Chapter 224: These Three Years

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Over these three years, Zhao Yu and his ministers vigorously implemented two new policies—"Scholar-Gentry Uniform Taxation" and "Labor Tax Incorporated into Land Tax"—in Longyou, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, and the Eleven States of Yanyun, achieving remarkably significant results.

Currently, the land tax revenue from these newly recovered regions alone contributes over five million taels annually to the imperial treasury.

In terms of land tax revenue alone, these newly recovered regions even surpass the Jiangnan region.

——The Southern Song Dynasty's most productive grain regions were concentrated in Jiangnan, especially Suzhou and Huzhou in the Taihu Basin, with the proverb: "When Suzhou and Huzhou are bountiful, the whole world is fed."

Is it because these newly recovered regions have more farmland and higher grain yields per mu than Jiangnan?

Of course not.

Although these newly recovered regions also boast fertile land, have adopted Yuan Qingcheng's newly developed high-yield grain varieties, and use Ma Xiao Jiao's latest agricultural tools and machinery, neither the total farmland area nor the yield per mu can compare to Jiangnan, which is also advancing with the times.

Using data provided by Fan Zhongyan decades ago: at that time, Suzhou had thirty-four thousand qing (3.4 million mu) of taxable land, yielding two to three shi of rice per mu in an average harvest, totaling over seven million shi of rice. Even if Huzhou's annual output were only half of Suzhou's, the combined output of the two prefectures exceeded ten million shi.

And this was still under the condition that the scholar-gentry heavily concealed their landholdings.

Once, Zhang Chun accidentally let slip that by the Jiading era, the taxable farmland in Pingjiang Prefecture (i. e., Suzhou) had reached twelve million mu.

Zhao Yu, well-versed in the history of the Northern and Southern Song, immediately realized Zhang Chun was referring to the Southern Song's Jiading era, not the Ming's Jiajing or the Qing's Jiaqing era.

At that time, Suzhou's taxable farmland surged because, during the early Southern Song under Emperors Gaozong and Xiaozong, the small court vigorously constructed water conservancy projects, reclaimed lake land, dredged canals, and installed sluices to prevent seawater intrusion. Improved water infrastructure reduced floods, boosted agricultural productivity, and encouraged reclamation of low-lying and mountainous land, expanding farmland area. More importantly, policies like the Fangtian Junshui System partially uncovered concealed land and tax evasion, causing a dramatic increase in taxable farmland.

Even with the relatively mild implementation of the Fangtian Junshui System and similar policies, Suzhou's taxable farmland surged from 3.4 million mu in the Northern Song to twelve million mu in the Southern Song.

If land were fully surveyed and concealed holdings fully uncovered, how astonishing would Jiangnan's land tax revenue become?

This is why Zhao Yu was determined to implement "Scholar-Gentry Uniform Taxation."

Now, returning to these newly recovered regions:

Although their farmland area and grain yield per mu are far lower than Jiangnan's, because the court vigorously enforced "Scholar-Gentry Uniform Taxation" here, all farmland was surveyed, new land deeds issued free of charge, virtually no concealed land remained, and crucially, no land was exempt from taxation—thus the taxable farmland area in these regions far exceeds that of Jiangnan.

Therefore, in land tax revenue, these newly recovered regions must surpass Jiangnan and all other regions of the Zhao Song Dynasty.

By curbing the scholar-gentry's tax-exempt privileges, the policy also prevented the situation where "the rich own contiguous fields yet pay little labor duty; the poor have no land to stand on yet bear heavy corvée," distributing tax burdens more evenly across classes and partially easing social tensions in these regions.

This also reduced the scholar-gentry's ability to interfere in local governance and evade corvée and taxes, enabling the court to more smoothly collect taxes and mobilize labor, enhancing administrative efficiency and governance capacity.

Moreover, incorporating the labor tax into land tax and abolishing the head tax freed the people of these newly recovered regions from the crushing tax burden imposed by population growth.

——Previously, impoverished families often dared not bear children for fear of the labor tax, and newborns were sometimes drowned; since the implementation of "Labor Tax Incorporated into Land Tax," the birth rate in these regions has surged dramatically, with newborn numbers exceeding triple the previous level.

The liberation of labor further ignited private production vitality: vast tracts of previously barren land were reclaimed as farmland, increasing the total farmland area and promoting agricultural development in these regions.

More crucially, "Labor Tax Incorporated into Land Tax" shattered the constraints on population mobility: farmers who lost land or had little land no longer had to remain tied to their native places to fulfill labor duties; they flocked to towns or resource-rich areas to seek livelihoods.

As a result, not only did agriculture flourish in these newly recovered regions, but industry also developed rapidly.

In just three short years, a host of new factories—textile mills, coal mines, cement plants, wooden bicycle factories, rickshaw factories, match factories, paper mills, hemp rope factories, burlap sack factories, ceramic factories, soap factories, candle factories, flour mills—sprang up like mushrooms after rain, providing abundant employment for locals and supplying vast quantities of goods for commerce.

This further fueled the prosperity of commerce in these newly recovered regions.

Now, in the towns of these newly recovered regions, shops line the streets, goods abound—from northern furs to southern silk, from East Sea pearls to western spices—all available, attracting merchants from all directions; markets buzz with voices, bustling and vibrant, a scene of thriving prosperity. Meanwhile, on the trade routes of Longyou and the Hexi Corridor, caravan teams never cease; the land Silk Road, dormant for centuries, has revived. Simultaneously, due to Zhao Song's open trade channels with the Liao, vast quantities of northern resources and goods have flooded into Zhao Song.

With commercial prosperity, monetary economy gradually became dominant in these newly recovered regions: Zhao Song's currency, including qianyin and copper coins, circulated increasingly widely, facilitating convenient and efficient transactions.

