Late Tang Dynasty Floating Life

Chapter 1674 Fiscal and Taxation Reform
Guangchengze is in Ruzhou, and Ruzhou is the back garden in the south of Luoyang.

The seven counties of Ruzhou are still relatively wealthy as a whole, especially after the Xianghan Canal was opened intermittently, it has become an important place in the south of Beijing, a distribution point for materials, and business is very prosperous.

After the Xianghan Canal was opened to navigation in the first stage, it was found that a large amount of water was wasted every time the gate was opened, and the upstream water was not enough, so two methods were adopted.

On the one hand, they build more reservoirs to store water, and then pass it to the ship lock, and replenish it in time after the water is released.On the other hand, reducing the number of times of opening and closing the locks reduces water consumption.

As a result, the navigation time of the Xianghan Canal has been reduced and the efficiency has been reduced.But there is no way, this is a compromise in the real situation, it is good to be able to navigate, don't think too much about what you have and what you don't have.

Xianghan Caoqu brought great changes to Ruzhou.

A large number of goods from Xiangyang, Jingzhou and even Chengdu no longer bypass Bianzhou, but are directly transported to the north of Ruzhou by water.Liang County and Linru County have suddenly changed from unpopular agricultural counties to commercial centers.

Medicinal materials from Jingzhou, tea from Xiazhou, wax from Guizhou, bamboo from Kuizhou, lacquer from Lizhou, musk from Fangzhou, gold from Zhongzhou, and grains from Xiangyang, which are increasingly produced, all flooded into Luoyang at a huge cost. The reduction has greatly enriched the commodity market in Dongdu.

Just last year, the Ministry of Household Affairs sent staff to Ruzhou for inspection, planning to build a huge warehouse to store grain from Nanyang, Xiangyang, and Jingzhou.

In Luoyang City, there is Hanjiacang City, which stores millions of stones of grain, and in the northeast, there is also a huge Heyin warehouse. If the Ruzhou warehouse is completed, it will mark that there will be another source of grain to support the capital. From the perspective of anti-risk It is of great significance.

On the sixth day of March, Shao Shude left Guangchengze.

He has been relaxing in this hot spring for more than a month, feeling exhausted and radiant.

One of the things I do the most every day is to sit on a high place by the hot spring, and let the wife of Satuk, Adie, Vika, Gao, and Abaoji, all come with me. Wife Tsukirito and other women stripped off and took a dip in the hot springs.

As for him, he was—watching.

It’s good to be addicted to the eyes, you must know how to appreciate beauty.Besides, his vision is very poisonous and professional, and his body has already formed muscle memory on women. Watching their movements, he will automatically simulate how to play in his mind.

After recharging his energy, he will also end in person.

In the dense Guangcheng soup, there are not only white fishes, but also many tadpole seedlings.

The life of a saint is so simple and unpretentious.

When I arrived in Ruzhou, it was already two days later.

On the wide and straight first-class national road, the black crowd could not be seen at a glance.

When they saw Shengjia, the people cheered sparsely.

Shao Shude was a little ashamed, and after ordering the Ruzhou government to take out some food and meat for the common people, he hurried into the city.

These are Ruzhou people who immigrated abroad.And they are immigrants themselves, mostly from Guanzhong.

Because of the diversion of a large number of sergeant families—the daily bases of the Tielin Army and Feixiong Army are in Ruzhou—the population of Ruzhou is already very large, breaking through 30 a few years ago.Now there are about 356 million people. This is still the result of the migration of some people, otherwise it might already be 40.

Shao Shude also knew that the place under the emperor's feet was not easy to immigrate, and there were many things involved.But if he does not do this, future generations will be even less likely to do it.Therefore, in order to avoid the bad luck of more people and less land and a collective decline in living standards in the future, the immigrants still have to emigrate, even if the future is still overcrowded, but doing it in advance now can make this time go backwards.

After all, exponential population growth is very fast.When the base number is still small, it is believed that intervention can greatly delay the arrival of overcrowding.

Of course the common people will not be very happy, and even complain a lot, the situation on the side of the road just now is a clear proof - of course, you have driven people away, of course they are not happy, and it is already a prestige to have a few people stand up and cheer up.

The main destination of Ruzhou people is Jingzhou.

This place was severely damaged by the Cai thief, and there were only a dozen households left in Jingzhou City.Afterwards, there were continuous wars, and it was not until Zhao Kuangning became the envoy of Jingnan Jiedu that it calmed down a little.

Therefore, even now, the population is relatively sparse, which is suitable for immigration to fill.

Henan Prefecture and Ruzhou are so close to each other, so they are the source of immigrants, and the cost is lower.

"Speaking of money and food." Shao Shude, who lives in Ruzhou's prefectural office, called his secretary, Lang Chenti, and Xu Yin, and asked, "Is there any response from the Political Affairs Hall about the fiscal and taxation reform I mentioned?"

"Not yet." The two said with certainty.

"What did Zhao Guangfeng and Xiao Yun say?"

"Ms. Zhao said 'reform of the tax sharing system'. Since the beginning of the country, His Majesty has mentioned it no less than five times, but each time he gave up because of the high cost and frequent wars." Chen Ti said: "Now there are continuous battles with Persia, and the expenditure is huge. , Hexi and Longyou roads have been restored for another two years, and His Majesty still needs to repair the palace city, and the immigration has never stopped... Zhao Xiang suggested that the old rule of "paying what you pay" should still be implemented. Make calculations."

