Qiming 1158

Chapter 1017 Temporary War Tax

The chief officials of the Privy Council felt that the current Southern Song army was "sufficient in soldiers and food", and they were short of a victory to demonstrate their political achievements and existence.

It just so happened that the peasant army on Jiangnan West Road should also be at the end of the battle. This battle can be used to give the newly recruited army a training opportunity, so that the newly recruited army can practice their skills well, see blood, and win another victory, laying a psychological advantage. .

In this way, facing the Ming army in the future will not be timid.

After all, it is a new army. They have just been recruited and trained, and they all see a sense of vigor inside and out.

Zhao Tan inspected the army many times during army training, observed the army's training subjects and soldiers' meals, etc., to show that he cared about the new army very much, and at the same time expressed his satisfaction with what he saw.

For such a hopeful army, both the Privy Council and Zhao Tan have high hopes.

They hoped that the newly formed army could boost the morale of the Southern Song Dynasty, completely solve internal worries, and comprehensively fight against foreign aggression.

The abacus between the Privy Council and Zhao Tan is very loud, but the problem is that the actual situation of Jiangnan West Road is not the case.

In the face of the unprecedented strict material embargo policy of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Jiangnan West Road peasant military regime did not say that it was very difficult and lacked food and clothing, but at least it was considered to be delicious and healthy.

The material embargo policy does not seem to affect the normal operation of the peasant army at all, as if nothing has changed.

There are two main reasons why this happened.

One was the land reform policy implemented by the Jiangnan West Road Branch of the Renaissance Society, which dominated the peasant military regime, on the entire peasant army liberated area.

The second is the extremely flexible means of the Southern Song bureaucrats to implement the imperial policy and their attitude towards money.

Therefore, it is possible to create the current situation of hello, me, and everyone. The main reason is that the peasant army and the bureaucrats of the Southern Song Dynasty 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 located in the Ming Dynasty, as the situation of the struggle on the Jiangnan West Road became clear, Zhao Yucheng also held several meetings to request the formal implementation of the land reform policy. To this end, he also asked Su Yonglin to ask for a lot of policy guidance and experienced officials.

Su Yonglin had no choice but to arrange batches of experienced Fuxing members in disguise. With the help of Su Haisheng's intelligence network, they arrived in Nanchang, joined the Fuxing Association branch on Jiangnan West Road, and helped Zhao Yucheng implement land reform. policy.

From the victory of the last anti-encirclement and suppression war until now, for more than a year, Zhao Yucheng has been implementing land reforms in the nine prefectures controlled by the peasant army.

He and the soldiers of the peasant army led the peasants to seize the land, distribute the land, establish peasant associations and new villages, establish xiang peasant associations, etc., and deepen the revival organization into the villages.

They broke the original pattern of power sharing between landlords and gentry and county officials, created a new grass-roots political pattern, enhanced the organization of the local Southern Song peasants, and established a stable political situation of [peasant army-peasant association].

A series of policies that Su Yonglin had adopted were all borrowed by Zhao Yucheng.

Coupled with the "three-pronged approach" of the earliest insurgent army, the current peasant army and the Song army against the local landlords and gentry forces in several consecutive wars, Zhao Yucheng "stepped on the shoulders of giants" and successfully completed land in nine states The reforms eliminated all the landlord squires and completely forged these nine states into the Renaissance states under the control of the Renaissance Society.

After the landowners and squires of the Kyushu land were eliminated, the village peasant association and the village peasant association combined to become an important organization for the Fuxing Association to contact and organize the farmers. Through these two levels of organizations, Zhao Yucheng was able to mobilize all the farmers to launch a large-scale production movement.

It is said that this place on Jiangnan West Road is poor, the land is not three feet flat, the land is also barren, and it is impossible to get a few catties of grain, but this is not absolute, some of which are the views of the big landowners who are full of fat. ,do not know either.

Anyway, what Zhao Yucheng learned after visiting the field is that there is land, and there is also fertile land, and the amount is still quite large.

But almost all the land was occupied by landowners and squires, who set up their own farms and let their tenants help them cultivate.

The homesteaders often only own barren land and bear the heaviest taxes. More people do not have land, and they end up tragically becoming refugees and go out to make a living.

