In the Song Dynasty, there was no law or order.

In the twelfth lunar month of the eighth year of Qingli in the Song Dynasty, it rained for more than ten consecutive days in late winter.

Zhao Jun braved the wind and rain and spent more than 20 days traveling throughout Bianliang City, conducting private interviews incognito and observing the people's sentiments.

The characteristics of the emperor's feet are different, although they cannot completely represent all parts of the country.

However, the problems highlighted to a large extent are worthy of study and can be used as the experience of urbanization in other places later.

Just like when Zhao Jun first came to the Song Dynasty, he also needed to visit around to see the real situation of the Song Dynasty.

The changes in the Song Dynasty are really great now. It can be said that they are changing with each passing day. If you cannot pay attention to the development of the people at all times, you will probably fall behind.

Therefore, Zhao Jun must go to the private sector every once in a while to see what needs to be developed and what problems need to be solved.

In this way, he wandered around Bianliang City for almost a month and recorded many situations, some of which needed to be handled by the Kaifeng Prefecture, while others required planning by the court, such as sewers, water plants, septic tanks, etc.

There are many kinds of questions, big and small, and more than a hundred questions have been recorded.

For example, the outer city area of ​​Kaifeng Prefecture is expanding every day, and with it comes the public security problems caused by the influx of a large number of foreign people. Various fights, robberies, thefts, and even murders occur every day.

It's not that Bao Zheng didn't bother to solve it, but the objective law of things is like this. The influx of people in a short period of time, and more of them gather outside the city, will inevitably cause these problems.

In future generations, we will have Skynet, police cars patrolling 24 hours a day, and police offices on every street, which can solve and deal with problems anytime and anywhere.

But how could it be so convenient in ancient times?

Kaifeng Mansion also has a backlog of many murder cases in which the murderer has not been caught, or even who the murderer is is not known.

How could those few thousand government officials manage millions of people in the city?

Therefore, Zhao Jun did not blame Bao Zheng for this issue, but after discussing with him, he came up with several solutions.

For example, more veterans can be transferred to work as government servants in Kaifeng Prefecture, Kaifeng Prefecture is allowed to recruit strong men as non-staff personnel, and the Forbidden Army stationed in Bianliang is allowed to patrol every day.

As for homicide cases, Zhao Jun believes that breakthroughs in criminal investigation technology should be sought.

For example, let the Ministry of Public Security take the lead in searching for experienced operators across the country, compile years of technical summaries into a book, and disseminate it as internal information for the public security bureau.

For example, Song Ci's "The Record of Cleansing Wrongs" is a masterpiece.

It's a pity that Song Ci is from the Southern Song Dynasty.

However, although Zhao Jun is not a criminal investigator, he also knows that fingerprints and footprints have been used as techniques for solving crimes a long time ago.

Therefore, Zhao Jun asked the Ministry of Public Security to set up a special department to cooperate with the School of Chemistry to find breakthroughs in fingerprints, footprints and blood types.

Although blood type research is definitely not that easy, the School of Chemistry now has microscopes and a lot of experimental equipment, and the court also allows them to conduct dissection experiments on unclaimed corpses of executed prisoners.

I believe that as long as you look in the right direction, it may not be impossible to find a way to test your blood type.

In the midst of this pattering winter rain, the eighth year of Qingli in the Song Dynasty gradually came to an end, and it was nearing its end.

The 30th day of the twelfth lunar month, today is the last day of work.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Lunar New Year, and the Song Dynasty will enter a seven-day New Year's holiday.

Then there are various holidays such as Tiansheng Festival and Lantern Festival, and the working hours in January are no more than five days.

Zhao Zhen will hold a grand celebration tonight. He will hang up incandescent lights both inside and outside the palace, and he will have fun with the people of the city on the Donghua Tower.

By this time, the heavy rain outside had stopped long ago.

After stopping for seven or eight days, the ground was dry, but the weather was gloomy and cloudy.

