In order to promote land reform, Li Xuan successively released two major strategies, tax exemption for land reclamation and rent-to-purchase, which instantly aroused discussions in almost the entire world. Even the areas ruled by the Ming Dynasty received the news, and
It aroused widespread discussion.
If it is okay to open up wasteland and be exempted from taxes, this can be regarded as encouraging mulberry farming, and for the Tang government, it does not need to incur additional costs. On the contrary, it can benefit a lot from it.
Those wastelands were originally unproductive wastelands. Now they are reclaimed. Even if taxes are not collected, it will have no impact. However, in the short term, it can increase the food supply under the rule of the Tang Dynasty. In the long term, it can increase the food supply of the Tang Dynasty.
The dynasty collected more agricultural taxes.
However, renting instead of purchasing is not a trivial matter. Many people actually do not believe that the Tang government would really use so much official land to rent instead of purchasing.
Because in the eyes of people, even the ruling class, land is one of the most precious assets. Otherwise, what would the Zhu family do with so much land?
Even within the Tang Dynasty, many people opposed this policy, believing that it would damage the foundation of the Tang Dynasty. After all, the annual income from these official lands was also a large part of the Tang Dynasty's food income.
But for those objections, Li Xuan pretended not to hear them!
Are you kidding me? I'll give away my own land and don't care about your business. I just like to do this. If you can, you can bite me.
Of course, to be able to successfully launch this policy, Li Xuan still gained the support of high-level officials of the Tang Dynasty. Li Xuan's reason for convincing them was very simple. He only used six words: Hegemony has not been successful yet!
But these senior officials were immediately able to figure out the deeper meaning of Li Xuan's promotion of this policy from these six words!
The hegemony has not been successful yet, what does this mean? It means that it may fail at any time, and after failure, the Tang Dynasty will definitely be finished. Li Xuan and a group of high-level civil and military officials of the Tang Dynasty will all die without a burial place.
If we fail to compete with the Ming Dynasty for world hegemony and are eventually annihilated by the Ming Dynasty, everything will turn into nothingness!
By that time, will it still make sense to retain these official lands?
No!
It is better to give out these official lands now, and then win the hearts and minds of the people all over the world, especially the people at the bottom!
The senior officials of the Tang Dynasty knew very well that the foundation of the Tang Dynasty was not actually the gentry and landlords, nor the businessmen, but the ordinary people at the lowest level.
The core pillar of the Tang Dynasty is not officials, gentry or the like. The current core pillar of the Tang Dynasty has always been the King of the Tang Dynasty.
The army is the foundation of the Tang Dynasty and where all Li Xuan's confidence lies!
The soldiers of the Tang Dynasty King's Division all came from poor backgrounds. In order to keep the fields they were assigned after joining the army, no matter how harsh the training was, even if they were facing death, these soldiers gritted their teeth and persisted, because these ordinary soldiers also
It is clear that once the Tang Dynasty is over, all the land they have divided will be reduced to nothing.
Countless peasant children are willing to fight on the battlefield for a piece of land!
A considerable part of the taxes in the Tang Dynasty were agricultural taxes, and who paid these agricultural taxes? Farmers!
Those are the agricultural taxes paid by the landowners, which are actually the fruits of the labor of the tenants!
It can be inferred from this that the farmers with the largest population base, especially the middle and lower class farmers, are the core pillars of the Tang Dynasty!
Therefore, during the process of expansion, although Li Xuan would ease the relationship with the gentry class, Li Xuan actually never cared about them. Otherwise, Li Xuan would not have forcibly promoted agricultural tax, commercial tax and other tax reforms.
At that time and now, the gentry were strongly opposed, but did Li Xuan care?
He doesn't care!
If you oppose, you will be suppressed, if you resist tax, you will suppress it, if you rebel, you will destroy it!
During the rise of the Tang Dynasty, we could see this happening everywhere.
In order to further strengthen the ruling core of the Tang Dynasty and tie the peasants firmly to the chariot of the Tang Dynasty, Li Xuan did things such as tax exemption for land reclamation and rent-to-purchase services.
And what’s interesting is that this kind of thing will not cause much damage to the existing Tang Dynasty’s finances in a short period of time, because the official land rent collected now is the same as before.
For at least ten years, the benefits brought by these official lands to the Tang Dynasty will not be reduced at all.
As for ten years from now?
Ten years later, either the Tang Dynasty will have destroyed the Pseudo-Ming, or it will be destroyed by the Pseudo-Ming, or it will divide the world equally with the Pseudo-Ming, but no matter what the outcome is, it is actually unimportant.
And ten years later, after these official lands become private lands, the government will still be able to collect agricultural taxes. Although the amount will be less than the land rent, it will still be within a controllable range.
Li Xuan and a group of senior officials of the Tang Dynasty were not at all distressed by the division of land, but a group of middle- and lower-level officials and even the gentry outside were distressed.
