The military field system formulated by Fang Yuan is, in the eyes of everyone, a big pit, and naturally no one wants to jump into this pit.

Fortunately, Jingjie relieved Fang Yuan of the siege and took the initiative to subscribe for 1,000 acres of land for Su Hongyu's drones and 300 people from the logistics team, and planted all the hybrid rice rationed by Fang Yuan.

The other battalions all pretended to be deaf and dumb and did not move at all, so Fang Yuan directly assigned the task, and the sergeants of each battalion went to the nearest place to carry cow dung, horse dung, and human dung, as well as the Taihu Lake silt dug up from the construction of the naval base, and transported it to 30,000 mu of military land as fertilizer, and first fattened the land for half a year.

The matter of Juntian will not be fruitful for a while, Fang Yuan has been authorized by Chongzhen to transfer the right of goods tax from Hangzhou Mansion to Suzhou Mansion, so that he can let go of his hands and feet to rectify the ship materials and goods tax.

The so-called ship material tax is the toll charged by the customs according to the size of the passing merchant ships.

Most of this part of the tax was embezzled by the officials of the banknote customs, as well as the high-ranking officials, eunuchs, and literati who had the right to pass the banknotes customs and were exempt from taxes.

Fang Yuan had already known the method of rectifying the ship material tax.

He directly installed five solar-charged cameras at the high points of each banknote checkpoint to take all-round cameras of each merchant ship passing through the banknote customs.

Fang Yuan and Qin Zhan also selected 10 cronies of Jinyiwei for special training, learned to use laptops, copies of video materials, and retrieved camera data every seven days, as well as the account books provided by the banknote customs officer, and brought them back to Fang Yuan's mansion for review by an independent audit team directly managed by Fang Yuan.

As long as the independent audit team verifies each merchant ship on the camera and the account books registered by the banknote customs officer, it can find out whether there is any money customs officer who is engaged in tax evasion and tax evasion on behalf of the merchant ship.

As for the high-ranking officials of the imperial court, the eunuchs in the palace, and the nobles who were nominally tax-exempt, Fang Yuan did not need to forcibly ban their privileges, but adopted the policy of collecting them first and then applying for their return.

However, all merchant ships that are exempt from the ship material tax must first collect the tax and then return the ship material tax.

Which high-ranking official, eunuch in the palace, and someone who wants to be exempt from tax must submit an application form by the high-ranking official, eunuch, and person himself, and the application must clearly state the type and value of the goods, as well as the purchase channel, purpose, and destination of the goods, and affix their own private seal for confirmation.

With this application, Fang Yuan could ask Jin Yiwei to examine the ins and outs of this batch of goods, and once fraud was discovered, the high-ranking officials, eunuchs, and people involved would be immediately convicted of embezzlement. If the audit is correct, but several times a month the merchant ships go back and forth, these self-proclaimed officials and people must give a statement about the source of a huge amount of wealth.

Fang Yuan believed that if he did this, the officials, eunuchs, and literati who dared to exercise their tax exemption rights in order to embezzle some silver would scare off most of them.

As for the collection of goods tax, it is even simpler, a weighbridge can be installed at the Suzhou banknote customs to weigh the weight of the goods. The weighbridge will directly count the quality of the goods into the tax collection system, and the system will directly give a tax amount according to the different values of the goods. There is no need for the tax collector to count the goods, and there is no room for the tax collector to interfere with it.

Yangzhou and Suzhou two banknote customs, Fang Yuan will send 100 brocade guards to each banknote to supervise and guard.

As soon as Fang Yuan's plan to rectify the ship material tax and goods tax was introduced, and before it was officially implemented, Xi Shen's second family came directly to the door on behalf of the Dongting Business Gang.

Shen Xiang said straight to the point, "Governor Fang's strict implementation of the tax on shipping materials and goods will increase the cost of commodities in circulation, and the wool will be on the sheep, and the merchants will definitely pass on the overpaid tariffs to the price of goods, causing prices to rise." ”

Fang Yuan said lightly, "Shen Gongzi, first tell me how much the Shen family paid for the ship material tax and goods tax when they passed the banknote customs!" ”

Shen Xiang hesitated for a moment, and said straight ahead, "Governor Fang, I don't say dark words, the Shen family's salt ship passes the banknote customs, and the ship's material tax is 5 taels per ship, 10,000 taels of silver for salt goods, you only need to pay 50 taels of silver, and you can pass the customs with 50 taels of silver." ”

Fang Yuan secretly calculated, the actual situation is indeed not much different from the description in "The Golden Bottle", "The Golden Bottle" is really a book that exposes the social situation of the Ming Dynasty, if it is not for the fact that there are too many plots of sex between men and women, it is not an exaggeration to be among the five classical masterpieces.

10,000 taels of silver goods were supposed to pay 300 taels of silver, but in fact only 50 taels could go into the treasury, and the banknote customs officials embezzled 50 taels and the merchants saved 200 taels. If you want to pay in full, the merchant will have to pay 200 taels more in the transportation link.

