Chapter 644: Yongye
Chapter 644 Yongye
Wei Zheng still finds it difficult to accept Qin Lang's statement. He believes that land is the foundation of farmers. If farmers can't keep their land and the land is concentrated in the hands of landlords and tyrants, then the common people will inevitably become the fish and meat of landlords and tyrants.
"The land is in the hands of the landlord, even if the imperial court can issue a special law to set a rent amount, but if the powerful landlord does not lease the land to the farmers, how will they live?"
Qin Lang was somewhat disdainful of Wei Zheng's idea. Naturally, what he thought was reasonable, but the problem was that under the current land equalization law, the imperial court had no land to equalize, and the common people didn't have much land. It's not in the field anymore. If reforms are not carried out, it will be nothing more than stealing the bell.
Under the current system, many people who have no land to divide have already become landless people, or a few people in a family, with only a very small amount of land in their hands, and it is impossible to support a family with that little land. Although the imperial court has reformed the tax law, it is no longer necessary to pay a full rent if there is no land, or if there is little land, as before, but it still cannot change the fact that it is necessary to rent land.
According to the current system, once they go to rent the land, they have actually become servants of the landlords in disguise. In terms of law, personal freedom, etc., they have been completely controlled by the landlords.
Not only the rent amount, the landlords have the final say, and even have to bear a lot of heavy burdens other than the rent, such as forced service for the landlord, and paying various miscellaneous things or fees every year , such as chopping firewood and mowing grass for the landlord, etc.
Moreover, this kind of tenant-rent relationship is very unstable. Landlords rent if they want to rent, and they don’t rent if they don’t want to. The law does not protect it, because in the law, their relationship is a master-servant relationship, a vassal relationship.
"Wei Gong, in the special law we have formulated, we need to introduce detailed provisions to protect the basic rights and interests of tenants. For example, when renting land, a contract must be signed first, and the government must keep a file. Whether it is renting public land from the government or the landlord For private land, a tenancy contract must be established to guarantee the lease, as long as the lease is signed, there is no way to go back on it during the contract period, otherwise you will have to pay extremely high liquidated damages.”
"The lease contract must indicate the number of acres of land to be rented, the rent amount, and the number of years. Once the contract is signed, there must be no regrets, and the minimum rent is five years. After the expiration, the tenant has the priority to rent the lease, and the rent must also be within the figure specified by the government. Not to mention that landlords are not allowed to make other demands on tenants.”
"The tenant should also have the right to sublease during the contract period, and the landlord must not interfere, but the sublease must also sign a lease contract and file it with the government."
Regardless of the main customer, the imperial court’s two-tax law only collects land tax, righteous warehouse grain, community warehouse grain, etc. from the landlord, and regardless of where the landlord’s household registration is, the local state and county will collect the local land tax and so on.
The sale of land must be registered by the government, a contract must be signed, and the deed tax must be paid before it can take effect. If you buy and sell land illegally, you will be punished severely.
At the same time, the imperial court also stipulated in the legal provisions that the landlords were prohibited from abandoning their fields. Abandoned land without renting will be fined within one year, and once a season.
And those who do not rent and abandon the wasteland for two years, the imperial court will impose a vacancy tax of one-tenth of the value of the field.
The land that has not been rented out for three years and has been abandoned can be directly confiscated by the imperial court and turned into government public land, which can then be leased to the common people.
Qin Lang had already made preparations and blocked many loopholes. All the prime ministers were secretly shocked when they heard this. This new law is too ruthless, but if it can be realized, it seems to be really good. A perfect match indeed.
The imperial court no longer restrains mergers, and no longer distributes land to grant land. The current public lands of the imperial court are directly used for renting, while the existing lands in the hands of the people, whether they are divided land or permanent land, are all converted into private land. field.
As long as the landlords have money, as long as they are not forced to buy or sell, they are free to merge and buy land, but in the future, they will have to pay at least five to ten points of deed tax when buying land, and it will not be as simple as before. money.
You have to cultivate the land, and you can’t abandon it, otherwise you will be fined heavily for one season of desertion. directly confiscated.
It is impossible for landlords to cultivate land by themselves, they can only buy slaves to build manors, or rent out tenants, but the imperial court has to enact special laws to protect tenants in various ways. , the rent, etc. must also be within the range stipulated by the government, and it cannot be said that it can be as high as you want.
Once the contract is signed, the minimum rent is for at least five years, and the contract cannot be broken at will. The tenant has the priority to renew the lease. Not to mention, it is no longer possible to treat the tenant as a part or servant in the past. The tenant and the landlord are just a lease. The relationship is no longer a master-servant relationship.
If the landlord dares to oppress the tenant, whether it is beating, scolding, killing, or adultery, he must bear full responsibility, and there will be no possibility of reducing the crime.
