Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1452 He Jian (Eighteen)

"The counties in the Hejian area, the townships managed by the counties, and the townships directly under the district administrative office, will be included in the unified national financial plan from January 1667, 1. All the rules and regulations must be perfected in a short period of time. This is Hard bars, red lines, everyone must act as soon as possible without any delay." In an office on the banks of the Paraná River, inspectors from the national tax department proudly read the orders from above to the local cadres in front of them.

Hearing what the "imperial envoy" from above said, a group of officials from the "Baoyi County Preparatory Committee" immediately succumbed to their promises, saying that they would do their best to complete the instructions from above, and the 6000 people in the county firmly supported the central government. — It’s no wonder that the so-called Baoyi County, which will be established at the end of this year, has only three townships under its jurisdiction, Baoyi Township, Guanghua Township and Baoping Township, with a population of just over [-]. Economically, rice cultivation and orange orchards are the core Lord, we still haven't completely got rid of the supply of relief food, and the so-called local finances are in a mess, so when we face the superiors, we can't harden our bones at all, and we only know how to obey, even if it is the national tax that has little to do with them. The same goes for department officials.

Because a certain second-generation county magistrate (named Zhao Ke, who is only one letter different from Chen Ke, an official from the Ministry of Communications, who is currently in his early 30s) has not yet taken up his post, and even a veteran transferred The deputy county magistrate also went to the local area to run supplies, so at present, the big and small affairs of the county are jointly decided by the heads of the various bureaus. Without a leader, naturally they have no ideas. Room for bargaining.

After the officials of the taxation department reported the new policy, the two left behind to prepare for the establishment of the national tax system locally, while the rest boarded a brand-new 72-ton small steamer and continued to head upstream to Baosai Port.There, they will respectively go to Baosai Port, Ningsai Township (located near the small town of Gualaiguai in later generations), Qingyuan Township (located in a swampy area opposite to Rosario City in later generations, mainly engaged in fishing and sparsely populated), Five townships, Daning Township (located in the swampy wetland opposite the later city of San Pedro, mainly engaged in fishing and sparsely populated) and Yongfu Township (located near the later city of Victoria), left personnel behind to prepare for the establishment of the national taxation department , to lay a good foundation for the formal work in the future.

And when it comes to the national taxation department, I have to mention the local taxation department that is slowly rolling out across the east coast: With the successful conclusion of the third tax reform of the East Coast Republic of China, the county-level administrative units have also begun to formally form The local taxation bureau collects and manages the taxes attributable to the local area, which generally includes the profits paid by local state-owned enterprises (if any), rents from farms, forests, rivers, lakes, and swamps, income from fines, business taxes, and land transfer fees. Also accounted for an absolute bulk.

Even though Baoyi County is sparsely populated, remote, and has a bad environment (increased flooding), the annual cost of purchasing land for more than 6000 residents exceeds 3 yuan. The income from land transfer fees reached more than 85 yuan, accounting for more than [-]% of the county's fiscal revenue, which is an astonishing proportion.

And from the revenue ratio of this slightly deformed local financial system, we can also clearly see how much local governments rely on land transfer fees in today's east coast. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that "land finance" !But this is unavoidable. Who let the current central government hold most of the tax revenue in its own hands? The local government is also forced to do nothing. It can only make up for it, otherwise the county government simply dissolves it. How can there be money to engage in projects such as people's livelihood construction.

Baoyi County actually has relatively low land income. Someone once calculated that densely populated traditional agricultural counties such as Xihu County can sell more than [-] mu of agricultural land every year, and this is still a public land approved by the top. What about the number achieved under the condition of limited land development indicators, otherwise there may be even more.

