I

After Huang Shunfu was transferred to the General Military Mansion, the new magistrate of Luling was named Li Ke.

This person does not have a high degree of education and is just a child.

But he followed Zhao Han very early and was a farmer of Lijiaguai. In the early days, he helped divide the fields, then joined the missionary group, and later became the mayor of the town. Then he was transferred to the county government. It was a natural thing to succeed as the county magistrate.

"Greetings to the main town!" Li Ke said with cupped hands.

Zhao Han smiled and said, "Please sit down."

"Thank you, Mr. Zhen." Li Ke straightened his back and sat down.

"I read the brochure you handed over," Zhao Han asked, "How were farmers' marriages resolved in the past?"

There were big mistakes in the division of farmland among the three counties.

As long as they are over twelve years old, both men and women can divide the land. But what should a woman do if she gets married? Should the land in her name belong to her mother's family or her husband's family?

According to the equality of men and women, it naturally belongs to the woman herself, and she can take it with her wherever she marries.

But how could the woman’s family agree!

Li Ke replied: "When people exchange fields and get married, people from two families marry both their daughter and their daughter-in-law."

Zhao Han frowned and said, "If there are only daughters or only sons in the family, wouldn't it be impossible to get married?"

Li Ke said: "It's difficult."

Zhao Han immediately called Chen Maosheng over. After explaining the situation, he asked: "There are such big mistakes in Tian Zheng, why don't you tell me?"

Chen Maosheng was also surprised and explained: "At the beginning of the land distribution, everyone was very happy and did not say it was not conducive to marriage. After that, I was transferred to the General Military Mansion. I didn't know much about the following things, and no one reported this. situation."

Zhao Han had no solution for a while and ordered: "Inform the missionary group and the farmers' association immediately and ask them to collect more opinions from farmers to see how to solve this problem."

This is a big loophole. The family raising a daughter will be at a disadvantage, and may not want their daughter to get married, because the daughter will take away the land.

The land administration in New China is based on village groups, and the total amount is divided equally among the villagers. The land was taken back by the deceased, and the land was immediately divided among the newborns.

But Zhao Han couldn't do this!

The land equalization system of the Sui and Tang dynasties has left lessons learned from the past. With the control of the grassroots in ancient times, it was impossible to take back the land of the deceased, which would almost mean redistributing the land every year. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, public land was redistributed to farmers every year. In order to save trouble, grassroots officials simply kept it as it was every year. As a result, the deceased's land could not be recovered, and the newly grown Ding's land could not be divided. In the end, the Tang Dynasty's finances collapsed.

The peasant association is only a transitional product and does not have any official position to speak of. Once corruption is brought to the official position, and it overlaps with the effectiveness of village and town institutions, the government cannot provide so much salary. But if they are not given official positions, the enthusiasm of farmers' association cadres will fade over time.

Therefore, sooner or later, the peasant association will be cancelled, or will die naturally, and all village affairs will ultimately belong to the village chief.

What Zhao Han considered at the time was that instead of being riddled with corruption in allocating fields in the future, it would be better to take advantage of his full control and directly allocate the fields to farmers for private property.

In this way, each farmer is guaranteed to have a few acres of land, so that he can survive even if he has a few more children. After the territory expands, the excess population will be moved to the war-torn areas in the north.

In this way, rural stability can be achieved for decades, and when the time comes, land conflicts will be transferred overseas step by step.

Really, if a land policy can be implemented smoothly and ensure rural stability for decades, it is considered a very powerful policy.

From ancient times to the present, no political power has been able to rely solely on agriculture to maintain land administration.

As New China developed into the 21st century, it also used industry to eliminate land conflicts. Due to the increasing population, many newborns in rural areas can no longer be divided into fields.

The same cannot be said for the industry of the seventeenth century. The early industrial revolution not only failed to alleviate land conflicts, but also accelerated land annexation!

There was so much land in North America, but after the rise of the Industrial Revolution, a large number of farmers were left without land to cultivate because capital was annexing land too quickly. The only way to divert conflicts is through continuous expansion and seizing Indian territory.

