People in the Song Dynasty were lawless

Chapter 434: The eighth year of Qingli ends, it’s time to raise taxes

In the twelfth month of the eighth year of the Qingli period in the Song Dynasty, it rained for more than ten days in late winter.

Zhao Jun braved wind and rain and spent more than twenty days traveling all over the city of Bianliang, making a private visit in disguise to understand the people's sentiments.

The characteristics of the area under the emperor's feet are different, although they cannot fully represent the rest of the country.

However, the problems highlighted are worthy of study to a large extent and can be used as experience for future urbanization in other places.

Just like when Zhao Jun first came to the Song Dynasty, he also needed to visit everywhere to see the real situation of the Song Dynasty.

The changes in the Song Dynasty are so great now that it can be said that they are changing with each passing day. If we fail to pay attention to the development of the people at all times, we will most likely fall behind.

Therefore, Zhao Jun must visit the people every once in a while to see what areas need development and what problems need to be solved.

In this way, he wandered around Bianliang City for almost a month and recorded many situations. Some of them needed to be handled by Kaifeng Prefecture, and some required planning by the court, such as sewers, water plants, septic tanks, etc.

More than a hundred questions, big and small, were recorded.

For example, the outer city area of ​​Kaifeng Prefecture is expanding every day, and with it comes the public security problems caused by the influx of a large number of outsiders. All kinds of fights, robberies, thefts and even murders occur every day.

It’s not that Bao Zheng didn’t try to solve the problem, but that the objective law of things is like this. The influx of population in a short period of time, and the fact that most of them are gathered outside the city, is bound to cause these problems.

In later generations, we have Skynet, police cars that patrol 24 hours a day, and police stations on every street, so we can solve and handle problems anytime and anywhere.

But how could it be so convenient in ancient times?
Kaifeng Prefecture still has a backlog of homicide cases where the murderers have not been caught, and even the identity of the murderers is unknown.

How can those few thousand yamen runners manage the millions of people in the city?
So Zhao Jun did not blame Bao Zheng for this issue, but discussed with him and came up with several solutions.

For example, increasing the number of retired soldiers transferred to Kaifeng Prefecture as yamen runners, allowing Kaifeng Prefecture to recruit strong men as non-staff personnel, and allowing the imperial guards stationed in Bianliang to patrol every day.

As for homicide cases, Zhao Jun believes that breakthroughs should be sought in criminal investigation technology.

For example, the Ministry of Public Security could take the lead in finding experienced coroners across the country, compile years of technical summaries into a book, and disseminate it as internal information for the public security department.

A work like Song Ci's "Xi Yuanlu" is the culmination of this.

It’s a pity that Song Ci was from the Southern Song Dynasty.

However, although Zhao Jun is not a criminal investigator, he knows that fingerprints and footprints have been used as a technique to solve cases a long time ago.

Therefore, Zhao Jun asked the Ministry of Public Security to set up a special department to cooperate with the School of Chemistry to find a breakthrough in fingerprints, footprints and blood types.

Although blood type research is certainly not easy, the School of Chemistry now has microscopes and many experimental instruments, and the court also allows them to conduct anatomical experiments on unclaimed bodies of death row prisoners.

I believe that as long as we find the right direction, it may be possible to find a way to test blood type.

Amidst this drizzling winter rain, the eighth year of the Qingli period of the Song Dynasty gradually came to an end.

It’s the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, and today is my last day of work.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Lunar New Year, and the Song Dynasty will enter a seven-day New Year holiday.

After that there are various holidays such as Tiansheng Festival and Lantern Festival, and the working hours in the whole month of January do not exceed five days.

Zhao Zhen is going to hold a grand celebration tonight. He will hang incandescent lamps inside and outside the imperial palace so that he can have fun with the people of the city on the Donghua Tower.

At this time, the heavy rain outside had stopped long ago.

After stopping for seven or eight days, the ground was dry, but the weather was gloomy and it was a cloudy day.

