Chapter 183: Establishing a New System

Wen Desi had originally planned to show the village representatives a movie of the grand military parade in the evening, but seeing that the representatives were already shocked enough, he felt that any more shock would lead to aesthetic fatigue. So he decided not to show it, which also saved him the expense of a dinner reception. He then announced the successful conclusion of the meeting.

As the representatives gradually left with a mixture of excitement and fear, the Executive Committee was also taking stock of the achievements of this meeting.

Through this political consultative conference, the transmigrator group had preliminarily controlled the entire county and obtained a legitimate status that was reluctantly recognized by the local government. Of course, their position was still very fragile. Both the county yamen and the various villages were only cooperating with them either out of fear of their military power or for practical benefits. Once a strong external force intervened, this simple cooperative relationship would immediately collapse. The most important thing now was to win the hearts of the people and make them have a good impression of the transmigrator group as much as possible.

They had already taken the first step in making the people of this remote southern county have a good impression of the transmigrators. The transmigrators did not disturb the people, did not kill wantonly, bought and sold fairly, and had also indirectly provided relief to the people on the poverty line through a series of construction activities after D-Day. As long as one was a person, all this was there for all to see. The people’s demands were not high. As long as the transmigrator group could ensure the social stability of Lingao and let them have a few full meals, the people did not care under whose flag they lived.

But to truly make the people recognize their rule and be willing to shed blood and sacrifice for these rulers, the most effective way was to establish a common chain of interests as soon as possible.

The land reform, a tried and tested weapon in the Chinese revolution, was ineffective in Lingao. In the Ming Dynasty, there was a lot of land in Lingao, so land reform did not have much appeal. The reason why the common people were unwilling to reclaim wasteland was directly related to the backward agricultural productivity here. The primary task of the transmigrators was to improve agricultural productivity, not to change the relations of production. This not only concerned their own rule but also helped to establish common interests with the ordinary people.

The local merchants were the direct beneficiaries of the transmigrators. The prosperity of East Gate Market was the most typical example of the merchants “voting with their feet.” Not only that, but their commercial policies also attracted merchants from other counties. Merchants were clearly the ones who could best appreciate the benefits brought to them by the arrival of the transmigrators. Therefore, compared to other classes, this class had the most common interests with them. However, the weakness cultivated by Chinese merchants in the traditional official-gentry society made them unreliable as a force for the time being.

The landlord-gentry class, although still very suspicious, did not show much hostility from the situation of this meeting—especially after the transmigrator group promised to settle the value of the occupied land with an owner, the gentry’s evaluation of the transmigrator group rose a lot, and a cooperative attitude also emerged. However, the gentry class was still a potential enemy of the transmigrator group at this stage.

However, under this preliminary and unstable ruling system, the transmigrator group could at least mobilize various resources within Lingao County to a limited extent—especially human resources. The transmigrators could now go deep into every corner of the county more safely. In the past, every time the long-range exploration team set out, a large armed force had to be mobilized for escort, and the logistical pressure brought by this was quite heavy. Now, at least in areas where banditry was not particularly serious, such a large-scale operation was no longer necessary.

A few days later, the liaison officers from the various villages that had participated in the meeting came one after another to confirm the numbers for the various “reasonable burdens.” The confirmed number of conscripted men was 1,100 per year. This large population made all the departments drool. After a debate, the army and navy were allocated a total of 240 men, of which 80 were for the navy. The rest were to be uniformly deployed and used by Wu De as basic laborers.

The public grain under the “reasonable burden” was 3,000 “public shi.” Compared to the grain tax level of more than 7,000 “old shi,” this burden was not small.

“Will the burden be too heavy?” Wen Desi felt that this number was a bit too large when he saw it.

“It is indeed quite large,” Luo Duo said. He had been transferred to the Social Work Department of the Political Security General Administration as he had wished. This department specialized in collecting, organizing, and analyzing the local social and public sentiments collected from various channels, and writing the “Social Situation Bulletin.”

“Although the grain tax of Lingao is more than 7,000 shi, the real burden on the local people is probably more than 15,000 shi,” he reported the figures he had been studying for several days.

“So much?!” The members of the Executive Committee were all surprised.

Luo Duo nodded. “It may be even more. There were large extra levies on the taxes of the Ming and Qing dynasties. This is an open secret. Everyone knows about things like ‘kicking the tip and drenching the bushel’ and ‘fire consumption,’ but in fact, the malpractices in it are as numerous as ox hair. So, even if we lower the grain levy level again, it will still be a considerable burden for the various villages.”

Nanhai said, “Actually, we don’t need this grain levy. The farm will start large-scale planting of hybrid rice this month. We will plant 1,000 mu first. Although the conditions for fertilizer and pesticides are poor, we can have three harvests a year here. Even if we only have two harvests, it’s easy to get 500-600 tons of rice a year. The grain levy puts too much pressure on the farmers. Since we want to win over the people, we can’t oppress them too much.”

Wu De said, “We have discussed with the Commissar to turn the disadvantage into an advantage and use this as an opportunity to promote social reform.”

