Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 752 Taxes and Food

At the same time, the late rice was almost all planted. After a short rest of two days, the government office began to prepare to collect the tax grain for the first half of the year.

Several officials from the government office, along with a number of clerks, began to go out early and return late, going to the countryside and villages to collect taxes and grain.

After more than half a month, the tax grains from several prefectures had all been collected. Because of sufficient irrigation and fertilizers, the overall tax grains in Xichang Prefecture were more than 10% higher this year.

However, the yield of the excellent rice planted in the official fields has not increased significantly. It is still only 10% higher than ordinary rice. It seems that if you want to grow high-yield excellent rice, you still need to work hard.

After the late rice is planted, a certain amount of water is needed for irrigation. In addition, corn and sorghum have high demands for water. Soon, the water level in the wells dug in various state capitals became lower and lower.

Next, if the well irrigation cannot meet the demand, the ponds will be used. However, the fields are very dry, and the water level in the ponds is dropping rapidly due to seepage.

Looking at the pond and well where the water level is becoming increasingly shallow, Hualei misses the sprinkler and drip irrigation technologies of her previous life very much.

The biggest advantage of sprinkler irrigation technology in the past is that it is water-saving, efficient, and highly adaptable. It uses pipelines to deliver water and spray accurately, and the water-saving effect is very significant.

Compared with the most primitive ditch irrigation method, sprinkler irrigation technology is the best for irrigating field crops, which can save 30% to 40% of water.

It is especially suitable for arid areas like Xichang Prefecture, but unfortunately there is no such advanced equipment here. As for the drip irrigation technology with a water utilization rate of more than 90%, Hualei dare not even hope for it.

To develop agriculture, we must first develop industry. This statement still makes sense. In the past, many advanced and convenient agricultural equipment allowed agriculture to develop rapidly.

Unfortunately, Hualei doesn’t have this ability yet.

After the late rice was planted, Hua Lei did not go out on patrol for the time being, but stayed in the government office and wrote a memorial to the emperor and then returned to the capital.

Before Lord Pei returned to Beijing, Hualei forgot one thing: she had not yet reported to her superiors the planting of double-season rice in Xichang this year.

Originally, Hualei thought that she could just write about it in her performance report at the end of the year. But when the yamen official came back with dozens of carts full of collected early rice tax grain.

Hualei suddenly remembered the question of whether to collect tax grain for late rice. In the past, Xichang Prefecture planted two crops a year, so tax grain was collected twice a year. However, this year, one more crop was planted, and the situation became a little different.

As far as Hua Lei knows, in recent years, several prefectures in Jiangnan that have three-season planting seasons have indeed paid grain taxes three times a year.

However, Jiangnan has been planting rice for many years, but Xichang Prefecture is planting it for the first time. If the people are required to pay taxes three times, it seems a bit unfair to them.

You should know that the imperial court has regulations that for the first three years, the reclaimed land will not have to pay any or less tax, but this is only applicable to areas where only two crops are grown a year.

Moreover, in order to increase production, many of the fields in Xichang Prefecture where late rice is planted are rotated this year. Therefore, the exact number of acres of late rice planted is also debatable.

Moreover, when in Mobei, Hua Lei once wanted to reduce the tax grain by 2.4 jin from the people, but Minister Zhang did not agree.

Remind yourself that the country has its own laws and the family has its own rules, and it is the most correct thing to do things according to the law. It can be seen that the court attaches great importance to tax grain.

Therefore, Hualei was not sure whether or not to pay tax on late rice and how to pay it. He could only write a memorial to the emperor.

Report the matter of planting double-season rice to the Ministry of Revenue, and ask for the opinions of the Ministry of Revenue and Emperor Shengwu on how to collect tax grain.

In order to avoid being too clever and doing bad things with good intentions. At the same time, Hualei also made several alternative plans for the follow-up of tax grain collection.

Only give your boss multiple-choice questions and not essay questions. This is one of the essential skills for being a good subordinate.

In addition, Hualei also suggested that regardless of whether Xichang Prefecture paid the three-season tax this year, the existing granaries needed to be maintained and repaired. In addition, some new granaries also needed to be built.

When the granaries are full, the world is at peace. In a prosperous dynasty, due to the low yields of the fields, in bad years, there may even be no harvest at all.

Therefore, many people have the habit of digging a cellar at home, drying the grain, and storing it in case of emergency.

In order to solve local grain storage problems, local county towns, state capitals, and prefectural capitals will also build granaries of appropriate sizes to store grain.

In addition, the imperial court would also build larger granaries to store grain in various strategic locations or transportation hubs in order to stabilize prices, provide relief to disaster victims, and store military supplies.

However, due to the different climatic characteristics in different places, the shapes of granaries built in different places are also different.

In the Mobei area, in addition to digging small cellars underground to store grain, the granaries on the ground were generally surrounded by bricks in a circular shape, which were called brick round granaries.

However, after arriving in Xichang, Hualei discovered that the granaries in Xichang Prefecture were generally built with solid stone and wood in a square shape, called stone granaries. The Xichang Prefecture government had several stone granaries exclusively for use.

Of course, there are also granaries in military camps that are surrounded by straw woven from sorghum stalks, called "grain storages". When two armies go to war, sometimes one side will send people to burn the enemy's granary, referring to this "grain storage".

However, due to the special function of the granary, its construction is somewhat different from that of ordinary houses and academies.

Previously, when Xichang Prefecture built an academy, since it did not need money from the Ministry of Rites, Hualei could just build it first and report it later.

However, to build a granary, regardless of whether the Ministry of Rites needed to allocate money, local officials had to apply to the court first.

After actual estimation, the imperial court would approve and sign the document, and then allocate silver to the local government for construction or allow the local government to build the granary on its own. Everything depended on the function of the granary.

Moreover, before local governments could build granaries, they had to wait for the imperial court to send professional technical personnel to conduct on-site inspections and select sites before construction could begin.

After writing the application, Hualei began to deal with the pile of documents on her desk. These documents had been piled up on her desk for more than half a month.