In the Hall of Wude, Li Shimin was a little surprised when he heard the word "limited land" spoken by Wei Zheng.
"Your Majesty, Wu Qingyang tried out the new two-tax law in Sanyuan, and re-inspected and reported the land area of Sanyuan registered residents. The investigation was very careful. I found that more than 5,000 hectares of land in Sanyuan County have been almost annexed by powerful nobles, and the poor have no place to stand.
The imperial land equalization system has long existed in name only in Sanyuan. Since the Zhenguan Dynasty, Sanyuan County has almost never allocated land to the people. Only the people in the early Wude years caught up and were allocated thirty or forty acres of land."
Wei Zheng took Wu Huaiyu's statistics and wrote another memorial, saying that the land equalization system had collapsed and land annexation by powerful powers was too serious. According to his statistics, 60% of the land in Sanyuan County was already in the hands of the situation households. The so-called situation households,
There are aristocrats and bureaucrats, as well as many forbidden troops, government soldiers, small and medium-sized landowners, and farmers. They are many in number, but they only occupy about 30% of the land.
The remaining 10% is mainly public land, with many common people occupying a little bit of land.
And the merger momentum continues.
The land equalization system itself has a limited land quota. Ordinary people are limited to a hundred acres of land.
For those who have both official titles, titles, and honors, the one with the highest standard will be awarded without double counting. The prince will receive 100 hectares, the first-rank ministerial official will receive 60 hectares, the duke and the second-rank official will be awarded 40 hectares, and the Shangzhu Kingdom will receive 30 hectares.
It is the highest amount, and it decreases in descending order, to baron, from the fifth rank of civil officer, there are still 5 acres, to the lowest rank of knight, 30 acres.
According to this system, even a noble could only occupy a maximum of 100 hectares of land. The maximum amount of land granted was the land occupation quota.
Even under the land equalization system, land is not allowed to be bought and sold at will. Ordinary people are granted land, twenty acres of permanent land, and eighty acres of land. If the land is divided, the land will be taken back after death and cannot be bought or sold. The land of permanent land can be bought and sold, but the buyer is not allowed to occupy more than the land.
Forehead.
But now, this system has long been a dead letter. No one from the big aristocrats, big bureaucrats, or even powerful families has paid much attention to their land. Even in his early years, Li Yuan once rewarded Prime Minister Pei Ji with a thousand hectares of land at once.
Even the common people, when they were in poverty, sold their Yongye and even their Koufen fields.
This is also the reason why land annexation has become very serious only a decade or so after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and this force is getting more intense.
"Your Majesty, even if the rent is changed to the new two-tax law, the land restriction order still has to be implemented, otherwise the land will be annexed to the hands of ordinary households, and great disaster will occur."
Li Shimin frowned.
Land annexation has always been a big trouble, but the problem is that it is not easy to control annexation. Water flows to lower places and people go to higher places. Land annexation is also inevitable.
Of course, it’s not possible to limit it.
But you have to consider whether it can be implemented. Without conditions, forcibly issuing certain orders that cannot be implemented will not do any good and may even cause unrest.
"Does Prime Minister Wei have any good suggestions?"
The prime ministers all looked at Wei Zheng. His attack was sudden and he didn't get angry with the prime ministers beforehand. This behavior was very bad and caught the prime ministers a little off guard.
However, Wei Zheng has always been like this, and everyone is used to it. This is why Wei Zheng is not very popular in the court.
"Comprehensive land restriction."
"How to implement it?" Li Shimin asked.
"Fields are limited according to status. If you have both official title and title, the one with the highest rank will be given to you. There will be no duplication of calculations."
Xiao Yu couldn't help but said bluntly, "If this is true, the prince only has one hundred hectares, the first-grade ministerial officer only has sixty hectares, the duke, the second-rank ministerial officer only has 40 hectares, and the baron, the fifth-rank ministerial officer only has 40 hectares.
It’s only five hectares,
Officials of rank five or below, as well as officials of rank twelve, each have a permanent career.
But those below the sixth grade were not originally granted Yongye fields."
Xiao Yu asked Wei Zheng, how to enforce this land quota that has not been enforced for a long time? In fact, which aristocratic bureaucrat has not exceeded this land quota?
"What does Wei Shizhong plan to do with the land that exceeds the quota? Do you want them to clear out the acres? Who is willing to do what kind of clearing method?"
