If there is any impression that a person from the 21st century, China in the middle of the 17th century, has of this era, then the most profound impression is probably a cold word. Rui was the coldest period of the Xiaoice period.

The winters of this era were long, up to seven months, and even in Jiangnan, the rivers would be frozen in ice every winter. Therefore, for the people of this era, how to heat up in winter is the biggest problem. In order to obtain fuelwood, the trees on many large mountains have basically been cut down, and there are bare mountains everywhere as far as the eye can see, and people have tried everything to heat their homes and cook in pots for winter. However, due to the large population in the city, it is difficult to meet the demand, and when it snows heavily in winter, the people in the city often have to freeze.

When he saw the frozen Yellow River, canals and the snow deep, in the face of the frozen people, in order to solve the fuel crisis, he would bring an invention of later generations.

Honeycomb coal, briquette stove.

Although as early as the Song Dynasty, coal has begun to be popularized in the north and south of the river, but because of the relationship between stoves, its use is still subject to many restrictions, but Zhu Mingzhong's invention of honeycomb coal has solved all the problems. Compared with the lump coal used in the old days, honeycomb coal needs the cheapest crushed coal and coal dust, and a certain proportion of yellow mud can also be added when making honeycomb coal, honeycomb coal is used with ceramic briquette furnace, if the coal is changed on time, the tuyere of the furnace can be sealed almost all year round without extinguishing the fire.

It is precisely because honeycomb coal is easy to use and there is no soot that it will appear again in just a few years, and it has swept the north and south of the country. And this also brings up another problem - coal! After all, not every place has coal mines.

However, for Zhongdu, it is undoubtedly fortunate that there are dozens of coal mines large and small in Xuzhou, a hundred miles away, and the anthracite produced there is the most suitable for honeycomb coal. Because the local coal is easy to mine and transport, and the supply is convenient, coal has now become the main fuel for the people of Zhongdu.

For Zhongdu, which has a population of hundreds of thousands, the amount of coal needed every day is extremely staggering, which is why you can always see coal carriers coming from Xuzhou on the Yellow River. A steady stream of coal is used by thousands of households in the city, and there are several coal stacks on the banks of the Yellow River, each of which is piled up with a hill of coal.

"Look."

Standing on the dam of the Yellow River, Zhu Mingzhong pointed to the boats on the Yellow River, and the black coal loaded on those boats could be seen from a long distance.

"It was these ships that transported coal from Xuzhou to Zhongdu, so that the people in the city no longer had to worry about freezing and frustration."

As the inventor of honeycomb coal, Zhu Mingzhong is very proud when he mentions this matter, he not only invented honeycomb coal and ceramic briquette stove, but also invented honeycomb coal heating stove, so that the people can avoid cold, of course, the use of honeycomb coal indoor heating must use ceramic or bamboo flue to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.

"However, the Yellow River freezes for several months every year in winter, so what about those months? In addition, winter is the time when people need coal the most, usually they only need three or four briquettes a day, but in winter, because of heating, they need at least five or six briquettes a day. If there is not enough coal, some people will freeze and may freeze to death. But in winter, the Yellow River will be frozen, and it is naturally impossible to transport coal by ship, if it is by horse-drawn carriage, the freight is too high, even if it is transported into the city, the price of coal will be much more expensive than usual, what should I do? ”

"Back to Your Majesty, so Jing Zhaoyin will require each coal stack to prepare at least 50,000 tons of coal before winter, and the government will also prepare no less than 50,000 tons of coal, plus the people prepare their own coal, I haven't heard of a shortage of briquettes in the past few winters."

Wu Youcai, who was once in charge of Jiangbei affairs, was naturally very aware of the importance of coal, and from the first winter after the problem of insufficient fuel supply, from the second year onwards, every year before the winter, the government would convene coal merchants to require coal merchants to prepare coal, and at the same time would urge the people to prepare coal at home. In the past few years, preparing coal in winter has long become a part of the life of the government and the people.

"What about the rest of the world?"

Looking at Wu Youcai, Zhu Mingzhong said in a deep voice.

"This time I moved the capital to the south, I passed through all parts of the north, but wherever there are mountains, the mountains and trees are all cut down, and there are only small trees and wild grasses on the mountains, I have asked local officials, and local officials have said that there is a shortage of fuelwood, and there is no firewood to be harvested for more than 100 miles outside the provincial capital, and firewood comes from hundreds of miles away."