It was rare that the prime ministers did not rush to do their official duties today, but drank tea in an orderly manner. In front of each of them was the note handed in by the Statistics Department this year.

"The tax revenue in the first ten months of this year has already reached 180 million yuan. When the statistics for November and December this year are calculated in February next year, it should not be a problem to exceed 200 million yuan."

"Steel plants all over the country are on the right track, with steel production increasing significantly. This year, the Gwangmuan Steel Plant has produced six times what we have produced nationwide in the past year, reaching 90,000 tons."

"Yes, steel plants across the country are already producing. Last year, the country's total steel production was 230,000 tons, which is unimaginable."

"These are nothing. In the early days of our founding, steel production was only 160,000 tons. But just nine years later, in 1958, our production increased more than 20 times, reaching 3.7 million tons."

Zhao Jun was filled with emotion when he saw everyone holding this year's statistical data and said with a smile: "Then the country focused its industry on steel production. By 1959, it produced 14 million tons of steel in one year. Now our steel production is only It is a beginning, and once the road is laid out and production capacity is increased, it will not be difficult to produce 1 million tons of steel per year next year or the year after.”

"It seems that within five years, the Song Dynasty will produce more than 90% of the world's steel. It will be completed ahead of schedule."

Yan Shu smiled.

In the sixth year of Qingli, Zhao Jun made a five-year plan.

It is required to increase national steel production to one million tons per year within five years, allowing Song Dynasty to produce more than 90% of the world's steel.

It seems like an impossible task.

But in fact, as the steel industry progresses, production increases exponentially.

This year the annual output may be 100,000 tons.

But with an output of 100,000 tons and qualified steel production technology, you can build steel plants in other places with rich coal and iron ore resources and continue to expand production capacity.

In this way, it will be 100,000 tons this year, 200,000 tons next year, 400,000 tons the year after that, and 800,000 tons the year after that. It will increase and double every year.

Just like the annual output of 160,000 tons in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, 70 years later, it was already 1 billion tons.

So now is the fourth year of steel production capacity expansion. It is also the end of the second year and the beginning of the third year of the five-year plan proposed by Zhao Jun.

By the ninth year of Qingli, if things go well, Da Song's steel production capacity will reach 500,000 tons. By the tenth year of Qingli, there is a high probability that Zhao Jun's five-year annual production plan of one million tons will be completed, exceeding the target by one year.

"The GDP has also been calculated. In ten months of this year, our GDP has reached 2.6 billion yuan, an increase of 14% over the same period last year."

As the prime minister in charge of the Ministry of Finance, Xia Song was very happy to see this year's GDP growth data. He smiled and said: "There are still two months to go before statistics are compiled. If the data is still 14% more than last year, this year is expected to exceed 3 billion." "

"This is normal data, and it can even be said to be slow data. Because we have a low starting point and a large space for development, food production and steel production have increased dramatically. There are too many things on the market, and supply exceeds demand, which has even caused certain problems. deflation."

Zhao Jun said: "The newly introduced monetary policy last year will effectively solve these problems, and the domestic market and population still have a lot of room to explore, so it will develop faster in the future. Until the domestic market becomes saturated and encounters bottlenecks, This growth rate will slow down.”

"Um."

Song Shou said: "It seems that Hanlong's layout is right. We should open up new markets as soon as possible and sell Song Dynasty's products all over the world, so that the people of Song Dynasty can live a life of rich food and clothing."

Zhao Jun said: "In fact, I have already set the main development direction for you. First, continue to expand steel production capacity, and then vigorously develop infrastructure and the steam train and steamship industry. We must absorb most of the production capacity ourselves and improve our strength. National strength. Second, the tax policy must be adjusted every year to increase tax rates appropriately and increase fiscal revenue to invest in basic education and public construction.”

"Tax increase?"

“If you think about it carefully, it is indeed time to increase taxes.”