Don't think that they are sincerely thinking about the future of the Tang Dynasty. There is only one reason for their grief: "That occupies 15% of the land under the entire Tang Dynasty. Why should it be given to those mud-legged people? Give us more."
OK!"
But now, many people have not seen another impact of rent-to-purchase, and it is a considerable impact!
That is, after those tenants who were originally landlords from various places saw the good news of renting instead of purchasing, do you think they will continue to rent land from those landlords or will they rent government land?
Similarly, if you rent land from a landlord for ten years, the land will still belong to the landlord after ten years. But if you rent government land, the land you rent will become your own after ten years.
How do you think ordinary people will choose?
You can tell with your toes that they will definitely rush to rent official farmland!
Once a large number of tenants go to rent government land, it will be difficult for the landlords to find tenants for their land, but the land cannot be abandoned. Not only will there be no production, but the agricultural tax will still have to be paid.
The tax system of the Tang Dynasty was quite strict. Since you had land, you had to pay taxes. The tax officials didn't care whether your land was abandoned, rented to others, or planted yourself.
Unless there is a natural disaster and there is a special decree to reduce or reduce taxes, otherwise, as long as you have land, you have to pay taxes. Of course, you don’t have to pay taxes, but the land will be confiscated by the government and become official land.
But when a large number of tenants came to rent official land, these landlords had only one way to successfully find tenants: lower the land rent, at least lower than that of the official land landlords.
Of course, they can also hire workers directly to farm the land.
Regardless of which of these methods, they will greatly improve the current situation of excessively high land rent and help improve the living standards of ordinary people, especially landless farmers.
Therefore, rent-to-purchase is not just as simple as dividing land, but also has more profound meanings.
But in the final analysis, these policies are still for the benefit of ordinary people, especially the poor!
After the people have obtained the benefits, in order to keep these benefits, they will fight in the most direct way!
After these policies were promulgated, and the Recruitment Department of the Ministry of War carried out extensive publicity in various recruiting places, joining the army as soldiers, loyal to Li Xuan, and fighting for the Tang Dynasty were directly linked to land allocation and tax exemption, and
Farmers preached that once the puppet Ming army comes back, the fields in their hands will not be preserved.
If the counterfeit Ming comes back, this land will be gone?
This is not okay. The land acquired through renting and purchasing will belong to their family in ten years. Even the King of Heaven cannot even think of taking it away!
Do you want to fight back and seize our land?
What else is there to say, join the army and fight against the puppets!
As the saying goes, even if the head can be cut off and the blood can be shed, the land cannot be lost!
The Recruiting Department under the Ministry of War reported that the number of people applying for military recruitment in early August was three times more than before!
This is not 30%, but three times. It can be seen that policies specifically targeted at poor people such as rent-to-purchase and land reclamation and tax exemption have aroused the widest recognition and further consolidated the foundation of the rule of the Tang Dynasty.
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After seeing the report, Li Xuan smiled and circulated the report to Liu Bagou and other senior cabinet officials, and at the same time said: "What do you think, dear friends?"
Liu Bagou was the first to read it, and then said with a face full of joy: "The foundation of the Tang Dynasty has been completed for ten thousand years!"
Then Qian Mengjiu also said: "The people of the three provinces are all my soldiers of the Tang Dynasty!"
Although Wang Wenhua was deprived of the title of Minister on Duty in the Royal Study Room, he was still a bachelor of Wenhua Palace and the Minister of Agriculture. However, regardless of his dignity, his face was full of ecstasy, and then he knelt down with a plop: "Congratulations!
, Congratulations to Your Majesty, with this good governance, the foundation of our Tang Dynasty has been completed, and our great hegemony is just around the corner!"
Before he finished speaking, he continued: "From ancient times to the present, there are not many emperors who can enact such good governance. Only your Majesty, for thousands of years, can have such love for the people and win such people.
Beloved, no one can be better than your majesty. My emperor’s achievements are far inferior to those of Qin, Han, Wu, Tang and Song. Even the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors are slightly inferior."
Then I saw him kowtow violently, then raised his head and said loudly: "My lord, I respectfully invite your Majesty to take the title of 'Great Emperor' to appease the hearts of the people and the hearts of all officials in the world!"
Hearing this, Liu Bagou and others on the side cursed secretly in their hearts: How can this person be so thick-skinned!
What is Wang Wenhua doing these days? Is he taking gunpowder every day? Why is the firepower so fierce every time he flatters? Some time ago, he flattered Li Xuan and said that Li Xuan's achievements have been extraordinary. Please give the ancestors of the Li family honorary titles and posthumous titles.
It is not the four generations of the traditional feudal dynasty, but the eighteen generations, yes, it is the eighteen generations, a whole eighteen generations!
The barbarian Jin Dynasty was so shameless that they only dared to pursue the title of ten generations, and Wang Wenhua was even more shameless. He actually asked Li Xuan to grant the title of eighteen generations to his ancestor!