"Zhao Guangfeng is calling out to me." Shao Shude laughed after hearing this, and asked again: "What did Xiao Yun say?"

"Your Majesty." Xu Yin answered first: "Xiao Xiang thinks, we should wait until after the truce with Persia before carrying out reforms."

"The two prime ministers are really interesting. They are desperately trying to collect more taxes." Shao Shude said.

After the Anshi Rebellion, the fiscal and taxation reforms of the Tang Dynasty had two principles: one was to calculate taxes based on property, not head count;

The Xia Dynasty inherited this fiscal and taxation system because it was so easy to use.

Taxation according to property can collect more money from the rich and increase fiscal revenue.

Back then, Tang Dezong measured the houses of high-ranking officials and nobles in Chang'an, assessed the value and levied taxes. Even though it aroused resentment from the court, he insisted on implementing it, because he could really get more money in this way. , the object of taxation is officials and citizens living in the city.

Tang Dezong received it for less than a year, and Shi Zai won the military reward of the Imperial Army for several years. It may be an exaggeration, but only in Chang'an, he might have spent hundreds of thousands of money.

Then the Jingyuan mutiny broke out, and Zhu Xi, who proclaimed himself emperor, said that the interim tax would be abolished. Tang Dezong was also forced to compromise and abolished the interim tax.

Since then, inter-frame tax is no longer a permanent tax.

Historically, at the end of the Later Tang Dynasty, after Li Congke entered Luoyang, in order to reward the sergeants, he levied the "interval tax" several years in advance.

Later, in order to raise military expenses, Shi Chonggui collected an interim tax, but he changed the name to "House Tax".

After the Zhou Dynasty, it was not abolished until the Song Dynasty.

The shelf tax is just one type of property tax.

As far as the countryside is concerned, taxation based on the amount of land is the big one.

Such a reasonable tax collection method, I don’t know why it changed back in the Ming Dynasty, and it wasn’t until the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty that the tax was collected according to property instead of head.

The Xia Dynasty was the same as the Tang Dynasty, about half of the fiscal revenue came from taxation.

Taxation is just a general term. In fact, there is no tax called "taxation". It can be subdivided into salt money, tea money, iron money, etc.

The biggest case of tax discussion comes from the discussion of salt money.

At the end of the former Tang Dynasty, 400 million yuan could be collected each year, while in the Yizong Dynasty, it was close to 500 million.

When the Xia Dynasty was first established, there were only more than one million salt coins a year. With the continuous expansion of the territory and the crackdown on tax evasion, it has now slowly surpassed the end of the Tang Dynasty, reaching a huge amount of 700 million.

In addition to discussing salt money, the second most important thing is tea money.

This tax has a short history.

After the mid-Tang Dynasty, due to the great growth of the tea trade, this commodity gradually became attractive.

During the Tang Dezong period, tea money was collected for the first time.At that time, the amount was not large, and the tax rate was "10%" ([-]%). Most of the compensation was temporary expenses, such as supplementing the regular warehouse in a certain place, providing food for the people at a reasonable price, and so on.

After Tang Dezong ran away, just like the interim tax, the collection of tea money was stopped, because it was a symbol of "tyranny"-tea merchants were closely related to local wealthy families, officials and ministers, and naturally there was greater resistance.

But the grim situation is there.

Warriors want military rewards, and counter-insurgency requires military expenses. What if they don’t charge money?Are we waiting to die together?
In such a situation, officials and scholar-bureaucrats had to compromise and agreed to cut meat and collect taxes.

During the Dezong Dynasty, more than [-] yuan of tea money was minted every year.

In the Xuanzong Dynasty, it increased to more than 60.

By the end of Tang Dynasty, it was about 90 to [-].

The tea money collected by the Xia Dynasty every year reached more than one million yuan, which was the second largest source of tax.

In addition to these two items, there are also lacquer money, horse money, etc., a lot...

However, as mentioned in the previous article, after the mid-Tang Dynasty, it was the fucking taxation method of "paying what you spend".

Living within one's means means that the tax rate may not be fixed, and the objects of taxation may not necessarily be those few.In times of shortage of money, things that were not taxed before may be taxed.When the finances are a little better, the levy will be suspended.

For example, the price of wine is charged in some years, and most of the time it is tax-free.

It is quite amazing to say that the only way to collect taxes is to keep collecting taxes.However, some taxes in the Tang Dynasty were really only collected in an emergency. After the collection this year, the next collection may be ten or even decades later.

If you live within your means, you will live within your means, and you are fucking disciplined with your finances, and your expenses are well controlled.

"Forget it, I'll go back to Beijing tomorrow, and I'll talk to them in detail." After thinking for a while, Shao Shude said, "We won't be able to fight the Persians for a few years, and now that the surroundings are peaceful, it's time to clarify the finances. I don't like it very much, so I need to change it."

Shao Shude couldn't remember how many times he wanted to reform the fiscal and taxation system, but there was always a place for money, which forced him not to dare to change.Now, he finally figured it out, there is no such thing as a good time, there will always be times when money is needed, and there will never be enough money.

Wait any longer - not a few years to wait.

On March [-]th, when he returned to central Beijing, he summoned officials from the Zhengshitang, Lifanyuan, and the Privy Council of the two Yamen to discuss and ask them to formulate a new financial framework.

It includes not only tax types and tax rates, but also the proportion of each road.

Let's just say it's the first serious fiscal and taxation reform in Daxia.

(End of this chapter)