The Struggle of the Reborn Prince

Chapter 72: Money is everything

Zhao Tong was sitting in the meeting hall, flanked by the steward and several tax collectors sent by the county government. He was there as an old god, but the tax collectors were trembling. They explained their intention and were waiting for the prince's words.

The Song Dynasty implemented a household registration management system based on principal customers. Customers were generally not the private property of the landlord, but were also included in the household registration and became the official household registration of the country. This was considered an improvement in history, but they had to pay personal tax and labor service.

, and some customers directly bear the summer and autumn taxes. Even if they do not bear the direct burden, the wool comes from the sheep, and the owners will increase the land rent and pass the tax to them. Although a bumper harvest is now in sight, they are even more worried and don't know.

What will the new owner do?

The two-tax law was still used in the Song Dynasty. The tax items lost in the summer tax were generally folded into cloth, so those lost in the summer tax were also called "tax silk". Since the two Song Dynasties surrendered to the Liao, Xixia, Jin and other countries in the north, every year

A lot of compulsory silk was to be "sent"; at the same time, a lot of silk was needed for foreign trade and for rewarding officials. The government had a huge demand for silk, so it formulated the "Dingkou's Gift" and the "Zabian's Gift". They

Silk is commonly used to pay taxes, and it is known as "Shendingjuan". Both of these taxes must be paid "along with the two taxes." Among these taxes, silk accounted for half of the total silk revenue of the government at that time. In the two Song Dynasties, the two taxes

On the surface, the amount of the tax has not changed much, but additional taxes such as "and buying silk" have been formulated.

After Cai Jing of this dynasty reformed the "Salt Banknote Law", pre-buying had evolved beyond recognition. Not only did the government not pay the salt that accounted for seven percent of the silk price, it even stopped paying three-thirds of the silk price.

The weight of the silk pieces paid was increased from 12 taels/horse to 13 taels/horse. At this point, the pre-purchase has completely become an additional tax on the two taxes, with only one purpose - to collect people's money.

What is even more sad is that as pre-purchases are converted into "free money" (free money), households convert the grain and silk that are subject to the two taxes into cash and hand it over. This is called conversion. In fact, it is the monetization of a commonly used payment method in modern times.

.But the conversion in the Song Dynasty was not that simple. According to needs, the court could also require households to convert the cash they should pay into grain and silk to pay, or order them to exchange grain and cloth for each other. What's more,

, the people must first convert object A into money, then convert the money into object B, and then convert object B into money before handing it over.

After such a transformation, the actual amount of taxes paid by households has reached more than twice the normal amount. The result is also an increase in the taxes of the people. The government often takes advantage of the transformation to profit from the transformation of the material-money relationship. What happened to the households

After several "baptisms" of "breaks", some people who worked all year round even ended up with a clean slate.

Zhao Tong thought for a long time, and basically bought all the land within ten miles around him. Almost all the people living here were tenants of Zhao Mansion. If the taxes were reasonable, he would not object to the government taxing them, and he also hoped that the tenants would

Paying taxes, after all, paying taxes in accordance with the law in modern society is also the obligation of every citizen. However, the taxes borne by tenants now have obviously exceeded their ability to bear. It cannot be said to be reasonable at all. To be precise, it should be a harsh tax.

He also understood that he alone could not change the status quo of the entire society. All he could do was to make the tenants pay reasonable taxes, and go to hell with all the so-called 'transfers'," said Master Zhang

, I don’t object to you collecting taxes on my village, but I hope you will follow the rules and don’t add any nonsense to it, and don’t try to take advantage of it. If your actions trigger a civil unrest

, Don’t say I don’t agree, even the emperor won’t let you go, right? When it comes time to lose your head, I’m afraid even your boss won’t be able to protect you!” Zhao Tong sipped his tea and said leisurely.

"Thank you, Your Majesty, I will never dare to act recklessly. I will do the right thing!" As soon as he finished speaking, Zhang Zhubo left his seat, knelt down and kowtowed, and everyone in the hall was shocked.

"Okay, you are loyal to the country, and I will not treat you badly. Zheng Shou, just stay with them these days!" Zhao Tong squirted out the tea in his mouth, wondering if he had suffered from epilepsy.

No wonder he thinks so, evil officials, evil officials, even though the official is just a ninth-grade official who has just joined the stream, he is a grassroots worker. They are the ones who do the actual work. Often they are still a ninth-grade official after working hard all their lives.

Foolish officials, they don't have any big future, they can only make some money to spend. Zhao Yu said this to cut off their "grey income", which should be resentful, but looking at them, they look very grateful.

Look.

Hearing the prince's compliments, several people were even more grateful and resigned. When they got outside the door, they wiped their sweat and suddenly looked at each other and laughed. They were so happy that they seemed to have come back alive after a trip to hell.

"Zhang Zhubo, isn't the prince as scary as they say? He is very reasonable in doing things!" A fat tax official looked around and said without warning.

"Shh, please stay away while you talk!" Zhang Zhubo led a few people to the door of the mansion before saying: "I heard from my colleagues in the government office that the prince has a childish nature and hates bullying others most.

As long as you behave and obey the rules, he won't make things difficult for you, and now it seems that what he said is true!"

"Damn it, this bastard from Wuzhi County looks down on our brothers and sent him on a mission to seek death. He thought he would not survive. When I come, I have prepared all the shrouds and will wait for my head to fall to the ground!"

