In the sixth year of the Apocalypse, in mid-June, Haicheng.

"My lord, there is news from Suzhou, the Jinyi guard sent by the emperor to Suzhou to arrest people has been killed and many injured."

At the Western College, as soon as Li Hongyu walked out of the school after teaching the students, a guard who had been waiting outside the door hurriedly stepped forward and whispered.

"Alas!" Li Hongyu's brows suddenly frowned when he heard this, and he sighed helplessly in his heart, it seems that what should come is always coming.

One of the most important edicts issued by the Emperor of the Apocalypse at the beginning of the year was to prohibit magistrates from setting up their own houses and collecting taxes privately=,

This meant that the imperial court was about to regulate the taxation of commercial taxes, so Wei Zhongxian then sent eunuchs to various places to supervise the collection of commercial taxes, and these eunuchs were known as "tax supervisors".

Of course, as soon as these tax supervisors arrived in the local area, they immediately attracted fierce resistance from the local tyrants, and they refused to pay taxes to the tax supervisors, after all, the cake of commercial tax is so big, and the imperial court wants to monopolize it this time, so those local tyrants naturally refuse to say that they will be arrested.

In the face of those tax supervisors, the local officials and businessmen were surprisingly united, and the officials naturally wanted to continue to make oil and water from the commercial taxes, while the businessmen wanted to pay less taxes, and both sides could be said to be in the same boat.

Of course, the richer the Ming Dynasty, the greater the entanglement of interests, so the more fierce the resistance to the tax superintendent.

If we talk about prosperity and wealth, the Ming Dynasty and the 13 provinces of Beijing and Hangzhou are the four famous cities of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, namely Yangzhou, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Huai'an, and the tax resistance in these four places is naturally the most fierce in the Ming Dynasty.

In the four famous cities of the canal, especially Suzhou, the tax resistance situation is the most, so Li Hongyu is not surprised that this kind of thing happened in Yangzhou this time.

It's just that this time, the officials and businessmen in Suzhou have hit an iron plate, the Emperor of the Apocalypse is not the Wanli Emperor, and the situation in the court has changed dramatically, and it will never be like the things in the Wanli period.

Because of the collection of taxes, in the twenty-ninth year of Wanli, the "change of weaving maids", 2,000 silk weaving craftsmen rushed out of the Xuanmiao Temple with sticks in their hands, and almost killed all the tax officials in Suzhou City within three days under the leadership of a mechanic named Ge Cheng.

It is worth mentioning that when the Suzhou Weaving Bureau, which was in charge of taxation, was surrounded, the tax envoy Sun Long asked the Suzhou prefect Zhu Xieyuan to send troops to rescue him, but the Zhu prefect refused his request and said: "No, the soldiers are also the ones who defend against foreign invaders." I shall not commit adultery, so as to summon rebellion. If you hit it again, it will be poisonous. And the anger of the people is difficult to commit, if so, how can they hold on to the salary to fight the fire? ”

The translated meaning of this sentence is that the army is used to defend against foreign invaders and cannot be used to suppress the civil rebellion, and in the end, Sun Long had to flee over the wall, and finally saved his life.

Unlike the Apocalypse period, the tax officials in the Wanli period were all civil officials, and even so, those tax officials were not the fate of death, and the local officials in Suzhou did not have the slightest friendship with colleagues.

According to the folk saying, the reason for the "weaving maid change" in Suzhou was that those tax officials levied excessively and imposed heavy taxes on the people, which made the silk weaving craftsmen unable to survive, so the hungry silk weaving craftsmen organized themselves against the tax officials.

The imperial court later sent people to investigate the case, and finally came to the conclusion that the tax officials were unjust and the people could not afford to pay taxes, so that this matter was not resolved, not only the leading Ge Cheng had nothing to do, but also the officials in Suzhou did not pursue any of them, which has to be said to be an absurd thing.

Li Hongyu does not want to comment on the rights and wrongs of the "change of weaving maids", but one thing is certain, that is, Suzhou is a prosperous and wealthy place in the world, with a large business, but the commercial tax paid in a year is very little.

Moreover, the Wanli Emperor did not send tax officials to the local government to collect taxes for a long time, and the commercial taxes collected were not much, how could it cause the silk weaving craftsmen to not survive?

Of course, the merchants who do business in Suzhou will definitely pay the business tax, and it must be a lot of money if it is evenly distributed to the heads of those craftsmen, but this money does not appear in the records handed over to the government, and the mystery is self-evident.

What particularly shocked Li Hongyu was that Ge Chengdu led people to kill the tax officials and besieged the Suzhou Weaving Bureau, but the Suzhou prefect actually found an excuse to sit idly by and let the riots in the city last for three days, almost killing all the tax officials in Suzhou, which is really incredible.

Li Hongyu undoubtedly scoffed at the reasons of the Suzhou prefect, whose duty was to maintain local law and order, but he allowed the riots to proceed, and this alone should have been killed.

In Li Hongyu's view, although the participants in the "Weaving Maid Change" were silk weaving craftsmen, the leaders behind the scenes must be the officials and business elites of Suzhou Prefecture, who knew very well that they could not directly confront the tax officials, so they used the silk weaving craftsmen to start this farce.