"Yes, our tax rates have indeed been too low in recent years, causing the court to often have no money to use."

Several prime ministers suddenly became energetic.

When it comes to taxation, they are experts.

Wasn't it the important officials of the imperial court who set the taxes that were so huge in the Song Dynasty?

"I went too far back then."

Zhao Jun said: "The tax rate has been significantly reduced from an extremely high tax rate, and it has been reduced for so many years. Although it has promoted private development, it is still somewhat detrimental to the country."

The most important thing in Qingli's New Deal was to reduce the burden on the people. Therefore, in the first year of the New Deal's implementation, the court's income dropped by more than 40 million yuan.

From 103.75 million guan in the first year of Qingli, it dropped to less than 60 million guan in the second year of Qingli, a 40% reduction in income.

And if Zhao Jun had not expanded foreign trade transactions in those years, increasing foreign trade revenue by more than 700 yuan, and sold a large number of state-owned mines, tea mountains, salt farms and other assets, I am afraid that the finances would have plummeted.

This shows how much the Qingli New Deal reduced agricultural taxes and relaxed commercial taxes. It was not cut in half, but directly reduced by two-thirds of the original ratio.

Taxes that are too high will make people poor and make their lives difficult. But even a low tax rate won't work. Too much money will circulate among the people and the supply will exceed demand, which will cause inflation.

Therefore, taxation is also a part of the economic cycle. Together with banks and credit, they maintain the entire country's economic system.

This is the knowledge taught in high school politics.

Zhao Jun now also realizes his problem.

Although many preparatory measures were taken at the beginning, by selling state-owned assets, expanding foreign trade, and gradually solving the three redundancy problems, the country's financial difficulties were alleviated.

By significantly reducing taxes, private agriculture and commerce will enter a period of rapid development and prosperity.

But the country has become prosperous, but the government's finances have decreased a lot.

Regardless of the current fiscal revenue of 200 million yuan a year, including the 30-40% local tax distributed to local governments, the total tax revenue is about 260-280 million yuan.

But it only accounts for about 9% of the total GDP.

This is clearly unhealthy fiscal revenue.

Because the tax revenue of many countries in later generations exceeds more than 20% of GDP.

Emperor Mold's side is 20-18%. In my country, the proportion is decreasing year by year. The tax rate and tax starting point are lowered every year, and it has dropped to 15.1%.

The tax rate in the Song Dynasty was 6% lower than that in later generations of our country, but there were many places to spend money, such as education, infrastructure, national defense, scientific research, military, etc.

This caused a certain fiscal deficit to be maintained every year, and the additional expenditures were maintained every year through the issuance of national bonds, causing the Song Dynasty court to owe a lot of money to its subordinates.

Then the national debt must be paid with interest. If this continues, it will be like the bad days and Japan in later generations, which use debt to develop the country, then continue to issue national debt, and use the newly issued national debt to repay the old debt and interest.

Although this routine can be repeated endlessly as long as the GDP and economy can be maintained and the country continues to develop.

But the problem is that too low taxes are not a good thing in themselves. If the country has no money for development, how can it continue to grow?

So now is the time to raise taxes to take the economy and development to the next level.

Zhao Jun continued: "Although the relatively loose tax policy has allowed agriculture and the economy to flourish, it still needs the macroeconomic hand of the state to regulate and control. We cannot allow the private sector to engage in free markets, because if it continues, it will be easy for capital to take over." , and then form a monopoly.”

"Now that our development is on the right track, we need the macroeconomic hand of the country to continue to push forward, and we need more fiscal revenue."

"The current situation is that in the past, we could only mint 3 to 4 million guan of coins a year. Even during the Song Shenzong period, the Song Dynasty could only mint 5 million guan of coins a year, and the fiscal revenue was seriously insufficient."

"Now you can cast as much as you want."

"Gold and silver can be used as anchors to issue silver dollars and cotton notes."

