"Zihou, you came to Yangzhou to bid farewell to me this time, you should want to figure out one thing, right?" Gao Yue first asked Liu Zongyuan about the purpose of his trip.

Liu Zongyuan stood up and bowed, and then admitted that he was indeed confused.

"It was after Gwangju drew the border that the new tax law was determined, and I instructed the assassin to take the opportunity to increase the household tax by 30%, yes or no."

"Yes, you said that you didn't want to raise taxes for the people of Huainan, but now you ......."

"Backtracking, right?" Gao Yue smiled and said what Liu thought in his heart.

Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan were solemn, and they didn't dare to jokingly accept Gao Yue's words.

At this moment, Gao Yue said: "Since the implementation of Yang Yan's two tax laws in this dynasty, special attention has been paid to the word 'yuan', you should all understand, the so-called 'yuan' is the total amount of taxes set, and all provinces, states and counties, as long as they are apportioned to their own yuan, the tax money and Hudou rice can be collected in full." In addition, the amount of the two taxes is frankly not high, take my Jianghuai as an example, the tax money shared by each household was eight yuan a year, and now the amount of yuan has been increased, rising to ten and five hundred yuan, and what about Hu Dou rice? On average, it is five liters of rice per mu, and if it is corn, it is eight or nine liters; Finally, there is the additional household seedling money, which is about 18 yuan per mu. Moreover, the edict clearly stipulates that the annual tax collection of states and counties shall be subject to the amount of yuan, and shall not be simplified with the year. Looking at it this way simply, is it true that as long as a family can cultivate 30 acres of land, they can live a very solid life, have enough to eat, have money to buy tea and wine, and can afford to support their wives and old people, but is this the case? ”

Speaking of this, Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan both fell silent.

The actual situation is that the annual tax amount of the imperial court has not changed, but the people's lives have not improved, and in some prefectures and counties, the atmosphere of fleeing and fleeing has intensified, which is known to Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan.

Gao Yue wanted to say to the two of them that this is the famous Huang Zongxi's law, that is, every time the feudal court unifies the tax law, the people will soon fall into the strange circle of "the government has no name for augmentation, but the people have the truth of augmentation" - but Gao Yue will not say it, because they don't recognize Huang Zongxi at all.

In later generations, this law was called "Gao Yisong's law".

"The imperial court can set a yuan amount every three years to solve the trend of evasion." Han Yu suggested.

Liu Zongyuan also agreed, because he really couldn't think of a better way.

Gao Yue laughed, shook his head, and then looked at the distance of the Yangtze River, where was the line between water and sky, and pointed to the vague and long line, and said to the two: "The so-called yuan is like this line, ups and downs, but it always follows a law, that is, the 'heaven' that is, the government sets this line, of course, the lower the better, the purpose is to calm people's hearts, and the 'water' means that the people can accept this line, of course, because they think this line is the upper limit they should bear." This line is the bottom line that the officials and the people abide by, that is, the 'yuan' in the mouth of the government, and the 'regular endowment' in the mouth of the people. Yang Yan originally implemented the two-tax law, that is, to mix the miscellaneous taxes originally borne by the people with the regular tax, and to reform the tax system, and promised never to increase the amount thereafter. But the funny thing is that within a few years, Chen Shaoyou was invited by the Huainan Festival, and the two taxes were increased by 200 wen each, and they would definitely increase more and more in the future, even if they were not added openly, they would be exploited in the form of miscellaneous taxes secretly. Every time the tax system is reformed, it will not take long to give rise to a new round of miscellaneous tax climax, and then it will be another tax merger, and the cycle will start again and again, and the tax burden will be progressive, and there will be no addition. So how can people's lives be improved? In the end, either the dry water dries up, or the turbidity waves emptilate. ”

In fact, Gao Yue is here, and the criticism is not only directed at Yang Yan's two tax laws, but also what Han Liu does not know: Zhang Juzheng's whip law, or Yongzheng's apportionment into the mu.

Short-sighted people always think how meaningful and successful these reforms are. In reality, however, the essence of these reforms is the same, that is, the attempt to use simplified procedures to incorporate complex taxes into the regular amount of the state treasury, and the means of simplification—Yang Yan relied on copper coins, while Zhang Ju relied on silver (1).

However, once the state sets the dollar quota, it loses the flexibility of contraction. The imperial court can only levy so much money, because if it is levied casually, it will lose its credit. Since the amount of yuan is fixed, then the number of officials to be raised is also fixed, but the people's household registration is constantly changing, coupled with the annexation and circulation of land, then ten years later, if the imperial court again relies on the same amount of yuan, raising the same number of officials, to manage the changing household registration and land property, it is simply inadequate, if it is really as you said, every three years you have to re-set the two taxes, through the boundary of the land, then you have to need more local financial expenditure, to expand the ranks of officials, otherwise who will do this troublesome thing for you? If the local government wants to achieve this goal, it has to do it by increasing miscellaneous taxes in addition to the regular amount of yuan. In the end, it is a real cycle - the amount of the yuan remains unchanged, it is impossible to expand the officials to effectively collect taxes, and it is impossible to expand the ranks of officials without adding miscellaneous taxes, and the additional taxes will inevitably make it common for the people to flee, and the states and counties can only fled, that is, the taxes can only be transferred to the accounts of those who have not fled, and finally they have no choice but to increase the amount of yuan by merging taxes, but the government has lost its credit, the national economy has fallen apart, civil strife is multitude, foreign invaders are attacking, and lives are ruined - the great evil that Han Huizhi said before may arise at this time, even if there is a new great sage, Relying on one's own ability and diligence, maintaining the good situation of the founding of the country for 30 years will soon fall into the cycle that I just mentioned, and the cycle repeats itself over and over again...... It is the poverty of the people, and it is the suffering of the people, and it is the suffering of the people, and it is the cycle that begins! As the Buddhists say, this truth is the infernal hell. ”

Even if Han Yu was an aspiring Buddha and an old man, when he heard the picture of "Infernal Hell" depicted by Gao Yue, he also felt a cool air rising on his back, coupled with the hot sweat that flowed before, almost made his hair bun smoke, he and Liu Zongyuan both understood what Gao Yue said, but it was precisely because they understood that they felt boundless despair.

In the circular "yuan tax country", "the people are suffering, and the people are suffering" is really not a sour language that is pretended to be profound, and the way for Confucianism to finally solve poverty can only be implemented in the so-called abstinence. In addition, because of the rigidity of the yuan tax, the state cannot devote excess financial resources to the construction, so it can only adopt the policy of first officials and first army, and the water transportation, water conservancy, and roads are declining day by day, and the people are forever in the pain of chronic abject poverty......

"The sages thought of a way to cure, and the scriptures of Confucius and Mencius lie in respecting heaven and loving people, and using them sparingly, which is really the 'morality of poverty'." Gao Yue's sarcastic words made Han Yue extremely embarrassed, but he couldn't refute it.

He and Liu were even more eager to know if Gao Yue had a way to save him.