Apart from buying it at a high price with real money, what other way can be done to make the wealthy people hand over their food willingly?
When it comes to money, Zhao Mengqi still has some money on hand. The Sun family gave Sun Junjun 500,000 guan to extend his life. The Liu family was found to have more than 3 million guan in cash. Gu Qing captured the Japanese merchant Kusano and confiscated 400,000 to 500,000 guan. Copper coins, but these were originally intended to be used as start-up funds for water conservancy projects and could not be used easily.
Moreover, it was already known to everyone that King Yan was going to re-enter the border. These big landowners were itching their teeth with hatred. At this time, Zhao Mengqi came to them to buy grain, wouldn't he just come to their doorstep and be slaughtered by them?
As an advocate of water conservancy improvement, Wu Qian was naturally unwilling to use the money. After careful consideration, he looked at Zhao Mengqi earnestly and said, "Your Highness, it seems that we can only sell the 160,000 acres of land that was confiscated from the Liu family... "
"Mr. Wu, I think this proposal is inappropriate!"
Before Wu Qian finished speaking, Jiang Wanli expressed his objection, "Nowadays, the two taxes are shrinking day by day. It's all because powerful families hide their land taxes, so they need to clear their property through the boundaries. If the land is sold, most of them will be sold." If you buy it from a powerful family, wouldn't this increase its power?"
The Song Dynasty was established after the chaos of the Five Dynasties. The reason why it did not suppress land annexation was due to historical reasons, but it also had a fresh understanding of the harm of powerful forces that expanded through land annexation.
While allowing free trade in land, the imperial court also tried to curb powerful forces through systems and policies.
In principle, except for the occasional special decree of the emperor, all land in the world needs to pay regular taxes, instead of being exempted from tax if you have fame like in the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the original intention of the tax system is that those with more fields will pay more taxes, and those with more property will be taxed. Pay more taxes, which is the household equal system.
Of course, in actual circumstances, the structure of the Song Dynasty's political income was very complicated. The two taxes as agricultural taxes were declining year by year in the overall proportion, and at this time they were even less than one-fifth.
The two taxes in the Song Dynasty were not high. "One stone per acre, one dou per acre" was actually the tithe. But in addition, there were numerous tax increases and corvee, which were the bulk of the burden on the people.
To put it simply, if a farmer rents an acre of land and harvests three shi of rice a year, one shi will be given to the government, one shi will be paid as rent, and the remaining one shi will be his own.
As for official households, that is, those with official status are not tax-free but exempt from corvee, and there are many ways to avoid tax increases. In this way, wealth expands like a snowball, using wealth to increase power, using power to make money, and squeezing the common people at the same time. It also embezzles national interests.
"In ancient times, mergers were for the benefit of the people, but today's mergers are also for public taxation."
"What is the status of taxation today? There are two disadvantages of uneven taxation: the disadvantages of annexation and the disadvantages of migration. What are the disadvantages of annexation? The land of the rich will be benefited day by day without increasing the tax; the land of the poor will be reduced day by day. Don't add too much tax. In order to save the people from tax and servitude, the female officials cut off several acres of land, added several times the tax, and collected less than half of it. As a result, the land of the rich was connected with miles and miles of land, and the rich and fertile soil was almost there. . The poor people once had no land to put a cone to support their feet, but they were trapped in heavy labor and forced to chase after others. This is the so-called disadvantage of annexation."
"The poor people's property will be taxed and saved, and they can no longer bear the harassment of pursuit. The rich will have more property and less tax, which will increase the trend of mergers and acquisitions."
"The annexed house invades the common people and secretly seizes official profits. The female servants serve as cunning officials. They cheat all day long and go around in and out. They cannot be inspected."
During the Song Dynasty, people of insight from both the government and the public paid great attention to this issue, and the public opinion calling for curbing merger forces was much higher than the voice of protecting the interests of the rich.
This also shows that annexation has become a common phenomenon in Song Dynasty society and has caused increasingly serious harm to the country.
As more and more land is concentrated in the hands of powerful people, the tax revenue of the court will naturally become less and less.