Xiao Yu was also a stubborn prince, similar to Wei Zheng in the court. He was disliked by others and could not get along well with anyone, but what he said hit the nail on the head, "As a prime minister, the minister should be more pragmatic. He can never talk to the Han Dynasty."
Like those great scholars, let’s restore the well-field system.”
This means that the offensive is fierce. In fact, all dynasties had land restriction orders. During the Han Dynasty, when they were fighting powerful people, they kept imposing land restriction orders. Of course, they never had any effect.
It is even more ridiculous to say that the Han Confucians were bent on restoring ancient times and wanted to restore the well field system. The so-called well field system is to divide a large piece of land into nine fields, with the middle one being public land, the surrounding eight fields being private fields, and eight people cultivating one well field.
If you cultivate a piece of private land and then jointly cultivate a piece of public land, the income from the public land will be turned over to the public, and the income from the private land will be yours.
The idea of eight households building a well and raising common fields could no longer be practiced as early as the Spring and Autumn Period.
The reason is also simple. Any system must conform to the productivity at that time. If the system cannot conform to the productivity, it will naturally not be implemented.
By the time of the Han Dynasty, the well-field system was nothing more than a Confucian utopia.
Xiao Yu opposed Wei Zheng for another reason. Xiao Yu was also a big aristocrat, a big bureaucrat, and a big landowner. On the contrary, Wei Zheng had been the prime minister in the past two years and his economic conditions were better, but he didn't own any land, and he mainly granted shares.
Official Yongyetian,
Shi Zhongzheng is the third rank, with twenty-five hectares of Yongye land. Because this prime minister was only appointed during the Zhenguan Dynasty, there was no land to be granted in Guanzhong, and he was awarded Kuanxiang, which was actually a land outside the heart of the Central Plains. This land was awarded in his hometown of Hebei
Xingzhou Giant Deer.
His nine hectares of land was not even allocated to the actual person. He was given two measures of millet per mu, or one hundred and eighty shi of millet a year.
Wei Zheng's current income is quite good, with a salary of 400 shi a year, a monthly salary of 6,000 dan, food and miscellaneous supplies, and a lot of various benefits. He also gets twelve sheep hair every month.
But Xiao Yu is different,
Once during a palace banquet, the emperor gave wine and everyone wanted to drink the first glass. Xiao Yu stood up and said that only I would drink this glass of wine because I was the most noble of all the ministers present.
He said something at that time, and then everyone let him drink the glass of wine.
"I am the emperor of the Liang Dynasty, the younger brother of the empress of the Sui Dynasty, Zuopushe of the Tang Dynasty, and a relative of the emperor."
After hearing this, Li Shimin also gave him a high-five and drank the wine as a reward.
Xiao Yu, the son of Emperor Ming of Western Liang, was granted the title of King of Xin'an at the age of nine. Although the Western Liang Dynasty at that time was actually completely controlled by the Sui Dynasty, his status was noble after all.
Even if Xiliang is gone, the Xiao family will still be the famous Xiao family in Lanling.
In the seventh year of the founding of the Emperor, when the Sui Dynasty abolished the Western Liang Dynasty, it was relatively mild and did not experience many wars. Therefore, even if the Lanling Xiao family entered the Sui Dynasty, they still retained a lot of wealth and land.
Even Nanchen, who was conquered by the Sui Dynasty across the river, actually did not experience the same land equalization as in the north, because the land in the south was basically private land and there was no public land, making it difficult to equalize land.
Later, the Sui Dynasty carried out inspections and land surveys in the south, which also triggered a great rebellion in the south of the Yangtze River.
Xiao Yu was a big landowner, and the land under his name was not much less than that of Pei Ji, the prime minister of Wude Dynasty.
Although Xiao Yu's landholdings are mainly in the Jingxiang, Jianghuai and Jianghuai areas, he is indeed a big landowner.
According to Wei Zheng, he can now occupy at most forty hectares of land, but Xiao Yu's actual land property is a hundred times that, and of course he is not happy.
In fact, seeing how Xiao Yu always raised the issue of enfeoffment with the emperor, we knew Xiao Yu's position. He liked enfeoffment, the way aristocratic families do.
Except for Wei Zheng, all the prime ministers and ministers who are standing in this hall today to discuss with the emperor have exceeded their quota.
Even Mr. Wu, who is not in the court, has been going around to acquire land and land in recent years. Although a large amount of land is located in Longyou, Shuofang, and Youyan border areas, the amount is indeed amazing.
