Wei Zi wrote a few numbers on her mobile phone: "This is the number of households in the household registration book of Changhe County, about 7,900 households; this is the number of tax-paying households in Yongchang in the 23rd year, 6,700 households;
In the twenty-fourth year of Yongchang, there were 6,500 households; in the twenty-fifth year of Yongchang, there were 6,000 households. From the twenty-sixth year of Yongchang, the imperial court exempted several border states from paying taxes and grains for ten years."
Wei Zi circled the number of tax-paying households in those three years: "Three years, it will decrease year by year."
She stretched out her hand and pointed at the number of the twenty-fourth year of Yongchang: "In this year, you pacified the Western Region and Northern Xinjiang. According to what you said, you have never been to Changhe County, which means that the two wars did not
There was an impact here, and at the end of the year, the imperial court gave some food to appease the border areas."
"Then I'm curious. There is no harassment from the Western Regions and Northern Xinjiang, and the court's policies are loose. What's the reason for the number of tax payers in Changhe County to decrease year by year?"
Feng Danyuan asked: "What's the number of tax-paying households in Yongchang twenty-three years ago?"
Wei Zi shook his head: "No. The number after twenty-three years was also estimated by me from several other documents. I also want to ask you, should the county government have a special record book for tax collection, right?"
Feng Danyuan said: "Yes. But as you said, there is no such thing in Changhe County."
He snorted coldly and said, "What you just said is enough to prove two questions."
"The first one is that the number of tax-paying households does not match up. After the Western Region and Northern Xinjiang were pacified, when I discussed the border issues with the emperor, I saw the border tax payment booklet of the Ministry of Household Affairs. The number of tax-paying households reported was all in the general household registration
About 90% of the number, that is to say, out of the 7,900 households in Changhe County, the number of tax-paying households should be around 7,100. The second question is, where are the tax rolls?"
Wei Zi thought for a while and said: "The first question is, based on the decrease in the number of tax-paying households in those three years, at least in the 21st or 22nd year of Yongchang, the number of tax-paying households was equal to the number reported to the court.
Up to 7,100 households."
"The number of tax-paying households decreases every year. It may be that local officials deliberately underreport in order to line their own pockets, or it may be——"
Her hand clicked on the two words "missing": "Missing persons?"
Feng Danyuan affirmed: "If you enrich your own pockets, then the number of households given to the court will not be 90%, so it will be the latter, and the population will be missing."
Wei Zi continued: "That is to say, from the 21st or 22nd year of Yongchang to the 25th year of Yongchang, a thousand households disappeared; from the 26th year of Yongchang to the present, there is no data on how many households have disappeared, but according to
Based on the situation in the past few years, the number of households should be no less than 500. In other words, in seven or eight years, Changhe County has lost 1,500 households."
"The number of household registrations is at the end of Yongchang 2025. The new population and the number of deaths should be equal to each other, so there is basically no problem with this data."
"As for your second question, where did the tax collection book go? In order to cover up the problem of missing people, the tax collection book cannot be kept. But the county government did not do a clean job. It only destroyed the tax collection book and did not provide any evidence that the tax collection book could be used.
All information on the number of tax households was destroyed."
Wei Zi asked Feng Danyuan again: "One more question. Have you seen the frontier tax payment booklet of the Ministry of Household Affairs? The number of tax paying households is about 90% of the total number of households. What about tax grains? Does it match the number of tax paying households?
Up?"
Feng Danyuan replied: "The tax amount should match the number of tax-paying households."
Wei Zi frowned deeply: "Then this is a contradiction. The Changhe County government reported at least a few hundred households more tax payers, but after paying enough taxes and grains, these hundreds of households, even in the 25th year of Yongchang,
Taxes and grains for more than a thousand households are not a small figure; the people in the county are so poor that they can hardly take the blame, but the county magistrate's house is full of money."
