My father is Chongzhen? Then I have no choice but to rebel.

Chapter 135: What a tyrant! How dare you collect our taxes? The Ming Dynasty is doomed!

Chongzhen took the whip and strode up to Li Qingshan, then raised the whip high, as if he was going to whip Li Qingshan to pieces in the next moment.

But just as he was about to pull it out, for some unknown reason, Chongzhen suddenly stopped.

After a while, Chongzhen lost his momentum like a deflated ball.

Hey!
He first sighed helplessly, threw the whip aside, and then shook his head and said:

"Forget it! If I really hit you, wouldn't that be like admitting that crappy novel can determine the fate of the Ming Dynasty?"

"How ridiculous! I am not Song Huizong, the king who lost his country!"

"This matter is over now, I will not pursue it any further!"

"As long as you serve the court well in the future, that's all!"

"I have accepted what the Crown Prince promised you before. All of you can get out of here!"

When Li Qingshan and the others heard this, they couldn't believe their ears. After a moment of silence, they immediately shouted in gratitude:

"Your Majesty, your humble servant Li Qingshan, expresses his gratitude! Thank you, Your Highness the Crown Prince! We will definitely reform ourselves and serve the court wholeheartedly!"

After saying this, the three of them retreated tumbling and crawling as if they had been granted amnesty.

Although they didn't get beaten this time, they were still scared to death. The backs of their clothes were soaked with cold sweat, as if they had just come back from the gates of hell.

Zhu Cilang stood aside and was quite surprised to see Chongzhen let Li Qingshan and the others go.

You should know that he had specially found a doctor before, waiting to treat Li Qingshan and others' injuries.

Unexpectedly, Chongzhen would let them go so easily.

At this moment, Chongzhen suddenly turned his head and instantly saw Zhu Cilang's surprised expression.

This immediately made Chongzhen furious, and he asked loudly:

"Why? In your eyes, I am a tyrant who doesn't know the importance of things?"

Zhu Cilang was a little embarrassed by this sudden question. He scratched his head and quickly changed the subject:

"Father, calm down and take a look at this."

As he spoke, Zhu Cilang handed over the tax plan that he had racked his brains to write over the past few days.

Emperor Chongzhen took the memorial, glanced at it casually, and his expression changed instantly. Then he widened his eyes in surprise:
"Wait a minute. You've raised the commercial tax to 10% of the tax rate, but why are you planning to collect all of it into the national treasury?"

"I'm asking you, who's going to collect this money? What's the loss incurred? And who's going to bear the responsibility? Don't mess around!"

In Chongzhen's view, even if the commercial tax was really raised to 20%, there would definitely be half of it for loss and transportation costs. With this calculation, it would be good if the national treasury could finally receive 10%.

But Zhu Cilang actually planned to collect all the 10.2% tax into the national treasury, which he thought was simply impossible.

If this is really implemented, as he said before, the taxes collected by low-level officials will definitely reach 40% or 50%!

With such heavy taxes, the merchants will definitely rebel!
Zhu Cilang explained calmly:
"Father, please don't be anxious. Let me explain to you."

"The imperial court has always been collecting commercial taxes in the Ming Dynasty. This time, it's just a slight increase. There's no need to send additional staff."

"As long as there is an imperial decree, the people below will naturally carry it out."

"Also, from now on, all goods will be converted into silver for tax collection, and the price will be determined monthly by the Ministry of Revenue based on local and market conditions."

"To prevent arbitrary pricing, every tax collection checkpoint must be supervised!"

"For merchants who have paid taxes, a tax payment certificate will be issued. Only with this certificate can the goods be sold."

"Goods that have not paid tax are strictly prohibited from entering the market. Once discovered, they will be confiscated!"

"Also, I want to form another army specifically for tax collection, and I'll select them from the five guards: the Beijing Camp, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and the Tengxiang Guard."

“Their responsibilities are mainly three-fold.”

