(There is only one change today, the word count is 1000 worse, and I will make it up tomorrow, thank you for your continued support!) Everyone is welcome to join the group and discuss the plot together, thank you again! ）

In the seventeenth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, just after August 15. There is still some residual heat from early autumn, especially at noon, and even cicadas can be heard. But this is probably the last cry of the cicadas, and in a few days, the weather will definitely turn cold.

On the official road from Jiangnan Province to Huguang, although it is now under the control of the Ming and Qing dynasties, there are still merchants coming and going, and even on the river, although there are military ships of government officers and soldiers intercepting them, there are also ships coming and going, and those officers and soldiers will also turn a blind eye, all of them will look like they are turning a blind eye.

And most of these ships are salt ships carrying salt. After all, Huguang has not produced salt since ancient times, and the daily needs of the people need salt, and the officers and soldiers of the imperial court also need salt. For the tens of millions of people in Huguang, Huai salt is almost their only choice, as for Sichuan salt, now that Sichuan has almost been slaughtered, there is naturally no so-called Sichuan salt. It is precisely because of this that the ships coming and going on the Yangtze River will not be blocked by officers and soldiers. Even the two sides still have a tacit understanding - the Qing army does not prevent the salt ships of the salt dealers from entering Huguang, and the Ming army does not block the export of salt ships.

This is true on the waterway, but also on the land, and even now the Huangzhou government, which borders Jiangnan Province, has set up a tax card to collect taxes from past business travelers. After all, for the government, taxes are the most important thing.

Although Huangzhou is along the river, it stands to reason that this trader prefers water transportation, but after all, there are also traders coming and going by land, and there is still a long caravan in front of the tax card on the official road, among which there are those who transport grain and salt, which are all blocked at the gate of the tax card, and this tax customs is newly established. These traders who are accustomed to seeing the world from south to north will all look at this pass in surprise, the last time they came, there was no such pass, how could there be another pass?

"What's going on? Why is there another tax customs? ”

"But no, there was no news about this before......"

The inquiring of the vendors, and the neighing of the cattle pulling the carts, only made the place unkempt and lively, and everyone was blocked at this tax gate.

The guards were guarded by tax collectors dressed in imperial court uniforms with a "li" written on their chests, either carrying knives or tasseled guns, and one of the leaders shouted loudly to the vendors who were blocked here.

"Big guy listen, now the thieves are in chaos, the court is in order to quell the chaos, you have to raise money in every possible way, the prefect in order to avoid additional donations and hurt the people, especially in Huangzhou to try out "business donations", but all the goods in transit in my Huangzhou, worth one hundred, that is, to draw and donate one cent, that is, "donation", "donate cent" is the duty of our people, line up here, one by one! Don't squeeze! ”

What is a "centially"?

The vendors don't know, as for what "donation" is not their duty, they don't know, but it is certain that this donation is indispensable, looking at the big knife on the waist of those tax collectors, the tasseled gun in their hands, one by one is dejected and admit their fate. After all, the tax of the Qing Dynasty will be different from that of the Ming Dynasty, if the tax of the Ming Dynasty provokes the people, the people will smash the tax card, and the people will be at fault at that time, and the court will only investigate the responsibility of the government, but the Qing Dynasty is different, if they dare to rush the card, the knife over there will be cut over.

The magistrate of the sect is not false, but there are also evil officials who kill people, this official, no matter how small, is also the imperial court, and he also holds the will to kill, and he will give you the hat of a chaotic person, that is, he will be beheaded, and it will be cut in vain!

While the merchants were about to take out their money with a sigh of resignation, the tax collector shouted at them hoarsely:

"Don't squeeze! Don't squeeze! Everyone is optimistic, this meter is one or two five dollars per stone, and the cart is ten stones per car, which is worth one hundred and five cents! All the prices are written on the notice, and it is worth one in a hundred! Pay the money quickly, and let you go when you pay the money! ”

The tax collector here just shouted, and immediately a man who looked like a shopkeeper squeezed forward, looked at the notice and shouted:

"Official, this is not right, the price of rice is the market, not the commercial price, and the commercial price is only one or two or two dollars at most, how did it become one or two or five dollars!"

