Volume 3: The Land of Jingchu Chapter 372: Just One Chance
"Third, educate the people - since the founding of the country, no matter in Jingchu, north or south, the prefecture has set up a county school, the county has set up a county school, and the township has set up a township school. If a child attends a township school for three years, his family can reduce taxes! I wish that all people in the world can learn from a young age!"
If the previous item only made ordinary people a little excited but did not bring any substantial benefits, then now... they are truly excited.
After all, “there is a door to serving the country”, but... it’s useless if you don’t have the ability to cross the threshold.
However, now, the government’s rural schools can accept civilians, and sending children to school can be exempted from part of the taxes?
More people began to rush to find people who could understand the court bulletins and translate the specific measures for them.
In fact, it may be somewhat different from what they think. The rural school only teaches basic literacy and basic arithmetic, while the county school starts to divide subjects... In Yangzhou, the people in the areas where the Ministry of Rites has been working for a long time actually know better that "education" is not just for the goal of becoming an official.
If ordinary families really want to educate students who can take the "Civil Service" exam, it is really beyond their ability, unless the child is a true prodigy and can continue to receive the "Bai Gong Scholarship".
Of course, if becoming an official is not your goal, there are actually many things you can learn that can make your life better!
For example, some master craftsmen in some workshops have an annual income comparable to that of ordinary wealthy families. Even if they have only learned some basic skills, they can still earn extra income during the slack season, right?
After hearing this, Liu Xie's face turned a little ugly - except for the first one, which changed from dividing the river to governing, to "the benevolent love others", isn't this the third of the eight strategies that Bai Tu used to humiliate him?
Could it be that the latter is also... impossible! That kind of thing is simply not feasible. If he dares to do this, he will definitely be in chaos first! Liu Xie silently convinced himself in his heart.
"Fourth, support agriculture and industry - since the establishment of the country, the grain tax of Chu has been 15% tax, and it will never be increased again. Workshops and craftsmen are all supported. I hope everyone can benefit and have a pension in old age."
Bai Tu was mentally prepared to exempt agricultural taxes. When the Eastern Han Dynasty was victorious, the population was only more than 40 million, and now it has to be reduced a lot. The population of Chu State was only more than 10 million.
The per capita arable land area is sufficient. Referring to the early days of the Industrial Revolution, as long as industrialization is initially achieved, agricultural taxes will become an additional expense. When the per capita arable land is sufficient, industrial power can easily compress the agricultural population. Not to mention collecting taxes from farmers, we should be careful about "sheep eating people".
Moreover, there are millions of hectares of land suitable for efficient collective farming already in the hands of the government...
A small population has its advantages. If the population really increases more than ten times, both the industrialization process and the per capita arable land will be restricted in the transformation.
However, only Bai Tu and the core staff of the six ministries knew the account clearly. The others...
Ordinary people and Yangzhou nobles were all excited at this time. The people were excited because the agricultural tax, which used to account for the majority of the tax, had returned to the 15:1 rate of the Western Han Dynasty and would never be increased again. Could this only be done in the State of Chu?
What excited the Yangzhou nobles was that they heard the implication of continuing to support folk workshops!
As for the noble families of Jingzhou...
Apparently, he is not used to it yet. After hearing about the 15% tax increase, he is still a little uneasy. After all, if farmers can live and work in peace and contentment, it will not be conducive to the annexation of the powerful families.
However, this "disadvantage" is completely tolerable - in fact, it is just the same as when the dynasty was just reborn from the ashes, land is cheap, taxes are light, and even if the wealthy families lose the benefits they enjoyed during the troubled times, they will definitely not rebel because of this.
Only a few advanced nobles who are smart and understand the situation in Yangzhou are ready to "defend Jingzhou" on another level. We can't let those bastards in Yangzhou occupy our living space. We have to open all the workshops first!
Those who lack foresight even worry that Chu will be dragged to death...
Liu Xie in Chang'an wanted to pull up his Minister of Agriculture and ask him if they could also reduce the tax to 15%.