"Coupled with the fact that we have introduced a large amount of gold, silver and copper mines from abroad, the imperial court can mint more than 10 million copper coins every year, and millions of silver coins and cotton notes. It can spend a lot more money every year."

"But this does not mean that we can print money without limit, because this will only cause private inflation and make originally healthy development unhealthy."

"Therefore, it is necessary to cooperate with taxation, banking and credit to complete a complete economic cycle system, to recover coins through taxation, and to prevent excessive coins on the market from causing oversupply."

"However, the people are now accustomed to low tax rates. If we increase taxes rashly, we will definitely arouse constant opposition."

"Although we can completely ignore these objections, this is related to the interests of the people, so we cannot make a one-size-fits-all increase directly."

"So let's take it step by step. The new policy after this year will increase various taxes by about 1%. Next year, we will continue to raise taxes. At most, we will maintain them at about 15% of GDP. This should be a more appropriate tax rate."

He looked around the crowd and finally looked at Xia Song and said: "As for the specific taxation system, the Ministry of Finance will come up with a charter. It can appropriately reduce taxes on low-income people and increase taxes on high-income people, such as those big businessmen and big businessmen." Capitalists, don’t be soft.”

"These rich people are so rich these days."

Xia Song smiled and said: "I heard that there were salt merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang who were fighting for their wealth. They used silk to hang colorful boats and directly bought hundreds of them, spending huge sums of money."

"Yes, there are also those who sell tea and wine. We have many wealthy businessmen in Bianliang with a net worth of millions or even tens of millions."

Yan Shu also said.

He has many properties for rent in Bianliang, so he naturally knows the business situation in Bianliang.

"So there is no need to be soft."

Zhao Jun said: "The semi-privatization reform of salt mountains, mines and tea mountains created a large number of wealthy businessmen. They took off at the forefront of the times and should also give back to this era."

Before the Qing Dynasty, the highest wealth accumulation of wealthy businessmen in the Song Dynasty was only one million guan, and there were few businessmen who exceeded millions or even tens of millions of guan.

But by the Ming Dynasty, Jiangsu and Zhejiang salt merchants had a fortune of tens of millions of taels of silver. In the Qing Dynasty, Heshen's fortune reached about 800 million taels of silver, making him the richest man in the world at that time.

Of course, there was a large inflow of silver from Japan and America during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which caused a huge increase in silver.

But there was also the Song Dynasty's high taxation policy for big businessmen.

Once you reach a certain wealth value, the Song Dynasty court's search for you can be said to be knocking your bones and sucking out your marrow.

Some businessmen with a net worth of hundreds of thousands of dollars can even be wiped out by the court overnight.

Unlike the Ming Dynasty, it was difficult for the court to collect taxes from these top businessmen, which resulted in the rapid accumulation of wealth for these people.

Therefore, the Song Dynasty seemed prosperous, but I have only heard that people in the Song Dynasty wore silk and satin, but I have never heard of how rich the richest man in the Song Dynasty was. The reason is that the upper limit of the richest man in the Song Dynasty was strictly limited.

Even if the people wear silk and silk, it is not because they are rich, but because the people in Bianliang are rich.

The peddlers described by Ouyang Xiuli wear silk and satin. This is because the labor income in Bianliang is high. The daily salary is about 150 wen, and the monthly income is 4-5 guan, so they can afford to wear silk and satin.

Why don't you try changing into a country farmer?

Therefore, the situation in the Song Dynasty was high taxes, which caused false prosperity.

The court was rich, but the people were poor and weak. People and businessmen had to work hard to support their families, which indirectly promoted economic development.

It's different now.

After the tax drop, wealthy people will be able to exceed the property limit.

It is said that big businessmen with a net worth of tens of millions of dollars have appeared in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Therefore, Zhao Jun plans to implement a stepped tax collection strategy.

Continue to increase the tax rate on the wealthy to the point where tax revenues will increase steadily every year.