At the end of the year, the cold winds from the north burst out of the icy and snowy land of Siberia, rampage along the way, spreading the cold in all directions. After rushing across the Yangtze River and reaching the Wuling area, he was already exhausted, and he had exhausted his last strength to sprinkle the snowflakes on the land of eastern and western Guangdong, and he could no longer afford to go south.

From Guangdong to the south, it is a warm and peaceful scene. The thick leaves of the plants are vibrant, and the flowers and plants of various colors are blooming beautifully after being watered and maintained.

Famine and war, natural and man-made disasters in the north are all like cold winds, and they are blocked in the area north of Wuling. The civil uprisings in various localities, which had been a great headache for the officials of the two Guangxi provinces, were also quickly quelled under the iron-blooded suppression of several garrison brigades, and those who were able to lay down their arms and resume farming were politely invited to the wharf by the naval divisions of the Nanyue Army, and transported by large ships to various places in Nanzhong, either to give grain seeds, to give farming cattle and farm tools to continue farming, or to work in various workshops according to their own skills. For those who refused to accept Zhao'an, it was very unceremonious to give them a lesson in hot and cold weapons and coordinated tactics with infantry and artillery of the times. Then they were tied up and thrown into the cabin, and escorted to ten states or Manraka, Banten, Siam and other places where dragons are infested, and the damp and stuffy areas are reclaimed, or to dig pits in mines that do not see the light of day!

Soon, from the Pearl River Delta to the mountainous areas of northern Guangdong, the smoke of the beacon fires that had spread in various places gradually subsided. Ordinary people can continue to carry hoes and work in the fields steadily.

But a difficult problem was placed in front of Jiang Yihong, the head of the two Guangzhous.

In order to enable Guangdong, which had been devastated by the civil uprising, and Guangxi, which was already relatively barren, to quickly heal the wounds of the war and come out of the war. In order to build Liangguang into a base area as stable as Nanzhong, Shouhan not only invested a large amount of manpower, material, and financial resources in capital construction in Liangguang, but also spared no effort to build roads, bridges, ports, wharves, and other infrastructure, and also provided a large amount of subsidies to agriculture as the cause of the civil unrest in Liangguang.

Farmers can use green seedlings as collateral to buy iron farming tools on credit from shops, and when the harvest is down, they can either use the harvest to offset it, or sell the harvest and then pay for it.

In this way, in Guangdong, which is known as rich, and Guangxi, which has always been barren. I don't know how many sets of ploughshares were bought on credit at once. How many pieces of hoes and sickles, etc.

In addition to giving preferential treatment to farmers to buy farm tools, Shouhan also gave Liangguang a letter in the name of Ningyuan Bofu, proposing a tax-sharing system or two-tax system in this era.

Irs. Mainly commercial taxes and miscellaneous surcharges. According to Ning Yuanbo's mansion, seventy percent was taken away. The provinces left a 30 per cent ratio for distribution; And the so-called land tax. It is mainly based on the Tian Fu that has been implemented for many years, and the proportion is reversed, according to the three percent of Ningyuan Bofu. The two provinces retained 70 per cent of the standard for allocation.

This tax system has undoubtedly brought great benefits to the two regions. However, before this distribution standard is implemented, it is necessary to clarify the tax types and tax rates!

The so-called thirty taxes and one commercial tax set from the time of Zhu Yuanzhang were unceremoniously thrown into the garbage heap by Shouhan. If anyone dared to argue with him about this matter, Shouhan would politely send him to Emperor Taizu to complain to the emperor.

Not to mention the change of tax rates and taxes, many of the original preferential and privileged have also been thrown aside by the new tax method, "the official gentry is one errand to pay grain, do not collect people and silver, only according to the number of acres of land tax, but also implement a unified progressive tax system, commercial tax at least to the point of five out of 100, and what value-added tax, individual tax, urban construction and education additional these new taxes, our uncle is a good hand at fighting, farming is also extremely exquisite, now it seems that this search technique is also first-class good!" ”

After studying the tax regulations stamped with several official titles of Ning Yuanbo and the Great Seal of Defense with several of his staff, Jiang Yihong sincerely admired it in his heart.

