, starting at 30 taxes per year. , it will be gradually increased based on the actual production situation in the future. The specific form of land tax collection will be formulated in detail later. However, without the permission of the Administrative Department of Zhejiang General Military Mansion, local governments are prohibited from privately increasing taxes and sending additional taxes. The labor service will be replaced by the commune's labor system.
Second, when the field tax is not collected, the food crops produced in each village will be purchased by the commune at the current market price. Only the crops that the commune determines not to purchase can be handled by each household. When the commune purchases, it will use the funds issued by the Civil Affairs Department. The unified container is the standard, and all methods such as fire consumption, color removal, and tip kicking are exempted. Violators will be severely punished.
When the People's Commune was announced earlier, the people's reaction was not big. Only when Shang Yi mentioned the commune's land distribution plan, people made some noise. However, after these two regulations were announced, the people in the audience immediately won over. Their cheers.
Although Chinese farmers are simple-minded, they are actually very shrewd. Just being able to deceive them is useless. No matter what you say, they will not easily support it unless it brings them any substantial benefits. A certain system. Therefore, the people are not very interested in the people's commune system. From their point of view, the members' groups and village committees are just old villagers from the past, Li Zheng and the like have changed their names, and they are not the same as themselves. It doesn't matter much, they should still do their own thing in the future. They will only be interested in things that are related to their own vital interests. For example: land allocation, tax exemption, reduction of labor, etc.
Majiazhai and the 17 surrounding villages have a total of more than 2,600 households, with a population of about 12,000. There are about 160,000 acres of arable land, more than half of which is occupied by the Majia family, and most of the farmers are tenant farmers. , the number of farmers who actually own their own land is less than a thousand, and the number of farmers who own more than 30 acres of land is less than 300. The vast majority of farmers who own land are less than ten acres.
According to the standards set by Zhu Yuanzhang, one acre of land in the Ming Dynasty was calculated based on one step wide and two hundred and forty steps long. The Ming system used five feet as one step. According to the Ministry of Industry ruler, one foot was 31 centimeters, so it was converted into the metric system, one foot. An acre is 560 square meters, which is not far from the modern acre of 666 square meters. Therefore, under normal circumstances, 30 acres of land is enough to support a family of four to six people.
When Shang Yi formulated the land distribution plan, the purpose of setting an upper limit was to promote the separation of households in rural areas. On the one hand, it was to expand the source of tax revenue and labor, and on the other hand, it was also to avoid the emergence of large families with several generations living under the same roof. Once families are separated and have independent families, the cohesion of the family will be greatly reduced, which can effectively prevent some families from gradually forming a huge family power due to the large number of people. The purpose of allocating land only to married families is to prevent farmers from obtaining Land and fake divorce. The Chinese have always been very shrewd in taking advantage of loopholes.
But overall, according to this distribution plan, the vast majority of farmers can obtain more or less benefits. Therefore, farmers strongly support Shang Yi's land distribution system, and naturally they also support the people's commune system.
The two new tax regulations that followed have actually benefited the people. The taxes set by ancient China were not high, generally ranging from 15 to 30 taxes, with the highest being 10 taxes.
This is something farmers can afford.
But in actual operations, the tune often changes. First, some large households that have occupied a large amount of land do not pay land taxes, and in order to complete the tax collection, the local government has to transfer double the amount they should pay to ordinary households.
Farmers, even pure landless tenant farmers, have to share a sum, which of course increases the burden on farmers. Moreover, in addition to the regular tax
In addition, there are also additional taxes and consumption increases from time to time. Sometimes these fees even exceed the regular tax. However, the rich and powerful can also ignore these fees, and the local government does not dare to charge them. In the end, they still fall on the heads of ordinary farmers.
, which turned out to be a heavy burden. And this does not include the land rent that needs to be paid by the landlord who leases the land.
In addition, in the process of paying taxes, because in ancient China, taxes in kind were collected, which was one of Zhang Juzheng's reforms, and grain was exchanged for silver. As a result, local governments and subordinate officials at the lower levels had to use it to pluck their hair, and so on.
They used methods such as fire consumption, color removal, and pile-top kicking to line their own pockets. They also made farmers pay a lot of expenses. The so-called exorbitant levies and miscellaneous taxes refer to these situations.
The so-called errands actually refer to some local public projects, such as building city walls, building bridges, building embankments, auxiliary land, etc., all of which require farmers to do free voluntary work. Of course, they also do some private work for local officials, which is naturally what they are doing.
It is inevitable. When farmers do these things, not only do they not get any reward, but they also miss their farm work time. Therefore, the labor force is another heavy burden for farmers.