After the population of the Ming Dynasty exceeded 100 million in the Wanli period, the absolute growth of the population made the burning and felling of plants in the whole country reach an unprecedented scale, so that the populous cities and the area south of the Yangtze River have long reached the point where there are mountains and mountains.

"A city of 400,000 people will lose 400 square miles of mountains and forests, but how many cities are surrounded by such mountains and forests? In the past few decades, the population has been sharply reduced due to the Manchu Qing massacre, and the mountains and forests in many places have been able to recover a little vitality, but in a few decades, the prosperity of the population will grow, and the harvesting of fuelwood will only become more and more difficult, and what should the people do when they have no material available? ”

"Use coal!"

There is no doubt that using coal is the only option to solve the problem. Compared to fuelwood, coal is almost inexhaustible and even less costly.

"Your Majesty, it is for this reason that it is necessary to promote the use of briquettes instead of fuelwood. At present, the anthracite coal produced by Xuzhou coal mine is not only supplied to Zhongdu, but also along the canal to Nanjing and other places in the south of the Yangtze River, and because the coal mine levies a lot of mining taxes, the local government has also encouraged the gentry to mine coal mines, and the coal mines are greatly developed, which can not only enrich the tax sources, but also facilitate the people and solve the people's worries about the shortage of fuelmaterials. ”

When mentioning the mining tax on coal mines, Gu Yanwu would set his eyes on His Majesty, which was His Majesty's "invention", to be precise, the way of taxation. It was His Majesty who changed the way of taxation of coal, iron, copper, tin, lead and other mining taxes, so that now the Ming Dynasty can collect millions of taels of mining taxes every year.

"Now, the court is generous and the people will not be frozen, all of which are the work of His Majesty back then."

Gu Yanwu did not forget to take the opportunity to pat the emperor's ass, which is one of the responsibilities of a minister.

"But it was all years ago......"

Despite saying this, Zhu Mingzhong's face still looked very happy, after all, he found this source of wealth.

Of course, the process of finding this financial path can be said to be full of twists and turns. Zhu Mingzhong, who occupied Jiangbei at that time, in order to enrich the finances, also collected business taxes as later forums and Chinese people said.

"Suppress business with taxes and consolidate the country!"

Holding Zhu Yuanzhang's eight words as a holy decree, Zhu Mingzhong once wanted to levy the so-called "commercial tax" in Jiangbei with great fanfare, as many netizens said in later generations. However, after several inquiries, he learned that there was indeed a commercial tax in this era, and it had been collected.

As early as the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the people went out to do business, they must first apply for the "customs bonds", the customs bonds are the road guides, in fact, the business license that allows the merchants to traffic goods, the application for the "customs bonds" need to pay a certain handling fee to the government, called the "road introduction money", that is, the business license tax, the business license of the merchants to sell the goods to other places, the road through the checkpoint needs to declare the number of goods, pay a certain tariff, after the trafficking goods arrive at the place of sale, the merchants can not directly sell the goods in the market, However, the goods must be deposited in the collapsed house and the government according to the regulations, pay the collapsed house tax and tooth-free money, and obtain the tax payment bill issued by the government before entering the market for trading. After opening, they also have to bear two kinds of commercial taxes, one is the commodity transaction tax, according to the total transaction amount of the commodity price, 30 taxes one, and the other is the market stall tax, which is the fixed tax according to the type of store.

Is 30 taxes a low?

Neither low nor high,

Because he has relatives and friends doing business, Zhu Mingzhong knows that in the 21st century, small-scale taxpayers in the retail industry also use sales sales and taxable services to sell goods and taxable services, and the tax amount is 3%, which is lower than that of the "Ming Dynasty, which did not levy commercial tax".

Even in the 21st century, because the tax department cannot count the sales of small traders, it is unable to collect enough taxes from shops, supermarkets, restaurants and other shops in the city according to the law. Depending on the industry and size, the tax paid is different.

The same is true of the Ming Dynasty, the so-called "thirty taxes and one" because of the inability to count sales, so that the collection is meager, and the taxation is fruitless.

This also led to a consequence - in places where the ratio of "30 taxes and 1" was implemented, it was difficult to receive taxes, because it was impossible for the government to count the sales of shops in the city, and tax evasion was the instinct of merchants.

