In addition to publishing the progress of the Qingzhang land acres at the end of the second year of Xining, a seemingly ordinary but eye-catching case was published on the conspicuous second page.

There is a farmer on Yongxing Jun Road. After the summer harvest, the family committed suicide by jumping into the water. There was also a baby less than three months old. The whole family was about ten people and three generations died.

This news has attracted a lot of attention.

Because this year's year is very good, many places have harvested a lot, especially the wheat on Yongxing Jun Road has been harvested even more.

In such a bumper harvest, why do farmers still have to think about it? Is there anything difficult to describe?

So many people want to consult the Dasong Weekly.

Seeing this, the Song Dynasty Weekly News quickly responded positively.

In the first issue of the third year of Xining, the Song Dynasty Weekly quickly continued the follow-up of this news.

According to reports, after the local reporter of the Song Weekly learned about this situation, he was also curious and went to conduct an on-site interview.

After interviews from many parties, it turned out that the farmer could not afford the tax this year.

The parents of the farmer's owner are old and can no longer go to the fields to work. After his wife gave birth to the youngest child, she has been ill in bed due to childbirth problems.

The other children are still young and basically can't help much. The farmer's owner was busy all over the place and finally got a good harvest. However, when paying the land tax, he found that his harvest could not even pay the land tax!

So many people were curious about why they couldn’t even pay the land tax during the bumper harvest?

The reporter was also quite surprised. After investigation, it turned out that it was because of the harvest problem.

Although the imperial court had measures to prevent low grain from harming farmers, for example, when Bao Zheng was appointed as the envoy of the Three Divisions, the imperial court purchased grain in the good times, and the price was guaranteed.

However, the newly appointed Sansi Envoy did not follow this policy, so when everyone was well-being, the price of wheat plummeted.

The land tax in the Song Dynasty was not uniform. Some places paid physical goods, while others paid silver. As for whether they paid physical goods or silver, it depends on the mood of the tax collectors.

The problem lies here.

In addition to growing wheat, this farmer also planted some soybeans. The fields that planted wheat were reported to grow soybeans when reporting, so the tax collector calculated based on soybeans.

But this year's soybean harvest happened to be a bad harvest, so the price is very high.

The problem is here.

Yongxingjun collected physical goods, so wheat could not be used instead. Therefore, farmers had to pay soybeans. The price of wheat was low, and soybeans were expensive. Farmers had to sell wheat and then buy soybeans to pay taxes.

So, after he sold wheat, he found that even if he used all the money to buy soybeans, it would not be enough to pay the soybean tax.

In this way, even if he sold all the wheat, his family would not be able to fill the holes.

How did this make them live?

So the farmers and tax collectors discussed using wheat to calculate taxes. After paying this, their family's wheat was still enough to spend a year.

But the tax collector rejected the proposal.

So the farmers asked whether they could pay according to the usual soybean prices, and the tax collector refused again and demanded that the physical soybeans must be paid.

As for why the tax collector refused, it was because the tax collector was the local landlord.

Many times, big landlords are people who take on tax collection tasks, and this dispatch is replaced every year.

And this big landlord happened to be his turn to collect taxes this year.

This big landlord is quite economically savvy and the price of soybeans is expensive. He just stares at the soybean harvest. No matter what you plant, since it is a soybean field, you must pay soybeans. You cannot pay the actual goods according to the usual price.

His trick is that he can collude with the people of the county government and modify the soybean fields into wheat fields, so that he can use low-priced wheat to pay taxes.

When soybeans are sold, they will make several times the profit. In this way, he and the county government can earn more money by just one cent.

But they were happy, but the farmer couldn't even pay the land tax, let alone keep some food to fill his stomach.

So the desperate farmer took his elderly parents, his sick wife, and several young children to the river!

According to the visit of the Song Dynasty Weekly, although there are not many farmers who have suffered such miserable consequences, many farmers not only cannot make money, but even lose money during the bumper harvest.

As soon as this news point came out, public opinion was in an uproar.

Everyone condemned the landlords for being unkind and believed that the landlords did this to shut people down and were too hateful.

But no one realized the deep reason. At this time, an article written by the pseudonym Zhou Shuren was published in the Song Dynasty Weekly.

Zhou Shuren believes that the landlord's approach is indeed inappropriate, but the fundamental reason is that it is due to the tax law problem.

The tax law of the Song Dynasty did not stipulate whether to pay physical goods or silver or money, and also distinguished the fields, which gave grassroots tax collectors many opportunities to take advantage of loopholes.

The useful trick of grassroots tax collectors is to collect real items when they are expensive, and when they are cheap, they can make money according to the usual price.

Moreover, this is not the only thing farmers have to bear, and farmers have to bear other obligations.

The taxes in the Song Dynasty were not the two-tax system in the Tang Dynasty, but the so-called renting and mediocre adjustment.

