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

Chapter 734 The Disease of Annexation
"Isn't this the land occupation decree of Emperor Wu of Jin?"

"This wasn't something the Sima family came up with first. Dong Zhongshu's land restriction system in the Former Han Dynasty predates the Sima family's by a long time."

"This is utterly absurd. Half of the land is being bought up by the imperial court. How can the imperial court afford to buy it? Where will the money come from?"

"Taking two dou of millet per mu for the remaining half is even more excessive."

In the Duke's Mansion of Qi State,
Grand Master of the Palace, Duke of Qi, Changsun Wuji, slammed his fist on the table, furious. This land seizure decree was clearly aimed at him.

He finally managed to acquire several thousand hectares of land, but now he can only keep a few thousand mu. The court says it will buy up half of the hundreds of thousands of mu of land that exceeded the limit, and the remaining half will also have to pay two dou per mu.

Previously, the grain tax levied at the granary was two sheng per mu, which even Changsun Wuji found unacceptable. Now, with a tax of two dou per mu, it's even harder to accept.

If 2 dou of grain were levied per mu on 100,000 mu of land, that would amount to 20,000 shi of millet in a year.

If the imperial court were to buy his 100,000 mu of land, it would be worth tens of thousands of strings of cash.

Is the imperial court able to pay this amount?
If the land is taken away but the payment for the land is still owed, then it's like losing everything.

All of Changsun Wuji's land was bought with real money, especially the thousands of acres of land he bought from Li Yi's family, which he even paid extra for.

"His Majesty went to Yushu Village and stayed for a few days. He was completely bewitched."

"What are Li Yi's true intentions?"

Changsun Wuji's mouth was dry from all the cursing, but his anger was still hard to quell.

His wife came to persuade him.

But Changsun Wuji angrily rebuked, "What do you know, you woman? At this critical juncture, we cannot back down an inch!"

If this land restriction order is implemented, it will take away most of my family's wealth!

"Please calm down, my lord. The sky isn't going to fall," Lady Qi advised. "If land is really to be restricted, it won't be restricted to our family's land."
"If nobles, officials, and powerful families rise up in opposition, surely Your Majesty won't stubbornly defy their wrath."

"Perhaps we should wait and see, or I can go to the palace tomorrow to pay my respects to the Empress and find out what she has to say."

Changsun Wuji, however, felt that this matter couldn't wait. After all, his family owned several thousand hectares of land, and having exceeded the limit by so much, he would suffer huge losses if the new policy were implemented.
Tens of thousands of strings of cash and twenty to thirty thousand bushels of millet annually!

Who can bear this?

Others have tall people to hold up the sky when it falls, but he is that very tall person; when the sky really does fall, he's the first one to be knocked down.

Lady Qi massaged Changsun Wuji's shoulders.

"What should we do with the two children that Ah Lang brought back from the countryside?" the lady asked.

"The boy will serve as Chong'er's attendant, and the girl will serve as a maid for the eldest daughter. They'll be taken care of. It was His Majesty who arranged this," Changsun Wuji said casually, showing little concern for the two orphans. If it weren't for the Emperor's will, he would never have brought two orphans back from the countryside.

There are so many orphans in the world, yet Changsun Wuji managed to adopt them all.

Changsun Wuji picked up a pen from the pen holder.

Start writing the visiting card.

He planned to contact the princes and nobles in Chang'an and persuade the emperor to rescind the land occupation decree.

···
"My lord, Prime Minister Wei has come to visit."

After finishing his shift, Wei Zheng went home, changed into casual clothes, took two jars of homemade wine, and rode a mule to Shengyefang to pay a visit.

Li Yi welcomed him into the North Hall.

Wei Zheng sat down and placed the wine on the table. "I'll provide the wine, and you provide the snacks. Let's have a good drink together, my fellow disciples."

"Row."

Li Yi smiled and agreed.

He called out to the outside world, "Enze."

Li Enze, an orphan adopted from the Pujiyuan, walked in. "Ah Lang."

"Go tell the kitchen to prepare some snacks to go with the drinks. Make sure there's pickled celery, a cold spinach salad, and some celery with peanuts."

"Bring a few more dishes, such as roast duck, braised donkey meat, braised pig ears, and boneless chicken feet."

