"Thanks to the strong support of the State Administration of Agriculture and Forestry, although we have not yet been able to know the number of all cultivated land in Fengtian Province, it is conservatively estimated that the total cultivated land in the province should be more than 60 million mu, but on these 6,000 mu of cultivated land, the tax per mu collected by our State Administration of Finance is only 1.5 million taels of silver!" Zhao Dongping continued to say aloud: "Of course, the low tax is due to the factor of too much private land, but just looking at the number of existing registered fields, the current proportion of taxes collected and the total output of fields is also extremely low!" ”

To tell the truth, in terms of the land policy of the late Qing Dynasty, Fengtian's annual tax revenue of 1.5 million taels of silver is not less, and the annual tax per mu of Huguang and Guangzhou, as the granaries of contemporary China, will not be much more than Fengtian's. If we simply calculate the production of land and the taxes levied by the state on the peasants, then we will find that this proportion is quite low, far less than the agricultural tax in a normal country.

"However, through the investigation, our bureau found that the burden of farmers in the province is extremely heavy, in addition to the need to bear the positive tax, they also need to bear a variety of miscellaneous taxes, and this part of the local miscellaneous taxes are much higher than the positive tax, and most of these miscellaneous taxes are collected by the local government, and there is no way to collect them into the provincial finance!" Speaking of this, Zhao Dongping paused for a moment and continued:

"According to the discussions of many colleagues in our bureau, if we want to increase the income from the tax per acre, and at the same time need to reduce the burden on the people, the only preferable way is to abolish miscellaneous taxes, all kinds of forced labor, donations, etc., and directly levy a unified agricultural tax on the peasants. In this way, the tax per acre will be at least several times higher than before! ”

"In addition, considering that the fiscal revenue of local governments and counties has relied on various miscellaneous taxes in the past, our bureau's opinion is to refer to the previous commercial tax reform, and our State Administration of Finance will directly collect agricultural taxes, and then allocate a certain proportion to local governments and counties to maintain local financial operations!"

Last year, Zhao Dongping presided over the tax reform, mainly focused on business tax, centigold, and some other miscellaneous taxes; in addition to the traditional reduction and merger of taxes, the most important thing was to transfer the power of commercial tax and centith to the State Administration of Finance, and the State Administration of Finance set up branches in various prefectures and counties to carry out tax collection, and the bulk of the commercial tax income was handed over to the provincial treasury, and a small part was handed over to the local prefectures and counties.

However, the reform at that time was mainly focused on commercial taxes, while the agricultural taxes were too restrictive, so there were no hasty changes!

Zhao Dongyun listened while looking at the plan in his hand, Zhao Dongping said that the proposed plans sound better, but it is more difficult to implement.

It can even be said that it is more difficult to carry out agricultural tax reform in Mukden than in other provinces, why? Because Mukden is not a province in the traditional sense, but a general's jurisdiction, General Sheng Jing has full authority to handle the military and civilian affairs within the jurisdiction.

And it must be noted that there are a large number of flag people in Fengtian, and with the flag people, there will naturally be a large number of flag fields.

In addition, as the birthplace of the Manqin Dynasty, the Manchu nobles owned a large number of granges in Mukden, not only the nobles, but even the royal family also owned a large number of imperial estates in Mukden.

Therefore, the land composition of Fengtian Province is relatively complex, and it is not an ordinary province dominated by private fields and official fields, but is composed of Huangzhuang, noble Grange, Qitian, Mintian and Guantian.

If Zhao Dongyun wants to play tax reform, he must be cautious, otherwise it will be easy to attract political enemies to attack and annihilate when he makes a mess!

Zhao Dongyun put down the report and said: "According to the existing amount of cultivated land, the current tax per mu is indeed not true, and it must be changed!" ”

According to the views of later generations, the cultivated land in Fengtian today is actually far beyond the official registration figures, you must know that there are only more than 40 million mu of cultivated land in Fengtian that have official records, but there are still more private fields that have not been recorded, not to mention that the official pastures and paddocks that have been privately pleaded by the displaced people can be counted in millions of mu.

The fact that a large amount of official land has been privately claimed is also a factor that forces the local government to further privately claim and reclaim pastures and paddocks, because the ban has already existed in name only, and those official lands have been reclaimed by the displaced people, so it is better to simply admit that these fields are included in the account books to collect the land tax.

In addition to traditional grains such as wheat and rice, a considerable amount of land is used to grow cash crops, namely soybeans.

The soybean economy is the main economic pillar of contemporary Northeast China, especially Fengtian, from soybean planting to soybean processing industry, soybean international trade has almost formed a whole industrial chain.

To put it bluntly, in Zhao Dongyun's new policy of Fengtian industry and commerce, the soybean industry accounts for more than one-third of it. The answer is the soybean processing industry, with more than a dozen large oil mills popping up in just one year.

Even the textile industry, which Zhao Dongyun also strongly supports, can only be ranked second!

