Chang Lin opened the documents and memorials sent by Li Ke, then unfolded Li Ke's memorials and read them directly.
"Dad, seeing each other is like meeting each other."
This beginning made Wei Zheng's mouth twitch. Is this a memorial?
Li Shimin and other ministers didn't react at all. They were just using their hands... they were used to it.
"Dad, not long ago, after Erchen and Zhenwa negotiated related trade matters, Erchen received news that a group of pirates had destroyed a supply port on the important route to Persia, Dandan Kingdom."
"Dandan Kingdom is located in the important strait passage between the South China Sea of the Tang Dynasty and the waters near Persia. This place is the only way for all merchant ships to pass. All merchant ships need to supply supplies here. If it is occupied by pirates, the consequences will be disastrous."
"For the safety of our Tang Dynasty's foreign trade, I led the Tang Dynasty naval fleet to the Dandan Kingdom and drove away the pirates who occupied the Dandan Kingdom. Because the king and nobles of the Dandan Kingdom had been slaughtered, in order to ensure that our country In order to ensure the safety of maritime trade in the Tang Dynasty, the island was included in the territory of the Tang Dynasty at my discretion. I named it Lizhi Island. The port is Lizhi Port, and the strait next to it is Lizhi Strait."
Good guy, the ministers were speechless after hearing this. Are you sure you didn't plan this for a long time? The two little eunuchs had hung up the map and placed it on a shelf on the side. All the ministers could see it if they raised their eyes or turned around.
Maps of islands in Nanyang existed before the Tang Dynasty, but they were not complete. Now His Highness King Qin has completed a considerable part of it. Looking at the ocean separated by two peninsulas and the Lizhi Strait in the middle, this place has The strategic location is clear to everyone.
Your Highness, didn’t you say that you had already taken a liking to this place?
As His Highness said, as long as the maritime trade between the Tang Dynasty and the Western Regions does not stop, this important trade channel will not be cancelled. There is no doubt about its importance.
It's just... Li Ke said that it was occupied by pirates, which may be true. They can't refute anything. Even these pirates... are too strong.
"However, the port needs personnel and funds to operate. Gu Erchen summoned all the wealthy families and businessmen of Lingnan Road to temporarily reform and pilot Lingnan Road, transforming Lingnan Road into the Datang Special Economic Zone, and temporarily banned all commercial activities on Lingnan Road. Collect commercial tax. The specific details of collecting commercial tax are attached with the relevant documents, and my father can view them."
"After collecting relevant taxes, Erchen gave the ownership of Lizhi Port to the wealthy families and businessmen of Datang Lingnan Road for free, and established a joint-stock port. Datang Trust owns 49% of the port shares. These wealthy families and businessmen Merchants hold 51%. They need to build the port, allocate port staff, provide monthly money, and provide food and other material supplies to Datang's garrison at the port at cost prices."
"Similarly, the port's income also needs to pay taxes according to commercial houses, and the port can charge management fees, supplies and other supplementary fees for all ships entering the port. Of course, it also needs to provide security protection for ships in the port."
"In addition, the port has also become a distribution center for related materials. For example, some merchants can unload their goods here and sell them to the nearest Southeast Asian countries such as Luo Luo Kingdom."
Hearing this, all the ministers present fell silent, and many of them imitated His Highness King Qin's mantra and began to curse.
Damn it, His Highness the King of Qin previously said that he would sell some other countries' territories to wealthy families. They were obviously very moved and supported it. But I never expected that the first batch of supporters would not receive welfare benefits, but instead, small families like Lingnan Road would receive welfare benefits?
It doesn’t take much thinking to know that Lizigang is definitely a hot spot, and it will be an extremely coveted industry in the future.
"In addition, Xianglin Yi County, the general of Erchen, has also undergone partial restructuring. Changle is temporarily responsible for handling all affairs, and Wu Jue is assisting."
Li Shimin: "..."
You don't really take it seriously, do you? Do you really want Changle to be the empress? ! Li Shimin was dumbfounded. He thought Li Ke was just talking, good guy, you have started to train him directly.
It's just that he can only hold this kind of anger in his heart, and he hasn't communicated some words with other ministers yet.
The other ministers remained silent and didn't say much. In the early Tang Dynasty, these ministers were relatively cheerful, mainly because Princess Pingyang Zhao was there as an example. Most of these ministers knew each other, and they were not very concerned about women handling things. No big deal.
Another reason is that His Highness the King of Qin has already asked Li Yan to handle Xizhou's affairs. What does this mean? When His Highness was supervising the country, Li Yan helped handle many things, but she didn't point them out clearly.
Naturally, no one wanted to object at this time. I didn’t see that there was already a pilot work there, so Datang may also conduct large-scale land sales in other places. This is of course a good thing.
"In addition, dad, please ask the Ministry of Finance and the Sixth Ministry to prepare for the nationwide popularization of commercial tax. Although Lingnan Road is a pilot, if Lingnan Road goes smoothly this year or even next year, commercial tax will be popularized nationwide. Expand.”
"The work of the Shangshu Province includes recruiting enough tax registration personnel to register these commercial taxes. Secondly, the ministers will print some special tax receipts. All bulk trade must have relevant tax receipts and go to the tax bureau for tax declaration. , otherwise these trades will become illegal trades, and if there are too many illegal trades by large commercial banks, they will lose the ability to undertake important domestic infrastructure construction, undertake the construction of large-scale ports in the future, and develop the new territory of Datang."
"If tax evasion reaches a certain level, all shareholders of the business bank will be sentenced to prison terms in the lightest form, and beheaded in the worst case."
When Li Ke formulated this, he actually thought very clearly that the business tax and tax deduction amount in later generations would be assisted by some modern computers.
It seems impossible in this era, but it is not impossible, because in this era, business tax and tax deductions are targeted at large commercial banks, and ordinary small shops have no chance to use them, so the amount of work will not be very large. .
The second biggest difference with modern times is that modern tax evasion is nothing more than a fine, but in ancient times, you had to beheaded! This deterrence is much greater! What's more, once tax evasion is discovered, certain rules for developing new territories will be lost.
In this case, Li Ke can use the constraints between these wealthy families and large commercial banks to ensure that it will be difficult for them to evade taxes in the first hundred years.