"My lord, the bad thing about the country today is that it is bad in the matter of finance and taxation! If the emperor still follows the method of Gonggong Wei after ascending the throne, and goes to his people and survives his government, he is afraid that whether it is a thief or a slave, there may not be today's chaos. ”

Feng Yuanliang, a young and vigorous staff, was also amazed by this tax charter.

If it were a change of the past, Jiang Yihong would have to reprimand these staff, although the two sides are the so-called guest-host relationship, and there is still some face-saving on the surface, but these people's food, clothing, housing, and salaries are all taken out of his own pockets, that is to say, these people are responsible for him personally.

But not anymore. Since Li Shouhan's army entered Liangguang, the so-called integration of officials and staff has been implemented in various localities. Naturally, the economic officials of the imperial court don't need to say much, they still distribute silver, money and grain according to the standard of the imperial court, and as for those private incomes, the marshal pretended not to see it. And the so-called officials and the staff of the officials, these people who did not receive salaries and bonuses on the imperial court's financial roster, turned into people who were paid by the Ningyuan Bofu at this time.

In addition to receiving a few to a dozen yuan a month, or even dozens of yuan of silver dollars per month, salaries, food subsidies and other items of silver, there are also grain, rice, oil and salt coupons, which are withdrawn by themselves at the nearby grain and rice stores. In addition to these, there is a huge and enticing promise.

"Those who have been outstanding in the assessment of officials for five consecutive years can be replaced as officials."

This makes the eyes of people who have been small officials for generations shine, and it turns out that a good student can also be an official who honors his ancestors! Let the ancestor's tablet be written with a golden official title!

Now that these staff members are no longer paid by Jiang Yihong, they naturally don't need to consider his feelings when they speak, just talk to Ning Yuanbo, the owner of the rice class.

"Definitely! Definitely! Jiang Yuhe, another more mature aide, shook his head and objected to Feng Yuanliang's opinion.

"For more than 200 years, a large part of the courtesy for scholars is reflected in the levy of money and grain, but now it is necessary to implement the integration of errand and food, and pay so many taxes, what is the use of studying? Isn't the Master going to weep bitterly over the Nine Springs? ”

"But if as long as there is a famous person, he doesn't pay money and food, then Mr. Jiang. Where shall you and my fortune come from? Feng Yuanliang was a little unimpressed.

"What's more, as far as I know, even Ning Yuanbo himself has to pay taxes in full. The various properties under his name can be said to be daily payments, and he also has to pay taxes to the tax department on a monthly basis? ”

The dispute between the two men quickly turned into a dispute between two factions of the staff, with mixed opinions about the tax charter.

But this argument is pointless. Because Shouhan had already made it very clear when he issued this tax charter to Liangguang, this is not a discussion draft, and it is not to solicit your opinions. Rather, I informed you to do it according to the rules. If you fail to pay the full amount of taxes in accordance with this requirement and the specific conditions of the two provinces, the officials at all levels in Guangdong will not dare to think about the consequences of this strict policy. Ning Yuanbo chopped off the head of the tartar, but there were thousands of greetings. What are our heads?

But. When the documents were passed down from one post to another, some people smelled different smells from them.

Most of the people who smell the smell of this are the state and county-level Master Qian Gu and the Hufang Shuban, referred to as the Hushu.

Master Qianliang's ability is in addition to the abacus. It's also about being able to understand the situation. Good at dealing with clerical work. This is because of the amount of money levied on the grain and the land. The household department only asks about the total number, not the details. Who has how many paddy fields and how much dry land in the local area, and where is it located. How much is the starting point? Only the clerk's office in the county government is clear. What they relied on was a secret book that had been passed down from generation to generation, called the "Book of Fish Scales". Without this booklet, I would not be able to levy money and food.

