Chapter 263: The First Concrete Road in Daqin
"Business tax changes are as follows: Those whose monthly income reaches 10,000 guan are taxed 5% for 10 guan; those with monthly income of 8,000 guan are taxed 4%; those with monthly income of 5,000 guan are taxed 30%; those with monthly income from 1,000 to 5,000 guan are taxed 20%; those with monthly income of 1,000 guan or less are taxed 20%. One out of ten taxes.
This is a preliminary tax. If there is any inconvenience, the court will change it in time. "An official pointed to a notice and read the content word by word to the people around him.
The taxes on the notice are somewhat different from what Ying Zheng said. This is the result of the cabinet investigation.
Next came the agricultural tax, the workers' tax.
There is also currency unification, text unification and so on.
After paper, books also appeared in the streets.
Among them, Li Si established the first library in history in Xianyang City, which contained various books, but the characters in the books were all in simplified Chinese.
To know the contents of the book, everyone needs to buy a copy of the simplified Chinese and Qin seal scripts.
The price of books is not very high either, the highest is 100 yuan and the lowest is only 30 yuan. It is mainly determined based on the content of the book, the amount of paper in the book, etc.
For example, "The Analects of Confucius" is not a book, but a set of books, and the price is even higher.
From the day the library appeared, the bamboo slips were completely ignored.
General Lu saw the business opportunity of the library and immediately approached Li Si and asked for cooperation. It was just that opening a library in Xianyang City would not make much money. Library should be opened throughout the Qin Dynasty.
As a result, the two agreed to establish a papermaking workshop and a library in major cities across the country.
Although there is enough paper in Xianyang City now, paper is needed all over the country, and it is simply not enough for them.
As a result, paper-making workshops appeared all over Daqin.
What Li Si never dreamed of was that due to the emergence of major workshops, the entire Qin Dynasty would completely abolish bamboo slips.
As a result, simplified Chinese characters began to be promoted, which saved the court a lot of things.
Not only simplified characters are promoted, but also Arabic numerals and some traditional characters.
This enriched Chinese writing.
More importantly, many great scholars fell in love with painting and writing.
Different fonts began to take shape.
Someone wrote wild cursive on the paper, which gave people a sense of heroism.
Someone writes about delicacy, which makes people think that this person is a bit effeminate.
Different styles can reflect the personality of the writer.
In addition, Chang'an City has many more workshops.
There is one kind of workshop in particular that makes people confused, and that is the cement workshop. It is dark and has no idea what its purpose is, but it is very large in scale.
Many people are asking about the function of cement, but they still can't get the answer. However, the scale of the cement workshop is really too large, with tens of thousands of workers.
Almost the entire idle labor force in Xianyang City is envied, resulting in many shops or workshops that need workers unable to recruit workers.
The person who opened the workshop was Meng Yi.
Because both Meng Yi and Jiang Lu contacted Qin An as businessmen.
So Qin An gave Meng Yi a task to build a cement factory in Shiliba Township, and then persuade the court in Shiliba Township to build cement roads.
Meng Yi originally dismissed this idea, but when Meng Yi heard that the cement road could prevent water accumulation, potholes and other benefits, he decided to build a cement factory.
After Qin An also told Meng Yi that houses built with cement were stronger and cement could also strengthen city walls, Meng Yi directly decided to increase the scale.
After cement was manufactured, a cement road was built immediately between the cement workshop and Xianyang City.
At first, the gray concrete road was not favored by anyone. When the road was being built, Ying Zheng and all the officials were present.
But after seeing the wet cement road, where every step left a footprint, everyone started to laugh at Meng Yi except for some people who had been in contact with Qin An.
Some people even impeached Meng Yi, saying that not only was Meng Yi's so-called workshop a waste, but the most important thing was that there was a shortage of workers in Xianyang City.
This shortage of workers will lead to an increase in workers' wages. The court has already requested an increase in workers' wages, but now a lot of wages have been increased on this basis.
To alleviate this situation, there are only two situations. A new labor force enters Xianyang City, and the second is to stop Meng Yi's cement workshop.
It is unrealistic to wait how long it will take for new labor to enter Xianyang City, so it is most appropriate to stop the cement workshop.
Meng Yi disagreed with the impeachment of officials. Although he had never seen a cement road, out of his trust in Qin An, Meng Yi repeatedly emphasized that he had to wait until the cement road was dry before he could see the wonderful effects of the cement road.
Ying Zheng agreed to Meng Yi's request and scolded the officials who impeached Meng Yi.
Three days later, not only the First Emperor and other officials came outside the city, but also countless people came after hearing the news.
In the past three days, everyone in Xianyang City was talking about the cement road, boasting about how strong it was, invulnerable to water and fire, invulnerable to weapons, etc.
So countless people came to see this cement road.
"Your Majesty, the cement road has completely dried. It can be inspected by everyone." Meng Yi said.
Ying Zheng nodded and said: "Okay, dear friends, you can test it. If the cement road does not have the advantages mentioned by Meng Yi, I will deal with Meng Yi."
"promise."
Immediately, the officials began to walk cautiously towards the cement road.
At this time, the cement road had turned silver-gray, unlike the dark gray at the beginning, and it looked much stronger when driving. At that time, an official accidentally stepped on the cement road, and his foot was deeply buried in the cement road. .
At that time, the official was scolded by Meng Yi because Meng Yi reminded everyone not to touch him.
The officials who were scolded did not dare to speak out, so they impeached Meng Yi at that time, but Ying Zheng ignored him.
Construction started today, and the first thing he did was to step heavily on the cement road.
"Ah yo."
The official suddenly let out a scream, because he used too much force and injured himself. He made a fool of himself, and was immediately looked down upon by countless people. The people watching couldn't help but laugh.
The official's face suddenly turned pale, but after stepping on it with his own feet, he found that the cement road was indeed very hard.
"Your Majesty, Wei Chen believes that the guards should chop down the cement road with swords and use carriages filled with goods to pass through it. Only then can we know the quality of the cement road. Then bring a bucket of water to see if there will be any accumulation. water."
Ying Zheng nodded and said, "That's right."
"Thank you, Your Majesty." the official said excitedly.
Immediately, he personally slashed the cement road with his guard's sword. He tried his best and only caused some slight damage to the cement road. For a cement road, it was nothing at all.
Then came the carriage, which seemed to be walking on flat ground, but the speed was even faster.
Not to mention water, except for the water stains left on the cement road, there is no trace of water, and it is all absorbed by the cement road.
Some people died, but not completely...