The same is true in Britain. Before the Glorious Revolution, the king was opposed to the enclosure movement because it was not conducive to the king's collection of agricultural taxes.

It was the great development of British industry that led to capitalists frantically annexing land. If the king was an eyesore, they would overthrow the king. As a result, the land enclosure movement intensified. If this were done in China, the farmers would have rebelled long ago. Of course, the British peasants also rebelled, but the population was too small and they were easily suppressed by the nobles.

The land enclosure movement caused a large number of landless farmers to flock to the cities to work and make a living. The scale of British industry could not be sustained, so it could only enact strict laws, and anyone who stole a piece of bread could be exiled to Australia. In this way, the excess urban population will be thrown overseas to fend for themselves, which will not only reduce local security pressure, but also increase the population of overseas colonies.

As for how many innocent civilians died as a result of land enclosure movements and exile policies, that is not a question that capitalists need to consider.

All I can say is that it was a history of blood and tears.

Zhao Han also wants to develop industry. He can imagine that after capitalists make money, they will definitely spend a lot of money to buy land. Therefore, he wants to divide the land in advance and prohibit land sales. Even if the land is rewarded for merit, there must be an upper limit. Private land that exceeds the upper limit is invalid.

Forcing capitalists to explore overseas!

But the problem we are encountering now is simply ridiculous. It turns out that women are getting married, which leads to disputes over land ownership.

Zhao Han used all his strength to collect various opinions and found that this problem... had no solution.

Marriage can only be carried out by exchanging fields. If there is no daughter in the family, it will be difficult for the son to find a wife. It's okay to ask for a wife, as long as you promise not to give up the wife's land, otherwise the woman's family will never allow their daughter to get married in order to protect the land.

Zhao Han held several meetings and the final decision was absurd: no intervention.

If you don't have a daughter at home and you still want to marry your son, you have to agree to keep the woman's property in your parents' home without bringing her over.

No policy is perfect. As long as there are no major problems, just make do with it.

…

Bailuzhou Academy.

More than four hundred officials, clerks and scholars crowded together to listen to Zhao Han's lecture. In front of everyone was a pamphlet written by Zhao Hangang.

"The Theory of Family, Country and World"!

Zhao Han stood on the podium, fearing that the students in the back row could not hear clearly, so he simply held up a paper loudspeaker to lecture.

"In the pre-Qin period, the land ruled by the Emperor of Zhou was the world. The land distributed to the princes was the country. The land distributed to the scholar-bureaucrats was the home."

"In today's world, the land passed down by our ancestors is the world, and the land we lay down is also the world. What is a country? The land ruled by the emperor is a country, such as our Ming Dynasty! As for family, your family, my family, big or small Countless homes!”

Although the Ming Emperor still has the title of Emperor, the official term "Ming Kingdom" has long been used.

These concepts are easy to accept.

"Changing one's surname to another name is called the subjugation of the country. Being full of benevolence and righteousness, but leading beasts to eat people, and people eating each other, is called the subjugation of the world. The subjugation of a country is not terrible. If the Ming Dynasty is destroyed, it is called the subjugation of a country. You and I can rebuild a new country. It is terrible to destroy the world, and no one, no matter the common people or the gentry, can escape!"

"The country of Ming Dynasty is composed of thousands of families."

"Thousands of families pay taxes to the court to maintain the existence of this country."

"As a country and as a court, what should the Ming Dynasty do? It should use the taxes paid by the common people to support both civil and military teams."

"Civil officials and officials maintain the operation of the country. They spread education, encourage farmers and mulberry trees, build water conservancy projects, build bridges and pave roads, and eradicate violence. Military attachés and soldiers maintain the stability of the country. They must eliminate bandits internally and resist foreigners externally."

"What's the situation now?"

"Most of the civil servants and officials are corrupt officials. Water conservancy projects are no longer repaired, and relief for the people is not provided in years of great disaster. Instead of eradicating violence and ensuring peace, they are exploiting the people wantonly."