After Zhao Yucheng measured the fields and checked the account books, he found that Jiangnan West Road was definitely not someone who couldn't feed people here, and the actual output of food on Jiangnan West Road over the years was definitely not enough to feed people.

The reason why it gives people the feeling of poor mountains and bad waters is that, in addition to some traffic and environmental factors, the main reason is that there is a big problem in distribution, and many people can't eat enough.

Now that they have all been liberated and their shackles have been untied, Fuxing will distribute land to them, allowing them to carry out agricultural production according to the arrangements of the peasant association, and only need to pay agricultural tax and special temporary war tax, other taxes can be exempted.

Because it is still in the war, after writing a letter to consult Su Yonglin, Su Yonglin suggested that Zhao Yucheng should implement the wartime policy according to the current relatively severe struggle situation in the liberated area of ​​Jiangnan West Road.

Compared with the basically peaceful Ming state, the situation of the Jiangnan West Road struggle made them not have the capital to implement the Ming state's policy of light rationing and low taxation. They had to levy some taxes and organize labor to repair cities, roads and prepare 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 more abundant food to enhance its combat effectiveness, which is also a helpless move.

But compared to the life of the farmers on Jiangnan West Road, this kind of life that only needs to pay two taxes is already a heaven on earth.

Worried that the peasants would object and protest that the peasant army levied too many taxes on them, Zhao Yucheng left Nanchang before the temporary war tax was introduced.

In the process of this investigation, Zhao Yucheng learned the farmers' views on the policy of the peasant army of the Renaissance Society.

In short, the peasants felt that they were good people, and they were rescued by immortals from the sky.

Only two tax items have been collected, and the other tax items have been abolished. Isn’t this doing a good deed?

An elderly farmer held Zhao Yucheng's hand, and with tears in his eyes, he wept with him about the taxes they had to pay in the past.

Not to mention the normal agricultural tax, but in case of some natural or man-made disasters or transportation loss, they have to pay the agricultural tax. Sometimes they pay it once, and sometimes they pay it twice. I remember that there was no supplementary payment for five years.

In addition to agricultural taxes, there are all kinds of very strange taxes.

such as road tax.

When you walk on the road, you are walking on the land of the Great Song Dynasty, and it is the road of the Great Song Dynasty. Therefore, you must collect taxes when you walk on the road. The government does not care whether the road is built by the farmers themselves, or not, they must pay the tax.

There is also a well tax.

It is also the same reason, because the resources of the Great Song Dynasty are used to dig wells on the soil of the Great Song Dynasty, so taxes are also paid.

There is also a building tax.

Because the house was built on the land of the Song Dynasty, there was a tax to be paid.

And firewood tax.

Taxes are also paid for chopping wood, because trees grow on the land of the Song Dynasty, and it is really unreasonable not to pay taxes.

The other is the water tax.

Da Song water is also used to carry water. If you don’t pay taxes, are you still an individual?
All these are counted. Sometimes it is charged once, sometimes it is levied additionally, twice, and when the year is good, it is charged three times. Collecting a tax can pay people like them who could have enough to eat. Bankruptcy.

And those abominable tax collectors didn't give up, and they tossed out a weird tax on killing chickens and killing fish.

The official statement is that killing chickens and killing fish will meet blood, which is not auspicious. If God sees it, he will think that the emperor of Song Dynasty does not respect him, so he will have a bad reputation on the emperor of Song Dynasty. He has to pay taxes to make up for the emperor of Song Dynasty Loss.

So you have to pay tax when you kill chickens and fish for cooking.

When all the tax types were used, and there was no tax on shit, the tax collectors came up with the concept of collecting taxes in advance.

After finally paying all the taxes for this year, I thought that I would be able to eat a few meals and have a good birthday for a few days, but the tax collectors came again.

They said that the court said that this year, the court has a lot of work and it is very difficult, so they will pay you next year's tax in advance to make ends meet.

Some old peasants were unwilling, and the tax collectors threatened them, saying that they would not give advance payments this year and double the taxes next year!Let's see if you pay!

With that said, there are still people out there who dare not pay taxes?

So they have worked so hard throughout the year, and they have all paid taxes. Some of them have to pay taxes several times, but what they have left for themselves is really pitiful.

(End of this chapter)