After Liu Bei decided on his attitude towards Cao Cao's reform, he took advantage of the twelfth lunar month of the fourth year of Zhangwu to pass his ideas through the formal court discussion process and form a government order.

The remaining time in the twelfth lunar month is almost enough to improve the legislative provisions, and then it can be promulgated throughout the world in the New Year.

Of course, when implementing these supplementary reforms involving land registration and suppressing land annexation, Liu Bei did not forget to check for omissions and make up for the shortcomings, and also learn from more advanced experience in this area.

I sorted out a draft of the land reform outline that "has not been implemented yet, but can be considered in the future." Who told Liu Bei that Li Su always had wonderful ideas and extraordinary vision for political design?

Therefore, the contents in this outline are not too rigorous and responsible. They are purely fantasies and inspirations, and they do not know that the conditions will be ripe for the year of the monkey and the month of the horse.

For example, since Liu Bei talked with Li Su that the ideal state of land tax policy is "tax with a mu".

If the time is ripe in the future, it is best to change the land tax to only be linked to the actual amount of land owned by the people, and the part of the current head tax in the head tax will be separated, and from then on, the head tax will only be levied (silk fabrics) and corvee.

So, how should we define the future land tax? Should we distinguish the upper and lower fields according to the quality of the land to fine-tune the theoretical tax per unit area be adjusted?

If the future dynasty lasts for a long time and the land annexation problem worsens again, and landless farmers become tenants again, should we introduce some legal provisions to protect tenants and limit the maximum rent collection ratio of landlords?

If such a clause is set, what if the population explosion and the population density is too high, the farmers frantically reel and voluntarily pay rent that is higher than the maximum tax limit that landlords can collect as stipulated by the court, what should the court handle?

These questions can be deduced first, and leave a draft for future use.

In addition, during the discussion of these issues, Li Su also happened to talk about some of his own experiences and experiences as a landlord. (In fact, it was the experience of the Zhen family as a landlord. Li Su's fiefdom and manor would not be managed by himself, so he would be managed by his concubine's family)

He thought to himself that the operation of his private estate was already relatively lenient to tenants and hired farmers, and these practices can be learned from them.

Finally, Li Su gave Liu Bei several big deduction experiences:

First of all, the government is willing to set the maximum land rent limit for landlords to rent farmers at appropriate times, which is beneficial.

Just like in recent years, there were almost all rent reductions and interest rates, and there was even a "37.5% rent reduction" reform across the strait, controlling the highest rental rate of landlords.

Li Su felt that in the empire era, it would be very kind to use the law to set the highest lease rate at four landlords and six peasants, which was 10% less than Cao Cao's current 550s.

If a landlord class violates this highest leasing rate in the future and is sued, the government can come forward to punish it. As long as most landlords are willing to abide by the law, this punishment will not cause chaos.

Moreover, in the end of Liu Bei and Li Su's life, this operation is probably not useful. Just leave a memorandum and inspire future generations in the future.

Because this situation will only occur at least a hundred years later. The war is about to end, and the population pressure is low, and it will not be inclined to the situation where farmers frantically seize the tenant rights.

At the same time, Li Su also inspired Liu Bei to figure out these truths by himself, that is, the government cannot adopt a one-size-fits-all approach and cannot expect macro-control to completely replace the natural adjustment of the market.

If it really comes to an era of extremely dense population, farmers must re-enter, and government laws stipulate that the upper limit of land rent is useless.

At that time, the landlords will only force them to use other comprehensive conditions to measure the land, and not to whom they rent the land.

To give a very simple example: if the government forces the landlord to suppress the landlord and can only charge 40% of the land rent, then he will rent at a price of 40%, and then look at other additional conditions that farmers can give.

At that time, maybe both farmers A and B are willing to rent 40% of the land, but farmers A are more clever and willing to be a bad guy. The landlord rents the land to A and lets B starve to death.

Of course, being smart and willing to be a bad guy is also a kind of skill. It is not unfair that farmers A survive because of their more abilities.

But I am afraid that the problem will continue to worsen. In the future, the landlord will consider "whose wife and daughter are more beautiful, and he is willing to sleep with me after paying 40% of the land rent" to decide who to rent to, and there is no lower limit.

Therefore, the government stipulates that the highest rent in the form of law must be provided with other administrative capabilities to ensure implementation.

If the supporting facilities are not sufficient, you must respect the market appropriately and open a two-way choice for the law.

On this issue, Li Su naturally thought of his family's experience and suggested that Liu Bei could divide land rent management into "basic farmland" and "economic crop agricultural land" in the future, and then treat it differently.

For basic farmlands that grow grain, the highest land rent stipulated by the government above is strictly implemented. Any landlord who dares to violate it will be dealt with directly.