As for the tax officials' arbitrary extortion, Li Hongyu thinks this is also a bit ridiculous, if the tax officials can't even collect the commercial tax set by the imperial court, where can they have the ability to levy and extort arbitrarily?

Even some of the tax collectors were not as serious as the rumors had been, and according to folk rumors, when Ge Cheng and the others killed the first tax collector, the tax collector was beating a melon farmer who had gone into the city to sell melons and could not afford to pay heavy taxes.

This is indeed infuriating, but the dignified tax official has been reduced to entangled with the fruit farmers who sell melons, instead of bothering the merchants of all sizes in the city, which is also too disrespectful to the tax collectors, you must know that this kind of thing is usually done by the officials in the yamen.

Of course, those officials and businessmen in Suzhou are not alone, and it can be seen from the results of the handling of the "Weaving Maid Change" that there must be many dignitaries in the court who speak for them, so that even the Wanli Emperor cannot hold them accountable.

Now, Suzhou has once again resisted taxes, and this time he actually killed a brocade guard sent by the imperial court, Li Hongyu knows that there will be a big mess in Suzhou City, whether it is to maintain the majesty of the imperial court or to make an example of a hundred, the Emperor of the Apocalypse will severely punish this matter.

Thinking about it, those elites in Suzhou are too blind, don't they see from the heavy damage suffered by the Donglin Party last year that the situation in the DPRK and China has changed greatly, and don't they see from the edict of the Emperor of the Apocalypse at the beginning of the year that the Emperor of the Apocalypse is resolute in promoting the new policy?

Therefore, Li Hongyu immediately sent someone to Yangzhou to summon Du Boqing, vice president of the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce, to come to Haicheng, and he had to explain some things to Du Boqing.

On the third day, Du Bo, who received Li Hongyu's news, rushed to Haicheng to see Li Hongyu, and the whole person was full of spirit and spirit.

At that time, Du Boqing had a unique vision, keenly aware of the huge prospects of overseas trade, and at the same time was full of trust in Li Hongyu, so he unexpectedly bid under the situation that the outside world was not optimistic, and became one of the 20 imperial merchants of overseas trade in one fell swoop, which can be called the most colorful stroke in his life.

Although Du Boqing stepped down as the vice president of the hot salt merchants association in the incomprehensible eyes of the outside world, this is undoubtedly his wisest decision from today's situation.

Speaking of which, the General Chamber of Salt Merchants is nothing more than a simple salt business guild, while the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce is involved in all businesses except the salt industry, including grain, and its power and influence are undoubtedly even greater.

What is particularly important is that the business scale of the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce has gradually shown a trend of expansion, and the annual share of the salt industry of the Salt Merchants Association has remained almost unchanged, which has allowed Du Boqing to gain more and more wealth.

Li Hongyu asked Du Boqing to come this time to let him go to Suzhou, sit in the Suzhou branch of the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce, and find a way to ensure that the goods needed for overseas trade can be delivered in time.

The most critical point is that people from the Suzhou branch of the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce are prohibited from being involved in Suzhou's tax resistance in any way, and they will be severely punished once they are punished.

"My lord, do you mean that the imperial court will be heavy-handed to those people in Suzhou?"

When he learned that the officials and businessmen in Suzhou would be severely punished because of the Suzhou tax incident a few days ago, Du Boqing was taken aback, and looked at Li Hongyu with a stunned expression and a look of disbelief.

You must know that in the twenty-ninth year of Wanli, Suzhou killed so many tax officials, and the court was gone, and now it is just a Jinyi guard who died. The imperial court has always been sympathetic to the suffering of the people, and will not punish those craftsmen who commit murder.

"Time has changed, the emperor is determined to innovate, and now they actually killed the brocade guard sent by the emperor, how is this different from rebellion? What is the emperor's face? ”

Li Hongyu frowned slightly and said to Du Boqing, "Since they don't give the emperor a son, then the emperor just took advantage of this opportunity to kill chickens and monkeys, do you think their fate can be better?" ”

"My lord, is this going to make a big fuss?"

When Du Boqing heard this, he immediately realized the seriousness of the situation, others may not know the character of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, but Li Hongyu is very clear, so it seems that the Emperor of the Apocalypse will really be angry this time, so he hesitated for a moment and then asked again.

Maybe the Emperor of the Apocalypse will control the situation within a range, after all, Suzhou is a rich land of the Ming Dynasty, and once the matter is made big, it will have a very adverse impact.

"Whether the matter is big or not depends on whether those people in Suzhou know the seriousness of this matter, if they still have a fluke mentality, I am afraid that this will evolve into a catastrophe in the two circles of Suzhou government and business."

Li Hongyu pondered for a moment, then sneered and said to Du Boqing, "Those people think that everything will be fine if they hide behind the scenes, but if it weren't for their will, how could those craftsmen afford to make trouble?" If they pretend to be confused, they will be doomed! ”

Du Boqing suddenly fell silent when he heard this, how could he, as one of the top businessmen in the Ming Dynasty, not know those tricks in the Suzhou tax change, it was clear that the vested interest groups in Suzhou did not want the imperial court to move the business tax, but this time they planned to make a wishful calculation, I am afraid that they will really suffer a disaster.

(End of chapter)

Please remember that the first domain name of this book is .. All come to read the mobile version reading website: m.