This article talks about why before the Anshi Rebellion, the salt administration reform under the background of the Chinese and Tang tax laws (including Liu Yan's version of the Salt Law: the official collection of civil property and the sale of merchants) could never be implemented.

This one is very important and strongly related to the plot, so if you just want to read cool articles, you can skip this one.

The plot of Sogdian brocade, I checked the information for a day or two; As for the salt tax, I started with the governor of the previous city, and it was intermittent, and I checked the information for several months.

From the first floor to the second floor, and from the second floor back to the first floor. From the world's salt-free tax, to the "scientific tax", to the world's salt-free tax.

Repeatedly and gradually deepening the various understandings of the salt tax, I should now be the starting point of the author, the first person to study the salt tax, once in a dream how to collect salt tax in the feudal era.

The charm of history lies in its immutability and thought-provoking, in the fact that it will return to its original essence after throwing away the complicated and charming eyes.

Lift the veil of beauty, and the bloody essence will be revealed to you, and this is history.

According to Shuangwen's routine, when Xiao Fang grew up, he "should" just encounter the financial crisis of Datang Tianbao. Xiaofang took advantage of the situation and proposed a "scientific salt tax", which partially solved the financial problems of the Tang Dynasty, and by the way, "strongly" absorbed power, which should be a "reasonable" routine.

But I'm sorry to tell you that if the follow-up plot is written like this, this book will be scrapped.

It's not a spoiler, but I just want to tell you that I, the author of the starting point of in-depth research on salt tax, will not let Xiaofang engage in any "salt tax for the benefit of the country and the people" before the chaos comes.

Why do you say that, because the essence of taxation is that the state takes money out of the pockets of the people and uses it where the people in power want to use it, or need it.

It may be used for different purposes, but the essence of taking money out of people's pockets is no different.

The first fallacy: the early Tang Dynasty was in a laissez-faire state for salt. Only the "big smart" average traveler knows that there is a tax on salt.

In fact, no, the salt tax in the early Tang Dynasty not only did not let it go, but it was even stricter than after the Anshi Rebellion. And because there is no tax, and the cost of salt extraction is relatively low, a virtuous circle is formed.

Because there is no tax, the price of salt is low;

And because of the low price of salt, the government is not profitable in it, so that salt has become a necessity far from the commodity attributes, and the grassroots officials of the salt administration are generally relatively clean.

When errands are unprofitable, promotion becomes the only benefit, which is actually a very understandable thing.

It is also because the cost of salt prices in social life is almost negligible, so it alleviates social contradictions to a certain extent.

The state didn't know that it was going to collect a salt tax, and such a thing had never happened since Li Yuan's reign. It's not that I don't want to accept it, but because of various reasons, I choose not to accept it.

The social stability in the early Tang Dynasty was largely due to the policy of no salt tax. The traverser proposed to "collect taxes scientifically" during the Kaiyuan or Tianbao years, but it does not prove that it is "outstanding".

The second fallacy: Before the Anshi Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty did not collect salt taxes at all.

Actually, no, since the Wu Zhou period, it has been operating at a "low level". The salt tax is not only collected, but also collected very scientifically and reasonably, and the range and method of tax collection are also different for different salt mines or salt ponds of different natures.

There are three main types:

1. Tax in kind: Salt households who rent salt ponds and salt wells for mining must pay 1 stone to the government if they mine 3 stone of salt. And this 1 stone salt is to enter the regular liquidation position to supply military needs or to suppress the market price of salt.

2. Forced labor tax: the labor in the salt pond salt wells mined by the government uses labor to compensate for the rent.

3. Monetary tax: private salt wells or salt ponds are generally backed by big families.

There is well-documented information that this tax method has been implemented in the tenth year of Kaiyuan, but the tax rate is very low. The real situation, the time for tax collection, will definitely be advanced.

The third fallacy: The Tang Dynasty is all stupid pigs, and they don't know how to use the salt method.

In fact, Datang's policymakers are not only not stupid, but also know the concepts of "trial operation" and "special economic zone". There has been a policy experiment with the salt law for a long time.

And then they came to a conclusion that almost broke themselves:

Guanzhong and Hebei, the economic centers, and the Yanchi Yanjing Salt Farm, the source of salt, most of them are government-run! The salt law is almost impossible to implement!

Specifically, these major production areas are Hedong Salt Pond, Hebei Changlu (Cangzhou) Salt Farm, and Liangzhou Salt Pond.