Therefore, in ancient China, tax reduction has always been regarded as the greatest virtue, because exempting farmers from taxes actually guarantees most of the farmers' income. Moreover, peasant uprisings in ancient China will all be labeled "tax-free" without exception.
The slogan comes from. If you study the development history of Li Zicheng, you will find that Li Zicheng really started to gain momentum when he raised the banner of exemption from tax for three years. When Taizu of the Celestial Dynasty was conquering the country, he fought against landlords to divide the land. In essence,
It also reduces the burden on farmers.
Although in the long run, collecting agricultural taxes is inevitable, because when social productivity is backward, no tax can replace agricultural taxes. You must know that in another time and space, it was not until the 21st century that China fully
Agricultural taxes were abolished. But in the short term, Shang Yi can only win the support of the people through
If we pass tax exemption, otherwise it will be useless to allocate more land to the people and still charge heavy taxes. As for fiscal revenue, we should try to find other ways, and Yancun is one. At the same time, Shang Yi also left a back-up, isn't it?
Is there still some public land? In fact, two-thirds of the revenue from public land belongs to the government, which is quite a lot.
In addition, Shang Yi currently has many construction projects, which also require a large amount of manpower. Prisoners alone are not enough, so it is inevitable to assign servants to farmers. This is also the biggest thing Shang Yi values about the People's Commune. It can only be done in the form of wages.
Farmers are given appropriate compensation, but this is much better than the past labor service system where workers worked for free.
Now that the land has been allocated, taxes are waived. Naturally, there is no need to pay rent to the landlord. Moreover, when purchasing grain, there are not so many additional payments, and the servants also have income. Therefore, the people are very excited about these two new taxes and servant systems.
It is reasonable to cheer. Moreover, many people from other villages who came to watch the excitement were also very envious and wished that their own villages could also join this people's commune.
After all the rules are settled, the next step is to establish each village committee and each member group, and to redistribute the land. Because now the New Year is approaching, and after the beginning of the new year, it will start soon
Spring plowing, so the people hope to complete the land measurement and reallocation before spring plowing begins. However, land measurement and reallocation is not a trivial matter, and it cannot be completed in such a short time.
Therefore, Shang Yi also announced that after the spring plowing begins, each household will still farm according to the existing land and do not miss the farming season. The land measurement and reallocation will be completed in March next year. When the time comes for the land measurement and reallocation, try to
Distribute the land that has been cultivated. The people have no objections to this point. After all, they are very satisfied with the land distribution. Anyway, everyone is cultivating. Even if the spring plowing situation is not good, it can be remedied in March.
Besides, you don’t have to pay taxes anymore, so what are you afraid of?
Of course, time is tight, and we must start work now, starting with Majia Village, because Majia Village is the core of this area and the seat of the commune, and it is also the only village among these villages with a household registration of more than 300 households.
The area does not need to be merged and reorganized with other villages, so it is also the key area for the work of the Shang Army. According to Shang Yi's idea, Majia Village should be built as a demonstration to provide a model for the transformation of other villages after the beginning of the new year.
After three days of work, the first village committee of Majia Village was also elected by the villagers. Ma Liang was elected by the villagers as the village chief, and other deputy village chiefs, clerks, production team, militia group, women's group, livestock group, etc.
and leaders of various social democratic groups were also produced,
Because of his outstanding performance at the criticism meeting that day and his job, Ma Dalu was elected as the leader of the farm tools and livestock group. Moreover, the villagers had no resistance to the women's group, because in rural areas, women are considered
A major workforce.
Moreover, Shang Yi also decided to open a farmers’ training center in Majia Village after the new year. All village committee members and members’ group leaders must participate. The farmers’ training center is actually a training class for cadres. In another time and space, Taizu conquered the country.
It is often used in the era: it is to cultivate activists who are close to the organization, improve their consciousness through training, strengthen organizational discipline, and learn how to work, so as to cultivate the backbone of their own grassroots.
After the village committee of Majia Village was formed, Shang Yi met with all the members of the village committee for a meeting. He first encouraged everyone, and then encouraged everyone to work together to build a people's commune. At the same time, Shang Yi had a separate talk with Ma Liang.
In his words, he praised his performance some time ago and encouraged him to work hard, study hard in the farmers' training center, be a good village chief, lead the villagers to live a good life, etc.
Later, Shang Yi left Li Dingguo and his battalion behind. While preparing for the establishment of the people's commune, he worked with the village committee to take charge of measuring the land and redistributing it. Others returned to Hangzhou and continued to handle official business, while Shang Yi
Then he rushed to the salt field to inspect the situation there.