On May 10, the third year of the Chu Empire's succession and the tenth year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, a shocking news came out of Jinling City.
Chen Shoulin, a former director of the Mining Department of the Ministry of Industry who held various positions and was about to be transferred to the Ministry of Water Resources as the right minister, was taken away by the censor and a group of patrol policemen at home.
The censor who took action was no ordinary censor, but Wang Bingqi, the right deputy censor of the Grand Inspectorate and the director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, a third-grade senior official.
The patrol officer who cooperates with Wang Bingqi, the right deputy commander of the capital, is not an ordinary character, but Li Ziping, the director of the patrol department's important department, who is also a senior official of the third grade.
Two people with important positions in the judicial institutions of Gyeonggi Province jointly arrested Chen Shoulin and took him back for interrogation. Everyone in the Chen family was also taken back for questioning.
Not only Chen Shoulin, but also more than a dozen other officials were arrested at the same time. The charges were basically corruption. The Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Grand Inspectorate took the lead, and the Patrol Department asked the Eucalyptus Division to cooperate with the whole process.
On that day, many censors and patrol policemen in Gyeonggi Province were very busy. After all, this case was very big and its impact was destined to be great. The pressure on the Grand Inspectorate and the Patrol Department was also very high.
Even Qin Gaolin, the censor of the Grand Inspectorate, was very cautious on this day. He was always in the palace in the name of being on duty. On the one hand, he was to avoid interference from the outside world, and on the other hand, he was always in the palace. Report the progress of relevant cases to Luo Zhixue, and make changes after being informed of Luo Zhixue's instructions at any time.
The next day, Qin Gaolin formally reported the progress of the project to Luo Zhixue at the imperial council meeting.
When Luo Zhixue listened to the report, he didn't pay much attention to the details of the case. He only cared about whether the dozen people dug out met his own standards.
After reading the files of these people, Luo Zhixue nodded slightly: "We did a good job this time and severely cracked down on the evil spirits. In the future, all yamen will need to continue to work hard to eliminate the fake people who have sneaked into our team. Eliminate the remnant, corrupt and law-breaking elements from our ranks and purify the atmosphere of the country!"
After hearing Luo Zhixue's words, not only Qin Gaolin breathed a sigh of relief, but the other six ministers also breathed a sigh of relief.
It seems that His Majesty is quite satisfied with this severe crackdown and agrees with the working methods, so we can continue to move forward.
This time, the anti-corruption investigation suddenly launched in Gyeonggi Province. The outside world and even many officials at the ministerial level may think that this is just an anti-corruption investigation, but it is relatively large-scale and the officials targeted are relatively high-level.
But only the seven ministers knew that this anti-corruption investigation was a drunkard's fault!
There are many corrupt officials in the world, and their Great Chu Empire is no exception. Even though their Great Chu Empire has only been established for a few years, corrupt officials are still indispensable.
His Majesty is naturally very clear about this. Although he often supervises and pays attention to administrative issues, he will not really get angry about it.
However, when the issue involved taxation, it further extended to the point where the remnants of the pseudo-Ming Dynasty began to corrode the official atmosphere of the Great Chu Empire, and tried to criticize and even try to shake the foundation of the Great Chu Empire.
His Majesty immediately exploded!
This led to the outburst at the imperial council meeting at the end of last month, and the suggestion that the remnants of false accusations were trying to shake the basic national policy and undermine the foundation of the empire.
And when these counselors were panicked at first, then they became angry: among the ruling class of the Chu Empire, there was actually a group of people who tried to use basic national policies, destroy the foundation of the empire, and wanted to dig up the roots of these people. At that time, he became furious.
See what those remnants of false enlightenment have to say?
On the issue of taxation, the remnants of the False Ming Dynasty said that there are big problems with the current unified agricultural tax. The agricultural tax is too high and the people are miserable... They also said that the burden on the people should not be too heavy and so on, and that they should return to the style of the Pseudo Ming Dynasty. People and land were taxed separately, including land tax, dingyin, corvee and other levies.
This is bullshit!
The high-ranking officials of the Dachu Empire all came from lower-class backgrounds. Even Guo Quanshu, a so-called son of a scholarly family, was actually just a son of a small rural landowner. The first half of their bodies could contact and deeply understand the situation at the bottom. .
Naturally, we are very aware of the false tax policy. That stuff is nonsense. It seems that the real tax is not much, but there are countless exorbitant levies and miscellaneous taxes in various names. And the key is, these exorbitant levies and miscellaneous taxes are eventually used by the platform to get little land in their hands. Small landowners, peasants and tenants, as for the medium and large landowners and gentry, they do not pay taxes because they are famous and powerful.
This means that a huge amount of tax revenue ultimately falls on the middle and lower classes, resulting in a huge tax burden and the death of countless families.
