Xiao Yi also understood in his heart that just the support of the officials above the court was only half the battle.
The most important thing is that the imperial power is sent to the countryside and the policies can be implemented in place.
A government that benefits the people can truly be a government that benefits the people only if the people actually enjoy the benefits.
If the common people fail to enjoy it, they will just open their mouths and shout slogans.
But it is not easy to bring imperial power to the countryside.
The people in power in the court should be clear about rewards and punishments, and give both kindness and power. The officials above the court should be loyal to the emperor, patriotic, considerate of the people, and capable of decision-making and execution. Finally, we went to the county government office and waited.
The executors of these policies use various political, economic, and cultural resources, establish corresponding organizational structures, and adopt methods including interpretation, implementation, service, and publicity to implement the content of the "national policy" itself. Transformed into 'realistic effects', enabling established policy goals to be achieved.
This is an ideal process of policy implementation by decision-makers.
Moreover, we must ensure that no problems arise at every level, that is, every level can find ways to implement every national policy.
However, everyone understands the principle and can do it, but it is difficult for Xiao Yi to set standards and define it.
This is like returning to the way the court collected taxes during the previous dynasty.
Directly set a standard, regardless of the development situation of each place. In short, you must pay as much tax as you are asked to pay.
Now, if the Daqian court also sets a standard for how to implement this national policy.
From the Xuanfu envoys of the Thirteen Dao to the governors of various states, they must also abide by this standard.
But when I arrived at the county government office.
How to implement?
Because the county government is the most basic government agency facing the people, the various national policies above must be truly implemented by the county government.
For example, if this national policy reaches the county government, the county magistrate and county lieutenant must comply with it and then implement it.
This will cost them a lot of effort, and it will also require them to face the wealthy families, gentry, wealthy businessmen, etc. within a county.
We also have to face the demands of ordinary people.
If one person is not good, he will be accused by both parties and reported to the supervisory censor, which means that the governance is ineffective, incompetent, and incompetent.
Xiao Yi continued: "I know that if these two tax laws are added, many people will definitely resist. After all, this is intended to increase their taxes. In fact, it is also to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor and reduce the consequences of the gap between the rich and the poor. The contradiction between man and land.”
"They don't know that if this contradiction continues, it will inevitably lead to resistance from farmers."
“Are there few peasant uprisings throughout the ages?”
"Some people only look at the little profit in front of them, and they only look at their own three-quarters of an acre of land."
"But they don't know that the country is composed of millions of families, and just his family's good life is just a short-lived flash in the pan."
"When the poor people are desperate, they have no choice but to raise their flags to rebel and fight their way out."
"At that time, can they still ensure that they can live a wealthy life and that their family can be passed on to their children and grandchildren?"
"Only when the country of Daqian is stable can his family be protected from the flames of war."
"If anyone still doesn't understand this truth, then the wealth and glory he enjoys now will be nothing but passing smoke."
In the past, we always talked about loyalty to the emperor and patriotism, but it was just because Confucianism was so deeply ingrained that it seemed like brainwashing.
Many people want to get ahead and compete for fame and fortune, but they basically have to obey the Lord of Heaven and Earth.
Imperial power is always the greatest.
Then there are the rights of the prime minister, or the prince with military power, and the local governor, and at the bottom, there is the county prime minister.
As the saying goes, the county magistrate is not as good as the current person in charge.
In normal times, the county magistrate is really the local emperor of a place.
If you want to implement a national policy well, you must naturally take a step. The first is the starting point of the national policy, what it is to do, what it is for, and what purpose it wants to achieve.
Only in this way can the officials and the people of the world be convinced.
And raise taxes.
It is to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor and to snatch the money from the gentry.
This amount of money is actually not much when spread across a family.
But in the future, there will be thousands of families, and many, many families will be divided and have another household registration.
In fact, it seems to be a tax. Simply put, it is a handling fee.
The imperial court directly legalized the handling fee. If the government collected it, it would have to hand over part of it.
In the past, there was no such thing. It was like stamp duty, which was the government acting as a third-party guarantee to make the contract effective.
This is actually a kind of local guarantee fee.
