Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 65: Maritime Affairs
As soon as Deng Shuhan and a few of his men arrived at the dock, they were stunned.

How come this sailing ship is so big!

Well, then the commission from this deal is quite high.

"Boss..." a waiter called softly, reminding him that there were foreigners coming to greet him.

"Oh..." Deng Shuhan came back to his senses, straightened his robes, and restored his serious and majestic expression, waiting for the foreigners over there to come and pay their respects.

"Hello, dear sir!" Harvey greeted warmly with a smile on his face.

"Huh?" Deng Shuhan was stunned.

This barbarian can speak Chinese! ?

"Well, hello, hello." Deng Shuhan bowed to him and replied with a smile, "Are you foreign merchants from overseas?"

"Yes, sir." Harvey nodded and asked with a hint of confusion, "Excuse me, what are you doing..."

"I'm the Maritime Customs agent for Lishunhang, and I'm here to help you with all matters related to the Maritime Customs."

"Shiboren?" Harvey obviously didn't know what the word meant, and a confused look appeared on his face.

"You mean you want to do the import and export declarations for us?" Meng Shengxin came over from behind and carefully looked at the "freight agent" from the Ming Dynasty in front of him.

"Import and export declaration?" Deng Shuhan chewed over these "new" words carefully, then nodded and said, "Yes, all foreign merchants entering the Ming Dynasty's maritime territory must declare their goods to the Maritime Customs Office for the purpose of collecting tribute and taxes."

"Tribute?" Meng Shengxin couldn't help but laugh when he heard it.

This is clearly import and export tariffs, how can it become tribute?

What a bold and courageous Ming Dynasty!
Whenever foreign merchants enter the country, they are paying tribute to our Celestial Empire, so shouldn’t we collect “tribute taxes”?
"Shouldn't the imperial court be responsible for collecting tribute and taxes?" Meng Shengxin asked, "Why do we, the foreign merchants, have to pay the corresponding customs duties, but you need to be their agent?"

"The imperial court has its own laws, and we also have business rules." Deng Shuhan couldn't help but look at the other party deeply, wondering if these Southeast Asian "foreign merchants" had lived overseas for so long that they had forgotten all the "rules" of our Celestial Empire, and didn't even know that the application for maritime trade was handled by the pawnshops.

But that's fine, I can take advantage of him because he doesn't understand the rules here and take advantage of him.

The Sibo Si was founded in the Tang Dynasty (called Sibo Shi in the Tang Dynasty) and was passed down to the Ming Dynasty, which was more than 600 years old.

In the early Ming Dynasty, customs offices were established in Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. However, they were abolished and revived several times, and now they are gradually declining.

According to the Ming Dynasty system, the Maritime Customs Office was in charge of the tribute and trade affairs of various overseas tribes. It was responsible for verifying the authenticity of their envoys, memorials, and certificates, prohibiting communication with the tribes, collecting smuggled goods, leveling the trade, regulating their entry and exit, and carefully managing their food reserves.

Therefore, according to this regulation, the Maritime Customs Office has the task of collecting taxes.

The so-called "private goods" refer to the goods brought by merchants who came with tribute. In addition to the priority purchase of these goods by the Maritime Customs, the rest of the goods had to be sold in the market, so they were subject to tax.

According to the Ming Dynasty's maritime trade regulations, the king, his wife, and his attendants were subject to a 50% tax on the goods brought in, with the remainder paid by the government. Siam and Java were exempt from this tax. Foreign merchants bringing in goods privately for trade had their boats sealed and secured at the port of call, and a 12% tax was imposed before they were allowed to trade.

That is to say, there are two treatments for non-tribute materials: goods belonging to the king, queen, and ministers are taxed at a rate of 50%; while goods brought by merchants are taxed at a rate of 20%.

However, in many cases, these regulations are just a piece of paper and are not implemented.

In July of the fourth year of Hongwu, Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty issued an edict to the Fujian Province, "All goods from Champa's ships will be exempted from taxation to show the intention of appeasement."

In September of the same year, "the Ministry of Revenue reported that Goryeo and Srivijaya paid tribute. The Goryeo ships arrived at Dacang, and the Srivijaya ships arrived at Quanzhou Port, and they requested to collect their goods. The imperial edict said: Do not collect."

In the 17th year of Hongwu, he also "ordered the officials to exempt all taxes on tributes from overseas countries that included private goods."

During the Yongle period, the old practices of the Hongwu period were also imitated.

For example, "In August of the first year of Yongle, the King of Zoli in the Western Ocean sent an envoy to pay tribute, and also brought pepper, and traded with the people. The officials requested to collect taxes, but the order was to collect them hastily. The Hui people of the Chini Kingdom, such as Hajimahame and Qichini, also came to pay tribute, and also brought pepper, and traded with the people. The officials requested to collect taxes from them, but the order was not to collect them either."

Therefore, although the Ming Dynasty continued the name of the Maritime Customs Office of the previous dynasty, it did not have a method of drawing lots.

To put it bluntly, the three customs offices set up by the Ming Dynasty were not intended for economic benefits.

It was established only for the purpose of "understanding the feelings of the foreigners, suppressing unscrupulous merchants, making the laws and prohibitions effective, and thus eliminating their conflicts and conflicts."

In other words, it was a disguised tool of the Ming Dynasty's maritime ban policy. Its role was more political than economic, and its main task was to manage tribute affairs.

