The vision outside the window did not interrupt the conversation in the palace. Feng Linhui and Wang En were both sitting upright. The thunder that resounded through the sky and the earth seemed to be just the background of their conversation at the moment, and suddenly the entire palace was illuminated. The more transparent lightning seemed to be just cheering for their conversation.
"What are Taibao Wang going to do?" Feng Linwen put down the memorial in his hand and asked.
Wang En had already known something, so he directly said: "Scholars, farmers, industry and commerce are based on agriculture, and the common people need to have land to farm. First, I am going to inventory the fertile land in the world and collect all the land that has not been recorded in the records and has not paid taxes according to the law." All the land was nationalized and then leased to the people at low prices to achieve the effect of stabilizing the country."
"Second, encourage people to reclaim wasteland. After reclaiming it, they only need to report it to the local government to obtain the approval of the court and own the land."
"Third, strict household registration statistics will be implemented, and taxes will no longer be collected based on the amount of land, but based on headcount."
As he spoke, he suddenly glanced at Feng Linye, and then continued: "Fourth... Abolish the hereditary system of the nobility and the tax-free system for the nobility."
When the Dali Dynasty was founded in the early years, Taizong granted many noble titles and promised never to levy taxes on the nobles. Of course, according to 'custom', the nobles, big and small, would select some gifts as tributes to the king every year. But most of those so-called tributes are just local specialties, which are a drop in the bucket compared to the taxes that need to be paid every year.
The most important thing is that the children of nobles are still nobles... Although according to the regulations, the titles are lowered successively, but once they reach the lowest level of 'custard', they will no longer decrease. Unless the emperor takes it away personally, the title of a noble will never be reduced.
During Emperor Hui's reign, the country's tax revenue dropped sharply every year due to the proliferation of nobles.
Emperor Hui had no choice but to forcefully implement some so-called 'new laws', which were actually just supplements to the old regulations.
That is, the size of the noble title is different, and the amount of land that can be exempted from taxes is also different. For example, the tax-free property of the highest-level "Prince" is 3,000 acres, while the tax-free property of the lowest-level "Jishi" is only ten acres.
Of course, in order to avoid causing a lot of backlash from the nobles, Emperor Hui also stipulated that nobles who took the initiative to reduce tax-exempted properties would get an extra chance to be 'recommended'. As long as they passed the assessment, they could become officials of Dali.
good! Dali is not an imperial examination system, but a mixture of the hereditary system and the recommendation system.
Some low-level officials mostly adopt the hereditary system. For example, if your father is the prison chief, then you will also be the prison chief. In the future, if you have a son... he will still be the prison chief.
There are also remote areas, and some officials who guard local areas are basically hereditary.
As for those more outstanding talents, they are recommended by the local government, and then some yamen conduct internal assessments on their talent and learning and decide whether to hire them. Only officials of fifth rank or above would be appointed and removed by the emperor himself. Of course, this power is not yet in Feng Linyi's hands, and is still nominally controlled by Cheng Penghai.
After all, although Feng Linwen had his own voice in the court, he did not take back the rights of the five ministers who took care of his life and complete the pro-government.
Usually, a scholar only has one chance to be recommended in his life. If he fails the examination, he will have no hope of becoming an official for life, unless the imperial power specially recruits him.
After listening to the four principles of reform summarized by Wang En, Feng Linhuang made a surprised expression, but his heart was unmoved.
"Although he is considered to be the best among men, Wang En still cannot escape the limitations of the vision of the times..." Feng Linwen was trembling in his heart for a while, but he shook his head at Wang En.
"Wang Taibao! I can't agree to any of these things you said."
"What?" Wang En thought he would be frustrated, but the most likely answer was the fourth one. That one was originally used by Wang En to test, and it also lowered Feng Lin's psychological defense. After all, compared with the fourth item, the first three items seem much more "plain", and it seems that agreeing to it is not that difficult.
After all, everything needs comparison and reference.
It was like, if Feng Linwen forced Yunlang, he and Sister Feng would have to go on a trip to Qiu Ming Mountain tonight. So with Yunlang's temper, he would definitely refuse to obey even if he was beaten to death. But if you tell him first, he must have a unique live performance of the animal world with Sister Feng and the chimpanzee tonight. So looking back, spending time alone with Sister Feng... isn't it so hard to accept?
Seeing that Wang En was about to speak to convince him, Feng Linwen waved his hand and said, "Wang Taibao! Just listen to what I have to say."
"First, inventory the land, nationalize the unregistered land, and then lease it to the people at low prices. This seems good, but if some local officials use this as a pretext to forcibly seize ordinary people's land and confiscate it, then What should we do if we deliberately raise some hidden conditions and force them to rent to people who don't need so much land for farming?" Feng Linwen asked directly.
Wang En frowned and responded: "Spread the word, and set up local collectors to collect local people's opinions and evaluations of officials' governance. Increase the rewards for reporting, and increase the punishment for officials who abuse their power for personal gain and deliberately distort the new law."
"Haha!" Feng Linwen just laughed and did not refute this point.
Instead, he let this point go and continued: "It takes a long time for the common people to reclaim wasteland, but the local tyrants register it first and plunder it. What should we do?"
"And the specific meaning of this wasteland, can it be quantified? What if a powerful person wields a sickle or a hoe and waves it at ordinary people's homes, and then treats it as their own cultivated farmland, reports it to the government, and forcibly expropriates it, then what? "
Questions came one after another, and Wang En's passionate blood was extinguished to the cold.
This even made Wang En forget to wonder why an emperor who grew up in a deep palace would understand the methods of these low-level officials colluding with local bullies to deceive superiors and subordinates.
Logically speaking, 'Why not eat minced meat' should be what the young emperor in front of him should say.
"Another example is the forced collection of taxes based on capita. The purpose is to count local wealthy households and increase tax revenue. After all, land can be concealed, but it is difficult to hide it with a large population. This is also a major means to enrich the national treasury. But have you ever thought about this? It is also possible that it will make it even more difficult for some families with many children but poor families to afford it. Eventually, it will lead to the tragedy of families being broken up and people selling their children..." Feng Linwen still felt that it was not enough and continued to hit Wang En, as if for the last time. In the beginning, he was not the one who arranged for Kruba to seduce Wang En to reform.
As for the fourth article, Feng Linwen did not interpret it at all.
He wanted to reform and become a wise king praised by the people as quickly as possible.
But he didn't want to use a faster speed to become the king of subjugation.
During the Dali Dynasty, officials were basically from noble families. Why did Cheng Penghai become so powerful? Although his official position was only a bachelor's degree, his actual power seemed to be inferior to that of Wang En and Gao Qiang, but he was obsessed with being the leader among hundreds of officials and even ignored the king. It was because, in the past, more than half of the important ministers in the court had recommended this Great Scholar Cheng, or were related to him.
In this way, there is a huge network of relationships that Feng Linwen still dares not to touch openly and can only keep testing on the edges.
