Gu Chi did the math for Shen Tang.
Based on the current output of farmland and the minimum living standard, three to four acres of inferior land can support one person. This is also the case if the taxes are not high and the tax items are not complicated. If the land rent, head tax, tax, corvée and the like are added up, the pressure on the common people will be quite heavy.
Basically, I was on the verge of starving to death or not starving to death.
Now ignore other factors and only calculate the average output of one acre of land. One person needs to cultivate four acres of land to survive. Shen Tang brought common people from Sibao County, recruited soldiers, and Zhao Feng's one thousand people, about five thousand people in total. The minimum standard is to cultivate 20,000 acres!
In addition to these people, the original self-cultivating farmers and tenant farmers who did not have their own land in Fugu City... all together there were more than 10,000 people... These families in Fugu City joined forces to occupy 60% of the land in Heyin, and most of the land left in the hands of the common people was inferior land.
If you add taxes...
Not to mention four acres of land, even adding two acres would be enough.
Looking at the formula given by Gu Chi, Shen Tang almost felt numb - was she watching Gu Chi settle the accounts
No, she was looking at her own "poverty"!
He rubbed his forehead, trying not to let his brain explode.
Gu Chi noticed her discomfort keenly.
He asked with concern, "My lord, are you listening?"
Shen Tang: "I'm listening, I'm listening... It's just that I have a headache after listening to it. The feeling is very subtle and hard to describe. It's as if eight hundred Gongxichou surrounded me and beat me up, punching and kicking me, making me see stars..."
The key is that these accounts are all recorded in text, and they are in vertical format, from right to left, densely packed together. The reading experience is simply "cool" and can make you roll your eyes and foam at the mouth!
This kind of working conditions
Haha, her low work efficiency is really not just because she is slacking off!
The more I watch, the angrier and more furious I get!
If she continues like this, she might become bald at a young age.
The corners of Gu Chi's mouth twitched.
"… premature baldness?"
"It's baldness! Every middle-aged man and woman will face the midlife crisis, but some people are lucky enough to experience it in advance."
For example, yourself.
Shen Tang could already foresee a future where her hair would fall out in clumps! She was going to discuss with Gu Chi whether they should reform the way they kept accounts before reclaiming the wasteland.
It all depends on recording word by word - for example, on XX day of XX year, the land of X hectares and X acres in XX place in Fugu City was taxed XX stones; or on XX day of XX year, X households and X people in XX place in Fugu City were taxed XX - what year and month would that be
It’s tiring to write and it’s tiring to read.
I'll check the accounts if anything happens...
Haha, checking and verifying the accounts can make me exhausted.
If we don't reform the accounting system, we will be unworthy of her shining halo as the heroine! If we do it well, we will be happy!
Gu Chi: “…”
Shen Tang's thoughts were always fast, urgent, numerous and complicated, with one or two important pieces of information mixed in among the pile of nonsense. Even Gu Chi could not fully understand what she said.
But there was one thing he understood: his lord wanted to change the way of accounting.
He said gently, "I'd like to hear more details."
Shen Tang took a few blank bamboo pieces. Although there is papermaking technology at present, the output of paper is not much, and it is still a relatively luxurious consumer product. This is related to labor costs, raw material costs and technical level. Shen Tang is just a poor county magistrate.
Even if one becomes rich overnight by confiscating property, there is still a distance between them and paper freedom, and bamboo slips are still the main means of work.
As long as one's thinking does not slip, there are always more solutions than problems. Shen Tang used the gaps between the bamboo strips as the "vertical" parts of the table, and then used a carving knife to draw the "horizontal" parts. Finally, he had a simple bamboo slip table.
Since there are too many words, they are replaced by numbers.
Shen Tang listed the numbers corresponding to the words one by one.
“Look, isn’t it clear now?”
Gu Chi took a look at it and found that this kind of thing was indeed convenient and simple for accounting, except that the reading habits were a bit awkward. It was not only convenient for recording but also for subsequent calculations. However, -
He pointed his finger at the blood: "It's easy to fake."
Inserting a number is also not easy to detect.
Shen Tang's expression froze: "Huh?"
Gu Chi changed the subject and praised with a smile: "Although it is so, it is indeed a clever method and easy to use. As for the falsification of accounts, it is not difficult to solve it. The settlement can still be recorded in the previous way. If the numbers don't match, it will be known at a glance."
Shen Tang's eyes brightened several shades.
"So, my method can be used?"
Gu Chi said with a smile: "Since it works well, why not use it? However, this method should not be invented by the lord, right?"
"Hey, how can I invent it myself? I use it a lot back home."
Gu Chi didn't investigate further after hearing this.
