Since the Chinese on the beach defeated the German army and occupied Jiaozhou Bay, the business affairs of Jiaozhou County have gradually decreased. First, after overseas Chinese controlled the Jiaozhou Bay area, they immediately carried out a large-scale clearance of robbers, bandits and bullies within dozens of miles around, and successively wiped out more than ten bandits and bandit organizations with a scale of more than 100 people. Among them, the evil bandits Heifenghu, which have been separated from this area for many years, and the bandits with less than 100 people and more than 30 shares. As a result, the security environment of the entire Jiaozhou area has been greatly improved, and even the Jiaozhou County has become much more peaceful, and the magistrate Zhou Wenhuai has naturally become much cleaner.

But on the other hand, since December last year (referring to the lunar calendar), overseas Chinese have gradually controlled the villages around Jiaozhou County, and every time they go to a village, they directly included the village’s land tax. In this era, tax collection is a very common thing, which is to use an individual to collect land tax in a region instead of the government and ensure that the full land tax is paid to the government. People who include tax collection are often quite powerful in the land, such as local bullies or relatives of county officials, because only these people have enough ability to collect taxes from the people.

Of course, under normal circumstances, it is impossible for taxpayers to pay the full amount of land tax to the government. It is a good result to be able to pay 70% or 80% of land tax. In fact, in ancient China, it is impossible to collect 100% of land tax. If you can receive 70% or 80% of land tax, you can pay the money. Even if you only receive half of it, you can avoid being forced to deal with it. If you can really collect it in full, it can be considered a major political achievement of local officials. And the extra part will naturally become the personal income of taxpayers, otherwise you will do this thankless job.

However, the land tax withheld is only a small part of the personal income of the tax collector. The majority is levied, and the amount levied varies from place to place. Generally, it is about 50%, and sometimes it will reach more than double. The government generally ignores this, after all, this can reduce the troubles of the government. Of course, every tax collector will not forget to take care of the government. There is a share in the yamen, including the county magistrate.

Since you don’t have to worry about it yourself, and there is an extra amount of money, so why not do it? Although some taxpayers with great power in the local area do not give a penny to the government after collecting the land tax and deduct all of them themselves, this situation is only a very small number.

In fact, the land tax formulated by the Qing court was not high. Generally, a village only had dozens of taels of silver. The tax holder himself increased the amount privately. Even if there were no tax holder, the servants who came to the village to collect taxes would find additional names. It would be better if they were self-cultivated, but if they were rented land, they would have to pay the land rent to the landlords. Therefore, they would be exploited layer by layer and not much would fall into the hands of farmers.

However, although overseas Chinese pay the tax in full, there is no extra point. This will naturally harm the interests of everyone in the yamen. Because they are officials and servants, they do not belong to formal officials, and there is no official salary. The extra income from these taxes and tax collection is their main source of income. Although some of the full land tax paid by overseas Chinese can be deducted from private ownership, this is the land tax of the court, and most of them have to be paid, and they cannot be paid much. Therefore, the tax-keeping behavior of overseas Chinese now cuts off most of their income, and naturally they are hated by everyone in the yamen. So officials and servants complain to the magistrate Zhou Wenhuai, hoping that the master can manage overseas Chinese.

In fact, Mr. Zhou was also very unhappy because there was one of them. However, Zhou Wenhuai was a court official after all, with a much higher vision than the officials and servants, and he also had more information. He knew very well that he could not control overseas Chinese at all. Not to mention that he could not control himself, I am afraid that no one in the entire Qing Dynasty could control overseas Chinese. Even the empress dowager and the emperor had to act according to the expressions of overseas Chinese. Moreover, some time ago, Zhou Wenhuai also heard some news and knew that the court was planning to recruit overseas Chinese, and seemed to have the intention to establish a vassal and be named a king, and the fief was in Shandong. Zhou Wenhuai naturally knew the history of this dynasty and knew that establishing a vassal and being a king was not a trivial matter. No matter what the final result of overseas Chinese, it was definitely not something that he could afford to be a small seventh-rank magistrate. Therefore, Mr. Zhou could only pretend to be confused and promote Tai Chi when complaining about the officials and servants.

The magistrate, no matter how concerned the magistrate, overseas Chinese are not ruthless. After the New Year, all the villages and villages outside Jiaozhou County were controlled by overseas Chinese, and Jiaozhou City had become an isolated city. Master Zhou's order could not even be released.

Of course, there were also several officials who did not believe in this evil, or were not clear-headed and insisted on going to the villages outside the city to force tax collection. As a result, there were not a few days, and those forced tax collections were even missing. Later, it was said that some people who looked like them were seen in a mine in Overseas China, but since then, the officials and officers in Jiaozhou County finally became honest and no one dared to go to the villages in the city to force tax collection.

