Red Alert 1895: Chapter 135 Tiered agricultural tax

When Wang Guorui, in the name of the governor of Taiwan, issued an order to implement the 375% rent reduction and interest rate reduction in Taiwan, those landlords began to connect together, and then prepared to discuss how to deal with the 375% rent reduction. And they could have solved it by misinterpreting the policy, but now Wang Guorui has sent a propaganda team to publicize the policy in the form that the common people like to hear and see. Now the common people will not be fooled by them. This really makes them unable solved. They originally had the right to publicize public opinion and explain policies, but now Wang Guorui took the initiative to form a propaganda team, so that they can directly propagate among the people, which completely cuts off their channel to fight against the government. Now the common people know that the 375 rent and interest rate cuts are for their own benefit, so naturally they will not listen to the landlords for exploitation.

"Everyone, this Wang Guorui is really ruthless, and he is going to give more than 10% of our income to mud legs all of a sudden. This is really unreasonable." Someone scolded.

Because of this 375 rent reduction, they have already lost a lot, because they will at least harvest more than 10% less profit, and if the land increases, they will give farmers more than 10% more per mu, which is already a lot of food. So they couldn't accept such a "low" sharing ratio at all, so they discussed together how to deal with these things.

And when everyone hadn't discussed a solution, another bad news came from someone immediately.

"Everyone, it's not good. The Taiwan Governor's Office has issued an order again. In the future, our agricultural tax in Taiwan will be collected in a stepwise manner. Anyone who owns less than 20 acres of land will be charged according to the ratio of 15 to 1. And if Individuals who own 20 to 50 acres of land will be charged at a rate of one tax per ten. If an individual owns more than fifty acres of land, they will be charged at a rate of one tax per five. Moreover, these Taxes are borne by landowners, and land rents cannot be increased.”

"what?"

Landlords are all shocked, they are almost green-faced by the order of the Governor-General of Taiwan, this tax is really "high" enough! Because he limited the amount of land owned by those individuals, first of all, the more land they own, the higher the proportion of taxes that need to be paid. And if the land reaches more than 20 mu, it will be collected according to the ratio of five taxes and one tax. This is a 20% ratio! Twenty percent, no matter which country it is, is considered a heavy tax.

And Wang Guorui hopes to use this policy to force landlords to distribute their land, so that taxes can be reduced. You must know that Wang Guorui wants the landowner to bear this tax. That is to say, those tenants do not have to bear taxes, and all taxes are borne by the landlord. As for those landlords who were originally forced to collect only 37.5% of the tax, but if the government took away 20% again, it would mean that there was only one year's harvest left. Seventeen and a half percent.

What's the point if you can only get 17.5 percent of your income every year? There are many landlords, that is, they do not participate in labor. People who directly enjoy the food share. And many of them are not alone, they are all with their families. First of all, children have to be supported, and as a big landlord, of course, how many wives and concubines are there? And these wives and concubines must be paying for all kinds of rouge, gouache and jewelry. And those landlords certainly can't do everything by themselves, they must hire some long-term servants, but these long-term servants also need money. Moreover, many of these long-term servants serve themselves and their family members. In fact, they do not participate in production, which is equivalent to taking off work to serve themselves.

Plus all kinds of extravagant expenditures, the 17.5% annual land income is not enough! Therefore, on the one hand, the government adopts a stepped taxation method for landowners, and on the other hand, their luxurious life must require more land to maintain. This is the so-called transition from thrift to extravagance. It is difficult to have luxury and simplicity. They have already enjoyed a better life, so they are naturally unwilling to lower their living standards again, which is the root of human inferiority. Because of this, they are naturally very disgusted with this step-by-step withdrawal.