Qin Lang’s various settings have only one purpose, to make landlords’ landlord exploitation relatively stable, and secondly, tenants have the freedom to manage the land, and they can grow whatever they want.
The improvement of the social relations of the tenant farmers and the dissolution of the personal dependence relationship are actually an increase in the blow to the power of the landlords.
It is even more ruthless than before.
In the past, the government mainly controlled the landlords from annexing their fields by setting purchase quotas and restrictions on land purchases, etc., but now Qin Lang is doing the opposite, encouraging the landlords to buy more land. The manor slave economy has been developed as before.
In the past, they held the land in their hands, so many people would come to attach them, and they were almost the slaves of the landlords. They had to eat and live ahead of the landlords, so they responded to every call, even if they rebelled, the tribes had to fight with their lives.
But it is different now, the relationship is separated, no matter how many fields you buy, you are only a landlord, and it is impossible to control the tenants.
Fang Xuanling finally understood Qin Lang's complete plan, and he was indeed very angry.
It’s just that this knife is indeed aimed at all the nobles, bureaucrats, landlords, and powerful classes. It’s just the removal of personal attachments, and I don’t know how much they will lose.
Even Fang Xuanling himself, although the Fang family in Licheng is just an ordinary gentry, but they are gentry after all, and they are proper landlords and powerful in the local area, let alone as an upstart in the new dynasty, Fang Xuanling is expensive. Prime Minister, the family business has expanded rapidly in the past few years, and now he is also a big bureaucratic landlord who owns more than 100,000 acres of land and houses.
There are countless parts and tenants under the name of the Fang family. If this new policy comes out, the loss of the Fang family will indeed be very large. It is so big that they don’t take care of the family business. Toothache and liver flutter.
But from the perspective of the imperial court, the old basic land system of the country is already on the verge of collapse. At this time, replacing this new subject-object system can indeed greatly change the situation and is completely suitable for the new situation in the future.
The importance of this fundamental basic national policy goes without saying.
You can cut your own flesh with a knife and feed it to the court. How many ordinary people can do it?
Dai Zhou was very tempted to hear this, this is a practical man.
But he immediately pointed out a loophole in Qin Lang's new law, that is, the estuary land in the hands of the people would have been confiscated after death. If it was directly transferred to the people's private land like this, it would be inappropriate and harmful to the national interest.
He proposed a supplementary method, that is, regarding the Yongye land allocated to the people, it is natural to directly recognize their Yongye status. Publicly rented land, but it can be rented until death, and it can be inherited by descendants.
Of course, according to Qin Lang’s statement that tenants are allowed to sublease in the lease contract, people with permanent lease rights can actually sublet out their own leased land, as long as the procedures are complete.
Compared to what Qin Lang said before, transferring all the koufen land directly to the common people as Yongye, in fact, it has only been changed to a tenancy relationship.
The status of the land is reserved as official land, and these fields can also be bought and sold by the court in the future, but both buyers and sellers must recognize the perpetual lease right, that is, the land can be traded, and the leasehold right cannot be changed or withdrawn. It is equivalent to the separation of Tiangu and Tianpi, and the separation of ownership and leasehold rights.
The renting of official land is beneficial, because the rent is higher than the tax. Under the two-tax law of the court, the tax is levied per mu. In fact, the tax per mu is about one-thirtieth of the grain. Wait, mu tax is actually very low. And even if the land rent is charged at 40 or 60 percent, it is at least 40% of the income.
Therefore, the imperial court kept the official land in hand, and it was actually very cost-effective to rent foreign land.
For the common people, there is of course a big difference between Yongye and renting land, but Dai Zhou did not directly give the land to the people as Yongye. Reform is needed, so why bother to take the lead and classify these few mouthfuls of land as permanent jobs, which is obviously unfair to those people who already have no land, and there is no need to exacerbate this unfairness.
The country regards itself as the owner of the country, rents the land to the people for rent, and receives land rent. And once the court is in trouble, it can also sell the land to the people and get a lot of money directly.
The setting of perpetual leasehold will not lose the leasehold right of these unique tenants.
Landlords own the ownership of the land, and tenants have the right to manage the land on a perpetual lease. The two rights are separated. The sale and purchase of land does not break the tenancy right, and the land can become a pure asset.
"Everyone, the untouchables, promoted to be a good customer, overthrow the land equalization system, and not suppress mergers, is a thorough land liberation policy, so that the interests of the court and farmers are guaranteed." Qin Lang sat down after finishing speaking.
The prime ministers were thoughtful one by one.
Qin Lang said it so bluntly, if the status of the imperial court and peasants is guaranteed, what will naturally be lost is the interests of the powerful landlords.
The prime ministers present here are themselves representatives of nobles, bureaucrats, landlords and powerful people.
(end of this chapter)