And as the source of the soybean economy, the fields that produce a large number of soybeans only collect millions of taxes every year? This is not nonsense, for this kind of high value-added agricultural products, if you don't collect millions a year, you can't stand your own New Deal reform!

Therefore, in order to reform the agricultural tax, it is necessary to include a large amount of private land in the official tax collection table, and at the same time it is necessary to rectify the agricultural tax.

Zhao Dongyun pondered for a while and continued: "Agricultural tax reform is necessary, but the pace should be slowed down, the process should be gentle, and agricultural tax reform cannot be one-size-fits-all, in order to avoid social turmoil, you can choose a prefecture and county to try first, see what problems will occur, and then how to solve those problems that arise!" ”

Of course, the agricultural tax reform can increase the income of several million taels of silver, but like all rulers, Zhao Dongyun's first consideration is the word 'stable dìng', in the face of commercial taxes and other miscellaneous taxes, he can carry out drastic reforms, and use strong means to implement, but in the face of agricultural taxes that are closely related to the peasants, he has to be cautious, he would rather the reform process be slower than any problems.

After all, at this time, the livelihood of millions of people in Fengtian Province is at stake, so we can't be cautious!

Although Zhao Dongping was admonished by Zhao Dongyun, he was also approved by Zhao Dongyun, allowing him to choose a county in western Liaoning to carry out agricultural tax reform, and if it succeeded, then the whole province would be implemented next year.

After sending Zhao Dongping away, Zhao Dongyun continued to be busy as usual!

In the morning, after he met with several people and listened to the work report, he originally wanted to have lunch with Li Wan at noon, but Li Wan estimated that he was really angry and ignored him, so he could only have lunch by himself in a hurry, and then went out of the temporary residence to inspect the military camp not far away.

The object of this inspection is not the third town, but the first mixed association in Fengtian!

Since the expansion of the Fengtian No. 1 Mixed Association last year, Meng Enyuan, with the support of Zhao Dongyun, has successively organized and trained two cavalry battalions, and now although the Fengtian No. 1 Mixed Association still bears the name of the Mixed Association, it actually has three cavalry battalions, nine infantry battalions, and two artillery battalions.

To tell the truth, this kind of establishment is a bit nondescript, the infantry and artillery battalions are not enough to form a town, but it is more than a mixed association, and as for the cavalry units of three battalions with a total of more than 1,800 people, it is more obvious to a mixed association.

However, the reason why Zhao Dongyun got so many cavalry also has his own considerations, first of all, the flat terrain of Fengtian under his control, which is very conducive to cavalry activities, and the second is that if Zhao Dongyun wants to train cavalry, he can recruit herdsmen nearby and purchase Mongolian horses, etc., which makes it more convenient and fast for Zhao Dongyun to train cavalry.

As the saying goes, since you have this advantageous resource, if you don't use it, it will be a waste, plus Zhao Dongyun still feels that although contemporary machine guns have become popular, the strategic value of cavalry has not been reduced because of this, anyway, before large-scale equipment tanks, this cavalry is the only mobile class.

Not to mention the rest, with the word 'mobility', it is enough for Zhao Dongyun and any contemporary army general to continue to attach importance to cavalry!

Therefore, last year, he began to subconsciously expand the scale of the cavalry troops, successively let Meng Enyuan train two new cavalry battalions, and then let Xu Bangjie form a new cavalry battalion in the Fengtian Second Mixed Association, so that by the beginning of 1906, Zhao Dongyun's personal troops had reached seven cavalry battalions, with a total of nearly 4,500 cavalry.

If all of this is pulled out, it will barely be able to make up a cavalry division!

The development of cavalry is a condition for Fengtian to take advantage of its own advantages, and the other Zhao Dongyun has not been left behind, and Zhao Dongyun's army expansion work in the second half of last year is mainly concentrated on the two mixed associations in Fengtian.

In the process of army expansion, although the core is the infantry unit, but in fact, the expansion of the infantry is the most cost-effective and time-consuming, and the expansion began last year until now, the Fengtian No. 1 Mixed Association has three infantry standards, a total of nine infantry battalions, and the Fengtian No. 2 Mixed Association also has three infantry standards, but its sixth standard is still missing an infantry battalion, only eight infantry battalions.

Although the expansion of cavalry is more expensive than infantry, but the overall difficulty is actually not much, relying on the recruitment of Mongolian herdsmen and horsemen in Fengtian Province, plus the purchase of horses is also more aspect, so the first mixed association of Fengtian has been organized into three cavalry battalions, and the second mixed association of Fengtian has been organized into two cavalry battalions.

It's the artillery units that are really difficult!

To establish a consistently qualified artillery unit, a large number of technical artillery and officers are needed, not to mention that money alone is enough for Zhao Dongyun to catch blind.

In this year, an artillery battalion with 18 guns will be built, and if it is equipped with the latest German 75-mm 1903 tube retreat guns, the price of artillery and reserve shells alone will be hundreds of thousands, plus the cost of recruiting artillery, and it will not be possible to get it without four or five hundred thousand!