The Yulin album is a public property, which was drawn and revised by successive governments, and the closest fish scale album in use at this time was compiled and completed in the Wanli period. However, as the years go by, the vicissitudes of the sea and the fields change frequently. The county's archives have long been lost or annihilated, and the "official register" revised during the Wanli period has long been inaccurate, and the specific conditions and detailed information of the fields in various places have been loaded in the heads of the Hufang Shushi, which has become the cost of food and clothing passed down from father to son. Whether it is the county order or the money and grain master, if you want to do the official affairs of the summer and autumn every year, you will often be held hostage by the book office. Of course, the powerful money and grain master will also be obedient to the household secretary's office, so, generally speaking, the money and grain master and the household secretary will get along very well, and in front of interests, there is a bit of a wolf bèi treacherous and smelly feeling.

For many years, the collection of money and grain is a plate of bastards, and those who have paid for grain have not necessarily been able to receive the "grain strings" of the government to collect grain, and those who do not pay grain have the voucher of paying grain. There are those who have no place to stand on the cone, but they have to pay for their grain. Some people sit on thousands of hectares of fertile land but do not need to pay grains of rice, anyway, as long as the "top" levy is enough, how to put on a crown and wear it, it doesn't matter at all.

Generally speaking, after the county magistrate takes office, the master of money and grain will go to negotiate the conditions with the secretary office of the household, talk about catties and two, form a tacit understanding, and collude to take what they need.

As for how to wantonly collect money and grain in the summer and autumn seasons, and play tricks, that is, it depends on the business level of the money and grain master and the household book.

What "sprinkling", "trickery", "production and storage", "consuming grain piling tip", "pouring tip kicking bucket", as well as the phenomenon of donation derived from avoiding taxes, are all ways and means for the money and grain masters and household secretaries to fill their own pockets.

Since the Ming Dynasty Zhang Juzheng began to implement the "One Whip Law" during the Wanli period, the collection of summer taxes and autumn grains was changed to the collection of silver, which gave the money and grain masters an opportunity to make a fortune.

According to the process of paying money and grain, according to the household registration book of each household, and then weigh and redeem for their money, and finally issue them a silver bag, put the silver bag into the silver cabinet one by one, and a small official will issue a document in duplicate, and each household will pay its own tax and silver. However, in this way, where can the benefits of the petty officials be found? As a result, it seems to be serious and responsible, but in fact, countless means and specific implementation links have come out.

When each household unravels the silver and redeems it, the silver package is divided into two kinds, one white and one red. The small poor households use white seals, and the large gentry households use red seals. If you use a red seal, you will have a lot less fire consumption and miscellaneous expenses.

As for the fact that when collecting silver, he made hands and feet on silver scales and weights, and collected several times the amount of silver consumed by fire, it was an open secret, and even gave birth to a term in later generations, an unspoken rule.

Fire consumption and miscellaneous expenses to the Ming Dynasty officials and officials in the small treasury and gray income, the early Ming Dynasty fire consumption per bucket seven he, one stone seven liters, to now, these fire consumption and miscellaneous expenses have been equivalent to the positive tax, and even in some places is several times higher than the positive tax. The cost of fire consumption and miscellaneous expenses is more related to the benefits of many officials in the state government.

This is only according to the so-called folding color stipulated in a whip law, and the pattern of collecting silver taels.

At present, there are continuous disasters and famines in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, although silver is valuable, but the price of grain is also quietly turning around. Therefore, in all states and counties, the true color and the folded color are still levied together. The so-called true color is the collection of grain in kind, and the payment of natural grain is heavier than the payment of silver tax. However, it seems that it is more cost-effective to remove the fire consumption and miscellaneous expenses of the officials.

People who have this kind of thinking will face the exploitation of means such as drenching and kicking, the consumption of rats and birds, and the consumption of extras.

It is already a public matter to use a bucket that is much larger than the one on the market to collect grain when the grain is handed over in various official warehouses. Anyway, Shangfeng is also recorded according to the standards of stone, bucket, and liter. The ambassadors of the warehouse also have to build on the grain that has already risen high. Be careful to keep going up. This is the so-called drenching tip, as for the kick bucket, it is a means to check whether the grain is piled up, and kick it heavily on the bucket. A large piece of the bucket will inevitably disperse. Dropped on the ground. The rice grain of the ground became the so-called consumed rice. The grain farmers who deliver the grain have no right to take them away.

