After the Dragon Boat Festival, by the middle of May, the temperature in western Beijing is no longer the high and low in the middle of spring and summer, but has stabilized at a high level.

But it was at this time that 3,000 soldiers were successively transferred to the junction of Ruzhou and Tangzhou, and the project of opening up the Xianghan Cao Yun was officially launched. Han Gang also temporarily left Xiangyang and was stationed in Fangcheng County.

Since the construction period is not tight, the working hours of the soldiers are set in the morning and evening. Compared to other projects, this can be regarded as a very easy work. In addition, there were also sufficient logistical preparations, coupled with a sufficiently attractive reward system, so that Han Gang had prepared the most effective means to kill a hundred people, but he could not show it, and even the progress of the project was much faster than that of Ji Lu.

It has been seven days since the start of construction, and the foundation of the track route has been smoothly extended from both ends of the pass to the center. The bonus of up to 100 yuan a day was hung over the heads of 60 engineering teams, totaling 3,000 troops, so that they forgot their fatigue and worked hard in their limited work practice.

Han Gang had just returned from a tour of the construction site.

On the sections of the route he inspected this morning, the soldiers asked for an extended daily working day. Compared with the military salary of only four or five hundred wen a month, as long as the comprehensive score of progress and project quality can rank in the top ten every day, each soldier can get at least fifty wen bonus. If it is ranked first, it is a full 500 Wen. How many of the poor soldiers are unwilling to make a small fortune?

However, Han Gang refused the request of the soldiers and asked them to stabilize a little and improve the quality of the project to another level.

With a satisfied smile on his face, Han Gang returned to his temporary residence. Before he got off the horse, Fang Xing, who was engaged in business, handed over an official document that had just been delivered.

"What's the matter?" Han Gang casually turned around and patted the mount that had been carrying him on his back for dozens of miles early in the morning.

Fang Xing replied: "The imperial court promulgated the "Hand Practice Law", and asked the road to supervise the states and counties under its rule. ”

"Hand practice?!" Han Gang's face changed suddenly, he pulled over the official document handed by Fang Xing, and scolded after only looking at it twice: "Lu Jifu is crazy?!" ”

"Dragon Figure!" Fang Xing coughed, looked left and right again, and reminded Han Gang to pay attention to his words.

Han Gang gave Fang Xing a cautious gesture, which made him a little funny. However, it is really not good to scold people behind his back, so he put it another way: "Lu Jifu did something wrong this time." "Still no.

Han Gang had heard of the term hand practice method a long time ago, and this was something that Zhang Dian had mentioned to him. Just as the laws of Qingmiao, Exemption from Labor, and Shiyi cannot be regarded as Wang Anshi's originality, the Hand Practice Method actually originated from the previous generation, and was pioneered by the Prime Minister of the Tang Dynasty, Yuan Zhi, when he was appointed Zhizhou.

When Wang Anshi was dismissed for the first time, and after Lu Huiqing was promoted to the position of governor, he began to plan and implement the practical method to determine the property of every household in the world—mainly land, but also real estate, livestock, and cash crops such as mulberry and hemp—and formulate a fifth-class production book, which was used to collect taxes. This can indeed be regarded as a variant of the Fangtian Average Tax Law, but it is more lenient than the Fangtian Average Tax Law.

Although the amount of land owned by each household is basically determined in order to collect taxes - to be precise, the Fangtian Average Tax Law is the basis for the collection of land taxes, while the fifth-class Ding property book formulated according to the Hand Actual Law is mainly the basis for the allocation of convenient loans and the collection of exempt money, but the Fang Tian Tax Law is measured by the government sending people to the countryside, while the Hand Truth Law is for the people to report the amount themselves.

However, Wang Anshi's reinstatement was too fast, so that Lu Huiqing had to announce the suspension before he could implement it. But at present, Wang Anshi, Feng Jing, and Wu Chong are resigned one after another, and only Wang Jue is left in the political hall as a prime minister who obeys the orders of the Son of Heaven, plus Yuan Jiang, a newcomer who is old but has little experience in the political hall, Lu Huiqing's original plan was also put on the table.

