The Shun army's westward expedition rolled up the yellow sand, but the city of Nanjing was full of singing and dancing.

Manchu was expelled, the rebels had been pacified, and with the king of Qi in the city of Nanjing, all threats no longer existed.

As the capital of the Ming Dynasty, since the threat is not there, it is natural to restore the burden.

The prosperity of the market is more prosperous in the past, and the Qinhuai River is still in the wind.

In the midst of this singing and dancing, a yamen was quietly established, and a small building was monopolized in the newly built Grand Presidential Palace, which was the newly established Ming Ministry of Commerce.

Once the Ministry of Commerce was established, it took the lead in setting up a tax customs in Nanjing City for demonstration.

Nanjing land and water terminals have a customs division, all the goods entering Nanjing will be counted and explained to the shop firm, and then pay taxes according to the law, which is commercial tax.

The tax rate is not high, and the tax rate is only eleven. However, such a tax rate made the merchants complain, and they used various means to try to avoid taxes, including those who bribed tax collectors, those who found connections to intercede, and those who tried to escape by diverting into the city at night.

However, the methods that used to be invincible are now ineffective.

The newly established Ministry of Commerce, the tax officials appointed are all hired in Enke, this time, Enke, actually hired more than 1,500 Jinshi, the number greatly exceeded the past, and these hired Jinshi have one of the biggest characteristics, that is, they are proficient in arithmetic.

Except for a small number of elites who were left in the court to observe the government and then sent to various places as officials, most of the jinshi were stuffed into the newly established Ministry of Commerce Yamen and served as the Eight Grade Tax Officials.

In addition to the new branch jinshi as the chief official, each tax yamen is also equipped with several inspectors as supervisors to strictly investigate bribery and other illegal activities. The Inspectorate also sent the Imperial Historian to conduct spot checks from time to time to assess the work of the Jinyi Guards and tax officials.

Anyone found guilty of bribery or bribery will be dismissed from office and imprisoned, and all the bribe-paying businessmen will have all their assets confiscated. And if Jin Yiwei doesn't report it, he will also be punished for his crimes!

Li Zhan, the secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, stipulates that the performance of tax officials will be used as the evaluation standard, and those who perform well will be promoted. And the Jinyi Wei who is in charge of supervision will also be promoted if he makes meritorious service.

Under this kind of system, whether it is the tax official or the overseer, they all have their eyes wide open and riveted their strength to work, how can they be in cahoots with the merchants?

Of course, in order to prevent the tax collectors from arbitrarily collecting taxes, the imperial court also gave the merchants a way to appeal, and opened a special complaint yamen in the Grand Presidential Palace to deal with disputes between merchants and tax customs.

All kinds of means are only for one purpose, that is, to be able to collect commercial taxes normally and customize them.

And in order to set an example, the Four Seas Commercial Bank belonging to the royal family, and the Qiyun Commercial Bank belonging to the Qi Palace, all pay taxes according to the law, and not a penny is missing.

Even the royal family and the king of Qi set an example, and the nobles and gentry officials in Nanjing couldn't open their mouths even if they wanted to plead with the Ministry of Commerce, and Li Zhan showed an iron-faced and selfless appearance, refusing to be thousands of miles away.

One month after the establishment of the Ministry of Commerce, the tax revenue reached an extremely large number, and the tax revenue of Nanjing City alone reached as much as 100,000 taels of silver in a month. And nearly one-third of this amount of tax revenue comes from the Qinhuai River area.

There are dozens of brothels on the banks of the Qinhuai River, which is a real cave of gold, and the literary style is the favorite of the scholars, and it will happen every day to smile and spend a lot of money for the Pomeranians. And the brothel is the most profitable business in the world.

Since the commercial tax was introduced, the newly established Ministry of Commerce naturally would not let go of the Qinhuai River. But after all, Qinglou is not as good as a shop, and the amount of tax can be set through goods, so you can't check how many customers the singers receive every day.

However, this is not difficult for the Ministry of Commerce, after Li Zhan and the Inspectorate discussed, asked the Inspectorate to send a large number of Jinyi Wei makeup into the Qinglou, spend a few days to count the passenger flow and charging standards of each Qinglou, and then set the tax rate according to the statistics. Each Qinglou levies a monthly tax ranging from tens of taels to hundreds of taels of silver, among which the most famous Meixianglou collects a huge tax of 1,000 taels per month!

There are hundreds of green buildings in Qinhuai River, so isn't the monthly tax collected tens of thousands of taels? And this made the girls and bustards in the Qinglou hate itchy, and the private businessmen were even more amazed, and they no longer dared to have the idea of tax evasion.

Even the money from the sale of meat by the girls in the Qinglou was taxed, which also made the newly established Ministry of Commerce have a very bad reputation. In order to show the eyes of the girls, some conceited and elegant scholars wrote poems one after another, satirizing the newly established Ministry of Commerce. Some people even made up operas and sang them in various restaurants and theaters, satirizing the tax officials' crimes of excesses. And the most powerful one who was ridiculed was none other than Li Zhan, the secretary of the Ministry of Commerce.

Li Zhan used to be a Donglin boss and a Qingliu official, and since he became the secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, many Donglin officials have drawn a line with him, and ordinary squire students of the school hate him so much that they hate him. Some people wrote operas to satirize Li Zhan, writing him as a white-faced traitor, and the people even called him a book of flesh and skin.

Li Zhan, who was full of grievances, cried and resigned to the president many times, and Chen Yue comforted him with kind words, calling him the backbone of the real capable ministers and officials of the imperial court, and called on the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty to learn from Li Zhan and learn from his spirit of working hard for the Ming Dynasty's finances without fear of slander.

Chen Yue did not say empty words, but announced that in order to commend the achievements of the Ministry of Commerce, the imperial court would take out silver taels for year-end rewards, and as the head of the Ministry of Commerce, Li Zhan would receive as many as tens of thousands of taels of silver this year.

"Capable officials should be rewarded, promoted and rewarded, as long as they do their jobs well, everything will be rewarded. Once found out, the corpse vegetarian will be dismissed from office and will never be hired! At the regular meeting held at the Grand Presidential Palace, Chen Yue said.

After more than two months of trial commercial taxation in Nanjing, although the people's criticism was great, it did not cause any turmoil. After the levy of the commercial tax, although the merchants earned less money, after all, they were still making money, and it was natural to pay taxes to the imperial court after all, even if they wanted to stir up riots, not many people would sympathize with them. Why did the peasants have to pay taxes for farming, but the gentry and merchants did not have to pay taxes for business?

However, the corresponding is that the imperial court tax has increased greatly, after estimation and calculation, if the commercial tax is fully levied, the annual commercial tax of Nanjing alone will reach a huge amount of one million taels, if it is released to the thirteen provinces of the country, how huge will the commercial tax collected? It will be much more than the agricultural tax.

With more taxes, the life of the imperial court is naturally better, and it has the money to raise troops to quell rebellions, and has the ability to deal with all kinds of natural and man-made disasters.

However, Chen Yue also knew that Nanjing was relatively easy to collect commercial taxes because it was under his nose, but if it was extended to the thirteen provinces of the country, various problems would definitely arise.

The privileges of the gentry were abolished, and they had to pay taxes in business, how could these people, who were accustomed to only receiving benefits and not paying, be willing? Will there be any moths, everything is possible.

And the most important thing now is to quickly put down the rebellion of Zheng Sen in the southeast and eliminate the remnants of the Western Army in Sichuan. Only when a strong army is strong and deterred, those young people dare not have strange thoughts.