Chapter 69: Benevolence is the Reason
What about governments that don't have enough money to spend? If you ask anyone before the Industrial Revolution, there are only two open source answers, one is to raise taxes and the other is to add base metals to coinage. Any attempt by any government to reduce expenditure has invariably failed, and any eloquent monarch or reformer in ancient or modern times, both in China and abroad, who has tried to reduce expenditure, will be met with a hundred times more resistance than open source.
These resistances either come from vested interest groups such as ** and ministers, or from the reality of internal and external difficulties. The emperor himself and women cannot be wronged, from the empress dowager and a large number of elders to the empress dowager, the empress dowager and the concubine, the queen and the imperial concubine, down to the palace maids who are difficult to count and many servants who serve ** things, all of them are big consumers of money and food. This is a fixed expenditure that cannot be reduced, and it can only be as much as the expenditure required by the increasingly large imperial relatives and the dragon descendants and grandchildren. With the passage of time, more and more officials and officials have increased, and these personnel can only increase with the development of the imperial examination and the country. In addition, the Song Dynasty was obviously different from other dynasties' indiscriminate bounty and bounty, allowing officials to favor their children and buy a large amount of people's hearts and minds. The military expenses necessary to defend against internal and external enemies cannot be deducted, which is related to the lifeblood of the dynasty and the national ancestry. As a result, the only expenses that can be deducted are inconsequential non-recurrent items, such as those in areas such as public affairs and social welfare.
In the eyes of the traversing public, Zhao Song's national glory has no importance, the important thing is that the fate of the nation and its own development cannot be threatened, and it is best not to appear even a little interference.
Tax reform is a crucial step in a huge plan, and the popularization of monetary taxes can greatly promote the process of market economy. All of the labor force had to participate in the passage of the many-controlled national market in exchange for the money needed to pay taxes, which could free up enormous amounts of productivity and goods into circulation and traversing the many-controlled trade network.
At the same time, under the pretext of preventing grain cheapness from hurting peasants and large households from avoiding taxes, they can control the national strategic reserve system and prices. If the physical output of various places wants to be exchanged for coins and paid taxes, it must be sold to the Chenji Group according to the parity price set by the government. Generally speaking, the purchase price of Chenji Group will not change for a year, and all commodity price curves are almost maintained in a horizontal straight line without fluctuations. With the help of government tax channels, to promote the business network and financial network of Chenji Group, a large amount of currency of Chenji Group is like the sea, which can accommodate a large number of goods and services. All excuses were ruled out. The change of tax in kind to monetary tax only hurts the opportunity for low-level officials to increase their revenues and increase miscellaneous donations under the pretext of rat consumption, storage fees, fire consumption, and so on. The opposition and obstruction of these corrupt officials will be crushed by the Empress Dowager and the princesses who hope to be famous for eternity. Chenji Group promised that all the tax reductions caused by the change of tax in kind to monetary tax would be made up by Chenji Group in the form of local tax rights.
The local tyrants who originally controlled the right to package taxes in various places, those who were disobedient, secretly stumbling on the Chenji Group, and refused to take refuge in the Chenji Group and formed influence, were deprived of the right to package taxes. Because no one can rob the wealthy Chenji Group at the auction of the tax-bearing right, the tax-inclusive period of the tax-bearing right in many places has been changed from one year or three years to five or ten years, and the tax must be paid in a lump sum, all with cash and credit bills approved by the government yamen. Many of the big landlords who didn't have much money left in their hands were thrown off their horses in front of the threshold artificially created by this Chenji group. The extra-large landowners and wealthy families with strong financial resources could not bear the pressure of paying off the taxes in their hometowns for ten years at one time, and they gritted their teeth and went to Chenji Bank to handle land mortgages and urgently bid for low-cost land purchases.
Chenji Group, which has a large number of deposits and its own funds, naturally does not need to care about the emergency withdrawals and small runs of a few large accounts. A few commercial bills can be used to offset the cash scraped together by the wealthy and powerful in the cellar and at the bottom of the box. At this time, the power of the credit system is reflected, and the credit notes recognized by the government are equivalent to cash.
Through the competition all over the country, Chenji Group has successfully increased the agricultural tax revenue across the country by more than 20%, and initially completed Liu Xin's plan to increase the finance of the Great Song Empire. In short, the Chenji Group and the Xianggong should set up the threshold to raise the price of the tax right, transfer all the losses to the local tycoons, and at the same time teach the disobedient Haoqiang, and establish an incomparably strong Chenji Group in the eyes of the people.