"On the one hand, it protects merchants who have already paid their taxes from being charged additional taxes by officials."

"On the one hand, it targets those unscrupulous businessmen who want to evade taxes. Once tax evasion is discovered, this army can directly take military measures!"

"Another aspect is to supervise the tax officials at each checkpoint to prevent them from embezzling taxes!"

"In addition, in order to better control this army, their salaries will be paid directly from the imperial treasury!"

"In this way, this army will always be in our hands."

"Once we return to the capital, we will separate the commercial tax from the household tax and establish the Ming Dynasty Tax Bureau to be responsible for collecting commercial taxes from the entire country!"

"In the future, depending on the situation, we can also merge the land tax into the Daming Tax Bureau."

"By the way, I've even drafted the imperial edict. If you think it's okay, it can be distributed to all parts of the Ming Dynasty!"

As Zhu Cilang spoke, he took the imperial edict that had been prepared long ago from Fang Zhenghua and handed it to Chongzhen.

This series of actions made Chongzhen so angry that his face turned pale and red.

He hadn't yet digested what Zhu Cilang had just said, but Zhu Cilang had even prepared the imperial edict?
Isn't this just acting first and reporting later?
Does it matter whether he watches it or not?

Finally, Chongzhen waved his hands impatiently and said:

"Take it away! I don't want to see it! You can do whatever you want! I can't do anything to you anyway!"

When Zhu Cilang heard this, he smiled and said:
"In that case, I will arrange it right away!"

After saying that, he bowed, turned around and left.

That afternoon, hundreds of teams set out from Shandong, carrying imperial edicts on reforming commercial taxes and heading straight to various parts of the Ming Dynasty.

Within a few days, the imperial edict on tax reform was transmitted to various checkpoints of the canal transportation and all parts of Shandong.

So, starting from the next day, local officials, landlords, and gentry came to Chongzhen one after another, protesting against the reform of commercial taxes with tears in their eyes.

You know, they used to avoid paying taxes through some means!
But now this imperial edict from the court has blocked their way, and they have no choice but to hand it over.

If they don't pay, their goods cannot be transported at all. Even if they are transported secretly, they cannot be sold without the tax payment certificate, and will be confiscated by the army.

For them, this is like the sky falling!

After the news reached the south, merchants, gentry, and officials from the south came in groups to protest to Chongzhen.

In these few days alone, more than 600 people came to Chongzhen to protest against commercial taxes!
Every day, a large group of people resisting taxes would kneel in the governor's office where Chongzhen worked!

They were crying and shouting as if their parents had died!
At this time, Zhu Cilang finally understood the benefits of bringing Chongzhen to Shandong. If Chongzhen was not in front, these people would have annoyed him to death.

Of course, Chongzhen could not meet everyone, but he could not meet no one either, so he would select some people to meet him every day.

When these people came, they started talking about how the 30% commercial tax and 1% tax was a rule set by Emperor Taizu and could not be changed under any circumstances.

Changing it would be a great act of treason and a violation of the ancestral system!
Chongzhen's face turned green with anger when he heard this, and he shouted at them:

"Grandpa Taizu has established many rules. Have you followed them all? Why are you so obsessed with this one commercial tax?"

But it is obvious that when it comes to interests, this group of people dare to confront Chongzhen even.

The two sides argued back and forth, neither side gave in, and the argument became intense.

The core content actually has a sentence:

Stupid ruler! You dare to collect our taxes? The Ming Dynasty is doomed!

After a few days, Chongzhen was so angry that his high blood pressure was about to flare up.

Finally, he could no longer bear it and ordered the beheading of more than a dozen people who led the riot, and the heads were hung at the gate of the governor's office.

Then he repeatedly stated that the commercial tax reform had been decided and would never be changed!

Anyone who violates it will be punished for disobeying the order!
Now, those people didn't dare to say a word and could only leave in shame.

A few more days passed, and Zhu Cilang finally obtained the commercial tax data collected in Shandong during the past ten days.

