From mid-March to late April, the Privy Council issued more than 20 decrees, involving fields such as acres, households, military service, workshops, mining rights, postal mail, and many other fields.
Land acres, tenements and mineral rights will be allowed to be cultivated by private individuals in the form of a license, which will have a great impact on the interests of traditional forces. However, the continuous war for more than ten years has devastated traditional forces and left them with no ability at all.
Stand up to resist the New Deal, let alone resist. [bsp; The situation in Jiangning is generally stable. Under the government, a structure has been formed in which the government meeting, the military staff, and the Privy Council are responsible for deliberation, military power, and political power.
By this time, Gao Zongting and others realized that Lin Fu's real intention was to set up a government meeting.
The government meeting is placed above the Military Staff and the Privy Council, but under the government. If necessary, Lin Fu can close the government meeting, or select another council member to form a new government meeting.
During Lin Fu's absence in Jiangning, the Military Staff and the Privy Council were all responsible to the government meeting. In fact, they were "supervising the country" on Lin Fu's behalf and taking over the power of the government, making the matter of establishing the crown prince less urgent...
At the beginning of May, a large group of cavalry with flags and armored soldiers, wearing the uniforms of the forbidden army, protecting more than a dozen vehicles and horses, came out of Juchao City and headed north along the east bank of Chao Lake.
This is Lin Fu's patrol in Jiangning in late April to inspect the army. The day before yesterday, he crossed the Yijiang River to Juchao, where he summoned Chen Huawen and other Luzhou military and political officials. It was not until today that he left Luzhou and went north to Shouzhou.
Although the threat of war has been reduced to a minimum, Luzhou is still the most important barrier outside Jiangning and the strategic and military focus of Huaixi. Of course, Lin Fu's choice of Luzhou as the first stop of his patrol had another purpose.
of.
Lin Fu summoned Chen Huawen, the official of Luzhou Prefecture, who was seeing him off, into the car and said: "Hua Wen is reluctant to leave, so please give me another ride..." In the wide carriage, there were also those who had accompanied Lin Fu on his tour of Beijing this time.
Gao Zongtingji, Wang Chengfu and Sun Shangwang were the three.
"My lord, do you have something to tell me?" Chen Huawen asked as he boarded the carriage and sat huddled together with Sun Shangwang.
"There is a matter that I wanted to discuss after I come back from Xuzhou, but I want to tell you in advance so that you can make some preparations in Luzhou first," Lin Fu said. "After the Jianghuai Governor's Office was abolished, the Jiangdong County government offices were placed under the central government's control.
Leader. Jiangdong County itself is a land of plenty and wealth, and the New Deal is mainly concentrated in Jiangdong County. I asked Sun Shangwang to make an estimate. At this time, almost 80% of the central government’s annual income comes from Jiangdong County. As the New Deal deepens, this proportion will become shorter.
It will be difficult to reduce it within a certain period of time. This may seem like a good thing at first glance, but in fact it is not. It can easily marginalize counties such as Zhejiang, Fujian, Hubei and Hunan..."
Chen Huawen nodded. At this time, the central government's annual income mainly comes from Jiangdong County, and the offices in Jiangdong County are directly under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council. This will cause a large proportion of central government officials transferred to Jiangdong County in the future, making the future Privy Council become the leader of Jiangdong County.
Privy Council. On the one hand, it will over-expand the power of the Privy Council. On the other hand, it will marginalize counties such as Zhejiang, Fujian, Hubei and Hunan, which is definitely not a good thing.
Lin Fu continued: "I want to separate the five prefectures of Shou, Hao, Xinyang, Dongyang and Luzhou, as well as the two prefectures of Yijiang and Chizhou on the south bank of the Yangtze River (also roughly based on the Anhui Province in later generations), and establish a new Xuanzhou Prefecture.
There will be two Zhili Prefectures in the five counties of Chongzhou and Jiangning Prefecture, and one Xuanfu Envoy Department will be set up in the remaining Jiangdong County... This is just an idea of mine. You can discuss it on a small scale first. If it is feasible, we will submit it to you.
It will be decided by the government meeting!”
The governments of Jiangdong County are directly under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, and the Privy Council almost directly controls nearly 80% of the country's financial resources. With Lin Fu here, the Privy Council will naturally not be able to overturn the situation, but in fact it is not a good power structure - Lin Fu wants to control the governments of Jiangdong County.
It became independent from the Privy Council and then split into four major parts to achieve balance with counties in Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Eastern Fujian, and Hunan.
