Chapter 255 Who is willing to ask the court to open the sea?
"I dare not deceive Your Majesty. Your Majesty will find out when you go and check!" Xia Yan replied.
"Show me the Royal Taxation Bureau." Zhu Houzhao waved his hand and hurried to the Royal Taxation Bureau. To be precise, it should be the Royal Taxation Bureau.
Ever since Zhu Houzhao forced the civil servants to agree that the internal funds would be under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Household Affairs and directly accountable to the emperor by promising not to come out to auction the imperial property in person after the First Royal Exposition, Zhu Houzhao changed the name of his internal funds. It is the Royal Tax Administration, and until now, the main taxes of the empire are still divided into two parts, one part is the field tax transferred to Taicang, and the other part is the commercial tax.
All commercial taxes belong to the Royal Taxation Bureau, which is located in tax bureaus, branches and even tax offices all over the country.
Since Zhu Houzhao had not raised commercial taxes, and the imperial power still suppressed the civil servant group, there was naturally no major conflict.
The income of the Royal Revenue Service is deposited in the warehouses of the Royal Bank.
Therefore, Zhu Houzhao said he was going to the Royal Taxation Administration, but in fact he was going to the general warehouse of the Royal Bank.
The Royal Bank's main warehouse is in the Imperial City and is heavily guarded. Ordinary people cannot enter, so there is no need to worry about theft.
However, when Zhu Houzhao arrived at the Royal Taxation Administration, almost all the cabinet ministers, officials from the Ministry of Revenue and even officials from the Metropolitan Procuratorate, as well as officials and soldiers from the Ministry of War, Ministry of Punishment, and Shuntian Prefecture gathered here.
There is no other reason.
There is so much gold and silver in the warehouse that the staff of the Royal Bank are simply too busy. And for the Ming Empire, the arrival of so much gold and silver in the capital will naturally cause shock to the entire government and the public!
"Your Majesty, it's not just the more than two thousand kilograms of gold and more than sixty thousand kilograms of silver that Shilang Xia brought back!"
"The total customs duties of Manlajia Haicheng, 1.65 million taels of silver, have also arrived in Beijing!"
"The 2.14 million taels of silver from customs duties and commercial taxes after the trade between Guangdong and Guangxi have also arrived in Beijing!"
"In addition, the 1.47 million taels of silver from Daming Sea Trading Company have also arrived in Beijing!"
……
"I estimate that a total of more than 10 million taels of gold and silver will be stored in the warehouse, so we can only ask the Ministry of Household Affairs to help us review it. We also specifically asked the cabinet to agree to let Tongzhou Iron Works and Baoquan Bureau recast it together! It is estimated that it will take three It will take a few months for everything to be fully stocked”
Qiao Yu, the minister in charge of the Royal Taxation Bureau, responded when Zhu Houzhao asked about the status of gold and silver entering the warehouse.
The first assistant of the cabinet Liu Yu, the second assistant Wang Qiong, the third assistant Kang Hai, and the minister of household affairs Liu Kai were all horrified.
"Taicang's silver harvest last year was only 21,120,000 taels of grain. In addition, there was a large amount of short cloth and pepper to make up the amount. The silver was only 2,140,000 taels. This is what His Majesty ordered. The more than two million taels of internal funds and mining taxes allocated to Taicang can’t compare with the income of the Royal Taxation Administration!”
Liu Kai, the Minister of Household Affairs, couldn't help but sigh. He was really jealous of the boxes of gold and silver that had entered the royal treasury, but he couldn't say that the emperor had collected the money wrong. After all, the commercial tax revenue was divided into the royal property revenue. Internal funds are in compliance with the rules.
"Who would have thought that just opening Guangdong and Guangxi could increase taxes so much! If the whole world opened up, the deposits of the Royal Taxation Administration and the Royal Bank would not be piled up in the capital!"
Liu Yu, the chief assistant of the cabinet, couldn't help but feel jealous.
"I didn't expect that Xia Yan would bring so much silver and gold back from his voyage to the West. Didn't some old ministers and scholars say that the voyage to the West was a waste of people and money? At that time, several ministers came to remonstrate with His Majesty, forcing His Majesty to only use his own internal funds to finance it. , the Ministry of Revenue and the dignitaries did not invest, and now Xia Yan brought so much gold and silver, it all belonged to the Royal Taxation Bureau. I was really confused when I was the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue at the time
If at that time, the Ministry of Household Affairs had been ruthless enough to invest, it would have added more than three million taels of silver to the national treasury, and the dams on the Han River could have been repaired! It can benefit the people of Jingchu, and I don’t know how much food production will be increased! "Wang Qiong, who was once the Minister of Household Affairs, was a calculating person. He shook his head and secretly regretted it. Of course, he was not only thinking that if this money returned to the national treasury, it would benefit the people. He also thought about building the Han River. The infrastructure bureau can be responsible for the dams. As a shareholder of the infrastructure bureau, he will naturally receive generous income.
Zhu Houzhao looked at the civil servants behind him, who were all either frowning or sighing, and he wanted to laugh in his heart. But he remembered very clearly that when Xia Yan went to the West and Zhang Yanling sailed across the ocean, these civil servants Either he objected or he remained silent, but he refused to pay a penny anyway, so he had no choice but to ask the Royal Taxation Bureau to provide money and get a loan from the Royal Bank, and now he was the only one making huge profits.
