Thanks to Wang Yangming's secret help, Gu Cunren, the magistrate of Yuyao, charged into the battle, and Tang Shunzhi's Shaoxing Prefecture Qingtian Operation first opened up the situation in Yuyao.
Clearing land is the basis of tax and labor reform. How can we reform land tax even if we don’t understand the land registration system?
The purpose of clearing land is to expand the scope of land tax collection, not to suppress land annexation. In order to achieve rapid land clearing and reduce the obstacles to clearing land, Wang Yuan even issued an order to the whole country. As long as legal land deeds can be produced, the land will be cleared and registered honestly. During the Zhengde period, all land cleared was
The land tax owed will be written off in one fell swoop, and any tax evaded in the past will not be held accountable.
In the Jiangnan region, the biggest headache is official land, which nominally belongs to the state, and the landowners cannot produce legal land deeds at all.
Chen Yong was in Qingtian, Jiangxi at the time. The biggest obstacle was the official land, so he confiscated all of it very violently. Facts have proved that this method was inefficient and useless. In just a few years, the official land in Jiangxi was once again occupied by wealthy households.
After long and repeated discussions between the cabinet, the Sixth Ministry and the Metropolitan Procuratorate, in the summer of Shaofeng's second year, the cabinet issued another Qingtian directive.
Those who have owned official land for more than ten years only need to pay a small amount of land purchase money to legally own the land deeds (field bones) of official land. This is equivalent to a compromise with the local gentry and is also in response to Zhu Yuanzhang's instigation
Issues left over from history.
Tianpi and Tiangu were invented in the mid-Ming Dynasty, and quickly became popular in the mid-Qing Dynasty.
Tian Gu, that is, land ownership.
Tianpi is the right to rent land.
According to historical records, when Zhang Juzheng cleared the land, the local gentry occupied up to more than 7 million acres of land per family. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, only 10% of the people in Jiangnan had land, and as many as 90% of the people had no land.
The land is concentrated in large quantities and the population is multiplying, making it impossible for you to become a tenant.
As a result, farmland began to become common. That is, if you want to be a tenant, you must first pay for the farmland and obtain the right to farm a certain piece of land for a certain number of years. Generally speaking, the farmland is permanent, but there are also five or ten years.
Short-term contracts such as one year, twenty years, etc.
The land can also be transferred to ***. For example, I am a tenant and have a piece of land in my hand, but I am short of money and want to sell it. I can invite a notary to make a contract to transfer the land's leasehold rights, and the real owner of the land (
The owner of the field bone) shall not interfere with the transaction.
That is to say, if a piece of land is separated from the farm bones and the skin, the landowner cannot choose his own tenants and cannot change the land rent at will (the amount of rent paid is written into the skin contract).
It is very possible that Tianpi appeared because of Guantian.
There is a large amount of official land in the south of the Yangtze River, and it is impossible to obtain legal land deeds, but it is indeed circulated and traded in the market. Then the only way is to enter into private contracts and sell the farming rights of the official land. This form of transaction was adopted by private land, and gradually evolved into the field bones.
Different from Tianpi.
As soon as the latest decree came out, the land clearing in Jiangnan accelerated rapidly. A large number of landowners spent a small amount of land purchase money to purchase their own official land, converting the former gray land into legal land.
There are also a small number of landowners who are reluctant to part with even a small amount of land purchase money and want to continue to illegally hold official land, conceal the land acres and obstruct the government from clearing the land. For such people, Wang Yuan instructed the local officials not to show mercy, and found out how many illegal acres of land, not only all
Confiscation and confiscation of legal property twice the size of the property will be confiscated, and those who refuse to comply will be exiled as a whole!
The Xie family of Yuyao was almost exiled by Tang Shunzhi's entire clan!
Xie Qian was one of the three ministers in the cabinet of the Hongzhi Dynasty, and he lived until Zhu Zaiyi ascended the throne. Most of his brothers and sons were officials at the prefect level or above, and two of them were even third-rank officials in the court.
After Tang Shunzhi cleared the Wang family's property in Yuyao, he immediately started to clean up the Xie family's property.
Xie Qian's son, Xie Zheng, relied on someone serving as an official in the court and his influence in Yuyao to repeatedly obstruct Tang Shunzhi's work of clearing his father-in-law. Although he did not resist the law violently, he colluded with bribery officials, concealed his own land, and took the opportunity to occupy it.
