Chapter 2074 Tax Collection

To put it bluntly, the magistrate is the deputy of the magistrate, or the successor of the magistrate, so he can control everything or nothing, it mainly depends on the attitude of the magistrate.

Perhaps because Song Yan avenged Su Bingwen, the other party's attitude towards him became more and more intimate. However, he still couldn't change his old habits. He took Song Yan to chat for an hour before getting down to business.

It can be seen that Su Bingwen does not have much attachment to power. If he were replaced by another prefect, he would probably hang him up as a prefect and make him a sinecure. However, Su Bingwen actually handed over all the large and small affairs of Liangzhou Prefecture to him. On hand.

This left Song Yan speechless and dumbfounded.

Money and power are naturally the most attractive, but Su Bingwen is not greedy for power, nor does he like money. No wonder he was ostracized and sent to this remote place.

After taking power, Song Yan did not summon the officials in the government office, but first found some books related to Liangzhou to read.

He read books very quickly, but in most of the day, he read all the books related to Liangzhou.

Liangzhou Prefecture governs three counties, one medium-level county and two low-level counties.

The middle-level counties are called Xifeng County, and the lower-level counties are called Longshan County and Fengyuan County.

Xifeng County has a population of about 110,000, Longshan County has a population of just over 50,000, and Fengyuan County has an even smaller population of just over 30,000.

Therefore, the population of the entire Liangzhou Prefecture is less than one million, just over 600,000.

Liangzhou Prefecture is a border city, bordering the Black Eagle, Red Wolf, and Huhuo tribes respectively.

Among the three major alien races, the Black Eagle tribe is the strongest, with a population of more than three million, followed by the Red Wolf tribe, with a population of more than two million, and the Huhuo tribe, with a population of more than one million.

Among the three major barbarians, the Red Wolf Clan is the most ferocious and often comes to Liangzhou to plunder. The Black Eagle Clan is not very aggressive because they also farm their own land, but they still send out troops once a year.

The Huhuo tribe, on the other hand, all live in the forest and are very good at taming wild beasts. They often use beast soldiers to fight. Therefore, even the Red Wolf tribe and the Black Eagle tribe dare not provoke them at will.

The Huhuo tribe rarely attacked them. Only three years ago, a profiteer bullied the Huhuo tribe. As a result, the other party led beast soldiers to siege the city. In the end, Su Bingwen sent someone to capture the profiteer and hand him over to the Huhuo tribe. Only then did they calm down their anger.

Therefore, among these three clans, the Red Wolf clan poses the greatest threat to Liangzhou Prefecture, followed by the Black Eagle clan, and the Huhuo clan is almost non-threatening.

Before I knew it, several days passed.

Over the past few days, Song Yan has summoned officials of all sizes and learned about this year's tax revenue and the status of the treasury.

To Song Yan's surprise, more than 60% of this year's tax revenue has not been collected. As for the treasury, it is almost empty. To put it simply, Liangzhou Mansion's execution ability is very poor, and it is still very poor.

According to his understanding, government officials have not received their salaries for more than half a year.

It has to be said that Su Bingwen is too mediocre as an official, but if you think about it, it is impossible for any prefect to hand over all rights to a new prefect. Only Su Bingwen can do it.

Because they did not receive their salary, every official in the government office seemed powerless.

But before Song Yan could sort out these matters, Xu Xing sent his deputy general Yamen to ask Song Yan for military expenses.

good.

The military expenses of the military town need to be borne by the prefect's Yamen. In addition to food and grass, fifteen thousand taels of silver are also given every year.

But today's yamen can't even pay their own officials' salaries, so how can they have money for military expenditures.

"Master Song, if you don't give me military expenses, I won't leave as a low-ranking official!" Wu Jingwei acted like he wouldn't leave unless he gave me money.

"It doesn't matter. Although the prefect's office is poor, he can still afford a few meals!"

Song Yan said lightly.

"you!"

Wu Jingwei was furious.

"Come here, please invite Vice General Wu to the wing and serve him some good tea. I have work to do!"

Two government officials walked in: "General Wu, please invite me!"

"Lord Song, I think you are great. I will leave today and come back another day!" Wu Jingwei left in a depressed tone.

Subsequently.

Song Yan combed through the tax account books and found a lot of old taxes, and there were dozens of large tax arrears. The amount of grain owed was almost more than 200,000 jins, and the tax money was more than 30,000 taels.

As for ordinary people, they only owe tens of thousands of catties of tax and grain, and only five or six thousand taels of tax money.

In addition, the three counties have not paid all official taxes for many years, and the official grain owed has reached more than 400,000 catties, and the official silver has reached more than 60,000 taels.

"Why!"

Song Yan sighed again, Su Bingwen was too mediocre as an official. No wonder the government office was so dilapidated. It was probably not that he didn't want to repair it, but that he couldn't afford the money to repair it.

So Song Yan summoned officials to learn about the situation of dozens of large tax arrears.

Only then did I realize that these large tax arrears were all residents of Liangzhou, and each of them had built a fortress, and there were also private soldiers in the fortress.

With less than a hundred yamen servants in the government office, there is nothing that can be done about those guys.

As for the officials who collect taxes, they can't even enter the gate of the fortress, and they still collect ridiculous taxes.

In fact, Su Bingwen could have asked Xu Xing for help, but the relationship between the two was quite stiff. Therefore, after so many years, these big families were allowed to evade taxes, and the prefect's Yamen could not do anything to them.

Today's prefecture yamen are already unable to make ends meet. If these taxes cannot be collected, the entire yamen will not be able to operate.

Therefore, the most important thing at the moment is to collect taxes from those large households.

As long as the big households are willing to pay taxes, there is no reason why ordinary people should not pay taxes.

"Is there any way you can recover the taxes from these large households?"

Song Yan looked at the dozens of officials and asked.

As soon as he finished speaking, these officials began to complain one after another.

Some said they couldn't get in at all;

Some even said that they were beaten back halfway;

Some people even said that the other party not only refused to open the door, but also shouted insults at them.

After they all finished speaking, Song Yan continued: "Everyone knows what is going on in the yamen. If the tax cannot be collected, I am afraid that everyone will not be able to pay out their salaries. Seeing that the new year is approaching, everyone can only drink the northwest wind. Therefore, I have a suggestion here. Each of you can collect taxes from those big households. No matter who receives the tax grain or tax money, you can take away 1% of it, so that you can live a better life. A fat year.”

Hearing this, the officials present were shocked, and immediately, some people began to have thoughts.

If they can receive ten thousand catties of grain, they will have one hundred catties. If they can receive one thousand taels of silver, they will also receive ten taels.

But soon, they gave up this idea. How could the taxes of those sitting on the ground be so easy to collect?

Not to mention giving them a 1% commission, even a tenth they couldn't do it, so they began to complain again.

Some people even clamored for Song Yan to receive his salary, claiming that the family could no longer untie the pot.

Seeing the behavior of these officials, Song Yan was secretly disappointed. They really didn't have any useful talents.