Of course, only Li Hao knew what happened next. After all, Shen Tugang and Zeng Gongliang were not time travellers.
However, both of them also knew that Fu Bi's pride made him subordinate to Ouyang Xiu. Even if Fu Bi took office, he might not be convinced.
It was naturally impossible to persuade Ouyang Xiu to abdicate in favor of someone worthy of his post. However, if Fu Bi was appointed as Privy Councilor, who would be responsible for any problems later.
Therefore, when faced with the issue of Han Qi's treatment, the three of them felt a little tricky.
Fortunately, Ouyang Xiu also knew that the matter was difficult to handle and had no intention of really embarrassing Li Hao and the others.
He said directly: "When Prime Minister Fu Bi Ding You expires, he will naturally return to Beijing to report on his duties and serve the country.
At the beginning, Grand Prime Minister Fu Bi resigned from his post as Ding You from the position of Ping Zhangshi and Zhaowen Pavilion under Tongzhong Shumen. When he returned this time, he should have returned to his original post. "
Hearing this, Li Hao looked at Ouyang Xiu in surprise. He didn't expect him to be so upright and upright.
As a result, Ouyang Xiu said again: "It's just that the situation in the court has changed too fast now. The late emperor passed away due to sudden changes, and he left an edict to assist Zuo Guan's family.
The late Emperor had such great trust, how could I violate it, so this time I have no choice but to submit to Grand Prime Minister Fu Bi.
I invite you here today because I hope one of you can go to Luoyang for me and meet Grand Prime Minister Fu Bi in person to explain the matter. "
Sure enough, Li Hao knew that he was thinking too much, and Ouyang Xiu was indeed not that stupid.
But that's fine, Li Hao is more familiar with Ouyang Xiu after all, and it is better to have him in charge than Fu Bi.
It's just that the Didigu only stopped for a while, and Li Hao quickly realized that Ouyang Xiu seemed to have asked someone to go to Luoyang.
He quickly said: "Recently, the three departments are preparing to reform the tax law to cope with the empty state treasury, so I can't get away for the time being."
After finishing speaking, he accompanied Ouyang Xiu and quietly looked at Zeng Gongliang and Shen Tugang, which one went to Luoyang last.
In fact, Ouyang Xiu didn't want Li Hao to go over. He just called him to gather the number of people.
After all, Li Hao's time as an official was too short, and he probably didn't have much face with Fu Bi.
Don't invite Fu Bi when the time comes, it will be embarrassing then.
But it was obvious that Zeng Gongliang and Shen Tugang didn't want to go either. After all, it wasn't like they had any good news this time. Who knew what Fu Bi would react after hearing this.
But in fact, after Li Hao withdrew, the final outcome had already come out, because Shen Tugang still had to supervise the construction of Yongzhao Tomb and could not be away for too long.
So after a heated discussion, Zeng Gongliang reluctantly accepted this task.
After deciding on the candidate, Li Hao and Shen Tugang left together, leaving Zeng Gongliang in Ouyang Xiu's house to give him a good face-to-face instruction.
On the way, Shen Tugang was still chatting with Li Hao, and they talked about Qi Heng.
Shen Tugang said: "I heard that Mr. Li recommended Yuan Ruo to the position of doctor in the Ministry of Industry."
After hearing this, Li Hao thought that Shen Tugang knew something and wanted to accuse him. After all, the Ministry of Industry ranked last among the six ministries.
But there's nothing we can do about it. Shen Tugang is in the Sixth Department, so it's impossible to arrange for his son-in-law to be included. This is unreasonable.
The remaining Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Rites are both fictitious. The powers of the Ministry of Household Affairs are all under the jurisdiction of the three departments. The entire Ministry of Household Affairs only retains the position of the Ministry of Household Affairs, which is responsible for accepting tributes from the whole country.
This position is fine for making money, but Qi Heng is probably not willing to do it. After all, the Duke of Qi's government does not lack this little money.
The same goes for the Ministry of Rites. There is only one person in charge of the Ministry of Rites, although the remaining responsibilities are quite large, because just being in charge of the imperial examination and the Gongyuan is enough to impress people.
But precisely because of this, Qi Heng could not move up to this position at all. After all, Qi Heng had just completed the imperial examination, so how could he have such reputation and ability.
Needless to say, the Ministry of Punishment, this profession has relatively high requirements, and Qi Heng has not experienced it there, so it would be a bit hasty to directly ask him to decide the life and death of others.
