Chapter 1115: Hebei was divided, Guan Zhong implemented the land equalization order
Regarding the reform, Wang Yu had already urged Guan Zhong a lot last year.
However, after one year, although Guan Zhong promulgated many practical plans, he always avoided some core issues and preferred to boil the frog in warm water.
Guan Zhong's opinion is that the situation is not yet stable and it is not suitable to take drastic action for fear of civil strife, even if it takes a longer time.
However, you must also try to make sure you walk more steadily.
The military reform has offended many interest groups and caused many movements behind it. The assassination of Wang Dangzhi is just one of them. The interest groups will do anything for their own interests.
However, the specific progress still needs to be understood.
Therefore, after Wang Yu arranged Zhulong's affairs, he personally found a time for Guan Zhong to make a detailed progress report, and at the same time, Luo Wang came to review the authenticity of the situation reported by Guan Zhong.
The situation reported by Guan Zhong made Wang Yu extremely angry and frightened at the same time.
In the past, although he was aware of some situations, at that time, he was fighting all year round, so some problems could only be put aside for the time being.
Secondly, after all, although these problems were noticed at that time, no one had yet made actual statistics. The data was not directly put in front of him, so it was not so shocking.
Three times...
The situation in Hebei can actually be summed up in one word: completely divided.
Whether they are the new aristocrats of the current dynasty, old ministers of the previous dynasty, or officials from other towns, as well as local aristocratic families of all sizes, they all basically have properties in Hebei.
Especially when troubled times come, people's lives become more difficult, which also gives these people who enclose their land greater convenience!
In troubled times, the amount of land that can be harvested in one year is more than the land that can be harvested in ten years in peaceful times. Moreover, the cost is also lower.
Take Han Xin as an example. During his years as a general in Hebei, he sent a group of servants to occupy land and occupy houses. In the past year, there were five Han residences in Yecheng and around Yecheng.
There are more than ten manors, each controlling dozens of hectares of land belonging to Han Xin...
This is just the Han Xin family. They are more or less educated in Hebei civil and military affairs. Even Yu Qian, who has always been known for his integrity, also has two mansions in Hedong Road. He also has a share of the land in Hebei Road, but he only has
It's only a few acres. It is said that several of Yu Qian's brothers sent people to set it up.
Wang Yu understands this kind of thing.
Throughout the dynasties, which dynasty’s officials did not “purchase” large amounts of land? Under the small-scale peasant economy in the feudal era, land was the hard currency passed down from generation to generation.
Put your head in your belt, fight, and follow you to make great achievements. What do most people do for that? Isn’t that what they do?
I have been with you through life and death. If you still let people live such a miserable life, who would be willing to sacrifice their lives for you?
As for an incorruptible courtier like Yu Qian, he may be incorruptible himself, but that doesn't mean that his relatives won't use his identity to do things. In fact, many times, Yu Qian and the others don't even know it.
If Yu Qian's brother wants to make things easier for his subordinates, if it is not something that violates sexual principles, do those subordinates still need to inform Yu Qian because of this?
These are the new officials who have followed Wang Yu in recent years, like those old ministers from the previous dynasty. Before Wang Yu arrived, they had enclosed a lot of land at that time.
Not to mention the local aristocratic families in Hebei Province, they own the majority of the land.
Hebei Province is one of the Four Rivers. The aristocratic families are very powerful, and officials from all over the country are willing to reach out here. The situation here is definitely more serious than the situation in other provinces.
However, if you look at the big picture from a small perspective, you will see that even if the situation in other places is better, it is not necessarily much better.
At least, as far as the situation in Yanbei Road was concerned, Wang Yu understood that it was common for those veterans with some qualifications in Yanbei Road to have dozens of hectares of land at home.
According to various sources, a rough estimate is that, excluding the farmland originally established by Zhuge Liang, about 80% of the land around Yecheng is occupied by officials of all sizes or surrounding aristocratic families.
Why……
Speaking of which, no matter which dynasty, which stage, or even which world we are in, it is just a cycle after another. After development, it is actually only 3% of the population, but it accounts for more than 90% of the wealth of society.
.
Throughout the past dynasties, whether it was Blue Star or Apocalypse from Another World, the issue of land annexation was a headache for rulers.
