In the first month of the first year of Yongtai (765), the emperor of the Tang Dynasty expressed his remorse, expressed his sincerity to the people, and put forward a specific strategy for governing the country in the "Amnesty of Yongtai in the Yuan Dynasty".
This move by the Tang Dynasty Sect was to solve various historical problems faced and consolidate the rule of the Li Tang Dynasty. For the emperor, the ability to accept dissenting opinions was a measure of his wisdom.
Accepting opinions means listening to a wide range of voices and choosing the best solution to achieve the goal.
After the victory of quelling the rebellion and Yubian, the Tang Dynasty Emperor realized the corruption of the political program and began to reform, issuing the "Edict of Seeking Words" to seek advice, and distinguish between good and evil, and choose the good and follow.
He is a wise man who can accept advice. Although after the victory of the counterinsurgency, the extravagance of the civil and military ** and the eunuchs intensified, which led to the relaxation of the political program of the court and even triggered a peasant uprising.
However, the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty always kept a clear head, and in order to consolidate Li Tang's country, he successively issued a series of edicts, including the "Edict on the Prohibition of Weaving and Obscenity", "The Edict on the Funeral Rite of the Covenant", "The Edict on the Annexation of Rich Households", "The Edict on Compassion for the People", "The System of Giving Loans to the People", "The System of Stopping Miscellaneous Taxes", "The Edict on Reducing the Taxes in the Autumn of the Next Year", "The Edict on Reducing the Summer Tax in the Next Year" and the "Edict on Reducing Rent and Tax".
These edicts were aimed at eliminating luxury, reducing rents, comforting the people, alleviating social contradictions, and seeking peace in chaos. In November of the first year of the Great Calendar (766), Daizong ordered the reduction of taxes for the people of Jingzhaofu and exempted the people who returned to work and engaged in agriculture for three years.
At the same time, in March of the fourth year of the Great Calendar (769), he issued an edict proposing measures to streamline the number of officials and reduce the burden on the people in view of the large number of officials among the people, and sent the imperial historian to collect taxes from merchants and reduce the taxes paid by Jingzhao Prefecture that year.
These measures show that Tang Dynasty Sect is a Ming monarch who can truly think about the people.
In April of the sixth year of the Great Calendar (771), Daijong issued an edict prohibiting extravagance. He asked the officials and the people not to pursue the colorful and strange characters of Ayamian, and strictly forbidden to use precious silk fabrics such as large and thin cotton, exhaustive chisel, Liupo brocade, Wen yarn, Wu Aya, etc., to make dragons, phoenixes, unicorns, lions, heavenly horses, evil spirits, peacocks, cranes, sesame grass, 10,000 characters, double wins, through the back and other patterns.
This was mainly to limit the extravagance of officials and wealthy families at all levels. However, in May of the seventh year of the Great Calendar (772), due to a severe drought, Daizong decided to lower his dietary standards and ordered a two-thirds reduction of rent and Yong in the Huainan area.
He knew that after the Anshi Rebellion, the Li Tang Dynasty had been greatly damaged and had a serious financial crisis. Therefore, it has become an urgent task to rectify the Jianghuai Cao Yun and improve financial management measures.
The Tang Dynasty's Jingshi Chang'an was located in the northwest of Guanzhong, and the grain and materials produced in the Guanzhong Plain could not meet the consumption needs of the officials and citizens of the Beijing division and the huge garrison. Every year, it is necessary to transfer about 1 million stone of grain and various property from the eight southeastern roads into the Yellow River through the Yangtze River and the Huai River, and then transfer it to Weishui to reach Chang'an.
However, during the Anshi Rebellion, Luoyang was occupied by rebels, and this transportation route was completely cut off. After the Anshi Rebellion was pacified, in order to restore the Jianghuai Cao Yun and ensure the needs of the imperial court and the border garrison, Daizong handed over the burden to the famous financial planner Liu Yan.
Liu Yan, Zi Shi'an, a native of Caozhou South Chinese, is known for his outstanding financial management talents. He has served as the Xia County Order, the palace in the imperial history, the Duzhi Langzhong, Hangzhou, Long, Hua Sanzhou Thorn History, Henan Yin and other positions, each of which has good political achievements, and the people carved stones to praise their virtues.
Liu Yan once served as Jing Zhaoyin, and at the same time, he served as a household servant and a servant of the imperial history, and a messenger of money and salt and iron in the degree branch. He is good at financial management, can cultivate young financial experts, and cultivates a group of talents who can handle financial endowments.
After Daizong ascended the throne, he reused Liu Yan and other financial planners to improve Cao Yun, so that the Tang dynasty could continue for 150 years. After Liu Yan was appointed as a transit envoy to Henan and Jianghuai, he took the reform of the Jiangzhun Cao Yun as his own responsibility, personally led experts to go deep along the Jianghuai River, summed up the experience of controlling the Cao Yun, and opened up new ways to enable the Jianghuai Cao Yun to proceed smoothly.
Through on-the-spot exploration and investigation, Liu Yan put forward a specific plan for the control of Cao Yun. He believed that this measure would be of great benefit to the people of the Sanqin region, the officers and men of the Sixth Army, and the ethnic minorities, as it could promote the development of commerce along the route, attract the return of the hungry people who had been lost, and benefit the economic development of the imperial court and the common people.