Fang Yuan said slowly, "Silk, porcelain, wood lacquer, wine, and tea are all high value-added goods, and the tariffs on banknotes only account for three points, even if prices rise, how much can they rise?" ”

Xi Benzhen patiently persuaded him, "Governor Fang is biased in this way, things in this world are not so simple to say that if you go up by three points, you will have three points. However, whenever there is a national crisis, or natural and man-made disasters, unscrupulous profiteers will hoard and take the opportunity to raise prices on a large scale. As soon as Governor Fang rectified the banknotes, the illegal profiteers found the reason for the wanton price increase, and not to mention the big profits, they could also be pushed to Governor Fang's expropriation and extortion afterwards. ”

Fang Yuan nodded secretly when he heard this, I have to say that Xi Benzhen is indeed an old bird in the shopping mall, he can see everything through the world, he is willing to come to the door to persuade him, that is really standing on Fang Yuan, and the position of stabilizing the prices of Suzhou Mansion, and he is definitely not in the same league as those profiteers.

The merchants took the opportunity of rectifying the banknotes to raise prices, just like the grandsons of the Donglin Party, who blamed the emperor's salaries for the appearance of rogues, and the reasons for the officials' coercion and rebellion.

Fang Yuan pondered for a while and said, "What if I reduce the commercial tax of Suzhou Prefecture by fifty percent, and change the thirty tax to sixty taxes?" ”

Xi Benzhen and Shen Xiang glanced at each other, if the tax rate of goods is halved, then the tax of the merchant will be much less. In the past, by bribing tax collectors, 100,000 taels of silver were paid for 100,000 taels of silver. Now there is no need to pay 150 taels of silver without having to pay a tax collector, which is up to 25% more than the cost previously paid.

What's more, the commercial tax on other goods that do not take the Grand Canal has also been reduced by half, so the comprehensive cost is actually similar to that for wealthy merchants.

The tax that Fang Yuan could receive has changed from 50 taels per 10,000 taels of goods under the original unspoken rules to 150 taels per 10,000 taels of goods under the current rules, which has tripled. Taking Suzhou, Yangzhou, and Hangzhou as examples, the annual tax on shipping materials and goods that could be collected by the three banknotes of Suzhou, Yangzhou, and Hangzhou has reached 1.5 million taels, and an extra 1 million taels have been collected out of thin air.

Fang Yuan deliberately used a trick to reduce taxes, that is, he played an unspoken rule against the unspoken rules with those officials and wealthy businessmen.

Fang Yuan said leisurely, "Since I have reduced the commercial tax, I don't say that the price of goods will be reduced, at least the price cannot be increased, right?" Which rich businessman dares to talk to me about the price increase of goods, that is, for the rich and unkind profiteers, he will be directly imprisoned, right? ”

Xi Benzhen and Shen Xiang pretended to be stupid at Fang Yuan's trick, and they were quite impressed by the unspoken rules of the unspoken rules, so that those profiteers had no reason to shout about raising prices.

Xi Benzhen sighed and said, "Governor Fang's move is really amazing, Xi can only admire!" ”

Since the taxes of the wealthy merchants have not increased much, and almost all of the money that Fang Yuan has made has been looted from the hands of the banknote customs officials, what else can Shen Xiang say, he can only say yes again and again.

sent Xi Benzhen and Shen Xiang away, and less than two days later, Chen Qifan, the government official in charge of taxation, directly came to the door to complain to Fang Yuan.

Fang Yuan's rectification of the banknote customs is to completely cut off the black income of the banknote customs officials, Chen Qifan, and these tax collectors are strange if they don't come to complain about their hardships.

Fang Yuan silently listened to his complaints, and said leisurely, "Chen Tongzhi! You say that as an official, how can you make money so that you can sail for 10,000 years without capsizing? ”

Chen Qifan said hesitantly, "This, please ask Governor Fang for guidance." ”

Fang Yuan said in a deep voice, "You are thinking about snatching silver from the imperial court and from the bowl of the governor all day long, but if the governor doesn't clean it up, who will you clean up?" If you want you to make good money, you must make the basic plate of silver bigger, and each person will naturally share more, right? ”

Chen Qifan was stunned and asked, "The lower officials are stupid, and they still don't understand." ”

Fang Yuan said, "That's it! I limited the annual tax collection amount of ship material and goods tax to 1.5 million taels for Suzhou Hushu Banknote Customs, which can be collected! ”

Chen Qifan lowered his gaze and muttered, "Emperor Taizu said that you can't tax the people in a fixed amount, otherwise you will benefit the people." ”

Fang Yuan saw that he moved out of Zhu Yuanzhang to talk, and secretly sneered, Zhu Yuanzhang told you not to be corrupt, how can you be greedy one by one?

He smiled and said, "As long as you can collect the quota of 1.5 million taels, the governor will return the share of 150,000 taels, which is not a small amount!" ”

Fang Yuan implemented the tax refund system of the tax bureau before the crossing, and 150,000 taels of silver was not a small amount, and he also handed over all the control to Chen Qifan. As for how Chen Qifan would distribute the 150,000 taels, Fang Yuan didn't want to interfere with the unspoken rules of officialdom.

Chen Qifan was overjoyed when he heard this, and said again and again, "Governor Fang is wise, wise!" ”

Fang Yuan said lightly, "Bendu is not a common man?" ”

Chen Qifan said repeatedly, "No, it's not, Governor Fang reduces commercial taxes, he is simply a good official who loves the people like a son and benefits one party!" ”

Fang Yuan said slowly, "This governor has only one request, no matter how you assign it, don't cause trouble for me, otherwise, you understand?" ”

Chen Qifan nodded and agreed, and hurriedly resigned.

Fang Yuan looked at his departing back, and said to himself, "The commercial tax has also been settled, and next, it is time to take over the government affairs of Songjiang Mansion, and arrest Qian Qianyi!" ”