"In addition, in the next step, I plan to separate Mingzhou Prefecture, Quanzhou Prefecture, and Yizhou Prefecture from the Xuanfu Division of Liangzhe and Eastern Fujian, and put them under the direct jurisdiction of the Privy Council," Lin Fu said. "On the one hand, it is convenient for the Privy Council to directly implement the new policy in
If these three prefectures continue to deepen; on the other hand, once the New Deal is implemented in depth, the fiscal scale of Mingzhou, Quanzhou and Yizhou will far exceed that of ordinary prefectures and counties, and they will need to be directly controlled by the Privy Council..."
At this time, the annual income of the central government's combined household department and the Privy Council totaled 16 million silver dollars from Jiangdong County, of which the five counties of Chongzhou contributed nearly 40%, more than 6 million silver dollars. In the past, the taxes paid by the two Hunan provinces to the central government were
The total amount of grain received was only three million taels of silver; Jiangdong County, as the traditional wealth center of Yuan Yue, the highest annual total of taxes and grain received by the central government did not exceed six million taels of silver, which shows the power of the New Deal.
If the new government continues to be implemented in depth, the tax revenue of Mingzhou, Quanzhou and Yizhou will increase significantly, and will easily exceed the fiscal and tax levels of traditional counties. If the three governments are also placed under the jurisdiction of Zhejiang and Zhejiang and Mindong counties,
This will lead to the excessive financial power of the counties in Zhejiang and Mindong.
The new policy that Lin Fu wants to implement not only involves the distribution of central power, but also further adjusts the distribution of power between the central government and local county officials: if Jiangdong County is not separated from the Privy Council, it will be easy to over-power if it is separated into four parts.
Concentrate it in the hands of a few individuals, while also weakening the possibility of local separatism and independence...
On the basis of Huaixi, Yijiang was merged, and a new Xuanfu Envoy Department was established in Chizhou and Chizhou. Chen Huawen was naturally the natural candidate for Xuanfu Envoy, so Lin Fu also discussed this issue with him first and asked him to make some preparations.
to promote this work.
Seeing Chen Huawen, Gao Zongting, Wang Chengfu, Sun Shangwang and others writing down his words, Lin Fu sighed and said to Chen Huawen: "Send it here, don't delay your return to Luzhou!"
Hua Wen resigned.
Chen Huawen got out of the car and retreated to the roadside with the accompanying Luzhou officials and retinue. The carriage and horse team slowly set off towards Shouzhou in the north.
Lin Fu continued to keep Gao Zongting, Wang Chengfu and Sun Shangwang in his car to discuss matters.
Lin Fu said: "Although there are some discussions about the new tax policy for land ownership, it is still within the controllable range. I think we will vigorously promote the reform of municipal commercial tax next time. The resistance below should be smaller..."
Gao Zongting said: "My lord is innovating the municipal commercial tax and splitting the traditional tax into two parts: market tax and municipal commercial tax. The local area will get a lot of benefits, at least at the prefecture and county level, there will be no resistance..."
Traditionally, the major items subject to taxation were salt, iron, tea, horse wine, etc. These were sources of revenue for the internal treasury in the past and had nothing to do with the Ministry of Household Affairs and the local area. Therefore, eunuchs were mostly responsible for the duties of tax inspectors such as salt and iron envoys and tea and porcelain envoys.
Take the Lianghuai Salt Farm as an example. The annual salt tax revenue is as high as two million silver, which is all put into the internal treasury. Take the Fuliang Tea Industry as an example. When the tea ceremony in Fuliang Prefecture in Jiangxi was at its peak, it produced five million kilograms of new tea annually, and the tea tax was the highest.
He can collect 400,000 taels of silver annually.
In addition to tax collection, overtax fees were also classified into the inner government, which sent eunuchs to various places to set up tax card collection inspections. This was also the reason why the power of courtiers expanded in the middle of the Yuan Dynasty, and courtiers such as Hao Zongcheng, Zhang Yan, and Liu Zhi were able to check and balance foreign ministers.
a key reason.
The excessive expansion of the power of eunuchs made the battles between eunuchs and foreign ministers extremely bloody. The eunuchs acted as tax supervisors and ran rampant in the place, without being supervised by the central government. The emperor was not familiar with world affairs and was manipulated by a few eunuchs.
How can we effectively control the power of eunuchs when we have it in our hands? This has led to various drawbacks and ultimately resulted in huge taxes. The revenue from municipal and commercial taxes is shared with the powerful, local forces and eunuchs, with only a small part going to the inner government.
situation.
The most fundamental thing for Lin Fu to realize the power of the Prime Minister is to bring the world back to the center and centralize all the annual revenue allocated to the Privy Council. Of course, under the Privy Council, in addition to the Department of Finance, there are newly established Departments of Taxation and Mining Supervision.
, Workshop Division, is to further disperse financial power within the Privy Council.
For the new municipal commercial tax, Lin Fu will significantly reduce the tax collection range and merge it into the industrial and mining tax in the form of a market tax. However, local governments will be allowed to additionally collect one-in-twenty tax from imported salt, tea and other commodities.