However, Xiao Yi knew that at this time, local officials, as well as officials in the court and central government, did not have such awareness.
Stamp duty appeared in the history of previous lives and has been used ever since.
This shows that this tax law is in line with the interests of ordinary people.
Xiao Yi continued: "Whatever you do, there must be a corresponding organization to do it?"
“It’s called organizational readiness.”
"Since some of you think that this will increase the burden on officials, do you think it is necessary to prepare a special organization to collect taxes?"
"We will recruit talented people and set up a department responsible for taxation, called the Daqian Taxation Department. We will set up a taxation bureau in the 13th province, and then set up taxation departments in each state."
“With an official office specifically responsible for taxation and with officials responsible for taxation at the door, we can better supervise the commercial taxes of merchants, agricultural taxes of farmers, family division of gentry, new household registration tax, stamp tax, "
Daqian is now the Ministry of Household Coordinator of tax collection, and the Thirteenth Chief Envoy is in charge of taxation.
For those who directly manage taxes, there is a tax department under the chief envoy. At the government level, there are also tax departments, tax treasury departments, and river offices. However, at the township level, Lijia is needed to supervise the collection of grain and taxes.
So in the end, tax collection still has to rely on Lijia, who needs officials from the countryside to complete the tax collection, and then hand it over to the tax department, tax treasury department, and river station. They will then go up and transport it to the chief envoy. The Political Envoys Department goes up further and transports it to the Ministry of Household Affairs. After registration and registration, it is then sent to the treasury.
This is considered an existing process.
If the tax responsibilities are divided, the Ministry of Revenue will have one less person to collect taxes, one less person to be in charge of the treasury, and even less authority.
And if part of the authority of the Household Department is devolved and a separate tax department is established, does that mean that one more tax minister is needed?
For a time, the ministers in the court had different ideas, and they immediately began to weigh the pros and cons.
A separate taxation department was established, and six ministers became seven ministers. With one more official office, there was one more official position.
But if you want to agree to this matter, it means that you have to agree to the progressive household registration tax and the family division notary tax, so that the scholar-bureaucrats also start paying taxes.
His Royal Highness is always good at plotting, and this time, it was another plot.
The pros and cons are directly put in front of the officials, so that they have to choose. I believe that there are more officials who choose to establish a separate tax office.
However, the first person to stand up and object was Di Yan.
"Your Highness, we must not establish another tax department. The problem of redundant officials has not yet been completely solved. If we set up another tax department, it would mean hundreds more officials, another salary, and another increase. Please think twice about more official positions!”
In fact, Di Yan did not settle this account clearly.
This is more than just hundreds of additional officials. If a separate tax department is really to be established, it must be directly decentralized to the county seat.
And now Daqian, after having the Anxi Protectorate, Anbei Protectorate, and Andong Protectorate, has at least several thousand counties.
This is the registered county seat.
Not to mention too many, if a county has five official posts to form a tax office, then there will be more than 5,000 officials.
How could there be so many more officials all of a sudden?
The key is, if there are more than 5,000 officials, how much more salary will be needed?
In the future, what will happen if the responsibilities of the two official offices of the Taxation Department and the Ministry of Revenue overlap, or they pass the buck?
In other words, if Xiao Yi is determined to send imperial power to the countryside.
He would have to support a new team with almost the same number of people as the current bureaucracy.
Even if the salary of this new team is low, when the number of officials reaches more than 5,000, the total salary amount is still an extremely terrifying figure.
In order to better collect taxes, new redundant officials and excessive expenditures have been created. Can the extra taxes collected make up for this part of the expenditures? What if it is a loss-making transaction?
Do the math, is it worth it?
In fact, it would be impossible for Xiao Yi to settle the account himself.
In fact, today's Daqian still has the problem of redundant officials, that is, many official positions are idle positions, but they still receive salaries.
There are also some official positions that are responsible for doing things, but there are too many things to do and they are too busy.
Therefore, when he was trying to stabilize the government and the public, Xiao Yi was specifically solving the problem of redundant officials. Under his persuasion, the officials of the imperial court paid attention to this situation and began drastic reforms.
Today, more than 2,000 positions have been reduced.