As for not going to the Ministry of War, it was Qi Guogong's fault. This guy wanted to get rid of the Qi family as military generals, so he didn't want Qi Heng to have too much involvement with the generals in the Ministry of War.
After all this calculation, I could only be assigned to the Ministry of Industry in the end. Although the yamen was a bit inferior, the position was not discounted.
Moreover, Li Hao also found a companion for Qi Heng and transferred Sheng Changbai to the Ministry of Industry as a doctor in the Yu Department.
Although Li Hao's main purpose was to see that Sheng Changbai's progress was much slower than in the original drama, so he intentionally helped, but this also shows that Li Hao still values the Ministry of Heavy Industry.
Li Hao planned to defend himself and throw the blame on Ouyang Xiu's head.
But before he could open his mouth, Shen Tugang continued: "The Qi family and I will remember Master Li's affection for this matter, and we will repay him in the future."
"Is what this guy said true or false? Are Princess Pingning and the others so easily satisfied?" Li Hao wondered what Shen Tugang meant.
After finishing speaking, Shen Tugang said goodbye to Li Hao, and the two of them walked separately. Li Hao ignored Shen Tugang's words.
After more than ten days, Li Hao has been busy in the three departments. At that time, what Li Hao said at Ouyang Xiu's house was not just an excuse, but he was really preparing to reform the tax law to increase the revenue of the treasury.
In fact, Li Hao has long been interested in reforming the tax law, but he did not have the authority when he took office in the past.
I am also afraid of being constrained by others, which will cause me to get out of shape, which will be harmful rather than helpful.
This time, Li Hao became the Third Secretary-General, so he no longer had to worry about the authority issue. Moreover, he had the support of his immediate boss, Ouyang Xiu, so it was convenient for him to show off his talents.
Li Hao retrieved several years of account records. Based on the actual situation, there was an increase in the number of taxes last year.
From the 84.6 million taels of silver in the previous year, the number has increased to 89.7 million taels of silver. Of course, a considerable part of this is the new salt tax revenue.
Even so, it can be proved that the overall economy of the Song Dynasty is improving, at least much better than the poverty of the Ming Dynasty.
However, Li Hao also discovered some problems, that is, among the taxes, agricultural taxes and commercial taxes accounted for an increasingly large proportion.
According to the proportion last year, the agricultural tax, mainly two taxes, was 26.91 million taels, accounting for about 30%, while the commercial tax was 62.79 million taels, accounting for 70%.
But this ratio was still almost half and half during the Qingli years. Such a huge change has occurred in just a dozen years.
Of course, normally speaking, the larger the ratio, the better it should be for the people, especially the peasant class, as their burden will be lighter.
But the actual situation is not like this, because the bulk of this commercial tax comes from various monopoly activities, and it is the monopoly of these commodities that causes the prices of people's daily necessities to surge.
Grain, cloth, tea, and salt alone account for 60% of the annual commercial tax. So on the surface these are commercial taxes, but in fact they are not much different from agricultural taxes. They are already imposed on ordinary people. Money on your head.
Of course, if all these taxes can be strictly implemented in accordance with legal requirements, then maybe the people can live on.
But in reality, in the operations of the officials below, there are too many tricks that can be done.
For example, "increased consumption" is the most commonly used method, because to collect agricultural taxes, the people pay the government in kind rice grains, and households must voluntarily deliver the wheat grains and silk to designated places, and generally the places to be transported are not Will be close.
In this way, losses will naturally occur. After all, it is normal for rats and sparrows to steal food and eat bad things. This is unavoidable in modern times, let alone ancient times.
Therefore, in order to make up for this part of the loss, local governments will levy an additional portion of rice grains from farmers, which is the so-called "increased consumption."
And since this is the local government's own arrangement, it would be fine if the local officials are honest, but if they meet someone with evil intentions, it will be a heavy burden for the people.
Of course, in order to deal with this situation, the imperial court actually had corresponding countermeasures, which was "branch transfer and change", in order to reduce the burden on the people.
This policy means that you don’t have to go all the way to hand over the physical goods, but can convert them into silver coins or something specified by the government and hand them over as taxes.
It sounds like this policy is very beneficial to the people and can effectively reduce their burden.
But in fact, this policy was also played out by the government, which often turned one thing into another thing, or turned things into money, or turned money into things.
For example, if money is used to convert silk, or money is used to convert wheat, or silk is folded and then converted into wheat, repeated folding will always artificially lower the price of the paid goods, and then increase the price of the converted goods.
As a result, in order to offset the original tax change, a larger amount must be paid, which is a disguised increase in taxes.