"Ouyang, we want to force the landlords to sell the land. You know, the landlords have occupied too much land, and they used to occupy the land to exploit the people, and every time the government collects taxes, they pass the taxes through the land ownership again. Passed on to ordinary tenants. They enjoyed so many benefits, but they did not bear some obligations. And they passed all the taxes on to the common people, but ordinary tenants did not enjoy any benefits. Do you think this is fair? Enjoy If you have power, you must bear the responsibilities that rights bring. And if you enjoy a rich life, you must also take responsibility. There is no reason in this world to enjoy without responsibility, so they own the land. We must let more Many people are capable of surviving. And then, the landlord model has fallen behind, and what we want to achieve next is the establishment of a country through industry and commerce. And these landlords will be the biggest obstacles to our development of industry and commerce. They are conservative and do not think about making progress. We must gradually strangle the landlord class," Wang Guorui said to Executive Premier Ouyang Xuan.

The reason why Wang Guorui wants to implement this kind of step-by-step tax collection. That is to be able to limit the amount of land these landlords own. The ancient landlords controlled the land, then concentrated the land, and then recruited tenants to farm for themselves. And in this way, they will inevitably form a core centered on the landlord. And so it is said that the ancient landlords used this method to control the people, and those tenants rented and cultivated the land for a long time, which caused serious personal attachment. They are attached to the landlord, and then even for several generations, they farm for the landlord of a family, as if they have become slaves. In this case, the landlord has too much strength, which is also the reason why the ancient government could not go to the countryside for management.

If the control of these landlords over the people cannot be dismembered, then Taiwan will not be able to implement the new policy. Each of these landlords will be a serious obstacle to the changes in the new era. They don't want to make changes at all. Therefore, if Wang Guorui wants to reform the society, he must solve the landlords. If you want to solve the landlords, you need to solve the personal attachment between them and ordinary farmers, and if you want to solve the personal attachment, you must solve the land concentration. Therefore, Wang Guorui directly started to concentrate on land, directly imposing heavy taxes on those big households who own too much land, so that they cannot afford the heavy taxes brought about by owning too much land, then everything is okay.

"Governor Wang, if those landlords transfer the land to their relatives, what will happen to the relatives of the same family? At that time, they will be considered to have distributed the land, but they have not really distributed it! They are just trying to avoid Isn't our taxation very good?" Ouyang Xuan asked.

But Wang Guorui laughed and said: "You think too highly of the cohesion of those families. The reason why a family can cohere is because it has interests and can gather all resources. If a family wants to be able to have cohesion, All the rights and wealth must be concentrated in the hands of one main line, so that the major branches can gather around the main line of the family and fight together. Because those side branches know that they will not be able to survive and enjoy the dignity if they leave the main line. status, and it is precisely because of this that they gather around the mainline."

"But once those main lines distribute the land to those branches, it is equivalent to distributing the wealth in the family to everyone equally. Then the land owned by both the main line and the branches is very scattered, and once these The wealth has been dispersed, do you think those people in the branch will be willing to return the land to them again? Who is not a person with two shoulders and one head, why can they be the main branch? Because of the concentration of land in the past, a certain The main line is very strong. UU Reading www.uukanshu.com But once the land is dispersed, it will inevitably cause the land ownership of each branch line to be almost the same, and the people of each line have wealth, that is, it does not need to look at the main line Faces come to act. Therefore, it is better to be the head of a chicken than to be a queen. Once you have the capital to separate your own family, those branches will leave without hesitation. Therefore, once those lands are scattered, it will inevitably create villages one after another. The disintegration of the family, and then further promote the production of farmers."

Of course, Wang Guorui knew that those landlords would hand over the wealth to their relatives, but in order to avoid taxation, they naturally had to divide it very carefully. At that time, once the land is distributed, the conflicts of various interests will increase. For real estate like land, they only pay attention to whoever owns it. Therefore, real estate must be registered. If it is not registered, it does not belong to you. In other words, whoever registers the name belongs to him. Once the land is distributed to those branches, and the people of those branches have the ownership of the land, will they still be willing to be controlled by the main branch? In the past, if I didn't have land, everything had to be attached to the main line, but now that I have it, why can't I be the master?

At that time, an extremely violent war of confrontation within a family would definitely erupt, and at that time, Wang Guorui only needed to let the wind and waves rise and sit firmly on the Diaoyutai. At that time, each family was divided, so Wang Guorui didn't have to worry about those landlords having the energy to prevent him from carrying out social changes. (To be continued.) xh118