At this time, Wei Ying, the left minister of the Ministry of Revenue, could not help but step forward and advise Zhu Houzhao: "Your Majesty, the current Royal Taxation Administration can make tens of millions of taels of silver from customs and sea trade alone. According to my official position, Look, it’s better to abolish the mining tax all over the world. This will not only relieve the people’s poverty, but also benefit the future.”
The mineral tax is a tax that has been added to merchants since the industrial development of the Ming Dynasty led to a great increase in the demand for ore and other raw materials, as well as the number of mining workshops. This is similar to the historical mineral tax collected by Wanli, which allowed eunuchs to mine and then levied minerals from the gentry and common people. Production and mining are different. In order to prevent the mining tax from exacerbating the conflicts between the imperial court, the outer court and the people, Zhu Houzhao transferred the mining tax as a national tax. At the same time, it can be regarded as a profit from the mining industry rather than the harm done to the people by the mining industry.
However, most of the minerals in the Ming Dynasty were mined by officials and gentry, and naturally they were the ones paying the mining tax. Now Wei Ying, the left minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, thought that he would earn tens of millions of taels in one go. His Majesty the Emperor would not need the money, so he wanted to ban it. Mining tax.
"If I remember correctly, I transferred the mining tax revenue to Taicang as a disaster preparedness fund. The Ming Dynasty was vast and disasters occurred frequently. A sum of money was prepared to provide relief in the event of a major disaster or to provide enough food during a food shortage. Relieve the people, this mine If the tax is abolished, how can we have disaster preparedness funds? And if we really want to relieve people's poverty, how much poverty can be alleviated by banning the mining tax? How will ordinary people know about mining? I think it is better to ban corvee in the world! "
Zhu Houzhao rejected Wei Ying's proposal. He would not let the conspiracy of the official gentry group succeed. However, Zhu Houzhao had already had the idea of outlawing the world's corvee. After all, the emperor now had strong capital and no longer needed to enslave the people of the world, and the country's income It has also increased a lot. Capitalism in the Ming Dynasty began to appear. The employment-based cooperative relationship gradually replaced the prostitution system. Freeing the people of the world from the pain of corvee is undoubtedly the best way to increase personal income and food production.
"I would like to thank Your Majesty on behalf of the people of the world! If corvee service is abolished in the world, poor families will no longer have to miss farm time due to military service, and wealthy families will no longer be impoverished because of heavy labor payments!"
Liu Yu was a young man from a poor family, and he was deeply aware of the importance of corvee service. When he saw that Zhu Houzhao wanted to exempt the world from corvee service, he first paid a great tribute to Zhu Houzhao.
"This is truly a blessing to all people in the world, long live my emperor!" Wang Qiong also echoed.
"There is no corvee tax for the people, and the annual income is greatly reduced. Your Majesty is a wise king who has never been seen in the ages. How could he be so lucky if it were not a prosperous age!"
Liu Kai, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, was no longer jealous of the emperor's huge income. He burst into tears, but then he couldn't help but asked: "Your Majesty, if the corvee is eliminated, won't the expenses of the Ministry of Revenue increase greatly when the people's power is needed?" , where does this money come from?”
"What I said is that the world can be exempted from corvee. As long as any one of you is willing to open up the world, I will agree that all the customs duties of the Ming Dynasty will be returned to the national treasury! The Municipal Shipping Department will be held by foreign court officials! In this way, the Ministry of Revenue will naturally have money to use people's power. Comes in handy ”
What Zhu Houzhao said was equivalent to posing a difficult problem to the civil servants present. For a while, no one dared to answer it.
“It’s not me who is willing to solve the plight of the people in the world, it’s you!”
Zhu Houzhao turned around and walked away as he spoke. At this moment, an official suddenly shouted from behind: "Your Majesty! I would like to report to the court to open the sea!"
"Who dares to risk the disapproval of the world!"
Wei Ying, the left minister of the household department, was furious.
He was not able to get His Majesty to abolish the mining tax while His Majesty was happy, but instead allowed His Majesty to take advantage of the opportunity of being exempted from the world's corvee to coerce civil servants like himself to petition to open the sea. When he felt very uncomfortable, someone happened to do it at this time. , who really wanted to ask the emperor to open the sea for the sake of the people of the world, so he was so angry that he looked directly at the sound.
It needs to be explained here that with the power of Emperor Zhu Houzhao, it is actually possible to force the full opening of the sea. However, Zhu Houzhao felt that it would be better to let some of the civil servants take the initiative to propose the opening of the sea. This can avoid the intensification of internal conflicts due to forced implementation. With the Ming Dynasty, For the development of industry and commerce, opening up the sea is inevitable, but it has not always happened in history. As for the Longwan switch, now that the time traveler Zhu Houzhao has appeared, it is time for the Ming Dynasty to fully open the sea. After all, everyone in the court has seen the benefits brought by going to sea. Where is the money brought back by Xia Yan and others? Well, no one wants to let the emperor make money alone, and let the treasury only rely on grain collection to survive.
(End of chapter)