Wei Zheng didn't stand on ceremony. He directly broke the seal on a jar of homemade wine and poured a cup for each of them.

The aroma of wine filled the air.

Wei Zheng sniffed.

"I have some doubts, and I need your clarification. Is His Majesty's land restriction order not his true intention? I think it's a feint to achieve a hidden goal."

Li Yi took a sip of wine and picked up a piece of peanuts mixed with celery. His cook was quite skilled; the dish was very crisp and refreshing.

"Senior brother, do you think the land restriction order is bad?"

Wei Zheng shook his head. "From the Han to the Jin dynasties, land restrictions were implemented many times in an attempt to curb land annexation, but no one really succeeded."

Li Yi nodded. "The biggest landowner in the world is the emperor. Those who occupy more land than allowed are all imperial relatives, meritorious nobles, and other powerful figures."
Will limiting their land acquisition work?

Wei Zheng poured him more wine, saying, "Aren't you also a meritorious noble and high-ranking official who owns thousands of acres of fertile land? Why do you support land restrictions?"

Li Yi frankly admitted, "Limiting land use is indeed just a pretext, not the real purpose. At most, limiting land use can only restrict ordinary people; it cannot restrict nobles and officials."

This land restriction order wouldn't even pass the Council of State Affairs, let alone Wang Gui of the Secretariat, who would reject it outright.

Wei Zheng put down his wine cup, leaned forward slightly, and looked at Li Yi with a puzzled expression. "So what's going on here?"

"Actually, I think it's impossible to suppress land annexation. Even if the edict passes through the Council of State Affairs, it will eventually become a dead letter. I think it would be better not to suppress land annexation, but to allow private land ownership and liberalize buying and selling."

Wei Zheng coughed, his voice suddenly rising considerably, "How can this be allowed? If we don't curb land annexation and allow land to be bought and sold at will, do you believe that before long, all the land in the land will be concentrated in the hands of nobles and powerful families?"
"The rich own vast tracts of land, while the poor have nowhere to stand?"

Li Yi nodded, "That's inevitable."

"If the common people lose their land and become landlords and tenants, how can they still bear the country's taxes and corvée labor?"

Li Yi picked up his wine glass. "Senior brother, don't rush, let's drink."

"Answer me first?" Wei Zheng stared wide-eyed.

Li Yi picked up the roast chicken and slowly tore it apart. "Senior brother, neither the national system nor the land system is static."

During the pre-Qin period, from the Yin and Shang dynasties to the Spring and Autumn period, the well-field system was implemented. A square li (里) was a well, and a well was nine hundred mu (亩). One mu (公田) was public land, and eight households privately cultivated one hundred mu (亩) of public land. They jointly maintained the public land.

The income from public fields belongs entirely to the lord, while the income from private fields belongs to the individual.

Wei Zheng nodded. In fact, Wei Zheng was a person who advocated the restoration of ancient systems, including not only etiquette and law, but also the well-field system. Many people in the court were also advocating the restoration of ancient systems, and even wanted to restore the well-field system.

However, the well-field system gradually disintegrated in the late Spring and Autumn Period.

By the late Western Zhou Dynasty, there were already many privately owned fields.

Later, systems such as the military-agricultural colony system and the equal-field system emerged; no system can remain unchanged for eternity.

During the Qin and Han dynasties, private land ownership was established, taxes were levied per mu (unit of land area), and taxes and corvée labor were levied based on household registration or population. The tax burden was mainly on the people, with less burden on land rent per mu.

From the Northern Wei to the Sui and Tang dynasties, the equal-field system was implemented, but taxes were still mainly levied based on the population.

From the Qin and Han dynasties to the Sui and Tang dynasties, taxes were mainly levied on the number of adult males. The fundamental reason was that this method of tax collection was the most cost-effective and reliable.

If the collection is mainly based on land and property, then it's a mess.

The tax system, which primarily levied taxes on adult males, meant that the burden of taxation fell mainly on ordinary people, while nobles and officials enjoyed the privilege of exemption from taxes and corvée labor.

To ensure that taxes could be collected from the common people, it was essential to guarantee their stability. The equal-field system, which distributed land to the common people, provided this guarantee.