The ground was too peaceful, and there was no need to worry about the land tax. In addition, the court's western tour was gone, so Zhou Wenhuai suddenly became much more idle. He either read books, played chess, or walked around and visited famous mountains and rivers. Although he had less income, he was also free and easy. Moreover, Zhou Wenhuai was a court official after all, and had a regular income. In addition, the gentry and merchants in the city also had his routine share, and even if there was no land tax, it was enough to live.

On this day, the county government office suddenly became lively, and more than a dozen people came, all of whom were local gentry and gentry, and they also prepared a lot of gifts to meet Zhou Wenhuai. These people were all powerful local forces, and Zhou Wenhuai dared not offend them easily, not to mention that the other party also sent generous gifts. Youdao was to let out a hand and not to hit the smiley people, so Zhou Wenhuai ordered the servants to invite them into the county government office and receive everyone in the second hall.

The group of people went to the county government to sit down and explained their purpose. It turned out that this group came for the [Outline of Land Reform System] distributed by overseas Chinese.

After the Executive Committee passed the [Land Reform System Outline], it is organizing personnel to establish a land reform team, and first put the [Land Reform System Outline] in all villages under its control, requiring everyone to obey the arrangements and actively cooperate with the land reform work.

Originally, land issues have always been very sensitive, because in the middle and late periods of the dynasty, land annexation gradually became serious, which would lead to a large reduction of self-cultivated farmers and small landlords. The landlords who occupied a large amount of land still tried every means to evade land tax. Since landlords were often powerful local forces, the government had no choice but to do so. In this way, the land tax revenue of the court would drop significantly, and the state's finances would not be enough. Therefore, in the middle period of the dynasties, there were many knowledgeable people who asked to clear the fields and check the land and verify the land, but the landlords would naturally try their best to obstruct it. As a result, a few people who could clear the fields and most of them ended in fruitlessness or ended in a hurry.

The situation in the Qing court was quite special. Although the income from land tax was greatly reduced, due to the recent global trade period, although the customs of the Qing court were controlled by foreign countries and the tariffs were extremely low, the trade volume increased significantly and the modern customs management model was used. Therefore, the income from customs and commercial taxes was greatly increased, which not only could make up for the loss of land tax, but also increased the total amount. On the contrary, no one mentioned the matter of clearing the fields, it eased many domestic conflicts. This is the main reason why the Qing court was very overbearing, but it could still survive.

However, the landlords are still very sensitive to clearing the fields. Overseas Chinese are not just clearing the fields, but they also have to collect all the extra land. This makes the big, small, and half of the landlords in various villages naturally unable to sit still. But the landlords also know that overseas Chinese are different from ordinary forces. Wangjiazhai is also famous in this area. As a result, overseas Chinese are destroyed as soon as they say they are destroyed, and the whole family is destroyed. The land is really distributed to those mud legs by overseas Chinese. This also shows that this group of overseas Chinese can speak and do it. Although Wangjiazhai has a not very famous reputation in this area, there is still some feeling of sadness about the death of rabbits and foxes. So we came to find the magistrate Zhou Wenhuai, hoping that the county magistrate could think of a solution.

After hearing the complaints from everyone, Zhou Wenhuai also smiled bitterly. Of course, he knew the [Outline of Land Reform System] posted by overseas Chinese, and he did not expect that overseas Chinese would really dare to do it. Not only did they need to clear the fields, but they also wanted to collect the fields. Although "the farmer has his own fields" is regarded as the highest level of good governance in all dynasties, this is just that. Land annexation is an inevitable thing in all dynasties, and it is by no means a reason to force the land of the country gentry.

Before this, Zhou Wenhuai also heard some rumors that overseas Chinese returned to China to become kings, even to subvert the Qing Dynasty and establish the founding of the dynasty. And judging from their actions after occupying Qingdao, there was indeed such a meaning. However, in all dynasties, no ruler dared to collect all the fields of gentry. Isn’t this offending all the gentry? The gentry has always been the basis of dynasty rule. Even if the dynasty changes, the new dynasty will still rule the world with the literati and officials. At most, the gentry that is closely related to the old dynasty will never point the finger at the entire gentry group.

Overseas Chinese actually dared to do this. In the past, they were really tall and looked down upon them. It seems that although overseas Chinese are descendants of China, they have been abroad for a long time. Although they have learned some Western equipment techniques, they have forgotten the great ways of the ancestors of China. In fact, they are not the only ones who can achieve great things. At most, they are just the second long hair (Taiping Heavenly Kingdom). However, overseas Chinese have some tricks in Western equipment techniques, which are far from comparable to hair growth, so they are not enough to govern the world, but they are more than chaotic in the world. Moreover, if they really do chaos in the future, it is probably a harm to grow hair. In this way, this is not a blessing for China.
Chapter completed!