Wang Cheng, who had been without news for nearly half a month, finally came back.

Recently, Wang Cheng has been feeling both painful and happy. He finally got his wish and was infinitely close to the position of Xingyang's upstart.

Although Wang Buxu told him something, he could almost tell him the answer with his mouth open.

But in order to be more rigorous, Wang Cheng personally visited various places and arranged for his subordinates to conduct personal investigations.

"Sir, the general situation is like this. More than 70% of the cultivated land in Xingyang is in the hands of powerful people, and almost more than 50% of the cultivated land is in waste. Almost half of the cultivated land in the hands of the common people is also in waste." Wang Cheng said.

The exact data obtained after investigation was published.

When he heard this answer, Wang Buxu was stunned.

Of course he knew that the important reason for the uprising in the late Qin Dynasty was the lack of food, and the people could hardly survive.

But for the imperial court, there was no shortage of food.

Because various national projects are in progress.

And now, in Xingyang alone, 65% of the cultivated land is abandoned?

"This data seems to be very different from the data recorded by the government, right?" Wang Buxu felt a little unbelievable.

"Sir, the actual situation and the investigation results will never be the same." Wang Cheng told Wang Buhung with certainty.

Of course, Wang Cheng also knew very well that what Wang Buxian wanted was practical information.

So he went on to say: "After the First Emperor made the head of Guizhou a real field system, the official records could not be the same as those among the people. When the First Emperor was still there, the situation was slightly better, but the situation has deteriorated sharply in the past two years, especially after Qin II ascended the throne.

After that, taxes were raised several times, and the people were no longer able to support them. As a last resort, they had to sell farmland to powerful people in exchange for food and pay taxes."

Wang Buxu suddenly realized that he had ignored this problem.

Qianshou Zishitian means that the state recognizes the private ownership of land, and local powerful people can use this system to annex these lands legally and compliantly by various means.

But from another aspect, although the private ownership of land is recognized, the state's tax revenue still needs to be guaranteed, so there is still the term land tax.

Land tax is paid directly to the state, so from this aspect, the land still belongs to the state.

This also leads to another problem. Land is not allowed to change its owner privately.

This means that after the land is determined, each household will pay equal taxes to the state every year.

And this leads to more serious and fatal problems.

Qin Shihuang continued to increase the number of corvees, including the Great Wall, Abang Palace, Lishan Mountain, Chidao, etc. The number of forced laborers was in the millions.

And these young and strong people are precisely the main people who cultivate the land.

If all the people who farm the land are used to build national projects, even if the old, young, women and children in the family can farm, they will not be able to farm that much land, so part of the land can only be left uncultivated.

But the country doesn't care whether your land is abandoned or not. Even if it is abandoned land, you still have to pay taxes according to the rules.

The food grown at this time is not even enough for oneself to eat, so how can there be any leftover food to pay taxes?

But it’s not okay not to pay it.

In desperation, local powerful people began to make their appearance.

They took away the wasteland from the people at extremely low prices. However, because the country did not allow private transactions of land, the actual control of the land was in the hands of local powerful people, but the taxes still had to be paid by the people themselves.

After the people got the grain from the land sales, they couldn't keep it, so they basically just took it to pay taxes.

The selling point this year and the selling point next year are that the land is getting less and less, but the tax revenue has not decreased at all.

For the local powerful, the land is left uncultivated, and since they don't pay taxes, they can just take turns planting, allowing the land to rest for two more years, so that there will be a bumper harvest every year.

The land issue has existed almost since the history of China, and has continued since the founding of New China.

Of course, it went through various reforms in the middle, but in the end it still couldn't solve the big problem of land annexation.

Wang Buxu had the answer to the exam in mind, but he didn't dare to use it.

"Master..."

"You came just in time!" Wang Buxu looked up and saw that it was Chen Ping, and he couldn't help but feel happy.

If it weren't for the inappropriate timing, he would have wanted to bring Zhang Liang over to discuss this issue.

"I understand that 70% of the cultivated land is in the hands of local powerful people. How can I get this land into the hands of ordinary people?" Wang Buxu asked directly.

"Huh???" Chen Ping was stunned for a moment, "What? Young master, you must not do this..."

"Why not?" Of course Wang Buxian knew the difficulty, but it would not work unless this problem was solved.

"Young Master is in urgent need of the support of local powerful people right now. If we move the farmland, wouldn't we directly attack these powerful people?" Chen Ping said bluntly.

Originally, Chen Ping wanted to talk about taxation, but as soon as he arrived, Wang Buxu threw him such a big melon.

He was so frightened that he trembled all over. When he saw that Wang was not hungry, he seemed to be serious?

He quickly continued to explain: "Although the number of powerful men is not large, they control most of the land in their hands and store most of the food in their homes. With the current situation being like this, the tax revenue that the young master can get from the private sector in a short period of time is almost very small, and even

It can be ignored, and the food in our hands can only last for two years at most, so we must win over these powerful people and make them willingly use the food in their hands to support the young master.

And once the young master chooses to take action, how many people can be killed in a short period of time?

Although the people welcome it, if the young master marches into other counties in the future, the powerful forces in these places will vigorously resist. If nothing else, they will hand over food to other forces, which will be a disaster for the young master.

How can the young master use Xingyang or even Sanchuan County to fight against the princes of more than thirty counties in the world?"

Chen Ping looked at Wang Buhung seriously and even begged: "Sir, the war is about to begin. You should win over these people. Even if you want to take action, you can only do it after you overthrow the Qin Dynasty and control most of the Xia.

…”

Local power is a problem.

They tend not to think about too many issues and everything is self-centered.

Through continuous land annexation, annexing civilians, and even annexing small powerful people, when the amount of his land expands to a certain extent, he can basically influence this county.

When the time comes, even the county magistrate will have to act based on his looks.

This is still normal, if the government encounters any difficulties, it has to humbly ask for the support of these powerful people.

And this is directly consuming the country's strength and the government's prestige.
Chapter completed!