“Social reform?” Wen Desi suddenly became alert. This Ma Qianzhu wouldn’t be trying to carry out a disguised land reform, would he?

Ma Qianzhu calmly explained his idea. “According to the analysis proposed by the Social Work Department, the next step for the Civil Affairs Committee is to try to take over the summer and autumn taxes of this county. This matter can be immediately sent to be negotiated.”

“Take over the grain tax?” Wen Desi was puzzled. The local gentry and wealthy households took over the grain tax to collude with the clerks and shift the burden to make a fortune for themselves. Why would the transmigrators want to take over the grain tax?

“It’s like this,” Wu De said. “After we take over the grain tax, we will completely eliminate the extra levies. We will only pay the stipulated amount to the county treasury. In this way, even with our levy, the total burden on the farmers will still be smaller than before.”

“Will the people in the county yamen agree? This is a huge chain of interests!” Wen Desi said doubtfully. A single move affects the whole body. Once a malpractice forms a chain of interests, it is very difficult to eradicate it. This is the same in any time and space.

“Of course they won’t agree,” Ma Qianzhu said. “But if we want to reform society, we must first break the old pattern.” He seemed confident. “To mobilize the masses, we need a class of ‘bad guys.’ Since the current situation in Lingao is not suitable for land reform, the target of landlords and rich peasants is not very suitable.”

“And don’t forget, many of the landlords here are the heads of clans. The clan power in Lingao is quite strong,” Yu E’shui reminded him.

Because Hainan was located in the southern frontier, with vast land and a sparse population, coupled with the long-term Li rebellion, the villages here had a distinct feature of clan-based settlement for their own safety and production needs. The transmigrators did not yet have the ability to completely smash all this.

“Yes, so our target is the vested interest group in taxation.”

This group was very complex, from the county magistrate and county magistrate’s assistant at the top, to the local ruffians and hooligans who assisted the yamen runners without any official title at the bottom—the so-called “grain runners.”

Ma Qianzhu seemed confident. “Wu Mingjin, Wu Ya, and these officials originally benefited from the grain tax. We will compensate them with benefits from private salt and commerce, and continue to win them over. They will have nothing to say. The ones who will really lose out are the clerks and runners in the county and their minions. These people are basically scourges—they do evil in the county, deceiving their superiors and oppressing their subordinates. Everyone from top to bottom hates and fears them. By cleaning up this group of people, we can not only obtain another batch of materials and money, but also from the perspective of public opinion: these people have no popularity, and everyone from the gentry to the common people will be happy. It’s killing two birds with one stone.”

By cleaning up the old and unreasonable system and promoting the more reasonable and simple tax collection system designed by the transmigrators, the gentry and common people would look at the transmigrator group’s ability to govern with new eyes, which would be beneficial to attracting the joining of bureaucratic intellectuals in the future.

“After cleaning them up, we can send our people into the county yamen.”

“Excellent!” Someone clapped and praised. “This is equivalent to the Lingao county yamen being ours!”

“This plan is not bad,” Wen Desi expressed his approval.

“There is another factor why we need to deal with the clerks,” Ran Yao from the Political Security General Administration added. “According to the investigation of the Social Department, the heads of the three classes in the county are basically the bandit leaders of this county. They are in cahoots with all the big and small bandits and thieves in the county, and are engaged in the business of making a fortune on the spot. If we don’t eliminate them, we will have a lot of trouble in our future work of suppressing bandits and rectifying public security.”

“These people won’t let go easily, right? Without the fish-scale register, how can we collect taxes?”

“Stupid, if they don’t hand it over, we’ll hang them up and electrocute them!” Dugu Qiuhun obviously had no awareness of human rights. “Let’s see who has the ability to withstand it.”

“Even if they give you the fish-scale register, can you guarantee that you can understand it?”

“The fish-scale register is not something amazing. There have been research works on it for a long time. If it’s really taken out, I can read it,” Yu E’shui said.

“It all depends on you!”

“The problem is not here,” Yu E’shui said. “Just like why we asked the villages to self-report the ‘reasonable burden,’ the fish-scale register does not truly reflect the agricultural production level of Lingao. If we continue to collect taxes according to this register, many unfair and unreasonable phenomena will still not be corrected, and it will not be of any significance to the progress of this society.”

“What do you mean?”

“A census of land and population,” Yu E’shui said. “Now that each village has a liaison officer, we should conduct a comprehensive census to get a general idea of the county’s land, population, and resources.”

“Isn’t the project too big?” Everyone gasped.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” Yu E’shui said. “Now it’s just one county. In the future, it will be the whole of China. Do you want to do it or not?”

After some discussion, everyone agreed that since this matter had to be done sooner or later, it was better to do it early than late. They agreed to start the county-wide census from the second month.

“Now, we have obtained an excellent breathing opportunity,” Ma Qianzhu said at the summary meeting of the Executive Committee. “Seizing the opportunity and completing the industrial and agricultural industry upgrade as soon as possible is now the most important task. The next topic is: Lingao’s first five-year plan.”