How much tax did we pay?

Shi Yiwen's rhetorical question surprised Zhu Yijun,

"How much did you earn? How much did you pay? ”

"Up to now, iron factories, banks, restaurants, bookstores, of course, the largest is the yarn factory, we have earned no less than 1.5 million taels, but we have only paid less than 5,000 taels in taxes!"

Less than 5,000 taels!

In the past, I only knew that the taxes in the Ming Dynasty were low, but it was so low that Shi Yiwen couldn't help but be surprised, and Zhu Yijun was also surprised and couldn't close his mouth, and was stunned for a while before saying.

"I earned, I earned 1.5 million taels, only, I only collected less than 5,000 taels of taxes...... This, how is this possible? ”

"That's the case, and, that's it, I still pay taxes according to the chapters, if I'm not mistaken, the taxes we pay are almost equivalent to about 20% of the miscellaneous taxes in the capital!"

In this era, there was never a separate commercial tax, but it was mixed with miscellaneous taxes such as the Nine Gate Tax and the Closed Market.

"Actually, if I don't want to pay, as long as I express it a little, I only need to pay a tax of two or three thousand taels a year at most, or even not pay it."

Looking at Zhu Yijun, Shi Yiwen said.

"Let's put it this way, the yarn mill that makes the most profits, and according to the tax regulations, each yarn machine only needs to pay three dollars of silver, and our yarn mill only has ...... Well, 30 yarn machines, a month, you only need to pay, less than ten taels of silver. ”

What the!

With his eyes wide open, Zhu Yijun asked rhetorically.

"How do we pay that little tax? It's less than ten taels ......."

"Yes, but the problem is, I still pay according to the law."

Shi Yiwen himself felt a little ridiculous.

"Our yarn machine is different from other people's, one machine is a thousand machines!"

"Our spinning machine is 1,000 spindles, and in terms of efficiency, it is up to 2,000 old-style spinning wheels."

“……”

Zhu Yijun opened his mouth but didn't speak.

"So, I'm going to put up another hundred spinning machines, after all, the tax is less."

"Zhiyuan, what do you want to say?"

Zhu Yijun looked at Shi Yiwen and asked rhetorically.

"I want to say that the national tax is light, so the national consumption is insufficient, just like our yarn factory is taxed by machine, we only have 30 machines, so naturally we only need to pay a dozen taels of silver, as for what is the big head of this 10,000 taels? It is our bank in the city, it is according to the money village to pay taxes, pay 200 taels a month, we open five banks in the city and Zhangjiawan, because of the different grades, pay more than 600 taels a month, as for the carriage and horse shop is not worth mentioning, there is also a large head is an iron factory, pay one-thirtieth of the iron class every month......"

After paying the taxes that needed to be paid one by one, Shi Yiwen looked at Zhu Yijun and said.

"We earn 1.5 million taels, but we only pay less than 1 percent of the tax in total, you say, is this kind of tax reasonable?"

"Of course not! Sure enough, it's ......"

Zhu Yijun, who originally wanted to talk about profiteers, came to his lips and laughed at himself.

"It doesn't seem to have anything to do with profiteers, after all, you pay according to the law, so that's all you pay."

"That's the problem, everyone still has to evade taxes. At the time of the founding of the dynasty, Emperor Gaozu adopted a low-tax policy on commerce in order to rebuild the social and economic order. The money of the official store has been reduced from the original ten taxes to twenty taxes and thirty taxes, but even so, how much is paid according to the amount? ”

Looking at Zhu Yijun, Shi Yiwen continued.

"Not to mention anything else, let's just say that the banknotes set up by the imperial court along the canal and on land and water, how much money is levied on ships a year? It's just a hundred thousand taels, but, Mingzhi, the goods in the world are all transported through land and water docks, is it that there are only four or five million taels of goods in the world? ”

Shi Yiwen's rhetorical question made Zhu Yijun stunned.

"So, what about the taxes?"

"One is that the officials are greedy for money, but all businessmen who pass the customs will often bribe, and those who should pay 100 taels only need to pay 10 taels, 5 taels to enter the official, and 5 taels to fill their own pockets, and the second is that the officials are exempt from the ......."

Almost as soon as Shi Yiwen's words fell, Zhu Yijun scolded bitterly.

"A bunch of moths that should be killed! How dare I enrich my pockets like this, they are the ones who make me so poor! ”

Zhu Yijun's scolding made Shi Yiwen stunned and surprised.

"Well, where does this begin?"

"Zhiyuan didn't know that most of the ship banknotes collected by the banknote customs had been sent to the inner treasury for consumption in the palace. After all, the inner treasury and the household department do not do anything with each other, and the expenses in the palace also depend on the inner treasury, even if I want to spend silver, I can only borrow silver from the household department, but even if I want to borrow, they may not necessarily give, just like a while ago, I wanted to borrow 100,000 taels of silver from the Taifu Temple, for the use of the palace, but they were all vetoed......"

When it came to the old thing of borrowing money but not being able to borrow money, Zhu Yijun was angry for a while, and even said in annoyance.

"What is under the whole world, it is not the king's land. That is to say, even Guanglu Temple overspent because of cooking for the palace, I wanted to borrow 100,000 taels from the household department to tide over the difficulties, and they didn't borrow it, and the people in the court thought about taking money from the inner treasury all day long, and even Mr. Zhang, too, in the past two years, I don't know how much of the tax in the inner treasury of the corner has been transferred to the household department, is it, this palace does not spend silver? ”

The reason why Zhu Yijun was so annoyed was because of the special financial system of the Ming Dynasty. The emperor spends money in two kinds, one is to spend money for state affairs, such as military salaries for wars, and engineering costs for large projects, such money is collected and paid by the household department in charge of state money, but the emperor spends his own money, and he has to spend it from the inner treasury, and the financial expenses of the imperial family mainly include the emperor, the queen, the concubine, the prince, the princess, the princess and other royal family members and the daily expenses of the various eunuchs, palace maids, slaves and other servants who serve them, as well as the emperor's diet and service expenses, rewards and kicks

In addition to a large number of rewards, the expenses of various extravagant expenses such as the expenses of festivals and festivals, and the large number of rewards, in a broad sense, also included the feudal lords and their descendants who were divided into various regions, so the expenses were very large and required a large amount of income to maintain.

Annoyed, Zhu Yijun said again.

"Even a while ago, there were people who moved their minds to the gold and silver, saying that the gold and silver were converted into silver from grain, and they should be handed over to the household department, and they took the gold and silver away, so what should I give to the military generals and ministers in the capital?"

After sulking, Zhu Yijun said sullenly.

"Just like you just said, since Emperor Chengzu, the royal family has been fighting with the imperial court, until Emperor Sejong, it was finally set a routine, taking turns to levy solutions, basically, that is, five or five folks, sometimes fight for a while, you can also levy more points, but it took a long time, but I didn't expect that the big head court didn't get it, and the royal family didn't get it, and it actually let a group of greedy officials be greedy!"

Looking at Zhu Yijun's annoyed appearance, Shi Yiwen's heart moved, looked at him and said.

"Actually, why not give them gold and silver! After all, sometimes, there is a give-and-take, and learning to make a trade-off may have unexpected gains! ”