The wages of avarice is death.
This sentence can well describe the mental state of the tax officials of the Dachu Empire, and can also explain why they can work so actively and efficiently.
Among the many institutions in the Great Chu Empire, regardless of civil and military affairs, regardless of whether they were local or provincial, the most efficient one was always the Taxation Department.
In the words of Lai Yuanliang, director of the tax bureau of the state government: If you are not active in collecting taxes, there is something wrong with your brain!
This sentence is deeply recognized by many of his subordinate tax officials and tax patrols!
Because in the eyes of these grassroots tax officials, collecting taxes can basically be equivalent to making money.
If you are not active in making money, this is something wrong with your brain.
Stimulated by promotion and wealth, the staff of the taxation agency of the Dachu Empire have always worked very seriously and hard.
However, this will inevitably lead to a lot of corruption, solicitation of bribes and many other violations of discipline.
Why were the tax officials of the Chu Empire impeached by so many people? In addition to the fact that tax collection was inherently disgusting and ruthless, it also had a lot to do with their own dirty hands and feet.
Naturally, some people can't stand this kind of thing, even people who have no interest in it. Therefore, there are a lot of memorials to impeach the tax department and related officials every day, and they can fill several rooms when piled up!
In this regard, as the emperor of the Chu Empire, Luo Zhixue, who had single-handedly raised the political status of the tax department to an extremely high level and granted the tax department great authority, naturally knew it well.
However, Luo Zhixue will only deal with these impeachment claims unless there is clear evidence and the matter is relatively serious. This seriousness refers to the embezzlement of taxes. As for other matters, generally They all turn a blind eye.
If the impeachment tax officials were too brutal in their tax collection methods and ransacked their homes at every turn, Luo Zhixue would write down the names of these impeachers so that none of them would be promoted later.
As for those who impeached the empire's tax policy, saying that taxes are too harsh and tax rates are too high, they especially advocated the inability to collect commercial taxes, the inability to implement a unified agricultural tax, and to imitate the Ming court and continue to play the gentry's non-payment of taxes, and those who advocated something like a whip According to the law, farmers are not allowed to pay taxes in kind with grain, but farmers must pay taxes in money.
Kill one if you find one!
In Luo Zhixue's view, what these people did was, at best, an arbitrary discussion of the court's policies, and at worst, an attempt to shake the foundation of the empire.
In the feudal dynasty, taxes were mostly used to maintain the operation of the administrative system and maintain military expenditures.
But in the Dachu Empire, taxation was not only used to maintain administrative expenses and military expenses, but also served as an important tool for wealth redistribution.
So you will see that the Dachu Empire has very little or even no tax on the people at the bottom, especially the tenants who have no land at home. The Dachu Empire will not ask them to collect even a penny of tax.
The tax revenue of the Dachu Empire was basically concentrated on the middle and upper classes.
And the richer you are, the more taxes are levied.
In addition to maintaining administrative and military expenditures, these taxes collected will also be used for infrastructure construction, education, relief and many other expenditures in various places.
To a certain extent, it can be understood that the Chu Empire collected taxes from the middle and upper classes and used part of them to subsidize the people at the bottom.
In addition, taxation is actually an important means in the financial field to circulate funds and stimulate the economy.
Silver, hidden in the cellar of a landlord's house, is of no use.
Only when money circulates can it be money, and it can create more jobs and give people more income.
For a simple example, the Chu Empire is expected to receive about 45 million taels of central fiscal revenue from its existing control areas this year.
This 45 million silver includes various regular fiscal revenues such as the unified agricultural tax, various commercial taxes, administrative expenses, profits turned over by government-owned enterprises, profits and taxes turned over from salt affairs, and currency revenue.
Excludes one-time gains from confiscation!
This much money will eventually be spent by the Chu Empire, and then enter the entire economic cycle system.
Such as the salaries and subsidies paid to officials and soldiers, these huge funds will re-enter the market through the hands of officials and soldiers.
There are also funds for purchasing various materials, such as purchasing various military materials, which can also bring orders to factories, bring income to workers, and provide private businessmen, handicraftsmen, and economic crop cultivation who supply raw materials and other services to factories. Bring income to households.
Directly and indirectly, huge fiscal revenue can drive huge increases in the employed population and farmers' income.
Even in such a huge economic system in later generations, stimulating the economy through fiscal expenditure is a common method used by many big countries, and in many cases the effect is quite good.
For example, Germany and the United States did this before World War II, using large-scale infrastructure to forcibly stimulate employment and revitalize the economy.
The work-for-relief program in the Chu Empire also fell into this pattern to a certain extent. However, the work-for-relief program in the Chu Empire was more specific in supporting all kinds of refugees and disaster victims.
