Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 541 Return to Beijing
The additional taxes and fines this time were based on accounts found over the past three years. It can only be said that Jia Lian was still quite polite.

He also knew that he was being polite, and those people were not grateful, but hated him even more. But there was nothing he could do. After all, he couldn't really start killing people. This was not a chaotic world.

For the imperial court, this year's tax revenue in Jiangnan Province was a big one. In previous years, the tax revenue in the two quarters was between three million and four million taels, but this year it almost doubled to 6.3 million taels.

This is not counting the fines. Jia Lian has promoted the province-wide commercial tax chaos, and the tax and fines collected over the past three years have reached 8 million taels. Among them, Suzhou alone contributed 4 million taels.

Next came Songjiang Prefecture and Jinling Prefecture, each with 1.5 million taels. There were also other prefectures and counties, which brought a heavy blow to the business community in Jiangnan Province.

This is a set example for future officials. Taking Suzhou as an example, if the annual commercial tax is less than one million taels, it means that there is a problem with the government.

Sun Huazhen, who was unable to manage the affairs, resigned three times and finally got his resignation. Jia Lian was forced to stay in Jinling for another half a month, waiting for the new governor, the three-commissioned official, the prefect of Suzhou, the prefect of Songjiang, etc. Jia Lian alone took down the entire Jiangnan provincial team, and the prefects of Suzhou and Songjiang suffered the most, being directly exiled to Nanyang, which was considered as sending an assistant to Li Yuan.

After completing the handover, Jia Lian could finally return to the capital. He came with nothing, and when he left, he had to escort 10 million taels back to the capital. Fortunately, Shenji Town also went back with him, and no one dared to have any evil thoughts. Jia Lian felt very relaxed during the trip.

When the team led by Jia Lian crossed the Yangtze River, the depressing atmosphere in many places in Jiangnan Province was completely released, and the sound of firecrackers and crying could be heard everywhere.

The former is the venting of the wise men after they escaped death, and the latter is the helplessness of the grassroots beneficiaries.

To the common people, the world is so big and there are so many officials, but Jia Gong is the only one.

The common people of Suzhou, out of the most simple emotions, secretly offered tablets to the Jia family.

After rushing all the way, Jia Lian finally returned to the capital on the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month. As the 13th year of Chenghui was about to end, the sky was covered with dark clouds and sporadic snowflakes began to fall.

Seeing the 10 million taels of silver, the officials of the Ministry of Revenue almost kowtowed to Jia Lian. This year, the climate in many places was abnormal, and the fiscal revenue of the court dropped sharply. In order to pay the officials' salaries and welfare a few years ago, they borrowed one million silver dollars from the Shanxi Merchants Bank to make ends meet. As for the central bank, the Ministry of Revenue said that it could not make up for the bad debt of 10 million yuan, thanks to the discovery of iron and coal mines on the recovered land. Now, the cabinet and the emperor are arguing again over these two mines. The emperor meant that the mine belonged to the inner treasury, and the cabinet meant that the Ministry of Revenue also had shares in the central bank, so how could it take it all for itself.

Before the distribution of property rights is resolved, there is probably no intention to engage in development.

In short, the central bank is not out of money, but it cannot lend out a single silver dollar. Many account relationships have not been straightened out, and the process of correcting errors is still ongoing.

At this time, Jia Lian's 10 million taels (about 15 million silver dollars) arrived, which was like a long-awaited rain. Not only could he pay off his debts by the end of the year, but he could also ease his expenses at the beginning of next year.

So where did the huge profits that the court earned from maritime trade every year go? One was to the Nanyang Reconquest War, and the other was to support the King of Xining and the King of Dongping.

The King of Dongping was relatively better. He only needed supplies and money, and he could even use his money to boost trade. As for the King of Xining, he only needed arms. Other supplies were too far away, so it was better to transport silver. The King of Xining was also quite capable. The former Anxi Protectorate had been basically restored in the past three years, and he successfully expelled the minions of the Russian Empire. Now, if we continue to go west, there are two development directions, one is Persia, and the other is Tianzhu (India).

Because of the recovery of the former Anxi territory, British Minister Wynne repeatedly sought to see the emperor and proposed retaining a buffer zone between Anxi and India, and that neither side should enter the area.

Where is this region? Afghanistan, of course.

