As a person who likes history, besides reading literature, martial arts, internal affairs and diplomacy, he is most concerned about whether the country is good to the people. Apart from troubled times, what does a person's life depend on? Then there is no doubt that the tax system of this dynasty. So today, let's learn about the tax system in the Tang Dynasty and see how much tax farmers in the Tang Dynasty have to pay a year.

General rent system: the rich can be very rich, but the poor can't be too poor.

In middle school history class, we learned that the land tax system in the Tang Dynasty was called "tenancy system".

What's the rental fee?

Suppose you are a male, born in the early Tang Dynasty. At the age of 18, the state will give you 100 mu of land.

/kloc-Of the 0/00 mu of land, 20 mu is called eternal land, which can be passed on to future generations, equivalent to your family's private property. Another 80 acres of land, called Kubenden, will be returned to this country after the age of 60, which is equivalent to renting it to you, but you have to pay taxes.

How much tax do you pay? Every year, 2 stones of millet are turned over to the state, which is converted into the current unit of measurement, about 200 kilograms of millet.

This tax burden can be said to be very light. The proportion of income to be paid is 40% tax, that is, 40 kg of harvest, 1 kg tax. The tax rate in Han Dynasty was 30. 1%, which has been greatly reduced.

The land allocated to farmers in this country is called "rent".

You can calculate in your mind, if you have 100 mu of land, what is the concept? A small landlord with a firm stand.

Although 80 mu of land will be nationalized, 20 mu of permanent farmland has been privately owned by three generations of your family.

But please note that you can't buy and sell your business at will. Unless it is a special case: the deceased is homeless, can be buried, and eternal farmland can be sold.

It seems that it is not free, but it is actually a good thing. Not selling land without permission can prevent the land from being merged and the black sheep from going bankrupt.

Why did you give so many fields to the people in the early Tang Dynasty?

This is actually a continuation of the "land equalization system" in the Northern Wei Dynasty. During the Northern Wei Dynasty, many wars broke out in the north and people were displaced. As a result, a large number of fields have been abandoned, and the national tax revenue has also decreased, making it impossible to make ends meet. In order to change this situation, the Northern Wei government controlled the land and distributed it to farmers, who paid taxes to the state and undertook certain military service and corvee.

When the Tang Dynasty was founded, the situation was similar.

After the Sui War, Li Tang unified the whole country, and people's livelihood was depressed, with a population of less than 3 million, two-thirds less than the 9 million at the peak of the Sui Dynasty.

The population has plummeted and most of the land is barren. Therefore, the Tang dynasty continued to implement the "land equalization system", divided the land among the people, reduced taxes, quickly resumed production, and enhanced national strength.

What is mediocrity?

Harmony is the corvee and the people's voluntary labor to the country.

There are always many public works in a country, from the construction of national defense facilities such as the Great Wall to the construction of roads, canals and, of course, palaces and yamen.

There were no full-time workers at that time, and people had to serve them. Every dynasty is like this.

So, if you are a farmer in the Tang Dynasty, how many days do you serve a year? No, more than 20 days. If there is a leap month year, add two days. Compared with 30 days in the Han Dynasty, it greatly lightens your burden.

There are fewer projects in this country this year. What should I do if I don't need services? Then you need to pay 3 feet of silk, or 3 feet 7 inches 5 cents of cloth for 20 days. There is a term in history for this, which is called "fighting for the common people".

On the contrary, if there are many government projects this year, will you be asked to provide more services besides 20 days of voluntary labor? Don't worry, I won't let you suffer. In another 25 days, the "transfer tuition fee" at home will not be paid. After 30 days of extra service, your family will be exempt from paying rent and clothes.

The government stipulates that extra labor should not exceed 30 days a year.

What is slaughter?

The men in the family farm in the fields, and the women raise silkworms and weave at home.

Then, should our female compatriots also make some contributions to the country?

It is very important to contribute to the country.

Every family has to pay twenty cubits of silk, three or two pieces of cotton or two cubits of cloth, and three pounds of marijuana, which is called "Diao".

Comparison of tax system between Han and Tang dynasties

This paper introduces the tax system in Han and Tang Dynasties.

In the Han Dynasty, Wen Jing's rule was also a typical example of light taxes and heavy taxes. Emperor Wendi even created a history: 167 years ago, he promulgated the imperial edict of "abolishing land tax" and exempting the national land rent.

However, land in the Han Dynasty can be bought and sold freely. Therefore, land annexation became more and more serious in the later period. The gentry's manor has 10 thousand mu, and the poor are a cone of land, so they can only rent the landlord's land to farm. At most, the landlord is charged five tenths of the rent, but only one thirtieth is paid to the state.