It's just that there was no movement at all when Han Gang left Beijing, and now it has only been a few months, and this new bill has already completed a complete set of processes in the imperial city and has been promulgated in the world. Lu Huiqing's hands and feet are indeed fast enough.

It's a pity that this bill, in Han Gang's opinion, is really out of place.

"Long Tu also thinks it's unsatisfactory to start the real method?" Fang Xing asked.

Han Gang sighed: "The time to change the law has long passed, and Lu Huiqing is now going against the trend, but it is half the result and the gain outweighs the loss." ”

"But speaking of which, this is actually just a supplement to Fang Tian's tax law...... If I can remove the last one. ”

“…… Can you get rid of it? Han Gang asked with a smile.

After two years of delays, the newly promulgated practical law seems to have modified some inappropriate clauses compared with the old law, and has been whitewashed with a lot of grease and whitewash, and there are several clauses that are sympathetic to the common people - for example, the clause that 'the house and house are divided into five and so on, and all the house money should be one of the interest rate', which means that the house and the self-cultivated land are only worth one-fifth of the rental house and tenant land of the same size when the price is calculated, and the homesteaders can benefit from this.

However, in order to ensure that the bill will bring in sufficient revenue, the basic content has not changed. One of the most critical ones is that if the report is false and others are allowed to report it, one-third of the concealed property will be divided into one-third with the whistleblower - of course, there are not many people who are willing to consciously and voluntarily pay taxes, and there are also not many people who are willing to disclose their family property, so in order to prevent someone from cheating, Lu Huiqing added this article to the practical law.

Without this penalty clause, the manual practice law, which only requires the people to report the amount of land and property, will not have any practical significance, but with this article, anyone can see that the implementation of the manual practice law will be a hundred times more difficult.

If we only look at it from the perspective of laws, in Han Gang's eyes, the hand practice law is indeed a good law, and it can be regarded as an advanced property declaration system - because it is not only private households that have to declare family property, but also official households that are known as situation households - but this law, once implemented, will cause big problems.

If money is used to encourage the denunciation of hidden wealth, the wind of denunciation will be endless in the future. From the perspective of Confucianism, this is a method that is immoral. And to put it mildly, the real big families are intertwined, and not many people dare to denounce them, and even if they do, they may not be useful, but they are ordinary rich families with a slightly solid background, who have no power and property but are coveted, and they will become the biggest victims in the end - the moral standards of the officials cannot be counted on at all, and from the perspective of interests, how can the officials not get along with their own family property? - As long as the middle households become bankrupt because of this, there will be an excuse to attack Lu Huiqing and abolish the hand practice law.

But it is not that it is completely impossible to achieve the hand-practice law, in other words, ten years ago, or even six years ago, when the exemption law was first implemented, when the state was in distress, no matter how loud the opposition was, the Son of Heaven could grit his teeth and continue to implement it, and if there were any problems, they could be solved in the course of implementation, as long as the Son of Heaven could hear the sound of copper coins clanging in the treasury.

It's a pity that it's the first year of Yuanfeng and not the first year of Xining.

Lu Huiqing has always been a person with ideas and hearts, and this has been the case since he assisted Wang Anshi in formulating the new law. Such a person and such a character, of course, will not be willing to be in the shadow left by Wang Anshi all the time, what he is doing now is trying to get rid of Wang Anshi's shadow. Use the political capital you have accumulated over the years to gain more power and a more resounding reputation.

"Lu's participation in politics should be a weighed pros and cons. But it's gambling, right? He doesn't have the prestige of Wang Xianggong...... If you don't succeed, you will become a benevolent, it's too risky. Fang Xing was very unimpressed with Lu Huiqing's actions this time.

