Xiamen Port, Fujian

Today's port is very lively, and a number of high-ranking officials from Fujian Province are gathered here, and they are quite heavy. They included Xia Dayan, the governor of Fujian, Lu Guangbiao, the governor of Fujian and the admiral of the Fujian navy, Ding Youwen, the political envoy, Tu Hongliang, the envoy of the procuratorate, and the prefects of Xiamen, Quanzhou, and other nearby prefectures.

There are several rows of newly built tile houses near the port, the blue bricks and green tiles look very neat, at this moment, Yang Feng and Xia Dayan and other officials are standing at the door of a tile house in the middle, and a huge plaque is hung at the door, but at this moment the plaque is still covered by a piece of red silk, and with Yang Feng using a bamboo pole to pick up the red silk, this plaque finally revealed its true face of Lushan, 'Xiamen Customs' these four big characters written with a brush appeared in front of everyone.

As the red silk landed, the sound of firecrackers began to sound, and the surrounding officials, including Xia Dayan, also showed smiles on their faces and congratulated each other.

"Congratulations!"

"Congratulations!"

Xia Dayan also smiled and arched his hand to Yang Feng: "Master Hou, congratulations!" ”

Yang Feng smiled: "Lord Xia, you are wrong, this customs is not Benhou's, it is the imperial court, if you want to say congratulations, you should also congratulate Your Majesty, congratulations to the imperial court!" ”

Xia Dayan paused for a moment, then shook his head and said: "Master Hou, what you said is not right, this customs is something that you personally advocated and supervised and single-handedly, if you mention the customs in the future, your name will inevitably be mentioned, this is a famous thing in history." ”

Yang Feng looked at him deeply when he heard this, and said calmly: "I hope so, in fact, I don't care if I can be famous in Shi Benhou, what Benhou cares about is how much benefit this customs can bring to Daming." The sea ban has been lifted for more than half a year, throughout the past half a year, the merchants and fishermen who have gone to sea can be said to be endless, whether it is Xiamen, Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Ningde, Putian and other places have begun to have foreign merchants to do business, since there are so many businessmen passing by every day, the imperial court should grasp the tax and inspection, and the opening of the customs has become an inevitable move, and the official is just to open the customs in accordance with the needs of the imperial court, as for the merits and demerits...... I'll leave it to posterity to comment. ”

"Hou Ye is noble!" Xia Dayan sighed lightly with emotion before saying, "A few days ago, Li Tianzhong, the governor of Zhejiang, sent a letter to the lower officials, complaining that the tax of two million taels of silver set by the imperial court for Zhejiang was too high, and he really couldn't call such a high tax. ”

"Tax relief?" Yang Feng snorted lightly and said solemnly: "Lord Xia, Your Majesty said as early as last year that before the end of this year, Zhejiang, Hunan, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Anhui and Hubei will have to pay taxes of 10 million taels, and Zhejiang will only have to pay 2 million taels after it is evenly distributed. ”

Xia Dayan couldn't help but subconsciously argue: "But in previous years, the taxes paid by Zhejiang were only 500,000 taels, and this year it has increased by four times, of course he has complaints." ”

"Quadruple?" When Yang Feng heard this, he was angry in his heart, squinted at him and asked with a sneer, "Lord Xia, Ben Hou wants to ask, how much was the tax in Zhejiang during the Yongle period?" ”

Xia Dayan, as a reader of poetry and books, and the governor of a province, naturally knew about the country during the most glorious Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, and he hesitated for a while before saying: "During the Yongle period, the tax paid by Zhejiang was about three million taels of silver. ”

"Three million taels." Yang Feng nodded, "Since you also know three million taels, is it too much for Your Majesty to ask Zhejiang for two million taels to pay taxes now?" ”

"But after all, it's this time and that time!" Xia Dayan protested: "Can today's Zhejiang be compared with the Yongle period more than two hundred years ago? ”

"Oh...... Ben Hou didn't know what was different. The anger in Yang Feng's heart became more and more vigorous, but his face was silent, "Come on, come on...... Lord Xia, tell Ben Hou, where is Zhejiang different from the Yongle period today? Is there less people under the rule? Or have the merchants become poorer? Or are the people of Zhejiang too poor to open the pot now? If you can tell a reason, Ben Hou will immediately make a compromise for you, intercede for Zhejiang, and ask Your Majesty to exempt Zhejiang from the extra taxes. ”

"I ......"

Looking at Yang Feng's expressionless face, Xia Dayan suddenly came to his senses. Nima's, Lao Tzu is the governor of Fujian, why do you have to speak so hard for Zhejiang? also offended the emperor and the marquis with heavy troops at the same time, and Lao Tzu did such a stupid thing after he ate it.