At the same time, after distinguishing between basic farmland and cash crop fields, the landlords there are too big choices and the seller market is really strong, so they are allowed to convert to cash crop manors!

For example, those who grow tea, sericulture, and even those who rent land to tenants like Zhen Mi and hire farmers to underwrite the full range of vegetables can be defined as cash crop manors. The law can also stipulate that these manors can be calculated using flexible land rent.

Of course, this law must be accompanied by a policy, that is, the government must set a red line to forcibly stipulate the proportion of basic farmland and economic crop fields in the land over-held by landlords to ensure food security.

If you are more flexible, you can also control the total volume and conduct quota transactions locally.

This idea is a bit big and may not be able to be used in many years. So when Liu Bei heard it at first, he didn't understand it, so Li Su took his own business model as an example.

It turned out that in order to make the people around Luoyang in Chang'an and Luoyang, Zhen Mi was willing to obey the arrangements and used all the land they rented for vegetables. She also gave considerable people-friendly policies. She also hid the land rent in some relatively hidden ways of expropriation, making the pain of farmers paying rent more hidden.

The specific operation is: the Zhen family promised that as long as the farmers hired all the rented land to grow vegetables, the Zhen family would not directly charge land rent, so that farmers could plant the Zhen family’s fields in a white space.

He also promised to underwrite all the farmers' harvests at the purchase price of 50 yuan per stone of ginger, 60 yuan per stone of radish, etc., and the farmers also promised that all the harvests could only be sold to the employer Zhen family.

Finally, the Zhen family promised to sell grain to farmers at a fair price of 300 coins per stone of corn, or 400 coins per stone of wheat/rice.

(Note: Vegetable prices seem much cheaper than rice prices, because the volume of vegetables is extremely high. It takes only a few hundred kilograms of grain to grow per mu of land, and the yield per mu of cabbage may be several thousand kilograms of radish and cabbage to grow per mu.)

In this operation, all the land rent of the Zhen family is actually hidden in the price difference between scissors. If you don’t ask the tenant directly to collect the rent, the tenant will be convinced and will not feel the pain of being collected.

It is precisely because farmers do not suffer, that in this era when land is not too scarce, farmers are still willing to rent the Zhen family’s land instead of just planting the little bit of private land they have allocated to them.

It is not difficult for viewers who have a little knowledge of modern economics to see how the Zhen family’s profits are ensured: it is like later generations of farmers who grow vegetables, and a pound of cabbage in the fields and radish are only a few cents for purchase price, and they can be sold at a vegetable market in big cities.

The radish purchased by the Zhen family, plus freight, rot and loss, turnover costs, and commercial tax, finally went to markets such as Chang'an and Luoyang, and the cost would increase to about one hundred yuan per stone, more than double the price of the land.

However, the market retail price can reach more than 200 or even 300 yuan, so it is still a net profit of one or two times. From this perspective, the Zhen family's business behavior actually earns 60% of the final selling price of vegetables, which is much more profitable than asking the vegetable farmers to collect high land rent.

The reason why Li Su suggested that Liu Bei consider such legislation was naturally because Li Su had a lot of knowledge. He knew that from ancient times to the present, the profit of growing grain was not large, so farmers who grew grain could not withstand high land rent and were most likely to be aroused by high land rent.

The profit margins of cash crop cultivation in industry, commerce and agriculture can be higher than those in growing grain. Tenants of this "plantation economy" have higher endurance in exploitation than grain farmers. In fact, rents are a little higher, and at least they can survive and are not easily forced to rebel.

This is also proved by the historical lessons of later generations. For example, the Song Dynasty ruled for so long, and in the end, only foreign enemies invaded and died, but did not die in the peasant uprising.

An important factor here is that the Song Dynasty developed industry and commerce, and the development of hand-made and cash crop cultivation also flourished, absorbing a large amount of labor and revitalizing the bottom.

Although the Ming Dynasty died in the peasant uprising, the main problems that broke out in the Ming Dynasty were the grain crop production areas in the northwest, while the economic crop production areas and industrial and commercial areas in the south of the Yangtze River still had the lower-level labor force.

It can be seen that for surplus capital, the state should guide industry and commerce, so that industry, commerce and economic crop agriculture can absorb extreme poverty, absorb landless farmers, and give a way out.

Those policies that blindly implement "respecting agriculture and suppressing commerce" are not conducive to the middle and late dynasties. Because once money is left and capital is formed, Chinese people must find ways to make money.

If the industry and commerce are suppressed, there is no place to go for this money, either lending usury or continuing to buy land and hoarding houses, which will intensify land mergers, then the harm will be great.

If you guide these money that has nowhere to go to industry and commerce, even if it causes a little industrial bubble, it will be better than speculating on the land. At worst, when the bubble bursts, the money will be destroyed and cannot be transmitted to food.