Among them, the commercial tax collected in Shandong Province in ten days was 30,000 taels, and the commercial tax collected on land was 20,000 taels.

In other words, in just ten days, the commercial tax in Shandong province alone amounted to 50,000 taels of silver!
If you calculate it this way, it would be at least 150,000 taels of silver a month.

That’s nearly 1.8 million silver coins a year!
You have to know that the Ming Dynasty had two capitals and thirteen provinces. Even if other places did not have grain transport and were poorer, they had less commercial taxes.

But on average, isn't it easy for a province to collect one million taels of silver a year?

In other words, just by collecting commercial taxes, the Ming Dynasty could collect at least 15 million taels of silver every year!

This is calculated based on the minimum amount, and in reality it is far more than this.

And it’s all in cash!

When Chongzhen heard the news, he was so surprised that he couldn't close his mouth for a long time.

Although he was mentally prepared, he didn't expect there would be so many.

But then, Zhu Cilang dropped another bombshell on him!
That is, this does not include other commercial taxes such as salt tax, tea tax, mining tax, port tax, transit tax and business tax.

If all these commercial taxes were added up, the imperial court could collect at least between 25 million and 30 million taels of silver each year.

But after hearing these words, Chongzhen was not happy at all, but became even more depressed.

Why didn't he come up with this idea himself?
Why was it this rebellious son who came up with this idea?

Doesn't this further prove that this rebellious son is more suitable to be the emperor than him? It's really heartbreaking!
But let's look at it from another perspective.

It was worth it for him to take the blame this time!

After finishing the commercial tax affairs, Zhu Cilang was not idle in the next few days. He personally went to various places in Shandong to inspect the local disaster situation.

Afterwards, he sent people to buy a batch of grain from the surrounding wealthy areas to provide relief to the disaster-stricken people and alleviate their urgent needs.

Not only that, in view of the severity of the disaster in Shandong, Zhu Cilang resolutely decided not to pay Shandong's commercial taxes this year to the national treasury, but to invest all of it in disaster relief.

As soon as the news was announced, the local people cheered and praised Chongzhen's good deed, praising his wisdom, benevolence and love.

There is no way, after all, Chongzhen is the emperor now, so this imperial edict is issued in the name of Chongzhen.

After Chongzhen learned about this, he naturally agreed. After all, he did not forget that the Ming Dynasty still had more than 100 million taels of silver in its treasury, so he was not short of this little money.

Naturally, he was willing to use this little bit of silver to win the love of the people of Shandong.

In addition, Zhu Cilang also made a special trip to Liangshan Marsh to properly accommodate Li Qingshan and others.

Even Zhang Ansheng was assigned a seventh-rank civil servant.

The purpose is to ensure that after he leaves, Liangshan Marsh can maintain a stable order and avoid any further trouble.

After all, Liangshan Marsh has just been settled down. If he is not careful, it may cause new unrest. If this happens, then all the efforts he has made in coming here will be wasted.

At the same time, he was also telling officials from all over Shandong that Liangshan Marsh was now under the protection of Zhu Cilang!
However, it is a bit regrettable that Zhu Cilang wandered around Liangshan Marsh for two days and did not meet any hero with martial arts skills as great as Wu Song.

Most of the people we saw were simple and unpretentious farmers, fishermen, canal workers and other ordinary people.

From this we can see that his expectations for Liangshan Marsh were a bit too high. He thought it would be a group of heroes, but what was the result?
They are just a group of ordinary people!

After returning to Jinan again, Zhu Cilang carefully selected a group of soldiers from the accompanying army in accordance with the previous plan and formed a professional tax collection army of about one thousand people.

He even thought this team had a name: Ming Dynasty Tax Army!
Then they were transferred to various parts of Shandong, responsible for strictly supervising the collection of taxes in various parts of Shandong, resolutely putting an end to any tax evasion and tax avoidance, so as to ensure the collection of commercial taxes.

