Wen Desi originally planned to show a movie about the military parade to the township representatives in the evening, but the appearance of the representatives was already shocking enough. If it continued to shock them, it would inevitably lead to aesthetic fatigue, so he simply stopped showing it and saved a meal. Dinner reception. The meeting was declared to be successfully concluded.
As the delegates gradually left with feelings of excitement and fear, the executive committee was also taking stock of the results of the meeting.
Through this political consultation and business association meeting, the Cross Group initially took control of the entire county and had a legal identity that was barely recognized by the local government. Of course, their status is still very fragile. Whether it is the county government or various villages, they will cooperate with them either because of the threat of force or because of practical interests. Once a strong external force intervenes, this simple cooperative relationship will immediately fall apart. The most important thing now is to win over public opinion and make the people have a favorable impression of the Crossing Group as much as possible.
They have almost achieved the first step in making the people in the isolated small southern county have a favorable impression of the time travellers. The time travelers do not disturb the people, are not good at killing, buy and sell to the public, and have also passed a series of construction projects after D-Day. The activity has indirectly helped people living in poverty, and as long as you are an individual, this is obvious to all. The common people's demands are not high. As long as the Crossing Group can ensure social stability in Lingao and allow them to have a few good meals, the common people don't care under whose banner they live.
But to truly make the people recognize their rule and be willing to shed blood and sacrifice for these rulers, the most effective way is to establish a chain of common interests as soon as possible.
Land reform, a major and murderous weapon that had been tried and tested many times in the Chinese revolution, had no effect in Lingao. In the Ming Dynasty, there was a lot of land in Lingao, and land reform was not very attractive. The reason why the people were unwilling to open up wasteland was directly related to the backward agricultural productivity here. The main task of the time traveler was to improve agricultural productivity, not to change production relations. This is not only related to their own rule, but also helps to establish common interests with ordinary people.
Local businessmen are the direct beneficiaries of travelers. The prosperity of Dongmen City is the most typical manifestation of businessmen "voting with their feet". Not only that, their business policies also attracted businessmen from other counties. Businessmen are obviously the ones who can best appreciate the benefits brought to them by the arrival of time-travelers, so compared to other classes, this class has the most common interests with them. However, the weakness of Chinese businessmen developed in the traditional society of officials and gentry made businessmen unable to be a reliable force for a while.
Although the landowning gentry class still maintains great doubts, judging from the situation of this meeting, there is generally no hostility - especially after the Crossing Group agreed to liquidate the value of the occupied owned land, the gentry Their evaluation of the Cross-Travel Group has increased a lot, and their cooperative attitude has also come out. However, the gentry class is still a potential enemy of the Crossing Group at this stage.
However, under this rudimentary and unstable governance system, the Crossing Group can at least mobilize various resources in Lingao County to a limited extent - especially human resources. Travelers can travel to every corner of the county relatively safely. In the past, every time a remote exploration team went out, a large amount of armed forces had to be mobilized to escort them, which caused heavy logistical pressure. Now, at least in areas where banditry is not particularly serious, there is no need for such a grand spectacle.
A few days later, each village participating in the meeting sent liaison officers to confirm the figures of various "reasonable burdens". The confirmed number of sentins is eleven hundred per year. This large population makes various departments salivate. After some debate, the 6 navy was allocated a total of 240 people, including 80 navy people. The rest will be mobilized and used by Wu De as basic labor.
The public grain under the "reasonable burden" is three thousand "gongshi". Compared with the grain tax level of more than seven thousand ".old stone", this burden is not small.
"Is the burden too heavy?" When Wen Desi saw this number, he felt that it was too big.
"It's indeed bigger." Luo Duo said. He has been transferred to the Social Work Department of the General Political Security Administration as he wished. This department is responsible for collecting and analyzing local social sentiments collected from various channels and writing the "Social Situation Bulletin".
"Although Lingao's grain tax is more than 7,000 dan, the real burden on the local people is about 15,000 dan or more." He reported the figures he had studied for several days.
"So many?!" Everyone in the executive committee was surprised.
Luo Duo nodded: "Maybe there are more. The taxes of the Ming and Qing dynasties were very generous. This is an open secret. Everyone knows about kicking the tip of the tree and burning the fire, but in fact there are countless disadvantages in it. . Therefore, even if we lower the level of food distribution, it will still be a heavy burden for the villages."
Nanhai said: "Actually, it doesn't matter if you don't need this grain distribution. This month, the farm will start to plant hybrid rice on a large scale. We will plant 1,000 acres first. Although the fertilizer and pesticide conditions are poor, the local area can produce three crops a year, even if it is only two crops. , it is easy to harvest 500 to 600 tons of rice a year. Distributing grain puts too much pressure on farmers. Since we want to win over the people, we cannot oppress them too much."
Wu De said: "We have discussed with the Governor to turn disadvantages into advantages and use this as an opportunity to implement social reforms."
