Chapter 1240: No Compromise

According to the previous life, the emperor was the head of the large landlord class and the feudal bureaucracy. Zhao Hao, who has been receiving this kind of education, also thinks so, but after being the emperor for more than ten years, he feels that the emperor is still a little wronged by the emperor, according to his current understanding that the emperor and the bureaucrats should be in a relationship of cooperation and confrontation, and the two sides are not so harmonious.

After entering the Song Dynasty in history, after Zhao Kuangyin set the national policy of 'ruling the world with scholars', the status of scholars should be said to have really entered the golden period, and they should also live in peace with the emperor, but in fact, the struggle between imperial power and relative power in the Song Dynasty has never subsided, and it has become more and more intense, almost irreconcilable, and even caused a political crisis. Of course, there are also progressive factors, because the emperors of the Great Song Dynasty are not all wise and martial, but on the contrary, there are many faint monarchs.

In fact, the reason for the existence of the confrontation between the emperor and the scholars cannot escape the routine of the conflict of interests, because the emperor represents the country and maintains the situation of 'family and the world', which requires him to maintain the fairness of the whole society and take care of the interests of all strata, at least on the surface. There are many famous ministers and great Confucians in the scholar class, but they also have to ensure the support of the class they belong to by safeguarding the interests of the entire class, not to mention the scum and traitors among the scholars.

In terms of land policy, the emperor, whether for the sake of enriching the country and strengthening the army, or for personal enjoyment, always hoped to obtain a stable and increasing tax burden through land to maintain the huge expenditure of the state, and did not want the common landlords and yeoman farmers who mainly bore the state taxes to go bankrupt because of land annexation; However, the Song Dynasty's land policy of 'not suppressing annexation' actually benefited the most from the scholar class, and the protagonists engaged in annexation were bureaucratic landlords.

The bureaucratic landlord, in the modern understanding, should be the private owner of the means of production whose family is an official, and people often refer to the elite class of this society as "scholars", which focuses on the political-cultural characteristics of the elite class, while the "bureaucratic landlord" shows the political-economic status of the elite class.

This elite class combines political, economic, and cultural superiority, is keen on leadership positions at all levels, and is tireless in searching for all kinds of academic qualifications, and is also good at accumulating means of production. Once the scholars and doctors who relied on the powerful bureaucratic machine sat crookedly, they would disregard the overall safety of the dynasty for their own interests, let go of the annexation of land, and engage in "primitive accumulation" so that a very small number of powerful people would be "left behind", while more and more people would "have no place for the poor".

In this case, the result was that the state was in financial difficulties, and could only be maintained by extorting and extorting money, which in turn exacerbated social contradictions, led to national turmoil, and threatened the emperor's rule over the country. From this point of view, Zhao Hao's statement that 'there are only ministers, no faint kings' is still very correct. Then the people in power, whether they are faint or bright, will not allow the scholars to act arbitrarily, and will inevitably suppress them, and the confrontation between the monarch and the minister will inevitably arise.

The importance of land in this era is undoubted, and as a common people who are mainly engaged in farming, it is almost the same as life, so Zhao Yu's land policy naturally has to 'suppress annexation', so that land cannot be concentrated in the hands of the bureaucrats and gentry through buying and selling, of course, there is also the purpose of obtaining stable financial revenue, otherwise why would he feed so many officials and let the soldiers charge for him!

From another point of view, the emperor wants to maintain his rule, whether he is on the side of the scholars or the people. And whether Zhao Yu is because of the ideas he brought from the modern era, or for the purpose of consolidating the 'nascent' regime, he will inevitably stand by the 'people' and gain the support of the majority by working for their welfare.

In other words, if the emperor wants to maintain social stability, he must create class contradictions, and Zhao Yu, to curry favor with the common people, will inevitably suppress the bureaucratic gentry clique. In fact, this kind of method is very common, and the emperor of Tsarist Russia was very good at this, for example, he wanted to prove that the powerful tsar was justified, so he said to the workers, if there is no us, without a strong imperial power, how can you get an eight-hour working day?

This is what our mighty tsar forced your master to do. Then he said to his master, "If there is no strong tsar, how can you deal with the workers' unions?" We're here to help you deal with the unions. He told both groups that the government is your backer, and he said to the workers that your enemy is the employer, and to the employer that your enemy is the worker.

Zhao's land policy is similar to this logic. However, he believed that his policy was still based on maintaining his rule, strengthening the imperial power, and focusing on social stability, which could also be the concept of so-called 'sustainable exploitation', while the gentry group focused on their own selfishness in the near future, rather than the interests of the state and the common people.