He has traveled to many countries in the northwest over the years. He can't say that he has been to every place and knows every custom, but he has never seen this kind of strange symbols representing numbers and table-style account books. Or maybe...
Is he ignorant
Or maybe, there is something special about the lord.
As a smart man, Gu Chi naturally knew that people need to keep a distance from each other, especially when one of them is the lord. His literary skills have already made the lord lose his "secrets". If he is still curious, he will be killed sooner or later.
"Sense of proportion" is also a compulsory course for scholars of literary mind.
Besides, adopting this convenient accounting method is also a benefit to oneself. Just enjoy the benefits, why bother to find out where this method originated from? Gu Chi changed the previous arithmetic content to let Shen Tang see the current gap more intuitively.
It is imperative to reclaim wasteland.
And it’s imminent.
It must be done before spring ploughing.
If the spring ploughing was missed, it would mean a poor harvest in the next year. Without the tax revenue, there would be no more capital to absorb the refugees. At the same time, the construction of Fugu City had to get on track.
Otherwise, where would we find a place to house so many refugees
Shen Tang was so worried that he covered his face with his hands. Gu Chi asked again: "My Lord, what are you going to do with the confiscated land? Divide it or..."
"Rent it out."
It is impossible to divide.
Shen Tang doesn't have that much land to divide.
She held her chin in her hand in worry: "If we distribute the land in our hands to the common people and let them cultivate it, who will get the good land? Who will get the bad land? How many acres of good land? How many acres of bad land? These are all complicated issues, and the workload is too great... Moreover, in today's world, it is difficult for common people to keep the land in their hands. If there is a major illness or a minor disaster in their family, they may sell the land, either actively or passively..."
It would be better if it was in Shen Tang's hands.
The rent was incorporated into the land tax, and they could farm and harvest as much food as they produced, and as long as they were diligent, they could support their families. A fixed proportion of land tax was collected per mu based on the quality of the farmland and the average per mu yield in an area.
If the harvest is good, harvest more.
If the harvest is poor, harvest less.
With the average yield per mu as an indicator, it is relatively difficult to falsify the harvest figures. As for other miscellaneous taxes, we will discuss them later.
There are hundreds of countries on the mainland, and each country has different tax types and proportions. Gu Chi calculated in his mind and it was feasible.
"... Wait, there's one more thing." Shen Tang rubbed his brows and reflected on what he hadn't considered yet, "... I'd like to trouble Wang Chao to work harder these few days and personally lead people to measure the land and evaluate the quality based on the per-acre yield in previous years..."
It would be best to leave this matter to Gu Chi.
No one can deceive him.
The data collected is also relatively real.
Shen Tang estimated in his mind: "Try to finish this before the New Year, and then 'rent' the land to the common people during the New Year. The amount of rent will be based on the number of male and female adults in each family, and their ages... Oh, speaking of this, we have to re-register the population."
She covered her face with a painful expression.
This life is unbearable.
Oh oh oh(╥╯^╰╥)
Shen Tang's eyes became dry and his head became dizzy just thinking about the workload, so he summoned a blue bird to fly to Kang Shi.
Let Kang Shi take Lin Feng to be responsible for this matter.
Originally, I wanted Chu Yao to do it.
But considering Chu Yao's gray hair and the hardships he had suffered in his early years, he was afraid that his body would not be able to bear it, so he asked Kang Shi to take over. He was young and could stay up late.
Kang Shi: “…”
Gu Chi asked again: "How much is the rental for male and female adults?"
Shen Tang said, "We'll discuss this in the meeting later. If there are brave warriors in the family who farm, we can rent more land."
She still did not give up the idea of letting the warriors farm, and was ready to encourage them. Shen Tang discussed a lot with Gu Chi, and when she came to her senses, it was almost dark outside. So she asked someone to light an oil lamp for her.
Why not a room full of lights
Because scholars have better five senses than ordinary people, plus excellent night vision, one lamp is enough for office work.
Poor families should save as much as possible.
Shen Tang ate a quick meal and continued to work. The main thing was to check the prisoners to be dealt with tomorrow. Although they were extremely evil and few of them were clean, it was not ruled out that there were some who were pure and untainted.
There are also some people whose crimes do not deserve the death penalty. Shen Tang plans to send them to repair the city walls or pound rice. If they are shameless, restless and want to cause trouble, then they will be killed!
There are also some innocent women, such as concubines who were forcibly abducted without committing any evil, and their offspring...
Should he be punished
How to punish
Qi Shan and the others suggested that they kill them all to eliminate the trouble. According to the charges against the three tribes, these children would not survive and keeping them alive would be a hidden danger. But Shen Tang felt a little compassionate. After all, these women and their children were innocent...