After doing this, Zhu Cilang met with officials at all levels in Shandong and warned them about the importance of commercial taxes and various disaster relief matters.

Only after everything was arranged did Zhu Cilang and Chongzhen embark on their journey back to the capital.

Counting the time, they have been away from the capital for more than twenty days, and it is time to go back.

As they were on their way back to the capital, the city had already fallen into chaos and noise.

At first, Zhu Cilang did not attend court on time for several days, and the civil and military officials did not pay too much attention to it.

After all, this kind of thing is not the first time it has happened, and the civil and military officials have long been accustomed to it.

However, as time went on, some officials gradually realized that something was wrong.

After all, not attending court for one or two days is understandable, but if he does not show up in the court for more than ten days, this is definitely not an ordinary thing.

As a result, some officials went to the Eastern Palace to try to advise the prince, while some officials chose to kneel at the palace gate, wanting to meet Chongzhen.

However, none of them got what they wanted.

Whether it was the prince or Chongzhen, they couldn’t see either of them!
At this point, all the civil and military officials realized the seriousness of the matter and were filled with confusion and anxiety.

Since they can’t meet the prince and the emperor, they can only go to the cabinet!

So, these officials surrounded several cabinet ministers and asked anxiously what had happened and why the prince and Chongzhen had not attended court recently?
And they refused to meet with them.

Among the four cabinet ministers, only the chief minister Xue Guoguan knew the truth.

But at the same time, he also knew that this matter was of great importance and that speaking out would definitely offend Zhu Cilang, so no matter how the officials questioned him, he remained silent and gritted his teeth, refusing to utter a single word.

As for the other three cabinet ministers, since they knew nothing about the matter, they naturally could not explain it.

However, the truth cannot be concealed for long.

Not long after, an imperial edict urgently sent from Shandong caused an uproar in the capital, shocking all civil and military officials.

At the same time, it also finally answered the doubts that civil and military officials had always had!

Because this imperial edict was the one Zhu Cilang issued in Shandong to increase national commercial taxes!
When they received the imperial edict, all the civil and military officials were stunned.

Not
What the hell does this happen?

When did Chongzhen and the prince go to Shandong?
How come these civil and military officials were completely unaware of this?

Also, shouldn’t the imperial edict be issued in the capital and then distributed to all parts of the country?
How did it become sent from Shandong to Beijing?
Where exactly is the capital?

Even Xue Guoguan was shocked when he learned about this.

Although he knew in advance that Zhu Cilang was going to Shandong, he never expected that Chongzhen would go with him.

Of course, none of this matters anymore. What matters is that the content of this imperial edict is like a bombshell, shocking all the civil and military officials so much that they were speechless for a long time.

They never imagined that Chongzhen would actually announce an increase in commercial taxes, raising the 30% tax rate set during the Taizu period directly to 10% tax rate!

It also clearly stipulates that if a businessman fails to pay commercial taxes, he will not be allowed to continue engaging in business activities.

This news was undoubtedly a huge disaster for the civil and military officials, as if the sky was falling and the earth was collapsing, making them feel panic-stricken.

Because those who can become officials in the capital city most likely have some industries and shops at home or in the homes of their relatives, and with the help of their connections, these industries and shops are exempt from paying taxes.

But now, Chongzhen actually issued an order to collect commercial taxes, and the tax rate was 20%, which was simply robbing money directly from their pockets!
They can't stand it!
Of course, not everyone opposed the new commercial tax policy. There were still a group of officials in the court who truly considered the Ming Dynasty.

They knew that once such a commercial tax policy was implemented, the court would collect a large amount of additional tax revenue, which would be good for the country.

So they naturally agreed with such things.

There are also some officials who remain neutral. These people have no power or influence in the capital, no property, and no extra income. They only live on meager salaries.

They dared not support any side and could only remain neutral.

As a result, for several consecutive days thereafter, the court seemed to be in chaos. As soon as the court came to court, civil and military officials would argue fiercely over the issue of commercial tax reform, and no one would give in.

