427 Three salaries at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Yangzhou City

[Today's chapter is presented, the editor's notice allows you to save the manuscript, there is no update recently, and it will be updated after the unification to the fifteenth, and I will work hard to save the manuscript in the past two days, so let you have a good time when the time comes! ] 】

This time, Li Zixiao raided the Wanjia and the six major salt merchants, and the silver seized may be a lot, but Li Zixiao plans to give at least half of it to Chongzhen.

As long as Chongzhen doesn't pursue him, even if more ministers impeach him, he is not afraid, at least at this time, he wants to continue to retain his identity as a loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, what Li Zixiao sent to Chongzhen was another note, and the content written on it was mainly: re-establish the city ship department and rebuild the customs!

"This Li Zixiao is really angry and loved.

What I am angry about is that he is becoming more and more presumptuous, and he has repeatedly made some big moves in Jiangbei, and these days the impeachment of him can fill my study.

However, he also understands my needs at this time, and solves my greatest worries.

Compared to what he did not hesitate to hand over to me with hundreds of taels of silver, the civil and military ministers of the Manchu Dynasty are not as good as him! ”

Chongzhen was in the imperial study and said to the eunuch Wang Chengen.

"Your Majesty, General Li is really good at this time, if General Li can really send millions of taels of silver, it can be regarded as a share of worries for the saint." Wang Chengen saw Chongzhen smiling, and he also smiled and said.

"Chengen, you go and summon the first assistant Xue Guoguan, the university scholar Zhou Yanru, and the military squire Chen Xinjia, and I want to discuss with them about Li Zixiao's proposal to re-establish the city and rebuild the customs."

Although Li Zixiao listed the various benefits of the imperial court's re-establishment of the city and the reconstruction of the customs, and even created a lot of tax revenue for the imperial court every year.

Chongzhen is very moved, this reset of the city and customs, and the complete cancellation of the ban on the sea, these policies are very important things, Chongzhen still needs to convene ministers to discuss.

On the other hand, Li Zixiao's raid in Yangzhou has not yet ended.

It took three full days for Li Zixiao to copy all the property, including Wan Jia, and the other six salt merchants.

Among them, Li Zixiao sent Zhao Teng to personally take charge of the raid of the house, and all the soldiers of the White Dragon Army were dispatched, and all the criminal salt merchants' property was confiscated and registered.

Subsequently, Li Zixiao publicly auctioned the shops, houses, furniture, jewelry and other properties and property of Wanjia and the six salt merchants in Yangzhou.

Li Zixiao deliberately made the auction very popular, in which the high-quality properties of these salt merchants, precious jewelry, were all sold at low prices and converted into silver.

It's a pity that at this time, all the major businessmen in Yangzhou were all trembling by Li Zixiao, and they still had doubts about whether Li Zixiao would be held accountable by the imperial court and whether he could continue to stay in Yangzhou.

In case they spend money to buy the properties of Wan and Qu and others now, and when Li Zixiao collapses and the Wan and Qu families stand up again, they will not only not be able to keep the properties they bought, but will even be liquidated by the Wan and Qu families.

As a result, Li Zixiao's carefully arranged auction was almost not attended by businessmen, and when some generals of the White Dragon Army pooled their money and took the opportunity to buy several high-quality industries in Yangzhou.

This made Li Zixiao a little disappointed, but since he couldn't sell it for the time being, Li Zixiao simply kept it all by himself, and agreed to buy it with his generals.

This can be regarded as a kind of benefit to the generals under him, those businessmen are afraid that Li Zixiao will fall, but the officers of the White Dragon Army are not afraid and do not believe it.

As for the many industries that were not sold in the end, Li Zixiao directly sent people to rectify them, and all of them were assigned to his general's mansion and handed over to Lin Wan'er to take care of, and Guan Mingxi and Lin Yuluo were responsible for assisting.

No one has any objection to Li Zixiao's approach, but nominally, Li Zixiao wants to buy these industries at his own expense, but in fact he didn't spend a penny.

Just make a show and coax some people from the outside.

Subsequently, Zhao Teng found Li Zixiao and reported that they had confiscated the property of the Wan family and the Qu family, and only seized the cash and silver tickets. Jewelry, etc., is worth more than 2.3 million taels in total.

In fact, the sum of these silver, silver tickets and jewels is only a small part of the total wealth of the seven families such as Wan and Qu, and the bulk of the wealth of their seven families is still in the properties and fields under their names.

For those industries, farms, houses, etc., Li Zixiao smiled unceremoniously.

And the remaining more than 2.3 million taels of silver, Li Zixiao himself did not keep a penny, all of them were reported to Chongzhen, ready to send a thousand white dragon soldiers to escort them into Beijing by canal and waterway, and give them to Chongzhen.

