I traveled with them to the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 211 Everything is Ready and Testing the Waters

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Implementing a system where gentry and commoners pay taxes together would allow the court to obtain land tax revenue from the gentry, alleviating its financial pressure. It would also change the previous situation where the court relied primarily on taxes from ordinary people, making tax sources more diverse and balanced, reducing the tax burden on commoners, and improving the stability and sustainability of fiscal revenue. Furthermore, seeing that the gentry class no longer enjoys special privileges would make commoners feel a greater sense of fairness and potentially strengthen their sense of identification with the court.

The "equalization of poll tax and land tax" system, which incorporated the poll tax into the land tax collection, reduced the tax burden on landless or land-poor farmers. This could alleviate the contradiction of excessive wealth disparity to some extent, further easing the burden on farmers and promoting social equity. Moreover, it ensured stable tax revenue, increased fiscal income, and avoided tax arrears caused by population migration and concealed population figures. It also made tax collection and administration simpler and more efficient, improving the ability to raise fiscal funds.

However, the gentry class held a high position and enjoyed many privileges. The unified taxation of the gentry and the merging of land tax and poll tax would affect their interests, which would cause them to feel dissatisfied and resist, leading to an intensification of their conflict with the imperial court. It could also make their conflict with the common people more complicated. They might also transfer their dissatisfaction to the common people, that is, they might indirectly transfer the burden to the common people through other means such as increasing land rent, so that the common people would still be affected to some extent economically.

The gentry class still had many representatives in the court. Implementing a system where gentry paid taxes together would inevitably encounter resistance from the bureaucratic group, triggering internal debates and divisions within the ruling group, and weakening the cohesion and administrative efficiency of the court.

In conclusion, from the perspective of institutional design, the integration of gentry and commoners into the land tax system, while increasing fiscal revenue and optimizing the tax structure, would face enormous resistance and trigger a series of social, political, and economic problems. If not implemented properly, the effectiveness of the system could be greatly diminished due to various factors.

Long ago, Zhao Yu had discussed land reform with Zhang Chun and Ye Shiyun, because this was the biggest problem of the Zhao Song Dynasty, and an issue that the Zhao Song Dynasty could not avoid if it wanted to become strong. If it was not resolved, the hundreds of peasant uprisings in history would continue to occur, constantly bleeding the Zhao Song Dynasty dry, making the Zhao Song Dynasty like a castle built on sand, precarious and vulnerable. Once a foreign tribe invaded, the Zhao Song Dynasty, which seemed prosperous but was actually unstable, would collapse under the double blow of internal and external troubles, leading to the destruction of the country and the extinction of the race.

As early as the beginning of Zhao Yu's time travel, Zhao Yu presented Zhao Xu with a "Memorial on Land Reform".

At that time, Zhao Yu naively wanted to use forceful measures to restrict land annexation, that is, to implement a land limit system, which stipulated the amount of farmland based on the rank of officials and commoners. For example, the family of a first-rank official was limited to fifty qing (a unit of land measurement) of farmland; commoner families, calculated based on the number of male members in the family, could not own more than twenty mu (another unit of land measurement). Families exceeding the limit were allowed to retain a certain amount of sacrificial land and permanent land, while the rest of the land was either sold to landless poor people or purchased by the government at a fair price and then resold to the poor.

Later, Zhao Yu showed his "Land Reform Memorial" to the five women. Zhang Chun, Li Lin, Ma Xiaojiao, and Yuan Qingcheng all felt that Zhao Yu's idea was correct. It was simply about dividing the land equally, which was in line with their ideal society.

However, Ye Shiyun disagreed from the perspective of economic development, saying:
“Equal distribution of land may seem fair, but it actually goes against the principles of economic operation. Since the founding of our Great Song Dynasty, industry and commerce have flourished and towns have sprung up, which is the source of economic vitality. If we forcibly promote equal distribution of land, it is no different from cutting off the flow of water and causing the economy to fall into distress.”

"Moreover, land is not a homogeneous substance. The paddy fields in the south are fertile, yielding several bushels per mu; while the dry fields in the northwest are barren, yielding only one or two tenths of the harvest. If the land is forcibly divided equally regardless of its fertility, the wealthy will hoard the good fields and abandon the barren ones, while the poor farmers will have meager land but will struggle to feed themselves. Land output will inevitably decrease sharply. In such a situation, there will be insufficient food supply, soaring food prices, and price imbalances, plunging the entire economic system into chaos."

"Furthermore, economic development requires specialized division of labor. Today, our Great Song Dynasty is filled with workshops and bustling with merchants. Countless people have left agriculture to engage in various industries, creating wealth far exceeding what they could have earned from simply farming. Once the land is redistributed, everyone will be forced back to the fields. Workshops will be empty, trade routes will be deserted, leading not only to the decline of industry and commerce but also to a regression in the social division of labor. When all manpower is tied to the land, who will research and improve machinery and drive technological innovation? Without industry and commerce, how can the economy prosper?"

“Land transfer has its own economic logic. When wealthy households acquire land, they often introduce advanced farming techniques and build water conservancy projects to increase the overall output of the land. If the land is forcibly divided equally, this market mechanism will be broken. Farmers who acquire new land will lack funds and technology and will be unable to effectively develop the land, resulting in a waste of resources. At the same time, land transactions will be restricted, capital will not be able to flow, the channels for wealth creation will be blocked, and economic development will lose its driving force.”

"The economy of our Great Song Dynasty is like a carriage, with land, industry and commerce, and manpower as its wheels. Forcibly changing the distribution of land will only cause the carriage to become unbalanced and overturn."

