Food prices are liberalized!

For the vast northern region under the rule of Wuyi, it is definitely a bombshell.

Since Li Ze's rise, under his rule, he has always implemented the unified purchase and sale of grain, and linked grain to all prices as a general equivalent, so as to forcibly maintain the price stability under his rule, and in order to ensure the effective operation of this policy, Li Ze even bought grain from the outside at a high price when there was a shortage of grain, and sold it at a parity price in the jurisdiction, so that he had to subsidize hundreds of thousands of yuan of silver every year to settle the accounts.

The liberalization of grain prices means that the policy that has been implemented for many years is coming to an end. Although public grain still exists, it is more often paid as a form of taxation.

In the north under Li Ze's rule, under normal circumstances, there were only two kinds of taxes that peasants needed to pay, one was public grain, and the other was poll tax. Nothing else even exists. When it was necessary to levy the people to do some large-scale projects, or to serve the war, the imperial court paid them.

Of course, if the peasants wanted to go into the city to sell some of their local products, they still had to pay taxes. But this is again a type of transaction tax.

Speaking of which, under Li Ze's rule, the life of the peasants was still very good. Compared to other places, they are not rich, but they will definitely not go hungry. If the family can run a business, on the basis of taking care of their own land to solve the problem of food and clothing, they can also do some other small livelihoods, then the life will be very nourishing.

Of course, the imperial court still adopted many methods to tie the peasants to their own land, for example, the land was not allowed to be abandoned, and if the land was abandoned for one year, the public grain of that year would be doubled, and after two years of abandonment, the land allocated to you would be recovered.

Are there still landlords in the north?

Of course, there are. However, the top one, it is impossible to exceed 5,000 acres of land now, this is the red line drawn by Li Ze at the beginning, and if you exceed this limit, you can pay taxes and pay doubtful life.

By now, there are not many big landowners who still own so much land. Because, it's hard to find tenants, everyone has land, who will plant it for you? When the farming time comes, everyone is busy in their fields. Therefore, in the north, there are still large landlords and tenants who own so many acres of land, and there are generally two sources of households. One fled from the pseudo-Liang, with no household registration and empty hands. The other source, which is less glamorous, is that of slaves sold from the northeast.

"It's not easy!" Facing Li Ze's somewhat annoyed inquiry, Chun Yuyue, who was the most familiar with the law in the Tang Dynasty, spread his hands: "Li Xiang, according to the decree we announced earlier that the Tang people will never be slaves, those who escaped from the south can barely be classified as the Tang people, but those slaves who have been trafficked, they are not Tang people. They are the savages, Koreans, and Japanese people that Zhang Zhongwu and they captured. ”

"In fact, it's much more than that!" Tian Bo on the side said: "Childe, now we have a wide area under our rule, except for the core area, most of them are vast and sparsely populated, for example, in Lingzhou, the Tang people there can be divided into a hundred acres of land as soon as they are born, but they can never be planted, and it is similar in places such as Tanzhou and Yanzhou." This is true even in places like Mozhou and Pingzhou. Therefore, this destroyed the slave trade business, and Zhang Zhongwu and his family relied on selling slaves to our territory, earning millions of yuan every year, and for them, this was a business without capital. ”

Hearing this, Li Ze's face darkened even more.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" He asked coldly.

"Childe, you only said that the Tang people will never be slaves, but you didn't say these people!" Tian Bo looked innocent, "In fact, at sea, there is also a chain of slave traders. ”

"Also at sea?" Li Ze was taken aback.

"Do you remember those subordinates of Iron Hook Pan Motang?" Tian Bo asked.

"Pan Motang is involved in these businesses?" A hint of fierceness flashed in Li Ze's eyes, and his tone became cold.

"He didn't!" Tian Bo shook his head and said: "However, his former subordinates saw that this was an opportunity to make a fortune, and I heard that they swept those island countries along the southeast sea, looted a large number of people from the islands, and then sold them to our Tang Dynasty." ”

After hesitating for a moment, Tian Bo continued: "Even on the side of the Western Regions, Yuan Chang Peng Shuangmu and them also sold back a large number of people captured in the battle. ”

Datang originally forbade the slave business, in fact, when Li Ze and Liu Ruyan went to Beijing for the first time, there was a special human tooth market in Dafang City in Chang'an. Liu Ruyan bought a lot of girls there, and now most of those people have become soldiers in Qianniuwei, and a small number of people have married and given birth to children.