According to the latest regulations, the price of one mu of land is ten yuan.Then the 20 mu of agricultural land was sold for a total of 10 yuan. After removing the part turned over to the central government, Xihu County can still get a net 15 yuan. If other incomes are included, the county government’s annual financial total I'm afraid the income will break 5000 yuan!This is an astonishing amount of financial revenue, enough to blind the eyes of many parents and officials in impoverished inland counties, and even make the British royal family drool, which is difficult to make up even [-] pounds, and continue to doubt their own country's system: How could the people on the east coast collect so much money so easily, but the wealthy people in this country are unwilling to pay the royal family, so that even the navy's military expenditure is seriously insufficient, and the army can only maintain a scale of [-] people. What's going on, it's really more popular than people!

Therefore, the land revenue is so crazy, which makes the local government have more urgent needs and impulses to expand immigration. After all, when there are more people, they have a reason to apply to the higher-level government for an increase in the quota for public land reclamation, which often means Income from large land transfer fees.You know, if it weren't for the fact that there is no public land for them in the hometown, how many second-generation citizens who grew up in their hometown would be willing to go to those wild and primitive frontier areas to open up wasteland?It is simply impossible!

There are more than 500 residents in the three townships of Baoyi County, and about 2000 of them are second-generation youths who immigrated from various counties in mature areas in China. Basically, the local public land quotas are not enough, and they must be allocated to new immigrants first. Therefore, many people can't wait to sign up and go to the newly occupied areas to open up wasteland in order to obtain a capital that can make them settle down and start a business. This is especially valued by many young people from traditional Ming families.

What's more, in order to support the development of the Hejian area, the local government administration has given Baoyi and other directly-administered counties—because of the key position of the Parana River, many counties along the river are directly managed by the central government. There are nine of them, namely Dongfang, Luocha, Qingdao, Yuexi, Tieling, Meiluo, Chengshan, Yancheng, and Baoyi—a lot of public land development indicators, and even the approval of land, forestry, river and lake leasing must be done quickly , and the rent is low by more than two-thirds, in order to attract more people and funds to these newly developed areas through policy regulation, accelerate the development of the local economy, and balance the differences between regions.

Baoyi County seems to have obtained the land reclamation quota of 100 mu this year and the next two years, a huge quota that is enough to make the old counties such as Dongfang, Luocha, West Lake, and Pingan drool.Let them put it there, with a little publicity and manipulation, even if they can't sell all of it, it's close to ten. This is a huge amount of cash close to 50 million yuan. Even if the central government distributes half of it, it will still be [-] yuan. It's going to be crazy!

It's a pity that the quota of 1667 mu is placed in Baoyi County, a remote area full of rivers, lakes, and floods from time to time. It's really blind!Many people estimated that even if the county’s economy improved slightly in 5, it would only be able to use up one-tenth of its index, that is, the total income of the county’s land transfer fees would be [-] yuan, or even [-] yuan. not enough!Compared with those established counties with large populations and higher incomes in China, it is really a world of difference.

Therefore, in fact, from the perspective of "butt" (that is, interests), the new and remote lands including Baoyi County are actually the most eager for immigrants, especially those immigrants with two dollars in their pockets—whether they are The second-generation nationals also have oriental immigrants—they can contribute income to the local finance as quickly as possible, so that the governments at the county and township levels have more sufficient financial resources to build the local area, develop the economy, and benefit the people.

"As soon as the National Taxation Bureau is established, our county will immediately become Qingshui Yamen. This year, the land that can be sold for almost 3 yuan will be taken away by half, and there will be 2000 left. But 5000 yuan won’t make a difference, it’s just a salary for the county! Everyone, how much can you do with 5000 yuan?” The head of the county’s finance bureau put his hand on his forehead and said with a wry smile to his colleagues: “The pier It needs to be built, rivers need to be dredged, sluices need to be built, roads need to be built, and all kinds of houses and warehouses must be built. Of course, there are the most important river bank embankments. How many things can a mere [-] yuan be able to do!"

In fact, in the southern part of the river where floods are more serious and the rivers are criss-crossed—it is geographically called the estuary delta sub-region, just like the swamp sub-region in the north-reservoir construction, river channel widening and dredging, and embankment construction are really important. It is the focus of the work, especially the construction of the last embankment.You must know that although the average terrain on the east bank of the Paraná River is higher than that on the west bank, once the flood really occurs, many settlements will inevitably become water towns. It can be seen from the tall wooden piles.