When Jia Lian saw Qiu Shi'an standing at the city gate when he entered the city, he was really surprised. He quickly got off the carriage and went forward to greet him: "How could I trouble Mr. Qiu to welcome you in person? Jia Lian is very embarrassed."

Qiu Shian smiled very genuinely, stepped forward and stretched out his hand to look at Jia Lian and bowed: "The Saint has been looking forward to your return! Other matters will be handled by others, come with us to the palace."

Jia Lian followed Qiu Shi'an directly into the palace. Emperor Chenghui in the Qianqing Palace tried hard to calm his excitement. After watching Jia Lian's tall figure step over the threshold, he took three steps away and paid his respects with great ceremony.

"I, your humble servant Jia Lian, kowtow to Your Majesty. Long live the emperor!" Normally, there would be no need for such a big fuss, but today's situation was rather special, so Jia Lian was not so pretentious.

Emperor Chenghui's hands were shaking. He stepped forward to help Jia Lian up, but then stopped and said, "Hurry up and help Jia Qing up so I can take a good look at him."

Two young eunuchs came forward and helped Jia Lian to stand up. After Jia Lian thanked them, he wiped his eyes and smiled: "Your Majesty is in good health. I am very happy."

When Emperor Chenghui heard this as the first sentence, with admiration in his eyes, his nose suddenly felt sore. He turned his head to wipe his tears, and sniffed for a long time before his mood eased a little.

"You...!" There seemed to be a thousand words in his heart. When the time came, Emperor Chenghui didn't know what to say. After a pause, he said, "Very good, very good."

Jia Lian stopped talking and just stood there smiling. Emperor Chenghui stood up, took a closer look at Jia Lian, and sighed, "You've gotten darker and thinner. You must have suffered a lot these years!"

"It's nothing like the pain your majesty has to endure sitting in the center of the government." Jia Lian's words once again touched the bitter switch of Emperor Chenghui. His heart was suddenly filled with mixed feelings and it was difficult to calm down.

"You have been away from Beijing for several years. Your family has been thinking about you. The New Year is just a few days away. I am relieved to see that everything is going well for you. You should go home quickly. Don't keep your family waiting any longer."

The reason why the emperor and his minister met here was that Emperor Chenghui simply wanted to see that everything was fine with Jia Lian.

Jia Lian kowtowed again and left. Emperor Chenghui stood at the door and watched him go away. When he turned back, he couldn't help but feel his face hot and wet. He raised his hand to wipe it and laughed at himself, "I am old, and I am sentimental."

Qiu Shian whispered, "Sir, I was waiting at the city gate. I met Lord Jia and he said that His Majesty was waiting to see me. He dropped everything and followed me into the palace. I saw Lord Jia treat you like a father and I couldn't help but feel happy for you. Oh no, Lord Jia has sent a lot of gifts and they are still to come. I have to go to the palace gate and keep an eye on them."

Emperor Chenghui laughed and waved his hand to signal him to get busy. In the past three years, Jia Lian was not in the capital, and Emperor Chenghui finally realized that you only realize the importance of some people when they are not around.

Jia Lian was able to solve the central bank's bad debts smoothly. Of course, the premise is that he has decent cards in his hand.

Before this, who could have imagined that there would be a huge high-quality iron mine in Shijingshan? Who could have imagined that he could find a high-quality coal mine in Tanggu?

For subsequent development, we still need to listen more to Jia Lian's opinions, and some compromises can be made on the cabinet side.

Jia Lian did not leave the palace directly, but went to the cabinet first.

Zhang Tingen had known that he had entered the palace a long time ago. When he heard the sound at the door, he stood up without any pretense, smiled, and looked at Jia Lian standing at the door and peeking his head out.

Seeing this familiar gesture, Zhang Tingen instantly laughed: "You bastard, you are already a second-rank official, but you still don't look good."

"In front of others, a student naturally has to act like a high-ranking official. It must be tiring to do so in front of my mentor." Jia Lian came in with a smile on his face. Zhang Tingen looked at him, feeling deeply moved.

After sitting down, Zhang Tingen couldn't wait to speak: "The coal mine in Tanggu is easy to deal with, after all, it is far away. As for the iron mine in Shijingshan, it is difficult for the cabinet to make concessions." The master and apprentice had a tacit understanding and spoke very directly.

