Chapter 46 Yao Guangxiao’s Observations
Ji Gang didn't know that his promotion had such a background. But he was transferred from the local area to the cabinet, yes. He Xi's private intelligence agency was included in his cabinet. Yao Guangxiao had a cabinet official position, and so did Ji Gang.
Although his official position has not been promoted, he has great power. Almost all departments have to give up three points to anyone who meets the cabinet.
He cared about the job and quickly showed his aptitude for intelligence work.
He was also selected by Yao Guangxiao and became the candidate to follow Yao Guangxiao to Nanjing.
At this moment, he was frightened to death by Yao Guangxiao's actions.
He knew that Yao Guangxiao had lived in Nanjing for many years, and even now he had some disguises. But this disguise is to hide it from acquaintances. Once he is recognized, it will be a disaster. Once something goes wrong with Yao Guangxiao, how could Ji Gang, as the person who protects Yao Guangxiao, end up well?
Ji Gang said: "Sir, this is too dangerous."
Yao Guangxiao looked at the goods on the market calmly and said, "Don't call me sir, call me sir." Then he asked the store enthusiastically how he sold this thing. Then bargain based on the quantity. But Yao Guangxiao's mind is not on the price.
The more you bargain, the more familiar you become with the store. They casually chatted about their parents' personal problems. Store prices, how to pay taxes, etc.
In this way, Yao Guangxiao spent several days hanging out in various major markets in Nanjing.
Ji Gang lost a lot of weight. He looks suspicious on everyone.
It should be noted that Ji Gang was doing counterintelligence work in Beijing. His direct opponent is Nanjing Jinyiwei.
It has to be said that after Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne, all the main officials of Jinyiwei resigned. They know very well that if they don't resign, they will end up in a disastrous situation. But they don't know that even if they resign, their end will be miserable.
Without him, a question lingers in the minds of many people, and naturally it also remains in Zhu Yunwen's heart. The direct question is, who does Zhu Yuanzhang want to pass the throne to?
Others don't know, but Zhu Yunwen feels that Jin Yiwei, who follows Zhu Yuanzhang most closely, should know, or there may be rumors.
But what kind of person is Zhu Yuanzhang? The people below either don't know what he did, or even if they know, they don't know what he did. There are still some people, even if they know what Zhu Yuanzhang asked them to do, they may have such a tendency. Zhu Yuanzhang naturally dealt with such people. The people who don't deal with it are the ones Zhu Yuanzhang thinks these people won't talk about.
Therefore, many of Zhu Yunwen's actions had no results at all, or the only results. That is to completely cleanse the old people in Jinyiwei.
Perhaps Zhu Yunwen himself had such thoughts.
After all, intelligence agencies are important. But there is one problem that Zhu Yunwen has not thought about, and that is that intelligence agencies are different from ordinary departments.
There are no certain rules for many things in the intelligence agency, and there are no books that tell people how intelligence work should be done. The reason why the Jinyiwei is so powerful is because the Jinyiwei followed Zhu Yuanzhang and fought out of the troubled times.
In troubled times, they and other intelligence agencies are fighting each other. He even planned a major mission to assassinate important generals. That kind of thing is not comparable to a fight in peacetime.
As for the resume of Jinyiwei officials, it can be seen that they are almost succeeded by father after death. Or be promoted from the lower ranks of Jinyiwei.
This ensures Jinyiwei's professionalism.
The people around Zhu Yunwen were not promoted from Jin Yiwei at all. He sent some outsiders to such a professional department, and it was normal for Jinyiwei's business to be in chaos for a while.
In fact, from this point of view, Zhu Yuanzhang didn't pay much attention to Zhu Yunwen's training. Otherwise, Zhu Yunwen would have to cultivate close followers among the Jin Yiwei, so that he could take over smoothly after he ascended the throne.
But even so, Jin Yiwei's combat effectiveness is still very powerful.
This is how Ji Gang felt when he played against Jin Yiwei in Beijing.
It’s just not so popular here in Nanjing.
Because Zhu Yunwen was not stupid enough to clean up the entire Jinyiwei. The focus of his cleanup was on Nanjing to ensure his own safety.
and
Zhu Yunwen also succeeded. Jin Yiwei did a good job in ensuring Zhu Yunwen's safety. But it’s hard to say about other aspects. After all, intelligence warfare in this era does not have a specialized system and relies more on individuals.
