A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 704 The Grand Era Begins

"A bolt of silk can be exchanged for a bushel of rice; there is nothing of value in the world."

"Your Majesty, this is an omen of a prosperous era!"

In the Xiande Hall of the Eastern Palace, Pei Ju, the Inspector General of the Palace and Minister of Revenue, congratulated the emperor on the summer harvest. The seventy-seven-year-old Pei Ju was in good spirits and had bright eyes.

In Chang'an, a dou of rice costs 20 coins, flour costs 32 coins, and a bolt of silk costs 200 coins.

A bushel of millet costs only twelve coins.

Summer saw a bumper harvest of grains, the country was unified and stable with no major wars, and prices also dropped significantly.

Li Shimin sat on the throne with a broad smile.

Food prices are the most accurate reflection of the overall economy and are a matter of vital importance to people's livelihoods.

"Congratulations, Your Majesty!" the ministers cheered.

Li Shimin laughed heartily, “Back when the rebel army first entered Chang’an, a dou of rice cost several hundred coins. In the long-term battle in Luoyang, the price of a dou of rice was even three thousand or eight or nine thousand coins at one point.”

I never imagined that the price of rice in Chang'an would drop so quickly.

Two years ago, a bushel of rice cost over a hundred coins.
This year's summer wheat harvest was bountiful, with the price reaching twenty qian (a unit of weight), which truly reflects the abundance of grain.

Li Yi believes that the most important thing is that it reflects the people's current positive expectations for the future.

The world was unified, and the Turks submitted.

Especially after Li Shimin, known for his wisdom and virtue, became emperor, the court became stable.

With the imperial court imposing lighter taxes and labor service, the people breathed a sigh of relief.
The next step is to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

In addition,
The vigorous promotion of corn and potatoes in recent years has greatly increased grain yields in the fields. Now, people in Guanzhong eat these coarse grains in addition to corn, which is much better than in the past.

Cornbread, corn porridge, pumpkin rice, potato rice, and sweet potato rice—even nobles enjoy these as healthy meals.

For ordinary people,

In the past, when food was scarce, we would cook thin porridge with some wild vegetables, and we would eat it twice a day, but we were never full. Now, we add potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, and even pumpkin to the porridge, which is much better than adding wild vegetables.

With a small amount of grain, adding these mixed grains makes it filling and nutritious.

In fact, it can even save a lot of staple food compared to the past.

A few years ago, a bolt of silk could only buy a peck of rice, but now a bolt of silk is worth a bushel of rice.

Of course, another reason why twelve coins could now buy a bushel of millet was that, over the past few years, the imperial court had intensified its crackdown on counterfeit and inferior coins, leading to a greater circulation of newly minted Kaiyuan Tongbao coins.
New coins are of good quality and have high value.

As a result, prices have fallen somewhat.

Due to a combination of factors, nowadays a peck of rice costs twenty coins, and a bolt of silk can be exchanged for a bushel of rice.

Kaiyuan Tongbao coins were very valuable; two hundred coins could buy a bolt of raw silk, a shi of rice, or sixteen dou and six sheng of millet.

The first summer harvest after the new emperor's ascension to the throne.
It was a bumper harvest.
Then grain prices plummeted.

This is a sign of a prosperous era.

A wise and benevolent ruler.

What constitutes a prosperous era? It is one where all people in the world can have enough to eat and wear.

"Prime Minister Pei, how many households are there in the empire today?"

"Your Majesty, last year, the total number of households in the empire was 3,041,871, with a population of 12,351,681."

How many households did the Sui dynasty have?

"In the fifth year of the Daye era of the Sui Dynasty, the total number of households in the country was more than 8.9 million, and the population was more than 46 million."

Li Shimin, who was just very happy,

Hearing this comparison of numbers, I fell silent.

The ministers in the hall fell silent.

From the fifth year of the Daye era to the sixth year of the Wude era, only fourteen years had passed.
However, the number of registered residents has decreased by almost two-thirds.

The population has decreased by almost 35 million.

