On the third day of the seventh month of the autumn harvest of the fifth year of Yuanyou, the high-ranking officials of the court of the Great Song Empire gathered together, and the old ministers Wen Yanbo and Lu Gongzhu all extended their lives with the help of the traversers, so the red-faced discussant Liu Xin only named the content of the book on the founding son.

This proposal for a comprehensive reform of the tax system has sparked great controversy since it entered the eyes of various decision-makers, and its content is extremely advanced, which shocked the senior officials of the central government and the empress dowager, and it is simply unbelievable that it is even more unbelievable than the great success of issuing the Tibetan redemption public bonds in the first place.

There are only three main opinions, the first is the method of making countless officials rich, all taxes in kind are converted into copper coins and silver taels and handed over to the government, and the time limit for paying taxes can be changed from the previous two tax laws to be harvested twice a year in summer and autumn, so as to reduce the cost of tax collection and various opportunities for harming the people in the process.

The second is to completely abolish labor service, and all public works and defense construction projects must be completed by hiring labor at the expense of the state treasury, instead of appropriating people's labor without compensation, as in the past.

The third was the abolition of the previous "poll tax", and the Song Empire's political axe relaxed its control over household registration, so that peasants and craftsmen could move freely and sell their labor. It is conducive to mobilizing the broad masses of peasants and other laborers to actively participate in production and promote the progress of social production.

Not to mention whether the latter two can be realized, the first one has led to a huge controversy, and there are dozens of problems to be solved in the meantime that thousands of years of taxes in kind should be abolished and replaced with a monetary tax. The two tax laws are collected twice a year, basically all of which are consumer goods such as grain and various native products, and the main goods handed over are grains and textiles, basically covering all varieties and raw materials on the market. Grains include sorghum, rice, wheat, millet, soybeans, barley, oats, etc., textiles include Luo, silk, silk, yarn, silk thread, cotton, arrowroot, linen, cotton cloth, etc., and the products include six animal teeth and leather feathers, tea salt, bamboo and hemp grass, fruit medicine paper oil, charcoal, lacquer wax and so on.

In short, as long as there is something produced, the political axe will levy what product; Moreover, according to the accounting habits of the Great Song Empire, the various levies were summed up, and the total income was a number of guan (money is counted as guan), stone (grain is counted as stone), pi (textiles are counted as ju), and liang (precious metals are counted as taels). Generally speaking, the summer tax is mainly for textiles, and the autumn tax is mainly for grain.

Many of the specialties and materials were strategic materials that were forcibly expropriated, such as leather, bamboo, and wood for armor, horns and feathers for bows and arrows, forage for military horses, and ash for coins and other military products. If these are changed to coins, will they threaten the safety of military production?

Will the change of money lead to the security of the country's food reserves? Conservatives are worried that corrupt officials will take the opportunity to exploit the people and lower grain prices during tax collection, which will increase the burden on the people. Reformers, while seeing less loss from monetary taxes than taxes in kind, are also concerned about the problems caused by volatile food prices.

What if all the monetary taxes are paid, and the physical goods produced by the land are not sold, and the people digest all the physical goods by themselves, and have no money to pay the taxes? Landlords collect rent mainly in kind, and they have to pay taxes and sell agricultural products in order to pay taxes. Is the tax rate progressive or a flat percentage of income? When the grain harvest season arrives, the price of grain has fallen due to the fact that a large amount of grain has been put on the market, resulting in some people and peasants or large landlords harvesting 10,000 quintals of grain, and they have to pay 800 quintals at the tax rate of 8 percent. But when the price of grain fell by 20 percent, he only had to pay the usual 640 taels of copper money from the sale of grain. Can we avoid cheap grain hurting farmers or big landlords from avoiding taxes?

What worries officials the most is whether the distribution of their daily necessities will not be affected by this restructuring. In ancient China, the "Zhilu" system was strictly hierarchical and did not allow trespassing. Rank is the official rank, which is the level of the official position; Lu is a salary, which is the salary paid by the imperial court to officials, and a large part of the officials' income is in kind.

