Tibet.

Chapter 1461 Xiangyang Huang Family
Gao Shi quickly came to Wei Jiansu's court room, bowed and saluted, "Meet the Prime Minister!"

Wei Jiansu smiled slightly and said, "The weekly magazine was just published yesterday. Are you ready for the next issue?"

"Reporting to the Prime Minister, it's almost ready. We'll finalize it tonight and start typesetting tomorrow."

Wei Jiansu handed him an article and said, "Put these two on the front page, and don't change a single word!"

Gao Shi took it and took a look. They were two short essays. The first one was "All Tang Dynasty officials will take an examination this autumn" and the second one was "Slave tax is about to be introduced."

Gao Shi didn't care about the content, he was more concerned about the length. The prime minister asked that not a single word could be changed. He calculated and found that it was just enough to put it down.

Gao Shi nodded, "I'll arrange it tonight!"

Wei Jiansu added: "Print 5,000 more copies this month, and the court will distribute them to each county!"

"Follow the order!"

Gao Shi bowed and stepped back.

Wei Jiansu pondered for a moment, then stood up and walked towards the round hall of the Council of State, where the meeting was about to begin.

Currently there are only six people in the Political Affairs Hall. Zhang Hao has been dismissed and his replacement has not yet been decided. The Minister of Punishments Yan Zhenqing went to Liaodong and the Minister of Rites Wang Jin went to Yuanzhou. One was resettled to house the Shiwei people and the other to house the Dangxiang people.

In addition, Bai Xiaode was not there either. He went to Luoyang to preside over the military examination, so there were actually only five people in the Political Affairs Hall.

In addition to Wei Jiansu and Zhang Li, there are Liu Yan, Xiao Hua and Guo Ziyi.

Wei Jiansu smiled slightly and said, "Let me tell you a piece of good news first. His Majesty has decided to give up recruiting more internal guards, and there won't be 1,500 teams going to the counties!"

When this news came out, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. It is easy to invite a god but difficult to send him away. If they really recruit another 20,000 internal guards, even if it is in the name of temporary, it will be difficult to disband it.

Xiao Hua said with emotion: "Thanks to Prime Minister Wei! Otherwise, 1,500 internal guards would rush to various places to handle cases, and countless innocent people would be killed and their families destroyed."

Wei Jiansu shook his head. "This actually has nothing to do with me. The emperor calmed down himself. He also felt that it was inappropriate, so he summoned me to discuss other solutions. I brought out the slave tax law we discussed before. Everyone knows that the emperor is more interested in taxes."

Everyone laughed together. Although Guo Ziyi didn't know what they were laughing at, he laughed along.

The slave tax was planned by Liu Yan, who used heavy taxes to force local wealthy families to give up their slaves.

"But there is a big problem here. Have you thought about it?"

Zhang Li said slowly: "Indeed, the number of slaves in each family is a big problem."

Wei Jiansu nodded, "So this requires the cooperation of local administrative reform. The county magistrate and the county magistrate are responsible for formulating the plan, but the actual executors are the clerks. After the clerks in various places are replaced by new people, things will be much better. In addition, killing one person to warn the rest and encouraging informants are also good methods. These wealthy families are not fools. They will weigh the pros and cons. They know whether to hide a few slaves to pay less taxes or wait for the internal guards to come to their door."

"I'm just afraid that they are hoping for luck! Everyone hopes for luck." Zhang Li sighed.

"So we need to vigorously publicize it and publish some cases in the weekly magazine so that they can see the real facts. This will be a deterrent!"

Finally, Wei Jiansu sighed, "If all methods have been exhausted and there is still no news, then the internal security can only come to the door. I also believe that this is a very small number of families."

After chatting for a while, everyone finally got back to the topic.

"Today, we invite everyone here to discuss the establishment of a slave tax. According to the emperor's will, the principle of the slave tax is heavy taxes and penalties, followed by a generous reward for informing on others, and thirdly, it is linked to the career of county officials, and fourthly, the support of old slaves. With these four measures in place, I believe that in five years at the latest, not many wealthy families in the world will want to keep slaves."

Inside the Wolong Restaurant in Xiangyang County, guests were seated and the place was bustling with noise. Today was the full moon of the Huang family's great-grandson, and the Huang family had booked the Wolong Restaurant to entertain the guests.

In an elegant room, Huang Min, the head of the Xiangyang Huang family, was drinking with several local wealthy family heads. At this moment, the door suddenly opened, and Huang Min's youngest son Huang Yu walked in quickly and handed a weekly magazine to his father.

"Father, look at this!"

Huang Min took the newspaper and asked, "Didn't you say you couldn't take a day off today? How come you can come again?"