Li Shimin was silent for a moment, then asked, "Does Prime Minister Pei know how many people the Northern Zhou, Northern Qi, and Southern Chen dynasties had back then?"

Although Pei Ju was old, he could talk about these things at will.

"The Northern Qi had a population of about 20 million, the Northern Zhou had 9 million, and the Southern Chen had 15 million. The total population of the three kingdoms at that time exceeded 40 million."

"Why did the population of the three kingdoms of Northern Zhou, Northern Qi, and Southern Chen still exceed 40 million despite years of continuous warfare? And why was there only about ten years of war between the Daye and Wude periods?"

The population has decreased by more than 30 million, from over 46 million to just over 12 million today.

Regarding this issue,

There aren't many answers I can give.

Left Minister Fang Xuanling believed that before the Sui Dynasty unified China, although the country was divided into three kingdoms and there were years of war, the areas controlled by the three kingdoms were relatively stable overall. Without major disasters or famines, the population loss in the wars between the three kingdoms was not significant.

Since the chaos of the Sui Dynasty, the world has been in turmoil, with refugees rising up everywhere, constant separatist movements, and endless warfare.
Famine and plague are the real culprits behind the sharp decline in population.

Another reason why there are three million registered households and over twelve million people in the country today is that a large number of people are not registered and are not included in the statistics. Some of these people are runaways, some are hidden, and some have become servants or tenants.

A large portion of the population was not included in the imperial household registration statistics.

Many people even attached themselves to temples and Taoist monasteries to avoid state taxes and corvée labor.

In the fourth year of the Wude era, the imperial court conducted a household survey and found only over two million households. Last year, another survey was conducted, and the number reached over three million.

It's impossible for the number of households to increase by nearly a million in three years; the main reason is that many unregistered households and absconded persons were discovered.

The current household registration management is still inadequate. Not only are there a large number of people who have absconded or disappeared, but there are also cases of fraud and omissions among those who have registered their household registration. For example, a family of four or five may only register two or three members.

There are clearly two or three able-bodied men, but only one is recorded, and there are many cases of people pretending to be old or young. Fang Xuanling believed that the current population of the country should be around 30 million, but it is estimated that there are tens of millions of people who are not registered, and there are also many people who are hidden in the household registration.

Household registration

This was of paramount importance to feudal dynasties.

This was especially true for the Tang Dynasty.

The basic tax and labor service system of the Tang Dynasty consisted of households and adult males.

The rent, labor, and tax system was a system of levying rent and labor service based on the number of adult males. In contrast, grain from public granaries and household taxes were levied on a household-by-household basis.

Problems with household and population data will affect national tax revenue.

Without household registration, there is naturally no taxation or corvée labor.
This is also the reason why a large number of people fled their homes.

Slaves, monks, and Taoist priests were also exempt from taxes and service.

Fang Xuanling believed that the current population of the country was at least 30 million, which was reasonable.

Even if we deduct ten million slaves, there should still be twenty million people.

This means that there are at least eight million unregistered people, and at least two million adult males, who, if registered and subject to taxes and corvée labor,

With two million people, the annual rent for grain reached four million shi, and there was also one million bolts of silk to be transferred.

Each adult had to perform 20 days of free labor for the imperial court every year, which meant 40 million labor hours.

For the imperial court,

This number is astonishing.

Fang Xuanling believed that a comprehensive investigation of the registered population should be conducted.

When Emperor Wen of Sui unified the country, he conducted a large-scale physical examination, with officials from prefectures and counties verifying the age and physical appearance against the records in the household registers.
The phenomenon of people concealing their household registration and falsely claiming to be old or young is extremely serious, directly affecting national fiscal revenue and control over the labor force. In order to verify the population that should pay taxes and bear corvée labor, and to check whether they have lied about their age, if there is any falsehood, the village head and other officials will be punished.

"Your Majesty, at the beginning of the Kaihuang era, the Sui Dynasty had only 3.8 million households. By the fifth year of the Daye era, the number had increased to 8.9 million households. In less than 30 years, the number of households more than doubled. The policy of large-scale investigation and inspection made a great contribution."