At the same time, when modern countries engage in this kind of stimulative policy, they do so with nothing. They directly use credited banknotes, which can easily cause inflation, and may even lead the entire country into the abyss of war.
The Da Chu Empire, on the other hand, needs to spend real money and silver. If it doesn't play, it can't play with credit notes.
Therefore, it is only the official finances of the empire that are suffering!
But it will not cause too much inflation.
After all, gold and silver are fixed and do not increase or decrease depending on how the Chu Empire spends them.
Taxation is very important in Luo Zhixue's heart!
The series of tax policies currently implemented, especially the unified agricultural tax, commercial tax, etc., are regarded by Luo Zhixue as basic national policies and the basis for the middle and upper-level structures of the entire Great Chu Empire.
And if officials can't see through this, or if they know it but still oppose it, then don't blame Luo Zhixue for being ruthless.
In front of my official, with my salary, enjoying the power given by me, and still forcefully talk about the basic national policy of trying to shake the Chu Empire, his heart is to be punished!
Therefore, for these people, Luo Zhixue had previously believed that doing more would be better than doing less. In addition, in the early development stage, there were not many people available under him, so he just ignored them.
but now!
As the Chu Empire continued to recruit various talents, there was no shortage of officials.
When he was in Chubei, even the scholar Luo Zhixue was regarded as a talent. It was a very typical example that there were more official titles than people!
But now, even if the candidates and Jinshi from the pre-Ming Dynasty come, Luo Zhixue is too lazy to take care of him. He just does what he wants and gets out if he doesn't, because the current Great Chu Empire has more people than officials.
Especially after taking control of the entire Jiangnan region and gaining a large number of people who could read and write, Luo Zhixue could already proudly shout: There are a lot of scholars lining up outside waiting to become officials of our Chu Kingdom.
Since there is no shortage of manpower, Luo Zhixue will naturally not get used to those people who are holding the jobs of the Dachu Empire but criticizing the Dachu Empire.
On April 28, Luo Zhixue pretended to be outraged by a report that a magistrate in Han Tianfu had embezzled 50,000 taels of silver.
At the imperial council meeting, you scolded the Ministry of Personnel Affairs and the Inspectorate, saying that the administration of officials was so corrupt that it was shocking, and as Guo Quanshu, as the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel Affairs, you had no shirk in your duty, and you were fined on the spot. In March, the Ministry of Personnel Affairs was asked to immediately rectify the official atmosphere.
Then he pointed the finger at the Inspectorate, saying that the recent work of the Inspectorate was unsatisfactory. The reason why the administration was so corrupt and corruption was so rampant was because of the Inspectorate's inaction.
As a supervisory office, if we don’t investigate corrupt officials, what’s the point of our existence?
If the many inspectors in the Inspectorate are no longer relevant to the censors, they can just pack up and get out.
The Supervisory Yuan is required to immediately begin to focus on cracking down on all kinds of illegal violations by officials such as dereliction of duty, corruption and perversion of the law, otherwise they will be severely punished.
After scolding the two ministers, Luo Zhixue started to talk a lot, starting from the ancient Zhou rites to the present loyalty and filial piety. He talked a lot, saying that being a minister should be responsible, and his mother would cause trouble every day. A minister cannot do bad things, and then let me bear the infamy... and make a group of important ministers blush and harsh.
He also said that official administration is the foundation of the long-term stability of the empire and cannot be destroyed by anyone. He also said that the magistrate in Hantian Mansion is simply a bug. He is greedy and perverts the law, making arbitrary suggestions for the imperial court and trying to shake the national policy of taxation...
In this day's imperial council meeting, Luo Zhixue was basically the only one who was raging. The seven council ministers and eighteen co-organizing ministers all kept their heads down and were scolded...
This kind of situation is actually rare in the past few years since the establishment of the Chu Empire.
When being scolded, the instincts of many ministers already told them that this matter was not simple, and there must be something behind the scenes to offend His Majesty.
Otherwise, His Majesty would not have specifically brought up the issue of administration in a formal and serious meeting such as the Imperial Council, and it would have risen to the level of the foundation of the empire.
What is that...
Everyone is smart, and they also know that His Majesty is not a fool, nor is he some royal boy who doesn't eat minced meat.
Don't think Luo Zhixue is young, he is only nineteen years old this year, but you have to know that Luo Zhixue joined the bandits in the sixth year of Chongzhen. At that time, he was only fifteen years old. Even if he is in vain, he is only ten years old. Only six years old.
When he was sixteen years old, that is, in the seventh year of Chongzhen's reign, he was already the leader of an army and became the general of the Funiu Mountain Baoxiang Camp.
Then he led the rural protection army to fight in the north and south!
He rises from the bottom and shines brightly in the starry sky!
And such a young emperor would not talk about a very common corruption case without any reason. There must be a deep meaning behind it!
