my wonderful zoo

Chapter 111: Crossing Silk to Expand Borders
The second point is constant taxation, with one out of ten taxes on land. The military government promised never to increase taxes and never impose any exorbitant taxes on land.

In Chen Xun's view, directly increasing land tax is a very simple and crude way to increase fiscal revenue.

There are many ways to increase fiscal revenue, and there are many ways.

Just like the highway maintenance fee in later generations, it is a tax on cars.In the beginning, it was levied directly from the car. The first road maintenance fee for a new car is collected from the registration date to the end of the month, and is levied on a monthly basis after the next month.

This is a simple and crude way of collecting taxes.

Some people buy cars that run less, while others run more, but cars of the same weight have to pay the same amount of taxes.Obviously, a car that runs less does less damage to the road than a car that runs more, which is very unfair.

Later, the state canceled the highway maintenance fee and incorporated it into fuel. It changed its name to "fuel surtax" and directly levied taxes on refined oil.

For car drivers, this is like missing a tax. In fact, they are paying "road maintenance fees" every time they refuel.

There are many examples of this.

A citizen in future generations, on the surface, will only pay a personal income tax when receiving wages. Some people have low wages and do not even have to pay personal income tax.In fact, citizens pay taxes all the time.

Eating, drinking, walking, dressing, sleeping, playing, etc., even sitting on the street in a daze, all generate taxes all the time.

Because the air you breathe contains taxes generated by the haze control industry.

Now, Chen Xun can add taxes to various necessities in people's daily lives.

Such as salt, wine vinegar, cloth, knives and forks, farm tools, houses, etc. There is no need to keep an eye on the little food produced in the land.

In addition to taxing, the military government can also directly monopolize some industries to generate huge profits to enrich the finances, such as iron smelting, gold, silver, copper and iron coinage, banking, shipbuilding, etc.

With knowledge that is 1000 years ahead of the world, it is too easy to make money.

In addition to the fixed land tax, this time the "Land Law" also fixed the upper limit of land rent, that is, the land rent paid by landlords to tenant farmers must not exceed [-]% of the annual harvest.

According to calculations, in a year's harvest from farming, farming costs such as seeds and labor generally only account for about [-]% of the harvest. Landless farmers must pay up to [-]% of the land rent. In addition, the land law stipulates that land taxes can only be paid by the landlord, and no additional land taxes are allowed. to tenants.

In this way, the tenants can still get [-]% of their harvest.

You can't get rich, and you can't starve to death.

Chen Xun does not prohibit land annexation in the Land Law, because after mechanized planting, concentrated land is more efficient and the cost of production and farming is lower.

This is a good thing for a country.

As for landowners not complying with the provisions of the Land Law, then since it is a law, failure to comply will naturally be a violation of the law, and those who violate the law will be punished. It will be much easier to handle by then.

The third point is that landowners must use at least half of the land they own to grow food.

This is to ensure food security.

The reason for this is that Chen Xun has heard two allusions, one happened in later generations, and the other happened in the Spring and Autumn Period.

The allusion that happened in later generations is called "sheep eat people". In the fifteenth century, except for some public lands in England, every piece of land had its own owner. However, there was a situation where the land was re-enclosed.At that time, British production was mainly based on agriculture, and the textile industry was an inconspicuous industry in people's lives.

However, with the discovery of new sea routes, international trade expanded rapidly. In the northwest corner of the European continent, the woolen textile industry suddenly flourished, and the nearby United Kingdom was also driven.

The rapid development of the wool textile industry has gradually increased the demand for wool, and the price of wool on the market has begun to soar.Britain was originally a large traditional sheep-raising country. At this time, in addition to meeting domestic needs, it also had to meet foreign needs for wool.

Therefore, sheep farming has become more and more profitable compared with agriculture.

Of course, some wealthy nobles began to invest in sheep farming.

Raising sheep requires large tracts of land.

The nobles drove away the farmers who rented their land, and even demolished their houses to enclose the land that could raise sheep.

For a time, grasslands divided into patches by wooden fences, hedges, ditches and walls could be seen everywhere in Britain.Peasants who were driven out of their homes became homeless vagrants.

The allusion that happened in the Spring and Autumn Period is called "Planting mulberry trees and destroying the country", which is also called "Threading silk to expand the territory".The difference lies in the different positions of each country in the allusions.

During the Warring States Period, the State of Qi was originally a small country by the sea. When Jiang Taigong was first granted power, the land was no more than a hundred miles in radius, and much of the land was saline-alkali land that was not suitable for food growth. The food production and population were not large.

The reason why Qi State developed into a superpower in the East in a relatively short period of time has a lot to do with Guan Zhong's grain strategy.

People in Qi State's neighboring countries, Lu State and Liang State, usually weave silk tapestry, which is a kind of textile made of silk thread as "warp" and cotton thread as "weft". Guan Zhong advised Duke Huan of Qi to wear silk clothes and ordered his ministers All are convinced.

The people in Qi State all wore silk clothes for a while.The price of Qi Guoti rose sharply, and Guan Zhong also specially said to the merchants in Lu and Liang: If you sell me a thousand horses, I will give you three hundred catties of gold; if you sell ten thousand horses, I will give you three thousand catties of gold.

It attracted the people of Delu and Liang to transport the silk to Qi and sell it at a high price to make a profit.

The financial revenue of the two countries of Lu and Liang increased significantly, and the monarchs of these two countries asked their people to weave silk tapestry.

A year later, almost all the people in Lu and Liang were busy weaving and transporting silk ribbons, thus giving up agricultural production.When the time came, Guan Zhong persuaded Duke Huan of Qi to wear silk clothes instead of letting the people wear trousers. He also went into seclusion and banned trade and envoys between Qi and Lu and Liang.

Ten months later, people in Lu and Liang were starving to death everywhere, and the people had no food to eat. Even if the monarchs of the two countries urgently ordered the people to return to farming, it was too late, and food could not be produced in the short term.

As a result, the price of grain in Lu and Liang soared. After Qi opened up to trade, the people of Lu and Liang spent a huge amount of money per shi to buy grain from Qi, while the price of grain in Qi was only [-]% of the external price. one.

Three years later, the kings of Lu and Liang had to submit to Qi.

These two allusions illustrate how important food security is to a country.

Now in the Song Dynasty, the land south of the Yangtze River had the idea of ​​​​emphasizing the cultivation of mulberry and neglecting the cultivation of grain.

Because the maritime trade of the Song Dynasty was developed, silk shipped overseas could earn double or dozens of times the profit. Farmers' income from growing mulberry and raising silkworms was much higher than that from growing grain. It is self-evident how to choose.

Therefore, legislation must stipulate the minimum proportion of cultivated land used for growing grains.

Otherwise, let alone using Jiangnan’s food to support Hebei, Jiangnan itself may eventually be short of food.

(End of this chapter)