bookbashuk Page 2527
Page 2527
"Thank you, Your Majesty!"
Li Wenzhong sat down carefully, not daring to look directly at His Majesty, his gaze fixed on His Majesty's desk.
Zhao Yuan asked, "Are you a scholar who passed the imperial examination?"
Li Wenzhong replied, "I have already failed the imperial examination once, but I can take it twice more."
"Was it your idea to speculate on the goods?" Zhao Yuan asked with a smile.
Li Wenzhong said, "It is merely a trivial skill to be shown to Your Majesty."
“My family has lost a lot of money, and we still have a warehouse full of cloth that we can’t sell.”
Zhao Yuan said, "The exchange has just been established, and you've already come up with such a terrible idea. You're quite the talent among unscrupulous merchants."
"You'll have plenty of opportunities in the future. When the imperial court runs out of supplies, you'll surely succeed by joining forces to speculate on goods."
Chapter 3369 Tax Law Reform
"Don't you dare!"
Li Wenzhong trembled in fright and slid off the chair to the ground to kneel down: "Hoarding and speculating, disrupting prices, are all unjust acts, and the Li family will never do it again in the future."
“Sitting here talking, how could I kill you?” Zhao Yuan said.
Li Wenzhong sat back down and explained, "The major cloth merchants had agreed that they would not let their customers lose everything."
"fart!".
Zhao Yuan angrily rebuked: "If the imperial court had not investigated usury and declared usurious loan contracts invalid, countless people in the capital city would have been ruined."
"Those people are insatiable. They mortgaged their houses to speculate on online trading. Now they are penniless and it's the dead of winter. They can't afford to live in their homes and will all freeze to death on the streets!"
"Have you ever considered that if someone is truly driven to their death, will the imperial court intervene to punish the unscrupulous merchants?"
Li Wenzhong felt a chill run down his spine: "I...I am truly terrified. I never expected them to be so insane."
"Many of these people were not merchants, yet they went to the exchange to apply for purchase certificates and used all their savings to speculate on cloth orders."
Zhao Yuan didn't press the matter further, but instead asked, "How did you come up with the idea that invoices could be resold?"
Li Wenzhong said, "Actually, it's not hard to think of."
"It's simply a matter of buying low and selling high; that's how the ordination certificates of the previous dynasty were issued."
Ordination certificates were originally meant to certify monks and nuns, but in the Song Dynasty, they were actually used as futures contracts.
Sometimes it sells for 100 strings of cash, sometimes for 200 strings, and at the most outrageous time it even sells for 500 strings.
Even monks and Taoist priests don't rush to fill in their names when they get their hands on the goods, because they can resell them. They only fill in their names when they need to use them.
Zhao Yuan sneered: "I'm afraid it's not as simple as buying low and selling high, is it?"
“If I don’t intervene, you can keep pushing down and raising prices repeatedly, treating traders, customers, and speculators like leeks to be harvested.”
"Don't dare."
Li Wenzhong immediately bowed his head, his forehead already beaded with sweat.
Your Majesty really understands everything!
Zhao Yuan's smile widened: "What you've got is nothing. Do you want me to teach you how to short sell?"
"Neither the buyer nor the seller has any goods entering or leaving the transaction; the settlement is made directly based on the price difference when the order expires."
Li Wenzhong was surprised: "You can do business like this?"
"Hmm?" Zhao Yuan's expression was serious.
Li Wenzhong hurriedly explained, "I didn't think much of it, I was just curious."
Zhao Yuan asked, "Do you want to become an official?"
Li Wenzhong said, "I am studying hard and hope to pass the imperial examination next year."
“Since you’re confident, then go ahead and take the exam,” Zhao Yuan said.
Li Wenzhong was taken aback, and quickly added, "Actually, I'm not sure either."
"Although Xiaomin is good at mathematics, physics, astronomy and geography, and is still asking the students of the Imperial Academy for help with chemistry, he has not yet thoroughly mastered the Confucian classics."
"The interpretation of the classics is even less satisfactory. Although I understand the principles in my heart, the writing is rather superficial."
Zhao Yuan asked, "What is your opinion on Wang Anshi's reforms?"
Li Wenzhong replied, "The intention was good."
Zhao Yuan then asked, "If the emperor had supported Wang Anshi to the end, would his reforms have succeeded?"
Li Wenzhong said, "It may be successful for decades, but it will definitely fail in the end."
"Why?" Zhao Yuan asked.
"Corruption among officials..."
Li Wenzhong blurted it out, then quickly emphasized,
"The common people are saying that the officials of the previous dynasty were corrupt. Even if the reforms had been successful at that time, the many miscellaneous levies could have been merged into the exemption fee."
“In ten or twenty years, new factions will emerge, and the burden on the people will be even heavier.”
Even if officials are not corrupt, clerks still need to eat.
"If miscellaneous levies are not levied, what will the officials eat?"
Zhao Yuan couldn't help but exclaim, "You really are a genius! You were able to figure this out on your own."
Li Wenzhong asked in confusion, "What have you figured out?"
"It's nothing," Zhao Yuan said without elaborating.
Of course, it's about figuring out the "Huang Zongxi Law"!
Even if the tax reforms in Chinese history were very successful at the time and reduced the burden on ordinary people, they would inevitably lead to a situation where the burden on ordinary people became even heavier in the future.
It's a curse, a vicious cycle.
The principle is actually very simple: the imperial court stipulates the regular taxes, but officials will add more exorbitant taxes and levies.
