The gentlemen took their seats again.
Many people took the wine cup and drank it all in one gulp to calm themselves down.
They also know that King Yan is mostly just trying to scare people, but the cold murderous intent when King Yan attacks is still real, which inexplicably makes people tremble and make them break out in a cold sweat.
As for giving up those benefits, I have actually been mentally prepared for this for a long time, but I originally thought I could bargain.
That's all, just spend money to ward off disasters, and be more frugal in the future. You have to cut out one or two of the rare items in the ordinary meals. You have to go to Qinlou Chu Pavilion less often to give makeup powder to your beautiful maids and concubines. Money is only slightly tighter.
After catching their breath, many people couldn't help but sigh, with expressions of sadness on their faces when they thought about having such a large piece of flesh cut off.
Zhao Mengqi also sat back behind the banquet table and took a drink by himself, but he picked up the empty cup in his hand and played with it, casually scanning the behavior of these people.
After the slap, it's time to give Tianzao.
"Don't have any grudges. Only when the world is at peace and everyone's wealth is true wealth..."
Hearing King Yan speak again, everyone present was shocked. There must be something wrong.
Hundreds of people looked at the main seat and saw that King Yan was smiling but not smiling, "You all should know that the Song Dynasty is currently suffering from internal and external troubles, and the situation is extremely dangerous. Either the people are already in a bad mood, or the rebellious people will appear again. Even if you have the ability, you can’t create such a momentum... If the rebels break through Quanzhou City, you will probably end up with your family ruined. If you still force the people to survive, you will survive this time safely, but what about the next time? "
The gentry were silent. After all, they had read the Four Books and Five Classics, and they must have understood the principles. The lessons learned from the history books were also vivid in their minds. However, it was hard to let go of good wealth, coupled with the corruption of morals, the feelings of family, country, and world, all that was left was home. .
Seeing this situation, Zhao Mengqi shook his head secretly, "Okay, I don't want to talk about these things anymore, let's just talk about sea trade."
Speaking of this, the gentry immediately became energetic. Even though they always like to flaunt farming and studying to inherit the family, how could they resist the temptation to stretch out their hands when guarding the golden mountain of sea trade?
Land can be passed down to the family, but the income is only that much. A year's rent for a thousand acres of fertile land may not be enough to exchange for a decent South China Sea pearl.
What's more, due to heavy oppression, the tenant farmers' enthusiasm for labor is getting worse and worse, and the harvest from the fields is declining year by year. It is difficult to support these people's growing consumer desire.
If there is no other way to obtain benefits, then they can only increase the exploitation of the people, and this vicious cycle will continue until the society collapses and the change of dynasties starts a new cycle of rise and fall.
Confucians usually attribute this historical cycle to luck, and the solution given is to restrict the desires of the ruling class. Instead of focusing on improving productivity, they regard it as a miraculous trick and imprison it.
It was not a serious problem in the Song Dynasty, so many new technologies and new technologies emerged that were world-leading. Later, it became even worse. The literati group in the Ming Dynasty could even hide or destroy all the relevant drawings and materials related to the Western voyages, secretly Make the smuggling sea trade more vigorous.
There was no maritime ban in the Song Dynasty. On the contrary, maritime trade was vigorously developed. However, there was also smuggling, which became more and more intense, and even tended to replace regular maritime trade.
In addition to the greed of the bureaucratic class, the main reason is that there are problems with official policies.
Now King Yan obviously wants to change this situation, but he doesn't know what he will do specifically. Whether he treats the gentry present as good or bad, so they can't help but pay special attention to it.
Sure enough, money is still attractive.
Zhao Mengqi shrugged, "I plan to carry out certain reforms in the municipal shipping department system, cancel the deductions, lower the shipping tax, change it to full monetary collection, and lift the ban on most types of goods."
As soon as these words came out, they were like thunder, shocking everyone in the room, including officials such as Uncle Xie Fang, who were all stunned.
The so-called extraction means to levy physical goods on landed goods according to a certain proportion. At first, money was paid based on the assessed price of the goods. In fact, it is not considered a tax. At most, it is purchased at a low price.
Later, it was transformed into taxation, and the ratio also changed from one-tenth to two-thirds, or even four-cents, with frequent changes.
, which is very flexible, allowing the officials who deal with it to profit from it.
Such an excessively high and unstable tax rate will naturally make the maritime merchants who risk their lives and travel thousands of miles to come here very dissatisfied, and they are likely to stop coming here in the future.
Although there is a lot of room for manipulation, maritime merchants who are unfamiliar with the place cannot find a way out. It is more likely that they are still paying high tax rates after being blackmailed by officials.
As for the Pu family, they have been operating in the Song Dynasty for several generations. They know the details of the system and have a rich network of relationships. They can not only make profits for themselves, but also use this to fight for the interests of other Tibetan businessmen, so they are famous among Tibetan businessmen. Strong influence.
In addition to expropriation, the Song Dynasty, which was best at doing business, expropriated goods that had already been taxed, that is, in the name of the state, they forcibly purchased some or all of the goods, and then resold them to private merchants at high prices.
In addition, there are also prohibitions, that is, the most profitable overseas products are prohibited from private sales and sold uniformly by the state.
In the early days, these systems did bring great benefits to the court, but the direct participation of the government in the market would inevitably cause many problems, especially when officials were corrupt.
