In the morning, Ye Xing had breakfast at the inn, and then went out of the city from the west gate, outside the city gate was a large number of houses inhabited by civilians, most of which were very simple wooden houses.

Outside the west gate is the alluvial plain of the Beijiang River, which is very vast, and the waterways are vertical and horizontal, in fact, Donghai City is located in this place where the water network is dense, but the location of the city is relatively high.

Further west on the map, more than 100 miles away is the Xijiang River, the largest river in Donghai County and one of the largest rivers in the Song Kingdom.

It originates from the mountains in the southwest of the Song Kingdom, flows through ten counties, and flows into the sea in the southeast like turning tens of thousands of miles.

People from other counties in the Song Kingdom basically came to Donghai City by this waterway, although the waterway was far away, it was actually the most convenient.

The total population of Donghai County should not be much, Ye Xing estimated that it was millions, more than two-thirds of it was concentrated in this plain, and the rest of the country was basically mountains, and the population was extremely scattered and sparse.

Ye Xing walked for a day, and there was nothing new to be found outside the city, even farmers and fishermen, and the houses were built extremely simply.

Because it is a city of commerce and trade, the peasants outside the city generally do not grow grain, but only grow vegetables, fruits and herbs, as well as some cotton and linen, and the grain is all transported from Xijiang from other towns.

Some poultry and livestock were also raised to feed the people in the city.

If there is anything to say, this is really a place of natural treasures, and it is much easier to basically grow anything than Yunhai Village, as if anything can be grown.

Ye Xing also noticed that there were many manors outside the city, a large area, not far from the West Gate alone, there were thousands of large and small manors, all of which were bought by wealthy people in the city and hired some civilians to work.

The manor is separated from each other by rows of trees, without obvious walls, and may not be needed, and there are also small pieces of land, which are owned by the peasants, and are all fragmented and small pieces.

Ye Xing returned to the city, street by street to wander and understand, talk with all kinds of people, and merchants from all over the world.

He wants to complete every corner of this East China Sea City as soon as possible, no matter what, he doesn't have the ability to break into the world, so let's see more and walk more.

Anyway, he can reach the central region of the core of the Song Kingdom by boat, and he doesn't want to walk around like a vagabond, but he is not a commoner trapped in one place.

Of course, he is not willing to be ordinary, but he also does not want to become a man of the hour, and he cannot be so bad that he becomes a homeless person who has nothing to rely on.

Of course, Ye Xing will never be worse than this, as long as he works hard, no matter how bad he is, he will not become a beggar.

After 10 days of in-depth understanding, Ye Xing basically understood the basic situation of the Song Kingdom, and it was really not as simple as it seemed.

The composition of the Song State was a four-level management system, that is, the centralized center, and then more than 30 counties, with towns below the counties and then villages below.

The central government is in charge of major affairs such as military and foreign affairs, and there is a real concentration of power.

But the real core of governance is in the county, the county has a great autonomy, the county is essentially a small independent kingdom, except for military diplomacy, everything else.

The town has a permanent administration, a mayor, and a resident official who is responsible for taxation and local administration and justice, and some important towns have garrisons.

The villages under the town do not have a management organization, and the clans, tribes, and the like in the villages, at the village level, in fact, the township rules and village covenants are the real system, but they just maintain local order.

In fact, at the end of the village, the village rules and customs are decisive, and all official laws cannot be fully enforced.

The central government is responsible for all military, diplomatic, and decree-making, and all local affairs are in charge of the county lord's office, and the county lord has money and people, and has a city guard, and the county lord himself is the lord of the state or the major powers.

The county also has a supervisory body, a powerful department of internal affairs, which comprehensively supervises the situation in various places and reports directly to the lord of the country.

This system seems superficial, but it is effective, and together with the generations of education loyal to the Song family, the Song state has been stable for more than 3,000 years.

Maybe the people need such stability, and they are happy to be happy with this stability, it is this stability that makes the Song State a small country with a large population, but it is also a prosperous and rich country, at least not everywhere there are displaced people.

Coupled with the extremely strict laws, no one dared to rebel openly within the Song Kingdom, although there were differences between the nine major forces, there was no major turmoil, because there was no support from the people at all.

