Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 105 I Really Have a Cow
Su Zhe was taken aback when he heard the question.

"About one hundred acres."

Lu Beigu nodded. What an honest boy, he really doesn't lie.

In fact, Lu Beigu already knew how much land Su Zhe owned before Su Zhe even answered.

Because Su Zhe's "Record of the Library" clearly states that "my late father did not manage property in his daily life. He had a plot of land and had no worries about food and clothing." "Plot" was a unit of land measurement in the Song Dynasty. Originally, it referred to the area of ​​residential land in the city. Later, it was extended to refer to a unit of farmland. Its area was usually equivalent to "qing".

In the Song Dynasty, 1 chan = 1 qing = 100 mu = 6000 square zhang.

The 100 mu of land belonging to the Su family in Meishan was not located in the suburbs, nor was it particularly fertile land. It was most likely land on hilly terraces, where rice, wheat, or cash crops such as ginger and taro were typically grown.

However, even a hundred acres of land, even if it's just terraced fields on hills, would be enough to sustain the basic livelihood of the gentry class. Otherwise, Su Xun wouldn't have had the means to travel the world when he was young.

"How much tax do you pay each year?" Lu Beigu asked again.

"The fields are all medium-sized fields. The summer tax is about 5 wen per mu, and the autumn tax is about 1 shi of rice, which is about 500 wen plus 100 shi of rice. There are also about 2000 wen in personal tax and miscellaneous taxes."

The Song Dynasty followed the Tang Dynasty's system and still used the Two-Tax System. However, the summer tax in the Song Dynasty was basically symbolic. The summer tax was usually paid in cash or in exchange for silk, cotton, or cloth, and very little was collected. The bulk of the tax revenue came from the autumn tax, which was mainly paid in kind, such as grain.

As for tax rates, they vary across different regions of the country and even within the same region depending on the fertility of the land, ranging from one in twenty-five to one in thirteen.

In addition to these, there are other miscellaneous taxes, some of which are reasonable and some are unreasonable.

For example, the "transfer tax" was relatively reasonable. Taxpayers were required to transport grain to a location designated by the government during the autumn tax season. If they did not wish to transport the grain themselves, they could pay this tax as payment for the transportation of the people sent by the government to transport the grain.

The "male poll tax" was a poll tax that males aged 20 to 60 had to pay annually, and in Sichuan it was 500 wen per male.

However, besides these relatively reasonable taxes, there were also many unreasonable ones, such as agricultural implements tax and cowhide tax. Although each tax was not much, the sheer number of them made it difficult to collect. These miscellaneous taxes might be okay for landlords, but they were a huge burden for ordinary people.

Afterwards, Lu Beigu asked the other six people.

The six families owned varying amounts of farmland, with the smallest owning only a dozen mu (approximately 0.67 hectares) and the largest owning over two hundred mu (approximately 67 hectares).

The reason why there are no families with several acres of land is that in the Song Dynasty, the imperial examination required resources. Families with only a few acres of land struggled to make ends meet, and it was almost impossible for them to support a child to attend a private school, then the county school, and finally the prefectural school to sit here.

The large landowner with more than 200 acres of land was Cheng Jianyong's family. Cheng Jianyong's father, Cheng Renba, was once a judge in Meishan, and his uncle, Cheng Jun, was an assistant judge in the Court of Judicial Review. That's why they were able to accumulate such a large fortune.

"The policy of not suppressing land annexation was a national policy, and there was no major upheaval that led to the abandonment of land. The imperial court did not control a large amount of land, so the equal-field system implemented from the Northern Wei to the Sui and Tang dynasties had no basis for implementation. The imperial court also did not have the money to buy back land. Forcibly implementing it would inevitably lead to rebellion throughout the country, right?"

"Correct."

Su Zhe nodded and said, "The reason why the imperial court maintains a million imperial guards is to absorb displaced people. It is impossible for them to go against the tide and implement the equal land system. It is completely unrealistic."

