Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 221 Establishing a New System

Wen Desi originally planned to show the township representatives another movie about the military parade at night, but seeing the appearance of the representatives was already shocking enough, and it would be tiresome to watch them any longer, so he just stopped showing it and saved a meal Dinner reception.The meeting was thus declared a successful conclusion.

While the delegates were gradually leaving with feelings of excitement and fear, the Executive Committee members were also taking stock of the results of the meeting.

Through this Political Consultative Conference, the Crossing Group took initial control of the entire county and acquired a legal identity that was barely recognized by the local government.Of course, their status is still very fragile. Whether it is the county government or the villages, they will not cooperate with them either because of the deterrence of force, or because of the consideration of practical interests.Once a strong external force intervenes, this simple cooperative relationship will immediately collapse. The most important thing right now is to win over the public opinion and make the people feel good about the Time Traveling Group as much as possible.

They have almost done the first step to let the people in the small southern border town have a good impression of the traversers. The traversers do not disturb the people, do not kill without authorization, buy and sell for the public, and have passed a series of construction after D-Day The activities indirectly helped the people on the poverty line. As long as it is an individual, all this is obvious to all.The common people's requirements are not high, as long as the Crossing Group can guarantee the social stability of Lingao and let them have a few full meals, the common people don't care whose banner they live under.

But to really make the people recognize their rule and be willing to shed blood and sacrifice for these rulers, the most effective way is to establish a common chain of interests as soon as possible.

Land reform, the tried and tested weapon of the Chinese revolution, did not work in Lingao.In the Ming Dynasty, there was a lot of land in Lingao, and it was not very attractive to carry out land reform. The reason why the common people were unwilling to open up wasteland was directly related to the backward agricultural productivity here. The primary task of the traversers was to increase agricultural productivity, not to change the production relationship.This is not only related to their own rule, but also helps to establish common interests with ordinary people.

The local merchants are the direct beneficiaries of the traversers. The prosperity of Dongmen City is the most typical expression of merchants "voting with their feet".Not only that, but their commercial policy also attracted merchants from other counties.The merchants are obviously the ones who can best appreciate the benefits brought to them by the arrival of the traversers, so compared to other classes, this class has the most common interests with them.However, the weakness of Chinese businessmen in the traditional society of officials and gentry made them unable to be a reliable force for a while.

Although the landlord and gentry class still maintain great doubts, judging from the situation of this meeting, there is no hostility on the whole-especially after the crossing group agreed to liquidate the value of the occupied land, the gentry The evaluation of Time Travel Group has risen a lot, and the attitude of cooperation has also come out.However, the gentry class is still a potential enemy of the time-traveling group at this stage.

However, under this rudimentary and unstable ruling system, the Crossing Group can at least mobilize various resources in Lingao County to a limited extent—especially human resources.Travelers can penetrate into every corner of the county relatively safely.In the past, every time a long-distance exploration team set off, a large armed force had to be mobilized to escort them, and the resulting logistical pressure was quite heavy.Now, at least in areas where banditry is not particularly serious, there is no need for such a big show.

A few days later, the participating villages successively sent liaison officers to confirm the figures of various "reasonable burdens".The number of confirmed patins is 100 per year.This large population makes every department salivate.After some debate, a total of 240 people were allocated to the army and navy, including 80 people from the navy.The rest will be used by Wu De's unified mobilization as basic labor.

The public grain under the "reasonable burden" is 7000 "public stones". Compared with the grain tax level of more than [-] "old stones", this burden is not small.

"Will the burden be too heavy?" Wen Desi felt that it was too big when he saw the number.

"It's really bigger." Luo Duo said.He has been transferred to the Social Work Department of the Political Security Administration as he wished.This department is in charge of collecting, sorting out, and analyzing local social conditions collected from various channels, and writing the "Social Conditions Bulletin".

"Although Lingao's grain tax is more than 7000 shi, the real burden of the local people is more than [-] shi." He reported the figure that he had studied for several days.

"So many?!" Everyone in the executive committee was taken aback.

Luo Duo nodded: "It may be more than that. The taxes of the Ming and Qing dynasties had a lot of floating income. This is an open secret. Everyone knows about kicking the tip of the dendrobium and burning the fire. In fact, there are many disadvantages in it. So, even if we lower the level of food distribution, it will still be a heavy burden on the villages.”

Nan Hai said: "Actually, it doesn't matter if you don't need this grain distribution. This month, the farm will start to grow hybrid rice on a large scale. First, 1000 mu will be planted. Although the fertilizer and pesticide conditions are poor, the local area can produce three or two crops a year. , It is easy to harvest 500-600 tons of rice a year. The pressure on farmers to distribute grain is too great. Since we want to win over the people, we can’t oppress them too much.”

Wu De said: "We have discussed with the governor that we should turn disadvantages into advantages and use this as an opportunity to implement social reforms."

