The locomotive, emitting white smoke, kept moving away, speeding up after leaving Qingzhou Station. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Seeing this, the people ran with the steam locomotive, and in the boring life of lack of entertainment, they did not want to miss this magical thing, at least they had one more thing to talk about after dinner.

After the speed of the locomotive increased, the old Fiji blushed, and he said: "The old minister really should be in the palm of his own mouth, and now it looks like this steam locomotive can at least catch up with the speed of the horses." “

"Not only that, but not only do you run past the horses, but you don't need to rest like the horses, the only thing you need is to have water and coal supply stations along the way." Princess Pingyang said with a smile.

The test run was perfect, and everyone saw the process of speeding up the steam locomotive, and in the process of speeding up, the steam locomotive also pulled eight carriages, which could carry a lot of goods in the future.

Pang Yukun also closed his mouth happily, but while he was happy, he was also distressed about the money of the treasury, he said: "Your Majesty, this railway is really a huge project that costs the people and money, and now it costs more than 300,000 silver to build the Qingzhou railway, which will connect all the six states, at least 10 million taels of silver, I am afraid that the treasury is beyond its reach." ”

Fiji and Pang Yukun are in charge of the national treasury together, and it is naturally clear about this, and the money in this treasury is not only used to build railways, but also used in many places, military spending, culture and education, official salaries, road construction in various states and counties, and workshops that need to be established to change the law, so that the treasury is stretched.

Princess Pingyang frowned, she said: "The emperor is happy, why do you mention this unhappy thing, silver, there is always a way to think of it, now the merchants of Qingzhou make a lot of money one by one, so they have to let them do something." ”

After a pause, Princess Pingyang said to Xiao Ming: "Your Majesty, you are too polite to these merchants, in the past, none of these merchants gave the court an annual filial piety, but now it's good, the silver they earn is stuffed into their own pockets, and they are also competing with the court for profit, which is not true." ”

In fact, like Princess Pingyang, many officials now have some opinions about businessmen, after all, the current decree of Qingzhou is biased towards businessmen in the past.

Smiling lightly, Xiao Ming said: "Auntie, this is not right, if the people are rich, the country is rich, and if the business is rich, the treasury is sufficient, and now the silver in the treasury is obtained from selling steam engines, which is all the money of merchants, and I have already explained to Li Kaiyuan that I want to formalize the industrial and commercial tax, set up a special tax office, and the tax department, and in the future, they will keep an eye on the merchants and the people to collect taxes." ”

Pang Yukun and Fiji immediately laughed when they heard this, they were about to mention this matter, but they didn't expect Xiao Ming to already think about it.

Princess Pingyang nodded with satisfaction, she said: "Emperor Shengming, this tax is the top priority of the country, only when the tax is sufficient, the imperial court can afford to support officials, build cement roads and railways, and buy firearms for the army, so that the Great Yu Kingdom can defeat the surrounding barbarians and maintain a peaceful and prosperous world." “

"What my aunt said is that I am preparing to reorganize the taxes next." Xiao Ming said in a deep voice, a large part of the reason for the fall of the contemporary Ming Dynasty was that the taxes could not be paid, and in the end, the country could not even afford to raise an army, resulting in a situation where the rich and the rich and the country were poor.

With this lesson, Xiao Ming naturally did not dare to follow the example of the Ming Dynasty for being too indulgent to the wealthy families and merchants, and when the tax department was completed, the merchants who paid taxes could only receive the road guide to do business with the tax payment voucher.

Merchants who evade taxes and leak water will not only lose their qualifications to do business, but will also be punished.

The group was talking about finding money to repair the railway, when a burst of exclamations suddenly sounded not far away.

Xiao Ming and the others looked and saw two Westerners, an old man and a young man, walking towards them through the crowd, but they were stopped outside by the guards.

However, the older Westerners seemed to be very unwilling and kept saying something to the guards.

"Zhao Long, go and ask what's going on?" Xiao Ming said.

Zhao Long left in response, turned around and came back after a while and said, "Your Majesty, these two Yidi said that they were businessmen from the West, and they also said that they wanted to enter Qingzhou University to study. ”

"Joke, Qingzhou University is not a place they can go." Fiji first said: "These surrounding barbarians are all learning the craftsmanship of the Great Chongqing Kingdom and will bite back when they go back, they are really afraid of power but not virtue, the emperor, must not let them enter Qingzhou University." ”

"I think it's better to expel the two of them directly from the Great Chongqing Kingdom, the two of them are really bold, they actually disturbed the Holy Driver, don't you want to die?" Princess Binh Duong has always been disgusted with the people of these foreign countries.

When she was in Chang'an, Persians occasionally came to Chang'an to do business, and at that time Princess Pingyang showed hostility towards these people.

Xiao Ming looked at the two, this Qingzhou University naturally can't be open to the two, otherwise the things of Qingzhou University will not be learned, and this technical blockade will become empty talk.

And the performance of these two people made him more and more determined in his thoughts, because at this time the pursuit of science and technology in Europe had reached the point of fanaticism, and even science had become the belief of many people.

The act of the two of them breaking in made him even more convinced of this.

After a deep sigh, he said: "Expelling the two of them from the Great Chongqing Country, this is not Europe, and the rules of the Great Chongqing Country must be observed in the Great Chongqing Country, which is also a wake-up call for all Western businessmen in Qingzhou." “

As he spoke, Xiao Ming thought about whether he wanted to get a visa, and asked the purpose of coming to Dayu before these people entered the country, and if they found that their motives were not pure, they would be directly blocked out of the country.

After all, these blind Western streams have brought a lot of harm to the Dayu Congress, whether it is acting as spies or stealing technology.

After receiving Xiao Ming's order, Zhao Long immediately asked the guards to expel the two from the Great Chongqing Kingdom, and from today onwards, this technical blockade will be implemented step by step.

After this episode, the train has disappeared from everyone's eyes and continues to move north.

Xiao Ming wanted to ride a horse to chase after him, but in the end he dismissed the idea, and the success of the locomotive was proved when the steam locomotive left the station.

The next thing he was faced with was the problem of extending the railway, which required a lot of silver.

Thinking of this, Xiao Ming was a little glad that he established the Qingzhou Chamber of Commerce in the first place, and now in this case, in addition to taxing merchants, he also has to strengthen the country's trade behavior.

This time in Goryeo's business, the Qingzhou Chamber of Commerce will definitely take the lion's share, and the rest of the cake will be divided among the merchants.

The development of private trade was important, but silver was also important to the imperial court, and in the state of commerce was only a seedling, he could only rely on the state trade to bring sufficient silver taels to the treasury.

Only with sufficient silver taels can he lay a solid foundation for the Great Yu Kingdom.