In contrast, the tax is more realistic to levy according to the industry and scale. Despite the limited amount of tax collected and the opportunity for tax collectors to enrich themselves, they can still receive a certain amount of tax. It's just that in the Ming Dynasty, the market stall tax was a regular tax like the transaction tax, the former was extremely low, and the latter was extremely difficult to collect because it was difficult to count. Therefore, there was a fivefold increase in the tax of the market during the Xuande period, and the purpose was also to obtain a tax source.

It's just that there are too many loopholes to be found in the market stall tax from the size of the store to the industry, as in the 21st century, and the tax collectors all fill their pockets with the market stall tax, and the officials are also greedy for ink, and the market stall tax itself is not high, and it is included in the "miscellaneous endowment" in the tax revenue of the household department.

What is the real big head of business tax?

It is a tariff solicited by customs established along the Grand Canal and important customs in the interior - more than one million taels of tariffs per year. In contrast, it was not until the twenty-fourth year of the Kangxi reign that the "tariffs" of the Manchu Qing Dynasty surpassed those of the Chongzhen period.

After learning this answer, Zhu Mingzhong was naturally extremely disappointed, but no matter how disappointed he was, he had to find a way to enrich the tax source, and in the end, he turned his brain to mineral resources such as coal mines and iron ore. It may never be possible for the government to have a tax collector in each shop to supervise the operation, so that merchants do not pay false accounts and pay little or no taxes, but it can estimate the output of coal mines and then tax them according to the estimates, which was the way small coal kilns were taxed in the 90s.

This method seems to be very rude, but it has brought hundreds of thousands of taels of mining taxes to Jiangbei, and more than three million taels of taxes to the Ming Dynasty, which has enriched the finances of the Ming Dynasty to a certain extent.

"Where there are rivers, it is true that they can be transported through rivers, but what if there are no rivers? For example, like Lu'an Province, don't the people there need coal? ”

Although he was a little proud, he was not so forgetful, so Zhu Mingzhong still did not forget the reason why he invited everyone to the dam.

"By a carriage? Now the official road has indeed been renovated, compared with the past, the cost of transportation has indeed dropped a lot, but even so, the freight is still quite high? How much does it cost to transport coal three or four hundred miles away by horse-drawn cart? ”

In addition to asking such rhetorical questions, Zhu Mingzhong continued.

"Not to mention the transportation of hundreds of miles, that is, the coal mines in Xuzhou, when the coal is transported to the wharf, but only tens of miles, more than ten miles, the freight has already distinguished the coal price of each mine, and the waterway is indeed accessible, but not all places have waterways, what to do where there are no waterways?"

"Back to Your Majesty, sailing by water and horses by land have been the case since ancient times, even if the freight increases slightly, there is no way to speak of it."

Regarding Gu Yanwu's answer, Zhu Mingzhong did not refute it, let alone this era, even in the twenty-first century, it is the same, at most, it is one more option to have an airplane.

"It is true that boating by water and horses by land is true, but this way of walking horses can be changed!"

Just as the words fell, a multi-oared sailboat in the Yellow River was passing quickly, and Zhu Mingzhong pointed to the boat in the river and said.

"You see this multi-oared boat, the old rivers are extremely rare, but now it is very common, because it is faster, stable navigation, so it is welcomed by businessmen, in the waterway, in the land is also the same, now the largest four-wheeled carriage can not carry more than four or five tons of goods, the old two-wheeled cart, at most a ton of goods, the land transportation cost is more than doubled? The key to reducing the cost of transportation is still in the means of transportation, as long as the means of transportation are improved, the cost can be reduced, of course, there is a new official road, now the merchants are willing to take the official road, because the official road is smooth, it is convenient for the four-wheeled carriage to pull heavy goods, even if it is to pay the toll, it is also cost-effective. ”

Tolls, this is the characteristics of the new official road in the Ming Dynasty, those who have renovated the official road, learn from the "advanced experience" of the highway in later generations - the establishment of toll stations to collect tolls, and now the toll is slowly becoming an important revenue of the Ming Dynasty.

"Your Majesty, do you want to build a bigger carriage?"

Zhang Huangyan asked suspiciously, but only saw His Majesty smile and said.

"That's nature!"

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