"Brother is right. That guy Wu Jinxian forced us to set up a checkpoint here last time. As a result, the prefect and the magistrate got yelled at and lost face in front of his colleagues. So he put this grudge on us. This time

They sent us here again because they wanted to avenge themselves and kill people with a borrowed knife!"

"Don't always think about the worst. During the Chinese New Year, I heard from the brother-in-law of my second cousin who was working as a government official. They were robbed by the prince when they followed the imperial envoy to deliver the order. Their leader was clever and gave him money to buy the way.

Mr. Cai thought he was an imperial envoy, cursed a few words, and almost had the prince chop him into pieces. He later gave him this number before letting him go, but each of his men got a golden leaf. Do you think it is a blessing or a curse?"

"Stop talking nonsense, we have studied the "Dazhaozhuang Law Enforcement Guide" several times. We must be fair when doing things, and we must be kind when we speak. Taxes are calculated as much as possible. We only have one life!" Zhang Zhubo interrupted!

Several people complained.

"Master Secretary, the county magistrate has given us a task. If we don't complete it, we will be punished!"

"Tch, what are you afraid of? If we don't collect enough, let's go back and say that the prince has withheld part of it and left us only this much. No matter how courageous the county magistrate is, he will not dare to go to the prince's palace to ask!" Zhang Zhubo said disdainfully.

"Your Majesty, we are ashamed of ourselves!" Several tax collectors immediately flattered the whole world. They said in their hearts that you are our leader, and we will hit you first when we hit the target. What are we afraid of? They all knew in their hearts.

I happily collected taxes.

I just pitied Zhao Tao, who foolishly thought he was smart and frightened several tax collectors, but he didn't know that his "stained evil deeds" were taken advantage of by the cunning evil officials. Not only did he successfully complete the tax collection task, but he also made a lot of money.

The money was full, but the account was just put on his head, but the tenants were all very happy. This was the least summer tax they had ever paid in their lives. Of course, this merit was also put on the prince's head!

After the summer harvest, the tenants were busy planting rice again. Fortunately, this spring, dams were built and the canals were dredged. Most of the fields were filled with water in time, ensuring that the rice seedlings were planted on time. On the other hand, other people around Zhuangzi did not do so.

Fortunately, when they finished harvesting the wheat, there was a long drought and no rain, so they had to replant some miscellaneous grains, which delayed the harvest for half a year. They were afraid that after the autumn tax was paid, the family would have to go begging on the street.

The tenants were grateful for the prince's kindness. After finishing their work in the fields, they immediately paved the road and built a new village. Everyone knew that after the new house was repaired, they would have their own room, so they worked extra hard and did not need to be rushed at all.

I want to celebrate the New Year in my new house.

The weather is getting hotter and hotter. Apart from boxing and practicing martial arts in the morning, Zhao Tong now spends most of his time hiding in the house or garden to escape the heat. He rarely goes out. Every day, he either reads or writes or draws on paper. He doesn't know.

What are you busy with?

"The workshop needs to continue to expand, and the smelting plant needs to be built by the end of the year. It can be produced immediately after the winery is divided into reds at the end of the year. There is a drought this year and there is little water in the reservoir. Fish farming is impossible. We can only wait until next spring.

, but feed mills and feedlots must be built quickly, otherwise the distiller's grains will be wasted, and the mills must be started quickly. Wheat bran can also be used as feed, and the pigs, chickens and ducks raised can be put on the market before the year; greenhouses

It is also about to be built. This year it will reach a scale of 20 acres. The investment is not large and it can make a lot of money. Should we also build a weaving factory and gather all the women in the village and find them a weaving factory?

Doing things can also increase your income." Zhao Tong was counting the money in his pocket and planning for the future.

"Money, why can't I pick up a gold ingot on the road and plant a money tree on the ground?" After calculating for a long time, the gap is still huge. The government has invested too much money this year and it is not enough. Zhao Tong couldn't help but wailed.

"Second Master, if it really doesn't work, let's increase the land rent, and we can increase our income to some extent!" I couldn't help but persuade him when I saw that the prince was angry about money.

"No, the tenants are digging in the soil and barely have much money left in a year. How can we bear to increase the land rent?" Zhao Tong rejected Jianxi's suggestion without even thinking about it.

"Second Master, let's stop the workshop for a while and reduce the output. Now the warehouse is full of harvesters, and the labor and material costs alone are a big expense!" Jianxi said again with an idea.

"No, in a few days, our large order will arrive. By then, I'm afraid this inventory won't be sold for a few days. We will be profitable next year, and we can't stop!" Zhao Tong refused again.

"Second Master, you have enough money. You have spent all this trouble and fuss, and now you can only use it as something!" Jian Xi said helplessly.

"Really, if you think the one in this house is valuable, you can pawn it. Aren't those two little tortoises quite valuable? You can pawn them!" Zhao Tong thought what Jian Xi said was interesting and pointed to the window sill.

The two green-haired turtles said, "I am the majestic Prince Yan. People who travel through time in a thousand years will have to rely on their own business to survive, and they will not let those who come after them laugh out loud."

"Tch, Second Master, you have a good idea. The pawn shop doesn't accept live things, and I don't want them if they are given to others for free. That glass vat can be exchanged for several hundred pieces!" Jianxi knew that the prince was teasing him, so he deliberately said angrily.

"Glass glass, damn glass glass, isn't this what loess turns into gold?" After hearing Jian Xi's words, Zhao Tong fell ill again and murmured with a look of infatuation on his face.