Emperor Daizong agreed with Liu Yan's suggestion and gave him full responsibility for handling it. Liu Yan organized the people to dredge the Bianshui River to make the water transportation unimpeded; organized soldiers to protect and ensure the safety of Cao Yun; Ten shipyards were set up in Yangzi to manufacture sturdy boats that were suitable for the flow of various rivers; He changed the old practice of wealthy households supervising the transportation of water to official transportation, and used salt to hire shipwrights and sailors, changing the practice of serving the people along the way.
In view of the different hydraulic power of the rivers, Bian, He, and Weizhu, Liu Yan formulated a strategy of sectional transportation. Ten ships were transported as a single unit, and the generals were in charge of the ten transportations, and they were rewarded for their merits and promoted to official positions.
Segmented transportation not only saves effort, but also ensures safety, and the ship can also be transported for short distances. Liu Yan's method of improving the transportation of Jianghuai was very effective. Since then, a large number of grain and goods from the Jianghuai region have been continuously transported to Chang'an through the canal, which can transport hundreds of thousands of stones every year, and at most can reach 1.1 million stones, without any loss.
As a result, the price of rice in Kyoto has also dropped. Emperor Daizong was very pleased with the arrival of the grain convoy, and sent guards to meet him at the Dongwei Bridge, and sent a special envoy to express his condolences to Liu Yan, praising his contribution to the rank of Xiao He, a good minister of the Han Dynasty.
Liu Yan also carried out reforms on the salt administration. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, there was no salt tax. After the Anshi Rebellion, the lack of finance and the implementation of the salt monopoly led to a significant increase in the price of salt, and each bucket of salt was increased from ten to one hundred and ten wen.
The poor could not afford to buy salt, so they forcibly apportioned it, causing the people to live in poverty. After Liu Yan served as envoys to Dugi, Henan, Huainan, Jiangnan, Hunan, Jingnan, and Shannan Dongdao, Changping, Minqian, and Yantie, he carried out major reforms in salt administration.
He first streamlined the salt affairs agency, merged the "supervision institutes", and set up 13 inspection institutes across the country, which were responsible for managing the sale of salt. Secondly, he adjusted the salt monopoly system, changing the original official transportation and official sales to the unified purchase of salt by the imperial court, and was not allowed to sell to merchants without permission.
Merchants need to pay the salt and salt tax to the government before they can freely transport and sell it. This reform greatly reduced the burden on the people and promoted the development of the salt industry.
Liu Yan presided over the reform of salt administration, which effectively stabilized the price of salt and greatly increased the salt income, which became a major source of revenue for the Tang Dynasty. At the same time, he also popularized the "Ordinary Law" and the "Equalization Law", which ensured the people's livelihood and promoted social and economic development by regulating prices and distributing materials.
Liu Yan believes that financial management should give priority to supporting the people, and pay attention to the increase in population and the development of agricultural production. His financial theory and practical experience have provided important references for future generations.
Faced with the social crisis caused by the war, Daizong had to reform the tax system. "Mass production is taxed"with"Taxes are determined by acreage"It became a new method of collecting land taxes, and at the same time, it also increased the number of taxes paid by households.
* Aware of the importance of household tax and local tax, we decided to expand their share of fiscal revenue. The household tax is divided into nine levels according to assets, and the tax rate has also been adjusted accordingly.
In addition, the tax rate has also been increased for people who have business establishments such as residences and shops. There are also clear tax regulations for outgoing officials and depositors. These reforms have greatly increased household tax revenues and solved the fiscal crisis.
At the same time as the household tax and reform, Daizong also adjusted the land tax. The land tax was originally the Yicang tax in the early Tang Dynasty, but after Tang Zhongzong, the country's finances were tight, and the Yicang was no longer used to save the famine, but to make up for the lack of ** finance, so the Yicang tax became a formal national tax and was officially renamed the local tax.
During the Xuanzong period, the country's righteous storage of grain has reached more than 63 million stones, which is one-third more than the main storage of grain, which shows that the land tax occupies an important position in the total income.
The standard of two liters per mu of land tax was maintained until the first year of Daizong Guangde, and then it continued to increase, and two levies a year began. According to the records of the "Yuangui of the Book of Books, the Ministry of State Planning, and the Tax Gate", in March of the fifth year of the Great Calendar, the common people tax (referring to the land tax), the summer tax, the tax per mu of the upper field is six liters, and the tax per mu of the lower field is four liters; Autumn tax, five liters per mu tax on the field, and three liters per mu tax on the lower field.
Wasteland is opened to tenant land, and the tax per mu is two liters. It can be seen that with the increase of land tax, the economic income of the Daizong Dynasty also increased a lot. The increase in household tax and land tax in the Daizong Dynasty and the decrease in the income from rent adjustment reflect that the expansion of the ranks of displaced people, tenants, and hired peasants with the development of land annexation has reached the end of history.
Therefore, these tax reforms of Daizong gradually touched on major changes in the tax system.
In historical records, during his tenure in West Zhejiang Province, the court official Li Qiyun implemented a fixed tax policy. Jingzhao Prefecture also established a tax on acres of land and divided the national tax into nine classes.
These reforms were first experimented with in areas with more severe economic and political crises, and then gradually rolled out throughout the country. Liu Yan has been in charge of financial management for more than ten years, and his financial management measures have achieved remarkable results.
However, after the death of his supporter Daizong, he was framed and executed by Yang Yan, causing public outrage in the world. This shows that Daizong was able to discover and reuse Liu Yan, a financial management expert, showing his way of governing the country and the people and his ability to become an emperor as a ruler of chaos.