However, no matter how slow Jin Yiwei's response is, if Yao Guangxiao continues like this, he will find out sooner or later.
Yao Guangxiao also knows this.
Yao Guangxiao has got what he wants.
That is, Nanjing must not have implemented any reforms.
He Xi's reforms are comprehensive. Different people have different points of view, and Yao Guangxiao's point of view is different. He thinks that Beijing has many state-owned enterprises now, but in Yao Guangxiao's view, this is not the point. The real point is nothing else. That is whether the imperial court can collect commercial taxes from the market.
After all, there were two models for collecting commercial taxes before the Ming Dynasty. A pattern is very light. There are almost no taxes. The court collected taxes in name, but not in practice. After all, Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that there would be no tax on supplies necessary for people's daily lives. Nor is it allowed to collect taxes to disturb the people. At the same time, there is no fixed quota for commercial tax collection.
That is to say, if you collect too much tax and get no rewards, you will have to take the blame if something goes wrong.
Therefore, in the original system of the Ming Dynasty, there were almost no commercial taxes collected. It's ok as long as everyone means it.
What can really be enforced is tariffs. However, tariffs on inland rivers gradually became available later and were very few during the Hongwu period. This was also the time when Zhu Yuanzhang formulated policies. The war was over and all businesses were waiting to be prospered. Under this situation, increasing commercial taxes has increased the burden on the people.
This is a nominal burden.
The other mode is very heavy. This is the actual burden on Ming merchants. When you go to a place to do business, you need to pay attention to the dock and check up and down, otherwise you will not be able to do business. In addition, you need to find a backend. In this case, the realistic logic of having money comes true.
That’s fine.
In addition, the burden of the government must also be borne. The government's nominal commercial tax is, in fact, used by the government to purchase from external sources when necessary. Instruct merchants to bear responsibility. This situation is a reminder of death. Nothing else. I don’t know when the purchase price was set. Anyway, it’s not in line with the market price, so that’s fine. Many times, even this price is given to you in name only. In fact, not a penny. The court may have allocated funds. But this amount cannot reach the hands of merchants. But the court gave it in name. However, the merchant could not supply goods in name only. He had to supply goods to the court at a real price, and even exceed the quota. .
As a result, not only many merchants will go bankrupt, but even those who sell their sons and daughters will not be able to bear the burden. Sometimes, once assigned to a certain merchant, the merchant would kill his whole family and hang himself after returning home.
In Yao Guangxiao's view, the commercial tax collection model developed by He Xi is a good model that can at least use a suitable method to collect commercial taxes from below.
According to Yao Guangxiao’s investigation. Nanjing is not as prosperous as Beijing. After all, Beijing's development time is too short and cannot compare with the great achievements of Nanjing and Suzhou. If Zhu Yunwen can complete the same reforms as Beijing, then it is normal for the city of Nanjing to have several million taels of business tax.
It is possible for Suzhou, Ningbo, Yangzhou, Wuchang, Chengdu, Guangzhou and other big cities to add up to tens of millions of taels of commercial tax.
But Yao Guangxiao found that Nanjing's tax collection model had not changed at all.
Even darker than before.
Without him, Nanjing would be at the feet of the emperor, and Zhu Yuanzhang would not rub sand in his eyes. Moreover, Lao Zhu also has a habit of visiting privately incognito. That's right, Kangxi's private visit incognito was fake. There are no less than three thousand people protecting him. It is true that Zhu Yuanzhang paid a private visit incognito.
However, Zhu Yuanzhang only paid a private visit in Nanjing incognito and did not go to many other places.
Therefore, Nanjing officials did not dare to go too far. When it reached Zhu Yuanzhang's ears, there was no good fruit to eat. But this was no longer the case after Zhu Yunwen came to power. Zhu Yunwen's concern for the people at the bottom is far less than Zhu Yuanzhang's. Not to mention, Zhu Yunwen did not have the authority of Zhu Yuanzhang, and he was more indulgent towards the upper-class dignitaries.
So much so that these people look ugly when they eat.
Yao Guangxiao felt relieved when he saw this.
In his opinion, the victory between the north and the south has been decided.
