After the three marshals left Chuzhou, they did not go to Guo Zixing, but went to the border of Hezhou to meet Sun Deya.
When they arrived in Hezhou, they realized that although Sun Deya's troops had quite a lot of troops, they were short of food and grass and could not make ends meet. They often resorted to robbing civilians to maintain their military power, which attracted a lot of criticism.
Unfortunately, the three of them didn't have many troops left. Even if they tried to rob, they wouldn't be able to rob anything.
At this time, they were also dumbfounded. At Zhu Yuanzhang's place, although they lost military power, they could still have enough to eat. But when they arrived in Hezhou, they were going to starve!
What is this?
It's better to just lie down in Chuzhou and be a salted fish!
It turns out that being deprived of military rights is not the worst thing!
In fact, all the forces at present, including the Yuan Dynasty, were deeply troubled by the lack of food. If it were not for the shortage of food and grass, the imperial court would have sent a large army to kill Zhang Shicheng and regain control of the canal.
But among such a group of hungry ghosts with glowing green eyes, there is one person who can immediately get rid of the dilemma of lack of food and grass.
There is no doubt that this person is Zhu Yuanzhang who is dedicated to dividing the land for cultivation.
Lao Zhu entered Chuzhou in the first month of the fourteenth year of Zhizheng, and then eradicated corrupt officials. Relying on the power of the Yuan Dynasty, he also seized Liuhe and other places, and accepted Peng Zaozhu and others to take refuge... No matter what happened, Lao Zhu was always there from beginning to end.
Persisting in dividing the land and cultivating the land.
From top to bottom, every person, every animal, and every ounce of effort must be invested in food production.
Even literati like Li Shanchang were dragged into the fields by Zhu Yuanzhang and followed him to work.
In February and March, he had to step in knee-deep mud to plow the fields, transplant rice seedlings, and plant early rice. This made the future Korean father miserable. He even suffered from cold problems. His waist and knees were sore and weak, and he urinated frequently at night. At one time, Mr. Li was even
I feel like I am aging prematurely.
"Mr. Li, we let you work in the fields, not for anything else. I want you to know the hardships of farmers, and also to let you understand that acres of land are very different. Just use the water under our feet to irrigate the land, and the yield will be higher than next door.
There are twice as many hillsides. No matter how equally we divide the acres, it is impossible to take care of every aspect and convince every citizen."
Li Shanchang nodded quickly. He knew this very well. For a ridge of land or a little water source, there would be fierce quarrels in the countryside, and even fights with weapons, fighting among oneself, fighting with neighboring villages, and even killing people. There were many places.
Just a little bit of farmland and a little bit of water means fighting to the death. Doesn’t it make some high-quality human beings who are aloof, have no hands on the spring water, and even care about animals more than similar people find it incredible?
Human life is priceless, how could he die so casually?
The common people are too ignorant and barbaric!
It is indeed an inferior thing, unworthy of breathing the same breath and eating meat like us...
After all, if you stay at a high place for a long time, you will never understand the hardships of ordinary people.
There are several children in the family, all hungry for food. The fields can only produce limited things. They have to pay land tax, Ding tax, exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes. The tenant farmers also have to pay almost half of the land rent.
With a little more water for irrigation and an extra ridge of land, more grain can be produced, and with this grain, one more child may be able to feed himself and not starve to death in a disaster year.
It's so difficult, do you think the people can still fight hard?
For thousands of years, the annexation of land in rural areas has been the most extreme involution. If you take a step back, you will have no place to die. Not only will you die, but your family will die too!
Lao Zhu's family was defeated by natural and man-made disasters, and his family was ruined. He had to become a monk in a temple and break away from mainstream society.
If it hadn't been for the Red Scarf Uprising, perhaps in the future he would have been a lonely old monk in the temple with a stooped figure, cloudy eyes, and full of desolation, living like a gaunt tree and dying silently.
Zhu Yuanzhang was probably the emperor who was most aware of the sufferings of the people. Because of this, he frantically divided the land for farming and devoted all his attention to food.
But this is not enough!
"Mr. Li, after the fields are divided and the grain is recovered, the next step is to collect the land tax. We have to collect the land tax to feed the soldiers and horses. How to collect the land tax is a greater knowledge!" Zhu Yuanzhang took advantage of his break to follow
Li Shanchang chatted.
Lao Li nodded vigorously. He also understood Zhu Yuanzhang's thoughts. Although he was very tired in this team and not as comfortable as working in Yuanting, he had a different kind of satisfaction. Sometimes he would even suddenly have some minor problems.
Little surprise.
Take this time for example, the land tax collection.
In fact, when spring plowing was still underway, Zhang Ximeng arranged for someone to go down to understand the situation.
Those more than 100 students were even sent by Zhang Ximeng to inspect the villages. Yes, step by step, every village and every family was not spared.
This kind of approach was simply unheard of and unseen by Li Shanchang.
He really couldn't imagine that a yamen or a government could do things in such detail!
Zhang Ximeng needs to find out the situation of each village and then summarize it in his hands, and this information will become the basis for the subsequent collection of land taxes.