The other merchants also looked at the notice, which was really detailed enough, firewood, rice, oil, salt, and so on, and listed the prices of various commodities in detail, and specially indicated how many goods each cart of oxen pulled by the cart, and how much money needed to be paid. And the price of those things is without exception the market price, which is the price that the traders sell to the people.

And no matter whether the car is half a car or a car, they are all taxed according to one car, in other words, they only recognize the size of the car and the goods on the car, and do not care about anything else.

"But no, what was the price of this salt when we came in, and it could be collected at the price at which it was sold to the people!"

The tax collector, with a knife pinned to his waist, rolled his eyes at him and looked at him like an idiot.

"Uninformed lord, the price of this grain, oil, and salt is naturally according to the price you sell to the people, just like this salt, whether you hate it or not, you have to sell it for a pound for a hundred yuan, and when you buy it from Anqing, how much is it a catty? It's the same as picking it up for nothing, if it's at that price, it's still a fart? What is this draw? It is this centimeter that is smoking, if not, then the common people will farm the land, and they will be taxed according to how many seeds are sprinkled in an acre of land, if so, they will also collect a fart tax, and the imperial grain and national tax are justified, you have done business for so many years, but you have paid a penny of tax, and now the court is the time to use money, who are you going to go if you don't look for it? Nonsense, hurry up, pay the silver......"

What the tax collector here said was righteous and strict, but it was all like he was going to kill if he didn't pay the money.

"Hey, pay the silver, pay the silver......"

A shopkeeper-like vendor couldn't help but say when he took out a few coins of broken silver.

"In these years, as long as you have money, you can't die, it's already worthy of us......"

Although his desolate and hoarse voice was not very loud, it seemed to float in this tax card, and fell on everyone's ears, but it was heavy, and at this time, an inexplicable melancholy quietly shrouded in. Isn't this the truth, as long as the silver doesn't want to die these days, it is already worthy of the people.

The tax collector of this tax card collects the money, and the passing traders, although helpless, can only pay the tax according to the order, and even the common people who carry their own products are stopped to pay the tax, as for why the tax is paid, and how much to pay, it is often only by the tax collector's words.

Huangzhou City, a hundred miles away, seems to be very quiet in the middle of the night, there will be no passers-by on the street at all, after the new prefect took office, he immediately posted a notice, in order to avoid banditry and chaos, after nightfall, the people are not urgent, a chance not to go out, otherwise it will be a gangster.

Although it is really not suitable for such a forbidden people, even a three-year-old doll knows that the officials of the Great Qing Kingdom can be described as tyrannical and very, and playing the board is just an extrajudicial favor, killing people at every turn, and repeatedly raiding homes and punishments, which is not suitable for adaptation, so after nightfall, unless the family is in an emergency, the city is completely silent, and the streets are all dark.

So much so that the whole city was dead. However, in front of the prefect's yamen in the center of the city, lanterns were hung high, bringing some light to the darkness, and in the back hall of the prefect's yamen, the faint candle flame was "suddenly" lit.

Gong Chengqi wearing an official robe. This will have been sitting in the study for a long time, he looked at the documents on the table from time to time, these are all documents sent by the counties, since he took office as the prefect of Huangzhou, it can be said that he has no leisure all day long, every day will be busy until late at night, but today seems to be later than in the past. But now he is looking at these documents, most of them have been read before, obviously this is done, logically speaking, he should go to sleep, but this time he can't sleep, but has been waiting in the study.

Sheng Yu, a house slave standing on the side, tried to endure the drowsiness, and after he covered his mouth with his hand and yawned a few times, he was really sleepy and couldn't hold it, so he opened his mouth to persuade him.