"Based on historical experience, it seems that there is only one option left: to balance the impact of the conflict between people and land through the tax system. There are two specific implementation methods. The first is to conduct a land survey to balance the land tax burden and eliminate the phenomenon of 'hidden land'. Do you think this is acceptable?"

Lu Guangyu was the first to say he could accept it, because although his father was the head of the household in Erlangtan, there were very few terraced fields in the valley, so even as the head of the household, his family only had a dozen or so mu of land that were not contiguous, so it was not really "hidden land". Huang Jingji did not mind either. His family was an ordinary urban family in Hejiang County. They ran a small business and did not own any farmland.

The remaining few people looked at each other in bewilderment.

Now it's time for the "I really have a cow" segment.

If you're the head of the household, the answer is naturally that you can't accept either of them. After all, the phenomenon of "hidden land" is too common in the Song Dynasty. It's always a good thing to save some money for the family. As for the imperial finances and the conflict between people and land, what does that have to do with me?
However, they were all ambitious young people. After thinking it over, they felt that "hidden land" did not comply with the laws of the Song Dynasty and violated their sense of justice. Moreover, even if their families had "hidden land," it was not much. Although the land tax they would have to pay would be more after the investigation, it would not be so much as to be painful.

Therefore, they all ultimately expressed their support for the method of investigating Hidden Field.

"What about the second method, the tiered land tax? For example, it could be set at 'one-twenty-five tax' for land less than ten mu, 'one-twenty tax' for land between ten and fifty mu, and 'one-fifteen tax' for land between fifty and one hundred mu. This method is the best at balancing the conflict between people and land. The more land a person has, the more they pay. The more they pay, the less willing they will be to buy more land."

"I don't think that's fair," Cheng Jianyong said, somewhat indignantly. "The Song Dynasty never suppressed land annexation. The large amount of land we own is the result of our ancestors' hard work. Why should we have to pay more taxes just because we own more land?"

“It’s unrealistic, it can’t be done,” Su Zhe added.

As for the few people who didn't own much land, their attitude was completely opposite; they expressed strong support because this would reduce their land tax payments.

"Yes, the second method, the terraced field tax, is indeed unrealistic. There are plenty of large landowners across the country with thousands of acres of land, each with money and power. Whoever proposes this method will be drowned in spittle."

"But do you really think that the first method, which involves surveying and investigating 'hidden land,' can be successfully implemented?"

Su Zhe thought about it carefully for a moment, then hesitated and said, "It should be... possible to implement, right?"

Lu Beigu smiled but didn't say anything.

The first method, which will soon be implemented by Bao Zheng, Sun Lin, and Guo Zi in a few years, is called the "Thousand-Step Square Field Method." Its original intention is to solve the problem of uneven tax burden caused by "hidden fields." This phenomenon actually existed as early as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, but it is now more serious. Large landowners have hidden fields to evade taxes, which has led to the tax burden being placed on small and medium-sized landowners and farmers.

After that, there were several trials to promote this method, but it was abandoned several times. It was not until the Xining Reform that it reappeared in the world under the name of "Fangtian Junshui Fa" (square field equal tax law). The court sent people to investigate and measure the cultivated land in various prefectures and counties. Each square was divided into four sections, each with a length of one thousand steps. The amount of land owned by each household was determined. Then, land registers and various books were compiled according to the terrain, soil quality and other conditions, and the tax amount per mu of each grade of land was determined.

However, this measure, which seemed highly feasible, could alleviate the actual burden on the people, and did not truly affect the interests of the majority, could only be implemented in a few areas due to strong opposition from local landlords and powerful families, and was completely abolished a few years later.

“In the Song Dynasty, any reform measures targeting land will encounter unprecedented resistance.”

Lu Beigu said, "Moreover, even if the first method is forcibly implemented, it will only slightly delay the outbreak of the conflict between people and land. Fundamentally, it will not help the problem."

There is indeed a way to get out of the predicament without causing too much chaos, just as Lu Beigu said before. "It is difficult, but not to mention the terraced field tax, even investigating hidden fields seems difficult to implement."

"So, is there really no other way?"

This question arose in the minds of several young people.

(End of this chapter)