[Chapter 2081 Taxation]
To put it bluntly, Zhizhou is the deputy of the prefect, and it can also be said to be the successor of the prefect, so he can control everything, or he can’t control anything, which mainly depends on the attitude of the prefect.
Perhaps because Song Yan avenged Su Bingwen’s revenge, the other party’s attitude toward him became more and more intimate, but he still couldn’t change the old problem. First, he dragged Song Yan to chat about the article for an hour before talking about the business.
It can be seen that Su Bingwen does not have much nostalgia for power. If he were replaced by other prefects, he would probably hang up his prefect as an idle post, but Su Bingwen actually handed over all the affairs of Liangzhou prefecture to him. on hand.
This made Song Yan a little speechless, and a little bit dumbfounded.
Qian and Quan are naturally the most attractive, but Su Bingwen is neither greedy for power nor likes money, no wonder he will be excluded and assigned to this frontier land.
After gaining power, Song Yan did not summon the officials in the yamen, but first found some books related to Liangzhou to read.
He read books very fast, but in half a day, he read all the relevant books in Liangzhou.
Liangzhou Prefecture has jurisdiction over three counties, one medium and two low.
The middle counties are called Xifeng counties, and the lower counties are called Longshan counties and Fengyuan counties.
Xifeng County has a population of about 110,000 people, Longshan County has a population of just over 50,000 people, and Fengyuan County has a population of just over 30,000 people.
Therefore, the population of the entire Liangzhou Prefecture is less than one million, only more than 600,000.
Liangzhou Prefecture is a border city, bordering the Black Eagle, Red Wolf and Huhuo people respectively.
Among the three alien races, the Black Eagles are the strongest, with a population of more than three million, followed by the Red Wolves, with a population of more than two million, and the Huhuo Clan at the end with a population of over one million.
Among the three barbarians, the red wolf clan is the most aggressive, and often comes to Liangzhou to plunder. The black eagle clan also cultivates their own crops, so they are not very aggressive, but they have to send troops every year.
On the other hand, the Huhuo Clan lived in the forest, and they were extremely good at taming beasts, often driving beast soldiers to fight. Therefore, even the Red Wolf Clan and Black Eagle Clan did not dare to provoke them at will.
The Huhuo clan rarely attacked them. Only three years ago, a profiteer bullied the Huhuo clan. As a result, the other party led the beast soldiers to siege the city. In the end, Su Bingwen sent someone to arrest the profiteer and hand it over to the Huhuo clan. only to quell their anger.
Therefore, among the three clans, the Red Wolf clan was the most threatening to Liangzhou Prefecture, followed by the Black Eagle clan, and the Huhuo clan was hardly threatening.
Before you know it, a few days have passed.
These days, Song Yan has successively summoned the officials of the government office, large and small, and learned about this year’s taxation and the state of the government treasury.
To Song Yan’s surprise, more than 60% of this year’s tax revenue has not been collected. As for the treasury, it is almost empty, and almost all rats can run away. Simply put, the execution of Liangzhou Prefecture is poor, and it is still very poor.
As far as he knew, the officials of the government office had not been paid for more than half a year.
I have to say that Su Bingwen is too stupid to be an official, but think about it, if you change to any prefect, it is impossible to give you all the rights to a new prefect, and only Su Bingwen can do it.
Because they didn’t get a salary, all the officials in the yamen seemed powerless.
It’s just that before Song Yan could sort out these matters, Xu Xing sent his deputy general to the yamen to ask Song Yan for military expenses.
good.
The military expenditure of the military town needs to be borne by the prefect yamen. In addition to food and grass, 15,000 taels of silver should be given every year.
But today’s yamen can’t even pay their own officials’ salaries, so where is the money for the military.
“Sir Song, if you don’t pay for the military, you won’t leave if you’re an official!” Wu Jingwei said that if you don’t give me money, I won’t leave.
“It doesn’t matter, although the prefect’s yamen is poor, you can still get a few meals!”
Song Yan said lightly.
“you!”
Wu Jingwei was enraged.
“Come on, invite Vice General Wu to the wing room to serve tea, and this officer still has to work!”,
Two yamen came in: “General Wu, please!”
“Sir Song thinks you are amazing, the lower official will leave today, and come back another day!” Wu Jingwei left with a depressed sentence and left.
Subsequently.
Song Yan sorted out the tax ledger and found a lot of old and old taxes, and there were dozens of large taxpayers who owed more than 200,000 catties of grain and 30,000 taels of tax silver.
As for the tax grain owed by ordinary people, it is only tens of thousands of catties, and the tax silver is only five or six thousand taels.
In addition, the three county towns have not paid official taxes for many years, and owed more than 400,000 catties of official grain and more than 60,000 taels of official silver.
“Hey!”
Song Yan sighed again, Su Bingwen is too stupid to be an official, no wonder the government office is so dilapidated, it’s probably not that he doesn’t want to repair it, but that he can’t get the money to repair it.
So Song Yan summoned officials to understand the situation of these dozens of large taxpayers.
Only then did they know that these large taxpayers were all landowners in Liangzhou, and each had built a fort, and the fort also kept private soldiers.
With less than a hundred yamen servants in the government office, there is no way to help those guys.
As for the tax collectors, they even went to the gate of the fort and couldn’t get in, and they charged a shit tax.
In fact, Su Bingwen could have asked Xu Xing for help, but the relationship between the two was rather rigid. Therefore, after so many years, if these big households were allowed to evade and evade taxes, the prefect yamen could not help them.
Today’s prefect yamen is already unable to make ends meet. If these taxes cannot be collected, the entire yamen will not be able to operate.
Therefore, the most important thing at present is to collect the taxes of those big households.
As long as the big households are willing to pay taxes, there is no reason for those ordinary people not to pay.
“Is there any way for you to recover the taxes of these big households?”
Song Yan looked at the dozens of officials and asked.
As soon as he finished speaking, these officials began to vomit bitterly.
Some say that it is impossible to enter the door at all;
Some also said that they were beaten back halfway;
Some people said that the other party not only refused to open the door, but also shouted insults at them.
After they all finished speaking, Song Yan continued: “Everyone knows what’s going on in the yamen, if this tax can’t be collected, I’m afraid everyone’s salaries won’t be released. Therefore, this official has a proposal here, each of you can collect taxes from those big households, no matter who receives the tax grain or tax silver, you can take 1%, so that you can live A fat year.”
Hearing this, the officials present were all shocked, and immediately, some people began to move their minds.
If they can receive 10,000 catties of grain, they will have 100 catties. If they can receive 1,000 taels of silver, they can also get 10 taels.
But soon, they put out the idea, how can the tax of those sitting tigers be so easy to collect.
Don’t say give them a 1% commission, even if they can’t do it by 10%, they started to complain again.
Some people even clamored for Song Yan to pay his salary, claiming that the family couldn’t open the pot.
Seeing the attitude of these officials, Song Yan was secretly disappointed, and he really had no talent at all.