Today, the prime ministers did not rush to do their official business, but drank tea in an orderly manner. In front of each of them was a note submitted by the Statistics Department this year.

"Tax revenues from the first ten months of this year have already reached 1.8 million guan. By the time the statistics for November and December are compiled in February next year, it should be no problem to exceed 2 million guan."

"Steel mills across the country have been put on the right track, and their steel production has increased significantly. The Wu'an Iron and Steel Plant has produced six times the annual output of our country in the past, reaching 9 tons."

"Yes, steel mills across the country are already producing. Last year, the total steel production in the country was 23 tons, which is unimaginable."

"These are nothing. In the early days of our country, our steel production was only 16 tons. But just nine years later, in 1958, our production increased more than 20 times to 370 million tons."

Zhao Jun was very moved when he saw everyone holding this year's statistics. He smiled and said, "After that, the country focused on steel production. By 1959, it produced 1400 million tons of steel in one year. Now our steel production is just a beginning. It is in the initial stage. Once the road is laid and the production capacity is increased, it will not be difficult to achieve an annual steel production of 100 million tons next year or the year after."

"It seems that the goal of making Song produce more than 90% of the world's steel within five years will be completed ahead of schedule."

Yan Shu smiled.

In the sixth year of the Qingli period, Zhao Jun made a five-year plan.

It was required to increase the national steel production to one million tons per year within five years, so that Song Dynasty would produce more than 90% of the world's steel.

It seems like an impossible task.

But in fact, as the steel industry progresses, production increases exponentially.

This year's annual output may be 10 tons.

But with this output of 10 tons and qualified steel production technology, you can build another steel plant in other places with rich coal and iron ore resources and continue to expand production capacity.

In this way, it will be 10 tons this year, 20 tons next year, 40 tons the year after, and 80 tons the year after that, increasing and doubling every year.

It is just like the annual output was 16 tons in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and 70 years later, it had reached 10 billion tons.

So now is the fourth year of steel production capacity expansion, and it is the end of the second year of the five-year plan proposed by Zhao Jun and the beginning of the third year.

By the ninth year of the Qingli period, if all goes well, Song's steel production capacity will be able to reach 500,000 tons. By the tenth year of the Qingli period, it will most likely be able to complete Zhao Jun's five-year plan of producing one million tons per year, exceeding the target by one year.

"We have also calculated GDP. In the first ten months of this year, our GDP has reached 26 billion guan, an increase of 14% over the same period last year."

As the prime minister in charge of the Ministry of Finance, Xia Song was very happy to see this year's GDP growth data. He smiled and said, "There are still two months to go before the statistics are released. If it is 14% higher than last year, this year's GDP is expected to exceed 30 billion guan."

"This is normal data, and it can even be said to be slow data. Because we started from a low point, there is a lot of room for development. Food production has increased dramatically, steel production has increased dramatically, there are too many things on the market, supply exceeds demand, and even caused a certain degree of deflation."

Zhao Jun said: "The new monetary policy introduced last year will effectively solve these problems, and there is still a lot of room for development in the domestic market and population, so it will develop faster in the future. The growth rate will not slow down until the domestic market becomes saturated and encounters bottlenecks."

"Ah."

Song Shou said: "It seems that Hanlong's layout is correct. We should open up new markets as soon as possible and sell Song Dynasty's products to the whole world, so that the people of Song Dynasty can live a life of luxury."

Zhao Jun said: "I have already decided on the main development direction for you. First, we will continue to expand steel production capacity, and then vigorously develop infrastructure and steam locomotive and steam ship industries. We must absorb most of the production capacity ourselves and enhance our national strength. Second, we will adjust the tax policy every year in the future, appropriately increase the tax rate, increase fiscal revenue, and use it to build basic education and public construction investment."

“Increase taxes?”

"If you think about it carefully, it's time to increase taxes."

"Yes, our tax rate in recent years is indeed too low, causing the court to often have no money to spend."