Five days later, the Forbidden City, Qianqing Palace.

The sleeping palace of the Ming Emperor, the head of the last three palaces, is also the place where the emperors of the Ming Dynasty daily govern.

"Qiqi Sheng, this time, General Zhenguo seized a total of more than 32,000 taels of gold and more than 1.3 million taels of silver ingots from a group of corrupt officials and profiteers in Yangzhou.

In addition, under the names of the profiteers, there are more than 1,260 hectares of fertile land, more than 300 houses and rental shops, and a large number of jewelry, jade, clothes, books, etc.

After General Zhenguo had publicly auctioned all the criminal properties in Yangzhou, he and the seized gold and silver totaled 2.5 million taels of silver, and asked his subordinates to send them to the capital for inspection. ”

Zhao Teng saw the emperor for the first time, and he said cautiously, according to the words that had been practiced in advance.

Of course, the data reported by Zhao Teng to Chongzhen are actually seriously shrunk, otherwise if Chongzhen knows the real data, Chongzhen will be shocked.

sent two and a half million taels to Chongzhen, which was also estimated by Li Zixiao, about the same amount, not too much, not too little.

At this time, Chongzhen was in charge of the tattered mess of the Ming Dynasty, and the three salaries of the Ming Dynasty every year at this time alone, namely the Liao salary, the salary and the training salary, were as high as nearly 20 million.

Such a huge salary is a bottomless pit for the Ming court, which has an annual tax of only four million taels at this time.

Even if Chongzhen has his internal money and his emperor's personal income, Chongzhen can't fill the big hole of three salaries a year, so he can only continue to send more land to the people, which makes the people complain.

If there was no increase in the three salaries, the taxes of the Ming Dynasty would not be able to support the huge annual expenditure of the imperial court, but the increase of the three salaries also made the Ming lose the hearts of the peasants at the bottom.

The three salaries of the imperial court, the Liao salary, were 7,488,298 taels of silver every year; 2,800,000 taels; The levy of more than 7.3 million taels of silver.

The sum of the three salaries is more than 17.5 million, and even this year, because of the resurgence of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, the imperial court will collect more three salaries this year, which is estimated to exceed 20 million taels.

Now it is Xue Guoguan presiding over the cabinet, and he actually played a few days ago, asking for a reduction and reduction of salaries, and the abolition of salaries, but how could Chongzhen agree!

Even if Chongzhen also knew that the additional three salaries would increase the burden on the people, but he had no choice, if he did not send the three salaries, what would he use to feed the huge Ming army in Liaodong.

If he does not pay three salaries, how can he support Lu Xiangsheng and Yang Sichang, who are in Henan and Sichuan respectively at this time?

Therefore, it is impossible not to levy the three salaries, or even levy more, this is a dead cycle, and Chongzhen is powerless to unravel it.

Levying three salaries is equivalent to letting Daming die slowly, and without levying three salaries, it is estimated that Daming will die soon.

Although two and a half million taels is not much in Chongzhen's eyes, it solves Chongzhen's urgent need at this time, and can make up for the shortfall of his previous three salaries.

After listening to Zhao Teng's report, Wang Chengen took the recital written by Li Zixiao from Zhao Teng's hand and handed it to Chongzhen.

After Chongzhen saw it, he suddenly burst out laughing, and the people in the eunuch palace on the side looked at Chongzhen in great surprise, because they rarely saw Chongzhen laugh like this.

At this time, Chongzhen laughed again and again, his face full of excitement.

"What about the silver, the silver has already been sent to the palace?" Chongzhen asked excitedly.

"Back to Your Majesty, all the silver is outside the palace, just wait for Your Majesty's order, and it can be transported into the palace."

"Then what are you waiting for, Wang Chengen, immediately have someone bring in the silver and send it to me, and I will personally inspect it." Chongzhen shouted excitedly.

Wang Chengen took Zhao Teng and a group of imperial guards to the palace gate, and transported a cart of silver into the palace from a team of white dragon sergeants, and transported it directly to the Qianqing Palace.

If Wang Chengen didn't take Zhao Teng with him, just with the fancy shelves of these imperial guards, he would really want to transport these silver into the palace from the hands of these white dragon soldiers.

The silver box was opened one by one, and his eyes were full of silver, Chongzhen walked to the silver box excitedly, and saw that the box was full of fifty taels of silver ingots.

"Okay, Li Aiqing is loyal!"

Chongzhen's words can be regarded as completely no longer pursuing Li Zixiao's movements in Jiangbei during this time.

"You go back and tell Li Aiqing to send the Qu family and the people of the Wan family to the capital, and the rest of the traitor merchants will be beheaded, and the men of their clan will be sent to the army, and the women will be official prostitutes.

Let your general stop in Jiangbei, and the impeachment of him in my study is almost overwhelmed. ”

Chongzhen then looked at Zhao Teng and said.