Another problem that this involves is the problem of hidden households. Land alone is not enough. They have to find someone to farm it. Therefore, a large number of ownerless farmers have become their tenant farmers, and they are likely to be "volunteered"
"of.
After all, the policy of the imperial court is that as long as you register the land, you can get your own land. However, the policy also needs to be implemented, and the people who implement it are basically the bureaucratic class and the aristocratic class who occupy the land.
It seems to be a vicious cycle.
The refugees in various places should have been the yeoman farmers who were ordered by the imperial court to allocate land and pay taxes and grain for the imperial court! In the feudal era, the yeoman farmers were the main source of the imperial government's finances and taxes.
No wonder, there are no thousand-year dynasties. When each dynasty develops to the end, even if the emperor is not fatuous, social conflicts like this will continue to accumulate until they explode, breaking out in an irrepressible manner.
Just looking at the situation around Yecheng, Wang Yu seemed to see a scene where the rich had a field of hope, while the poor had no land of hope.
If such a situation is not suppressed, once it spreads, the country will inevitably be unstable. Thinking further, as long as peace is restored in the world and the population enters a stage of rapid growth, within a few decades, it is estimated that the entire country will quickly fall into a state of collapse.
Get out of that vicious circle of contradictions.
There was an impulse in my heart, and I issued an edict to deal with all the monsters, monsters, monsters, ghosts, and monsters from Yecheng to Hebei Province, but I only had the impulse for a moment.
Angry is angry, but for Wang Yu, he is not so angry that he gets carried away.
After all, most of his capable men are also among them.
Furthermore, given today's world situation, it's hard to say how serious of a mistake these officials have made.
In the midst of great chaos, continuous wars, and a declining population, officials "acted personally" and actively recruited Dingkou, cultivated land, resumed production, and created tax revenue for the country. This should be "encouraged".
However, some people make purchases normally, while others use their power to expropriate.
However, the continuous accumulation of this kind of land enclosure problem has brought about not only land conflicts, but also taxation issues behind it.
According to the old system, in addition to a portion of the rated acres that were tax-free according to the official rank, the rest of the land occupied by these officials had to pay summer and autumn taxes as usual according to the system.
However, there is too much room for maneuver. If you let the bureaucrats use their own land to collect taxes for the country, you can imagine what will happen.
Moreover, among these land-occupying bureaucrats, there are many high-ranking figures like Han Xin.
"I, the civil and military officials of the Han Dynasty, have many people who buy houses and land in Hebei Province. Yiwu, where is your family?" Wang Yu suddenly asked curiously as he looked at Guan Zhong who was describing the situation bit by bit below.
"I have three manors in total, ten hectares of farmland, and about a hundred households of farm laborers." Guan Zhong answered calmly.
This was all obtained by him through reasonable transactions and formal income. No one could say anything, so he could naturally answer it calmly.
After all, I can't do anything under you, not even basic buying and selling, right?
In fact, as one of the senior officials of the Six Ministries, he was completely conscientious about land acquisition. Compared with others, he could not even compare to a fraction of others.
There are many officials whose official positions are lower than him, and their families may have much more land than him.
"Yiwu, the land annexation issue must not be tolerated!"
"We still need to find a way to alleviate it!"
Wang Yu silently calculated in his mind that in fact, most of the land annexation was issues left over from history. The large and small aristocratic families in Hebei Province and those left over from the previous dynasty accounted for the majority.
After all, apart from the civil and military personnel under him who have great careers in Taoism in Hebei such as Zhang Xuan, the others have only been here for a few years. How much land can they capture?
However, putting these aside for the time being, the problem is now before Wang Yu, how should he deal with it?
Issuing an edict to seize someone's land or house is the simplest, crudest and most likely to cause trouble. And the effect may be counterproductive.
Moreover, not all of these people's land was illegally occupied. People like Han Xin all bought it with real money.
Or some aristocratic families with relatively good reputations basically focus on purchasing. At most, they keep the price down.
Among them, owners like the Beiming Family who are not short of money have no need to affect their own reputations because of such things. If they want a house or land, they can just use money to get there.