The official salt pond collects taxes for itself, so where does the money come from?

If taxes are raised, this money will still indirectly push up the cost of government procurement, and the economic game of left-handed to right-handed has no meaning in the feudal era except for increasing administrative costs.

After the Anshi Rebellion and before the Anshi Rebellion, what is the essential difference between the Tang economy?

That's right, Datang lost Hebei! The Changlu Salt Farm, which was enough to feed millions of people, was lost, and at the same time, Liangzhou was conquered by the Tibetans, and Hedong was also in the midst of war.

In other words, the economic premise of Liu Yan's implementation of the "scientific salt law" was that Datang lost the three main salt producing areas in the north, and the large state-owned salt farms no longer existed, so it had to vigorously develop private salt farms from the Jianghuai side.

Obviously, before the Anshi Rebellion, this premise did not exist.

The fourth fallacy: Before the Anshi Rebellion, the "scientific salt method" of the Tang Dynasty could be used to achieve financial compensation without harming (or less) people's livelihood.

This is just wishful thinking.

To understand the essence of the salt tax, it is necessary to analyze both salt and tax thoroughly. Salt is the carrier of the tax, and there must be a "salt tax" on salt, but the "salt tax" does not necessarily require salt.

Look at this problem, and the rest will be easy to understand.

The reason why the Tang Dynasty was able to implement the Salt Law was actually because the original household registration system was completely disintegrated after the war in the Tang Dynasty. In other words, only 10 million people actually pay rent in the account books of Datang, but the tax collection is still collected by 60 million people!

In addition to those who died in the war, less than 20 million people simply disappeared from the books of accounts and became recluses.

To put it more clearly, the imperial court used the iron law of "people will die if they don't eat salt" when there was no way to rebuild their household registration, and used the salt tax to make up for the loss of rent, so that those hidden households used the salt tax to pay the household tax and land tax.

The fundamental reason why the salt tax in the Middle and Tang Dynasty became more and more outrageous year by year is that the imperial court rebuilt the household registration system and rebuilt a new tax system with the two tax laws as the main body, but it still collected salt tax to death!

It is worth mentioning that 150 years after Hebei was separated from the Tang Dynasty, the salt method was implemented for a total of 4 months. Then the tooth soldiers in Hebei agreed that it was better to live alone if they were very unhappy, so Hebei broke away from the economic control of the Tang Dynasty and resisted the salt law.

After the Anshi Rebellion, the people of Hebei lived a little better than the people in other places, what is the reason, probably needless to say too clearly, everyone who understands understands.

Back to the topic, what would have happened if the Zhongtang Salt Law had been implemented before the Anshi Rebellion?

The big dogs bathing in the salt pool must not matter, but what about the people at the bottom? Countless people will be crushed by this "inconspicuous" salt tax.

Since the cost of extracting salt is only one-tenth of the tax increase, illegal salt is bound to be overflowing. Then the imperial court had to raise a new army (yes, think of the salt merchant Huang Chao) to crack down on smuggling, which would have greatly increased administrative costs.

The common people, who were bankrupt under the pressure of the salt tax, would take risks to sell illicit salt or join the ranks of salt merchants, and the sales of taxed salt plummeted; In order to collect taxes, the imperial court had to raise the tax rate, forcing more people to eat illicit salt, and this vicious circle was formed.

There is nothing new under the sun, and during the Song Dynasty, private salt could not be banned, accounting for more than two-thirds of the salt used by the people. The objective law cannot be reversed by one or two traversers.

The ducks are dead and their beaks are hard, but they still can't fly into the sky.

In modern times, the Changlu Salt Farm, the government of the Republic of China handed it over to the British, and the British put forward a formula, which highly overlapped with Liu Yan's thoughts.

Set the government salt tax to X and the retail price of salt in the market to Y. Then Y=F(X), the so-called salt tax, is just a function of finding F.

The devil of salt tax is all in the details, even if it is just to put sacks of bulk salt for transportation, it can greatly reduce the loss of salt and increase taxes without harming the price of salt. This example is a proven method in the history of salt taxes.

The danger of a high salt tax is no less than that of a rich person with diabetes, which is a big topic, and since this is not the content of this article, I will not say more about it here.

Updates arrive late.

PS: If the eldest brother travels back to ancient times and becomes a magnate, remember to be kind to the people.