Turbulent Times Chapter 1023: Hidden and Pilot

(Thank you very much for the generous support and monthly ticket support of 'Weird Coffee II', 'Book Friends 30928448', 'Lonely Heroes'.)

"Pilot?" Huang Zhixuan looked puzzled.

"That's right, the so-called pilot project means that some policies are tried out in your county first. If it works and there are no problems, then it will be implemented in the whole county." When Wang Junlin said this, he thought of a certain great man in later generations A circle was drawn, and then a special zone appeared, which completely opened the curtain of reform and opening up.

Wang Junlin is very clear that if he wants to truly control Fanyang County, he must solve the problem of land annexation. In fact, the Sui Dynasty is finally going to perish. Of course, it is because Yang Guang is consuming national power like a madman, and he wants to start a war , and officials are dominated by nobles, most of them only think about family and personal interests, and few serve the country and the people.

But in fact there is another fundamental reason—that is, the problem of land annexation is too serious. In history, before the fall of every dynasty, land annexation reached its worst time. On the contrary, when the country was just established, the people owned their own When the land is most.

It's just that as time goes by, the farmland in the hands of the common people gradually disappears, and eventually they become tenant farmers of the landlord class. This process took two to three hundred years to complete in the Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, and even the previous Han Dynasty. However, after the Sui Dynasty inherited the Northern Zhou Dynasty, it was like this from the beginning. In fact, there are deep-seated reasons.

Wang Junlin came prepared. As early as half a month ago when he was still in the county, he had already reached a consensus with Zhao Zhanpeng, who was in charge of the general guard, so the process of persuading Huang Zhixuan, or in other words, coercing and luring Huang Zhixuan went smoothly.

The first step for Wang Junlin is to clean up all the hidden fields.

The so-called hidden fields refer to the number of fields that have been concealed, and the spies under Shen Guoer have already found out how many hidden fields Fangcheng County has.

There are as many as 1.15 million mu of hidden land in Fangcheng County that escapes the land tax, and most of them are high-quality fertile land. Calculated as half a stone of land tax per mu, Fangcheng County loses nearly 600,000 stone grain taxes every year.

Tax evasion has existed since ancient times. There is nothing surprising about this in itself. From the perspective of landlords, it is natural to feel that this is the most important thing they should do. In the official dynasty, this situation will naturally become more and more serious.

According to Wang Junlin's instructions, the Fangcheng County Government issued an announcement, giving all landlords big and small in Fangcheng County one month to report their own land. At that time, they will register according to the good land reported by each family. Once the under-reported good land is found, it will be returned. For Guantian.

Wang Junlin is very clear that no matter when, there are many people who are lucky, so Wang Junlin is ready to get a large number of official lands, and his approach will not receive any backlash, because tax evasion comes first. The prefect also asked the government to give you time and opportunities. You said that there are only 500 acres in your home, so naturally you will be counted according to what you said. As for the result of the investigation, your home is 2,000 acres. Sorry, another 1,000 acres The 500 mu does not belong to your family, it belongs to the imperial court, and it is the public land of the government.

With the cooperation of Huang Zhixuan, who is both a county magistrate and a local snake, the first step of Wang Junlin's pilot work went smoothly.

Fangcheng County originally registered 710,000 mu of fertile land, but after all the landlords reported it again, it became 1.17 million mu after a month, and then Wang Junlin ordered people to forcefully measure the land, and the result was that the entire county was a total of 1,000 mu. One hundred and eighty-two million mu. In this way, the official land in Fangcheng County increased by 650,000 mu.

Landlords and nobles who are confused and have lost their fields will naturally make trouble. This problem is actually easy to solve. The key depends on whether they dare to kill people and whether they dare to act according to the law. Of course, it mainly depends on whose hands the army is in. Wang Junlin sent the county The soldiers arrested the two most vicious landlords for treason, and ordered the presiding officer of the county government to behead them. They also arrested more than 30 landlords who were secretly resisting. After they were thrown into prison, the matter subsided.

These things were already expected by Wang Junlin. After all, reforms have been good since ancient times, no matter how they are reformed. There is no death without bloodshed. The land revolution is actually the most important part of the reform since ancient times. Only one county dies. Two landlords were arrested, and more than 30 people were arrested. This is actually quite a small number. Of course, this is directly related to Wang Junlin being the prefect of Fanyang County and personally sitting in Fangcheng County.

Huang Zhixuan has been an official in the county for many years and is very familiar with local affairs. Although he knows that there should be a lot of hidden land in the county. After the landlords of all sizes in the county reported the report, the people sent by the prefect could not help but be surprised when they forcibly measured 650,000 mu of farmland again.

If these fields are converted into silver, in Fanyang County, Shangtian with an annual output of three shi grains per mu is worth ten taels of silver. The value of a million taels of silver, such a huge benefit, is enough to arouse the greed of too many people. But when the county magistrate of Fangcheng County took advantage of his power to replace all their family's Xia Tian with fertile land, and then was ordered to be beheaded by the notorious prefect regardless of Zhao Zhanpeng and Huang Zhixuan's pleas, no one dared to extend his hand.

However, Wang Junlin has not been short of money in the past one or two years, but he needs land. To be precise, he needs tenant farmers attached to these fields. The 650,000 mu of official land can accommodate five or six Ten thousand tenant farmers.

And this is not over yet, Wang Junlin replaced about 430,000 mu of Shangtian and Fangcheng county noble landlords with Zhongxiatian out of the 650,000 mu, making Guantian finally 97 Tens of thousands of acres of farmland, and all of them are concentrated in the area of ​​Fangcheng County near the sea to the east. At this moment, more than 20,000 tenant farmers have been added, and the number of tenant farmers has reached more than 70,000.

These official lands, Wang Junlin, were nominally handed over to these people in the original county government of Fangcheng County, but in fact he planned to implement the farming system. He surrounded nearly 70,000 tenants around the 970,000 mu Xiatian, with one hundred households as one village, forms more than one hundred villages. Each village will be appointed by the saltworks and managed by the head of the village after intensive training. Under the head of the village, there will be selected field heads. Manage ten households, establish an organization, and a law enforcement team, one level of management, one level, and regular meetings. There are strict rules and regulations and requirements, and they are firmly controlled in the hands.

Of course, in order to increase the enthusiasm of these 70,000 tenants, the mature methods of increasing production in the saltworks will be gradually implemented, and some water conservancy facilities will also be repaired, and the grain tax they pay is less than the grain tax they originally paid to the landlord half.

When the time comes later, Wang Junlin will also organize the civilian braves among the more than 70,000 tenants to conduct rotation training and reserve military forces.