"In any case, the central bank's 10 million yuan bad debt has not been recovered, just two plots of land and a bunch of IOUs. It was done by students, but it left some face for the court. The current dispute between the cabinet and your majesty is not very meaningful. The key is the subsequent development. Don't let the steel produced in Shijingshan be more expensive than the steel shipped from Suzhou thousands of miles away. That would be a joke."

This is something we must remind ourselves of: cost control.

Zhang Tingen understood what Jia Lian meant. The cost of workers and factory construction alone was not high. What Jia Lian was afraid of was that a brick that cost one cent was recorded as three or five cents, or even higher. There was also the engineering fee, which was also a problem for state-owned enterprises.

"Yes, you are right. I was thinking about building a relationship with the R&D department first to ensure that the steel produced in the future can have a guaranteed market." Zhang Tingen seemed to be joking, but he was serious.

Jia Lian couldn't help but sigh and said, "My dear teacher, please don't worry about this. If this steel plant is government-run, I don't know if it can compete with the Zunhua Iron Works."

Zhang Ting'en frowned slightly as he listened: "Why, are you against government-run enterprises?"

Jia Lian shook his head. "That's not possible. Students are the most staunch supporters of government-run enterprises. The problem is that ironworks and other private industries have already become large-scale industries. If government-run enterprises cannot make technological breakthroughs and produce steel with better performance and irreplaceable value, and only produce ordinary steel, it will be difficult to compete with private enterprises. So, there are two ways out. One is to increase investment in research and development and achieve technological breakthroughs. The other is to have government supervision and business management. However, as the supervisory party, we only need to supervise the accounts and are absolutely not allowed to interfere in production and operation."

"Wait a moment, my memory is not as good as before, please write it down first." Zhang Tingen raised his hand to greet him. Jia Lian sat down and picked up the pen to write down some outlines.

"What is this technological breakthrough you're talking about?" Zhang Tingen couldn't help but ask as he watched Jia Lian writing.

Jia Lian stopped and smiled, "For example, spring steel plates are used for shock absorption in carriages. There are precedents in the West, but in my opinion, they are still immature, so I commissioned the technical department of the R&D Department to conduct some related experiments. On the one hand, in terms of quality, by adding other metals in different proportions to smelt alloy steel, and on the other hand, in terms of structure, there used to be only one steel plate, but now can we stack several more? Years ago, the student received a letter from Mr. Lavoisier, and with the help of him and his wife, he solved the problem of the ratio of the new steel."

"What do you mean, if the new ironworks is government-run, should we buy in this new technology? Or should we let the government buy out the new technology?"

"This can be discussed. I just don't want such high-quality resources to be wasted. The production cannot match the huge investment." Jia Lian didn't say it clearly, but he was still referring to the problem of the central bank. It seems to be Li Yuan's problem. As a shareholder, does the cabinet have no responsibility for the supervisors it sent? Not only that, but it is not small. It's just that Emperor Chenghui attracted attention due to his disappointment in Li Yuan and did not pay enough attention to this issue. Jia Lian is different. He is very clear about the structure of the central bank, and even the cabinet has an unshirkable responsibility for the problems of the central bank. The supervisors you sent out found the problem. If you can't do it first, it is incompetence. If you find it and don't stop it, it is dereliction of duty.

Therefore, although Jia Lian's answer seemed irrelevant, Zhang Tingen still understood what he meant. This was a kind reminder. Don't wait until Emperor Chenghui comes to his senses and realizes that the responsibility cannot be attributed to Li Yuan alone. It would be difficult to redeem the bad impression that Emperor Chenghui has already left.

After understanding, Zhang Tingen broke out in a cold sweat. He had really ignored this problem before. The reason is very simple. Li Yuan is one of the heirs to the emperor. This identity makes people easily misunderstand that it is not just the supervisory officials who are derelict in their duties, but the cabinet ministers also have a huge responsibility. Although a large part of the responsibility lies with the previous cabinet, the problem was discovered by the current cabinet, so the current cabinet has an unshirkable responsibility. This is not something that does not exist if you don't say it. If it is not dealt with now while it is easy to solve, it may become an unsolvable problem in the future, causing permanent damage and estrangement between the emperor and the cabinet.