Even the Guo family, where Guo Quanshu lives, is considered a small landowner in the local area. The family owns more than 300 acres of land. However, because no one in the Guo family has any fame, not even a scholar, the privileges of the gentry have nothing to do with them. , On weekdays, the Guo family's various tax burdens are also very heavy, and their superiors are constantly asking for various assessments.
As for the unified agricultural tax of the Dachu Empire, a unified agricultural tax was paid based on the amount of land, and apart from the agricultural tax, there were no other assessments, corvee and other miscellaneous taxes.
In comparison, the taxes paid by the Guo family were nearly one-third less than under the pseudo-Meiji rule.
Even if the Guo family is like this, the burden on other homesteaders and tenants will be lighter. Those tenants don't even have to pay a cent in tax. The lives of the lower-class farmers are much better than before.
Although these farmers are still living a relatively difficult life, and even having enough to eat is a luxury, as long as they are honest and willing to work, if God gives them face, it is not a big problem to support the whole family.
As for wanting all the people at the bottom to have enough to eat...this is a worldwide problem that has no solution for the time being!
Therefore, even a descendant of a small landowner like Guo Quanshu was very supportive of the country's agricultural tax policy and could better understand its pros and cons.
Now a group of remnants of hypocrites have come out to say that the country's agricultural tax is wrong, which will increase the burden on the people and make their livelihood difficult...
The people here are in dire straits... I'm afraid I'm talking about those medium and large landowners!
After all, under the unified agricultural tax, only their interests are harmed, while everyone else benefits!
——
The remnants of the false Ming Dynasty also said that the commercial tax of the country was also harsh, saying that the current commercial tax has many categories and huge tax amounts, and the people of the world have become miserable.
These remarks about taxation made Chen Xingkai of the tax department very angry. You still don’t want to pay taxes when doing business. How can there be such a good thing in this world? Even in the Pseudo-Ming Dynasty, you still have to manage your business from top to bottom. Now There is no need for you to take care of it. You can do business smoothly by paying taxes directly. Yet you are still unwilling to do so...
Damn it!
For this reason, Chen Xingkai expressed to the Grand Inspectorate that if you encounter any difficulties in your anti-corruption work, our tax department will be happy to help. The tax department has no control over these people's other criminal activities, but if they evade tax, their tax department will. Gotta take care of it...
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The remnants of the pseudo-Ming Dynasty are also very dissatisfied with the various industrial and commercial economic policies of the country.
For example, regarding salt affairs, they particularly hated the salt administration monopoly system in the Chu Empire.
It is said that the Salt Administration should be state-owned, but you cannot let a salt company take care of all the salt business in the country, from production to transportation to sales. This will cause various corruption problems. , it will also cause various problems in the salt service work, and the people will have to eat high-priced salt...
Then he said that the salt import formula can be continued, allowing salt merchants to transport grain to the border in exchange for salt import. This will not only allow border officers to obtain food, but also allow private merchants to widely transport and sell salt, allowing the people to eat low-price salt. !
Yuan Gaofeng directly swore that if these people said these words, without the instigation of the salt merchants behind them, Yuan Gaofeng would have dared to bump his head against the pillar of the main hall and die...
——
The remnants of the pseudo-Ming Dynasty are not only criticizing the salt affairs. They are also very critical of various factories under the Ministry of Industry. Well, they are mainly engaged in various factories designed for private industries. They believe that this is to compete with the people for profit.
They believe that large factories use their official background to engage in malicious competition or even monopoly, making it difficult for private workshops to continue.
Especially Hantian Textile Company, a subsidiary of the Ministry of Industry, is even more heinous. With its new looms and spinning machines, this company can produce cloth at a cost that is only one-third or even four times that of other traditional workshops. One-third, but the quality is generally better than homespun cloth.
The most important thing is that the scale of Hantian Textile Company is too large and it is still expanding rapidly. In addition to the Hanyang main factory in Hanyang County, Hantian Prefecture, they established a Changsha branch factory in Changsha last summer. Jiujiang branch was established in Jiujiang, and Zhenjiang branch was established in Zhenjiang at the beginning of this year.
Several textile factories under Hantian Textile Company are all integrated textile enterprises integrating spinning, weaving, printing and dyeing. They also have supporting quilt and garment factories to directly produce various types of quilts and other textile products.
The number of employees in all branches of the company has reached more than 50,000.
With extremely low costs and huge production capacity, Hantian Textile Company's various textiles quickly flooded into the market and seized the market for homespun cloth from many traditional workshops.
This has greatly affected the interests of many traditional textile workshops, and the traditional textile industry is also the main way for many gentry and powerful people in the Jiangnan region to make money.
In addition to these, many people are also extremely dissatisfied with the Grain Reserve Department of the Dachu Empire and its subordinate Dachu Grain Corporation. They believe that the grain price control policy of the grain company has seriously damaged the interests of the people/grain merchants.
Well, the grain merchants under the rule of the Dachu Empire are all obsessed with the Dachu Grain Corporation.
In a word: The world has been suffering for a long time!
