Originally, in the Tang Dynasty, there were standards for wanting to become a "non-class mouth" (household): officials above the ninth grade could be, men under the age of 20 could, old, wasted, wives and concubines could also be, and slaves and maids could also be tribal, and monks and Taoists also enjoyed non-class treatment. But with the passage of time, the "non-tax households" became more and more widespread, and those high-ranking officials and nobles themselves did not have to pay taxes, and then they used their power to get away with the tax law by making their relatives and children falsely report their age and fake disabilities. In addition, in order to escape the rent and mediocrity, many peasants also began to abandon their fields and sell themselves to the wealthy and become slaves and maids, so that the number of "non-tax households" is getting bigger and bigger, and the number of "class households" is naturally shrinking, and the imperial court is unwilling to reduce the tax base and tax revenue, just as Yang Yan said, it still holds the outdated "old books and empty words" of the household department, regardless of the new life and old age of the population, and does not care about the merger and transfer of acres and acres, and the changes in wealth and poverty, all of them are unified and cut, and the tax burden of "non-tax households" is transferred to the heads of "tax households". This leads to a vicious circle: the tax collectors who originally paid the tax could not bear it, and a large number of them fled and became so-called "floating customers" or "right to live households".

This situation was very serious in the Wu Zetian era, and the Tang Dynasty's uniform land system and the "rent-yong adjustment" tax system based on this field system were actually the same as the Tang Dynasty's government and military system, and began to collapse soon after the establishment of the dynasty.

In the so-called Kaiyuan Tianbao prosperous era, this trend of collapse is becoming more and more shocking, on the one hand, the continuous breeding of the actual household registration, and on the other hand, the sharp decline and disappearance of a large number of "class households". In the 14th year of Tianbao, according to Du You's estimation, the actual number of households in the country should be 1,300 to 4 million, but only 8,914,709 households were registered, that is to say, 5 million households were "floating customers" who had left their nationality and were not registered. If we count according to Dingkou, it is even more shocking: the number of registered people in the whole country is 52.91 million, of which 44.7 million are not in class, accounting for 84 percent!

At this time, Yang Yanlang said such evil consequences: "The rich and the rich are all officials, monks, enrollment, and seeking Taoism to escape the taxes of sexual servitude; The poor have nothing to do, and they have no land, but they still have a 'ding body', and the taxes are not changed, or even increased. This is 'the lesson is free from the top and the increase is given to the bottom', so that the world is depleted, the poor are rushing to flee and become floating guests, and the writers of the countryside are not four or five. ”

Dugu Ji, who was the same age as Yang Yan, although his political views did not agree with Yang, the situation in Shuzhou during the calendar year mentioned in his article (at that time, Dugu and the history of being a thorn here) were like this: although there were 33,000 floating households in Shuzhou, there were only 3,500 households that could really "pay taxes and serve", and the remaining 29,500 households were either "non-paying households" or "floating customers" who had left their nationality and did not pay a penny in taxes. The 310,000 guan tax that Shuzhou has to bear every year is all pressed on the 3,500 households, and the upper class households (in the fourth year of the Great Calendar, the world's households have been divided into nine classes) have to pay a tax of 1,000 guan a year, the middle and lower classes have to pay five or six hundred guan taxes, and even the most inferior ninth-class households have to bear forty or fifty guan. Dugu said sadly: "How can this person be sleepy? How can things get worse? Among them, those who are especially incompetent, how can they run away without being disappointed? If the trapped people have done their best, the axis will not stop, and the fear state will not exist. ”

"The state will not exist", that is to say, this situation will not change, and I am afraid that even the administrative units at the state level will not be able to sustain it.

The reason why Liu Yan was able to save this declining situation before, in addition to properly reforming the original tax law, the most important thing was to open up the transportation and levy salt profits, so as to save Datang's life.

Hearing Yang Yan's statement, Li Shi was really touched, he sighed heavily on his back, so Yang Yan continued, he thought that it was still the case during the Kaitian period, and now after the Anshi Rebellion, the problem is even more serious: "After the virtue, the world soldiers, because of hunger, a hundred battles are carried out, people wither, and the territory is empty." For the use of the militaristic state, it is given to the degree of support and transshipment; The Quartet conquered the town, and was self-sufficient in the festival and the regiment practiced the envoys. The number of the division of the endow is four, and the program is very bad. The imperial court cannot overthrow the envoys, and the envoys cannot overthrow the states. The contributions of the Quartet are all included in the inner treasury, and the ministers and officials are skillful, because of the side, the public trust is contributed, and the private thieves are all over the place. Henan, Shandong, Jingxiang, and Jiannan are all self-supporting, and Wang Fu has few entered. There are hundreds of branches, the wasted ones are not cut, the heavy ones are not going, the old and the new are still accumulating, and I don't know where they will end. The people have anointed their blood, loved their dear, and sent them to the moon in ten months, and there is no rest. ”

Yang Yan's words were impassioned, and coupled with his loud voice and dignified appearance, it was even more infectious.

But as soon as Liu Yan next to him heard it, he knew that Yang Yan's words were "seven points of sincerity and three points of lethal private goods".

Yang Yan said that there are many households today, and the manpower and tax resources generated by these households are all occupied by the semi-divided Fangzhen in various places, and the direct household tax base of the imperial court is even more withered, which is true; Yang Yan said that the envoys of the local festivals and the regimental training envoys did not want to pay the rent of the land under their control to the central government, which is also true; Yang Yan also said, "The number of the division of the endowment is four, and Mo Xiang is the unified photo", "There are hundreds of people who are accumulated, the abolished ones are not cut, the heavy ones do not go, the old and the new are still accumulated, and I don't know where they are", that is, the emperor of the two dynasties of the Su Dynasty in order to apportion huge military expenses, hundreds of officials, ministers' rewards and palace expenditures, constantly imposed a variety of taxes on the people (for example, during the Yongtai period, Yuan Jie went to Daozhou as a assassin, just got off the car, he received two hundred talismans urging taxes), and continued to ask Fang Zhen for contributions, and this sacrifice was finally smashed on the heads of the people by Fang Zhen, There's nothing wrong with that.

But Yang Yan took a stick by the way, mentioning that "for the use of the military state, it is given to the degree branch and the transfer envoy", which is very intriguing, and he is really as Gao Yue expected, and began to push the responsibility to the head of the "degree branch and transfer envoy" in the gushing endlessly!

You must know that the two envoys of the Du Zhi and the Transshipment mainly grasped the salt profits of the East and the West, and these taxes increased steadily throughout the Su and Dynasty dynasties, and to a certain extent, it also surpassed the "rent and mediocrity" and became a real unified tax, because whether rich or poor, or whether the households were paying taxes or not, they had to eat salt. When the Fifth Qi first levied the salt profit, the income was only hundreds of thousands of guan, and when Liu Yan took charge of the southeast Yan, the income increased to a full 6 million guan, accounting for half of the taxes paid by the Daizong Dynasty, and the entire Daizong Dynasty relied on this to continue its life.

Now Yang Yan's board not only hit the butt of "Fang Zhen", but also danced to the head of the degree branch and the transfer envoy, and the true purpose was really exposed, he wanted to borrow the tax law to reform the system and abolish Liu Yan's power of "degree branch and transfer envoy"!

At this time, Li Shi also nodded and asked the most critical question:

"I have fully understood the decay of the old law and the injustice of endowment. So according to Yang Menlang's thoughts, how to get rid of all these ills now? ”

Hearing this, the emperor's eyes seemed to sweep towards Liu Yan intentionally or unintentionally.

And Liu Yan was very calm, lowered his head, and did not say a word.