"Yes, my subordinates have already conveyed the words of the saint to my general."

"At the same time, go back and tell your general that he applied for the proposal to re-establish the city in Yangzhou, and I agreed, and asked him to temporarily take over the construction of the city in Yangzhou first.

Subsequently, we sent an official to Yangzhou to take charge of the overall work of Yangzhou City. ”

Sure enough, after Zhao Teng left the capital and returned to Yangzhou, the next day Chongzhen read out the resolution to re-establish the city in Yangzhou in the early dynasty.

Even if there were many Ming officials on the spot, they stood up and expressed their opposition, or opposed to the establishment of a city in Yangzhou, but Chongzhen had made up his mind, and those ministers were helpless.

In the past, the Ming Dynasty set up cities in Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangzhou, but later with the implementation of the 'sea ban', the three divisions were abolished.

This time, Chongzhen ordered the re-establishment of the city in Yangzhou, which means that Yangzhou has become the only legal foreign trade port of the Ming Dynasty at this time.

As for the fact that at this time in the southeastern region, the trade between those maritime merchants and overseas has never been severed.

But their maritime merchants can only be regarded as smuggling, which is illegal, and when the time comes, Li Zixiao can completely attack the southeast maritime merchants in the name of anti-smuggling.

Soon, Li Zixiao was also in Yangzhou and got the news that Chongzhen agreed to set up a city in Yangzhou.

After Li Zixiao got Chongzhen's approval, he immediately began to arrange the establishment of Yangzhou City, and his father-in-law Lin Yongnian fully supported it.

Yangzhou City Bo Division was located in Yangzhou Port outside the city, and a large area was demarcated, and craftsmen began to be recruited to build the Yamen of the City Bo Division, as well as Cangcheng.

According to Li Zixiao's plan, Yangzhou will be his main foreign trade window in the next few years, so he attaches great importance to it.

Li Zixiao will build a large warehouse city in Yangzhou Port, and a city wall will be built outside.

In the future, the goods imported and exported from Yangzhou Port must first enter the company after entering the port, send them to the city to report to the department for verification, and collect the goods after taxation.

There are four types of tariffs: introduction tax, water tax, land tax and additional tax.

Among them, the introduction tax is the license tax, and all maritime merchants who import and export from Yangzhou Port must first declare and obtain a license. Pay the tax and register the information of the vessel and personnel.

The water tax is levied according to the size of the ship, and the ship that sells to the West is more than 1 zhang 6 feet wide, and 5 taels of silver is levied; For every additional 1 foot, an additional 5 yuan of silver will be levied.

Land tax is a tax on the import and export of goods, which is levied at four to five percent of the value of goods.

The reason for the increase in taxes was that many ships returning from Luzon and other places at this time carried more silver taels than goods.

Therefore an additional tax of two hundred taels of silver was to be levied on the ships that came back from Luzon. If the ship returns rice, the tax is one and two cents per stone of rice.

The taxes of Yangzhou Port City are mainly these four categories, and there will be other charges of some ports.

These relevant taxation systems were all revised by Li Zixiao's subordinates, referring to the city system that came from the Tang and Song dynasties, and adding to the national conditions at the end of the Ming Dynasty at this time.

After the establishment of the Yangzhou City Shipping Division, there will also be a smuggling unit, but all ships that have not been issued by the Yangzhou City Shipping Division will be investigated and detained.

Of course, Li Zixiao didn't expect Yangzhou City to really put an end to smuggling, because it was completely impossible.

Even, at this time, Li Zixiao could only exert this power in the Yangtze River and Yellow River valleys in the north, and he could not do anything about the ships on the southeast coast and even Guangzhou.

But Li Zixiao nominally can also investigate and deal with those smuggled ships on the southeast coast, after all, at this time, Daming only has a city in Yangzhou.

Even if Li Zixiao has limited strength in his hands at this time and cannot extend his hand to the southeast coast, as long as he has this nominal power in his hands, he can use it as a bargaining chip.

The news that Chongzhen asked Li Zixiao to re-establish the city in Yangzhou quickly spread throughout the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty.

It immediately caused a huge sensation, especially the many maritime merchants on the southeast coast, and they all became nervous.

Because, no one knows better than them all these years about the huge profits that can be earned by going to sea to trade.

In the past, the imperial court almost ignored them, and they only needed to pay a part of the protection fee to the Zheng family before they could go to sea to trade.

But now Chongzhen asked Li Zixiao to set up a city in Yangzhou, which means that they are estimated to have to pay various taxes to the imperial court in the future.

Therefore, in the eyes of those maritime merchants on the southeast coast, no one wants to watch Li Zixiao successfully establish Yangzhou City, and no one wants to spit out the meat in his mouth.

(End of chapter)