The tax system of the Song State was very simple, all tithes were implemented, and taxes were paid according to one-tenth of what was produced, and all were converted into silver taels and paid taxes.

How did the peasants, hunters, and fishermen determine the amount of production, according to the household, by the tax administrator of the town, the treasurer.

It is assessed once every three years, and the tax is paid by the same assessed amount within three years, whether you have a good harvest or a poor harvest, and you go to the town's treasury to pay your own tax once a year.

In the past, Ye Xing's father was a teacher and did not cultivate farmland, so he did not have to pay taxes after assessment, and later, after Ye Xing's mother was normal, she only planted some vegetables for self-consumption, and she did not pay taxes.

Until a few years ago, Ye Xing went to the mountains to hunt and collect medicine, and only when he went to the town to sell mountain goods, he paid the land apportionment, and his main business was the teacher in the village, which was exempt from paying taxes.

As for the merchants, they are also taxed on one-tenth of the annual sales, and the merchants are registered by the state, and are likewise assessed by the treasurer once every three years, and the tax is paid annually.

Each town has a treasurer, who is sent by the county guard, and is not influenced by the local mayor and the locality, and is not allowed to serve in his hometown.

What's more, they are rotated, and they must change places in three years, and Fenglu is paid directly by the city guard.

The treasurer did not dare to mess with the assessment of the taxes paid by each household, because it was impossible for the whole town to be completely fair if it was made public and recorded.

In normal times, the treasurers collect the land apportionment fee for the polder, which is the source of their daily expenses.

The treasurer handed over the collected taxes to the county guard, and the county guard then gave salaries to officials at all levels, because the salary was much higher than that of the commoners, so being an official was the most enthusiastic among the Song people.

However, due to the autonomous state of the counties of the Song State, the lord of the country could not appoint a town mayor except for the army.

The state lord also has a dispatch agency, and the state treasury is responsible for tax collection, and the state treasurer assesses the tax revenue of each county, and half of it is handed over to the state treasury.

The land is privately owned, but there is an annual tax, and two percent of the land price is a tax, which means that the land price doubles in fifty years.

If the output of land is not traded, no tax will be paid, and 10 percent of the transaction amount will be paid as transaction tax, and land that has not been taxed for three consecutive years will be returned to the state.

Many of the ownerless lands belonged to the lord of the state, and anyone who had land bought it from the treasury of the counties in one lump sum.

For the transfer of land use rights between private individuals, the transaction tax is paid to the town treasurer, which is 10% of the transaction amount, and then the name is registered in the town and the property right certificate is issued.

This simple system made the management of the Song Kingdom simple, but it was actually quite rich, because as long as there were people, the tax revenue would never be exhausted.

Although the lord of the country is from the Song family, the Song family stipulates that people are selected by meritocracy, and the Song family clan behind the Song State is a powerful sect, and the lord of the country is just a virtuous sect selected from the clan, so the lord of the country may not be able to be autocratic and dictatorial.

Moreover, it is necessary to coordinate with the major forces in the country, and the major forces actually do not want the Song Kingdom to be chaotic, after all, it affects the interests of the sect, so there is the long-term stability of the Song Kingdom.

As for the same other sects, they did not rebel, because there was an unknown force behind the Song Dynasty that could give them a devastating blow anytime and anywhere.

It is said that the Song family is the secular representative of this force.

In fact, each sect is where the strength is, in fact, each city lord is selected by the sect, and then ordered by the director of the state.

In other words, in essence, the Song State was governed by major forces, and although the interests were not evenly divided, they were also shared.

The people of the Song Dynasty were proud of business, so commerce was developed and wealthy, and the people practiced martial arts were also prosperous, but more people were proud of literature and business.

The Song state was weak in the face of the neighboring powerful empires, and it was rich and powerful compared to the neighboring small states, but no one took the dispute lightly.

Although each great power has its own hidden forces behind it, for those powerful forces, everything in the world is nothing more than a game.

According to Ye Xing's understanding, the Song State should be a centralized state, four-level management, simple but effective management, but in fact, it is also a mixture of forces.

In fact, the Song State is just a maintenance agency for interest groups, and the country has always been like this!

All this is basically the same as the history of Huaxia that Ye Xing knew, but the details are very different.