"Master, if you don't get old this time, you can sleep first...... The paperwork from the Finance Bureau is here, and the first time will be sent to you! ”

That Gong Chengqi just shook his head slowly, still silent. His brows furrowed, and he only occasionally looked up, and when he saw that there was no movement outside the door, he hesitated again in his heart, and then said:

"Otherwise, you can take a look and see why there are no paperwork in the bureau yet......"

Only halfway through the words, Gong Chengqi waved his hand and said:

"This matter is in a hurry, maybe there is a lot of money there, after all, there are so many tax cards, this penny, you have to calculate them one by one......"

No need to ask, anyone can hear that Gong Chengqi attaches great importance to this matter, and naturally when he is a slave, he will not dare to speak again. After all, everyone knows that the master has been waiting for the gold bureau to settle the account for so long.

"You go down first!"

waved his hand and motioned Sheng Yu to go down, Gong Chengqi knew that this slave must also be extremely sleepy.

After hesitating for a while, Sheng Yu hurriedly said.

"Master, let's rest early, Ming'er still has official business."

Gong Chengqi just waved his hand, and Sheng Yu didn't dare to make a sound, and then quietly retreated. As a house slave, you must naturally have the consciousness of being a house slave, and the master is usually benevolent and righteous, but if he gets angry, he may also break his legs, and this cannot be said much.

Holding his head with one hand, Gong Chengqi sat alone for a while, suddenly got up and looked out the window, and then whispered to himself:

"The ancestors of the Gong family are above, and today I sincerely pray for the spirit of the ancestors in the sky, bless Cheng Qi to do this, if this is done, Cheng Qi will definitely be reused and appreciated by the court, and when the time comes, Cheng Qi will be able to glorify the ancestors......."

After praying, Gong Chengqi looked out the window again, wanting to see the movement outside the window. There was a look of anticipation in his eyes, and it was completely anticipation for the future.

"Nothing should happen!"

He was so worried, all he was thinking about was the Lijin Bureau, thinking about how much silver the Lijin Bureau had collected in the past month.

In the past month, he has never asked the centigold bureau, although this centigold was "invented" by him in order to solve the shortage of military supplies, but he deliberately pretended not to care, just waiting for the effect after a month, he needs to use the facts to speak to the imperial court and ask for credit. It is precisely because of this that he can't sleep, after all, this matter is directly related to his future and whether he can become a hero of the imperial court.

In Gong Chengqi's view, the reason why the Qing Dynasty has been defeated since Zheng Chenggong seized Jiangnan, and even the emperor was unable to move forward in Shandong in the end, in addition to the defeat of Dasu at the beginning, which caused the elite of the Eight Banners to suffer heavy losses, the biggest problem is the problem of money and food. Qing Chengming system, although there are many donations after entering the customs, but the income of this household is fixed, a year just into the silver of 20 million taels, mainly from the money and grain; The annual expenditure is also fixed, nearly 20 million taels, mainly used for official salaries. Basically, it is to live within the means of living, and one of the biggest drawbacks arising from this is that it is not flexible enough, the imperial court does not have the slightest accumulation, once it encounters natural disasters, man-made disasters, such as floods, droughts, locusts, wars, and plagues, the government's revenue plummets, and expenditures increase sharply, which often causes a financial crisis.

Just like now, Jiangnan Province has lost millions of stone grains, but also lost more than 30% of the world's taxes, so the imperial court suddenly fell into the dilemma of having no money available, after all, in recent years, the southwest has used no less than 10 million taels of silver every year, and the use of troops in the southwest and other places has long hollowed out the imperial court. Although after entering the customs that year, relying on the tyranny of Yucheng and slaughtering the city, he occupied a foothold in the Central Plains, and at the same time he slaughtered the city, he really got a lot of silver, although eight or nine of them went into the pockets of the generals and private individuals, but the imperial court also looted tens of millions of taels of silver, but for more than ten years, these silvers have already been used up, and even the silver in the Hubu Treasury is only less than five million taels.