"He's definitely figured it out." Han Gang never doubted Lu Huiqing's IQ, but making such a big bet was also difficult for him to agree with, "Gambling, I didn't say that I could win 100%, and no one can say that I can definitely succeed if I do one thing." It's just a little unworthy. ”

If the Son of Heaven can fully support Lu Huiqing, Han Gang doesn't care about offending the official eunuchs in Jingxi, anyway, they have money, so they should give more. But if Zhao Ji couldn't support Wang Anshi ten years ago and become Lu Huiqing's pillar, Han Gang would be crazy and would be born and died for Zhao Ji, who was ready to retreat at any time, and Lu Huiqing, who was bent on getting rid of Wang Anshi.

Han Gang is not optimistic about Lu Huiqing at all. Xining's six-year city law has caused chaos in the capital, Wang Anshi's political capital has declined significantly, and finally resigned a year later - there are many reasons for Wang Anshi's first resignation, but this one thing must be the most critical one - and now the hand law is better than the city law, Lu Huiqing does not have Wang Anshi's strong capital, and now he is betting that the son of heaven wants to protect himself, and it is impossible to be completely sure.

After Han Gang sighed, he put the matter aside. But two days later, Li Jie came back from Shen Kuo, who was personally measuring the location of the lock and weir construction, and said some official business, but he mentioned the practical method again.

"What do you think about this?" Han Gang asked rhetorically.

Li Jie hesitated for a moment and shook his head, "The imperial court is not short of money. Last year, the taxes, convenience, market ease, and exemption of Jingbei Road added up to more than 6 million stone taels, which is a lot more than the taxes on Jingbei Road......

Han Gang shook his head, interrupted Li Jie's words, and sneered: "There will always be a hole in the imperial court's coat that cannot be repaired...... Who is afraid of money? How much money you can collect, someone has the ability to use how much money to get out. Even if you don't use it, pile it up in the warehouse, so that the Son of Heaven can look at it comfortably...... Have you ever heard of 'five seasons of lost pictures, and the fox is blazing'? ”

Li Jie nodded, when today's son ascended the throne, he imitated the ambition of Emperor Taizu back then, built thirty-two warehouses in the palace, and wrote his own poem, 'Five seasons lost pictures, and the fox is blazing.' The art ancestor made the state, and the thought was punished. The inner government was set up to recruit soldiers. Great-grandson Baozhi, dare to forget his ambition. This is used as the number of the treasury. plans to use the money in this as military expenses to destroy Western Xia and recover Yanyun.

——Emperor Taizu Zhao Kuangyin set up a sealed pile warehouse back then, which was the plan to exchange the property in the warehouse for Yanyun's lost land. If the Khitan people toast and don't eat, the money in the stake vault will be converted into the military expenses of the Northern Expedition and turned into a cup of punishment wine given to the Khitans. It's a pity that Taizong's two northern expeditions were defeated, and Emperor Zhenzong lost his land and didn't get it back, so he only got a Yuanyuan Alliance, and finally took the money to seal the Zen Temple.

Li Jie understood what he heard, but he was puzzled: "Does Long Tu agree with the Hand Practice?" ”

Han Gang shook his head: "It's just that the current tax revenue of the imperial court is not small, and the money collected by relying on the actual law is not urgently needed by the imperial court." ”

Han Gang didn't mind discussing the imperial court law in front of Li Jie. Li Jiehui mentioned the practical method in front of him, in fact, he asked Lao Tzu - Han Gang focused on Xianghan Caoyun, and most of the large and small affairs in the Jingxi Cao Division were handled by two deputy envoys and two judges, one south and one north.

Han Gang is a transit envoy, and his duties include the responsibility of supervising the implementation of the new rules of the imperial court in the prefectures and counties under his rule. Now that the imperial court has promulgated the Hand Practice Law, Han Gang is also obliged to promote it on Jingxi Road. Over the years, many new laws have been promulgated in the world, and every time several chief officials of the Cao Division have been transferred or demoted, all because of the unfavorable reasons for urging the new law. So Han Gang's current words are also for Li Nangong.

Regarding the hand practice method, Han Gang's attitude is very clear, he has no intention of supervising and supervising, but he will not interfere, presumably Li Jie should understand.