No matter how carefully policy is formulated, there will always be loopholes. Only through human efforts can we be infinitely close to perfection.
In fact, as mentioned before, equalization of land cannot be achieved within a county or a prefecture.
The land-equalized units are actually natural villages.
It is simply unrealistic to leave the village and go dozens or hundreds of miles away from home to farm.
That is immigration, not equalization of land.
In this way, a very interesting phenomenon will appear. After the powerful are eradicated, in a natural village, the land available to each household will be roughly equal, and the yield of the fields will not differ much.
Even which family has more land and higher yields, the villagers know each other well.
Just by looking at the size of the grain store, it becomes clear.
In this case, collecting land taxes is actually not that difficult, and it can even be easily solved as long as you find the right method.
What is the method?
It's based on this pile of inspection results.
Zhang Ximeng casually picked up a report with many typos, but could still clearly understand the general meaning, and explained it to Li Wenzhong and several students.
"You see, there are more than 180 households in this village, which is quite large. It is estimated that the harvest of summer grain this season should be about one stone. Their ration fields are three acres, their circulation fields are fifteen acres, and there are
There are many mulberry fields and fish ponds.”
"For example, for a family of five, the land that needs to be paid as land tax is 75 acres. According to estimates, the surplus grain is 75 dan. According to our rules, if the surplus grain is less than 20 dan, half of the land tax must be paid. If the surplus grain is less than 20 dan, half of the land tax must be paid.
If the amount exceeds 50 dan, you need to pay 10%, and if it exceeds 50 dan, you need to pay 15%."
"In other words, the land tax they need to pay is one stone plus three stones, plus three stones, seven buckets and five liters, which is a total of seven stones, seven buckets and five liters. The highest tax rate we set is 25%, that is
It is said that if a family's surplus grain exceeds one thousand dan, the excess amount must pay a land tax of 25%."
"In fact, most ordinary people cannot reach the tax rate set like this. For a few wealthy households, we have eradicated the powerful but did not touch their interests too much. If anyone is not willing to pay more land tax, then don't
It’s our fault for being rude.”
"This is the general situation of a village. Let's look at the next village..."
Zhang Ximeng took his time and gave examples one by one and gave detailed explanations. Gradually, the students pricked up their ears and looked solemn. Many couldn't help but nod, and a few quickly took out their notebooks to write them down.
The students present all come from poor families. Since childhood, they have heard old people complain about land taxes and exorbitant taxes.
Paying the land tax every year is like passing through the gate of hell.
But after listening to my husband's explanation, everyone just thought it was too reasonable. If the law were to be collected in this way, they would not need to be urged by the Yamen, and they would all want to pay it on their own initiative.
"This is a rough account. Before the summer harvest, a notice must be issued to each village to announce the method and amount of land tax collection. If nothing happens, it will be collected according to this amount. At the same time, if the discrepancy is relatively large,
, the villagers are allowed to put forward their opinions, and you are responsible for conveying them and sending people to verify them again."
"In some villages, families with soldiers need to arrange for people to help with the harvest, so that the grains can be returned to warehouses so that the soldiers can feel at ease! For those families with lonely elderly people or those who lack strong labor, the villagers should be encouraged to interact with each other.
Help, if necessary, we can also send people to help, and strive not to miss any household!"
"Chuzhou is not big. There are only more than 200,000 people in several counties combined. Chuzhou is also very big, because you can see the whole world from Chuzhou!"
"The methods and experiences we have summarized here will be promoted to other places in the future. We have done a good job and convinced the people. With sufficient supplies of food and grass and sufficient military support, we can fight stronger and stronger and restore the Han Dynasty.
Home mountains and rivers!”
"In short, do it with a public heart, be worthy of your origin, be worthy of your own conscience, and be worthy of the bowl of soup from your superiors!"
The students nodded vigorously. No matter what happened in the future, at the moment, they firmly remembered Zhang Ximeng's words.
…
Zhang Ximeng handed over the students' tasks and went to the military camp again.
The situation in Juntun was relatively simple. It was nothing more than a few thousand households dealing with Zhang Ximeng. They wanted to pay less.
After all, Zhu Yuanzhang had settled on a 30-70 split.
Thirty percent was turned over and 70% was reserved as military rations for the thousand households. However, it was Zhang Ximeng's right to determine the output.
For example, Feng Guosheng explained to Zhang Ximeng in every possible way, "Sir, why do we, a thousand households, have a yield per mu that is 30% higher than Li Xincai's thousand households? This is unfair!"
Zhang Ximeng looked at the water canal and said with a smile: "Why don't you report this water diversion canal?"
"This, this is what the brothers have repaired by themselves. It hasn't been repaired yet... It didn't exist originally. I, I haven't had time to report it yet." The future Duke of Song, blushing and trying to defend himself in embarrassment, was very interesting.
.
Zhang Ximeng said with a smile: "Report it now. Building more water conservancy projects is also a credit. Brothers will be rewarded. As a thousand households, you also have merit!"
Zhang Ximeng smiled and went to the next place to investigate... The busyness lasted until May, when the south wind blew up one night and the wheat was covered with yellow.
In the fourteenth year of the Zhengzheng year, at that age, Chu was ripe!