Jingwen was a little speechless about Ma Zhou's thinking. This guy is so brainless, so dogmatic that if the court stipulates how to collect taxes, then how to collect taxes will be collected at the bottom. However, Jingwen has always known that these magistrates have policies and countermeasures. But Ma Zhou was so dogmatic, this made Jingwen almost vomit blood. This Ma Zhou, how did he become the prime minister in history! Jing Wenke really convinced him, he was so stupid that he couldn't even change the method.

"Okay, I'll tell you. The solution is simple, listen to me. ”

"First of all, we have to bypass the squires like the village chief Li Zheng below, and then go directly to the government officials to collect taxes. In this way, we can avoid the exploitation of the squire, which is to prevent the people from being oppressed by the squire, and this can also ensure that there will be no problems with our tax collection source. This is called the official collection of official solutions, and every qiē is done by the people of the government, and the squires will not be able to use their own right to supervise the collection of taxes and oppress the people. You should know that there are many squires who take the opportunity to collect a large amount of benefits, and then put pressure on the taxes of those who give them to him, so that I am afraid that there will be many cheaters. So, this must be put an end to. ”

Ma Zhou nodded, agreeing with this method. After all, this method is very simple, as long as you let the officials run more errands, it will not cost too many things, but it solves a big problem. As for those squires rebounding, this Ma Zhou is not afraid at all. Do you think those squires are the seven clans and five surnames or something! These squires are not in the stream at all and cannot oppose the government, so their opinions do not need to be considered at all. Originally, the government made them responsible for collecting taxes because of trouble, but now that there is a problem, I am afraid that the government will have to collect taxes in person, which not only reduces the burden on the people, but also ensures that there are no problems at the source of tax collection.

"Step two. That is to say, all rents are adjusted according to grain, that is to say, those who used to collect silk cloth are now converted into grain according to the price of silk cloth, and then collect grain uniformly. In this way, the people could avoid being exploited by grain merchants and silk cloth merchants. Moreover, in terms of forced labor, we exempted the common people from forced labor, but in exchange, the common people also had to pay silk cloth according to the corresponding standards. But. These silk cloths can be exchanged for grain. ”

Jingwen knew that the most painful thing for the ancient people was not taxes, but forced labor. Because conscription is to help the government to work without compensation, and often do a day's work, it takes several days to come home and the construction site. Moreover, some unscrupulous officials will also take the opportunity to increase the number of conscripts privately, and then help the officials themselves to build some of their own private things. And. You must know that these conscripts are not provided by the government, at most they give you a loft to live in. In this case, the government actually needs to consume a lot more time in order to make the people serve the conscription than the actual conscription. Such. and the people's farming was desolate. However, when agriculture is wasted, food production is reduced, which in turn causes a chain effect. Therefore, many people would rather spend extra money. I don't want to serve in the forced labor, that's the reason.

And Jingwen did a lot of mercy this time, letting the people follow the regulations of the Tang Dynasty. It is possible to exempt from forced labor by paying grain of the corresponding value of silk cloth. As long as the corresponding amount of 20 days is paid, then one year of forced labor can be completely exempted, and the actual time saved is more than double the amount of forced labor, that is, 40 days. With this time, you can do more farm work, so that the grain production can be increased, and you can make up for it, and maybe you can make more money! How many forty days can there be in a year! If 40 days can be saved, then it will be a better agricultural production life for the people. This spending money to exempt from forced labor can be said to be a benevolent government.

Ma Zhou asked again: "Then what should we do?" The imperial court wants silk cloth, but not all food! If the court blames it then, then what will we do! Moreover, when the time comes, we will receive the people's food exempted from military service, and then the court will let us go out to serve in the conscription, so where will we go to provide the people! ”

"Then there's the most important thing. After we get the grain we collect, we can sell it in a unified manner, and then go to the silk cloth merchant to buy the silk cloth, and then we will solve it? When the time comes, we will escort these silk cloths to the capital Chang'an, won't we be able to make a difference? Jingwen said.

But Ma Zhou said: "Is there any difference in this way? Isn't it all about taking off your pants and farting - is it redundant? ”

Jingwen immediately said: "The difference is big! If you let the people go to the grain merchants to sell for money, and then go to the silk cloth merchants in exchange for silk cloth, isn't that just to make the people oppressed? The people alone, unable to unite, how could they be the opponents of those grain merchants and silk cloth merchants? The grain merchant and the silk cloth merchant are all one organization, and how can the people alone oppose the same organization? But if our government takes grain and grain merchants in exchange for copper coins, and then goes to the unified and silk cloth merchants to exchange for silk cloth. You say, with the courage of those businessmen, do they dare to oppress our government? ”

"Handsome and talented!" Ma Zhou finally exclaimed.

Jingwen's method is actually to use the authority of the government to trade with merchants. Those businessmen dare to oppress ordinary people, but they absolutely dare not cheat the government on this issue, how dare they have? Therefore, it is actually the same thing to gather grain and exchange it with those merchants, but with the government coming forward in person, can those merchants still be able to trick people? And in this way, it is the same thing to take the corresponding cloth to Chang'an. Ma Zhou was really amazed by Jingwen's method.

"What about the conscription? In case the imperial court needs us to send people to serve in the conscription, then after we collect the grain, how can we get people! Ma Zhou asked.

"Won't we hire people? We can hire a group of full-time people to serve in place of the common people. Instead of taking the food that is exempt from military service, we can sell the food and then use the money to hire people to serve. It is impossible for the imperial court to take away all the people of the entire county at once to serve in the conscription, right? This is impossible, so being able to draw a thousand people from our county at a time is already the limit of the limit. And there are at most some conscription work in our county that needs to be built, and we can hire a group of people to do this kind of thing full-time to serve in place of the people, so that the pressure on the people will not be reduced, and the court can also deal with it! Jingwen said.

Ma Zhou finally bowed to Jingwen and said: "The festival is handsome and talented, listening to your words is better than reading a book for ten years!" It seems that I still have to learn from the festival marshal! (To be continued......)