Liu Bei was now below, already showing a look of shame - he knew very well that Xuzhou was now subject to a two-for-one tax, and the people had to cultivate government land...
One in fifteen? Not to mention that he had to provide aid to Guanzhong, it was not enough just to feed his own army!
Liu Xie continued to stare at Bai Tu's figure, because if it really corresponded to the eight strategies, then the next one... would be to restrict the royal family. Would Bai Tu really restrict his descendants and give outsiders opportunities?
"Fifth, the king is a title of the State of Chu. I am the King of Chu, and I have been the king since I was a child. The royal family's property shall not be plundered from the people. Only one ten-thousandth of the annual income shall be taken, and they shall be managed by themselves. The children of the royal family shall not be granted titles without merit, and shall not receive salaries without merit. All shall be supported by the royal family's property. If I take away even a part of the people, God will forsake them!"
The king is a noble title. This is very harsh, especially to Liu Xie. There is a view in Gongyang School that "the emperor is a noble title", which means that the emperor is regarded as the highest title...
When modern people first hear this, they may find nothing wrong with it, because isn’t it true that the emperor is the greatest?
However, during the period of great unification, this was simply making fun of the imperial power!
Its essence is to obliterate the uniqueness and sacredness of the emperor as the "Son of Heaven" and to regard the emperor as a title merely higher than "king".
Bai Tu doesn't care about the matter of "one title for the emperor , but he has carried out "self-confinement" in the State of Chu, which means roughly the same thing!
Just like the eight strategies that Bai Tu gave to Chang'an, he made it clear that he would not use the court's taxes to support his family, nor would he grant the taxes of a certain place to his children just because he had children, thereby encroaching on the court's finances in disguise.
Even when it comes to the royal support, Bai Tu has already drawn a line - just in case, one in ten thousand!
Liu Xie had no idea what he was talking about and even felt that this man had gone crazy.
Not to mention that there are only two million households in Chu now. Even when the Han Dynasty was at its peak, there were more than 10 million households. One in 10,000... the annual tribute of a marquis of a thousand households?
Even among the nobles, this amount is not much, how can it be enough to support the royal family? You are a single dog, you don’t know how expensive firewood and rice are if you don’t manage the household!
This item was not explained in detail in the court bulletin. After all, it was used to regulate the royal family itself, and Bai Tu did not need to explain it in such detail.
For example... Bai Tu certainly wouldn't explain to them that the key point of this article is "All the properties of the royal family shall not be plundered from the people, and only one ten-thousandth of the annual income shall be taken, and the people shall be managed and operated by themselves."
Why should we take money directly from the imperial treasury when we can "manage our own business"? One ten-thousandth is just symbolic, otherwise Bai Tu is afraid that other marquises will be embarrassed in the future.
Bai Tu had a stake in everything from Gan's brocade to Lu's artificial glass. On the gradually expanding waterways, the largest business was also named after Bai Tu.
There are countless good things in Bai Tu's hard drive. He can take out any one of them, find an obedient family to invest in the technology shares, or reward it to meritorious officials. It's like making money without doing anything.
The biggest headache is how to divide these up, so as to avoid getting burned in your hands!
Do the royal families of industrialized countries still have to worry about embezzling money from the national treasury?
What's more... now has come to this, Bai Tu feels that continuing to consider future generations who have no shadow of their own is indeed "making a fortune". Having come this far, Bai Tu already feels that he is taking more than he deserves, and decides to reflect more on himself in the future.
But after Bai Tu said this, he felt an inexplicable sense of calmness. Not only did his mental strength increase significantly, but even the gilded military talisman began to feel a little hot. This was... a manifestation of the great improvement in the fortune of the Chu State!
Looking at the subjects below, a small number of them were so moved that they wanted to cry, but most of them... had already cried!
Bai Tu was really a little embarrassed. He took a few deep breaths to suppress the slight sense of condemnation in his conscience...
