After rebirth, I became a national teacher

More than 30 people who were going to participate in today's meeting had already gathered. They stood in two rows in the main hall of Wenyuan Pavilion according to their seniority.

One column was headed by Yuan Songbo, and the other was headed by Rong Niang.

Chen Qingzhu sat high on the gilded throne that only an emperor could sit on, looked at everyone, and said:

"The main reason for calling everyone here today is to discuss one thing."

"Now that all the military forces in Nandu are under my control, Zheng Yuannai has also declared that Songhu, Jinhua, and Ninghai have surrendered to me. It is only a matter of time before Yangzhou surrenders to me."

"I started this uprising to relieve the suffering of the people. So, the first thing we have to do now is to distribute land to all the people in the surrendered areas to relieve their suffering from hunger and cold."

Distributing land to the people brings many benefits to Chen Qingzhu.

The first is merit, which is directly related to the livelihood of tens of millions of people in the Jiangnan region in the next few decades, so merit will definitely not be lacking.

Secondly, it is public opinion.

Ordinary people don’t really ask for much, just to have enough food and clothing. They will support whoever can satisfy their needs.

In the area ruled by her, the God of Du'e, ordinary people can get three to five acres of land. Once this matter spreads, no ordinary people will not want to submit to her.

This can greatly reduce her casualties when expanding her territory in the future.

Again, only when the land is in the hands of the people can tax revenue for the national treasury be guaranteed.

Of course, equal distribution of land was not an easy task in any dynasty, and it was also a huge obstacle for her.

"To accomplish this, what problems will we encounter and what corresponding strategies will be adopted? I hope everyone can express their opinions and offer suggestions."

The purpose of gathering everyone here is to discuss feasible countermeasures.

Yuan Songbo had presided over the land tax reform and had a lot of experience in this regard:

"Master, the biggest difficulty in this matter is that there is no land in the hands of the government to be divided."

Yan Qingzhi also said:

"Yes, Master. Jiangnan is densely populated. Even if each person gets one acre of land, it would take more than 10 million acres of land to be divided. The ownerless land nowadays is only a small part of the imperial estates that have not been divided out. It sounds good to say that there are too many monks and too little porridge. In fact, it is not enough to fill the gaps between teeth."

Chen Qingzhu naturally knew all this and smiled slightly:

"Then we should find a way to give the government more land to distribute."

"For example, if those powerful people in the government office have committed crimes and oppressed the people, we can directly confiscate all their land. This should be able to reveal a lot of land."

When Yuan Songbo carried out reforms, he spent a lot of money to survey the land in various places. Even after more than ten years, he was very familiar with the amount of land in various places.

Each of these local wealthy and powerful families in Nandu owns more than 30,000 acres of land, and giants like the Li family own more than 100,000 acres of land.

As for the crimes committed by the powerful, he had never seen an innocent family in his ten years in Nandu.

"Master, these families can all be confiscated, but even if we confiscate them, at most they only have less than two million acres of land."

"The bulk of the money still has to come from those small and powerful landlords and gentry."

"This is by no means an easy task. When I was in charge of the land tax reform, it was almost impossible to implement it in Jiangnan. Almost all the reformist officials I sent were assassinated."

His new policies have made some progress in other places, and the smaller the population, the better the effect.

Although the empress dowager eventually passed away and the government came to an end, many of the lands that had been distributed to the people were taken back into the hands of powerful landlords and gentry.

But it will never be as impossible to implement as in Jiangnan.

It is true that Jiangnan is a prosperous area, but its gentry are also the hardest nut to crack.

No matter how difficult the problem is, there is a solution.

Not only officials were present, but also businessmen like Qin Dafu and people from farming families like Huijing and Huiming.

They all see different things from where they were before.

With Chen Qingzhu's encouragement, everyone began to speak freely, raised many questions, and came up with many solutions.

In summary, the entire work of dividing the land can be divided into several aspects:

The first step was to directly issue a decree requiring local powerful landlords and gentry to pay the taxes owed last year according to the actual land they owned, or according to all the land beyond the five mu per capita.

If the tax is not paid within half a month or the payment is not made truthfully, all the property will be confiscated.

According to Yuan Songbo, tax arrears and tax evasion in the Jiangnan region were very serious. Most taxes had been owed for decades, and the best paddy fields only cost ten taels of silver per acre.

The money from tax compensation is definitely more than the money for buying the land.

If the land or taxes are not paid in time, the consequence will be the confiscation of property, and not a single penny will be left.

Therefore, after most people have figured out the cost, they will feel that it is more cost-effective to hand over the land.

Of course, this can only scare the timid ones, and most people will not give in so easily.

This requires the second step, killing the chicken to scare the monkey.

With the support of the army, we can eliminate a few troublemakers with many fields, and make the others behave themselves.

The third step, and also the most important step, was to let the people know that the land recovered from the local landlords would be distributed among them, with three acres of land per person, and the population tax plus land tax and corvée would total 20%, and there would never be an increase in taxes.

If the local powerful landlords resisted, the local people could act as militia and suppress the resistance together with the officers and soldiers. If each household sent one person, they would get one more acre of land, and if two people sent two more acres of land, they would get two more acres.

Land annexation was serious in the Jiangnan region. The vast majority of people did not have their own land and could only rent land from landlords with rents as high as 40% to 80%.

In addition, they had to pay additional poll tax and perform corvee labor.

If the land is divided, all the taxes added up will only amount to 20% of the land tax, which is something that every commoner would be tempted by.

In order to get the land as soon as possible and to get more land, they will definitely actively support the government in confiscating the land from the powerful landlords.

Of course, this requires ensuring that the government’s decrees are notified to every village.

(I haven’t finished writing it yet. I will add more than 1,300 words later.)