In December, Zhu Cihong's guard of honor came to the Huizhou Mansion in Nanzhili.

Most of the Huizhou businessmen are out of the Huizhou Mansion, the Huizhou Mansion is surrounded by lofty mountains, the fields are barren, the production is meager, Huizhou people are in the poor mountainous areas, farming can not survive, can only go out to do business to survive.

The Hui merchants have been active since the Song Dynasty, and after hundreds of years of development, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Hui merchants entered their heyday and became a powerful merchant gang.

In the hall of the Huizhou Mansion, a group of Huizhou businessmen were seated, and the black crowd had been extending from the lobby to the outside steps, and the steps to the outside venue were also full of people, and they all listened attentively to the words of Zhu Cihong.

Zhu Cihong glanced at the crowd and said: "Huizhou people are outstanding people, in the past, Emperor Taizu entered Anhui and was short of salary, and Jiang Yuan helped pay 100,000 taels of silver at a time, and made an indelible contribution to the establishment of the emperor. ”

Zhang Dabiao took the lead in speaking out: "We are willing to support His Royal Highness's new policy and contribute to the emperor!" ”

The rest of the Huizhou businessmen also echoed it, expressing their willingness to support the new policy and support the collection of commercial taxes.

Zhu Cihong nodded and said: "This palace has decided to establish a merchant federation and bring all the Ming merchants into management, and the first president of this chamber of commerce will be Zhang Dabiao, I don't know what you think?" ”

Zhang Dabiao was the first businessman to belong to Zhu Cihong, and this heavy responsibility naturally fell to him, but Zhu Cihong would not let the Hui businessmen become dominant.

When he heard that Zhang Dabiao was the first president of the Chamber of Commerce, all Huizhou businessmen looked at each other and saw the joy on each other's faces.

Zhang Dabiao's eyes shone brightly, and he hurriedly bowed down and said, "Thanks to His Highness's trust, the grass people are sincerely afraid and dare not be competent. ”

Zhu Cihong said with a smile: "To put it bluntly, this palace has always had clear grievances, treats the enemy unscrupulously, and will not be stingy with its own people, your merits over the years are in the eyes of this palace, don't shirk it, and the following work will be handed over to you." ”

Zhang Dabiao thanked him again and again, and then he happily accepted the order, he walked to a table and began to speak on the spot.

Since the crown prince was sitting on the throne, Zhang Dabiao did not dare to speak loudly, and after a few simple words, he began to work.

Zhang Dabiao was full of energy, coughed, and said: "Now everyone comes here to register and pay taxes and get a business certificate, and the purchase price of less than forty taels a year is exempt from tax, and the above is levied a commercial tax." ”

Since Zhu Cihong decided to levy commercial tax, he had to do it decently, he formulated the "Commercial Tax Law", only those who have paid taxes can have a business license, if they operate without a license, they will be fined 500 to 5,000 taels, and if they are heavy, they will be confiscated and confiscated shops, and the proprietors will be arrested and put in prison for education.

As soon as these words came out, many small businessmen below showed joy, while the big businessmen were bitter, Yicheng's tax was too ruthless, several times higher than that of the Wanli Dynasty.

Regarding the expressions of the businessmen, Zhu Cihong saw that in his eyes, compared with the businessmen's previous indecisiveness, it is indeed a lot now.

However, compared with the tax rate of one or two percent higher in later generations, one percent is not unacceptable, the starting point must be high, not too low, otherwise it will be difficult to increase the tax rate in the future.

Seeing this, Zhang Dabiao was unhappy, and said with a cold face: "His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has eradicated the eight great Jin merchants, and let you take the opportunity to earn how much silver?" If you have a small profit in the business tax area, you won't be happy? ”

The faces of the Hui businessmen eased slightly, whether it is grain or salt industry, the Jin Gang has been competing with the Hui Gang for the market, and the two sides of the two Huai Salt Farms have been competing for nearly a hundred years, the Jin Gang is powerful, and the Hui Gang has been suppressed.

The crown prince wiped out the main force of the Jin Gang in one fell swoop, so that his Hui Gang took the opportunity to rise and swallowed up a lot of Jin merchants' industries.

After Zhang Dabiao snorted a few times, he slowed down and said: "After the establishment of the Merchants' Federation, Zhang Mou will set up a supervision group to strictly supervise the duties. ”

For tax evasion, Zhu Cihong had seriously considered that the Wanli Emperor would collect commercial taxes with a limit of forty taels, but the commercial taxes collected from all over the Ming Dynasty have always been small, sometimes less than 1,000 taels in a state and county.

Emperor Wanli collected little taxes, and he also wore a big hat to compete with the people, and was scolded as a dog by the civil officials.

In view of the situation of false declarations and tax evasion, Zhu Cihong wanted to apply the value-added tax of later generations, but it was difficult to implement it without computer networking.

The main thing is to strengthen the publicity of policies and tax laws, enhance taxpayers' awareness of paying taxes, improve taxpayers' compliance, avoid taxpayers from entering the ranks of tax evasion by mistake due to ignorance of policies, and increase the intensity of inspection and social exposure for malicious tax evasion, and at the same time unblock reporting channels and form a social supervision system.

