Great Master of the Tang Dynasty

Chapter 84 86 Business Tax Reform and Bicycles
In March of the eighth year of Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong changed the city tax to a residential tax, with one in every thirty, and set up a tax (that is, customs duty), which is lower than the residential tax, one in every fifty.

A series of commercial and tax reforms naturally attracted batch after batch of people to join merchants, and with Datang's current wealth, countless materials naturally poured into Datang like a tide.

Zuo Ming is indeed an out-and-out profiteer. He bought cotton from Gaochang Kingdom for one penny per catty, and after making the quilts, he sold them for three hundred cash, a full sixty times the price difference!

At the beginning, Li Shimin still resisted Zuo Ming's practice of dumping quilts to Gaochang. He felt that quilts should be enjoyed by Tang alone, but after seeing the huge wealth, he decisively shut up. .

He even gave the green light to the export of finished goods.

Of course, there are some things that he is strictly forbidden to export, such as potatoes and sweet potatoes!For this reason, his control over the border can be said to be extremely strict.

Once there is someone who takes potatoes and sweet potatoes out of the country privately, he will kill them immediately and implicate the whole family!
Zuo Ming told Li Shimin that this can only be prevented for a while, as time goes by, someone will always take potatoes and sweet potatoes from Datang.But Li Shimin doesn't care, he only knows that every year others get these two fetishes, his Datang will be better than others!
In addition to strictly prohibiting the export of potatoes and sweet potatoes, Li Shimin also strictly prohibited the export of domestic minerals and various raw materials.Now he has realized the importance of these resources to a country.

Not only that, Li Shimin also purchased a large number of various minerals and unknown items from various countries through official means.His current approach is very similar to the American approach of later generations.

Later generations of the United States used deep sea landfills to store energy materials such as oil and coal, but now Li Shimin is willing to give up the development of his own country's mines, and also wants to get materials from other countries.

With the influx of a large amount of minerals, Zuo Ming's laboratory in Yong'an County must not be enough, so Li Shimin climbed the snake and built a huge laboratory for Zuo Ming in the Forbidden Garden.

As we all know, the Tang forbidden garden is surrounded by water on three sides, and the Tang Palace is on the south.In such a geographical environment, the safety of the laboratory is naturally unassailable.

In fact, Zuo Ming knew that the reason why Li Shimin and his wife did this was to see Li Zhi often.

This kind of careful thinking, Zuo Ming is naturally happy to be fulfilled, anyway, he will not suffer.

In addition to a large number of exported cotton clothes and quilts, glass cups, thermos bottles, silver mirrors, glass windows and finished sweaters are the main exports of Datang.

Among these items, the best sellers are glasses and glass windows, followed by thermos bottles and sweaters.As for cotton-padded clothes and quilts, not many people bought them because of sweaters, unless they were people in bitter cold places, who would buy some back because they had to face wind and snow all year round.But before buying cotton clothes and quilts, they will also buy one or two sweaters and woolen pants.

Since then, importing raw materials at low prices and selling finished products at high prices has become a routine for merchants throughout the Tang Dynasty.

The prosperity of commerce and trade naturally brought considerable tax revenue, and because the commercial tax gradually replaced the agricultural tax, Li Shimin made adjustments to the agricultural tax and greatly reduced the agricultural tax.So far, Li Shimin and Zuo Ming have achieved a win-win situation.

Later, in order to express his praise for Zuo Ming, Li Shimin made Zuo's fairy tales completely replace the position of the thousand-character prose, and became the enlightenment books for the people of the Tang Dynasty, including Xirong Road.

Later, Li Shimin also promoted the cut version of "Zuo Shi Shan Hai Zhi".Of course, there is no information on strategic continents such as the Americas, Africa, and Australia.

Although Li Shimin's actions made Zuo Ming happy, he soon indulged in his laboratory again.

He has put aside the matter of cement. To make the cement of later generations, there are many things involved, and it is difficult for him to figure it out for a while.

What he wants to get out most now is a bicycle. He is tired of riding a horse and sitting in a sedan chair every day, which is simply a kind of torture for him.

If you want to make a bicycle, everything else is easy to do, except for a chain, which is very difficult.First of all, its strength must be able to withstand pulling, otherwise, the life of a bicycle that loses its chain at any time will not be lost.

The best material to make this kind of chain is stainless steel, which requires some chromite, which is the most in Tubo, and they obviously don't know the value of this refractory mineral, so they were ordered to use it at a very low price. Batch after batch were acquired at a low price.

Once the materials are available, it is natural for the craftsmen to make various attempts, which he cannot do.

While the craftsmen were busy forging steel, Saomyo started the design of the bicycle frame.In order to make his bicycle strong enough, Zuo Ming did not use later generations of aluminum alloy for the frame, but chose carbon steel.

