During the autumn harvest, the villages were very busy. People collected the grain, and the tenants first paid the tenant rent, and then waited for the government to collect taxes.

But at this moment, Xia Jun asked someone to post a duty-free notice.

When paying taxes, the gentry from each village gathers the grain first, and then hand it over to the township chief, and then hand it over to the officials sent by the county yamen. After the magistrate eats a part of it, he will hand it over to the magistrate. After the magistrate eats a part of it, he will pay it to the magistrate...

The corrupt bureaucratic system made the Qing court bear 400 million taels of silver for every 100 million taels of silver collected, and the 300 million taels were swallowed up by those officials.

As soon as the tax exemption notice was released, the villages couldn't help but wait and see what the Jianzhou security team wanted to do, but the gentry from each village did not return the collected taxes.

On September 18, the county sent two officials to take over the tax collected by the gentry to the county town, but as soon as the two officials arrived in Long Village, they were beaten away by Xia Jun.

"Go back and tell you the magistrate that Xixiang is already autonomous." Xia Jun said to them. The two officials ate a stick and rolled and crawled.

Then Xia Jun hung up a sign in Long Village, saying "Xixiang Autonomous Civil Affairs Ministry". The more than a dozen cultural people from the Security Group officially took office after more than a month of training.

The training and transformation of these cultural people is not difficult. Since the imperial examination was cancelled, these Confucian literati have also lost their former arrogance and are now working just for life.

Xia Jun’s request to them was to prohibit corruption and bribery. He repeatedly reiterated this point, but they didn’t know whether they abide by the rules or not, but Xia Jun must investigate it from time to time.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs is an important department that Xia Jun has attracted people's hearts. Villagers in each village can contact the Ministry of Civil Affairs when they have difficulties. The Ministry of Civil Affairs needs to find a way to help them solve their difficulties, mainly to provide assistance to poor households. If other needs are relatively large or require a certain amount of money, they can report to Xia Jun himself.

At the same time, Xia Jun also established the "Xixiang Ministry of Justice" and promulgated two laws, "Xixiang Autonomous Criminal Law" and "Xixiang Autonomous Civil Procedure Law".

Autonomy was a policy implemented in the last few years of the Qing Dynasty and was being implemented at this time. However, this autonomy was still selling dog meat on the head and did not solve the fundamental problem. However, it also laid some foreshadowing for the independence of each province during the Revolution of 1911.

Xia Jun was engaged in autonomy at this time, which was different from the autonomy in other places. He engaged in armed autonomy and refused to pay taxes to the Qing Dynasty. Even if the Qing Dynasty sent troops to suppress the Qing Dynasty, Xia Jun was not afraid at all.

After beating the officials from the two counties away, Xia Jun sent an infantry platoon and a machine gun squad to establish an outpost. There were three outposts in total, one was the junction of Xixiang to Kosong, one was the junction of Xixiang to Dongfeng, and the other was the junction of Xixiang to Jianyang. Each outpost was one squad and each was arranged with a machine gun.

Another one is the route from Xixiang to Chuanshi. However, if the government sends troops to fight, it is most likely that the two counties of Jian'an and Jianyang will be dispatched. The most likely that the route from Jian'an to Longcun is from Xiaosong and Dongfeng will be from Chuanshi.

While Xia Jun sent troops to guard the road into Xixiang, he began to establish an administrative system. The army will always be just a violent organization and can only be used for destruction. Production must rely on administration, and administration cannot be separated from the protection of the army, a violent organization.

The two departments were established and the checkpoints were arranged, so they were not actually controlled. For this reason, Xia Jun asked You Zhengbin to write an invitation and send someone to each village.

Xixiang is much larger than Longcun Township in later generations. Longcun Township in later generations is only half of the original Xixiang. At this time, there were 68 villages in Xixiang. Xia Jun, the gentry from these 68 villages, invited them all, and they formally handed them the invitation letter, which stated that they must be present, but...

This "Ran" is the end, and there is no further text afterwards. However, anyone who sees it will have some imagination. The invitation date is September 21, which is exactly when the Shiniushan rice can be harvested.

After receiving the invitation, the gentry in each village had indeed imagined for a long time. When they saw that the invitation said they were asking them to discuss autonomy and bandit suppression, they all set out for Long Village.

Lin Debao handled the tenant rent matter and rushed to Longcun. The "Xixiang Ministry of Agriculture" was also established.

On September 20, the gentry of each village arrived early. Xia Jun set up ten tables of banquets in Long Village that night to entertain these gentry. When Xia Jun walked out, Lin Debao immediately introduced them to everyone. When these gentry saw Xia Jun so young, they were stunned.

Xia Jun is just 20 years old this year, so he is naturally very young. However, none of these gentry dares to underestimate Xia Jun. If you can get rid of Lujia Village, you will not be able to do without some ability.

"Thank you for coming to discuss the autonomy of our hometown. From today on, all villages in Xixiang will be autonomous and will no longer pay taxes to the court. Our security team is responsible for clearing out bandits for our hometown and protecting the safety of each village." Xia Jun said, holding up his wine glass.

"Captain Xia, we don't pay taxes to the court, so will we pay taxes to you?" a gentry asked on the spot.

"Of course, in the future, all villages will have to pay taxes to the security team, but our security team will never levy taxes like the government. We will cancel all miscellaneous taxes and only collect land taxes. As for how much they collect, under normal circumstances, they will definitely be less than the government. However, the whole township is exempt from tax this year." Xia Jun said bluntly. At the current stage, Xia Jun does not have long-term economic income other than agriculture. Raising soldiers requires money, so the agricultural tax will naturally be collected.

"Captain Xia, how about the autonomy law?" another gentry asked at this time.

"It's self-governance! It means establishing an autonomous council in Long Village, and each village sends a representative to the parliament. The specific constitution will be reviewed later." The autonomy mentioned by Xia Jun is actually not to let these gentry govern themselves, but to him govern themselves.

This "autonomous parliament" does not have much power in normal times, but only manages the aspects of sanitation, education, infrastructure construction, judiciary, taxation, military, finance, and supervision.

Of course, the autonomous parliament also has certain regulatory powers. As for anti-corruption, Xia Jun cannot ask for this. At the same time, Xia Jun will also divide some finances to the parliament, but Xia Jun decides the specific amount.

Under this system, Xia Jun directly intervenes in the administration of each village, but each village has certain autonomy rights, which makes Xia Jun win people's hearts.

Because of the existence of the people-oriented system, Xia Jun naturally did not want the villages to be truly autonomous. If they were truly autonomous, how could he win people's hearts?

"Isn't this a rebellion if you don't pay taxes to the government?" a gentry suddenly said.

"We cannot say that. We are autonomy. What is autonomy? It means that we are not subject to the government. The court has policies. All provinces have localities to enter the stage of autonomy. How could this be a rebellion?" Xia Jun's behavior is indeed the same as rebellion, but he still cannot say that for the time being.

Although Xia Jun is not afraid to point out this thing, once he shows that it is a rebellion, he will scare the people present, and it will take more effort to control Xixiang.

Let’s talk about them first!

"Rebellion means destroying the court. We are just autonomous, and at most we can only be considered as bandits. Have you ever seen the court clearing out bandits everywhere? As long as we have a certain strength, the government will naturally not come to cause trouble. If you don't believe that our Jianzhou Security Group has the strength to make Xixiang autonomous, I will let you see the strength of our Jianzhou Security Group..."

A group of gentry was so dizzy that night that Xia Jun was teased. Everyone understood the benefits of autonomy. Once they left the government, the taxes they had to bear would be much lighter.
Chapter completed!