Therefore, some people say that the purpose of the Maritime Customs Office is to "manage the tribute when it arrives. It has nothing else to do." However, by the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, tribute trade was declining, and financial difficulties arose. During the Zhengde period, the Maritime Customs Office began to be emphasized for its role in collecting customs duties from foreign merchants.

After Emperor Longqing lifted the ban on maritime trade, the maritime trade reached a peak.

Under the new circumstances, due to the inaccurate reporting of goods by the foreigners, the customs tax system was changed to a measurement system.

"Foreign merchants should first report to the prefectural governor of this county, and then order the ship's supervisor to bring them to the county officials for inspection."

However, due to the lack of "professionalism" of the officials and clerks of the Maritime Customs, the collection of Maritime Customs taxes was soon transferred from the government to the brokerage firms.

After all foreign merchants entered the ports of the Ming Dynasty (Guangzhou and Yuegang), they could only pay customs duties and resell the foreign goods they brought through the agents of the trading companies.

In other words, in the Ming Dynasty's trading ports, the yahang (traders) controlled the management rights of foreign trade. In their capacity as representatives of merchants, they seized property by trickery and engaged in fraud to enrich themselves.

"Only two or three out of ten foreign goods are reported to the government and taxed."

At this time, Guangzhou gave rise to the Thirty-Six Traders (Yahang) organization, which handled all procedures on behalf of foreign merchants, including paying customs duties, reselling foreign goods and other trade matters.

These brokerage firms "take one out of ten jobs, and earn money just by sitting back and relaxing, without the hassle of bookkeeping or punishment with sticks", and their lives are quite comfortable and enjoyable.

Less than half a day after the "Polang" arrived at the Guangzhou dock, brokers came on board and asked to be responsible for all goods entering and leaving Guangdong.

Considering that they were unfamiliar with the place and had little understanding of the foreign trade policy of the Ming Dynasty at that time, the time travelers had no choice but to follow the local customs and entrust all import and export matters of this trip to the mainland to a brokerage called "Li Shunxing", which would inspect the goods, set prices, collect customs duties, and sell the goods they brought.

I originally thought that such a large ship must be loaded with a large amount of foreign goods, and that at least 400,000 or 500,000 taels of silver could be calculated, and then I could take 8,000 or 10,000 taels from him and make a huge profit.

However, after checking the entire cabin with the crew, Deng Shuhan was surprised to find that the ship was actually an empty ship!
Oh, of course, if you count the dozens of boxes of "foreign cakes (i.e. silver coins)", more than a hundred dan of copper blocks, and hundreds of high-quality furs, it can barely be said to be loaded with some goods.

However, silver and copper ingots were considered coins and were not subject to tax.

If we only collected customs duties on those hundreds of high-quality furs, we would probably only be able to collect a few thousand taels of silver.

This is totally different from what I expected when I first came here!

According to the maritime tax collection system, all foreign ships entering the port must pay the "port tax", "land tax" and "water tax" in full.

The pilotage tax (ship merchants arriving in the port need to obtain a pilotage before they can trade) is not a big deal, it’s not much money.

The water tax (taxed based on the size of the ship) was a considerable amount of interest. According to the regulations of the Maritime Customs, Western (Champa, Siam, Malacca) ships "with a width of more than 16 feet were subject to a tax of five taels of silver per foot, and an additional five cents of silver for each additional foot." The ships of vassal states only had to pay 70% of the cost of Western ships.

This large ship claims to be from Southeast Asia, so we should follow the same practice to collect maritime tax.

Tsk tsk, this ship is so huge, at least a few hundred taels of silver can be collected from it.

However, the above two items can only be regarded as a small part, the most important one is the land salary.

"For every ounce of goods worth one tael, the tax is two cents," which is two percent of the value of the goods. In addition, an additional tax called "surcharge" is levied on ships traveling to and from Luzon.

After the huge sailing ship entered the port, Deng Shuhan rushed over with several men to prepare to seal the hold and inspect the goods. Only after the land pay was verified did he allow the other party to open the hold for trade.

But now, after checking, I found that the ship was actually empty!

Hey, could it be that he sold the goods to the merchant in advance at sea?
This is smuggling!
The authorities investigated and detained all the people and boats!
"We cultivate Southeast Asia, but our products are mostly agricultural goods. We have very few goods worth selling to ship back to China," Luo Zhenhui said sincerely after carefully considering his words. "This time, we're visiting Guangzhou to trade mainly to purchase Ming Dynasty specialties to fill our needs. I just wonder how much tax will be levied on these exports?"

If I don’t give some money, I’m afraid there will be a lot of trouble!

"Well..." Deng Shuhan couldn't help but ponder.

The Ming Dynasty court generally did not impose taxes on the goods purchased from foreign merchants after they arrived at the port, unless the goods were strictly controlled or restricted by the court, such as copper, iron, saltpeter and other materials.

But the transaction volume of these things is generally not very large, and you can only earn a few taels of silver.

However, these foreign merchants who have drifted to Southeast Asia must be willing to promise me huge profits in exchange for their success.

In that case, there is no need to be polite.

"We need to discuss this carefully. I wonder what goods you all need to buy? ... Don't worry, I, Li Shunxing, can handle anything that can't be bought in Guangzhou. You can all entrust me with full authority, and I will definitely make you return satisfied!"

(End of this chapter)