Now there are thousands of hectares of land,
The prime ministers are all seriously over-represented. As you can imagine, everyone else is the same.
Wei Zheng was already prepared to come.
After several years in the central government, Wei Zheng's position as prime minister was not for nothing. He was no longer just relying on words to criticize people in his early years.
"Your Majesty, I have thought about it for a long time and have come up with a plan." As he said this, he launched a memorial, which was his land restriction policy.
The chamberlain forwarded it to the emperor for him,
Li Shimin flipped through the pages, and the more he read, the more surprised he became. It must be said that Wei Zheng was quite bold, while Wu Huaiyu was very cautious when implementing the new two-tax law.
But Wei Zheng had the momentum to move forward boldly and boldly.
His land restriction policy was divided into several parts. First, he reiterated the land quota. From the prince to the common people, each had a corresponding land quota. The highest prince had a land limit of 10,000 acres, and the lowest common people had a land limit of 100 acres.
Fields are limited according to grade and cannot be over-occupied.
Of course, the current situation is that everything is over-occupied, so what should we do?
Wei Zheng's method has already exceeded the limit, and there is no need to clear out, take back, etc., but the excess cannot be in vain. Instead, the excess land will be taxed according to the status, the amount of the land, the zoning of the excess land, etc. He proposed nine levels of progressive tax rates for the excess.
Those within the land quota are considered first-class, which is the normal tax standard.
If it exceeds a certain amount, it will be upgraded to one level and the tax rate will increase, up to the ninth level.
For example, the land tax for first-class farmland is four liters per mu, and for those who upgrade to first-class land, that is, if the land ownership is more than but within double the original land amount, the land tax is increased by one liter and becomes five liters per mu.
The local tax, its free warehouse grain, land rent, fire consumption, etc. will naturally increase accordingly.
Take the Duke of the State, a second-grade official, as an example. The original land quota is 4,000 acres. Within the land quota, the land tax is four liters per mu. If it exceeds 4,000 acres and is less than 8,000 acres, the land tax will be increased by one level, and the land tax will be calculated per mu.
The local tax is five liters.
Those with more than 8,000 acres and less than 12,000 acres will be upgraded to the third level, and a land tax of six liters per mu will be levied.
Going all the way up, up to the ninth level, with a limit of 36,000 acres, the land tax per mu also rises from four liters to three liters per dou.
Dukes and second-grade officials can occupy up to 36,000 acres of land. What will happen if the land exceeds 36,000 acres? Wei Zheng's method is to sell the land that exceeds 36,000 acres and allow them to transfer it.
Secondly, if the land is in Kuanxiang, two or three acres can be calculated as one mu. The so-called Kuanxiang here refers specifically to the border areas with vast land and sparsely populated areas, and does not include Shandong (Hebei, Henan, Shandong), Jianghuai, etc.
These places were once the most densely populated during the Sui Dynasty. However, during the Sui Dynasty, they were also the places that suffered the most serious wars and famines. Today, the population has been greatly reduced.
But Wei Zheng said that these places are heartland, so his Kuanxiang refers specifically to the border states along the border, the border states along the Longyou River, Xishuofang, Yanyun, and even the border areas of Lingnan, central Guizhou, and Nanzhong.
For example, in Hebei Bianzhou, two acres can be converted into one mu. If it is Lingnan and Nanzhong border land, three acres can be converted into one mu.
In this way, the actual land occupation can be increased a lot.
If it is reclaimed frontier wasteland, we can relax it a little more, maybe three or four acres or one acre.
However, Wei Zheng added another one. For example, the land limit for the second-grade official of the state is four thousand acres. Although the maximum can be up to thirty-six thousand acres, in the hinterland of the Central Plains, especially the capital, the land limit cannot exceed 4,000 acres in the same land.
The original land limit was four thousand acres.
For example, on the Guannei Road, he can only have a maximum of four thousand acres of land, and any excess land must be transferred to border land or sold.
He even suggested that in a specific state, a maximum of 1,000 acres of land could be owned. A maximum of 4,000 acres could be owned within a district, and a maximum of 1,000 acres could be owned within a state.
As for the righteous villages that are now commonly established by many nobles, he also demanded that they be restricted to a maximum of 10,000 acres, no more than 3,000 acres in a district, and no more than 1,000 acres in a state.
After Li Shimin finished reading, he was silent for a long time.