"The military attachés and soldiers will have no courage, and the soldiers will have no fighting spirit. They will not be able to eliminate the bandits internally, and they will suffer repeated defeats externally, causing the world to be in ruins."

"The reason why I started a rebellion is that the Ming Dynasty no longer behaves like a national court."

"..."

Pang Chunlai, Li Banghua, Song Yingxing, Tian Younian, Wang Diaoding and others were said to be suddenly enlightened, especially the subjugation of the country and the subjugation of the world.

"Changing one's surname to another name is called the subjugation of the country. Being full of benevolence and righteousness, but leading animals to eat people and people eating each other is called the subjugation of the world." This sentence comes from Gu Yanwu. It has not been published yet, which is enough for scholars to understand the truth.

It can also provide a very strong theoretical basis for Zhao Han's rebellion.

Zhao Han continued:

"Why did the Ming court end up in this situation?"

"Public administration, education, and morality are not the key. In the time of Taizu, the administration was also corrupt because it originated from the officials of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. But why could it prosper at that time? It was all because of the fiscal restraint of the imperial court."

"I can divide the taxation of a country into two types, direct taxation and indirect taxation."

"Direct taxes are taxes paid on a per capita or land basis. Indirect taxes, such as door stall taxes, banknote duties, etc., are heavy and the goods are sold at a high price. Anyway, the merchants do not lose money and can be passed on to the people."

"If a country wants to maintain fiscal stability, direct taxation must be stable."

"In today's world, direct taxation has been destroyed. First of all, it is the land. A small group of people occupy the vast majority of the land. They can avoid tax, they can evade tax, and even if they cannot evade it, they can pass it on to tenants, turning direct taxation into indirect taxation. .”

"The second is the poll tax. Since the one-whip law was corrupted, the poll tax has been collected completely indiscriminately. A large number of common people took shelter from the gentry and hid their population to escape the poll tax. This resulted in a small number of common people bearing the poll tax of the entire country!"

"The imperial court's finances are unstable, the people are miserable, and all the wealth has been taken away by those wealthy families."

"If the imperial government doesn't have enough tax revenue, it won't be able to raise troops. If the soldiers don't have enough to eat, how can they fight against the Tatars? The more they can't defeat the Tatars, the more they will have to levy and raise troops."

"The imperial court imposes excessive taxes and the people cannot survive, so they will rise up in rebellion. The northwest bandits who were the first to rebel were all forced to rise up. This forced the imperial court to send troops to suppress the rebellion. The more troops it used, the more its finances were exhausted, and the more unlimited it became. The extortionate levies and extortionate taxes aroused more people to rebel."

"Drink poison to quench your thirst!"

"So, we have reached this situation."

"Those who cause chaos in the country are not only the emperor, not only the clan, and not only corrupt officials. All the gentry and gentry in the world are to blame!"

"Why should I divide the fields? Because if I don't divide the fields, not only will the country be destroyed, but the world will be destroyed, and thousands of families will be destroyed! Look, where the northwest bandits have passed, which big family can save their lives? It's Yichun , Yongxin counties are also killing landlords for rebellion, if you don’t believe it, go to Yongxin County and see for yourself!”

"Gentlemen here, do you want me to divide the fields? Or do you want the whole world to rebel and take away all your wealth and lives?"

"The family, the country, and the world are actually one. If everyone only cares about the family, and only cares about his own family, the country will always perish, and eventually the world will perish. If the world perishes, the small furniture will be destroyed, and the door will not survive!"

"..."

Pang Chunlai, Li Banghua, and Song Yingxing thought they had a thorough understanding of the situation in the Ming Dynasty.

But Zhao Han's views on direct taxation and indirect taxation were refreshing to them, and their previously vague views were summarized theoretically.

Li Banghua sighed: "For my family, my country and the world, I can still say this, which is really enlightening!"

Pang Chunlai turned to Wang Diaoding and said, "Bo He has outstanding literary talent. He can polish this article and distribute it in Jiujiang and Nanchang cities."