Although there are some people who maliciously enclose territory and eat extremely ugly things, and there are quite a few of them, after all, they cannot represent everyone.
A one-size-fits-all approach may lose people’s hearts.
Adding taxes would make the approach slightly milder, but the final result may not be satisfactory.
It is more likely that these "rich people" will pass the pressure on to the tenant farmers who farm for them.
Even at this moment, he issued an edict strictly prohibiting officials and aristocratic families from privately enclosing land and occupying people. However, if class interests are affected, it will inevitably lead to mass resistance.
In fact, there is a certain struggle between the monarch and his ministers. After all, in many cases, the interests of the monarch and the interests of his ministers are not consistent. The struggle between the imperial power and the prime minister's power is a manifestation of the struggle between the monarch and his ministers.
"From what I see, I can kill the chicken to scare the monkeys, and then issue an order to equalize the land, abolish the head tax, and implement the policy of field tax and field service! After that, I can increase the land purchase tax!"
Guan Zhong had been planning the relevant solution for a long time, and had even discussed it privately with several ministers of the DPRK and China, so he already had practical measures in mind.
It's just that he needs to implement it bit by bit.
It happened that Wang Yu asked about the situation today, and Guan Zhong simply stated everything he had prepared before.
Undoubtedly, Guan Zhong's intention was to find a few cruel officials and let them kill chickens to scare the monkeys on Wang Yu's behalf.
Among the officials and aristocratic families who enclosed the land, some obtained it through normal trading methods, and naturally there were also those who were embarrassed, bought and sold by force, or even expropriated by improper means.
Those people at the back can definitely pick out some typical examples and serve as the chickens who kill the chickens to scare the monkeys.
Anyway, if you want to catch those people, there are certainly ways to catch them.
"The land equalization order means that unowned land will be distributed to small farmers for farming according to the number of people. The land is state-owned and will be owned by them after farming for a certain number of years. The farmers pay rent and taxes to the court and bear the corresponding corvee and military service." Guan Zhong began to explain what he meant.
The land equalization order.
The content of the Land Equalization Order is very complicated, and the classification of the fields is also extremely complicated. As for the various regulations in the land equalization process, it is even more complicated.
"In today's world, there are indeed many unclaimed lands!" Wang Yu nodded.
These are troubled times, and people die every day. When these people die, their fields naturally become ownerless land.
Especially in the process of external wars, the cruelty involved, such as Su Dingfang's mass killing between Dasheng and Dalan, and the ownerless wasteland that was eventually created in the middle process, can naturally provide the basis for the equalization of land.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Moreover, in troubled times, some people will develop into new aristocratic families, and some old aristocratic families will decline or even perish. The demise of these old aristocratic families,
It will also free up a lot of unclaimed land.
"In the past, taxes were based on the number of people in each household. The head tax was abolished and the policy of field tax and field service was adopted. That is, taxes were collected based on the number of fields, not the number of people. Corvee service and military service were also based on the number of fields.
Accurate, not the number of people!" When Guan Zhong said this, he was somewhat hesitant.
The land equalization order, in his vision, was the first step.
When this step is almost implemented, at that time, the entire land will basically fall into the hands of the big man, and then the second step will be carried out step by step.
In the Land Equalization Order, the land distributed was also ownerless land. He even protected the private ownership of land and protected the existing land rationality of the aristocratic class and the bureaucratic class. It can be said that this is indeed true for today's aristocratic class and bureaucratic class.
, which has advantages and disadvantages.
Therefore, when implemented, the resistance is within the controllable range.
But if the second step is to be implemented, this resistance will soar!
Taxes are paid based on the number of fields, not the number of people, which means that the more land is enclosed, the more taxes need to be paid. Moreover, in Guan Zhong's vision, this tax is still a stepped system.
.The more land you have in your hands, the more taxes you need to pay per acre.
Moreover, even corvee and military service are determined by the amount of land in their hands. No matter those officials or those aristocratic families, how can they provide so many people to serve in their own families? Even if they can provide them, they are happy to do so themselves
Want to go?
Therefore, the last ones to be taken out were naturally the tenants under them.
Now that they have taken these people out, there is no reason to go back.
Therefore, those hidden populations will be liberated step by step.