Moreover, if there is no river embankment to resist the flood, once the river water enters the settlements of the people on the east bank with an unstoppable force, although it will not cause much harm to people, property damage is inevitable. Fish ponds or crops, such as livestock that cannot be moved in time, such as drowned fruit trees, such as stored goods damaged by flooding, etc., in short, the threat of floods is still very large.

More precisely, if the inter-river area—at least the swamp sub-region and the delta sub-region—is to be developed, the embankment construction of the Parana River and its many tributaries will not increase its importance no matter how important it is. Excessively, most of the funds of counties and townships will be invested in this aspect of construction, and the transport capacity of inland water transport companies will also be more inclined to transport construction materials for embankment construction.Only in this way can people from the east bank finally gain a firm foothold in the southern part of Hejian, commonly known as the water town of Zeguo.

Fortunately, the members of the executive committee also realized the key to gaining a firm foothold in the Hejian area. After basically confirming that Hejian was about to be taken over from the Spaniards, *** Qi Wangping very readily approved the Parana River and its tributaries. The 50-year construction plan of the dam means that the East Coast Republic of China will invest no less than 50 yuan in the construction of the dam every year for the next 20 years, with a total amount of more than 1000 million yuan.And if the local government’s investment and corvée expropriation rights are included, it is believed that more than 50 million yuan will be invested in the embankment along the river in the entire Hejian area in 500 years, which can almost be called a "century project". The Ming Empire allocated funds every year for repairs every year (but it still flooded every now and then...). Of course, the people on the east bank are at least much better than the Ming and Qing countries in terms of capital utilization. , Corruption and waste will be much less.

Baoyi County, as the first county-level administrative unit established in the Delta Sub-region, has successively relied on its own strength to build river embankments since the year before last.At that time, they excavated the resources in the county on the spot, and built them with rare local natural stone and mortar. The building was about seven or eight kilometers long. One of the branches of the Baoyi River) on the left bank, it can be regarded as a model of building a century-old project with the efforts of the whole county. It is because they know that this is a big project for future generations, so they contribute money and efforts one by one, helping the government save a lot of unnecessary expenses.Otherwise, why do you think that the three villages and towns in Baoyi County are so poor that they can build such a high-standard embankment in more than three years?

This time, after it was confirmed that the Hejian area would be collected as a reward for sending troops to France, Baoyi County quickly received a special fund of more than 5 yuan for the construction of flood control and conservancy facilities allocated by the superiors-of course, this money cannot be controlled by the county. The "hatted" money is earmarked for special purposes - half of the funds will be used to continue the construction of the Baoyi River embankment, and the other half will be used to hire dredgers to dredge the flood discharge channel, rely on natural lakes to transform them into reservoirs, etc. In short, it is just like history The methods used to develop Zeguo, a water town in the south of the Yangtze River in China, are similar: build embankments, drain water, and cultivate fields. If you don’t believe it, you won’t be able to create another land of fish and rice. While enjoying the convenient transportation brought by the big river, do everything possible to avoid flooding and leave it to future generations.

Of course, although the construction funds of 5 yuan have accounted for a quarter of the water conservancy construction funds allocated by the Government Administration Council to the Hejian area, it is still a drop in the bucket compared to the long dams that need to be built, and the local government is still needed Find a way to support it, otherwise the levee and reservoir will have to be repaired until the year of the monkey?But for these newly established counties with financial difficulties, how short of money is it!

"In addition to water conservancy costs, there are also sanitation and disease control costs, and resettlement costs. Although many of them are allocated from above, do we really no longer need advance funds from our local government? I can't see it. Many projects have come to the end. Expenditures will always exceed the budget, and it is very helpless for our local government to fill in the hole." Someone interrupted with a wry smile, "But the question is, how do we open up financial resources now?"

(End of this chapter)