Xiao Ding and Song Yinzi discussed the law of governing the country in the imperial study of the palace.

In order to solve the problem of the emptiness of the treasury faced by the imperial court at this time, Xiao Ding gave Song Yinzi a method of increasing the commercial tax, and at the same time gave him a big lecture on the theory of boiling frogs in warm water, so that Song Yinzi did not want to be in place at one time, but to take the method of slowly increasing taxes little by little to collect commercial taxes.

At the same time, Xiao Ding also claimed that in addition to increasing the commercial tax, he had other ways to increase the revenue of the treasury, and Song Yinzi immediately became interested, staring at Xiao Ding with bright eyes, eagerly hoping that he would quickly say what other methods there were.

Xiao Ding was not in a hurry, and said slowly: "Your Majesty the Emperor, in addition to increasing the commercial tax, we can also increase the land tax and customs duties. ”

Song Yinzi was puzzled: "We have already collected a lot of land taxes now, and we want to continue to increase them?" ”

Xiao Ding shook his head and said, "No, the land tax I am talking about is not the land tax on the existing agricultural land, which is indeed quite a lot, and there is no need to continue to increase it." When I say additional land tax, I mean additional land tax for commercial land. For example, in the city of Zhongzhou, the land tax for the land of the mansion and the land for the shop. ”

Although the urban land in this era was not as tight as the urban land in later generations, it was also in different locations, and the land price was also different.

There was no real estate speculator in the Great Song Dynasty, and compared with later generations, the real estate of this era was far less expensive than that of later generations. Even so, in the prime location of the city, not ordinary people can afford it, and those who can afford to buy a mansion or shop in this kind of location are either rich or expensive. Therefore, imposing some additional land taxes on these rich people will not hurt their fundamentals.

As soon as Xiao Ding mentioned the commercial land tax, he naturally thought of this, so he immediately frowned again and said, "Brother Tian, you are giving me a problem again!" Do you know that the interests of the officials or the magnates are still harmed by the increase in land taxes, and even the rich businessmen, most of them are in collusion with the officials, so collecting their taxes is like plucking the feathers on these magnates, and I guess even the civil and military officials in the court will not agree to it. ”

Xiao Ding smiled coldly and said, "Your Majesty doesn't have to worry, you can still let the people from the Yushitai come forward." Whoever stands up against it will go and thoroughly investigate the official, and if the evidence is found, the house will be arrested immediately. The stolen property is still confiscated, which is much faster than if you were to collect taxes. We only need to punish a few leading officials in a big way, and the others will no longer dare to come out against it. ”

Although Song Yinzi agreed with Xiao Ding's statement, he was actually reluctant to do this kind of offending thing, after all, he, the emperor, also needed to have civil and military officials to support him, if everyone did not support him as an emperor, he would be a bare-bones emperor, and he would not be able to do anything.

However, Song Yinzi has a tacit sense of identity with Xiao Ding, and in his heart, he subconsciously acquiesces that the ideas given by Xiao Ding must be clever. Therefore, he did not continue to oppose Xiao Ding's method.

Then he asked: "Brother Tian, in addition to the land tax, what do you mean by a tariff?" ”

Xiao Ding saw that Song Yinzi had accepted the method of land tax, so he immediately explained: "The additional tariff means that our imperial court will set up customs at coastal ports, and land customs will also be set up at the border checkpoints between land and other countries, and then we will collect taxes on those merchants who engage in international trade, whether it is export or import, tariffs must be imposed." ”

In fact, in later generations, both land and coastal treaty ports were called customs. However, Xiao Ding had no intention of wasting his tongue to explain the definition of customs to Song Yinzi, so he called the trade checkpoints set up on the land land customs customs . Anyway, for Song Yinzi, he doesn't understand anything, and he can say whatever he wants.

Song Yinzi's eyes widened even brighter when he heard this, and he said happily: "In this way, the establishment of trade checkpoints with other countries and the imposition of tariffs are greatly beneficial to our Great Song Kingdom?" ”

"That's nature!" Xiao Ding replied affirmatively, and then went on to explain: "We should not only encourage non-governmental trade with other countries, but also try to monopolize trade between countries in the hands of the imperial court and form trade exchanges between officials. Of course, this requires the dispatch of envoys to negotiate. If the terms of trade are negotiated between the officials, it can be said that it will be beneficial and harmless for my Great Song Kingdom! ”

"Is it really that good? Brother Tian, don't lie to me! Song Yinzi questioned.

"Your Majesty, how could I deceive you? Do you know that there is a lot of profit in engaging in trade, for example, our Great Song Kingdom is rich in silk, and those silkworm farmers, silk farmers, and weavers, from raising silkworms, adult silkworms to silkworms, have to be busy for at least a year, and when they finally produce raw silk, a pound can only sell dozens of copper plates, deducting capital and taxes, and these people can only barely make a living. However, if these raw silk are transported to other countries, they can be sold for several taels of silver a catty, at least ten times the difference! That's a lot of money. Of course, there are many commodities in our Great Song Kingdom that can achieve such high profits, such as silk, tea, porcelain, gold and silver jewelry, etc., which are all very popular commodities in other countries. ”

"How profitable is it?" Song Yinzi interjected in disbelief.

