Although the wedding date is approaching, Zheng Xunrui is about to marry Xu Fo's family, but at this time, he doesn't think about how to prepare for the wedding, and in fact, he doesn't have the energy to think about the wedding, these things can only be handled by Wen Manshan.

Zheng Xunrui's main energy is almost all in the two aspects of the Firearms Bureau and Hongmen.

After a few months of operation, the scale of Hongmen has been greatly expanded, when Hongmen was just established, its purpose was to be able to maintain the smooth progress of Caoyun, but this is only a superficial task, in fact, Zheng Xunrui took office as the governor of Caoyun, has spent a lot of effort to rectify Caoyun, after countless shady curtains were knocked off, Caoyun quickly returned to normal, once the rules were established, Caoyun will be much smoother, and there are not so many things to do.

The real role of Hongmen is to do something that Zheng Xunrui is not good to come forward directly, and now to shake the foundation of the Donglin Party in Huaibei, it is necessary for Hongmen to come forward to do it.

The breakthrough chosen by Zheng Xunrui was to re-determine the amount of commercial and trade taxes collected, and began to do what Zhang Juzheng and Wei Zhongxian had done, and used commercial and trade taxes to fill the treasury.

This is a big deal, and it requires special care in its operation.

Don't look at the Donglin Party in Huaibei, the Fushe and the Yingshe scholars are a lot more low-key, but this is still one of the bases of the Donglin Party, especially in Yangzhou, Huai'an and Luzhou, a large number of scholars and businessmen gathered, they are very rich, the business is very large, and a large number of annexed land, but do not bear any taxes, heavy taxes are all borne by the people at the bottom.

The reason why scholars and merchants were able to become more and more prosperous without taking any responsibility was that their spokesmen, the Donglin Party, controlled the decision-making machine in the imperial court, and all the decisions made were favorable to them.

Zheng Xunrui does not object to scholars and businessmen getting rich, he will never hate the rich, but scholars and businessmen who become rich must bear the corresponding responsibilities, to put it bluntly, they must bear a large amount of taxes. Blindly taking without taking any responsibility, such a good thing should not exist.

The situation in the south is slightly better than in the north, suffering less than in the north, and the people are barely able to stabilize. In addition, after Zheng Xunrui became the governor of Caoyun, almost all the chief officials of the four prefectures and three prefectures in Huaibei were replaced, and the government offices in various parts of Huaibei needed to focus on the people and ensure that the people could at least have food. Not to starve to death.

However, the government's source of income is limited, and all it relies on is agricultural taxes, and it is good that these taxes can maintain the income of the officials, and the normal expenses cannot be borne in full, so how can it be possible to take out the silver to help the people, and in a few months, all the expenses for the relief of the people are solved by the governor's palace trying to raise money and grain.

This situation cannot be maintained for long, otherwise the governor's palace and the government will eventually collapse and will not be able to provide relief to the people.

Ways to change the situation. It is a large-scale collection of trade taxes, and taxes are collected from the link of circulation.

The region of Huaibei is very special, the scale of commerce here, in the first place in the Ming Dynasty, on the one hand, because of the stimulation of Cao Yun, on the other hand, because of the particularity of the region.

It is precisely because of the stimulation of Caoyun and the particularity of the region that Zheng Xunrui dared to do it in Huaibei, and many Caoyun wharves are under the jurisdiction of the Governor's Palace. Many businessmen will not choose to leave, they can't find such good business opportunities in other places.

Even if a businessman chooses to leave, there is no need to be afraid. There will be more businessmen to fill the gap.

As for the rest of Nanzhili, including Zhejiang and other places, they will also be affected, unless their goods do not pass through the Huaibei area, and choose to detour from Huguang, Henan and other places into the north, then the governor's palace will not be able to collect taxes. But such a possibility is almost non-existent, Huguang and Henan and other places, the rogue plundered, and left the support of the canal, blindly by land, the price of commodity transportation increased significantly, which is unbearable for merchants.

In this regard, Zheng Xunrui stuck Shang Jia's neck and made them helpless.

The land annexed by scholars and merchants, Zheng Xunrui will not let go.

According to the regulations of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, meritorious scholars, including Xiucai, no matter how much arable land they own, are not responsible for agricultural taxes, of course, the premise of doing that is that there are meritorious scholars, and the land owned is not very much, but as time goes by, the land annexation is becoming more and more serious, and the scholars and merchants have more and more land. They are exempt from agricultural taxes, and they are exempted from taxes by not much, according to the land needed to sustain the family, the fields that sustain the living are not taxed, and the rest of the arable land is also subject to taxes.