In fact, there is no universal currency in this era, so it is normal to impose physical taxes. With several other means, the cost for the country to obtain these overseas goods is definitely lower than that of ordinary merchants. If the selling price can be adjusted according to market supply and demand, the problem still exists. It won't be too serious.
However, official agencies basically have no market acumen and will only insist on maintaining high prices. Take spices as an example. In the Song Dynasty, they were no longer exclusive to the wealthy class. Many middle-class people also had great demand, but they could not afford the government officials. Monopoly, and the actual import volume has greatly increased, so smuggled goods that meet the market price naturally fill the market, and no one buys goods from formal channels.
These overseas goods in the hands of the government cannot be sold and can only be piled up in warehouses to rot. They are still wealth in name, but in fact they are no different from garbage. Sometimes they are used as guarantees for banknotes or to recycle old banknotes. , and the discount was much higher than the market price, which dealt another blow to the credibility of banknotes.
The smuggling trade has formed a huge interest group at this time, including officials and businessmen, and many of these people present now are one of them.
At this moment, they are rapidly thinking about the pros and cons of King Yan's reform for their family, but there is too little information they can get from just one sentence.
So someone couldn't help but ask, "Your Highness, when you talk about monetary collection, you mean collecting money, but Tibetan merchants come from thousands of miles away, and they mainly bring goods. How much money will there be? Even if there is, besides gold and silver, , we don’t recognize the money from the Fan Kingdom either.”
"Don't worry, I will naturally take corresponding measures."
No matter how much people scratching their heads, Zhao Mengqi remained relaxed and relaxed, "Gu's idea is to build warehouses in various port areas, and the goods from Tibetan merchants must be unloaded into these warehouses. The warehouses will be managed by the newly established organization, and the Tibetan merchants will declare the goods." Information, the Municipal Shipping Department is responsible for checking."
This process is equivalent to mutual cooperation and supervision between the warehouse management agency and the shipping department, and it can also prevent foreign merchants from entraining and leaking to a certain extent.
"Establish an import and export exchange again, and the Tibetan merchants will post the price information of the goods, and all those who have obtained the importer qualifications can go there to trade freely, or the exporters will list it and the Tibetan merchants will buy it, and the Municipal Shipping Department will tax based on the transaction amount. , and settle using the Royal Bank exchange voucher, which means that both parties to the transaction need to open an account at the Royal Bank. They can exchange any currency or gold and silver recognized by Da Song into a bank voucher and deposit it into the account. The transaction settlement is also carried out at the bank. The same goes for Tibetan merchants who buy back goods. If there is a balance, they can be exchanged for gold and silver according to demand."
Having said that, Zhao Mengqi will definitely try to prevent the outflow of gold and silver, and through bank settlement, tax evasion and evasion caused by private transactions can also be prevented. Perhaps this can also establish the international credibility of the new currency and look forward to the status of the US dollar in future generations.
The gentry did not have time to think about the impact of most of them. They only asked what they were most concerned about, "Your Highness, I wonder what the importer and exporter qualifications mean?"
"It's nothing, it's just for the convenience of management. With such a huge profit from the trading of imported goods, people with unknown origins cannot be allowed to participate casually. What if people with bad intentions buy a large number of imported goods and disrupt the market?
It’s not unfair to other merchants, so you have to go through review and submit a certain deposit before you can obtain a certain transaction limit..."
In addition to the reasons mentioned by Zhao Mengqi, the main reason is to strengthen his control over sea trade. To put it simply, if you go against me, King Yan, then you can't even think about this way of making money.
The gentry were not stupid, and they vaguely thought of this.
Then someone else asked, "Your Highness, now that the government has given up on prohibition and taxation, the loss is not small. Is it possible to make up for it from taxes? The price of the goods is too high, and the importers can't make much money." .”
How can you not make money? As long as there is an audience for the product, no matter how high the tax rate is, the buyer will bear it. It is just that the sales are not that good.
As for the loss, it is not a problem at all in Zhao Mengqi's view, and no matter how much physical objects are collected but cannot be circulated and transformed, what is the use?
"Haha, you don't need to worry about this. The fundamental purpose of Gu's reform is to promote the development of maritime trade. Reasonable tax rates will definitely be set. Even goods that are beneficial to people's livelihood and military equipment, such as grain and horses, are not only tax-free, but also exempted from other goods carried by the merchant. taxes."
Although the tax rate was not specified, the gentry also understood that what King Yan said was true. In this case, the cost of obtaining imported goods is likely to be lower than that of smuggling. After all, smuggling also requires a lot of money to go through joints and manage officials. Yes, if the tax rate is reasonable, which businessman wouldn’t like to be above board?
It's just that those court officials who used to open the back door for smuggling can no longer benefit. However, they hate King Yan, and it has nothing to do with their own family.
After much deliberation, this reform is beneficial to Tibetan merchants, importers, and the court. The price of goods will drop as a result, which is also beneficial to the people. Sea trade will definitely become more prosperous.
It's not a big deal to propose this method, but only King Yan dared to ignore a long list of vested interests from the local government to the court and actually implement it.
At this time, many gentry were tempted and planned to wait for King Yan's specific regulations to come out and then think about it carefully. They might be able to make up for the losses on their fields or even earn more.
Then they heard King Yan say, "The above reforms are mainly to make Tibetan merchants profitable and actively come to trade with the Song Dynasty. However, we not only want to invite in, but also take the initiative to go out!"
