Daming: I, Yang Xian, really govern Yang!

Chapter 128 Tax Reform! (Third update)
The palace, the imperial study.

Li Jin felt a little uneasy at the moment. He really couldn't guess the reason why Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly summoned him alone.

Is it just because he is Enke's top pick this time?
Li Jin shook his head to eliminate the distracting thoughts in his mind.

If I can’t figure it out, I just don’t think about it.

"Your Majesty, Li Jin, pays homage to His Majesty, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince." Li Jin saluted.

"Here he comes." Zhu Yuanzhang raised his head, waved the paper in his hand, and said. "No need to be so formal."

Zhu Biao on the side also looked at Li Jin with a smile.

Seeing this situation, Li Jin became more and more uneasy.

The two most powerful people in the entire Ming Dynasty were so kind to him. He knew in his heart that this kind of treatment was not something that a small number one scholar could have.

"Prince, it's up to you to speak." Zhu Yuanzhang said.

Zhu Biao nodded, looked at Li Jin, and said with a smile: "Li Qing, your answer to the question 'How to quickly replenish the treasury' in the examination, both Prime Minister Li and Liu Zhongcheng were full of praise. Of course your answer The answer also made your Majesty and I shine. Today I called you here just to have a good chat about the policy of equalizing land and equalizing grain that you mentioned on the examination paper."

This is also the main reason why Li Jin was chosen as the first Huiyuan in the initial examination, because it was urgent to increase the revenue of the treasury.

It was because of this.

After listening to Zhu Biao's words, Li Jin breathed a sigh of relief.

He first bowed solemnly to Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao respectively, and then said: "The new Ming Dynasty, coupled with various natural and man-made disasters, has made the country extremely poor. If you want to fill the national treasury, I feel that I must bear the brunt. What we have changed is the tax system of our Ming Dynasty.”

What Li Jin said at this moment was the same as what was written on his Enke exam answer sheet.

The opening chapter is tax reform!
This is also the reason why his test paper can stand out from many candidates' test papers.

Compared with the two Song Dynasties, the land area of ​​the Ming Dynasty doubled, and more than doubled.

In terms of status, it also surrendered to the Liao and Jin Dynasties from the two Song Dynasties, and became the suzerain state of the East Asian countries of the Ming Dynasty. The total population is also more than 1.5 million, far exceeding the two Song Dynasties.

Looking at the comparison above, the fiscal revenue of the Ming Dynasty should be much higher than that of the Song Dynasty. But in fact, based on the rice prices of the two dynasties at the time, the fiscal revenue of the Song Dynasty was several times that of the Ming Dynasty.

This is why Zhu Biao and the others are puzzled.

"The tax system in the Ming Dynasty is relatively complicated. There are now craftsmen's taxes, land taxes, corvees, mining taxes, customs duties, etc. Among them, the most important source of taxation is land taxes, that is, land taxes are levied on an acre basis. They are different in the north and south, usually in summer and autumn. Collection." Li Jin said.

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao naturally knew that this was not what they wanted to hear.

Li Jin continued: "There are two types of land in the world: official land and civilian land. The tax on official land is several times heavier than that on civilian land."

In the early Republic of China, how heavy was the official land tax?
Even if the weather is good, the people who rent official farmland have worked hard for a year. After paying the rent and taxes, they will only have half a year's food rations left.

The common people cannot survive by selling their sons and daughters, so they will naturally flee and abandon their homes.The official land was abandoned, and the court naturally had no tax revenue.

Li Jin said: "Your Majesty, Your Highness, I think it is urgent to reduce the tax on official land without delay. If we blindly increase the tax on official land just to replenish the treasury, it is tantamount to killing the goose that lays the egg."

The land ownership of official fields belongs to the government, which leases the land to farmers. In addition to normal taxes, the government also collects additional land rent.Then, because the land rent and land tax of official land are combined into one, the official land tax is so much heavier than other forms of land tax.

"What about Mintian?" Zhu Biao asked.

Li Jin replied: "The situation of private land is not optimistic either. Although the tax on private land is only one per ten, the burden is much lighter. But now there are signs of large households annexing land, and this situation is developing in an intensifying trend. The large households have their own There are many ways to evade taxes, such as "escaping from the fields", "sending mail", "flying", "moving hills", "changing sections", "changing registration", etc., but the government cannot collect the taxes. .”

"If your Majesty doesn't believe it, you can send someone to your hometown in Fengyang Mansion to see the current situation there. Now all the fertile land has been taken over by the nobles of Huaixi. When my uncle returns to his hometown, he can only cultivate the bad land. I'm afraid he won't even have enough to eat. It’s all difficult.”

In this imperial examination, a political review system was implemented.

Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao naturally knew who the uncle in Li's mouth was.

Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but sigh when he thought that Ma Sandao, who had gone through life and death for him, finally ended up like this.

When he heard what Huaixi Xungui had done, his face was gloomy and scary. The big hands holding his knees while sitting on the seat had blue veins exposed.

Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he gritted his teeth. After these guys became prosperous, this is how they repaid the villagers.

"This is only the case in a few places such as Huaixi. If we reform as soon as possible, there is still hope. If we continue to let it go, other prefectures and provinces will follow the same example, and the imperial court's income will continue to drop sharply. Not to mention filling the national treasury, next Every year the national treasury will be the richest treasury in Ming Dynasty, because the treasury will only get poorer and poorer.”

"In the end, our Ming Dynasty will have the name of land tax, but no real land tax!" Li Jin shouted.

This is really not Li Jin's scaremongering, it is the flaw of the tax system.

As a result, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, land annexation was serious and taxation was unbalanced. Landlords with strong financial resources paid less and less taxes. On the contrary, ordinary farmers had to pay more and more taxes. The people were overwhelmed and even triggered a civil uprising, which affected the internal rule of the Ming Dynasty. It also caused a large loss of tax revenue for the imperial court.

Of course, Li Jin's opinions were all derived from Yang Xian. When he was in Yangzhou, Yang Xian had chatted with him about this topic, but of course only a few words each time.He, Li Jin, could rely on the bits and pieces that Yang Xian told him to piece together and restore it into such a large piece of policy for governing the country. He was considered capable. Most people, let alone accomplished it, might not be able to notice what Yang Xian inadvertently revealed. The mystery of the words that comes out.

Standing in front of Li Jin were the founding emperor of Ming Dynasty, Emperor Hongwu, and the most powerful prince in history.

Both of them were not ordinary people. They began to think carefully about Li Jin's words, and the more they thought about it, the uglier their faces became.

Because Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao knew the group of Huaixi nobles very well, they knew clearly that the scene Li Jin talked about was very likely to happen, and it might happen in the near future.

The next step is to focus on how to break the situation.

This goes back to the beginning of the problem, how to quickly replenish the national treasury.

Zhu Biao looked at Li Jin and asked, "So Li Qing, can you tell me if the tax system needs to be changed, how should it be changed?"

(End of this chapter)