In addition to the "branch transfer and change", the imperial court originally had another tax policy to benefit the people, but now it has changed, and that is "hebuying."
This was also Zhao Zhen's original policy to benefit the people. The government lent money to households during the lean years, and households would send silk to the government to repay the loan after the summer and autumn harvests. The original intention was to help households survive the time of poverty. This policy was also the prototype of the Young Crops Law in Wang Anshi's reform later.
However, in the actual operation process, the government can specifically control the interest rate, so it has become a harsh government policy of issuing usury loans and collecting interest.
In addition, there are many other miscellaneous taxes, such as "cowhide tax", "deed tax", "head money", etc. All kinds of taxes added together burden the people even more than regular taxes.
If the money really went into the treasury, Li Hao wouldn't say much.
But in fact, most of the money went into the pockets of corrupt officials, but the court was chosen as a target.
Moreover, due to the increased burden on farmers, the number of self-cultivated farmers has become increasingly scarce, which has accelerated the speed of land annexation and concentrated land in the hands of a small number of people.
Of course, Li Hao now belongs to this small group of people, but he is not as obsessed with land compared to Li Hao.
In addition to the problems with agricultural taxes targeting the common people, there are also big problems with commercial taxes.
Originally, Li Hao did not have a clear understanding of the tax collection points. After all, Li Hao had never actually walked the trade route from beginning to end.
It was not until this time that Li Hao discovered that there were so many tax customs in the Song Dynasty, more than 2,200 tax customs.
And because the Song Dynasty was not like now, the accounts can be clearly calculated, and taxes can be paid directly based on the transaction amount.
Instead, it is mainly divided into two categories: residence tax and overtax. Overtax is a tax levied on business travelers who resell goods, and the tax is 2% of the price of the goods.
Residence tax means that merchants who open shops sell goods locally or merchants sell goods when they arrive at the place of residence. The local tax is 3% of the price.
Although logically speaking, after paying the tax once, there will be a corresponding voucher, and there is no need to pay it a second time.
But as far as Li Hao knows, in actual operations, repeated collection of overtaxes is a very common phenomenon, which causes great damage to normal business activities.
Because in this way, small industrial and commercial businesses will be unable to survive due to heavy commercial tax pressure, while giant businessmen with strong financial resources and official businessmen with official backgrounds will increasingly be able to expand their capital strength and engage in mergers and acquisitions.
It means that no matter whether it is land or businessmen, the ultimate profit will always be the officials and gentry.
If not for the fact that the officials and gentry in the Song Dynasty were only exempted from corvee service and had to pay taxes correctly, the Song Dynasty would probably be poorer than the Ming Dynasty.
Faced with this situation, Li Hao naturally wanted to carry out a reform of taxation, with his primary goal being commercial taxation.
This is not to say that commercial taxes are more important than agricultural taxes, but to some extent, reforming commercial taxes affects smaller interest groups than reforming agricultural taxes.
After all, despite the fact that the money paid in commercial taxes was more than the land, the Song gentry's love for land was ultimately more important than pure money.
After clarifying the goal, Li Hao dispatched personnel to conduct a statistics on all tax customs across the country, and accordingly only set up checkpoints on some important transportation thoroughfares.
Anyway, the Song Dynasty was not like modern times, with transportation extending in all directions.
Here, if you want to transport bulk goods, you can only take the official road. There are only one or two roads. If you change the road, you won't know where you will go.
In addition, Li Hao also wants to imitate the modern business license and create a household registration system for merchants. In the future, if you want to do business, you must go to the government to obtain a license.
But later in discussions with his subordinates, Li Hao gave up this idea.
Firstly, it is troublesome to operate. After all, there were no computers in this era, and all such non-uniform styles had to be written manually, which was a huge workload.
Secondly, it is not easy for local governments to cooperate with each other, and it is also difficult to prevent counterfeiting.
Of course, the most important point is the third point. Li Hao really has no trust in local officials, and now they are so rampant.
If these people were really allowed to control the entry and exit of merchants, these people would be in trouble.
Therefore, Li Hao finally decided to rectify the tax collectors and combine the two systems of central and local tax collection.
However, this move was to suppress local power and failed in order to avoid counterattacks from state officials. Therefore, Li Hao was particularly cautious in this matter.
First of all, Li Hao needs the support of Ouyang Xiu. Only in this way can he maintain his absolute advantage.
But what Li Hao didn't expect was that after hearing what Li Hao said, Ouyang Xiu directly told Li Hao to stop first and not to be anxious.
He said that he would discuss the matter together after Fu Bi returned to Beijing.