In the past, when there were taxes and grains in Jiangnan, there were five million taels as the bottom, and only the southwest military used the most silver, so I didn't feel nervous, after all, for looting the people, the Manchu Qing Dynasty can be said to have quite a set of tricks, at this time, no people dared to owe the government's taxes, it was to kill the head or even destroy the door, but now after Jiangnan let Zheng Chenggong take it away, the Qing Dynasty immediately fell into an unprecedented predicament.

The biggest feature of the war is to burn money, and its consumption is far greater than people imagine, the Qing court wants to sit firmly in the Central Plains, and uses troops in the southwest and Jiangnan to use troops, plus the scattered rebel armies in various places, it can be said that the money is like flowing water. But the Manchu income was already in unprecedented scarcity.

This has even affected Shunzhi's use of troops - whether he wants to go south in Shandong, but there is no silver to go south, and the imperial court has no way to prepare three months of silver money and grain and grass for him. But even so, his determination to "suppress pirates" has not changed.

First the money was borrowed from the minions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and then it was issued from the "private money" of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Unlike the emperors of previous dynasties, Shunzhi can be said to have no regrets when he used the royal private property, and he could even say that he was not distressed. In addition to using the gold objects of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and melting them up for sale, Tobe Soga asked for the surplus bronzes in the court to be sent out to be used to mint copper coins. In this regard, Shunzhi naturally agreed.

At the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs finally gave the emperor a fold, and now the Ministry of Internal Affairs has no silver available, and the silver deposit is only more than 10,000 taels, and even the royal family's own expenses cannot be given.

At this time, Shunzhi, who was in Jinan to "drive the royal expedition", finally knew for the first time that even the imperial court had a time when it was embarrassed to run out of money. Although in the next six months, the imperial court dug everywhere, raised money in various ways, and finally finally got a total of nearly 10 million taels of silver to supply the front line, but the 10 million taels of silver were sprinkled to the southwest and Shandong, and the army still had no grain and grass to move, and this pro-campaign still could not be carried out.

At this time, the Great Qing Kingdom had actually reached the point of exhaustion, and the household only had a hundred thousand taels of silver, and even the Beijing officials' silver could not be sent. At this point, the emperor no longer has any tricks.

There is no silver, and the most direct impact is the 200,000 Beijing battalion soldiers led by the emperor, when they first led the troops and horses south. The supply of money and grain was still stable, and the army moved quite quickly, but then it became less and less, and in the end, because there was no grain and grass, they had to be stationed in Shandong and Henan, and then the generals of the battalions had to think of the law to raise grain and grass, where did they still have the heart to go south? Although he has the intention to go south, he can only stand still in the end, even the emperor knows the current situation, and there is only one result of forcibly sending troops, which is to repeat the old path of Dasu.

The root of the problem is still in the money and grain, but if Jiangnan Province is not recovered, this money will never be enough, after all, Jiangnan alone accounts for half of the world, but now Jiangnan is under the hands of the Ming army, and it is naturally impossible for the imperial court to get a penny of silver from there.

He also knows that for the imperial court, for the emperor, as long as they can get the silver, they will adopt whatever method they have, and for the emperor, the person who gets the silver is the hero of the Qing Dynasty.

In the past, when he was in the Ministry of War, he could only watch from the sidelines, but now, as the prefect of Huangzhou, he can implement some ideas, for Gong Chengqi, who is unwilling to be a slave forever, the current lack of use in the imperial court is his opportunity.

The reason why he is so anxious now is precisely because this centigold has been trialed in Huangzhou for a month, and now it is time to see the effect.

"Why haven't you come yet?"

Gong Chengqi looked into the night again, and his eyes even showed a little uneasiness......