After figuring this out, Xia Dayan arched his hand towards Yang Feng very straightforwardly, "Master Hou forgives the sin, the lower official has lost his words!" ”

"Gaffes? Not necessarily, I'm afraid, right? Seeing Xia Dayan admit his mistake, Yang Feng's face also softened a little, "Since Lord Xia knows that he has lost his words, forget about it, but it is better to do less of this thankless task in the future." ”

Xia Dayan smiled bitterly: "Xiaguan and Zhejiang Governor Li Tianchong were originally born in the same department as Jinshi in Wanli for 24 years, and a few days ago, Li Tianzhong sent a letter asking Xiaguan to say good things to you for him, so Xiaguan has today's behavior, and I hope that Hou Ye will forgive his sins." ”

Seeing that Xia Dayan was so single, Yang Feng didn't think much of it. After all, in this era, scholars rely on the relationship between classmates, the same year and fellow villagers, and Xia Dayan is naturally not exempt from vulgarity. However, Yang Feng finally advised: "Lord Xia, for the sake of our good relationship this year, Ben Hou will have one more word, you should hurry up and send you a letter in the same year, telling him that the tax amount set by His Majesty is not a joke, and it will be time to escort the tax silver into Beijing in another month, if Zhejiang can't pay this tax silver by then, Your Majesty will really take off your black yarn hat of the same year, don't blame Ben Hou for not reminding him at that time!" Don't think about the law and not blaming the public, it's useless. ”

Xia Dayan sighed, arched his hand towards Yang Feng to express his gratitude, and made up his mind to write a letter to Li Tianzhong today, warning him to be careful, otherwise losing the black gauze hat is a trivial matter, once Zhu Youxiao is displeased, it will be a big trouble if he is removed from his post and investigated, after all, he knows that anyone's ass is not clean, once the emperor makes up his mind to investigate an official, unless you are a person like Hai Rui, no one can escape.

During the conversation between the two, an official came over and asked Yang Feng and Xia Dayan to come over and give the official a lecture.

Whether it was the Ming Dynasty or the Chinese Dynasty that claimed to be democratic hundreds of years later, in public, the first person to speak was always the person with the largest official position in the scene, and Yang Feng was the first to stand in front of everyone.

"Ladies and gentlemen......"

Yang Feng glanced at everyone with blazing eyes.

"Ben Hou knows that if you can come here today, most of you may have come over for the sake of Ben Hou and Lord Xia, and maybe some people are very curious and want to see what this customs is. Now Ben Hou can clearly tell you that the customs is a place to collect taxes, and it is only responsible for two things, one is responsible for collecting taxes from ships coming to Xiamen, and the other is to inspect the goods carried by ships to see if there are any contraband from the imperial court. From now on, any ship entering or leaving Xiamen will have to pay a tax to the customs, and the amount of the tax will be 10% of the price of the goods carried. ”

"Boom ......"

As soon as Yang Feng's words fell, except for several high-ranking officials who had known about this for a long time, such as Xia Dayan, Lu Guangbiao, the governor of Fujian and the admiral of the Fujian Navy Division, Ding Youwen, the political envoy, and Tu Hongliang, the envoy of the procuratorate, almost all the officials were frightened.

One out of ten taxes, this ratio is too ruthless, right? This is unprecedented since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, and it can almost be called a heavy tax.

An official immediately stood up and asked: "Dare to be the Marquis of Jiangning, my Chao Taizu has already set a tax system of thirty taxes and one tax, why did you change it to ten taxes and one when you came here?" Are you planning to go against your ancestral system? ”

Yang Feng fixed his eyes, this person is quite familiar, and thought about it carefully, isn't this guy inspecting the imperial history Zeng Peixin, a year ago, this guy questioned the holy decree he took out on the spot at his reception banquet, and he was a lot more honest after being reprimanded by himself, and now why did he jump out again.

Yang Feng frowned and said, "Ben Hou remembers you, you are the one who patrolled the imperial history Zeng Peixin, right?" Why are you still here? ”

Zeng Peixin was almost angry to death, why can't I be here? You must know that I was also sent by the imperial court to Fujian to inspect the imperial history, or do you mean that my official position is too small to stand here?

However, since Zeng Peixin can become the imperial history, his mouth is still full of words, and he blurted out: "Lord Hou's words are wrong, the lower official is the imperial history appointed by His Majesty and the imperial court, and he will naturally be here before receiving the will of His Majesty's recall." Now the lower officials dare to ask Master Hou, do you have to go against the ancestral system? ”

"Ancestry?"

Yang Feng waved his hand disdainfully, "Don't use the ancestral system to suppress me, if you really want to follow the ancestral system, all of you have to go to the Guozijian to study for a few years first." ”

Lao Zhu stipulated that officials had to go to Guozijian to receive education before they became officials, but later this regulation slowly changed, and Guozijian became a gold-plated place for the second generation of officials and the second generation of Shang, and those who were admitted to the school became the mainstream. As soon as Yang Feng said this, Zeng Peixin immediately became dumb.

"Okay, let's not talk about this matter." Zeng Peixin was not pressed down by Yang Feng, but still asked: "Master Hou, I have already had a rule in the court, one of the thirty taxes, why do you want to change the tax rate without authorization?" ”

"Why?" The corners of Yang Feng's mouth showed a hint of sneer, and he said slowly: "It's nothing, it's just that Ben Hou thinks that thirty taxes and one is too low, so he changed it to ten taxes and one draw, this is the reason, are you still satisfied?" ”