Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 525 Renting and Heating and Cooling

Another reason why the Ministry of Revenue supported the establishment of an exchange was to facilitate the collection of property taxes.

The emperor had previously forcibly enacted this tax to levy taxes on the super wealthy.

However, the Ministry of Revenue had no idea how to collect the taxes.

Land tax and property tax are easier to deal with. These fixed assets are relatively certain and can be naturally found out when measuring the land and checking the properties.

It is difficult to say about asset tax and inheritance tax because the Ministry of Revenue has no idea how much money anyone has.

You can't use the rumored figures to levy property taxes on large households, right?
This situation began to change after the establishment of metal exchanges.

Due to the rapid depreciation of copper coins, some big investors began to take out their hidden copper coins and trade them on metal exchanges.

In this way, there will naturally be a record, letting the Ministry of Revenue know how much money there is.

The super wealthy who make profits on the metal exchanges will undoubtedly have to pay asset taxes.

The Ministry of Revenue therefore believed that more such exchanges should be set up to identify the super wealthy people in the Ming Dynasty.

Mao Qizong thought he saw the rising trend of gold and could make a fortune, but he didn't know that people like him were being watched by the State Taxation Administration and would be taxed in the future.

Knowing that this was a rare opportunity, Mao Qizong exchanged the silver dollars and went to the Shuntian Bank branch located inside the metal exchange to ask:

"I heard that banks have a kind of Jinshi loan. Can I still get a loan now?"

The salesperson was shocked when he heard this, knowing that this was someone he couldn't afford to offend.

Every Jinshi was a superior person in the Ming Dynasty and was not someone he could afford to offend.

So he said very respectfully:

"Jinshi Loan is for newly-appointed Jinshis. It uses salary as collateral and provides low-interest loans at a monthly interest rate of 1%."

"We don't have this loan program right now, but if you want to borrow money, I can lend you small amounts below 1,000 taels."

"The interest rate is subject to market conditions. Right now the monthly interest rate is 2%, or 2 percent."

Mao Qizon calculated that if the loan was for one year, the interest would be 24%.

With the current amount of silver in Japan, it may not necessarily cause the silver price in Ming Dynasty to drop by 20%.

So after thinking about it, he decided:
"First, loan for half a year, and then the highest loan is one thousand taels."

"Remember, it's one thousand silver coins, not the so-called silver ounces."

The salesperson smiled and said:

"The one liang we talk about in the bank is the actual silver content, which is one liang, or one yuan in silver."

"Don't worry, Master Mao. Our Shuntian Bank is trustworthy. If we say we will lend you one thousand taels, it means one thousand taels. We won't do that with nine out of ten and one-third back!"

With Mao Qizong's identity certificate, he was helped to complete the loan procedures.

This business point is located in the metal exchange, and the amount of silver and money transactions is usually large, so the authority is also high.

In addition, Mao Qizong was a Jinshi and an official of Taichang Temple, and had 930 yuan in funds in the metal exchange account, which made him a high-quality customer in the eyes of Shuntian Bank.

So his loan was approved very quickly.

Mao Qizon took more than 100 yuan from the money for his and his son's daily expenses, and asked Shuntian Bank to transfer the rest directly to the Metal Exchange, where it purchased gold at a price of nine yuan per tael.

According to his calculations, these 1,800 yuan could be exchanged for 200 taels of gold.

If the price of gold rises fast enough, he will be able to exchange it for more than 2,000 silver coins by next year, which will not only pay off the loan and interest, but also make a profit.

Mao Pijiang did not understand and asked:
"Dad, we are not without money at home, why do we need to borrow money?"

"If you need money, just ask grandpa to send it to you. You don't have to pay interest to the bank."

Mao Qizong became angry when he talked about it, and said:

"Don't mention it!"

"I asked your grandfather for the money, but he only gave me one thousand taels."

"If silver depreciates next year, our family will suffer a great loss!"

As the descendant of Zhennan King Tuohuan, the Mao family did not hold official posts for five generations in the early years of the country to avoid suspicion. However, after the founding of the country, Jinshi scholars quickly appeared, and high-ranking officials such as governors and provincial governors were born.

Today, the Mao family is considered a wealthy family in Rugao County, Yangzhou Prefecture, and has a lot of silver hidden away.

That is why Mao Qizon wanted his family to take out the money as soon as possible to avoid too much loss.

Unexpectedly, his father Mao Mengling was too stubborn and only gave him one thousand taels.

He now hopes that the price of gold will rise, but not too quickly, so that his family can see the reality of silver's depreciation and exchange it for gold as soon as possible.

To this end, he gave the task of buying gold and keeping an eye on the gold price to his son Mao Pijiang, allowing his son to experience the rising trend of gold and help him convince his family:

"From now on, you must come to the exchange every ten days and buy the gold as soon as possible."

"We also need to look at the gold-silver exchange rate and the bank's interest rate to calculate how much money we can make and whether we will lose our capital."

"I'll check it every month, so don't be careless."

After instructing Mao Pijiang these words, Mao Qizong directly gave the task of keeping an eye on the transaction price to Mao Pijiang.

He believes that it can increase his son's sensitivity to numbers, which will be helpful for him to take the math course next year.

Mao Pijiang secretly groaned when he heard this. He really didn't want to come here.