Several prime ministers immediately became excited.

When it comes to taxation, they are experts.

Wasn't the high tax rate imposed by the Song Dynasty set by these important officials in the court? "I went too far back then."

Zhao Jun said: "The tax rate was drastically reduced from an extremely high level, and it has been reduced for so many years. Although it has promoted the development of the private sector, it is still somewhat disadvantageous to the country."

The most important thing about the New Policies of the Qingli Period was to reduce the burden on the people, so in the first year of the implementation of the new policies, the court's income directly dropped by more than 4000 million strings of cash.

From 10375 million strings of cash in the first year of the Qingli period, it dropped to less than 6000 million strings of cash in the second year of the Qingli period, a 40% decrease in revenue.

Moreover, if Zhao Jun had not expanded foreign trade transactions in those years, increasing foreign trade income by about 700 billion yuan, and sold a large number of state-owned mines, tea plantations, salt fields and other assets, I am afraid that the fiscal revenue would have plummeted.

This shows how much the New Policies of the Qingli Period reduced agricultural taxes and relaxed commercial taxes. It was not just a halving, but a direct reduction of two-thirds from the original proportion.

Taxes that are too high are not good, as they will make the people poor and make life difficult for the people. But taxes that are too low are not good either, as too much money will circulate among the people, resulting in oversupply and inflation.

Therefore, taxation is also a form of economic cycle, and together with banks and credit, it maintains the economic system of the entire country.

This is the knowledge taught in high school politics.

Zhao Jun now realizes his problem.

Although a lot of preparatory measures were taken at the beginning, through the sale of state-owned assets and the expansion of foreign trade, the three redundancy problems were gradually solved and the country's financial difficulties were alleviated.

By significantly reducing taxes, private agriculture and commerce will enter a period of rapid development and prosperity.

But although the country prospered, the government's finances decreased a lot.

Even though the fiscal revenue is 30 million yuan a year, if we take into account the 40-2.6% local taxes distributed to local governments, the total tax revenue is about 2.8- million yuan.

But it only accounts for about 9% of the total GDP.

This is obviously unhealthy fiscal revenue.

Because in later generations, the tax revenue of many countries exceeded 20% of GDP.

The tax rate in China is 20-18%. The tax rate in my country is decreasing year by year. The tax rate and tax threshold are lowered every year. It has dropped to 15.1%.

The tax rate in the Song Dynasty was 6% lower than that of my country in later generations, but there were many places to spend money, including education, infrastructure, national defense, scientific research, military, etc.

This resulted in a certain fiscal deficit being maintained every year, and the annual extra expenditure had to be maintained through the issuance of national debt, causing the Song Dynasty court to owe a lot of money to the Jiaoziwu government.

Then the national debt has to be paid interest. If this continues, it will be like the U.S. Emperor and Japan in later generations, developing the country by borrowing money, and then continuously issuing national debts, using the newly issued national debts to repay old debts and interest.

Although this routine can continue indefinitely as long as GDP and the economy can be maintained and the country continues to develop, it can continue without end.

But the problem is that too low taxes themselves are not a good thing. If a country has no money to develop, how can it continue to grow?
So now is the time to raise taxes to take the economy and development to the next level.

Zhao Jun continued, "Although the relatively loose tax policy has enabled agriculture and the economy to flourish, it still needs to be regulated by the state. The private sector cannot be left to run a free market, because if it continues, it will easily allow capital to emerge and form a monopoly."

"Now that our development is on the right track, we need the macro-management of the state to continue to push it forward, and we need more fiscal revenue."

"The current situation is that we used to mint no more than 300-400 million strings of coins a year. Even in the later period of Emperor Shenzong of Song, the Song Dynasty could only mint 500 million strings of coins a year, and fiscal revenue was seriously insufficient."

"Now you can cast as many as you want."

“Gold and silver can be used as anchors to issue silver dollars and cotton notes.”