"Social reform?" Wen Desi suddenly became alert. Ma Qianzhu wouldn't want to carry out land reform in disguise.
Ma Qianzhu calmly expressed his thoughts: "According to the analysis put forward by the Ministry of Social Work, the next step for the Civil Affairs Committee is to fight for the county's summer and autumn taxes. This matter can be sent to negotiate immediately."
"Contracting grain and tax?" Wen Desi was puzzled. The local gentry and large households contracted grain and tax in order to collude with subordinates internally and externally to pass on the burden and save their own money. What does the time traveler want to do to take over the food tax?
"That's right," Wu De said, "after we contracted the grain tax, we completely eliminated the floating revenue. We only paid the rated amount to the county treasury. In this way, even if we add our tax collection, the total cost to the farmers will be The burden is less than it used to be.”
"Will people from the county government agree? This is a huge chain of interests!" Wen Desi asked doubtfully. It affects the whole body. Once a malady forms a chain of interests, it is difficult to get rid of it. This is the same in any time and space.
"Of course I won't agree." Ma Qianzhu said, "But if we want to transform society, we must first break the old pattern." He seemed confident, "To mobilize the masses, we need a 'bad guy' class. Since we are facing The current situation of Gao is not suitable for land reform, and the target of landlords and rich peasants is not very suitable."
"And don't forget that many of the landowners here are the brains of the clan, and the clan power in Lingao is quite powerful." Yu Eshui reminded.
Because Hainan is located in the southern border, it is vast and sparsely populated, and there has been long-term Li chaos. For their own safety and production needs, the villages here have an obvious color of clan settlement. The time traveler is not yet capable of completely smashing all of this.
"Yes, so our target is the vested interest groups in taxation."
This group is very complex, ranging from local officials such as county magistrates and county magistrates, to ruffians without any status who assist government officials - the so-called "grain poor".
Ma Qianzhu seemed confident: "Officials such as Wu Mingjin and Wu Ya could have obtained some benefits from the grain tax. We compensated them with private salt and commercial interests, and continued to win them over, but they had nothing to say. The real interests Those who are damaged are nothing more than the county clerks, petty officials and their minions. These people are basically a scourge - they do evil in the county and deceive the superiors and subordinates. The superiors and subordinates both hate and fear them. Pass By liquidating this group of people, we can not only obtain another batch of material and money, but also from the public opinion point of view: these people have no popularity, and everyone from the gentry to the common people will be happy, killing two birds with one stone."
By cleaning up the old and unreasonable institutional system, and then promoting the more reasonable and simple tax collection system designed by the time-travelers, the gentry and the common people will be impressed by the time-travel group's ability to govern the country, which will be beneficial to attracting bureaucrats and intellectuals in the future. join in.
"After we clear them out, we can send our people to the county government offices."
"That's great!" Someone praised with their hands raised, "This means that the Lingao County Government is ours!"
"This plan is good." Wen Desi agreed.
"There is another reason why we have to deal with subordinates." Ran Yao from the General Administration of Political Security added, "According to the investigation of the Ministry of Social Affairs, the leaders of the third class in the county are basically the bandit leaders of the county. They and the county All kinds of bandits and thieves, big and small, are talking loudly and engaging in land-rich business. If we don't get rid of them, we will have a lot of troubles in our future work of suppressing bandits and improving public security."
"These people won't let go easily, right? How can we collect taxes without a Yulin book?"
"Stupid, if you don't hand it over, you'll be hung up and electrocuted!" Dugu proposed, obviously without any awareness of human rights, "I'll see who has the ability to withstand it."
"Even if I give you the Yulin Book, do you guarantee that you can understand it?"
"The Yulin Book is not a great thing. The research works have been available for a long time. I can read them if they are presented to me." Yu Eshui said.
"It's all yours!"
"That's not the problem," Yu Eshui said. "Just like why we ask each village to self-report its 'reasonable burden', the Yulin list does not truly reflect Lingao's agricultural production level. If we continue to charge according to this list, , many unfair and unreasonable phenomena remain uncorrected, which is of little significance to the progress of this society."
"you mean?"
"Land and census." Yu Eshui said, "Now that each village has a liaison officer, we should conduct a comprehensive census. Generally speaking, we should have a clear picture of the land, population, and resources in the county."
"The project is too big." Everyone gasped.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Yu Eshui said, "Now it's just a county, but in the future it will be the whole of China. Do you want to do it?"
After some discussion, everyone agreed that since this matter would have to be done sooner or later, it was better to do it sooner rather than later, so they agreed to start the county census in February.
"Now, we have an excellent chance to breathe." Ma Qianzhu said at the executive committee's summary meeting, "Seizing the opportunity and completing the industrial upgrading of industry and agriculture as soon as possible is the most important task now. The following topics are : Lingao’s first five-year plan.”! ~!
