On July 15th, Cui Changwu reported to Li Zhi on the collection of land tax in the third hall of the Duke of Jin.
"Nowadays, the land tax has been equalized throughout Shandong. According to the tax collection yellow book and the fish scale atlas, there are 460,000 hectares of farmland in Shandong. In previous years, the entire province of Shandong collected land tax of 865,000 shi of rice and flour, and 865,000 shi of rice and flour.
The silver is 5,043,000 taels. The gentry basically does not pay taxes, and all these land taxes fall on the extremely limited number of homesteaders."
Cui Changwu flicked the account books and said: "Now we have equalized the land tax and let the gentry and small farmers pay taxes together. The economic pressure on small farmers has been greatly reduced. In fact, we have increased the land tax in Shandong Province by 20%, but the poorest
The land tax of small farmers is still only a quarter of the original amount or even less."
"And we have increased the land tax by 20% on the basis of the original tax, and the annual income of grain is 570,000 taels. According to the current grain price of 2 taels and 4 taels in Shandong, this is an income of 1.38 million taels a year."
Li Zhi nodded after hearing Cui Changwu's report.
After equalizing the land tax and appropriately increasing the proportion of land tax, not only did the small farmers get rid of the heavy and unfair land tax, but Li Zhi also greatly increased his income. With the income of more than one million taels of silver, Li Zhi's deficit was suddenly reduced.
half.
The gentry were the richest group in the Ming Dynasty. Seizing their illegal income would make all the people in Shandong and Li Zhi well fed.
Cui Changwu put down the account book and said: "My lord, now the gentry have lost their main source of income. Almost all of them are bankrupt and can only live on their savings. I think these gentry will not accept failure and will definitely ask for help from everywhere.
..”
Li Xing nodded and said: "Brother, these gentry will definitely fight back against us next!"
Li Zhi looked at the scenery outside the palace and said with a smile: "Let these gentry take action and let me see how capable they are."
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In the Governor's Yamen of Denglai, Dengzhou Prefecture, Shandong Province, Governor Shi Hanzhang nodded to the Shandong celebrities gathered in the second hall.
"This time Li Zhi collected land taxes without permission, which was extremely unreasonable. Not only did the court never give him the power to collect land taxes, but his violent behavior of ignoring the gentry's tax-free privileges has brought the province of Shandong to the verge of collapse. For a time, the literati were in trouble, everywhere
The scholars are in disgrace. We Shandong scholars cannot sit back and wait for death!"
An old white-haired man named Chen Wanxin, who was under the leadership of Shi Hanzhang, was the governor of Guizhou. He pushed his crutch on the ground and said loudly: "These days, my tenant farmers are rebelling against each other. They all go to the court and take my property."
The land has become public land. I have more than 60,000 acres of land under my name, half of which has been lost within a few days."
Li Zhi's solution to the donated land was to confiscate it as public land. If the gentry and the tenant farmers who donated the land could not cooperate and took the matter to court, the gentry would eventually lose ownership of the land completely. This white-haired old man was obviously missing.
The coffin did not shed tears, but he was unwilling to lower the land rent, which eventually led to his tenants surrendering themselves to the court.
Another middle-aged scholar, Juren Zhou Xuemu, patted the coffee table and said loudly: "Not only did the tenant farmers go to court to turn my private land into public land, there were also some unscrupulous people who took advantage of the situation and wanted to file a lawsuit with me to seize the land. This way
If things continue to develop, those unscrupulous people will peel off our skin and eat our flesh."
There are two types of land obtained by donating: "unwanted donation" and "self-donation". Self-donation means that the peasants donate their land to the gentry on their own in order to avoid taxes and servitude. The so-called false donation means that the traitor takes the disputed land and even gives it to someone else's house.
The undisputed land was dedicated to the powerful gentry, and the gentry worked with the gentry to seize the land of the common people.
Many powerful gentry have a large number of disputed properties in their names. To put it bluntly, these properties were obtained by relying on the power of the gentry. Now that Shandong has changed, Li Zhi used the impartial Duke of Jin to seize the land.
When the courts dealt with disputes, those who had their fields taken away from them naturally took advantage of the situation and initiated lawsuits to regain their fields.
The gentry in Shandong were faced with enemies from both sides.
Now Li Zhi has stationed 5,000 troops in Jinan, and Li Zhi's rule in Jinan can be said to be iron-clad. But in Dengzhou, Li Zhi only has 1,000 troops stationed, and the gentry still has room to breathe. Therefore, Li Zhi's policy of equalizing land taxes came out
, Shandong's gentry and celebrities went to Dengzhou and gathered around Shi Hanzhang, the governor of Denglai, to think of countermeasures.
At this time, the people sitting in the second hall were either Jinshi or Juren, and there were many officials who had reached official positions. Some big landowners with lower status and only the title of scholar could only stand in the back. However, even if they only had the title of scholar, these people often had several
The rich men with tens of thousands of acres of land all have huge fortunes.
These big landowners looked at each other for a while and gradually came to a unified view.
Chen Wanxin lifted his crutch and said: "If this continues, there will be no place for us gentry in Shandong. As the saying goes, a trapped beast still fights. We can't just let Li Zhi rob our family property. We who are rich will contribute money, and we who are powerful will contribute
, I must beat Li Zhi this time and let him know that our Shandong gentry is not at his mercy!"
Chen Wanxin didn't wait for anyone else to speak, and rushed to say: "I will offer you 10,000 taels of silver as funds to counterattack Li Zhi."
Others were very excited when they saw the prestigious Chen Wanxin being so generous. Li Zhi could be said to have driven the gentry to a dead end. At this time, all the celebrities and gentry present hated Li Zhi deeply. As long as they could bite Li Zhi in pain,
Let him stop the equalization of land tax, and these gentry will no longer be stingy with money.
"I'll pay eight thousand taels!"
"I'll pay four thousand taels!"
"The student is willing to pay four thousand taels!"
Chen Wanxin looked at the grand scene of the gentry waving their arms to finance the resistance against Li Zhi, and kept nodding. His wrinkled old face turned blood red with excitement, and he kept stroking his gray beard with his right hand.
"The human heart is available! The human heart is available!"
For a time, the gentry donated money generously. An aide next to Shi Hanzhang, the governor of Denglai, wrote down everyone's contribution. By the time everyone had reported their contribution, the aide had already filled up the huge rice paper on the table.
In the last statistics, Shi Hanzhang got a huge number.
Shi Hanzhang looked at the indignant Shandong celebrities in the second hall with a smile and said loudly: "This time everyone was so angry that they were able to raise 1.13 million taels of silver in the first time. With so much silver, we resisted Li Zhi this time
Great things will surely come true."
Chen Wanxin stood up and said: "Don't worry, everyone, this world ultimately belongs to us scholars. With more than one million taels of silver to clear the joints, we will definitely mobilize the maximum strength to attack Li Zhi this time. Li Zhi thought he had 20,000
If you have more troops, you can be unscrupulous. This time we will let Li Zhi know what it means to press the enemy with a large army. We will definitely let Li Zhi understand what it means to hit an egg with an egg and what it means to regret it!"