Five or six years later in history, the imperial government could no longer sustain its finances, so after taking power, Jia Sidao had to implement the "Public Land Law", which meant that the imperial court forcibly redeemed the property in the hands of the powerful that exceeded the regulations.
At that time, the price of the land had risen to 1,000 guan per acre, but the court had no money left, so it could only redeem it at 40 guan per acre, paying for it with overprinted banknotes and worthless official ultimatums. .
The original intention of the Public Land Law was to curb powerful annexations. However, in the actual implementation process, local officials did not dare to offend the powerful families too much, so in order to complete the task, they turned to other targets.
small and medium-sized landowners and rich peasants.
This approach was close to robbery. Although it objectively extended the life of the Song Dynasty for more than ten years, it greatly damaged the interests of the landlord class. Jia Sidao, who was in charge, naturally became the "big female official".
Jiang Wanli had no intention of plundering people's property, but he was absolutely unwilling to see powerful families increase their property. .
When Wu Qian saw Jiang Wanli objecting to his proposal, he was not angry because he also wanted to restrain his arrogance.
"Ziyuan, I understand what you said, but the food crisis is imminent, and we must find a way to solve it first, otherwise at least 100,000 people will starve to death!"
"This..." Jiang Wanli looked blank, feeling deeply in a dilemma, "I think it's better to think of other ways. Besides, even if the fields are sold, the remaining grain in the hands of the gentry may not be enough to make up for the shortfall. "
No matter who holds the grain, it is a reality that the total local grain stock is lower than the total demand. However, if the government has grain, it can stabilize grain prices to a certain extent and prevent the people from being deprived of it too badly.
Everyone discussed for a long time and put forward many methods, but most of them treated the symptoms rather than the root cause.
Zhao Mengqi listened and thought, he had some ideas in his mind, and his expression became relaxed, "As long as the mind does not slip, there are always more solutions than difficulties."
"Your Highness, do you want to use the money? Or do you want to transport the money from Lin'an?" Wu Qian asked doubtfully.
He knew that King Yan had a "private money", and he had previously wanted King Yan to use it for water conservancy projects, but King Yan was obviously reluctant to part with it.
Everyone also looked at Zhao Mengqi, curious about what good idea he had thought of.
Zhao Mengqi shook his head, "The water conservancy money cannot be used. I also have other uses for the Lin'an money, so I'd better sell the land."
"Ah!? Still want to sell the land?"
Everyone was disappointed and helpless.
"I am also well aware of the dangers of annexation, so my selling method is a bit special. If successful, I can raise money while still being able to effectively control these lands. It may also alleviate the grievances of some gentry."
"Oh? What kind of recipe can have such a miraculous effect?" Jiang Wanli became energetic.
"Don't worry, I just have a vague idea. I need to think more carefully about the specific plan." Zhao Mengqi smiled and did not say it out loud.
Wu Qian and others thought that Zhao Mengqi's method needed to be kept secret, so they did not ask further questions.
Zhao Mengqi went on to say, "Put aside the issue of money for now. If my method doesn't work, the worst possible scenario is to use the money from Lin'an. The problem now is how to fill the food shortages in Pingjiang and Jiaxing."
Wu Qian thought about it for a while, "This is not difficult. Due to the timely discharge of floods from the rising water in Taihu Lake, places such as Anjizhou and Changzhou have not been greatly affected. While maintaining local food prices, six to seven hundred thousand liters of food You should be able to buy it.”
"We not only need to ensure that no one starves to death, but also ensure that everyone has enough to eat so that they have the strength to work. In this case, an adult needs five buckets of food per month, plus the need to stabilize food prices, then at least Three million stone, minus the food available locally and in the surrounding areas, there is still a shortfall of nearly one million stone."
One stone in the Song Dynasty was equivalent to about 77 kilograms in later generations, and one million stones was less than 80,000 tons. However, in this era, transportation alone was a big problem, which meant that even if food could be purchased from far away places, it would be difficult to transport it back.
how should I solve this?
Zhao Mengqi pinched his chin and started thinking, then his eyes fell on Chen Xiaokun, and he suddenly had an idea.