These rice consumption has become the welfare or gray income of grassroots officials at all levels. In order to get these "surpluses", the granary officials in various parts of the Ming Dynasty have been from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. Most of them practiced their legs, and some of them could even kick and break a small tree.

In addition to these "surpluses", the various losses and miscellaneous expenses of the grain paid by the households have not been calculated, and the additional distributions of various states and counties in Daming are often several times more than these regular taxes. In this way, how can the people at the end of the Ming Dynasty not suffer.

However, there are also people they can't afford to mess with or dare not mess with.

These people who can't be provoked are, first of all, people who have meritorious fame.

In the Hongwu years, there was a preferential tax-free quota, which stipulated that the first product of Beijing officials could be exempted from 30 stones, the second product of 24 stones, and so on. The preferential exemption of foreign officials is half that of Beijing officials. As for the prisoners, lifters, and talents, 2 stones can be exempted as usual. In addition to the share of free grain, all other self-owned acres of land must be reported to the official for grain payment.

But in practice, there is a lot of knowledge in it. Those who can be exempted from two stones, and those who are exempt from dozens of stones. During the Wanli period, Zhang Juzheng implemented a whip law to measure the country's acres of land, and when he checked his own acres, he covered up and down, and was originally exempted from more than 80 stones according to his level, but it was actually exempted from nearly 900 stones, which was more than 10 times worse! So who will make up the difference? Naturally, it's a flat-headed people! These money and food that have to be paid for no reason are sprinkled in the term.

In addition to sprinkling, the more deceptive is the so-called trickery. As long as it is a crowded place, there will be a group of special people who are domineering and difficult to deal with, either powerful landlords or rural scoundrels. It must be perfunctory. The portion is insufficient, and the beige is poor, so it must be taken correctly. Sometimes, they even give false "grain strings" -- vouchers for paying grain -- to buy a peaceful ground.

Since the implementation of the whip law, there have been many evils, and many small civilian households have paid less food. will "bring the land to give". One of them is to attach one's own land to the name of a person of merit and to pay money and grain to others rather than ask for less money and grain.

The second is that some people will ask them to "pay the fee", and over time the so-called "contract households" will be formed, and this kind of contract households will either be "poor in grain" and collude with the officials, or the local powerful can hold the officials hostage, and if the small households ask them to "pay the money", the "floating income" part is indispensable, but it is much cheaper than paying it themselves

Naturally, the "contractors" did not work in vain, and as usual they had to scrape the skin from it, and those who were bold and reckless in the "contractors" simply only collected grain, did not pay grain, and blindly defaulted, only waiting for the court to "exempt" the matter in the end. This situation was very popular in the Jiangnan region at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty.

Some people pay less, some people pay more, and the county's taxes still have to be paid by the county people. In addition, all kinds of exploitation costs, plus the benefits of the county officials, are all on the heads of the small people, which is called "consuming grain piles", which is also the so-called "floating harvest".

"Grain consumption pile tip" is not "indiscriminate charge", is the Ming tax system has a clear provision, in some places, each stone additional rice and sharp rice 7 buckets of 6 liters, more than half of the positive amount. This extra income is the largest and most reliable "gray income" for local officials. Compared with the black money made by corruption and bending the law, it is much safer.

"Grain consumption pile" is nominally to pay the freight and loss of tax grain, but in fact, there is no standard at all, and it is very arbitrary.

Therefore, some people say that the financial difficulties in the late Ming Dynasty, as well as the rebellions of the hungry people and the uprisings of the displaced people in various places, were largely due to the fact that a whip law squeezed the living space of the yeoman farmers to the greatest extent, turning countless yeoman farmers into tenant farmers and tenant farmers into homeless people.

After the homeless became a starving person, he became a rogue in the mouth of the scholars!

Nowadays, although the officials of various prefectures and counties have become figures in the Ningyuan Bofu system, and they are paid salaries every month, many people are still looking forward to the good days of collecting money and grain in the summer and autumn of previous years.

At this time, the promulgation of this tax charter undoubtedly broke the dog food bowl of Guangdong's big gentry, scholars and many officials!

Cutting off people's financial routes, such as killing parents. Is this still worth it?! (To be continued......)