(Note: During the Great Depression, American farmers were also victimized and agricultural products plummeted, but that was because the financial intervention of American agriculture in 1929 was too high, and many American farmers took out loans to buy more land and agricultural machinery to expand production.

If financial lending is not allowed to enter the means of grain production, the crisis will not be transmitted to basic grain agriculture, and at most it will be transmitted to cash crop planting.)

So Li Sucai suggested that Liu Bei imagine such a clever design: In principle, I control the upper limit of the exploitation of farmers by landlords.

But if it is really time to be suppressed, it is better to block it than to lose it. Bring these hot money that wants a higher proportion of exploitation income to the industry and commerce, and don’t harm and hoard land.

You go to the factory, grow cotton, mulberry silkworms, or even just grow vegetables, stir-fry garlic, scallion, ginger, and all spices, and trade, and it’s better to go to stockpile grain fields than hot money. You must squeeze out the excess capital from the grain production field.

This leaves a catharsis with a higher exploitation ratio in the non-grain field, and strict law enforcement on the upper limit of the exploitation ratio in the grain field can be implemented effectively.

When you encounter illegal landlords and bullies, the government will severely punish them according to the law, and more people will support the government.

At least those landlords who open cash crop plantations and exploit them will not sympathize with those landlords who hoard grain fields and exploit them in a crazy way. They will even gloat when they see the latter being attacked by the government.

This will allow the powerful landlords of the aristocratic families to divide themselves into two parts, gloating and biting each other. Let the owners of industrial, commercial and economic crop plantations hate the landlords of the grain field, so that the imperial court's governance of land annexation will not be difficult to recover.

After all, the core idea is: to solve land annexation, we must never just focus on agriculture and commerce. Focusing on agriculture and commerce is a unique product that is effective in a historical period when the population is scarce and requires mobilizing national strength in war.

At that time, Emperor Wu of Qin and Emperor Wu of Han wanted to emphasize agriculture and suppress commerce in order to fight foreign wars. After not fighting, he would have been focusing on agriculture and suppress commerce for fifty years, one hundred years or even longer. He forced the surplus money to have nowhere to go and could only stockpile grain fields, which was to dig a grave for himself.

Of course, Liu Bei can moderately emphasize agriculture and commerce, while Cao Cao on the opposite side has completely emphasized agriculture and commerce, but this is based on the current society of crazy wars. If he doesn't fight, his mind must be switched back. He cannot use a set of ideas to start a business, otherwise he will be Qin Shihuang again.

The more Liu Bei thought about it, the more he felt that the long-term concerns that Li Su added were really valuable. He carefully sorted out all of them for usefulness in the future.

At the end of the negotiations, Liu Bei happened to talk to Li Su about Li Su's current industry situation.

I learned that Li Su's family had to insist on implementing the underwriting contract because of the vegetable sales business, so they lost a lot, and they were under great mental pressure and had premature birth.

Liu Bei also praised Li Su's actions of clearly distinguishing between public and private affairs, and insisting on abide by the contract when his own business is losing money, and would rather lose money.

Liu Bei suggested: "My dear brother advocates that the court keep his trustworthy, and he sets an example first. He would rather lose money than keep his promise. This is really commendable. This is to maintain the court's dignity. I can allocate the royal treasury to comfort some of his brothers' losses.

You can’t let your brother take care of this kind of matter of being a loyal master himself. The decency of the prime minister is also part of the decency of the court.”

Regarding Liu Bei's show of goodwill, Li Su hurriedly refused: "Your Majesty is too worried. I didn't make it clear just now. In fact, I just asked my family to promise to purchase all the goods at the agreed price. It is currently unsold, but I haven't lost money yet.

I asked my family to go to Aliang's kiln factory to order a large number of better sealing urns, and make all the unsold utensils into "ketchup". First, try how long it can be kept fresh. If there is a future, maybe it will be promoted in coastal counties in the future, and then make kimchi and supply it to the long-distance navy.

Anyway, you won’t lose money. My memory is not as enlightened as to the extent that I lose my own money to establish trust for the court.”

Therefore, Li Su did not have the problem of "Mengchangjun's righteousness" that Zhen Mi was worried about, because he would not lose at all.

Since Li Su had no need to learn from Mengchangjun, he did not bother to learn from Wang Jian and Xiao He.

Liu Bei was slightly stunned. There was no need to continue the subsequent deduction of human thoughts. Brother Boya was so vague that he didn't even give people the opportunity to associate. He was really a steady person.

But, it’s true that Li Su did this, it really makes sense.

Because not long after the meeting between Liu Bei and him that day, just a few days before the New Year, some new people in charge of admonitions accepted censors and submitted a statement to impeach the Prime Minister's family to "sell the favor and invite people to win the hearts of others."
Chapter completed!