Li Yi sat on the throne.
To be honest, he wasn't very supportive of Fang Xuanling's suggestion.

The main reason why so many people fled their homes was that they were unable to pay taxes and corvée labor, and the root cause was the inadequacy of the equal-field system.

Ideally, the equal-field system would grant each adult male 100 mu of land, followed by the rent-labor-tax system, where each adult male would pay rent of two shi of millet, two zhang of silk, and three liang of cotton, and perform free labor service for the state for twenty days each year.

The foundation of the rent, labor service, and tax system was equal land distribution.

If a able-bodied man is granted a hundred acres of land, then his tax burden won't be too high. The problem is, except in the border regions...

It is very difficult to allocate 100 mu of land in the mainland.

This becomes increasingly true as time goes on.

Whether granted 100 mu of land, 30 or 40 mu, or even just 10 or 20 mu, or no land at all, the taxpayers bore the same taxes.

This is naturally unreasonable.

If the rent is spread across the land, two shi of millet would be equivalent to two sheng per mu. However, if half the land is allocated, the rent per mu would increase to four sheng.

If we don't get any land, those two bushels of millet will be a huge burden.

on the other hand,

Noble officials and powerful clans owned vast amounts of land, but regardless of the size of their land holdings, they were taxed based on the number of adult males. In fact, those holding official positions were exempt from taxes and corvée labor.

Just like Li Yi, who owned tens of thousands of acres of land, but was exempt from taxes, he didn't have to pay a single bushel of grain. On the other hand, a villager from Luojiabao who had registered as a resident might only have been allocated thirty acres of land, but still had to pay two bushels of grain, two zhang of silk, and three liang of cotton.

The rent-labor system was very unreasonable.

In recent years, the imperial court has established granaries, which are essentially land taxes. However, the collection method has been inconsistent, with some taxes levied per household and others per mu (unit of land area).

After all,
It was still those high-ranking officials and landlords who were opposing it.

If grain is collected from the granary by household, even if someone owns a lot of land, they can only pay a maximum of five shi of millet. However, if it is collected by mu (unit of land area), the amount is two sheng (unit of volume). If Li Yi owns one million mu of land, he would have to pay 20,000 shi of millet, a difference of four thousand times.

In the imperial court,

Who doesn't own a lot of land? Even if they aren't big landowners, they are still small or medium-sized landowners.

Li Yi believed that the most reasonable tax policy should actually be the two-tax system, which levies household tax based on the number of households and land tax based on the area of ​​land.

Two liters of grain were levied per mu.
Even if noble officials were exempt from taxes, they could not be completely exempted. They could only have their land rent and taxes reduced according to their rank, and any excess would still be levied.

For people with little land, the tax is still levied per mu (unit of land area), which reduces their actual burden. Those without land do not have to pay land tax.

The same applies to grain stored in public granaries.

This is only reasonable.

However, he also knew that this reasonable two-tax law deeply infringed upon the interests of the ruling class, and it would be extremely difficult to implement it.

But farmland is also the foundation of the nation.

If the equal-field system cannot be implemented, and even soldiers cannot be allocated land or rewarded with land for meritorious service in battle, then the rest of the country's systems become castles in the air.

It will collapse sooner or later.

Lost in thought, Li Yi overheard Pei Ju's memorial requesting that the Ever-Normal Granary increase the price of grain for storage.

After the court assembly concluded, the emperor issued an edict summoning the prime ministers to the Chongxian Hall for a discussion, along with the left and right attendants, the left and right remonstrance officials, the censor-in-chief, and others.

Gao Shilian did not attend court today.
It's estimated that they'll be discussing Gao Shilian's concealment of Wang Gui's secret memorial.

Seeing that Changsun Wuji seemed to care a lot, Li Yi knew that they had committed a serious taboo this time.

These two, uncle and nephew, might really suffer a major setback because of this, and might even have to leave the Council of State.

(End of this chapter)