This thing is easy to make and has cold formability, which is perfect for making a frame.Of course, this thing is not without its disadvantages, that is, it is too heavy.

But Zuo Ming doesn't matter, anyway, his wheels are also solid roulettes, so the weight is definitely not light.

After the frame and wheels were finished, it was the axle at the center of the two wheels, which took seven days to make.And its difficulty lies in the production of steel balls.

With Datang's current technology, it is difficult for him to make steel balls that are so small and must be of the same size.

And after Zuo Ming managed to produce a complete set of bicycle components, the stainless steel at the Ministry of Industry was finally produced.After that, they sent Zuo Ming a long stainless steel chain very quickly.

Seeing the speed of the Ministry of Industry so fast, Zuo Ming secretly scolded himself as an "idiot".He shouldn't have made those steel balls by himself. Now that the minds of these Zitang people have been liberated, they must have thought of some way to make such a precise instrument.

Annoyed, Zuo Ming assembled the bicycle directly, and then rode it across the city and galloped across the entire Tang Dynasty.

The people in Datang had never seen such a thing as a bicycle, and they were all amazed at the moment. Of course, they were even more curious about how Zuo Ming made these two-wheeled utensils run fast without falling over.

Zuo Ming was showing off his bicycle there, Li Zhi and Murong Yi naturally wanted to come to join in the fun, so they sat in his back seat together, roaring and yelling with excitement.

After wandering around Chang'an City, Zuo Ming rode a bicycle all the way into the palace.

At this time, Li Shimin was still excited about the appearance of stainless steel, because with stainless steel, she could equip her army with countless magic weapons that cut iron like mud.

When he saw Zuo Ming entering the palace on a strange cart with only two wheels, he was stunned.

The concept of a bicycle was really amazing to them, and he finally knew why Zuo Ming had been obsessed with this thing called a "bicycle".

With this thing, what horse do you ride?This thing is much more stable than a horse!And the speed is not too low!
After he stopped kicking and let the bicycle slide for a long distance, Zuo Ming stopped right in front of Li Shimin.

"Your Majesty, how are you? Didn't let you down!"

Seeing Li Shimin's incredible expression, Zuo Ming said proudly.

"Is it possible for you to mass-produce this thing?"

With an extremely strong divine light erupting from his eyes, Li Shimin asked with his head covering his face.

"Then I'm going to ask the Ministry of Industry. Anyway, if I do it alone, I should be able to make one in ten days. I don't know how efficient they are."

Zuo Ming smiled softly.

"In other words, this can be used for marching?"

Rubbing his hands together, Li Shimin asked while looking at the bicycle in front of him.

"More than that? You may not believe it! When I install shock-absorbing wheels on it, a strong soldier can ride this thing from Chang'an all the way to Wuzhou, and it will only take half a month at most! When going straight ahead.

Use this thing to march, hehe, Your Majesty, I can guarantee that my Tang army will become a ghostly existence!Thousands of horses are galloping, and the sound alone can wake up enemies dozens of miles away, but our bicycle, if you ride ten thousand times over, it is guaranteed that the enemy will not react at all!
Most importantly, my Datang can almost own one of these things!Try it, 20 or even 30 troops come and go without a trace like ghosts, who else in this world can fight against them?
Take Tubo as an example. With such a narrow and long border, they must divide their troops to guard it, but I don’t need it in Tang Dynasty. It takes half a month for them to return to aid, but in Tang Dynasty, five days is enough!If you don't bring heavy supplies, even three days will do!And even when they were unprepared!
If it is not impossible to expand real-time communication, in fact, the garrison on the border of my Tang Dynasty can also be greatly reduced!After all, if the Tubo and Western Turkic troops attack, we will definitely get the news within ten days.In ten days, if you use a bicycle, you can already cross half of the Tang Dynasty.Where is the need for soldiers to stay at the border to eat dirt?
In my opinion, our border troops in the Tang Dynasty will implement a monthly leave system in the future, and give them four days of leave every month to let them go home to visit their relatives.In addition, we can also improve some military benefits, such as the implementation of the compulsory military system. All Tang people who join the army after they become adults will be exempted from certain taxes and even arranged for them to work.

At that time, I don't believe that the people of my Great Tang are still vying to join my Great Tang's army?Anyway, the so-called compulsory military system is only three years!After three years, those who are willing to stay in the army can be converted into a volunteer army, and the food and salary will be doubled!Those who do not want to stay in the barracks can also go home and farm.Multi-tasking! "

　Fuck me, I got up at 2:[-] and took a shower at [-]:[-], sorry
　　
　
(End of this chapter)