The imperial court completed its downsizing in one fell swoop. Almost all officials performed their respective duties. Each person's position also had things he was responsible for and responsibilities he had to bear. If he did not do well, or something went wrong, Whatever it is, you need to ask for guilt.
Of course, ministers also stood up to support it. After all, if another tax department and one more minister were established, there would be many more official positions. There would definitely be huge interests that could be fought over.
For example, if a tax department is established, there will definitely be a personnel transfer.
Since the abolition of the position of prime minister, the three provinces have also disappeared.
Liubu directly faced the Prince of the Supervisory State, and the Minister of Liubu had not moved for a long time.
Some people are still unable to avoid the pursuit of authority.
Ignoring Di Yan's dissatisfaction, he immediately stood up and praised His Highness the Crown Prince for his wisdom and prowess. He said that setting up a separate tax department would facilitate the court's tax collection and effectively prevent tax evasion and so on.
Immediately afterwards, even Dai Guang, the Minister of Household Affairs, stood up and expressed his approval for the establishment of a separate tax department.
However, Xiao Yi felt that now was not the time and the pace was a bit too big.
Below, Di Yan and others started to quarrel with Dai Guang and others.
Xiao Yi didn't stop him.
The time has not come now, but there will definitely be a chance in the future.
"Well, Gu Ye knows that Daqian has just been at peace now, and this is enough to see that Daqian is still restless and uneasy, and he has not really seen the determination, perseverance, and ability to revive Daqian in the imperial court. "
"At this time, we still need to focus on stability, recuperate first, develop slowly, reform slowly, and give everyone a room for relaxation."
"The establishment of a new tax bureau will be discussed later. The time is not ripe now, but you can also think about it, what kind of characteristics and abilities should the person responsible for collecting taxes have?"
If we cannot establish a separate tax department now, then we must cultivate the ability of the tax-collecting officials in the chief envoys.
There must be little implementation of tax collection, a policy that concerns the people, rather than becoming a harsh government.
Dai Guang quickly bowed and said: "Your Highness, I believe that those who collect taxes must first be literate and know how to count."
"Otherwise, if you can't even write your name and can't figure out the calculations, how can you collect taxes well? You're just being deceived like a ghost."
"Secondly, in theory, it is best for people who collect taxes to be outsiders or people who are not familiar with the local area. Otherwise, they will be easily constrained by various relationships."
"Finally, those who collect taxes must be upright and clean. They must not be unable to withstand temptation and be taken advantage of by others and embark on the road of corruption and illegal crimes."
"Another point is that if tax collectors are to be permanently stationed in the township, no matter who they are, they will be influenced and assimilated by the local people over the years, and they will become the same as the current Lijia system."
Literate, knowledgeable, honest, and a stranger.
In fact, this is also the principle that Dai Guang has always adhered to when he was promoted to Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, when he first inspected the world in Beijing and began to resume taxation.
Otherwise, the filling of tax vacancies from the previous year and the payment of taxes for the current year will not be completed quickly this year.
If the tax department cannot be established at this time, the responsibilities of the existing tax officials in the Ministry of Revenue must be divided and clearly defined.
In this way, we can first rectify the tax officials, clarify their responsibilities and their code of conduct, and slowly divide, subdivide and clarify the tax. This will also lay a solid foundation for the establishment of a tax office in the future.
Xiao Yi said: "Since ancient times, people have been doing things. No matter how good the policy is, it needs people with corresponding qualities and abilities to implement it to ensure that the policy does not go out of shape."
"Otherwise, even if the original intention of proposing a policy is good, it will end up being distorted in the hands of the people below."
"Dai Qing said that officials need to do four things to collect taxes: literacy, numeracy, integrity, and foreigners. It indeed explains the code of conduct for tax-related officials and how to become an excellent tax official. .”
"very good."
This is the reason why Xiao Yi still reuses the six ministers. Each of them is talented and qualified for the post of the six ministers after the abolition of the prime minister system.
There are no big mistakes and there are very few small mistakes.
Even if he is out in person, he can still ensure that the Daqian court can operate normally.
This is the true minister of humility and thighs.
