It's almost the New Year, and the school has already had a winter vacation, and Jiang Xun is not in a hurry to leave the school.

As a teacher in this village primary school with only eight teachers in total, Jiang Xun had his turn to stay on duty during the winter vacation, and he had to be on duty until the twenty-sixth year of the lunar month.

There are eight teachers in the primary school in this village, and even the principal and the rest of the teachers are all private teachers. Although they are private teachers, they also eat public food, and in the eyes of the people in several nearby villages, the children's teachers are still public families, which is amazing. The income of a private teacher is far less than that of a public teacher, but it is already very satisfactory to Jiang Xun.

Jiang Xun is just an old boy who doesn't even have a reputation for showing off his talents, and he has been unable to take the government exam, except for studying and doing eight shares in the past, he can't do anything else, and he is in his thirties, and he has to rely on his wife and wife to weave and sew to make money to support his family. has always been ridiculed as an old master, and his life is really wretched, and he is very depressed.

But now, Jiang Xun has a monthly salary of five silver dollars a month, and there is a canteen in the school, which includes food and accommodation. In addition, the school also distributes two sets of clothes per semester, which is also worth a lot. Not to mention, basically, there will be bonuses and other subsidies such as full attendance every month, which add up to about two yuan per month.

You can get seven silver dollars a month, and you basically don't have any expenses. Although the school is in an old courtyard, the place is not small, each teacher is assigned two rooms, Jiang Xun also brought his family here, his son studied with him, and his wife was responsible for cooking and cleaning in the school, and she could get three silver dollars a month. My mother planted some vegetables behind the house, raised some chickens and ducks, spun and weaved cloth, and could earn some subsidies for the family.

Of course, the best thing about being a teacher is that you have winter and summer vacations, and the holidays are also paid. There are more than 100 children in the village primary school, and the classes of the eight teachers are not small, but fortunately, there are two days off every week. After class every day, Jiang Xun likes to read the newspaper ordered by the school under the lamp. Sometimes when inspiration comes, he will write his own manuscripts with a pen, and he often sends articles to various newspapers and periodicals.

Although the wife often said that her husband's contribution fee was more than the manuscript fee earned, Jiang Xun's mother was very supportive of her son's contribution, even if she wrote a dozen articles and could only record them once in a while, or some tabloids, Jiang Xun's mother was also very happy, and felt that what her son wrote could be printed in the newspaper and seen by countless people, which was quite remarkable. As for writing to earn money and stamp money. It doesn't matter, even if you lose money, it's worth writing, not to mention that although my son doesn't hire many manuscripts, there are always two or three articles that can be hired every month, and you can still earn one or two dollars in addition to the stamp money.

One or two yuan, in the past, their family couldn't earn so much in a month.

For such a life, Jiang Xun is indeed very satisfied. His biggest hope now is to be admitted to Xiucai one day, or to be admitted to the same Xiucai. In that way, he will be able to go to a normal school for further study, and when he comes back, he will be a public teacher, and he will be able to get a basic salary of at least eight silver dollars a month, and he can even be transferred to the township or even the county to teach.

Today is the twenty-fourth day of the lunar month. Off.

Northerners are accustomed to celebrating the New Year on the 23rd day of the lunar month, but in the south, they mostly send the king of the stove to heaven on the 24th day of the lunar month, and then clean up the New Year.

The year has not yet passed. However, the school has already paid the salary of the month in advance during the winter vacation, and as usual, it is a double salary in December, and there is even a year-end bonus. Several items add up. Jiang Xun's December salary and bonus in advance added up to thirty yuan. even gave out a lot of benefits, a piece of cloth, five catties of cotton, ten catties of meat, twenty catties of fish, and a bag of oranges.

In addition, the parents of the students also sent many New Year gifts. Students don't need money to study at school, and there is even a free lunch at noon, and the teachers are not restricted. However, parents are still very grateful to the teachers who teach their children to read, and when it comes to the New Year, they always have to give some gifts. Maybe it's not worth much, just a few eggs or a fresh evacuation at home, or a fish from your own home.

If there are parents who give heavy gifts, the teachers will resolutely refuse to accept them, which is also something mentioned many times above. However, there are many children to teach, a few eggs in your family, two fish in his family, add together, and there are still a lot of them in the end, eight teachers took out some of them, went to the township and county, and gave the leaders a New Year's gift, all of which are some local products, and the number is not much, and the above did not refuse.

For the rest, eight teachers get a point, and even Jiang Xun's wife gets a little because she cooks at school.

"This year, our family has paid more money to buy salt than to pay taxes!"

Jiang Xun has the habit of keeping a diary and keeping accounts, and will write down his income and expenses one by one. At the end of the year, Jiang Xun also made a financial summary for this year.

As a result, I unexpectedly found that the family's expenses this year were very small, and the largest expenditure was actually the money to buy salt.

Jiang Xun has a family of six, Jiang Xun and his wife are both working in the school, so they are covered by the school, but the old mother and three children are shooting by themselves. Jiang Xun's family still has a few acres of land, which is not owned by his family, but his family has a field, that is, he has the right to rent those few acres of land. However, his family did not cultivate the land himself, so the land was transferred to others, and the tenant rent was collected in the middle of each year, and after paying the rent to the landlord's family who owned the land, there was still a part left, which was basically enough to meet the rations of his mother and three children.

As a tenant, he also had to bear part of the rent, but not much, and the landlord and another tenant also had to bear part of it. At present, the field endowment is relatively fixed, and after the apportionment into the mu, one mu of land endowment is less than one-fifteenth of the output. The part he has to bear is even less, and now there is no other messy fire consumption, additional distribution, etc., so the tax that Jiang Xun has to bear for chartering is very low and negligible.

