Chapter 956 - Corvée Silver

The Qiongshan County Grain Levy Bureau was established in the northwest corner of the Qiongzhou Prefecture yamen within the county seat. This had originally been the Qiongzhou Tax Collection Office. Though Cheng Dong couldn't organize a complete tax bureau staff for every county, the structure, systems, and regulations for the tax bureau had long been established. Qiongshan County simply had to follow suit.

The original main hall had been converted into a tax collection lobby. Newly constructed wooden counters had been installed. Part of the tile roof had been opened up to install skylights, and long windows had been cut into the walls to provide sufficient lighting. This served a dual purpose: adequate illumination to save candles and lamp oil, and—according to psychologist Jiang Qiuyan's theory—brightness enhanced people's sense of shame; dark environments made it easier to commit misdeeds with a clear conscience.

File cabinets and drawers had been installed along the walls, and several clerks were busy pasting labels. Tax collection was organized by administrative district, using the "du" as the basic unit, with plans to switch to town-based units in the future.

Liu Xiang walked around the tax bureau, observing a pair of large lanterns being hung at the main entrance—old fixtures from the yamen, now cleaned and re-papered. One read "Qiongshan County Grain Levy Bureau," the other displayed a single enormous character: "TAX." Quite imposing.

Large quantities of blank tax certificates, ledgers, and official stationery printed at Lingao's printing factory were stacked in crates in a locked side hall. Chen Ce, the Elder dispatched from Lingao as Tax Special Envoy, was teaching a class to newly recruited local tax collectors. Elder Chen's primary mission in Qiongshan was to establish the Delong Qiongshan Branch; his secondary mission was to assist in establishing the Qiongshan Tax Bureau while overseeing this summer's tax collection.

When Chen Ce finished his class and returned to his office, Liu Xiang discussed his idea of collecting corvée silver from the major landowners.

"This corvée silver is quite substantial. In the past, many gentry and major landowners either didn't pay or underpaid. After a disaster, there's absolutely no reason to burden the common people again. So this time I plan to apportion all this corvée silver to their heads."

Chen Ce nodded: "I agree with that. But under what pretext?"

Liu Xiang was puzzled: "What pretext? We're the government. Since when does the government need a pretext to collect taxes?"

"Raising electricity and water rates at least flies an environmental flag. You're just blatantly extracting money from the people without even a pretext?" Chen Ce laughed. "A pretext is still needed. Otherwise people will ask: why should something that everyone used to pay now be paid only by the major landowners? Isn't that bullying?"

Liu Xiang said: "But in the past, the gentry and major landowners paid very little or nothing at all. What pretext did they have? Isn't that also bullying?"

"That's different." Chen Ce shook his head. "Your concepts of 'rule of law' and 'governance according to law' still need strengthening..." He explained that although the gentry and major landowners had previously paid little or nothing, there were always certain justifications. Those with scholarly degrees were entitled by convention to exemptions from a certain amount of corvée. Some major landowners without degrees owned much land but had few household members, so under the Ming system their corvée burden was naturally light. And in actual implementation, there were many other tricks.

"Now that you want to 'eat the big households' and exempt the poor, you need to produce new regulations. That way people will feel there's law to follow, rather than thinking your word is law."

"This complicated?" Liu Xiang wondered if this fellow was from the Jurisprudence Club—talking about rule of law and all that.

Chen Ce smiled and began presenting his progressive taxation scheme.

Progressive taxation wasn't unfamiliar to the Elders, since nearly everyone had paid income tax, which was progressive. The basic concept was: the more you earn, the more you pay.

"By using progressive tiered rates, you can legitimately shift the burden onto the major landowners and gentry. If the old preferential treatment of scholars was the Ming system, then progressive taxation is the Senate's system. They can hardly claim not to understand this principle."

According to Chen Ce's thinking: the current accounts for collecting corvée silver in each county were a complete mess with no traceable basis. But each county's land situation had become quite clear after the land surveys, so corvée silver and miscellaneous taxes could all be calculated based on land holdings.

"Right now, the clearest local data we have is actually each county's acreage and household registrations. Collecting summer tax based on these is the safest approach—no one can object. Moreover, next year's new tax system has a smooth transition planned." Chen Ce said. "Everyone will accept it—after all, we're considering the interests of the majority. The common people aren't fools; they know who treats them well."

"Makes sense, makes sense." Liu Xiang nodded repeatedly. "But land varies in quality—more land doesn't necessarily mean more income..."

"Isn't soil quality specifically recorded in the registration books?" Chen Ce was confident. "To simplify, we can calculate based on actual annual yield."