"It was County Magistrate Yang who asked me to come here and let my father read the newspaper. It was just delivered from the Chang'an Jinzouyuan today."

Huang Yu currently serves as the household officer of Xiangyang County. He is the least promising of Huang Min's sons and only works as a county official.

Huang Yu unfolded the newspaper and read it carefully. He was shocked by the two pieces of news on the front page. The first one was about the unified examination for civil servants by the imperial court in the autumn. He didn't take it seriously as it didn't matter to him whether his son became a clerk or not.

But the second piece of news made him a little uneasy, 'The court will levy slave taxes, and all families with slaves will bear heavy taxes. If they evade taxes, they will be fined ten times as much and beaten with thirty sticks. '"Brother Huang, what important news made you look so different?" Several important guests asked with a smile.

"This is not good news! The court is going to impose taxes on slaves."

Huang Min handed the newspaper to everyone. Several people took the newspaper and gathered together to read it carefully. They were all stunned.

"What do you mean? Aren't you going to enforce the abolition order? Why are you levying taxes again?"

Huang Min sneered and said, "If the sharp knife of the abolition order can't cut it, then we'll use the blunt knife of the slave tax to cut it, making you suffer so much that you want to die, but there's nothing you can do."

One of the main reasons why these local wealthy families dared to resist the abolition order was that their slaves were obtained legally. The imperial court could abolish slavery, but they had to compensate for their losses.

But the court did not compensate officials for abolishing slavery, so how could it compensate them?
Since there was no compensation, naturally no one was willing to go to the county government to file a claim, and the county officials were helpless against them.

The county officials had no solution, but the imperial court did. Shouldn't it be legal? Then let's collect taxes! The imperial court's taxation was reasonable and legal. It was okay to keep slaves, but slaves had to bear heavy taxes, and those who tried to evade taxes would be severely punished.

"Brother Huang, is there any way to avoid taxes?"

Huang Min smiled bitterly and said, "There are definitely many ways to evade taxes, but I'm afraid of this."

Huang Min stepped forward and pointed at the last line, "Look at this sentence!"

'A generous reward will be given to anyone who dares to expose the truth, no less than ten strings of cash each time, and the court will keep their identities secret.'

"Bitter!"

Everyone groaned in unison. This move was too cruel. They could keep it secret from outsiders, but there were no secrets from the people in the mansion. The housekeeper, accountant, steward, coachman, and servants all knew about it.

Huang Min said quietly, "I heard that Prime Minister Zhang was informed by his butler before, and the butler was rewarded with 500 strings of cash. Prime Minister Zhang was dismissed from his post and became a commoner, and that's only 50 slaves!"

"Brother Huang, tell us what to do!" Several pairs of eyes turned to Huang Min.

Huang Min sighed, "I don't know what to do either. Let's just mind our own business!"

A newspaper dampened Huang Min's interest. He returned to the mansion and immediately found his father Huang Kai.

After listening to his son's story and looking at the newspaper, Huang Kai didn't say anything for a long time. After a while, he asked, "How many slaves do we have?"

"More than 1,300 people!"

Huang Kai frowned, "There are so many?"

"It was mainly because of the An-Shi Rebellion. There were too many refugees from the north who fled to Jingxiang. We are relatively lucky. The Du family has more than 3,000 people."

"How much did it cost in total to buy these slaves?" Huang Kai asked again.

"It didn't cost much. It was really cheap at the time, and the streets were full of people trying to sell their bodies."

Huang Kai had experienced Li Ye's power. At that time, he stood in the snow and begged for forgiveness. Only then did Li Ye spare the Huang family.

After pondering for a long time, Huang Kai slowly said: "Release them all as civilians."

Huang Min was shocked. "Father, basically no one is willing to release them voluntarily."

"That's because they haven't experienced the severity of the situation. There are more than 1,300 people. Once someone reports them, not only will they be severely punished, but the inner guards will also come to your house. Are you willing? The punishment will be ten times as much, which means tens of thousands of strings of cash. Do you think the emperor can't do it? I know him too well. He wants to kill one to warn the rest. Xiangyang is where he started his career, so he will definitely investigate Xiangyang first. The Huang and Du families will bear the brunt. We didn't support him back then, and he may not forget this grudge."

"I understand! I will go to the county government office tomorrow to handle the formalities."

Huang Min hesitated for a moment, "Should we inform the Du family?"

Huang Kai shook his head. "Du Yan died two years ago. His son Du Youguang was a well-known miser. The Du family must have suffered this disaster. If the Du family resolves the emperor's old grudge, our Huang family will be fine."

Huang Min secretly admired his father's shrewdness and said quickly, "Yu'er is the household official, so I will let him handle the transfer of slaves privately without alerting others."

"this is okay too!"

(End of this chapter)