Even if they were in the secret camp, many of them were bought by Tu Hu from the hands of human teeth.

It's just that Li Ze doesn't like this kind of business of displaying, bargaining, and buying and selling people like animals. In particular, the sale of his compatriots as goods made Li Ze even more unacceptable. Therefore, after the decree that the Tang people will never be slaves officially came into effect, the people were basically unemployed under Li Ze's rule. But what Li Ze didn't expect was that there was really a policy and a countermeasure, and in a short period of time, a more cruel large-scale slave trade appeared.

"We cannot hold these people accountable from the law." Chun Yuyue said: "Where there is a need, there is a sale." Li Xiang, unless you make up for these people's Datang accounts, but the stakes are too big, and the opposition will inevitably be not small. After all, these slaves were bought back with real money. ”

Li Ze rubbed his temples and said with some annoyance: "I know, but after all, I am also a human being, and when I come to Datang, I am also a person who can contribute to Datang!" This case in Zhenzhou this time exposed the problem that these people did not treat these slaves as human beings at all, and even went to the point of wanton killing. If it weren't for the oppression that was too harsh, these slaves, who were unfamiliar with the place and did not understand the language, would have rebelled? forcibly killed a large family in a Zhuangzi, and the old, weak, women and children did not let go. Although in the end, these people were captured and beheaded for public display, will such a thing happen in the future? I have read the detailed report written by the inspector of the Imperial History Tower, and although these people are innocent of death, it is not an exaggeration to say that they are excusable. ”

Several people in the room stopped talking, after all, the tragedy of the slave rebellion in Zhenzhou, and the final detailed process, they are all clear.

After pacing back and forth in the room a few times, Li Ze finally made up his mind and looked at everyone: "You have a point, these people are not our Tang people, so Tang Law can't control their heads." We will no longer mention the previous matter, and we will no longer pursue it. But this matter still has to be managed, if you don't give these slaves hope, I'm afraid that such things will happen again and again in the future. ”

"What does Lee Xiang mean?" Chun Yu Yue Dao.

"For those who have fled from the Pseudo-Liang, those who have come from the south, as long as they have lived under our rule for a year, they can go to the household, right?" Li Ze looked at them and said, "These slaves who have been trafficked can be implemented according to this law, but the time will be slightly extended, three years, at most three years." In the past three years, those who spent money to buy them have already earned enough, right? ”

"Once these people have obtained the status of Tang people, then they can no longer be slaves, at most they will become tenants, or contracted slaves."

Chun Yuyue looked at Li Ze and said, "Li Xiang, but this does not prohibit the slave trade, and even to make this business more prosperous, because this will make this gap bigger and bigger." Those who needed slaves had to keep buying in more slaves to fill the gap of leaving slaves. ”

Li Ze sighed: "This is a problem that we can't solve. The only thing we can do is to give those who have already come a better future, so that they can have a hope, and not make a big case like Zhenzhou. I believe that this case has also reminded some people that they should not go too far in life and do things, otherwise these people can do anything with a horizontal heart. ”

Chun Yuyue nodded silently.

"Zhang Xun, put the cause and effect of this incident in the newspaper as a warning." Li Ze followed the rules and said.

"Yes!"

"Xia He, the household department took the lead, this year to conduct a thorough population census, the number of these slaves will be found out for me, those who take the initiative to report, registered, concealed and reported, once found, all confiscated." Li Zedao.

"Okay, the household department will ask all localities to report the increase and decrease of Dingkou every year, and there are a lot of familiar hands, this year is just to do it more thoroughly, roughly at the end of the year, and the specific data should come out." Xia He nodded.

"Mr. Chunyu, give a detailed explanation of the handling of these slaves, and send it to all prefectures and counties, so that they can refer to it."

"Childe, once this decree goes down, it will be equivalent to legalizing such a slave trade, as long as it is not a Tang person, it is within the scope of the transaction, since this is the case, then we will collect taxes." Xia He said: "Those slaves who bought in the past have to pay taxes, and future transactions must also be taxed. ”

Li Zeleng hesitated for a long time before he said heavily: "Collect taxes and levy heavy taxes." Everyone who used slaves had to pay a bond to make sure they were alive. If it dies, the security deposit is gone, and it is confiscated. ”

"It's a good idea, because the cost of using slaves will go up dramatically, and it will make these people have to be much nicer to these slaves, or at least keep them alive." Chun Yuyue said with a smile. "I hope that after these people get a free status, they can be grateful to the imperial court and serve the Tang Dynasty well."