After the initial novelty, he felt that the exchange was full of the smell of money and was really not a place for him. People like him should go to the famous red-light district in Beijing and drink with beautiful women.

But Mao Qizon didn't care about this. After completing the task, he took his son to find a place to settle down.

Most of the schools in Beijing are located in Haidian District, which is commonly known as the University Town area.

In order to let his son study well and communicate more with his peers, Mao Qizon's first choice is to rent a house here and rent a courtyard for his son.

After more than a year of construction, the number of townhouses here has increased. And because of the low price and complete facilities, they are loved by many people.

Mao Qizon only paid a deposit of one yuan and spent thirty cents to rent a courtyard house for his son.

The width of this courtyard is six zhang, which is twenty meters in the metric system, and it covers an area of ​​four hundred square meters.

The main building accounts for nearly half of the area, which means that the house is more than two meters deep, and the corridor is nearly three meters.

The living room in the middle is two meters wide, and there are two bedrooms on the left and right, each one meter wide, which can be connected to become one room.

There is also a living room that is three meters wide, with the two rooms on the left and right each being one and a half meters wide.

Three or five houses like this are naturally not enough for a family with servants, so the main building has two floors and an additional floor above.

The roof is also very high, so you can decorate the attic to make it a so-called two-and-a-half-story house. Some families who are harsh on servants let their servants live in the attic.

This is the house style determined by Zhang Wenyu, the right assistant minister of the Ministry of Works, according to the emperor's request, using reinforced concrete and other technologies. The biggest principle is to facilitate construction while increasing the living area.

In order to save costs, this type of house is connected, with other houses on both sides. They share walls, but the sound insulation is strengthened.

This design is also used in the teaching building built for the school. Several rooms are connected to form a large classroom.

The school’s dormitories have the same design, but without a living room, and each room only has one or two people living in it.

Because there is no water circulation inside the building to prevent leakage, and there are no toilets or bathrooms, the dormitory building needs to be surrounded by a yard to build public toilets and bathrooms.

It can be said that this design was completely derived from the teaching building and dormitory building. Zhu Youjian drew the appearance of the building, and Zhang Wenyu added a yard in front for use as a residence.

It is different from the traditional courtyard house and is called a terraced courtyard house.

Not only can the left and right sides of the yard be used as warehouses, kitchens and bathrooms, but sheds can also be built directly to serve as stables and toilets.

It was built in a very economical way, without the screen doors and walls of a courtyard house, and the ridge beasts on the roof are also not visible.

There wasn't even a threshold at the gate to allow carriages to enter and exit easily.

When this kind of courtyard first appeared, it was ridiculed by many people, who believed that only unrefined poor people would live there.

However, after living there for a year, many students from the Normal School began to like it.

Many students even pay money to buy townhouses.

The reason for this is that this type of courtyard is very cheap, with the price being only equivalent to that of a small courtyard house in the city.

There are also facilities such as running water and heating, which make residents feel quite comfortable, far better than traditional courtyard houses.

When Mao Pijiang first saw this courtyard, he thought it was too simple, but after turning on the faucet, he quickly fell in love with it:

"It's so convenient to get water. This yard is really nice."

"You can also build a special bathroom and pour the water out directly."

This is very convenient for southerners who love taking a bath.

You can boil water in the kitchen next door and drain the water directly after washing.

There is no need to carry water in bucket by bucket and then take it out bucket by bucket.

Mao Qizong patted the heating pipe in the room and said:
"That's not all!"

"The heating pipes here can make you feel more comfortable in the north in winter than in the south."

"I heard there are air-conditioning pipes to make the summer cooler."

This summer, he was invited to visit a royal palace and experienced the so-called air-conditioning pipes.

The cold water pumped from underground, mixed with ice cubes shipped from Jiangling Principality, turned into zero-degree ice water, which flowed coldly through the water pipes, making the room cool.

The broker who was introducing the house to them heard this and said with a smile:
"This is the air conditioning pipe, which can be used for both cooling and heating. It is now called a cooling and heating pipe."

“Not only can it provide central heating, it can also provide central cooling.”

"It's just like heating, and residents need to chip in to buy ice."

As he spoke, he pointed to the height of the heating and cooling pipes and said:
"Heat rises, just like a hot air balloon flies upward, so the heating pipes only need to be very low."

“But the cold air goes down, so the cold air pipes need to be very high.”

"Now these long and high heating pipes are used for both cooling and heating, and have been renamed cooling and heating pipes."

"As long as you can afford ice, you can use air conditioning in the summer."

This is an improvement on the newly built townhouses. The heating pipes that were previously only used for heating have been transformed into heating and cooling pipes that can provide cooling at the same time.

One of the purposes is to cooperate with Jiangling Principality's ice business to increase Jiangling Principality's financial resources.

It can be said that the main purpose of Zhu Youjian asking the Ministry of Works and the Royal Construction Group to build this kind of house was not only to sell and rent the houses, but also to sell supporting services and charge water, heating, air conditioning and other fees.

Four-wheeled carriages are also being tested intensively and will soon be launched along with horses on the grasslands.

By then, Mao Pijiang and others will find the convenience of this kind of courtyard even more, which is completely in preparation for the use of horse-drawn carriages.

(End of this chapter)