Since its birth, commercial institutions have made profits by creating demand and satisfying demand, while normal government institutions can rely on taxes and revenues from government for-profit institutions, but what do bandits, bandits, warlords, and all kinds of violent groups live on? Paid by blood. The reward for blood is the reward for violence, just as wages are the reward for labor, interest is the reward for capital, and land rent is the reward for land. However, violence does not directly participate in value creation, and the value of blood reward is determined by the value of the goal of the struggle. If the object of violence is a person, such as a ticket kidnapping, its value depends on the willingness and financial resources of the person concerned to avoid harm. This is the law of blood reward.

In this process, people's core calculations are: how much risk of casualties can be taken for a certain amount of survival resources, and how much damage can be done to oneself, the resource demander. This is a simple truth, but it can lead to many astonishing conclusions and explain many puzzling historical phenomena in the early years of the republic.

For example, in the second year of the Republic, Huang Kedi, the governor of Jiangxi, submitted a message to the Nanjing government and the National Assembly on the results of appeasement, in addition to mentioning the results of Jiangxi's suppression of bandits, the speech also mentioned the daily life of the bandits.

Huang Kedi said: After the bandits discovered the movement of our army and prepared to attack the news, "they sent their families and women and belongings to the densely wooded places of the cottages, and their strong bandits went down to the mountains to cultivate during the day and escaped to the cottages at night." ”

It may seem like a very common description, but the style of these bandits is obviously very unprofessional, or their main business may be farmers. No wonder some parliamentarians asked the Jiangxi representatives: Bandits also farm? Why do bandits farm?

In fact, in many places in the early republican period, there was only a thin line between the peasants and the bandits, or in other words, there were professional bandits at one end of a ruler and professional peasants at the other end, and there were many points between the two, a combination of production and robbery: the bandits who lived by robbery gradually became farmers who made a living from farming. So, what exactly determines this proportional relationship?

In fact, compared with the northern provinces, where banditry was much more serious, we can understand the reason, after the harsh war against bandits, industry and commerce in various places also began to flourish, coupled with the investment of public utilities by the autonomous government, whether it is railways, roads, bridges, reservoirs, towns, schools and various sewers, almost no one can find a job. The landlord's rent was a little harsher, and the hired peasants would go to the city to work under the organization of the county and township governments, or simply work on construction sites not far from their homes, and there were night schools where they could read and write, and the worst of all was the roving screening of film schools, so it was not difficult to know a few hundred words and learn the techniques of planting and breeding, so many young and middle-aged people were organized by the government to work. The landlord class, especially the small and medium-sized landlords, is often very vulnerable, and their economy is based on the possession of land for dozens or even a few peasant families, and not many people are able to build the kind of industrial agriculture that resembles the plantation economy. Now the government, oh, is the government no longer on the previous signed personal contract to protect, but also let people widely publicize to the household, now even the death deed of long-term workers can go out to work freely, the government's investigators once a month to investigate whether there is any abuse of employees, by the way to provide outside employment information, looking at the attractive wages and conditions, there are not many long-term unions nostalgic for the landlord's kennel, the landlord dares to resist is the "crime of illegal detention", no matter how fierce it may constitute the "crime of endangering public safety", if someone dies, The head of the family pulled him to shoot the target, and the exile of the family was all due to be intended.

Except for some lumpenproletarians in the north, there are not many people who can't feed themselves and their families, and even if they can't be fed, they can be sent to the "Tzu Chi Society" in various places of the standard system. At this moment, the governments and military in various places know that the water of the "Tzu Chi Society" is not ordinarily deep, and they would rather offend Mr. Wu, who seems to be more generous, than offend the future mother of the country. All in all, Tzu Chi has become the first choice of local dignitaries and wives in almost all places, and if the wife of any family cannot hold a position in Tzu Chi, the master of his family is embarrassed to take his wife to greet other families. Therefore, on a whim one day, when Wang Zijin got the report and looked through it, he was surprised to find that within three months, the coverage rate of the Tzu Chi Society in various cities had reached ninety percent, which was wider than that of the Wu officials' self-government, and all of them were local bureaucrats and gentry who contributed money and land to provide houses and personnel office package funds. Compared with a certain Red Cross Society, the top and bottom of the Tzu Chi Society can be said to be quite sad, but it is a pity that the IQ of the northern dignitaries in the early years of the republic was low, and no one complained, but they donated money and materials to join this money-losing business, which can be regarded as a strange story of the year.

It is a pity that there are no such strange things happening in places except for the eleven northern provinces.

