The chief officials of the Privy Council felt that the Southern Song Army was currently "well-equipped and well-fed" and just needed a victory to highlight their political achievements and existence.
It just so happens that the peasant army on Jiangnan West Road should have reached the end of its war effort. This battle can be used to give the newly recruited army a training opportunity, so that the newly recruited army can practice their skills, see blood, and win another victory to establish a psychological advantage. .
In this way, you will not be timid when facing the Ming army in the future.
After all, it was a new army. They had just been recruited and trained. They were full of vitality inside and outside, and they all saw the vitality and momentum of everything competing.
Zhao Xin inspected the army many times during army training, observing the army's training subjects, soldiers' meals, etc., to show that he cared about the new army very much, and at the same time expressed satisfaction with everything he saw.
Both the Privy Council and Zhao Yu had high hopes for such a promising army.
They hoped that the newly formed army could boost the morale of the Southern Song Dynasty, completely solve internal problems, and comprehensively fight against foreign aggression. .
The Privy Council and Zhao Min's calculations were very loud, but the problem is that the actual situation on Jiangnan West Road is not like this.
Faced with the unprecedentedly strict material embargo policy of the Southern Song Dynasty, the peasant military regime on Jiangnan West Road was not only in great difficulty because of lack of food and clothing, but at least it could be said that they were eating well and staying in good health.
The material embargo policy did not seem to affect the normal operation of the peasant army at all, as if nothing had changed.
The reason why this happened is mainly from two aspects.
The first is the land reform policy implemented by the Jiangnan West Road Branch of the Fuxinghui, which dominates the Peasant Army regime, for the entire Peasant Army Liberated Area.
The second is the extremely flexible means of the Southern Song Dynasty bureaucrats to implement court policies and their emphasis on money.
Therefore, the main reason why we can create the current situation where everyone is good and everyone is good is that the peasant army and the Southern Song Dynasty bureaucrats rushed to each other in both directions.
The policy of the Peasant Army was the main internal cause. Although the branch of the Jiangnan West Road Revival Society led by Zhao Yucheng was not in the Ming Dynasty, as the struggle situation on the Jiangnan West Road became clear, Zhao Yucheng also held many meetings to demand the formal implementation of the land reform policy. To this end, Su Yonglin was asked for policy guidance and experienced officials.
Su Yonglin did everything he could, and immediately arranged for batch after batch of experienced Fuxing members to disguise themselves, and with the help of Su Haisheng's intelligence network, they came to Nanchang, joined the Fuxing branch on Jiangnan West Road, and helped Zhao Yucheng implement land reform. policy.
For more than a year since the victory of the last anti-encirclement and suppression war until now, Zhao Yucheng has been promoting land reform in the nine states controlled by the peasant army.
He and the soldiers of the Peasant Army led farmers to seize land, distribute land, establish peasant associations and new villages, establish rural peasant associations, etc., and deepen the Renaissance organization into villages.
They broke the original power-sharing structure between landlords, gentry and county officials, created a new grassroots political structure, strengthened the organization of local Southern Song farmers, and established a stable political situation of "peasant army-peasant association".
A series of policies adopted by Su Yonglin were all learned by Zhao Yucheng.
Coupled with the "three-pronged approach" of the earliest rebel army in several consecutive wars, the current peasant army, and the Song army against the local landlords and gentry forces, Zhao Yucheng "stepped on the shoulders of giants" and successfully completed land acquisition in nine states. Reform, eliminated all landowners and gentry, and completely transformed these nine states into Fuxing states under the control of the Fuxing Association.
After the elimination of the landlords and gentry in Jiuzhou, the village peasant association and the township peasant association combined and became an important institution for the Renaissance to contact and organize farmers. Through these two levels of institutions, Zhao Yucheng was able to mobilize all farmers to launch a large-scale production movement.
It is said that the area on Jiangnan West Road is a barren place with no ground level and barren land, and it is impossible to get a few kilograms of grain. However, this is not absolute, and some of them are the views held by the big landowners who are full of food. ,do not know either.
Anyway, what Zhao Yucheng learned after visiting the site is that there is land, and there is also fertile land, and there is a lot of it.
But almost all the fertile land was occupied by landlords and gentry, who established their own farms and let tenants farm for them.
Homeowner farmers often only own barren land and bear the heaviest taxes. More people do not have land, and in the end they tragically become refugees and go out to make a living.
After Zhao Yucheng measured the acres of land and checked the account books, he found that Jiangnan West Road was definitely not unable to feed the people here, and the actual grain output of Jiangnan West Road over the years was definitely not unable to feed the people.