People's land.
After Tang Shunzhi found out the situation, he sent all the illegal officers to prison, personally led people to arrest Xie Zheng, and at the same time impeached Xie's officials.
The final result: All officials from the Xie family in Yuyao were demoted to three levels, and the patriarch Xie Zheng was exiled to Yinzhou! All the acres of land concealed by the Xie family were confiscated, and double the amount of legal land was confiscated. If Xie family officials continue to fail to cooperate,
They were collectively dismissed from office, and the heads of the Xie clan were collectively exiled.
The imperial court's punishment of the Xie family in Yuyao made the entire Zhejiang province panic. Someone in the family who was an official even took the initiative to write a letter back, admonishing the clan members to cooperate well.
Wang Yuan has been very tolerant and no longer confiscates land randomly, and even cooperates with landlords to expropriate official land. He only hopes that they will pay taxes honestly in the future. If this is not enough, it is purely greedy. Even if he is exiled by the whole family, he will not be able to do so.
Blame Wang Yuan for his tyranny in politics.
You see, the Wang family of Yuyao, under the persuasion of Wang Yangming, took the initiative to complete the work of clearing the father-in-law. Not only did it turn the non-judge land into legal private land, it also exempted the land tax owed during the Zhengde period, and won praise from the court and the people.
Gain both fame and fortune.
…
Beijing.
Wenyuan Pavilion.
Chang Lun returned to Beijing to report on his work and presented the "One Whip Law". The cabinet is discussing modifications and whether to implement it nationwide.
The one-whip method was summed up and invented by Gui E, and Chang Lun also participated in its formulation.
"This method is very good and can relieve the suffering of ordinary people." Wang Qiong praised it very much.
Mao Ji said: "It can be beneficial for a moment, but it will cause far-reaching harm. It can be beneficial for one place, but it will cause harm to the whole world!"
Wang Yuan had only heard of one whipping method, but he didn't know the specific content, let alone the origin of this thing.
After thinking about it in detail at this time, I have to admit that although Mao Ji had selfish motives, he hit the nail on the head.
China has implemented the "Two Tax Laws" in the past dynasties, which levied taxes on land and population respectively, including land taxes, labor, miscellaneous taxes, etc. One whip law combined all taxes other than industrial and commercial taxes into one, which is undoubtedly a huge step in China's tax system.
progress.
However, the specific implementation of the whip law relies too much on the control of the central government. If the emperor or chief minister is changed, it may become a policy of killing the people.
There are two main disadvantages of this whipping method in history. One is that it causes fire and the other is that it is destroyed by officials.
After Zhang Juzheng's death, although the one-whip law was still implemented, local officials began to increase miscellaneous taxes. What do you mean? The originally excessive miscellaneous taxes were already spread out in one whip. If the local government continued to send more miscellaneous taxes, it would be equivalent to two miscellaneous taxes being collected twice.
This time, the lives of ordinary people became more difficult.
Mao Ji said that "the benefits may be temporary, but the harm will be far-reaching", which means he guessed what might happen in the future. Once the court supervision fails, local officials will definitely increase miscellaneous taxes, which will harm the people all over the world.
But "what benefits one place, brings harm to the whole world" is talking about local differences.
The one-whip method is suitable for implementation in Jiangnan, Huguang, Sichuan and other places, but it is not suitable for provinces like Shandong where cash crops (cotton) are widely planted.
In the autumn of the second year of Shaofeng, Qingtian, Shandong Province was almost completed.
The founder of the One Whip Method, Shandong Zuo Buzheng Envoy Gui E, sent a letter to the First Assistant Wang Yuan in the form of a post, requesting to increase taxes on cash crops and classify cotton fields as main fields for land tax collection. Otherwise, the One Whip Method was implemented in Shandong
, will inevitably turn into a tyranny of the people!
This move is not good for capitalists, especially Wang Yuan, the leader of the capitalists.
But it must be changed!
Under the leadership of Wang Yuan, the cabinet issued another decree. From now on, cotton fields were also considered as main fields, and the proportion of land tax was increased.
As a result, domestic cotton prices increased, which led to another result: capitalists increased their efforts to immigrate to India, and the scale of cotton planting in India expanded rapidly.