After all, being forced was not their choice, and as for the hidden dangers... it was nothing more than worrying that some of their offspring would become successful and would seek revenge, cause trouble, or overturn the family's case in the future. In that case, they would focus on ideological education and cut off the possibility of their three generations becoming officials.
Gu Chi and the others still looked disapproving.
But his attitude also softened.
This matter cannot be done too radically.
Heyin is indeed just a small place, but there are many places with similar situations to Heyin, and there are also local tyrants there. If Shen Tang acts too ruthlessly, it may arouse strong vigilance and resistance from these local tyrants, which will be disadvantageous for the future.
The current profit is just a small profit, the future is the long-term profit.
During the day, Shen Tang was killing everyone on the platform, and at night she was working hard for files. She felt that her life was bleak. When she opened her eyes, she saw government affairs piled up to the ceiling. When she closed her eyes, she felt that she was subjected to inhuman beatings in the ocean of government affairs.
"Grass (a type of plant)."
It would be more exciting to fight with Gong Xichou on the battlefield.
After seven days of hard work, I got dark circles under my eyes.
Basically solve the problem of the seven local bosses in Heyin.
The common people also gathered around the platform to watch the seven-day beheading trial, watching the faces that made them gnashing their teeth in their dreams go to hell, and drinking two more bowls of water at home would keep them full for the day! No one who deserved to be killed was spared, and those who didn't deserve to be killed were all sent to different places.
They were either sent to reclaim wasteland and build city walls, or to do labor camp pounding rice, contributing to the construction of Fugu City.
As for the "poisonous legacy" of various companies that are circulating outside...
Shen Tang was not afraid of them causing trouble.
The government has issued a bounty order, and if one is caught, one will receive a reward or be exempted from paying for seedlings for the next three years.
In today's world, most common people plough in spring and harvest in autumn. They live a little better during the harvest season, but become poor again after the long winter. They are so poor that they cannot even afford to buy or keep seedlings.
Often they can only borrow money at high interest rates. If the harvest is bad one year, after deducting the land tax, miscellaneous taxes and other messy items, they still owe a lot of debt, and the previous debts are still compounded with interest...
Shen Tang also made multiple preparations for this reason - since he had to borrow money anyway, he might as well borrow from her.
The interest rate is extremely low and there is no violent debt collection. You don’t have to worry about the interest compounding to the point of ruining your family, so why not do it
Gu Chi and his companions were worried that it might not be feasible.
Aren’t you afraid of going bankrupt because the interest rate is too low
Even if he didn't go bankrupt, Shen Tang would have to bear the loss of silver and seedlings, and he would be bankrupt sooner or later... But after listening to Shen Tang's idea, he temporarily dispelled his doubts.
As long as we buy the surplus grain from the common people at a low price when the harvest is good, and sell it at a price higher than the purchase price when the harvest is poor, we can balance the income and expenditure. At the same time, it can also curb the impact of weather and harvest on grain, which is conducive to stabilizing the people's livelihood.
But the specific details still need to be discussed in the meeting.
The common people in Fugu City are all poor now.
Anyone you catch is in debt.
Even if Shen Tang rented them enough good farmland, they would hardly have enough seedlings. If reporting a "legacy" could get three years' worth of seedlings, who wouldn't be tempted
Anyway, the common people of Fugu City are already tempted.
The government office also spread the news that once the household registration was re-produced, they would be able to cultivate land and the land tax would be quite low.
Everyone was looking forward to it, eagerly.
I wish time would speed up.
However, no matter how much they hoped, Shen Tang had only so many people, and they had to work overtime for seven consecutive days to sort out the mess of the seven local bosses. As the lord, Shen Tang was so tired that his expression was dazed, and he ate every day in a hurry...
If you eat too fast, you will choke.
"belch-"
What you say will come true.
Shen Tang frowned, put down the bowl, picked up the soup at hand and took two sips, finally swallowing the pancake that was blocking his throat.
Before she could catch her breath, her feet trembled violently and dust from the beams above her head fell down and landed on Shen Tang. She jumped up on the spot and ran out of the house quickly, her expression almost distorted.
"Fuck—did the ground shake?"
At this time, the earth dragon turned over
Shen Tang seemed to see God's malice towards him.
Not only Shen Tang thought so, several old officials in the government also thought so, and they were either pale or anxious. They muttered in their hearts - they have been in Fugu City for so many years, and they have never heard of an earthquake here
Everyone was nervous.
Just when they were worried, the “earthquake” came again. Not only did the ground shake, they also saw two martial energy lights in the distance—uh, martial energy… lights
Shen Tang suddenly jumped onto the roof.
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