——Originally, Zhao Yu did not squander the gold and silver seized from the Liao, nor those sent back by Zhang Jie and Lu Huiqing from Western Xia; he additionally gathered more gold and silver, then used them as reserve backing to issue thirty million strings in paper currency, and established numerous banks at key transportation hubs across Zhao Song, providing robust monetary support for commerce. The coordinated development of agriculture, industry, and commerce in these regions formed a virtuous cycle: agricultural products supplied raw materials for handicrafts; handicraft goods were sold through commercial channels, satisfying growing consumer demands and driving overall regional economic advancement; meanwhile, commercial prosperity reciprocally boosted agriculture and industry, promoting technological innovation and progress.

Meanwhile, living standards in these newly recovered regions rose significantly. Increased grain production stabilized food prices, freeing the people from worries over basic sustenance. The growth of industry and commerce provided more employment opportunities, enabling many formerly landless or land-poor farmers to become artisans or merchants, escaping poverty.

More importantly, economic prosperity promoted cultural exchange and integration: people from diverse regions and ethnic groups converged here, collectively creating a rich and colorful cultural landscape. Poetry, music, dance, opera, acrobatics, and other art forms flourished side by side, forming a unique cultural character. Cultural exchange and integration further propelled social progress, infusing these newly recovered regions with vibrant vitality.

In just over three years, these newly recovered regions underwent a complete transformation in both economy and culture, becoming the most dynamic emerging region on Zhao Song's map.

This caused regions that should have been riddled with problems to become the most loyal to Zhao Song rule, as people's lives improved rapidly through rapid development.

Undoubtedly, this accumulated invaluable experience for nationwide implementation of the two new policies.

Thus, not long ago, Zhao Yu formally issued an imperial decree to implement the two new policies nationwide, without regional exceptions.

In fact, Zhao Yu and his ministers had prepared extensively for this day.

For example, long ago, the Propaganda Department had vigorously publicized the earth-shattering changes brought by the two new policies in these newly recovered regions.

To this end, the Propaganda Department not only required local governments to recruit large numbers of lecturers to publicly recite the court's ten-day bulletins distributed across regions, but also extensively recruited folk artists to turn the prosperity of these regions and improved livelihoods into stories performed as opera, storytelling, and fast-paced verse in tea houses, markets, temples, and other crowded places.

As Zhao Yu and his ministers predicted, these Propaganda Department initiatives met fierce resistance from local scholar-gentry.

They viewed these campaigns as a flood or plague, mobilizing their influence to obstruct their progress openly or covertly.

First, they united to block the spread of reform information: leveraging local influence to pressure officials into restricting lecturers' activities; secretly funding opposition literati to write essays, poems, and songs denouncing the reforms as sources of social chaos and violations of scholar-gentry rights; worse still, some scholar-gentry secretly colluded with local strongmen to incite ignorant commoners to riot, attempting to halt reforms under the guise of public opinion.

As for the folk artists dispatched by the Propaganda Department, they regarded them as thorns in their eyes and poison in their flesh, using every means—beating, threatening, humiliating, coercing, bribing—to obstruct their promotion of reform benefits.

They also exploited their local influence to spread rumors claiming the reforms would trigger social unrest, destroy centuries-old stable order, inciting fear and resistance among the ignorant populace; even spreading rumors that reforms would increase burdens, provoking panic and unrest.

Before even implementing the two new policies in these regions, they faced such fierce resistance—how could Zhao Yu and his ministers not be furious?

Zhao Yu did not rely on local administrations deeply entangled with the scholar-gentry; instead, he directly dispatched the Imperial Security Bureau, the Eastern Depot, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard—his three feared enforcers—to investigate.

Those scholar-gentry found obstructing the promotion of the two new policies were immediately confiscated of property and punished; the lightest penalty was exile to a thousand li away, with their direct descendants permanently barred from official service; severe cases resulted in clan confiscation: men exiled to Sha Sect Island, women sent to the courtesan bureaus, and all family descendants permanently barred from office; officials aiding them were dismissed on the spot, imprisoned, and sent to the capital for legal punishment; severe offenders were even demoted until death; even officials who neglected duty and tolerated local scholar-gentry obstruction were demoted by at least three ranks.

No one expected Zhao Yu and his ministers would go this far in enforcing the two new policies, even breaking the longstanding Zhao Song tradition that "punishment does not reach the physician."

Suddenly, the atmosphere became one of paranoia.

Moreover, before officially implementing the two new policies, Zhao Yu removed all officials who had previously opposed them—either demoting or transferring them—and sent particularly capable yet ruthlessly harsh officials like Li Xiaoshou, Jian Xuchen, Wu Juhou, and An Dun to govern regions that had fiercely resisted the reform propaganda, ready to crush any scholar-gentry who dared obstruct reform.

Everyone could see Zhao Yu and his ministers were dead serious: anyone openly opposing reform would face brutal punishment.

Precisely because they had made these preparations, Zhao Yu and his ministers dared to implement the two new policies nationwide.

Yet, just as Zhao Yu issued the imperial decree for nationwide implementation, an incident occurred.

Fengqiu County demanded "one laborer per hundred mu of land" for Yellow River repair work, with no exemption for scholar-gentry.

——Whether scholar-gentry or commoners, those unwilling to provide laborers could pay a fee for the authorities to hire itinerant migrants on their behalf.

Yet even this humane policy faced fierce opposition from local scholar-gentry: they incited local students to intercept the county magistrate and force him to rescind the policy. After refusal, they incited a boycott of the examinations: in the May-end provincial examination, Fengqiu County originally had over 130 candidates, but only 23 appeared; some students tore up exam papers and blocked others from entering, calling for students across the province and even the nation to boycott the exams…

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(End of Chapter)