Seeing that Wang Ping and others agreed to his request, Zhao Feng said nothing more.
Zhao Feng also knew that the bad habits they had developed over a long period of time, and it was impossible to make them get better directly just by relying on his own requirements.
I must be strict with them in the future and let them slowly get used to this situation.
Afterwards, Zhao Feng directly brought the broom and handed it to Wang Ping and the others.
"Why are you standing there? Clean the warehouse with me!"
"Zhou Fei, go and get some yellow mud, and we'll plug up all the rat holes in the warehouse later!"
Wang Ping and the others looked at each other, had no choice but to take the broom from Zhao Feng, and started cleaning the warehouse with Zhao Feng.
It took them a whole morning to clean the warehouse, and Zhao Feng also discovered that there were so many rat holes in the warehouse that they probably couldn't be blocked even with yellow mud.
Zhao Feng had no choice but to tear down all the tattered shelves where the silver was originally stored, and use the wooden boards on them to seal up all the mouse holes.
Seeing Zhao Feng working very hard there, Wang Ping was a little surprised.
As soon as Zhao Feng arrived, he reprimanded them very severely, which made Wang Ping think that Zhao Feng was a more severe person than Liu Cang.
But I didn't expect that Zhao Feng would actually work with them. You must know that Liu Cang had bossed them around before and didn't treat them as human beings at all.
Wang Ping couldn't figure out Zhao Feng's character for a while, so he told Sun Peng and Zhou Fei to be honest and not to anger the new boss.
Zhao Feng is a ninth-grade official, and the two of them are just government servants. If Zhao Feng is angered, Zhao Feng can fire them directly. He still wants to retire here!
In the afternoon, Yu Ruhai came to the warehouse with the money appropriated by the court. When he saw Zhao Feng, who was neatly dressed, Yu Ruhai raised his hands and said happily.
"Mr. Zhao, it seems that you are familiar with this warehouse. This is the money allocated by the court, and there are still one hundred thousand taels left."
"Fortunately, due to the previous incident with the Liu family, this shortfall has been made up, otherwise we really wouldn't be able to settle this account!"
Zhao Feng smiled and nodded, pulled all the money into the warehouse, and asked Wang Ping and the others to count and register it.
Yu Ruhai looked at Zhao Feng strangely, and then said awkwardly.
"Mr. Zhao, don't you even believe me?"
Zhao Feng quickly waved his hand and explained to Yu Ruhai with a smile.
"The prefect has misunderstood, but this is just a normal process of the treasury. No matter who withdraws money here or sends money, they must find out and register it, otherwise there will be a little deficit by then. I'm afraid I can’t tell clearly.”
Seeing that Zhao Feng was so serious and responsible in his work, Yu Ruhai nodded with satisfaction and said to Zhao Feng.
"Mr. Zhao, this treasurer is not only responsible for managing the entire treasury, but you also need to go to the city and even the lower counties to collect taxes."
"Whether it's a commercial tax or a head tax, you need to be responsible for collecting it."
"The power of the Liu family was there before, so this matter was not difficult, but now we still need Mr. Zhao to think of a solution."
Zhao Feng has known about this for a long time. The reason why the official who manages the treasury is a good job is because he can not only manage the treasury, but also need to handle some tax matters.
Although he is not solely responsible for tax matters, there is a lot of money to be made from it.
But this matter is not as easy as imagined, because those merchants and county officials will not pay the taxes honestly, and even create a lot of yin and yang accounts, fake account books and the like. things.
This is also what troubles Yu Ruhai the most. Now that Liu Cang is gone, except for Zhao Feng, he really doesn't have anyone who can be responsible for this aspect.
Otherwise, Yu Ruhai would not be willing to let Zhao Feng come to this treasury.
Zhao Feng, however, patted his chest to confirm and said.
"Don't worry, Lord Prefect, I promise to make them pay their taxes."
"This year's tax revenue has not been settled yet. Since all counties have been hit by drought, the imperial court has exempted us from this year's tax revenue, right?"
Yu Ruhai nodded, but still said very seriously.
"Although the imperial court has waived part of the head tax, there is no way to waive the merchant tax."
"There are still two months left before the Chinese New Year. Within these two months, Mr. Zhao will collect 10,000 taels of tax!"
Zhao Feng was a little surprised and asked in disbelief.
"With so many merchants, do they only need to pay a tax of 10,000 taels?"
Yu Ruhai immediately looked at Zhao Feng in confusion. Everyone else thought this number was too much, but only Zhao Feng thought it was too little.
Zhao Feng really felt that there was something fishy in this. After all, the Zhou Dynasty was very strict in taxing merchants, even to the point of harshness. According to their profits, 40% of them had to be handed over. To the court.
Zhao Feng also saw the situation in the entire city. Not to mention the two large merchants, the Liu family and the Li family, the tax paid by the small merchants alone was more than 10,000 taels.
As expected, Yu Ruhai explained to Zhao Feng with a smile.
"Except for the tax revenue that has to be handed over to the court, the rest will be left for our city to carry out some construction and development. This can be regarded as my official achievement."
"Of course it would be best to collect more, but the imperial court's annual tax limit is 10,000 taels, so it must not be any less than 10,000 taels!"
Only then did Zhao Feng realize that the ten thousand taels was not an upper limit, but a lower limit. If he could recruit more people, the extra taxes would be his and Yu Ruhai's political achievements.
In addition to providing for the development of Fucheng, this money can also add to their resumes. If they do well, it won't take long for them to be promoted.
But tax collection is not a matter of collecting as much as you want. If all those merchants are offended at once, they will definitely find ways to evade taxes next year, and by then I will have to waste a lot of energy dealing with them.
Therefore, the usual taxes are carefully calculated to see which company will leave more profits and which company will leave more benefits, which will always make the situation look too ugly.
Zhao Feng smiled and nodded and said.
"I understand, I will take them to collect taxes tomorrow."
Yu Ruhai smiled and nodded, and promised to come to him if anything happened. Both officers and soldiers and government servant Zhao Feng could be freely mobilized, and then left.