The entire court fell into chaos and noise.

Even several cabinet ministers felt helpless in the face of such fierce disputes.

Facing such a scene, Xue Guoguan couldn't help but sigh in his heart:
The prince's actions were truly unpredictable. It was originally thought that he was only going to Shandong to quell the rebellion, but unexpectedly, he also reformed the commercial taxes of the Ming Dynasty.

The cleverest thing about this matter was that the imperial edict was sent from Shandong to the capital.

At the same time, the emperor and the prince were not in the capital.

In this way, even if the civil and military officials wanted to go to the prince and the emperor to protest, they would not be able to find anyone.

Moreover, the imperial edict has been sent back to the capital. Failure to comply would be tantamount to disobeying the order. What can these civil and military officials do?
If it were in the past, Chongzhen might not necessarily kill people even if they disobeyed his order.

But now, do you want to try to disobey my order?
Chongzhen was merciful by not killing your entire family!

So, after several days of heated debate, the matter was finally settled reluctantly.

Before Emperor Chongzhen and Zhu Cilang returned to the capital, the Ministry of Revenue had already begun to act in accordance with the imperial edict and took the lead in fully carrying out the collection of commercial taxes within the capital.

And we strictly implement the reformed "10 taxes and 2 taxes" without any slackness.

It was originally thought that such a decree would definitely cause dissatisfaction among a large number of businessmen after it was issued. After all, the court's taxation was really too harsh.

The tax rate suddenly increased from 30% to 20%, a full six times increase!
However, what was surprising was that in the following days, apart from a few big businessmen who occasionally came to make trouble and express their dissatisfaction and protest.

The other many small vendors behaved relatively calmly, as if this matter had nothing to do with them.

The reason is actually not complicated.

Because these small vendors are weak and have no power or background.

In the past, when engaging in commercial activities, the taxes paid were higher than the standard of 10% tax and 20% tax, and people were often exploited and squeezed by additional taxes and fees under various names.

But what about now?
The imperial court uniformly stipulated that commercial taxes should be levied at a rate of 10:2, and clearly promised that after this tax was paid, no other miscellaneous taxes would be levied.

For them, this undoubtedly reduced their tax burden, so naturally they had no reason or motivation to cause trouble.

What's more, the imperial court also ordered the removal of various restrictions on merchants. From now on, they can wear silk and satin openly, and their children can study and take the imperial examinations openly.

This is something to be happy about for them.

If that's the case, why would they object?
The ones who are truly dissatisfied with this and want to cause trouble are actually the wealthy businessmen who have been accustomed to tax evasion in the past.

In the past, they were able to evade tax obligations or pay only a very small amount of tax by relying on various collusion and protection with the government, thereby obtaining huge profits.

However, nowadays, the imperial court has unprecedentedly strengthened its tax collection and management efforts, and every tenth tax, twenty-one cents, and one cent are indispensable!
Any slight difference will be regarded as tax evasion, and their goods will not be able to be sold normally in the market.

This is undoubtedly a fatal blow to them.

They were like ants on a hot pan, anxious and running around, but they had no idea what to do. They could only go to the streets to make trouble when they had nothing to do.

Similarly, the commercial tax reform also involved the family businesses of many civil and military officials.

In the past, these civil and military officials often enjoyed the privilege of tax exemption or reduced tax in business by virtue of their power and status.

Now they have to pay commercial taxes at a rate of 20% tax. For them, it is like taking money out of their own pockets, and they are naturally unwilling to do so.

But facing the imperial edict, they had no choice but to grit their teeth and pay the taxes first!
He just waited for Zhu Cilang and Chongzhen to come back, and then used the statement "the ancestral system cannot be changed" to protest to Chongzhen.

In this way, before Zhu Cilang and Chongzhen returned to the capital, commercial taxes in the capital had already been collected in an orderly manner at a tax rate of 10% to 2%.

(End of this chapter)