"Social reform?" Wen Desi suddenly became alert, this Ma Qianju would not want to carry out land reform in disguise.

Ma Qianzhu expressed his thoughts calmly: "According to the analysis put forward by the Ministry of Social Work, the next step of the Civil Affairs Committee is to fight for the county's summer and autumn taxes. This matter can be sent to negotiate immediately."

"Contract grain and tax?" Wen Desi was puzzled. The local gentry big family contracted grain and tax in order to collude with the subordinates internally and externally, pass on the burden, and make a fortune for themselves.What does the time traveler want to contract food for?

"That's right," Wu De said, "after we take over the grain tax, we completely remove the floating income and only pay the extra amount to the county treasury. In this way, even if we add our distribution levy, it will always be a problem for the farmers. The burden is still smaller than before.”

"Will the people in the county government agree? This is a huge chain of interests!" Wen Desi asked in confusion.Mobilize the whole body, once a malady forms a chain of interests, it is difficult to get rid of it, and it is the same in any time and space.

"Of course I won't agree." Ma Qianju said, "But if we want to transform society, we must first break the old pattern." He seemed confident, "To mobilize the masses, we need a class of 'bad guys'. Gao’s current situation is not suitable for land reform, and the target of landlords and rich peasants is not suitable.”

"And don't forget that many of the landlords here are the heads of the clan, and the clan in Lingao is quite powerful." Yu Eshui reminded.

Because Hainan is located in the southern border, the land is sparsely populated, and there is a long-term chaos.For the sake of their own safety and production needs, the villages here all have the obvious color of clan settlements.The traversers haven't been able to completely smash all of this.

"Yes, so our target is the vested interest groups in taxation."

This group is very complicated, ranging from local officials such as county magistrates and county magistrates, down to local ruffians who have no status and assist government servants-the so-called "grain poor".

Ma Qianju seemed confident: "Officials such as Wu Mingjin and Wu Ya could have benefited from food and taxes. We compensated them with private salt and commercial interests, and continued to win them over. They have nothing to say. The real benefits The damage is nothing more than the county's book office, subordinate officials and their minions. These people are basically scourges-they are doing evil in the county, deceiving the upper and lower levels. Everyone hates and fears them. Through Liquidating this group of people will not only get another batch of materials and money, but also from the perspective of public opinion: these people are unpopular, and the gentry and ordinary people will be happy, killing two birds with one stone."

Clean up the old and unreasonable system, and then promote the more reasonable and simple tax collection system designed by the traversers, the gentry and common people will be impressed by the ability of the traverse group to govern the country, which is beneficial to attract bureaucratic intellectuals in the future join in.

"After cleaning them up, we can send our people to the county government."

"It's wonderful!" Someone applauded, "This means that the Lingao County Government is ours!"

"This plan is good." Wen Desi agreed.

"There is another factor in the reason for cleaning up the subordinates." Ran Yao from the Political Security Administration added, "According to the investigation of the Ministry of Social Affairs, the leaders of the third class in the county are basically the bandit leaders in the county. All kinds of bandits and thieves, big and small, are talking about it, and they are doing the business of sitting on the ground to make a fortune. If they are not cut off, we will have a lot of trouble in suppressing bandits and rectifying law and order in the future."

"These people aren't willing to let go easily, are they? How can they collect taxes without the fish book?"

"Stupid, if you don't pay it out, hang it up and pass the electricity!" Dugu obviously has no sense of human rights when he proposes, "I'll see who has the ability to withstand it."

"Even if I give you the Yulin Book, do you guarantee that you can understand it?"

"The Yulin book is not a great thing. The research works have long been available, and I can read it if I really take it out." Yu Eshui said.

"It's all up to you!"

"That's not the problem," Yu Eshui said. "Just like why we call each village self-reported 'reasonable burden', the Yulin Booklet does not truly reflect the level of agricultural production in Lingao. If we continue to use this booklet to collect , many unfair and unreasonable phenomena are still not corrected, which is of no significance to the progress of this society."

"what do you mean?"

"Land and population census." Yu Eshui said, "Now that all villages have liaison officers, we should conduct a comprehensive census. We should roughly find out the land, population, and resources of the entire county."

"The project is too big." Everyone gasped.

"Does a journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step?" Yu Eshui said, "It's just a county now, and it will be the whole of China in the future. Do you want to do it?"

After some discussion, everyone thought that since this matter should be done sooner or later, it would be better to do it later than earlier, so they agreed to start the county-wide census from February.

"Now, we have obtained an excellent respite." Ma Qianju said at the executive committee's summary meeting, "Seizing the opportunity and completing the industrial and agricultural upgrading as soon as possible is the most urgent task now. The following topics are : Lingao’s first five-year plan.”

(End of this chapter)