Businessmen pursue profits, there are few people with hearts, this sentence is not false at all, at this moment the performance is vivid, although the Hui merchants have profited, but let them come up with some taxes, many people are a little unbalanced in their hearts, unless there are new interests.

Zhu Cihong thought for a while, and said: "As long as you cooperate with the tax, the palace will not treat everyone badly, and soon the imperial court will open several coastal places in Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces as treaty ports to trade with overseas countries, and I believe everyone understands the business opportunities between them." ”

Zhu Cihong's words made everyone present feel a big move, the Ming Dynasty's maritime trade is prosperous, and those foreign Hongyi need a lot of goods, silk, porcelain, a boat can earn a lot of silver, if there is a fleet, back and forth, the business opportunities between them......

Everyone in the audience began to discuss excitedly, Zhu Cihong smiled, the maritime trade of the Ming Dynasty was very prosperous, not the general belief that "the Southern Song Dynasty was the peak period of maritime trade, and the early Ming Dynasty was the low tide period of maritime trade, which seems to be related to the sea ban".

This conclusion is that the source is in the fifties of the twentieth century, including Tom Harrison and several other gringos found a large number of porcelain (mainly Longquan celadon), they thought it was porcelain from the Song and Yuan dynasties, and rarely encountered porcelain from the early Ming Dynasty.

Later, with the archaeological discovery of the Longquan official kiln in the Ming Dynasty, I realized that the so-called porcelain of the Song and Yuan dynasties was actually Longquan celadon in the early Ming Dynasty.

After the dating of Longquan celadon was corrected, many of the evidence that was found in Japan, Southeast Asia and other places in the past and used to prove that "the maritime trade of the Southern Song Dynasty was developed" now seems to be from the Ming Dynasty.

In the so-called sea ban period in the early Ming Dynasty, the maritime trade of the Ming Dynasty was still like this, and it was even more prosperous in the late Ming Dynasty, which is indisputable in the field of historiography.

Regarding the Song Dynasty's maritime trade, the general impression of the Song Dynasty handicraft industry was developed, a large number of exports, thinking that the so-called Song Dynasty maritime trade focused on making profits through exports, so as to "enrich the people", in fact, under the pressure of the Song Dynasty's three redundancies, the government's finances relied on sea trade, which was mainly through the extraction of imports, especially the government's ban on monopolizing imported items such as frankincense, and the government sold them to obtain finance.

The so-called huge customs revenues of the Song Dynasty were actually largely due to the government's monopoly on many imports (and purchases), which was a total concept, not a tariff concept.

Generally speaking, in the late Southern Song Dynasty, maritime trade gradually declined due to policy problems, and was dominated by deficits for a long time, and the export volume was not particularly large.

In the Ming Dynasty, whether it was the government-run trade in the early Ming Dynasty or the private-led, export-oriented trade in the late Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty was a veritable silver empire, which changed the trade deficit of the Song Dynasty in one fell swoop.

Only a large number of exports can make domestic businessmen profitable, so as to achieve a rich people, and a large number of imports are other countries to make money.

In the 45th year of Wanli, the book "Examination of the East and the West" mentions: "The establishment of the city began in the Tang and Song dynasties, and the people of Yi entered the city to feed the country, and the country of the country and the business was in Yi, and there was no today's gang." ”

It shows that in the eyes of the people at that time, the maritime trade in the late Ming Dynasty reached an unprecedented prosperity, "its bundle is rare, so the foreign objects are not enough to mention, and the money traded, there is no need to worry about hundreds of thousands."

Zhu Cihong hit the railway while it was hot: "Maritime trade is only one of them, the imperial court will open mines in various places in the future, as long as you are innocent and have sufficient assets, you can mine after applying to the government!" ”

The Hui merchants were even more in an uproar, and those mines and other things, such as iron materials, coal mines, etc., were even more profitable, and there were countless related super-riches.

The crown prince integrated hundreds of thousands of troops in the south of the Yangtze River, the greater the demand for coal and iron, in the past, those mines were occupied by the nobles and magnates, and now the prince promised that these management rights can be released, if he has the opportunity in the future......

Everyone inside and outside the lobby is happy, and many powerful people are thinking about whether they can get a piece of the pie.

Zhu Cihong has decided that in addition to the military industry that produces weapons, such as the Ordnance Bureau, other related raw material production, mining, smelting and casting, and coal industry are all open to the people, and the imperial court only needs to do a good job of supervision.

In this way, all walks of life can flourish, drive a large number of related industries and more employment opportunities, and promote economic development.

Zhang Dabiao said: "With the words of His Royal Highness the Prince, we just need to follow His Highness closely, isn't it easy to get rich?" ”

His words made many people nod their heads involuntarily, hitchhiking on the imperial court, more than any business opportunities, compared with the future business interests, this commercial tax is indeed a trivial matter.

For a while, there was a shout inside and outside the lobby: tax payment is glorious, tax evasion is shameful!

Looking at the warm atmosphere in front of him, Zhu Cihong smiled and said nothing, after the exchange of interests, things really became simpler, businessmen, and scholars.

However, Zhu Cihong still feels that these are not enough, there are many unruly people, and if necessary, they have to use blood to remind them who is the leader and what will happen if they don't follow the rules!

(End of chapter)