He also knew very well that he was in a high position and power, but the other party was a large number of people, and if he did not suppress it, social assets would quickly concentrate in the minority of privileged scholars. And there is no longer the ability to curb their development, and as a result, the survival of the dynasty will be threatened. Thinking like this, it is by no means groundless, back then, Shenzong supported Wang Anshi's reforms, and the policy was aimed at those privileged classes, but unfortunately after all, because of the great power of the scholar group, the formation of a big tail and failed.

At present, the gentry clique wants to usurp more land, and make huge fortunes from it, which is nothing more than relying on political power to occupy and buy by force, or to acquire land by trickery. Then they use their political privileges to reduce or reduce taxes, evade taxes and resist taxes, or rely on their special status to break the ban and operate industry and commerce illegally. And Zhao Hao's land policy hit the nail on the head:

First of all, Zhao Yu made it difficult for the land to be transferred by granting land according to the population, and by limiting the number of years, it was difficult for land to be transferred; second, he changed the tax system and abolished the Ding tax and included it in the field tax. At the same time, the privileges of officials were abolished, and the integrated taxation of officials and gentry was implemented; The second is to retain a large amount of official land, provide part of the means of production, and lease it to the displaced or landless people for cultivation.

These policies can be said to hit the nail on the head of land annexation, and the limited tenure of land makes it impossible to fully transfer land ownership, making the gentry unwilling to spend money to buy it. The abolition of the tax-free privilege made the officials and gentry equally taxable, while the tenants only paid the rent, but did not bear the taxes, so the more land they owned, the more taxes they paid, and the rate of return fell greatly. Since the gentry had lost their privileges and had to pay the same taxes, they had no incentive to annex land, and they no longer 'took in' the small landlords and yeoman farmers.

In addition, the tenants who leased the official land paid the rent directly to the imperial court, and the burden was much lower than that of the tenants who leased the land of the gentry, so it was difficult for the gentry to find people to cultivate the land even if they owned it. This will lead to the abandonment of the fields, but the taxes that can be paid will not be less, and if it is not done well, it will lead to bankruptcy. And because the tenants got rid of their dependence on the landlords and turned to the state, those landlords could not find anyone to support them if they wanted to make trouble, which was tantamount to weakening their strength in disguise.

Therefore, Zhao Yu has already figured out that this incident is a dispute between Ma Zheng on the surface, but in fact it is still a struggle between the emperor and the scholar group, and he is worried that he will continue to promote the existing land policy in Lianghuai, and his rights and interests will be further suppressed. Therefore, it is necessary to curb his suppressive behavior and protect the status and interests of the Shiren group by using a point to break the face.

However, Zhao Yu knew that he must not compromise at this time. At present, the Shiren group, which was once in the ascendant, has been seriously weakened after the invasion of the Mengyuan Dynasty, and its social status is much worse than before. And after he recovered Jiangnan, he increased their voice in the court by elevating the status of the warriors. At the beginning of entering Jiangnan, in the name of punishing traitors and traitors, he suppressed the powerful family with iron-blooded means, purged the Shiren group, and weakened their strength.

At the same time, Zhao Yu also divided and disintegrated the scholar group through various means. In the selection of officials, the so-called celebrities with poor moral character were not abandoned, but the team of scholars trained in Qiongzhou was used to send them to various places to serve in order to strengthen the local centripetal force and enhance their voice in the court. In addition, he also planned to weaken the system of selecting officials for the imperial examination, and to divide scholars by opening various professional schools, breaking the traditional notion that learning was for the purpose of becoming officials.

Zhao Hao's arrangement now seems to have shown its effect, and this time the court battle seems to be menacing, but compared with the previous times, it has not been able to make any big waves. From the point of view of personnel, it is mainly the old officials retained by the DPRK and the central government, the students who have just passed the imperial examination, and the gentry in the countryside who have resisted it because the policy has affected their vested interests and broken the 'ideal' of some people to make a fortune if they become officials. And the sinking of the ruling power has caused the status of the squires to decline and lose their past dominance.

And there are no new tricks in the methods of these opponents, except for writing a long article on the advantages of the ancestral system, that is, arguing with each other in court discussions, and then mobilizing those students who lack experience in officialdom to march on the streets and engage in the practice of reading books on buses. There is also to mobilize public opinion, put pressure on the imperial court, and use 'public opinion' to coerce Zhao Hao to compromise.

On the other hand, very few high-ranking officials and local officials of the court and the central government participated in it, and the common people who benefited from it did nothing, and almost no one responded, but many people blamed the squires for not doing so. However, the martial arts group overwhelmingly expressed their support for Zhao Yu, and they wrote letters to express their loyalty, and even suggested that the opponents should be purged by force.

And now Zhao Yu not only sits firmly on the dragon chair, has the ability to influence the imperial court, and has hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers, and has won successive battles, recovering Lianghuai, Jingxiang, and expanding thousands of miles. If it wasn't Wuxia Ameng in the past, how could he compromise on such a major matter of right and wrong that would determine the fate of the dynasty......

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