As a result, both the rich peasants and the poor peasants suffered.

Except for fields, industries such as salt and iron are run by private businessmen.

However, by the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the country often fought against foreign countries, and the military expenditure soared, making the national treasury unable to make ends meet. What should I do? Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty came up with a way: let businessmen donate money.

It's harder to get money from your own bag. Businessmen don't donate voluntarily.

In this case, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty withdrew his troops. Under the whole world, does this mean that I own all the land, mountains, rivers and oceans? I allow you to make salt and iron in the sea. The country needs it now, don't you want to contribute?

Well, natural resources are nationalized, private enterprises are closed, salt and iron are transformed into state-owned enterprises, and the income goes to the state treasury.

This "salt and iron policy" confuses people's economic development and prevents people from becoming too rich.

On the other hand, due to large-scale land annexation, the bottom people are very poor.

In contrast, the tenancy system in the Tang Dynasty enabled people to "land to the tiller". Ding Youtian, Ding Youjia, his wife and children are all hot kang heads, which is quite good.

In business, there were no restrictions in the early Tang Dynasty. Businessmen are relatively free and do not have to pay taxes. Of course, the price position is very low, and farmers and industry and commerce rank last.

In this way, the rich in the Tang Dynasty can be very rich, but the poor won't make you too poor.

However, I want to emphasize that the life of this ideal figure is limited to the early Tang Dynasty.

Why? Look down.

The collapse of rent-seeking

Any good system, with the development of society, will always have various problems, including rent and fairness.

First of all, there is not enough land.

There were huge defects in the land distribution policy in the early Tang Dynasty.

In the early days, due to the small population and little land, the government had enough land to distribute to farmers.

But with the reunification and restoration of the country, the population will increase, and private permanent farmland will be passed down from generation to generation. So the land allocated will be reduced.

During the Zhenguan period, the population of the Tang Dynasty was only about 3 million. In the first year of Wu Zetian's rule, this figure doubled to 6 1.5 million. During the Tianbao period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, the population reached its peak, exceeding 9 million.

The population has tripled, but there is only so much land. Therefore, the new population cannot guarantee 100 mu of land.

But what is unreasonable is that rent and mediocrity are charged by quota.

In other words, although your family's land has decreased, the tax allocated to you has not decreased.

Who can stand this?

At the height of the conflict, some poor people at the bottom had to flee to avoid taxes.

Second, the privileged class that does not need to pay taxes began to annex land.

In every dynasty, there were some privileged classes who did not need to pay taxes.

There were two kinds of people in the Tang Dynasty, "classless" and "classless".

Class is just ordinary people. Sorry, in a country, it costs money to buy food.

A classless family owns a large area of land. For example, if you are a nobleman with a title, or if you are an official with more than five titles, you can get five to one hundred hectares of permanent tenancy land. You are a soldier with meritorious military service, and you can be divided into 60 mu to 30 hectares of Nagano field according to your level. The point is, you don't have to pay taxes.

Except those nobles and officials who don't have t.

Some teachers try their best to gain fame and success. They become free teachers when they have a full-time job or become monks.

In addition, although land can't be bought and sold at will, some ordinary people at the bottom can't get along with it, so they have to transfer land property rights to non-class families privately, which is difficult for the government to manage.

Therefore, the historical problem of land annexation still existed in the Tang Dynasty.

Finally, the big problem of rent adjustment: accounting statistics.

The smooth implementation of rent and mediocre tone depends on strict accounts.

How much rent and adjustment fee you should charge your family is based on the registered permanent residence. In addition to household registration, there is also an "account book" for counting healthy men. According to this book, "mediocrity" or "corvee" is sent.

The rule of the Tang Dynasty is to keep accounts once a year and once every three years.

The accounts are divided into three parts, one for the county, one for the state and one for the family.

This job is not easy.

In such a big country, frequent investigation, registration, change and proofreading are very troublesome.

Even in modern society, with roads, cars, computers and communication equipment, a census is conducted every few years. In this case, there are still many black families.

Imagine that in ancient times, transportation was basically on foot, there were no motorcycles and cars, and there were few grass-roots civil servants. Most importantly, records basically depend on paper, but paper is expensive. There isn't much backing paper for you.

In this year's popular movie The Longest Day In Chang'an, do you still remember the plot of Bin Xu's papermaking?

Bin Xu sold his Yongye field just to make more advanced paper, because the original paper could not provide government documents. He believes that this is a major event related to the people's livelihood in the world.

Ladies and teachers, that's true. Why was the upper class monopolized by big families in Han and Tang Dynasties? Because if you are a poor child, you can't read-what kind of paper can you print?

