New Shun 1730

The prefect of Songjiang immediately introduced the special fake tenants in Songjiang Prefecture, who were actually at the level of middle peasants. What was going on?

There is an unavoidable problem here, which is how much tax the grassroots paid.

Whether it is the Ming Dynasty or the Dashun Dynasty, if you only look at the laws, it is simply a paradise for farmers. Thirty percent tax, this low tax is really envied by the whole world.

However, if you only look at the laws and regulations, it would be too easy for this world to become a paradise.

If everything is done according to the rules, not to mention the normal land tax, even if you add the three taxes in the late Ming Dynasty, it is not much.

The issue of landlords collecting rent is not mentioned here.

Only the issue of taxes and corvée other than rent collection is mentioned.

The land tax of Dashun, even if the head tax is added, is actually only 0.05 taels of silver. Very low.

However, the first tax is light, the second tax is heavy, and the third and fourth taxes are bottomless pits. This is the reality of the grassroots.

The regular tax of 0.05 taels of silver per mu of land is not much at all.

However, some gentry at this time also recorded this.

He said: The regular tax per mu is 4 cents, and 2 cents is added to each cent, so this is 1 qian and 2 cents. The national tax should be paid. If only 1 qian and 2 cents are collected per mu, it is still acceptable.

However, the government will increase the tax by mu every time there is a major task. If the tax per cent is increased to half a liang, it is still acceptable.

However, if the tax is increased ten times, twenty times, and thirty times every year, it is unacceptable!

Whenever there is a task, the mansion, post horse, wine, door bag, long-term servant, clerk, yamen runner, and husband's sedan chair all come from this. And the wise men in the village borrow the official and private tax, how can the people survive?

This is very clear.

The tax of four cents of silver should be paid. According to the convention, the grassroots government will add two cents to each cent of silver, that is, one cent becomes three cents, and four cents of an acre of land will be one qian and two cents.

In this way, it can survive compared to the eleventh tax. Including the double tax increase under the unspoken rule, it can still survive.

However, when you encounter corvée, additional duties, and errands, the total amount is beyond count.

For example, if you don't want to go to dig a river, you have to pay money. After paying the money, the government will hire someone to replace you; it's like an official comes to walk on the canal, and you have to pull the rope or prepare other things, which also requires arresting people. If you don't want to go, just pay the money.

Excluding the fundamental issue of landlords' rent, grassroots officials can reduce the tax rate of 30% to 2% or even 1.5%. In the late Ming Dynasty, there was even a situation of abandoning and running away, and no one dared to plant large tracts of land.

Looking only at the legal decrees and the system of the court, it feels that the feudal dynasty is really in line with the benevolent and righteous government.

But if you look at the grassroots and the reality, you can only say that the dynasties that can survive for 200 years are lucky.

Originally, there was also a head tax, and the money allocated could be allocated to the head tax. It is also one cent of silver plus leverage, which is increased to one cent, but this one cent of silver is part of the land tax and part of the head tax.

Now, the head tax has been abolished. Even if leverage is added, there must be an initial amount of money, and all of this money is added to the land.

The middle and upper classes all have ways to avoid taxes. In other words, there is no need to avoid taxes specifically: there is not much money at all if the national tax is only according to the national regulations.

They are avoiding money other than national taxes.

Whether it is the Ming Dynasty or the Dashun Dynasty, the lower class has to bear ten or even twenty taels of national tax for collecting one tael. It seems that the land tax collected in a year is 18 million and goes into the national treasury, and the lower class probably collects 100 million or 200 million, which is not a problem.

Therefore, the finances of Dashun are better than those of the Ming Dynasty, but they are also extremely rubbish, so that they will soon be surpassed by the small Britain that does not have India and the thirteen states do not pay taxes.

This situation has existed since the Ming Dynasty, so-called dedication, etc.

What is avoided is not the small amount of regular taxes of the court, but the main thing to avoid is the layers of increase at the grassroots level.

In this case, the situation of "lower land prices" that Liu Yu mentioned at the beginning and that the business class also recognized also appeared.

The small peasant class is the focus of exploitation. The more land they have, the easier it is.

Even if they don't evade taxes, as long as they can avoid the increase at the grassroots level, there is no pressure.

Now, with the head tax being included in the land tax, the situation is even more serious.

The emperor sits in the Golden Throne Hall and thinks he is doing benevolent politics. One in thirty taxes, is this not benevolent politics?

In fact, the situation at the grassroots level is not that simple.

This is a universal situation across the country.

In addition to the universality, there is also the particularity of Songjiang.

With the opening of trade with Japan, the boost of Western trade, the expansion of smuggling business by the Sino-Swiss Joint Trade Company, and the emergence of various joint-stock companies, Songjiang has seen a wave of investment.

The people who talked with Liu Yu at the Songjiang prefectural governor before were more orthodox gentry, belonging to the OLD MONEY class of the Celestial Empire.

They don't invest, don't do business, but lend money, collect rent, take the imperial examination, and pass on their family business in the old-fashioned way.

They have little to do with the particularity of the tenant farmers in Songjiang.

The relevant ones are some gentry who, after seeing the profits of investment, invested their funds in joint-stock companies to earn annual interest, or some large and medium-sized landlords.

They are in urgent need of money.

However, the instability of trade and the long-standing tradition of hoarding land in the Celestial Empire made them unwilling to sell land in exchange for the urgently needed money.

Borrowing, the interest rate is too high.

Loans, there are no banks.

Selling land, that is a prodigal son.

In this case, a very special form of tenancy emerged.

The rent deposit system.

For example, if this piece of land is sold, it will normally sell for 10 taels of silver.