"Yes, so we should try our best to monopolize international trade through the imperial court, and put the profits into the treasury, instead of letting the rich businessmen of the people make all the money." Xiao Ding said.

"This can be done, Brother Tian, when the time comes, we still need to negotiate a specific implementation plan." Song Yinzi said.

Xiao Ding thought for a moment and replied briskly: "Yes, let's discuss a specific implementation plan later." You just need to send the officials of the imperial court to carry it out. However, in order for this trade plan to be carried out smoothly, we need to have a good sailor. ”

"Sailor?" Song Yinzi was puzzled.

"Yes, I have heard that pirates are rife in the East and South China Seas, and they often harass the fishermen and merchant ships of my Great Song Kingdom and other countries. Therefore, we must have a sailor who can protect the safe passage of our Great Song Kingdom caravan. Xiao Ding said.

"Then, it still takes a lot of money to recruit troops and build ships, right?" When it comes to spending money, Song Yinzi has a headache.

"Your Majesty doesn't have to worry about this, no matter how much we spend, we can earn it back." Xiao Ding said with a grin.

"Brother Tian, what other good ways to gather wealth?" Song Yinzi was suspicious.

Xiao Ding smiled mysteriously and asked rhetorically: "May I ask Your Majesty, who is the wealth in the Great Song Dynasty concentrated in the hands of whom?" ”

Song Yinzi didn't know what kind of medicine was sold in Xiaoding gourd, so he replied hesitantly: "Of course, it's all in the hands of the powerful and the local tyrants!" ”

"Then how can we get money from these powerful people and rich businessmen?" Xiao Ding continued to ask.

"This ......, please ask Brother Tian to make it clear." Song Yinzi couldn't answer, so he asked Xiao Ding directly.

Xiao Ding smiled slightly again and said: "I told Your Majesty before that when we increase the commercial tax, we are actually picking money from the merchants, but this method involves a bit of a wide range of areas, whether it is a wealthy merchant or an ordinary small trader, it is all included. It has not achieved the purpose of picking money from the hands of wealthy businessmen. ”

"So what do we do?" Song Yinzi couldn't figure out Xiao Ding's intentions.

"Your Majesty, don't worry, listen to me slowly. In fact, if only the business tax is levied, it does not cover many elites, because even if they are involved in business, most of them are in the form of shares, or others come forward to run the business, rather than themselves. Therefore, even if the commercial tax is raised, these magnates and officials will not be involved. Therefore, I have suggested to you that if anyone dares to stand up and openly oppose the increase in commercial taxes, you can immediately dispatch the people of the Imperial Historical Observatory to seriously investigate and deal with them, and after grasping the evidence of their illegality, they will immediately confiscate their family wealth. ”

"Ah, this, it's like a robbery!" Song Yinzi grinned.

"This is not robbery, this is impartial enforcement! Uproot the moths from among the bureaucracy! With all this money, won't we have the money to build sailors' ships and recruit troops? Xiao Ding quibbled up at the corner of his mouth.

And this routine! Song Yinzi sighed secretly in his heart, this Marquis Tian is really black-bellied! He just wanted to say something more, but he heard Xiao Ding continue:

"Once we have a sailor, we can go to exterminate the pirates, but we must remember not to just kill the pirates?"

"Why? Isn't it all to be wiped out forever? Song Yinzi was puzzled.

"No, we're going to deliberately keep this thing going on. All we have to do is loot the pirates. Xiao Ding said quietly.

"Huh? Black eats black? Song Yinzi grinned again.

"Yes, Your Majesty is right! We're going to have a black eat! Your Majesty can think about it, where did the main wealth looted by those pirates come from? ”

"Of course, it's merchant ships coming and going, and ordinary fishermen don't have much money to grab." Song Yinzi replied.

"So, when we rob pirates, we take them from the rich merchants. Regardless of whether the pirates robbed the merchant ships of the Great Song Kingdom or the merchant ships of other countries, in short, the merchants who could own merchant ships must be wealthy merchants. They are all very rich, and it is impossible for our court to rob them of their property openly, nor can we formulate special policies to target them, so we can only use the hands of pirates to extract money from the hands of these rich merchants. Xiao Ding talked eloquently, making Song Yinzi dizzy.

Song Yinzi even felt that what Xiao Ding said was not unreasonable, although this method was too dark, and it was also somewhat contrary to the sage books he had read since he was a child, but he was currently in charge of the state affairs of the Great Song Dynasty, and the lack of money in the treasury was the most practical big problem at the moment. According to the method mentioned by Xiao Ding, it is indeed theoretically possible to quickly accumulate wealth.

It's just that this good strategy for accumulating wealth is a little shady, and if it is recognized, someone will definitely scold: Who came up with such a ghost idea that lacks morality?