Ye Shiyun advocated that only the gentry should pay taxes together and the poll tax should be integrated into the land tax system. At the same time, agriculture and technology should be vigorously developed, and the surplus manpower should be diverted to the development of industry, infrastructure, and even foreign expansion and immigration. The market will find a balance. The gentry class wants to indirectly transfer the burden to the common people by raising land rents, but the market will teach them a lesson.

In addition, Yip Sze-wan proposed the concept of stamp duty, saying:
"Gentlemen often concealed land and evaded taxes through means such as 'falsely registering land' and 'establishing fictitious contracts,' resulting in numerous loopholes in the land tax base even after the 'equalization of land tax and poll tax.' Stamp duty, however, used the stamping of contracts as the tax collection point. All land transactions, such as sales, leases, and pawnings, had to be verified by the government and stamp duty paid before they were valid. This forced the gentry class to bring previously concealed land transactions under official supervision, bringing a large number of 'black lands' to the surface. This provided a more realistic tax base for the 'equalization of land tax and poll tax,' and also made the implementation of the gentry's unified tax payment more justifiable, preventing them from evading their tax obligations through land transfers."

"Frequent land transactions were an important way for the gentry to accumulate wealth, and the tiered nature of the stamp duty based on the transaction amount would make excessive land consolidation more costly. To reduce tax burdens, the gentry would spontaneously control the scale of land expansion, and some idle or inefficient land would flow back into the market. This not only alleviated the contradiction of land concentration and created conditions for the implementation of the principle of 'those with more land pay more taxes' in the land tax reform, but also weakened the gentry's motivation to resist the unified tax system through economic leverage."

"The proceeds from the stamp tax collection can be used in three ways: first, to subsidize self-cultivating farmers whose tax burden has increased due to the 'equalization of land tax and poll tax,' reducing grassroots resistance; second, to invest in livelihood projects such as water conservancy repairs and disaster relief, alleviating public pressure that the gentry class is 'competing with the people for profit'; and third, to compensate for potential administrative losses and hidden tax revenue losses that may occur in the early stages of implementing the unified tax collection system for gentry." "This 'tax-for-tax' model not only enhances the resilience of the imperial treasury but also provides material support for the long-term stable implementation of the two reforms..."

Ye Shiyun's proposal of a stamp duty caught Zhao Yu's eye. He thought to himself, 'When the time comes, as long as the propaganda department publicizes that only land registered with the government is protected by the imperial court, the difficulty of implementing the unified tax payment system for gentry and the land tax reform will definitely be greatly reduced.'

Zhang Chun didn't want Ye Shiyun to steal the spotlight, so she also suggested preparing enough reserve officials to replace those who resolutely resisted the policy of gentry paying taxes together and the integration of land tax and poll tax, and to change the situation where imperial power did not reach the countryside. Otherwise, it would be extremely difficult to implement the policy of gentry paying taxes together and the integration of land tax and poll tax.

Fortunately, one of the biggest problems of the Song Dynasty was its excessive number of officials.

Moreover, starting from the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, the Zhao Song Dynasty carried out large-scale educational reforms for three consecutive reigns, namely, vigorously developing school education, establishing a school education network throughout the country, and replacing the old imperial examination system with school education. This was not only a remarkable innovation with modern significance, but also cultivated a large number of reserve talents for the Zhao Song Dynasty.

Crucially, Zhao Yu began to reorganize his officials at the beginning of his reign, and had a large number of reserve officials in hand.

More importantly, at the beginning of his reign, Zhao Yu, under the guise of anti-corruption, replaced all the officials of the Zhao Song Dynasty with his favorites.

Furthermore, the Song Dynasty's policy of establishing township governments and village committees in Longyou also extended imperial power to the countryside.

This gave Zhao Yu some confidence to confront the gentry class.

It could also be said that Zhao Yu dared to propose the idea of ​​gentry paying taxes together and the land tax system because he had many trump cards and backup plans in his hands.

However, even though Zhao Yu had made very thorough preparations, given that the Song Dynasty was actually ruled jointly by the emperor and the scholar-official class, and that the gentry class was the foundation of the Song Dynasty's rule, moving against the gentry class was tantamount to moving against the foundation of the Song Dynasty's rule. Therefore, Zhao Yu was still very cautious.

It was only at this point that Zhao Yu recovered Western Xia and the eleven prefectures of Yan and Yun, and recovered all the interest extorted by the Liao Dynasty, including principal and interest. He defeated the Liao Dynasty so much that it ceded territory, paid reparations, and made marriage alliances, and dared not provoke the Zhao Song Dynasty again. Without external threats to restrain him, Zhao Yu finally decided to implement the policy of gentry paying taxes together and the integration of land tax and poll tax.

Even so, Zhao Yu didn't dare to bring up the matter himself, and didn't even reveal a word to Chancellor Zhang Dun or any other minister beforehand. Instead, he personally selected Chen Gongfu, this hothead, from among the group recommended by Zhang Chun, and personally talked to him about the issue of gentry paying taxes together and the integration of land tax and poll tax. Seeing that Chen Gongfu was very supportive of the gentry paying taxes together and the integration of land tax and poll tax, he released him when everything was ready to test the ministers' reactions.

Zhao Yu had already decided that if any ministers supported the gentry paying taxes together and the integration of land tax and poll tax, he would then proceed with the policy; if all ministers resolutely opposed the policy, then there would be no choice but to first compromise with Chen Gongfu, sacrifice the pawn to save the king, and then find an opportunity to implement the policy, or... abandon the policy altogether.

Zhao Yu wasn't being cowardly; rather, he knew that to accomplish something so significant, he had to go with the flow, and going against the tide would only lead to his own demise.

Now that Zhao Yu has thrown out the stone to test the waters, let's see how his ministers react...

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(End of this chapter)