The so-called renting and mediocre adjustment means renting the land, serving the people voluntarily, building roads, and repairing water conservancy projects are mediocre, and local people have to pay tribute to the specialties of some places, such as tea, sugar, etc.

Not only that, there are many levies set up by local governments themselves, and various harsh donations are emerging one after another. In this way, the people have to bear too much.

The local tyrants do not need to bear these things, and can also participate in the collective sharing of interests.

In this way, farmers at the bottom will only become poorer and poorer, and this kind of tragedy will definitely not be the first time.

So he suggested that to keep the lower class people alive, the tax system must be reformed.

He made several suggestions.

First, the land tax, corvee labor and other miscellaneous deductions in each prefecture and county are totally divided into one, and the cash is collected and paid according to the mu.

Second, the final settlement of the official position makes the collection method more complete and the power of tax collection cannot be delegated to local tyrants, so as not to harm the people.

Third, all harsh and miscellaneous taxes are abolished. Except for commercial taxes, no other levies are allowed to appear again.

This article caused an uproar.

Because according to this suggestion, only one rent will be left, which means that as long as farmers pay the money according to regulations, they do not have to bear the rest of the corvee service, levy, etc.

This is naturally a good thing for farmers, but it is not very friendly to the powerful and some officials who make profits from taxes all year round. This is cutting off their financial path.

For a moment, the crowd was in full swing.

Many people sent articles to the Song Dynasty Weekly, refuting the article of Zhou Shuren as "Great Rebellion", "Violating the Ancestral Law", "This move will lead to a sharp reduction in taxes in the Song Dynasty", and "This is a theory of the destruction of the country".

Zeng Gong sent these articles to Ouyang Bian. After reading them, Ouyang Bian laughed: "Senior brother, look, this is the true face of those vested interests.

I have analyzed it clearly in the article that such a reform will benefit the lower-level farmers, and the taxes of the Song Dynasty will also increase as a result. This is foreseeable.

But they just ignored these things and used reasons like the ancestors to make excuses. That greedy face was really annoying!"

The so-called Zhou Shuren is naturally Ouyang Bian.

Zeng Gong smiled bitterly and said, "They naturally don't want to give up such a big piece of fat meat.

But Ji Mo, do you really have to work hard on this part?”

Ouyang Bian nodded: "It is necessary to change. If it is not changed, such a tragedy will happen again and again."

Zeng Gong sighed, "But the resistance here is too great. Just clear acre of land. How much effort did you spend and offend many people? Now you need to change the tax law, which is a major event that the sky and the earth are falling.

How many people are staring at this piece of fat? They can find a way to make up for this piece of fat, but if you want to touch this piece of fat, they must fight to the death!"

Ouyang Bian nodded: "I saw the risks, so I didn't change them rashly. I tried the waters with the article first. Now it seems that the resistance is indeed very large."

Could it be not big?

The suggestion made by Ouyang Bian is actually the so-called one-whip method. This one-whip method was proposed by Zhang Juzheng during the reform of the Ming Dynasty. As a famous prime minister in the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Juzheng still could not achieve the full success of this reform.

In the sixth year of Wanli, Zhang Juzheng ordered the land clearance of the whole country and the overflow was investigated, which took three years to complete.

The whip technique can be barely implemented when Zhang Juzheng is alive, and once he dies, it will be destroyed immediately.

Not only that, the one-whip method was originally used to recruit silver to serve the official and was used for the official.

However, after the implementation of the One Whip Method, the purpose of eliminating the harm of labor was not achieved.

The damage to the One Whip Law is prominently reflected in the additional termination. The local government has added additional corvee taxes in addition to the One Whip Law, which is very harmful to the people.

As the saying goes, there are policies from above and countermeasures from below, but the ancients were really not bullying me.

However, even so, Ouyang Bian still felt it was very necessary to implement this reform.

Because based on his resume in the Three Divisions, daily official and imperial edicts, he found that it was time for the lower class of the Song Dynasty to be overwhelmed.

There was a so-called service law in Wang Anshi's reform. The implementation of service law was not to make money for the country, but Wang Anshi truly felt the oppression suffered by the lower-level farmers.

If the Song Dynasty wanted to fight against foreign enemies, it would have to have a stable rear.

The bottom of the Song Dynasty was already oppressed to such an extent. Once a border war occurred, domestic uprisings would definitely come one after another.

In the end, sparks spread and the entire Song Dynasty would collapse!

Therefore, to realize his ideal, this hurdle must be overcome.

There were too many classes absent from the Song Dynasty!

Due to the chaos during the Five Dynasties, the underlying structure was shaped by the Song Dynasty and had to surrender to the general environment at that time. Zhenzong and Renzong were both mediocre lords and did not realize it at all, or had the ability to make up for these lessons.

Now these missing classes are finally about to explode with Zhao Xu.

The reforms of Wang Anshi in history were forced to do so, not Zhao Xu's great joy.
To be continued...