Zhang Juzheng's reform was later met with a frantic counterattack by the scholar class and finally died.

In fact, the agricultural tax of the Ming Dynasty, the amount is very low, under normal circumstances, the peasants can bear it, but it is a pity that hundreds of years of inheritance, more and more land is annexed by scholars, scholars do not bear agricultural taxes, so limited agricultural taxes, will be evenly distributed to the heads of the people, the land has not increased, the taxes have increased invisibly, which leads to the people can not bear, but also leads to more land annexation, some bankrupt farmers, would rather become tenants, for the scholars and businessmen to farm land, rather than own their own landThere are even some peasant households who attach their fields to the names of scholars and hand over part of their income to scholars, and are unwilling to pay taxes.

What Zheng Xunrui has to do is to collect agricultural taxes in an all-round way, whether you are a scholar or an ordinary farmer, all of them must bear the taxes, and after re-measuring the land according to the amount of taxes calculated by the imperial court, the taxes will be levied according to the land area.

There must be a lot of difficulties encountered in this way, and there will be too many special circumstances, but things need to be done neatly, especially when establishing rules in the early stage, you can't be soft, and you can't consider too many other factors, otherwise things will not be done well, and you must adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to doing things at this time.

There must be unreasonable aspects, so we will gradually improve them in the process of implementation in the future.

Zheng Xunrui planned to do this, it can be said that he was taking a huge risk, and if he was not careful, he would fall into a place of no return, so he did not act rashly, but continued to make corresponding preparations.

And the one who undertakes this task is Hongmen, Hongmen is a social organization, and it can also be regarded as a Jianghu organization, but with an official identity, what Zheng Xunrui wants to do will cause huge waves, the government is not suitable to come forward, and it is most appropriate for Hongmen to come forward, even if someone wants to impeach, the spearhead cannot be directly pointed at the government or Zheng Xunrui.

Caoyun Governor's Palace, Donglin Book House.

Xu Wanghua, Zheng Jinhong, Wen Kun, Hong Mingcheng, Xu Jikuang and others looked at Zheng Xunrui with a very serious expression.

"What I just said, you also understand, the responsibility of Hongmen is very important, it can be said that whether the collection of taxes can be successful, related to the future of Huaibei, Shaanxi and Fuzhou and other places, once Hongmen in Huaibei opened up the situation, Shaanxi and Fuzhou and other places, the same way to adopt such methods, comprehensive collection of taxes."

"Doing such a thing, the risk is huge, you are all my most trusted brothers, if before the matter starts, any of you feel difficult, bring it up now, you can quit, I will not blame anyone, but once you take responsibility and start doing things, then there will be no retreat and hesitation."

"The collection of taxes, in two steps, the first collection of trade taxes, this is the most important task, as for the agricultural tax, can be temporarily suspended, the amount of tax drawn by one, is clear, no one can violate, if someone in the process of operation, colluded with commerce and trade, secretly nonsense, then in accordance with the Zheng family's military discipline and military regulations, the warlord will deal with it, and there will be no mercy."

"The Governor's Mansion and the Yamen of various prefectures and counties will not come forward for the time being, and everything will be done by Hongmen, the reasons for this, I have analyzed it just now, but if you want to be calm, it is impossible, many people know that behind Hongmen is the government, that is, the Governor's Mansion, and I Zheng Xunrui, so their spearhead will still be aimed at the official government, or that sentence, the affairs of the rivers and lakes will be dealt with by Hongmen, and I will deal with the affairs of the government."

"For those disobedient businessmen, even scholars, no matter what their identity is, don't be soft on it, Hongmen will deal with it according to the rules of the rivers and lakes, it doesn't matter if they go bankrupt, if they want to sue, there is no chance in Huaibei or even Nanzhili, we have laid a good foundation in front of us, and have done a lot of foreshadowing, as for them to think of going to the capital to sue the emperor, then they will go." ……

Zheng Xunrui said categorically, the tone is cold, it should be said that for so long, he spoke in such a tone for the first time, because the collection of trade taxes is related to the future development, the Ming Dynasty has appeared in the germ of a capitalist society, which is also the inevitability of social development, suppression is stupid, we must follow the trend, guide, and standardize the behavior of capital operation.

Others don't understand the reason, Zheng Xunrui is very clear, after the germination of the capitalist society, the businessmen will form a huge force, sometimes enough to compete with the government, and even influence the government's decision-making, so the government must intervene as soon as possible to determine the relevant systems and rules, so that the businessmen can make money under the constraints of the system and rules, and at the same time, the government will also get huge taxes from it. (To be continued.) )