Daming: I asked you to hang yourself, but I didn’t ask you to rebuild the Ming Dynasty

These fields have always been owned by the emperor.

In the pre-Qin period, there was a provision like this: "All mountains, forests, rivers and swamps belong to the king."

Even in later generations, such fields still exist. The big ones are called "national agriculture, forestry and pasture", and the small ones are called "village group collective-owned fields", but there is no guaranteed output to each household!

(This point, if book friends have relatives or friends working in the village brigade, they will understand clearly after just asking!)

Will the land become barren?

As long as there is still surplus after paying taxes, the hard-working Chinese people will not let the land go unused!

Therefore, this kind of land that is exclusive to the state is leased to people who need it for farming.

There are special agencies that collect silver money at the rate of three cents of silver per acre of land.

Then it is handed over to the owner of the money, that is, the clan and nobles.

Because of the special nature of the land, this levy ratio was very heavy in the Ming Dynasty when thirty taxes were one!

Of course, it is much lower than the tax rate of more than half of the military land.

It stands to reason that this allocation has nothing to do with civil servants - because this type of land is of a special nature and belongs to the emperor's private property, and the rent is directly charged to the special revenue and expenditure.

The Ministry of Revenue has no right to collect taxes!

Okay, after explaining clearly the source of the land for feudal and support fields, you will find an obvious problem - it is inconsistent with the records of scholars!

Could it be that someone is hacking?

Why do they want to hack this system when there are clear rules and regulations?

As for why it has been hacked for hundreds of years - you will understand if you carefully consider whose interests this has harmed.

The simplest truth:

For example, in military farming, the official tax rate is over [-]%!

If someone officially changes the nature of the land and makes it owned by private households - then the tax will be thirty to one!

This is a real tax reduction!

I want to eat fart!

It’s just a policy loophole…

They would transfer the taxes to their own homes and then pay only the changed taxes to the court.

The mud legs underneath were still paid at [-]%, but when it came to the land embezzlers, it turned into paying [-]% tax to the country...

How much profit is this?

What if these lands were again put in the name of the gentry?

It gets even weirder - they don't have to pay a penny!

Because the imperial court has tax-free land for the gentry!

If a scholar has 80 acres, he will be exempted from his own service; if he is a scholar, if he adds 400 acres, he will be exempted from the service of two more people in the house; if a Jinshi adds 2 acres, he will be exempted from the service of himself and four people in the house.

After becoming an official, there are additional rewards depending on your rank.

Even if you are not an official, you can add 1200 acres if you are promoted, and if you are a Jinshi, you can be exempted from up to 3350 acres!

This is simply a huge loophole!

Can people not swallow up the land?

In order to maximize profits, the lowest level of operation is to embezzle military farmland and vassal support farmland!

Let’s give a few examples!

In the late Ming Dynasty, there was a family in Wuxi named Zou.

When he was in Jiajing, his family name was Zou Wang.

At that time, the Zou family had 30 acres of land, 001 servants, and 600 manors. The rent collection account numbers ranged from [-] to [-].

Is this the peak period?

No!

Later, the Zou family’s annual land rent income alone was as high as 30 taels of silver!

That’s it, not counting other revenue from shops and other businesses!

However, according to contemporary records, the Zou family was only a second-rate family, not even the top in Wuxi!

This is a wealthy family that does not hang out in officialdom!

What about the scholarly figures in the officialdom?

For example, Xu Jie's land property alone is as high as [-] acres!

The Xu family has 40 acres of farmland!

There are no less than ten thousand people in a mediocre household!

There is even a large textile workshop with thousands of weavers...

Even Dong Qichang, who was unhappy in his official career, had tens of thousands of hectares of land under his name!

Is this a top-tier wealthy family?

Not the same!

In the eyes of the upper class gentry, they are nothing!

At the top... who dares to record it?

Can't kill you!

(Princess x shouted expert...)

And what about the Ming Dynasty court’s land tax revenue?

It’s less than 400 million taels!

It is equivalent to the land rent income of 13 Zou families...

……

Logically speaking, the gentry should be grateful to the Ming Dynasty. After all, this is an ocean of wealth!

however……

It’s really that old saying:

Capitalist, if you give him 300% profit, he will sell the hemp rope that hangs him!

Gentlemen are not the most greedy, only more greedy!

They invaded land everywhere. Not only did they occupy the country's designated land, they also took advantage of private land...

Countless people's land has passed into the hands of the gentry!

As for what the history books say is that the people contributed...

Hehe~~!

On the one hand, the owner of the land is himself, and it can be passed down from generation to generation!

On the one hand, it’s other people’s names, and it all depends on other people’s conscience to keep the land that belongs to them...

Any idiot knows how to choose!

Donation——It’s just a rhetoric to whitewash yourself, it can’t be taken seriously!

This is a low-level trick.

Shilin characters’ more awesome tricks are here!

By relying on your own name, you can enjoy tax exemption while you are alive. Once you die and no one in your family is an official, it will be over...

What to do?

Give gifts to your parents and make friends with them so that they can cover up your affairs.

Anyway, if you cover it up for me today, someone will cover it up for you tomorrow. If you expose my background today, someone will kill you "bastard" for breaking the unwritten rules tomorrow!

Therefore, the gentry has been covering up each other and covering up the "ugly cancer" of gentry land annexation.

……

Strictly speaking, the tax-free land for the gentry was the product of the death of people and the decline of government.

For example, if Zhang San passes the examination as a scholar, he can get a tax-free quota of 80 acres of land.

But after Zhang San died, this qualification was gone!

In other words, as a scholar, the tax exemption period is not long.

According to the legal provisions of the Ming Dynasty, those who passed the examination for the rank of sergeant could only play a short-term tax exemption role.

Although few families would hand over their tax-free land after the death of a scholar who obtained tax-free status, they would still occupy it for a period of time, waiting for future generations to rise.

However, this will become very dangerous - if future generations do not use it in their studies, once a thunder explodes, they will die and the whole family will be wiped out.

Therefore, they chose another path - to support students from poor families or members of the clan, and when they passed the examination to become scholars, they would betroth their own "women" in marriage.

Cast a wide net to qualify for continued tax exemption!

(wy cried and fainted in the live broadcast room, and exited cursing...)

Of course, these two methods are the means of operation for ordinary people.

For those Shilin bosses, this thing was too childish, so they explored another way——

Put part of the occupied land in your own name, and put the bulk of it in the name of the feudal king!

The feudal king exists for a long time!

As long as the land is in the name of the feudal lord, you will no longer have to pay taxes!

Damn it, your children and grandchildren don’t have to pay taxes!

Anyway, the subordinate officials who collected the grain were under their control, so they still collected the high taxes from Mudleg and brought them to their own homes - who knows!

This is a once and for all operation!