May, the second year of Ganlu.
Cao Wei issued a second major decree no less significant than the rewarded fields edict: the spread the poll tax into the fields law.
Zhong Hui first established the amount of this year's head tax. Taking the poll tax assessment for the second year of Ganlu as a fixed sum, he then distributed that sum across the land tax, calculating each share according to the area of cultivated land owned.
The imperial court announced the formal abolition of the head tax.
This immediately stirred up towering waves throughout the realm.
Since Emperor Xiaowu of Former Han had begun levying a head tax on the people, this was the first time anyone had sought to break that rule.
Discussion abounded both within the court and beyond it.
Everyone believed the policy could not last.
At the Imperial Academy, too, it sparked considerable debate.
This era was different from later ages, after all. Its circumstances were unlike those of any other time. The powerful clans of the Wei-Jin period were not actually all that powerful, because there was something even more ruthless than them.
These powerful clans were the gentry and landlords of later ages.
The menfa, placed in a later age, would essentially have been great nobles-dukes, imperial princes, and the like. They were different from the gentry.
The relationship between the powerful clans and the menfa was also rather delicate.
The powerful clans had to bow to the menfa before they could prey on the common people, and the menfa would come out and strike at them from time to time as well. In the eyes of the menfa, those local powerful clans were little different from ordinary people-merely somewhat larger insects.
Vast amounts of the realm's cultivated land were concentrated in the hands