The reason why this place gives people the feeling of being in a remote place is that, in addition to some factors related to the traffic environment, the main reason is that there is a big distribution problem, and many people are unable to have enough to eat.
Now they are all liberated, and the shackles on their bodies have been lifted. The Fuxing will distribute land to them, allowing them to carry out agricultural production according to the arrangements of the farmers' association, and they only need to pay agricultural taxes and special temporary war taxes. Other taxes All can be exempted.
Because we are still in the midst of a war, after writing a letter to consult Su Yonglin, Su Yonglin suggested that Zhao Yucheng implement wartime policies based on the current relatively severe struggle situation in the Jiangnan West Road Liberated Area.
Compared with the basically peaceful Ming Dynasty, the struggle situation on the West Jiangnan Road meant that they did not have the capital to implement the Ming Dynasty's policy of light corvee and low taxes in one go. They had to levy some additional taxes, organize labor to repair cities and roads, and prepare for soldiers. military supplies.
This requires a lot of manpower and material resources, which must come from taxation.
Therefore, the temporary war tax came into being in order to allow the peasant army to obtain more sophisticated equipment and richer food to enhance its combat effectiveness. This was a helpless move.
But compared to the old days of the farmers on Jiangnan West Road, this kind of life where they only had to pay two types of taxes was already considered heaven on earth.
Because he was worried about farmers' opposition and protest against the peasant army levying too many taxes on them, Zhao Yucheng left Nanchang before the implementation of the temporary war tax and went to rural areas to conduct in-depth research and talk to farmers to gain a deeper understanding of their true thoughts.
During the course of this research operation, Zhao Yucheng learned the farmers' views on the Fuxing Association's peasant army policy.
In short, the farmers all think that they are good people and that gods from heaven have come down to save them.
Only two tax items have been collected, and the other tax items have been abolished. Isn't this a good deed?
An elderly farmer held Zhao Yucheng's hand and told him with tears in his eyes about the taxes they had to pay in the past.
Let’s not talk about normal agricultural taxes. Whenever there are some natural or man-made disasters or transportation losses, they have to pay agricultural taxes. Sometimes they pay it once, sometimes they pay it twice. The old farmer has lived for more than fifty years, and he still has to pay the agricultural tax. I remember that I didn’t make any additional payments in five years.
In addition to agricultural taxes, there are also various very strange taxes.
Such as road tax.
When walking on the road, you are walking on the land and roads of the Song Dynasty, so you have to collect taxes when you walk on the road. The government does not care whether the farmers raised their own funds to build the road. No matter, they have to pay taxes.
There is also a well tax.
For the same reason, because the wells dug on the territory of the Song Dynasty use the resources of the Song Dynasty, taxes must also be paid.
There is also a building tax.
Because houses are built on Song Dynasty land, taxes must be paid.
There is also a firewood tax.
You also have to pay taxes when cutting firewood, because the trees grow on the land of the Song Dynasty, and it is really unjustifiable not to pay taxes.
The other is the water tax.
You also use water from the Song Dynasty when carrying water. If you don’t pay taxes, are you still considered a person?
These are all included. Sometimes it is levied once, sometimes there is an additional levy, and it is levied twice. In good years, it is levied three times. A tax can levy it on people like them who could have enough to eat. Go bankrupt.
But those hateful tax collectors still refused to give up, and introduced a weird tax that killed chickens and fishes.
The official view is that killing chickens and fish will cause blood, which is unlucky. If God sees it, he will think that the Emperor of the Song Dynasty does not respect him, so he will have a bad reputation with the Emperor of the Song Dynasty and have to pay taxes to make up for it. Loss.
So even if you kill chickens and fish and cook them, you have to pay tax.
After all tax types were used, except for the tax on shit, the tax collectors came up with the concept of early tax collection.
After finally paying off all the taxes this year, I thought I could have a few good meals and live in peace for a few days, but the tax collectors came again.
They said that the imperial court had told you that this year the imperial court had a lot of work to do and it was very difficult, so it would advance tax revenue for next year to you to live on. If you collect it this year, you will not collect it next year.
If the old farmers are unwilling, the tax collectors threaten them, saying that if they don’t give advance payment this year, they will double the tax next year! Let’s see if you can hand it over!
With that being said, is there anyone out there who dares not to pay taxes?
So they paid taxes on all their hard-earned income throughout the year. Some of them paid taxes repeatedly, several times, leaving very little for themselves.