Proportional, levy municipal commercial tax.
Wang Chengfu smiled and said: "Only from the salt business, the local government can earn an additional one million silver dollars in total. After the new city commercial tax is implemented, it will be apportioned to each county, which will increase the income by an additional two thousand to ten thousand silver dollars per year."
If the financial resources are used for local branches, how can the prefecture and county object?"
Lin Fu said: "We need to set up more inspection departments under the county and set up township departments to manage local affairs. This will break the previous pattern of the king's law not being enforced in the county. What can we do if we try every means to increase revenue for the local area?"
In order for the New Deal to be implemented, it is necessary to establish additional township bureaus under the county level to penetrate the tentacles of political power into the countryside.
At present, the old and the new are changing, and the new policy is easy to implement. It is also easy for the inspection department and the township department to directly control the local political power below the county level; but fundamentally, it is necessary to have money and financial resources to support the central government station to penetrate below the county level.
At present, Jiang Ning directly controls more than 500 counties. If there are six to ten inspection departments and township departments under the counties, the number of officials directly increased will be as many as 30,000 to 50,000. Taking into account the future institutions
With the expansion, the new empire's bureaucratic group will easily exceed the 100,000 or even 200,000 mark.
Even if all the traditional central government revenue is invested, such a huge bureaucratic group cannot be supported; but in fact, the traditional natural economy can support such a huge bureaucratic group.
Before the war, in addition to the officials officially appointed by the imperial court, there were a large number of local warriors and soldiers in the local area, and their support came from the local area; while for the private officials of the old system, their support only came from the local exploitation by the officials.
After Lin Fu took control of Jiangning, he set up a levy bureau to strengthen the collection of levies for goods entering Jiangning. Last year, 600,000 silver dollars were collected; within two years, the Jiangning government's previous war aftermath loans from Huaidong Bank were returned. This is still a huge increase in the population of Jiangning.
It dropped by nearly one-third, which was the result of the traditional Jiangning gentry and noble class being severely damaged by the war. Before the war, this number would have increased by two to three times, or even more.
However, before the war, the Ministry of Internal Affairs set up a tax supervision department in Jiangning, and its income in gold per year was only 30,000 to 50,000 taels of silver, a difference of two quantitative levels. This is not to say that Jiangning's previous business activities were not vigorous, but that there were hundreds of
Municipal and commercial taxes amounting to ten thousand taels were embezzled by local villagers, nobles and officials of the Tax Supervision Department.
It is difficult to collect municipal commercial taxes. Except for a few municipalities directly under the central government, Lin Fu plans to put all the municipal commercial taxes in other prefectures and counties into local tax sources, so that the local governments can use the newly levied municipal commercial taxes to support the additional townships below the county level; similarly,
The reason is that the establishment of many township bureaus below the county level is also to further suppress the local township power, penetrate administrative tentacles, and expand the increase in municipal commercial tax revenue.
To this end, the Department of Taxation will set up municipal tax offices under various prefectures and counties and initially determine more than 30 types of municipal and commercial taxes that can be levied to expand local fiscal and tax sources.
As for the new land tax, the basic land tax went to the central government, while the stepped land tax, which was the additional income from the forty acres of land per household, was all allocated to local fiscal tax sources by Lin Fu.
Lin Fu actually wanted to make the local officials appointed by the central government the main force in fighting against local rural forces and restraining land annexation, instead of asking them to collude with local forces; and further down the line, it was the implementation of the system of appointing officials in different places.
This kind of tax sharing method was set by Lin Fu based on the experience of later generations, and he also took advantage of the replacement of the old with the new to forcefully promote it. As the new tax law is implemented, if the central government's annual income wants to continue to expand, it can only expand in industry, mining and other industries.
Foreign trade was being thought about, and Lin Fu also wanted to ensure that the center had a steady stream of motivation for implementing the New Deal.
Lin Fu also wanted to wait for the new political system to have a general framework and ask everyone to form a preliminary consensus on the new policy before establishing a new dynasty and even slow down the pace of the Northern Expedition, hoping to reduce internal opposition to the new policy in the face of external threats.
resistance.
Traveling by land by carriage is not as comfortable as traveling by boat, but you can stop and pay attention to local agricultural affairs from time to time. In this case, you will soon leave Luzhou Prefecture and enter Shouzhou.
Lin Fu had also received a report long ago that Liu Miaozhen and Song Jia had rushed to Shouzhou to meet him.
Lin Fu originally planned to go to Xuzhou before March, but he didn't expect to figure out the new policy, so it was delayed for another two months. When he saw Liu Miaozhen and Song Jia coming to pick him up in the southern border of Shouzhou, he felt guilty.