Well, Bin Xu is a good comrade.

Anyway, under the difficult conditions of inconvenient transportation, insufficient personnel and insufficient paper, the initial employees can still do their duty and work conscientiously. How long will it take? Inevitably, problems will arise. For example, an old man in your village was 60 years old or died, and his name was not sold in time, and 80 mu of Kubendan was not recycled and redistributed in time. There are/kloc-children over 0/8 years old, but no one is registered and the land is not granted in time; There are two families far from the village. At first glance, the applicant found that I had nowhere to go. I can't go.

In short, there are too many factors that lead to missing accounts.

The above three main reasons have gradually led to the disintegration of land rent and the emergence of mediocre system.

The Anshi Rebellion broke out, the people were displaced again on a large scale, and the local chaos made tenancy and mediocrity impossible to be completely realized.

As a result, another tax system was born in the middle and late Tang Dynasty.

Two tax systems

During the period of Tang Dezong, Premier Yang Yan formulated a new economic policy: two tax systems.

To avoid confusion, I have summarized several key features:

First, the government will allocate the tax it wants to spend to the state.

In the past, taxes were levied at a fixed rate. Now things have changed. According to the expenditure of previous years, the government first formulates the budget for the next year, and then distributes the total budget to various regions.

To tell the truth, according to the original intention of the government, this is to "live within our means" and prevent unrestricted exploitation of ordinary people. However, once implemented in reality, there will be problems.

If the middle and early Tang Dynasty is good, the country is prosperous and the people are safe, the money spent by the government may not be too bad. However, in the middle and late period, the military region became independent, the imperial power was weakened, and there were even large and small uprisings. It's hard to say how much it will cost. Once the finance is tight, it is inevitable to levy additional tax. Another distribution can easily lead to extortion and people will suffer.

So some people want to know why emperors in the middle and late period, as well as some brave generals, can't accept leaders who don't listen to their commands. One of the main reasons is that there is no money and no war.

Second, the household registration is free to flow, and how much land there is, how much tax will be paid.

At this point, the official statement is: the family has no owner and no object, and the outlook on life is thin.

What do you mean? In short, you came to Sichuan from Shaanxi, and then settled in Sichuan, becoming a Sichuanese, whether you are a host or a guest.

That's good. After all, it is very difficult to transfer the registered permanent residence to other places now. There were two tax systems in the Tang Dynasty, which were free to flow.

But the disadvantage is that in those fertile and vast areas, the population is increasing and taxes are scattered, but there are few families.

In those poor areas, half of the people in the village may have moved away, but the local tax rate is still high. Once assessed, five families must bear the tax of ten families.

Who can stand it? Unable to resist, so the remaining five families may also be forced to flee.

The two tax systems also say that no one is in a remote place, and the rich and the poor are different.

In the past, no matter how much land your family had, no matter whether your family was rich or poor, your family paid a fixed tax.

It's different now. You will be taxed as much as possible.

On the other hand, the government no longer gives you land, and the land begins to merge freely. Whether you are a landlord or a poor peasant depends on your ability.

As a result, it returned to the old road of the Han Dynasty. Land annexation is becoming more and more serious. In addition, dignitaries will try their best to hide their land and property, thus reducing taxes.

This situation continued until the Qing Dynasty. Farmers can't own their own land and let landlords develop it.

I can't help but sigh: it is always the people who suffer.

Three, rent adjustment for once, twice a year.

As mentioned above, rent adjustment depends on strict account statistics and is divided into three items, which will inevitably bring trouble to implementation.

As soon as the two tax systems appear, they are directly merged into one, and then the money is collected directly. Summer and autumn series.

That's right. I will never accept your food and clothes again. I'll change it into money.

Well, the government has saved trouble, satisfied.

But people are not satisfied.

I used to pay 200 Jin of millet, but now you want me to pay 500 yuan. I will not only sell millet in the market, but also be cheated by profiteers. Originally, a catty of millet cost two yuan, but now the buyer colluded and only gave me a catty.

It's too difficult for me, but I have no choice but to sell it at a low price and donate the money to the country.

This is not the biggest problem of the two tax systems. The biggest problem is the original tax that combines rent and tax. It can be said that when the country needs services again, the government should spend money to hire people. However, the government has forgotten that people can still serve when there are corvees.

This is too much.

Wang Anshi's political reform in the Song Dynasty also demanded tax exemption, which was actually repeated expropriation in disguise. The reason why Sima Guang, an old teacher, opposes the political reform is that social wealth is certain, and if there are more countries, the people will be poor. The country is less and the people are rich.

The prosperity of a country or nation depends on the conscience of its rulers.