But this year's money to buy salt is really a lot, the usual salt for the four people, as well as pickled pickles, salted meat and salted fish, etc., the family bought a total of 50 catties of salt a year, a catty of salt 30 wen, and the money to buy salt cost a five-dime silver dollar.

My husband and wife eat from the school, the food that my mother and children eat is the grain that they collect rent, and the vegetables are mainly grown by themselves, which basically costs nothing, but it costs one and a half yuan to buy salt.

It's a lot more than the little land tax he paid.

"The price of salt is really expensive, but now the salt is really good, snow-white refined salt, like powder, you can also buy private salt in the past, but how can it be so good, it is black, coarse and sandy, and the taste is bitter. Thirty wen a pound is worth this price, and besides, the price of everything has increased in the past two years, but the price of grain and salt has not increased. ”

Jiang Xun wrote down the figure of 1,500 yuan of salt in his account book and shook his head. He knew very well that salt itself was not worth much. The salt is taken directly from the sea, and it used to be said that it would be boiled for salary, but now I heard that the salt is dried directly from the salt pan, and then processed and refined, which is much more efficient.

But salt has been a state monopoly since ancient times, and salt is actually a poll tax in disguise, after all, everyone has to eat salt. In the Song Dynasty, the income of the two taxes of the imperial court was only equivalent to more than 20 million guan, and the commercial tax was only about 10 million, but the salt monopoly could get more than 40 million guan of income every year. That's more than twice as much as two taxes.

However, compared with today's imperial court, the Song Dynasty, which had the highest tax revenue among all dynasties in the past, especially the Southern Song Dynasty, was far from the Han Dynasty. Not to mention the annual income of the imperial court from the newspapers of 2 billion, just one salt, the annual salt tax of the imperial court reached 60 million silver dollars.

60 million silver dollars seems to be less than 40 million yuan, but in addition to the salt tax, there is also income tax in the process of production and marketing operations, and there are millions of dollars a year.

The tea and wine monopoly in the Song Dynasty was also very profitable. In the Southern Song Dynasty, it was about 10 million, but there was also tobacco in addition to the tea and wine of the imperial court, and the tax in this area was only high and not low.

As for the Tian Fu of the imperial court, it was much more than that of the Southern Song Dynasty. After all, the Southern Song Dynasty is compared with the Han Dynasty. Now the cultivated land area of the Han Dynasty is several times that of the Southern Song Dynasty. Moreover, there are no various hidden fields and privileged tax-exempt fields, plus there is a spread into the mu, and the income from the field is more than ten times that of the Song and Song taxes.

However, for Jiang Xun, the annual financial income of the imperial court is two billion. Even in addition to the proceeds of the war, all kinds of taxes are still amazing, but these have nothing to do with him.

Jiang Xun's family's income this year. He alone earned more than 100 yuan, and his wife also had dozens of yuan, all of which added up to an astonishing figure of nearly two hundred silver dollars.

But the taxes he paid, and that little bit of land taxes, did not add up to a single silver dollar, which accounted for less than two hundredths of their income. The personal income tax is levied from a monthly income of ten silver dollars, and his current basic salary is only five yuan, which is not enough to tax exemption.

Of course, after careful calculation, their family also has to pay taxes, for example, the salt he bought, the five silver dollars included the salt tax, the real salt price is ten wen per catty, but the salt tax is twenty wen, the salt tax is directly added to the salt price, but there is no additional levy, which is equivalent to their family buying salt and paying a silver dollar salt tax.

In addition, there are tea, sugar, cloth, etc. that they buy, basically every commodity purchased, in fact, the imperial court has already collected a tax from the merchants when the goods are circulating, and then the price of the goods increases, and the tax has been included in the price of the goods, and finally the tax is passed on to them who consume. It's just that everything is not obvious, and this tax is only available when you buy it, and it is not calculated separately.

Compared with the past method of collecting taxes on a per capita basis and on a household-by-household basis, this tax method is obviously more reasonable. If you consume more, you will unconsciously pay more taxes, and if you consume less, you will naturally pay less taxes. It's just like his family's land is less, and the tax is less. The landlords have a lot of land and a lot of land taxes.

And now there is no labor service, Yao labor, etc., and Ding Yinqian is gone, so there is no need to work hard, and there is no need to pay silver money to be exempted from service, which is the best point.

Jiang Xun's family spent the most last year on salt, then tea, and a lot of tobacco, alcohol, sugar, and oil. But after careful calculation, the family's expenses are still not large, not more than ten yuan.

Looking at the surplus of nearly two hundred yuan in the family account, Jiang Xun couldn't help laughing.

"Let's tear more cloth this year, make a new dress for each person in the family, buy some new boots, and make a pullover for my mother and wife."

"Didn't the school just give out a piece of cloth and five catties of cotton, which are enough to make a few new clothes, why do you need to buy more."

"Mother, you haven't made new clothes for several years, and this time you must do it, each of you will make two clothes. A few children also have to do it, but now it's not as good as in the past, since you have money, you have to dress decently. ”

Jiang Xun calculated, this year's family income is nearly 200 silver dollars, according to the current two yuan of rice and one load, the family's income this year can buy 100 tons of rice, this income, can almost catch up with the past county magistrate.

Although he is just a private teacher, he enjoys the income of the county magistrate in the past, so naturally he can't pick up the money, and he is also a teacher, his mother, wife and children, and he always has to have a few decent clothes.

"The winter in the south is wet and cold, let's buy some wool thread and come back and knit sweaters and pants. Principal Wang bought it last time, and the woolen sweater he knitted was so warm to wear. (To be continued.) )

PS: Thank you all for your support!