For example, in Sichuan, the country of abundance, Brother Xiong Kewu Xiong served as the overseer of Sichuan, although the Liu brothers and the brothers in the robe may not be convinced, but before the national defense army in Shaanxi did not come in, Brother Xiong's thighs were the thickest, and everyone still gave face to participate in the army meeting he held. At the meeting, Xiong Kewu wanted to establish a defense zone system in which the armies of various factions were "paid for defense." In the words of Liu Cunhou, who attended the meeting at the time: "The defense areas controlled by the Sichuan soldiers are all independent kingdoms, and they take what they want economically and do whatever they want, so everyone is desperately fighting for the city and land." The warlords of Sichuan have been fighting for many years, mostly for this. ”

The term "independent kingdom" used by Liu Cunhou. At that time, the situation in Sichuan was quite similar to that of the Warring States Period, when the leaders of six or seven violent groups joined forces in this land and competed for hegemony. Each warlord has the right to set up systems, appoint officials, and collect taxes in his or her own zone, and no decree of the central government can be applied without the approval of the warlord in that zone. However, due to the fierce competition and the frequent change of the owners of the defense zone, the degree of stability is not as good as that of the independent kingdom or the territory of the princes, but it is a bit like the territory of the gangsters. Today, Hongxing occupies Yau Ma Tei, and tomorrow the bosses of Dongxing will lead the younger brother to cut people and snatch them back, similar plots continue to be staged, and the countrymen who enter the city will first see clearly which way the boss is who is donated by the city gate at the city gate, so as not to give it to the wrong person.

Liu Cunhou himself said that he "in his own defense area, he levied taxes and miscellaneous taxes, and I had what I had, and I did my best to catch fish, and I did not care about the people's hardship,...... In the absence of any other way, he went to increase his income from opium. ”

As a matter of fact, the military expenses of the Sichuan warlords generally relied on the collection of land taxes, and if the regular taxes were insufficient, they would be levied in advance, and some of them would levy grain in advance for five or six years a year. Historically, there was a time when it was 1935, and in some places, the pre-levy of land was already in 2015. In addition to the pre-levy of the field endowment, which is to grow opium*, and collect tobacco money, tobacco houses will be set up, and red light donations will be collected. The military defense areas have also set up water and land checkpoints and collected cross-channel taxes. As a result, the industry and commerce that could have been barely maintained under the exploitation of the Qing court were almost all closed. Sichuan, and even the entire southwest of the country, industry and commerce are in mourning, but compradors and foreign capital are popular in these places, the reason is that few warlords dare to compare themselves with international friends, and their waists are bent, even if they are supported by guns, the white strips in their hands cannot be exchanged for real money and silver.

In addition to the pre-levy, the specific method of exhausting the land and fishing is also the field endowment surcharge. By the end of the third year of the Republic, there were 26 kinds of additional taxes in Sichuan, such as tuition fees, county records, quilts, and preparations, and the amount of additional taxes was so heavy that some of them were as much as ten times the regular payment.

What is the difference between the behavior of these warlords and banditry? Perhaps compared to bandits in the same place at the same time, the raids of the warlords seem to be more vicious. After all, the bandits did not have a "pre-levy" or a "attached", but they were afraid that they would be exhausted and cut off their future financial resources. And these revolutionary warlords are precisely pursuing "fishing with all their might". This is not a question of morality and prestige, but of retribution of interests. Since the defense zone often changes hands and the policy of killing chickens and eggs is implemented, the evil consequences may not be borne by oneself, and the strength can be strengthened at present. The implementation of the policy of raising chickens to lay eggs may not be able to eat eggs in the future, and chickens may also be snatched up by others, and the current malnutrition may quickly lead to a rout. In this pattern, fishing for the best - the standard rogue - is the most advantageous option.

During the Spring Festival of the second year of the Republic, Liu Shiliang, a ghost genius in central Sichuan, saw a couplet with "Long live the republic, the world is peaceful" posted on the mouth of a military valve, and he was very angry and wrote a couplet: "The republic is ten thousand * taxes, and the world is too poor." "The so-called revolutionary government has expropriated and extorted, and the broad masses of the people are still trapped in poverty and despair.

It is still this master Liu, who is not afraid of violence and is righteous and outspoken, who wrote a lot of exquisitely conceived, sarcastic and merciless tax unions against the rampant expropriation of the revolutionary warlords in Sichuan, and temporarily takes a pair for readers:

Six times in half a year, sometimes detained, sometimes chased, until there is no peace,

Department store tax levies, requests, reductions, only Hutian.

By the time the southern families went to war and fought each other, the Nanjing government had already paid a lot of taxes, and corrupt officials in some places had set up clever names to increase taxes. Some taxes are unheard of, and they have truly reached the situation of "everything has taxes, but there is no donation".

"Extort fake confiscation for public use, set up customs duties, card taxes, land taxes, house taxes, and Ding head taxes, and taxes to the people's livelihood; Collect and feast on your own pockets, and donate salt, rice, pigs, firewood, feces and urine, and donors have no way to live. ”

This couplet is a true portrayal of the "Republic of Ten Thousand * Taxes" in the nine southern provinces at that time. It is a pity that this couplet was published in several newspapers in the concession area in Shanghai, but it was sued by the Nanjing government for "slandering the government" in the court of the Ministry of Industry and Bureau of the concession, and the diplomats of the big country went so far as to accuse their compatriots of telling the truth in the courts of foreigners under the escort of the red-headed Ah San, and they did not use the name of Uncle Qiao, the president of the Republic, as the plaintiff. In the words of Zhang Nanjiang, who was in charge of government affairs in Zhejiang at the time, "It's rare that they still know the word shame." ”

As soon as the case of the revolutionary government suing the newspaper was publicized by the northern media, even the original revolutionary young students were confused, and it was always the Qing court that sued the "Su Bao" and the "Zhejiang Chao" in the Bureau of the Ministry of Industry in the British and American Concessions and the French Concession.