"In addition, we are now importing a large amount of gold, silver and copper mines from abroad, allowing the court to mint more than 10 million copper coins every year, and millions of silver dollars and cotton notes, which means we can have a lot more money to spend every year."

“But this does not mean that we can print money without limit, because this will only cause private inflation and make the originally healthy development unhealthy.”

“Therefore, it is necessary to coordinate taxation, banking and credit to complete a complete economic cycle system, recover money through taxation, and prevent too much money on the market, causing oversupply.”

"But now people are used to low tax rates, and a hasty tax increase will definitely cause opposition."

"Although we can completely ignore these opposing voices, since this concerns the interests of the people, we cannot adopt a one-size-fits-all approach and directly increase the rate significantly."

"So we will do it step by step. After the new year, the new policy will increase various taxes by about 1%, and then continue to increase it next year, and maintain it at a maximum of about 15% of GDP, which should be a more appropriate tax rate."

He looked around at everyone, and finally at Xia Song and said, "As for the specific taxation system, the Ministry of Finance will come up with a charter. We can appropriately reduce taxes on low-income people and increase taxes on high-income people. We should not be lenient with big businessmen and big capitalists."

“These rich people are extremely rich now.”

Xia Song smiled and said, "I heard that salt merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang competed with each other for wealth. They used silk to hang colorful ships, and directly bought hundreds of ships, spending thousands of gold."

"Yes, there are also those who sell tea and wine. There are many wealthy merchants in Bianliang who are worth millions or even tens of millions of guan."

Yan Shu also said.

He had many properties for rent in Bianliang, so he naturally knew the business situation in Bianliang.

“So there’s no need to be soft-hearted.”

Zhao Jun said: "When the salt, mining and tea mountains were semi-privatized, a large number of wealthy people were created. They took off at the forefront of the times and should give back to this era."

Before the Qingli period, the highest wealth accumulated by wealthy merchants in the Song Dynasty was only one million strings of coins, and there were very few businessmen whose wealth exceeded several million strings of coins or even tens of millions of strings of coins.

But in the Ming Dynasty, the salt merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang had assets of tens of millions of taels of silver, and Heshen of the Qing Dynasty had a fortune of about 8 million taels of silver, making him the richest man in the world at that time.

This is certainly due to the large influx of silver from Japan and America during the Ming and Qing dynasties, which caused a huge increase in silver.

However, the Song Dynasty also had a high taxation policy on big merchants.

Once you reach a certain level of wealth, the Song Dynasty court will plunder you to the point of draining your blood.

Some businessmen with assets worth hundreds of thousands of taels could even be wiped out by the imperial court overnight.

Unlike the Ming Dynasty, it was difficult for the imperial court to collect taxes from these top businessmen, resulting in the rapid accumulation of wealth among these people.

So although the Song Dynasty seemed prosperous, we have only heard that the people of the Song Dynasty wore silk and satin, but have never heard how rich the richest man in the Song Dynasty was. This is because the upper limit of the richest man in the Song Dynasty was strictly limited.

Even the fact that common people wore silk and satin was not because they were rich, but because the people of Bianliang were rich.

The peddlers and hawkers described by Ouyang Xiu wore silk and satin because the wages in Bianliang were high, with a daily wage of around 150 wen and a monthly income of 4-5 guan, so they could afford to wear silk and satin.

Why don’t you try being a country farmer?
Therefore, the situation in the Song Dynasty was that high taxes created a false prosperity.

The imperial court was rich, but the people were poor and weak, so common people and merchants had to work very hard to support their families, which indirectly promoted economic development.

It's different now.

After a significant reduction in taxes, wealthy people will be able to break through the property ceiling.

It is said that in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas, there have emerged wealthy businessmen with assets worth tens of millions.

So Zhao Jun planned to implement a tiered tax collection strategy.

Continue to increase the tax rate on the wealthy so that tax revenues can increase steadily each year.

(End of this chapter)