"Senior brother, the Sui Dynasty had nearly nine million households, but now, more than ten years later, the number of registered households in the country is only three million. Has the war really caused such a loss of people?"
Not entirely. In fact, you should know, senior brother, that there are still a large number of hidden accounts.

If we include these hidden households, there should still be at least five million households, nearly thirty million people, in the country.

"A household must have at least two or three able-bodied men. Both able-bodied men and middle-aged men are entitled to 100 mu of land. A household must be allocated at least 200 to 300 mu of land."
Five million households were all granted land, receiving 150,000 hectares of arable land.

How much arable land is there in the world today?
During the reign of Emperor Ping of the Western Han Dynasty, the total cultivated land area in the country was only 8.27 million hectares, while during the reign of Emperor An of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the total cultivated land area in the country was only 6.94 million hectares.

How many acres of arable land are currently registered in the Ministry of Revenue's land register?

It's less than three million hectares.

Yes, after the war, there are still many hidden fields and abandoned fields. But even if all the hidden fields are cleared out and the abandoned fields are reclaimed,
At most, it could double; six million hectares would be the limit.

In fact, the area south of the Five Ridges, and even the Jingxiang and Nanzhong regions, had not yet been fully controlled, let alone the land distribution.

Even if the land is accurately measured and identified as six million hectares,
However, most of these lands were owned; they were private fields, not public fields. Of the remaining land, how much public land did the imperial court control?
A large portion of this public land will be allocated to government offices, official lands, and the perpetual lands of noble officials and meritorious officers.
In addition to the military farms of the local soldiers and the military farms of the border garrisons,
How much public land is left to be distributed?
Senior brother, do you know the land situation in Yushu Township? Most of the five hundred registered households were only allocated thirty or forty mu of land per household. In the past three years, there has been basically no more land being allocated because there is no land to allocate.

In addition, Yushu Township has over 5,000 households without household registration. They own no land whatsoever and are either tenant farmers, long-term laborers, or hired workers in workshops and shops.

Wei Zheng remained silent.

He has been to Yushu Township, more than once.

Although he was born into the Wei family of Julu, he was poor when he was young, became a Taoist priest, and joined the righteous army, so he knew the true situation of the people.

To suppress mergers or acquisitions
None of this could change the fact that land was gradually being annexed by nobles and powerful families.
Even those people who received land a few years ago, even though the imperial court did not allow the sale of land for distribution,
However, even ordinary people find it difficult to hold onto the land they have been allocated, due to natural disasters, wars, or diseases.
Or perhaps it's for his son to get married, or for his parents to be buried.

All of these could force them to sell their land, first the permanent land, and then the allotted land.

Even if the imperial court forbids them from selling, they will find ways to sell. The end result is that the land allocated to commoners will gradually flow out and be merged into the hands of landlords and powerful families.

Instead of trying to distribute land equally, we should consider a different approach.

The basic form of national taxation was changed from taxation based on population to taxation based on land area and household taxation based on household rank, with population members only required to perform corvée labor.

This ensures greater national tax revenue and reduces the burden on ordinary people.

Land consolidation was permitted, recognizing only the land and not the people involved. Grain was levied on every piece of land, regardless of whether one was a member of the imperial family, a noble, or an official. Only corvée labor was exempted, not land or household taxes.

Wei Zheng was lost in thought.
The emperor issued a land limit decree in the palace, but the result was that land annexation was not suppressed.

The bend was too sharp; even Wei Zheng couldn't keep up.

After a long silence, Wei Zheng, holding his wine cup, said, "If Your Majesty truly intends not to suppress land annexation and allows the free buying and selling of land for private ownership, you will have many supporters among the nobles and officials in the court."

If we don't suppress land annexation, then we must implement your proposed system of taxing by the acre, with officials and gentry paying grain together.
Changing the rent-labor system to the Two-Tax System was a bit too drastic; it meant changing the very foundation of the national policy.

Are you confident you can succeed?

Li Yi took a sip of wine. "Senior brother, now that we've identified the symptoms and have a suitable treatment, the next step is to prescribe the right medicine."

Keep searching in the right direction, on the right path.
The road ahead may be fraught with thorns and obstacles, but should we be deterred by them?

Wei Zheng drank the wine in his cup in one gulp.

"I understand."

(End of this chapter)