After the Empress Dowager heard the good news that the tax revenue had increased and solved the urgent needs of the imperial court, she happily rewarded many ministers who had contributed one after another, and even Liu Xin, who did not show up much behind the scenes, was mixed with the false title of a general doctor. As for increasing the cost of tax package, Chenji Group and its partners have many ways to do so, and those who reluctantly renew the right to tax package are not so lucky.
Chenji Group and its partners can resolve the cost of taxation by increasing the income of farmers in the area of the tax-inclusive right. For example, it is necessary to plant cash crops and high-yield and improved varieties, purchase agricultural and sideline products at a stable price, and make profits from deep processing of agricultural and sideline products to make up for the difference between the tax-included price and the actual tax paid. Those Haoqiang who did not have Chenji's support or even opposition had to endure huge losses and reputational blows. Under the advantages of this and the other, it is natural that Chenji Group has won a big victory.
As for the benevolent government that has never been seen in the ages, far beyond the virtue and politics of three generations, the hat of the first person to propose the abolition of the labor service policy that has been packaged by the Chenji newspaper and all the propaganda machines has also been worn on the head of Li Changning, the old man of officialdom who has been vigorously cultivated by the Chenji Group. If Li Ji hadn't specially sent him a special medicine and saved his life, this late-blooming old champion almost died of illness in the year of the middle champion. In order to cultivate this very promising reserve high-ranking official seedling, Li Ji constantly sent him political achievements. Now that he is a member of the household department, he is enough to undertake this important historical mission. The 53-year-old qualification is enough to rise to the high position of the head of the household book by virtue of this immortal merit that is enough to be famous for eternity.
The proposal to abolish the poll tax was shelved because the Empress Dowager did not want to occupy all of them, and she was going to leave this reform until Zhezong was in power, giving Zhezong a chance to buy the hearts of the people. Of course, Zhao Xu is not dead, and no one calls him the temple number. The emperor is still the emperor. Crossing the meeting of their own people is still called Zhao Xu or Zhezong, and no one is used to calling an emperor who is not pro-government His Majesty or an official family. In front of others, the traversal calls Zhao Xi or Jinshang, the Son of Heaven and other colloquial languages.
The emperor knew that the empress dowager was very sorry and dissatisfied with the arrangement of this policy, and thought that this kind of benevolent government should not be left to himself to invite the hearts of the people, but should be implemented as soon as possible to benefit the people of the world. Although he is the emperor, he has no power at all, and such a good policy cannot be implemented. The regret to the people and the dissatisfaction of the Empress Dowager have greatly deepened, and the Empress Dowager has not seen the Empress Dowager's care and vision for him.
While boasting about the benefits of the tax in kind and the abolition of servitude, the people of the Crossing arranged for the coordination of the business and the increase in the income of the big bureaucrats who had suffered losses. The ideological dynamics of the emperor that Liu Jiao had been concerned about were also reflected on Li Ji's desk. The information from the wiretaps and the inside has been clearly told that the dispute between the emperors and queens has overwhelmed the dispute between the old and the new parties. The division between the latter party and the old party and the imperialist party and the new party has long been out of line with reality. In order to keep himself safe, Lee Ki decided to start the Emperor Cultivation Program. The definition of benevolence was instilled in the emperor's teachers---- LĂź Gongshu, Su Shi and others.
In order to fundamentally shake the backward thinking of the feudal lords, Li Ji pirated Zhu Xi's practice and used a powerful publishing system to publicize the four books he wrote, and the additional "Daxue" and "Zhongyong" were raised to the level of "Analects" and "Mencius", and the "Book of Rites", "Spring and Autumn", "Book of Songs", "Zhou Yi", and "Shangshu" were all re-compiled and annotated by the traversal who intended to establish the ideological system they needed. There was a big discussion about what benevolence is.
Su Shi was very supportive of the move of the crossing people, explaining the reason to all the officials and students who had questions. The expectation of the realization of benevolence led to the support of all the ministers who had received the consulting fees. In the past, the intrigue of the party for power was all floating clouds in the face of the realization of the supreme ideal of Confucianism, and after the material needs were satisfied, the higher desire for self-realization suppressed the desire for power almost unremembered.
A reform that abolished servitude opened their eyes to a new path that no one had seen before them. Reform is no longer a means of centralization and wordplay in new bottles of old wine, nor is it a struggle for interests in the redistribution of power, but a benevolent government that can indeed benefit the vast majority of people. This fact is in front of all high-ranking officials, and this is the most fundamental reason why the bureaucrats who grew up reading the books of the sages support the crossing of the congregation. The consultant fee is just a stepping stone and a small gift, which Xiang Guild will sell his personality and ideals because of an annual income of hundreds of thousands of yuan? No amount of lubricant can make the gears turn in reverse.