However, the landlords did not want to sell, and Dashun was a spendthrift for selling land. This was a common mentality. But they urgently needed cash for investment. Especially when the Japanese trading company increased its shares, it was obvious that money was being made, so money had to be invested.

Then, at this time, a farmer stood up and said, "I will rent your land. I will give you 6 taels of silver as collateral, and you rent the land to me for cultivation, and I will give you a symbolic rent every year. When you want to take the land back, you give me the 6 taels of silver, and I will return the land to you.

This is a bit like pawning.

However, what is pawned is the right to use the land.

Why not just spend 10 taels of silver to buy it?

First, you can spend 6 taels to rent it indefinitely, and only pay some symbolic rent every year, so why spend 10 taels?

Second, the landlords themselves did not want to sell the land. It is easy to sell land but difficult to buy land, and land is also the best foundation for future generations. In the future, if the transaction fails, the land can be taken back.

Third, whoever owns the land will bear the tax. The big landlords have connections, so they can just pay the national tax and avoid those levies. The people who buy the land only want the right to use the land, not the ownership of the land, because the ownership means paying taxes, undertaking corvée, etc.

Fourth, the landlords are in urgent need of money, but don't want to sell the land. How can they compromise and "mortgage the rent" at the original price?

In this way, some special characteristics of the tenants in Songjiang Prefecture are formed.

After asking, it can be known that the tenants in front of us were originally self-cultivating farmers.

The family has four acres of land.

The four acres of land were sold and exchanged for cash.

Then, when the big landlord is in urgent need of cash, he takes the cash from the sale of four acres of land as collateral and rents ten acres of land, and only needs to pay one stone of rent every year.

Compared with normal and common tenancy, this rent can actually be ignored. The most outrageous thing Liu Yu has seen is that when harvesting grain, 65 out of 100 catties go to the landowner and 35 go ​​to the tenant. The rent of only one stone for these ten mu of land can really be ignored.

What does this mean?

It means that four mu becomes ten mu.

It also saves the national tax and miscellaneous taxes that the four mu of land had to bear before.

Is he a tenant?

Yes, because he does not have the means of production of land.

But is he poor?

Not rich, but compared with the general tenants of Dashun, he is definitely not poor.

This kind of tenancy is beneficial to both parties.

First, the income of traditional rent collectors has declined due to the large amount of Nanyang rice and Dongyang wheat in Songjiang Prefecture.

Second, investment requires cash.

Third, mortgaging land to borrow money; and renting out the right to use the land and collecting nearly half of the land price in cash, these two are completely different.

In the former, the initiative is in the hands of the creditor when the land is mortgaged to borrow money. Moreover, the investment in Songjiang Prefecture's industry and commerce does not have the "attractive" rate of return like the Mississippi Bubble or the South Sea Bubble. If you borrow usury to invest, how much return on investment is worth borrowing usury? Especially when the interest rate of Dashun loan sharks is so high, who dares to borrow unless it is a last resort?

In the latter case, the ownership of the land still belongs to the landlord. When the landlord's investment fails, or when he wants to continue to collect rent, he pushes the deposit to the tenant, and the land is still his.

Moreover, Songjiang Prefecture protects this tenancy model and follows the official stamp contract tax. In most cases, both parties will not be idle and breach the contract: what does the landlord do with it? What does the tenant do with it?

After going around in circles, who is actually harmed?

If you think about it carefully, it seems that no one is harmed.

The national tax is not high. If you pay it according to the normal national tax, it is not easy for small farmers to go bankrupt, whether it is Ming Dynasty or Dashun.

The high tax is still the local apportionment, and the money added for various reasons. And the big landlords can avoid these additional taxes.

Since it is necessary to conduct social investigations, whether it is real tenants or fake tenants who are actually middle peasants, they need to be asked.

Liu Yu thought that the prefect of Songjiang was also a capable official.

Whether it was the adoption policy of the tenant farmers in the Charity House that took into account the grassroots people's sentiments, or the understanding of the two different tenancy models, it was enough to show that this person knew how to adapt and did have some understanding of the people.

Considering the family situation of this tenant farmer, Liu Yu did not ask them about their views on "imported grain".

There was no need to ask, it was obvious.

The grain price dropped, and these middle peasants who were called tenants but actually contracted land were definitely dissatisfied. For them, the main income was still growing and selling grain.

And because they did not need to pay taxes, and secondly, under the mortgage rent system, they did not pay much rent to the landlord, so they were most likely to catch up with the soaring grain prices in a certain year and achieve class leap.

Liu Yu estimated that if he asked a question, he would definitely be dissatisfied.

Instead of asking the obvious dissatisfaction question, Liu Yu asked about the situation of women weaving here. According to past habits, he took out some rock sugar and gave it to the children at home, and sent someone to prepare some meals. With such an approachable and pretentious attitude, the owner of this house gradually became bolder.

Speaking of women's weaving, the owner of this house said: "The merchants in the city provide cotton, and the women in this village use the cotton provided by the city merchants to spin yarn. How much cotton is received at the beginning of the month, how much is spun, how much is purchased by the merchants. The price is also determined by the merchants."

"During the busy farming season, do farm work during the day. At night, the women in the village get together."

"For example, today it's the Zhang family, tomorrow it's the Li family. Each family lights an oil lamp once a night, rotating every day, and no one suffers."

"If you have good skills, you can also weave cloth to sell. But I'm clumsy, so I can only do some spinning work. After a few days, I will rent some more land. If there is enough food, I will grow some cotton."

"Now the price of grain is low, but the price of cotton is high. I think in a few years, I can grow cotton and weave it myself, and then sell it, or I can get more money. Then I can buy more land for my children."

"I'm afraid that in a few years, the price of this land will go up again, whether it is for planting cotton or mulberry. Even if it's a deposit, it will cost a lot more money."