Tax reform is simply a matter of reducing various exorbitant taxes and levies and then merging them into a single tax.
Let's call this single tax "miscellaneous tax" for now. Over time, people will get used to it and regard miscellaneous tax as a regular tax.
As a result, officials levied additional exorbitant taxes on top of the miscellaneous levies, causing the people to bear an even heavier tax burden than before the reforms.
The Tang Dynasty's Two-Tax System reform was essentially a combination of "rent, labor service, and tax" plus miscellaneous levies.
It was equivalent to the Tang Dynasty version of the poll tax, which incorporated the poll tax into the two taxes.
But over time, everyone began to regard the two taxes as the main taxes, and a separate poll tax was levied again.
Wang Anshi's tax reform in rural areas was essentially a combination of the "Two-Tax Law" and miscellaneous tax reforms.
Zhang Juzheng's Single Whip Law was essentially a combination of the Two-Tax System and miscellaneous tax collection methods.
Emperor Yongzheng's policy of merging the poll tax into the land tax was even more severe, essentially a combination of the "Single Whip Law" and other miscellaneous tax policies.
Zhao Yuan's current policy of merging land tax and poll tax is useless. A hundred years from now, it will inevitably become distorted, just like the Two-Tax System of the Tang Dynasty.
At that time, people will regard the taxes that have been incorporated into the land tax system as the regular taxes that farmers should pay.
Then, they started collecting miscellaneous items again, just under a different name.
Chapter 3370 Choosing the Era Name
If the land tax system were to become an ancestral law, its only effect would be to remove the household registration system, allowing for more frequent population movement and encouraging people to register their household registration.
Exorbitant taxes and levies will still be imposed!
Even in the industrial age, the "Huang Zongxi Law" could not be broken.
It wasn't until the abolition of agricultural taxes that Chinese farmers were finally freed from this vicious cycle.
Currently, the national treasury is full, and the imperial court has no shortage of money to spend.
After Zhao Yuan ascended the throne, his first act was to reduce agricultural taxes!
Lowering the agricultural tax would allow for a faster process of integrating the poll tax into the land tax, and it would also leave room for future generations to increase taxes and implement reforms.
Perhaps, it could extend the lifespan of the Ming Dynasty by several decades.
Thinking about this kind of thing is useless.
Zhao Yuan asked, "What do you think money is?"
Li Wenzhong was stunned.
Right, what is money?
He wanted to blurt out the answer, but he swallowed it back, because His Majesty would not ask such a simple question.
Zhao Yuan reminded him, "Tokyo was besieged to the point where they ran out of food."
Is money still of any use?
Li Wenzhong shook his head: "It's no use. You can't buy rice with money, you can't buy cloth with money, and you can't even buy firewood."
"Then, what is money?" Zhao Yuan asked again.
Li Wenzhong pondered carefully: "Money is just like a bill of exchange or a bill of lading; it's actually a kind of voucher."
"It is a common practice, or a regulation of the imperial court, that determines how much a certain amount of money can be used to buy a certain amount of goods."
Zhao Yuan laughed and said, "Anything else?"
Li Wenzhong pondered deeply again: "If we remove the money, the transaction is actually just bartering."
“A sold a load of firewood to B, earning several tens of coins. He then used the money to buy several bushels of rice from C. In reality, A exchanged firewood for rice with C.”
"If B's money also came from selling goods."
"So B used those goods to exchange for firewood with A."
"Huh? A only sold one load of firewood, but it seems like they exchanged it twice?"
"Hahahaha!" Zhao Yuan burst into laughter upon hearing this.
Li Wenzhong was momentarily confused and bowed, saying, "Your Highness, I am dull-witted and need to go home and think about it slowly."
Zhao Yuan said, "Then go back and think about it slowly."
"If you want to become an official, first go to Yangzhou to work as a tax collector, and then be transferred to the Maritime Trade Office as a low-ranking official of the ninth rank."
"You should familiarize yourself with various taxes, study the essence of doing business, and think about what money is really used for."
“You can communicate with Qian Chen to discuss these issues. I have also been encouraging Qian Chen to think about these issues.”
"Thank you, Your Majesty, for bestowing upon me this official position!"
Although Li Wenzhong was happy, he wasn't as overjoyed as he had imagined.
Now, he only has one question on his mind: What is money?
.....
The seventh year of the Hongwu reign of the Ming Dynasty, 1132 AD.
This year's Lantern Festival was even more lively, lasting for ten days instead of just seven.
The cabinet and the Ministry of Rites began discussing changing the era name.
The change of reign title will not take place until New Year's Day next year, but we should start discussing it now and make a decision sooner rather than later to save trouble.
"Yongle" is definitely out of the question, it's just too damn disgusting.
The first person to use the Yongle reign title was Zhang Chonghua of the Former Liang Dynasty, and it was the reign title established during his reign as the "Fake King of Liang".
This man was diligent and hardworking in his early years, but later became addicted to pleasure. After his death, his son usurped the throne, and a bunch of relatives fought amongst themselves. In the end, his country was destroyed by Fu Jian.
The second person to use the Yongle reign title was Zhang Yuxian of the Five Dynasties period.
This man is a Hakka, a former official who claimed to be the reincarnation of an Arhat. He started a rebellion in Lingnan and once marched as far as Ganzhou.
Ultimately, his generals betrayed him and defected to the Southern Tang, and Zhang Yuxian was taken to Jinling and beheaded.