In the Song Dynasty, the treatment of middle and higher-level officials was generally more generous, and the official gave 1/3 of the money and 2/3 of the money in kind. Foreign magistrates were also given a job of land, ranging from thirty or forty hectares to one or two hectares. After the Song Dynasty, some officials who stepped down or were about to step down were also awarded or invited to serve as idle officials such as palace officials and Jianyue Temple, and sat on the "ancestral hall".

In the Qin and Han dynasties, official rank products were calculated based on the amount of grain. The Western Han Dynasty was divided into 20 levels from Wanshi to Zuoshi, Cao Wei was divided into 9 levels from one to nine grades, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties gradually changed to 18 levels from the nine grades, and the Sui and Tang dynasties followed the rank and grade of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the later dynasties were roughly the same.

In the Han Dynasty, the official salary was calculated in grain, and the highest rank was 350 Hu (one Hu is equivalent to 14 kilograms), and the lowest rank was only 3.6 Hu. The difference between the two is nearly 100 times.

The officials of the Tang Dynasty had jobs, rice, and money. 12 acres of land were granted to the first and second grades of Beijing officials, and 2 acres of land were granted to the eighth grade of Beijing officials and nine grades of foreign officials, and 50 acres of land were granted. In the early years of Wude, it was 700 stones of rice from one pin, and 50 stones from nine pinlu rice. When Zhenguan, the monthly money of a first-grade official was 6,800 Wen, and the nine-grade official was 1,300 Wen. In the late Tang Dynasty, he was a foreign official and a Bo Jing official.

The Song Dynasty's hundred officials were the most generous among the feudal dynasties, with a monthly salary of up to 400 guan (always a thousand wen), which was 10 times that of the Han Dynasty and 2 to 6 times that of the Qing Dynasty. In addition to money, there are also Lu rice, the Song Dynasty officials of all sizes in brocade clothes and delicacies, and a luxurious life.

is a product official, 150 stone of Lu rice per month, 120,000 yuan, plus 20 horses of silk every year, 1 horse of Luo, and 50 taels of cotton; From the nine officials, 5 stones of rice per month, 8,000 yuan, plus 12 taels of cotton per year.

In addition to the above salaries, there are many kinds of welfare subsidies, including tea and wine money, kitchen material money, charcoal money, horse feed money, and so on. The clothing, food, and wages of the servants of the officials' domestic servants were also "paid" by the political axe.

In the Song Dynasty, the interest on public money loans and the income from the fields were mostly paid by the department chiefs, most of them went into the "small treasury" of the department, and were distributed to the officials every three or five times, becoming part of the income. When officials go on business trips or go to work, they can use the "gift rolls" issued by the imperial court to eat and live in the local area for free, and even receive food and clothes.

The Song Dynasty also established the "Ancestral Lu System", in which high-ranking officials of high moral standing carried out regular recuperation, and all expenses were borne by the state. Many officials in the Song Dynasty were able to receive two salaries, which were called "job money".

Due to the generous treatment, few officials in the Song Dynasty voluntarily retired (retired), and some even changed their age in order to extend their term of office. Therefore, the imperial court had no choice but to force officials to become officials, and to refuse to take courses or promote old bureaucrats who had reached the age of 70. When officials are appointed to the office, they are often given promotions, similar to the "immediate promotion" of today's civil servants. After the prime minister-level officials become officials, they can still participate in the government and serve as "senior advisers". If an official is automatically promoted to office, his descendants can "make up" a certain official position, resulting in a large number of "second-generation officials" in politics. They consider that the change of tax in kind to monetary tax may lead to the conversion of their income to money in kind, and they may spend more money to buy it in the market. Originally, in the stage of tax in kind, the physical goods produced were directly distributed to the hands of officials without being listed and traded, but now if only the monetary tax is collected, this part of the physical goods will be converted into commodities, resulting in a fall in prices and an oversupply. When you want to buy it yourself, it will lead to a shortage of supply and an increase in prices.

Through the eavesdropping device produced by Liu Jiao, the traversers were about to roll on the ground after hearing the funny remarks of many officials in the council room.