Finally, according to Chen Ce's design, Qiongshan County's summer tax would be collected based on acreage. First, the new land registry would be used to calculate the county's average yield per mu. All land within ten percent above or below this average would be counted as "standard mu," and land quantities in tax calculations would be based on "standard mu." Land exceeding or falling short of this range would be converted to standard mu using specific formulas.

"Isn't this what we're doing 'apportioning corvée into land'?" Liu Xiang suddenly asked after seeing the specific proposal.

"Exactly right—we're implementing 'apportioning corvée into land.' Of course, the method differs somewhat from the old timeline's." Chen Ce laughed. "You see, everything we're doing today can be included in middle school history textbooks in the future. No need to give the Fourth Prince the credit."

The specific collection unit was the "household." All landless households or households with no more than 20 standard mu were completely exempt from corvée silver. Those exceeding 20 standard mu were divided into 13 tiers, with higher proportions paid by those owning more standard mu.

Chen Ce also formulated a series of exemption policies. Those serving in the military, holding public positions, or suffering work-related injury or death were entitled to collection exemptions by precedent. Additionally, those enrolled in Tiandihui services or sending children to study in Lingao also received certain exemptions.

"If you want, you could even give some reductions to Ming gentry and scholars..."

"Even the Fourth Prince wouldn't do that back then—we certainly won't either." Liu Xiang shook his head repeatedly. "The whole point is to get silver from their heads. What's the fun if we give exemptions?"

"You—go calculate immediately. Based on this rate table, what's the average burden per household? And what's the total collection amount?" Chen Ce instructed one of the clerks he'd brought. "Tell them they don't need to be too precise—just get the approximate figures first."

The clerk left immediately. Moments later, abacuses in the secondary hall began clattering like rainfall. A dozen expert abacus operators had gathered there—the abacus squad from the Finance Supervisory Department's Calculation Division that Chen Ce had brought from Lingao, all former clerks and minor officials from the household offices of prefectures and counties. Though each had a belly full of cunning schemes and crooked tricks, their abacus skills were impressive. Cheng Dong had concentrated this entire group into an abacus squad specifically responsible for running calculations on assigned topics at the Finance Supervisory Department. Initially some had been dishonest—some secretly selling data, others throwing their weight around outside. But after one was hanged and several were sentenced to indefinite hard labor at the Nanbao and Sanya mines, the abacus squad became not only professionally skilled but "politically reliable" as well.

As for other miscellaneous taxes, Chen Ce felt they could wait. Fishing taxes were already being collected daily—the county shouldn't duplicate collection. Salt was already under the monopoly system, so there was no need to tax it again at the consumption stage. Commercial taxes, however, had some potential.

"...Our current goal is to stimulate industrial and commercial development. We can appropriately reduce commercial taxes," Liu Xiang said. "The original industrial and commercial tax revenue was minimal anyway—might as well not collect it."

"Since it's minimal, it's still better to continue collecting." Chen Ce said. "Don't let merchants and traders think not paying taxes is a given. Otherwise there'll be major pushback when we try to collect later."

"Fine. Fortunately the burden on merchants isn't heavy."

"Not just 'not heavy'—that tax rate is practically no burden at all." Chen Ce said. "Merchants are basically tax-exempt... The Great Ming's tax apparatus is quite the tea table—its extraction efficiency is among the most backward in the civilized world."

In the same period, Japan's kokudaka reached 22 million koku. Under the personal supervision of the Wanli Emperor—supposedly the "greediest" emperor—the Great Ming managed only 20 million taels of silver annually. Even at contemporary rice prices, this revenue was worth only about 50 million shi. And even this generated endless complaints and corpses littering the roads from starvation. The administrative apparatus's execution capability was evidently quite poor.

Liu Xiang shook his head: "Your view is too absolute. The formal burden on merchants from the Ming government wasn't heavy, but the actual burden wasn't small: sometimes forced purchases for the government, sometimes apportioned levies. It's just that most of this wealth ended up in individual officials' pockets."

"But now Ming officials can't extort them anymore, can they?" Chen Ce said. "So we should all the more perfect our system. As long as the total burden decreases and taxes are paid clearly and transparently, merchants will welcome it."

Chen Ce knew that commercial taxes—with their many categories and many being indirect circulation taxes—were relatively low-pressure to collect and represented a major revenue source for increasing tax income. The recent financial mini-conference at Wudaokou had discussed this issue extensively. Contract taxes, slaughter taxes, and business taxes were all being prepared for collection.

"We can discuss that later." Liu Xiang cut him off. "Right now I need to first cultivate Qiongshan's commerce and industry. Qiongshan isn't as commercially prosperous as Lingao. Got to raise the fish first."

(End of Chapter)