The cabinet led by Zhang Tingen advocated reforms, and despite repeated setbacks, it has been insisting on the general direction. From Jia Lian's perspective, reforms are necessary. Otherwise, in at most 20 years, when the entire top leadership is filled with rotten people who only care about their immediate interests, the empire will not be able to save itself. If you want to change the situation, you can only have a violent revolution, smash everything and rebuild.

(PS: You can understand this truth by looking at the current Lighthouse! Trump wanted to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict and blackmail Ukraine at first, but failed. Then he wanted to launch the Stargate Project, DP came out of nowhere, and the AI ​​myth collapsed. He really wanted to use gentle means, but found that he had no more cards to play and had run out of tricks, so he used the tariff card. Using this card means that the user considers himself to be in a passive defense state. As I said, gods cannot bleed, and the world hegemon has shown his blood bar. Trump's winning theory can only deceive his supporters.)
Zhang Tingen, who had reacted, was really anxious and waved his hand to chase him away: "I'll go see His Majesty now, you go and have fun."

Jia Lian smiled bitterly, came out, turned a corner, and knocked on Ci Fu's door.

The person who opened the door was Lin Ruhai's attendant. When he saw Jia Lian, the attendant's face was so smiling that it turned into a dried chrysanthemum.

"My nephew is here? Please come in!"

Jia Lian really doesn’t care whether they are close relatives or not. This is how the era is. If you insist on being pretentious, everyone will have a hard time.

When Lin Ruhai saw Jia Lian, he had to behave himself, not only for himself, but also for Daiyu.

"Well, now you're here, take a seat." Lin Ruhai sat there without moving, accepting Jia Lian's great gift.

After Jia Lian sat down, Lin Ruhai looked at him, his expression softened a little, and said, "I won't thank you for the Suzhou matter."

Jia Lian knew what he meant, but how to say it, Jia Lian really didn't treat the Lin family specially. It's just that in Lin Ruhai's view, not treating the Lin family specially was treating the Lin family specially.

"The Lin family has been doing too smoothly in recent years, and everyone in the clan has lost their sense of reality. Your trip to Suzhou this time should be regarded as a wake-up call for them. In front of the imperial army, the wealth of the common people is nothing. As long as you are willing, the Lin family is a piece of fat meat that you can enjoy at will." Lin Ruhai said very bluntly, and Jia Lian nodded seriously.

The state is the product of irreconcilable class contradictions. This sentence is written in the textbook and I learned it in junior high school.

The current system determines that emerging industries and commerce are vulnerable to the current system that has not been changed.

The key is that although this emerging class has certain advanced features, its nature is too bad.

The Central Plains Dynasty has a tradition of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce since ancient times. It is not like what some UPs say that they have realized the harmfulness of businessmen. It is because of low productivity. You have so many people to feed and so much land that needs people to cultivate. Therefore, once business absorbs too many people, the foundation of the rulers will be shaken. The centralized system determines that the imperial power will be particularly vigilant against any force that threatens its rule. The real ruler of medieval Europe was the Holy See, and there were a bunch of small countries under it that could only exchange what they had through trade. In the Central Plains Dynasty, after Qin Shihuang unified the country, the value of mutual exchange was greatly weakened, and commerce was more of a necessary supplement.

It would be a waste of time to explain this issue clearly, so I will skip it here. It is enough for everyone to know that the underlying logic of all actions lies in the centralized imperial power.

Looking at the problem from Jia Lian's perspective, the time has come for the Great Zhou Dynasty to change, and the initial stage of this change is the administration of officials.

Only after we have good governance can we talk about other things.

After Zhang Tingen, Jia Lian must be the successor, so this new force must be protected. This is why Jia Lian did not start a massacre.

In fact, in economically developed coastal areas such as Jiangnan, industry, commerce and gentry are firmly tied together and form a multi-dimensional entity.

Take the Ming Dynasty as an example, why couldn't the commercial tax be collected? Just look at who the Zhengying Dynasty was during the Tianqi period and you will know who stood behind the Donglin Party.

Do you really think Gao Panlong opened Donglin Academy with his own money? What a joke!
Do you really think that the couplets at the entrance of Donglin Academy are aimless?

Their original intention was to go for politics.

The people of the Central Plains Dynasty all took Lu Buwei as their role model.

"Okay, go home quickly, everyone is waiting for you." Lin Ruhai said what he had to say and drove the man away. As for the matter between Jia Lian and Daiyu, there was no rush.

(End of this chapter)